Category Archives: Networked Media

Did someone say jump ship?

I have a confession to make… I am not a true humanities student at heart. Admittedly I come from a background comprised of maths and science, at least in high school I actually found high level maths and science enjoyable. In efforts to transition my career path toward film making I find myself at RMIT, studying a bachelor of communication. I really enjoy this course and the content is definitely interesting, however I can’t help but be intrigued by the recent introduction into html coding. During last week’s symposium Adrian delved further into html coding and network programming. He rambled off a list of Boolean logic which I believe overwhelmed the audience of media and journalism students. He followed with “don’t worry if none of that made any sense, us humanities people aren’t expected to understand”. On the contrary, I understood a good majority of the terms he mentioned and I was excited by the thought of mathematical formula behind network literacy. I couldn’t help but think, possibly I am not a humanities person and I may belong in the computer science side of things. My decision is pending more research and thought. None the less, a very though provoking symposium for me.

Watchu Saying?

So instead of writing a completely unrelated blog post this week, since the slight change to the participation checklist, I must instead review the blogs of others. So here we go then:

 

Kenton creates a sketch of Ted Nelson’s hypertext theory and identifies the plainness of Nelson’s notions through the drawing. I agree that the potential Nelson see’s in hypertext is something somewhat beneficial, however the need for such potential is largely exaggerated.

 

Gemma encounters an old friend – HTML coding and wonders why she hasn’t come across it such a long time, given her job description. I was also introduced to HTML very briefly in early high school years and upon being reunited with it this year, I am also excited to learn more about what coding has to offer, especially for us media students.

 

Kiralee makes the connection between the the abilities of hypertext and streams of YouTube videos with alternate endings / selective pathways. During this week’s lecture on hypertext, I too recalled fond memories of watching interactive videos. This inspires me to make my own ‘choose your own adventure’ pathway within blog posts, creating hypertext links within numerous blog posts across a period of time that transports the viewer between posts, piecing together a story.

We don’t have enough digital literacy

This week’s symposium made it very clear that as a collective, the students studying Networked Media and our generation by extension, do not have enough knowledge of digital literacy, or rather as much as we should given the relevance of digital and networked media in our lives. This was highlighted during the symposium by the fact that we understand how to create books, but in general do not understand how to create a website. Although the majority of us students spend considerably more time with web literature than with printed literature, the educators of the symposium found it astonishing that we lack the same level of literacy in digital work that we possess in print work. Although a fair point, I can’t help but think that this notion is directly related to our primary and secondary school education in which print literacy and the way books are created is clearly taught, whereas website design is not. Therefore, digital literature is something that people of my generation are very familiar with, however the production of such literature is kept from us until later education, such as this subject. This leads me to believe that as we progress through the digital age, digital literacy will become more and more often compulsory during early stages of education. For example, secondary school computing or IT classes might entail website design as an element of the teaching structure.

SMACKintosh

So believe it or not, I really enjoyed learning about html coding in the tute this week. I returned home, eager to continue experimentation with coding and practice the new skills I had learnt from my home computer. So it only required 2 programs right? Yeah just Fetch and Text Wrangler and you’re good to go. Sweet! So let’s go download Fetch. I download the installer and apply for an educational licence and all that and attempt to open the installer, which was a .dmg file… :/  *face palm* – Fetch is Mac only.

Great, well not having a Mac this is a little bit of a problem. No worries let’s just try and find an alternative… Little did I know this would be a process and a half to find a decent Windows FTP client that had a full use educational licence for free and after using a couple, the functions were entirely different which made me think… does this mean that I can’t access the 2014.themediastudents server? Is that Fetch only? And to be honest I just rage quit my attempts at getting an FTP client for windows (feel free to lend a hand if you know the answers). That’s alright I’ll just get Text Wrangler and practice coding offline, cool! Okay let’s go download Text Wrangler… wait… Mac only! Great. This homework session ends here…

Over and out.

My favourite building in the world!

The Wat Rong Khun (The White Temple) in Chiang Rai is definitely the most outstanding building that I have ever visited. From the immense sculpted detail that surrounds the temple, to the stunning paint work within, this building is guaranteed to blow your mind!

The White Temple

© Nethaniel Rochester

Why did I post this though? Well, several months ago word spread the internet that the temple had been damaged beyond repair in an earthquake. The extremes of this claim were later exposed as completely false. How can we trust the validity of the internet? – Hey that sounds familiar… shout out to Angus Strachan for posing such a question to the symposium board today, it did cause quite a stir.

 

To code or not to code

This HTML coding business sounds interesting. Even though I share the same amount of knowledge about the subject as the majority of my peers, being zero percent, unlike many others I’m not actually freaked out about the HTML test next week. Maybe I’ll eat my words tomorrow in class when we learn about what is actually required, but none the less I am quite hooked by the idea of coding. Listening to the ranting of mates who study software engineering, along with the encouragement from my tutor to learn the skill I am excited to get cracking. Mind you, the nitty gritty of technology (just to use a contradicting descriptive word because I can) is something that I have always found interesting.

For anyone who is also interested in coding and completely new to the realm, check out this video for a rundown of the basics. Please note: only click the video link if you have an hour to kill and won’t be frustrated beyond control by amateur videography consistently displayed for such time period.

Clear black and white… or are there grey areas?

When it comes to the legalities and legal constraints of the web, the fine line between suitable conduct and a copyright infringement appears blurred. Although being technically illegal, the reproduction of copyright information is present throughout the entirety of the internet. So why is this you ask? And is that okay? After the symposium this week I cannot provide answers to these questions. Pretend two of my tutors stand on opposite sides of the room for this analogy. In one ear I hear “any material that is protected by copyright is strictly forbidden from re-distribution or re-creation by any party other than the creator in the absence of permission FULL STOP!” and in the other ear I hear “there are many grey areas between the lines of copyright law and you need to learn how to work the grey areas to your advantage and not get caught”.

Okay so I’m getting mixed messages here, what do I do? This leads me to believe that the un-crossable lines of copyright law are not at all strictly defined, given the variety of opinions among media professionals regarding the matter. For this reason I conclude that each use of copyright material can only be deemed legal or illegal in a case by case situation. Therefore, given such leeway in combination with the common practice of creators sending ‘cease and desist’ letters to copyright criminals before taking legal action, this makes it very hard to scare me from posting others’ material without permission. However, luckily for the morality of the internet, as a creator I find it implausible to copy the work of others without permission given my work is available for others to do the same.

Although I did appreciate the comment one of the tutors made and I quote “it’s just like j walking, you just have to learn how to do it without getting caught and you’ll do it every day” – Jason Tseng

And I do j walk… so where’s the hope for poor little copyright law

Predicting the future

All this talk of network literacy and our educator’s inclination to point out the general population of our class’ lack thereof, makes me wonder what my generation should be considered experts of in terms of methods of literacy. In regards to photography literacy, isn’t it interesting that high definition cameras are available in any smartphone, of which more than half the country’s population possess. Capable of capturing a photograph before viewing it immediately. However Vannevar Bush in 1945 is intrigued by the technology of film photography and seems perplexed by the idea that one day in the future, photographs will be able to be viewed immediately upon capture, without the aid of wetting the photograph or the timely process of developing film. Nowadays, such notion sound ridiculous due to the accessibility of digital cameras. Digital photography is a very new phenomenon, however it is a literacy known as ‘second nature’ to the vast majority of young people today. This leads me to consider new literacies as highly important for young people to learn in order to keep up with the ever changing reality that is the media world. Especially as someone seeking a career in the industry, I understand the importance of looking to the future of media and communication, eager to attain new literacies in order to stay ahead of the game.

No Copyright on Creativity

Copyright law is a field that definitely interests me. As a YouTuber, I am constantly reminded of issues of copyright through the site’s automatic detection program that restricts the presentation of the work of others, all in good reason obviously. I hope this week’s tutorial revolves around the complications of copyright law in all forms as I plan to asks a variety of questions:

1. Who owns the copyright of registered material? Does the creator own 100% of the copyright or does a cut get taken somewhere along the line?

2. Within the guidelines of the Fair Use Act, is it legal in all situations to use copyrighted material for non-commercial reasons if cited correctly?

3. Are children under the age of 18 allowed to copyright material?

4. Do all countries have a form of copyright law?

5. If I copyright my own material and make it globally available on the internet, what limitations or restrictions are placed on people using it as their own in countries where copyright law either doesn’t exist or allows otherwise illegal practices?

Cheers,

Nate