This essay (draft) uses applied knowing (knowing through doing) to demonstrate the network literacy I have acquired throughout the RMIT University course Network Media.
I will then talk about the repercussions that the radically changing cycle of media as we know it will have on my role as a professional media-maker and influencer.
I believe the key components to participating as a peer in the network are:
Apple gives us a run-down of the Oracle of Kevin Bacon we spent time discussing in the symposium this week. She explains that technology is bringing the world together and making it a smaller place. I think it’s so sad that the ‘unconnected’ are so easily forgotten in sweeping statements like this. Three of five people in the world still do not have access to the Internet. We are so easily blind to the reality of information inequality. As can be seen in the late modern world, access to the digital world is closely connected to power and who wields this power. The disparity between those who are ‘media rich’ and those who are ‘media poor’ raise issues of technological infrastructure, or lack thereof. It’s something I’m very interested in – the idea of information rich countries and information poor countries who might be disadvantaged by their inability to access the online realm.
Kate talks all about copyright in her blog post, making a really interesting observation that so often copyright is discussed with negative connotations (such as copyright infringement, or copyright limitations). Instead, I’m on Lessig’s team and think we should be moving more towards a celebration of all that copyright can allow, especially in the field of creative commons which can contribute to some amazing cultural movements such as remix culture and rewrite culture.
Nicola tackles the idea of technological neutrality – something I’m still grappling with myself. She thinks that technology is neutral, until picked up and used by a human. I think that it’s a lot more complex than this, with debates around technological determinism and the relationship between technology and culture continuing to stump me with each new reading.
This week I want to have a look at how I study. I want to articulate what works for me and what doesn’t.
In one of our Network Media labs, Betty had us try a Pomodoro study session – that is, an intense, distraction-free, concentrated period of studying for 25 minutes, followed by a 5 minute break.
This is a technique I’ve been using for about a year now, after the Apple App WorkBurst was recommended to me by a friend. I find this type of study really effective because it is essentially reward-based, offering a break after a period of mental exertion. This kind of bargaining always works with me, and I generally use the five minute break to watch videos on YouTube or stretch my legs before returning to a period of intense work.
Next I want to talk about co-studying. This is a concept which I love. Basically, it involves two or more individuals meeting up to study alone, together. I have a few friends who I routinely call on for this kind of silent motivation. Having someone do the same activity as me makes me want to continue studying both for them and for myself. I usually like to do this kind of study at a cafe or in a library with friends.
Lastly, I wanted to mention the things about study which I find the hardest to do – and that is, put simply, just starting. This is the absolute, 100% most difficult part for me. It often results in me procrasti-sleeping, procrasti-eating, procrasti-cleaning and of course, procrasti-television-watching.
That’s when this generally comes in handy:
Amy talks about the Murphie + Potts reading from week 7, creating a link between her Communication Histories and Technologies class and Networked Media. I have to agree with her, and note that some of my favourite parts of my Professional Communication course at RMIT has been running into these moments where things seem to beautifully collide and interact, helping inform me of a more holistic way to understand the world which I inhabit. An example of when this happened was after learning about Anderson’s theory of Imagined Communities in a first-year politics class, and then going on to use it for communication theory in several further classes such as Communication Debates & Approaches, and the course Understanding the Modern World at City University when I was on exchange. I hope that I continue this trend of interdisciplinary lifelong learning long after I graduate.
Ashleigh reflects on how much private information she surrenders in a simple Instagram post. This reminds me of an article I read last month which shows how easily Google Maps collects geodata on your locations and movement, and how quickly this information is pieced together to show meaningful information and patterns. #BIGDATA
Image via MemeGenerator
Amongst some on-point fashion analysis of Networked Media’s finest, Luke discusses Symposium 06 and gives a run down on the debate of art vs technology, and some observations on Nelson and his musings. Can we also just talk about how good his post on potato peelers is?!
Art, technology and culture – which came first?
Murphie + Potts pose the following questions in this week’s readings:
How do we live with technology? What impact does it have on our lives? How should we concieve of technology? Are technologies neutral in themselves, that is, does the way in which they are used determine their cultural impact? Or do technologies have intrinsic properties that shape the cultures into which they are introduced?” (p.11)
Here are some definitions which helped me navigate through the readings.
Technology: the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry; machinery and equipment developed from scientific knowledge.
Culture: the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively; the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.
So does technology change the way we act, or is the way we act changing technology???
Shields and collage:
The only thing of worth you can learn from mine is that the spaces between words deserves to shine.” – Session & The Bear
The following essay is a response to a question raised in a Network Media symposium earlier in the semester:
Are we all narcissists online?”
Image via flickr user Kevin Lim
Our modern online landscape, which is littered with social networks, is the terrain where technological revolutions that allow the possibility of radically new forms of self are coming into being. We now have endless opportunities for expression and rejection of accepted norms, meaning that issues like power, control, privacy, democratisation, equality and freedom introduce themselves as updated and urgent problems.
Self image is becoming an obsession of the ‘plugged-in’ generation. Social media are used to “control others perceptions of [ourselves]” (Panek et al, 2013). The Western world glamourises being individual and successful, which prompts a pressure to convey this to others in an overt way via our online lives. Social media allow us the opportunity to edit what we present to our networks, letting us crop and change our image to portray it in any manner we wish.
The ease of connection through new forms of technology (such as smartphones and tablets) means that we are beginning to communicate not through conversation, but through the click of a button. We perceive this as ‘efficient friend management’. However, Dunbar’s Number tells us that the limit to how many comfortable social relationships a person can handle at any one time is merely 150 (Dunbar, 2010). We are sacrificing the quality of our friends for the quantity. Instead of building up friendships, we find ourselves building up our ‘personal profiles’ which can dictate how we feel in the real world.
Social media assures us that we will always be heard, and that we will never be alone. However, this effectively leads to a mass of humans being “alone together” in the digital sphere (Turkle, 2011).
Cooley’s theory of the Looking Glass Self (1902) offers us a way of understanding this new phenomenon of our public ‘me’s, over 100 years later from his hypothesis of ‘I am who I think you think I am’. In an online context, this means that users often curate their online personas to reflect how they imagine their peers to view them.
Bourdieu’s notion of the forms of capital (1986) also provides an interesting perspective for viewing the activity of the digital age. Online profiles can become mouthpieces for displaying our cultural, financial and social capital, which culminate to determine how much power we assert. Contemporary sociologists are beginning to thinking about a new emerging form of capital: digital capital.
Celebrity social media use is now a necessary and fundamental aspect of public life. Famous figures now amass vast number of followers, which allows them to communicate and connect with their fans on the same level using the same language and conventions on the same platforms. This fuels a sense of interconnectedness and reduces the top-down nature of Web 1.0.
The world of social media has some interesting implications when considered in conjunction with Habermas’ public sphere (1964). The public sphere is defined as a conceptual space in society where all citizens can assemble to discuss public opinion. For hundreds of years, this was how society functioned and allowed the process of democracy to take place. However in the current Western world, democracy now happens under our fingertips as soon as we log on to social media. Instantly, we can contribute to public debate, comment on our fellow citizens’ opinions and assemble in an alternative kind of ‘public sphere’. So this begs the question – where does our digital realm belong in the public sphere? Is it its own public sphere? Do we have a public sphere 2.0? Are they the same thing?
The dominant culture of social media is creating an online language of the connected, making digital literacy imperative to navigate the online world. This is leading to a mega-sub-culture for the ‘plugged-in masses’, with its own vocabulary and set of social norms and rule.
Instagram is another example of our image-driven, ‘faked experiences’ online lifestyles. These attractively edited images play a central role in our perception of our friends. Krasnova (2013) speaks of how this has an malicious impact on human feelings of envy and jealousy, which acts as a threat to users’ life satisfaction overall. She explains the “envy spiral”, saying “self-promotion triggers more self-promotion, and the world on social media gets further and further from reality.”
There are inherent issues of privacy, access, infrastructure and online inequality (as with all discussions surrounding the digital network), however we do know that social media offer drastically new ways to present ideas of ourselves. Sherry Turkle sums it up perfectly in saying that “our little devices are so psychologically powerful that they don’t only change what we do, they change who we are” (2012).
Bourdieu, P. (1986) ‘The forms of capital’ in Richardson, J. (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, New York: Greenwood.
Cooley, C. (1902) Human Nature and the Social Order, New York: Scribner’s.
Dunbar, R. (2010) ‘You’ve got to have (150) friends’, The New York Times, December 26, p.15.
Habermas, J. (2009) ‘The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964)’, Media and Cultural Studies Keywords, Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell.
Krasnova, H. (2013) ‘Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction?’, 11th International conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik, Germany
Panek, E., Nardis, Y. & Konrath, S. (2013) ‘Mirror or Megaphone?: How relationships between narcissism and social networking sit use differ on Facebook and Twitter’, Computers in Human Behaviour, vol. 29, no. 5, pp.2004-2012.
Turkle, S. (2011) Alone Together, New York: Basic Books.
Turkle, S. (2012) Connected, but alone?, Ted Talks, available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together.html. Accessed 9 November 2013.
This week’s symposium started out with the focus on intent.
What role does the authorial integrity of intent play? Can the content of intent be guaranteed? If the aforementioned context is supplied, can it survive?
As Adrian pointed out, the answer to most of the above is no.
Intent is problematic.
Adrian urges us that one of the strongest skills we could learn is how to read against the intent of an author.
We then discussed semiotics, and the Cartesian separation between the signifier (body) and the signified (what it means; the rational mind). Adrian called this “the delirium of semiotics” which I don’t quite yet understand. I think it’s along the lines of meaning we are so obsessed with that something means (thinking that only that mind matters), that we almost forget about the substance (the body) itself.
Another really interesting takeaway following this was that “words can only mean by difference”. As in, something can only mean something not by what it is, but what it is not. A word only gets its meaning by virtue of the relations to other words that could have been there. The actual word is significant because you chose to use it instead of something else. Thus, the meaning never arrives.