Tag Archives: networked media

POTTS AND MURPHIE: ALL ABOUT THEORIES

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The Potts and Murphie reading was about key theories relating to culture and technology and our society. Here’s a list of the key points I took away from reading:

  • Poses the question are technologies neutral in themselves? So, does the way they are used determine their cultural impact? Or do technologies have intrinsic properties that shape the cultures into which they are introduced?
  • Technological determinism refers to belief that technology is the agent of social change
  • Technological determinism is linked to idea of progress
  • TD considers technology as an ‘independent factor with its own course of development and own consequences’
  • Ideas that we live in an Information society or Computer Age ‘betray the technological determinist notion that society is shaped by its dominant technologies’
  • Consider whether society is shaped by its technologies or are technologies shaped by the needs of society?
  • Alvin Toffler’s idea of the “Future Shock” which warned that ‘post industrial societies need to protect themselves from dislocating effects of automation and computer-based technologies’
  • Theorists focus on the way a new technology creates new potential and possibility for human thought, expression or activity

– McLuhan’s theory: All technologies are extensions of human capacities
tools and implements are extensions of manual skills, the computer an extension of the brain

– Media are technologies that extend human sense perceptions

08 UNLECTURE

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My main takeway point from this week’s unlecture was about ‘Play, game and stories’. Adrian told us that gaming is defined by the notion of competition instead of narrative which marks a clear divide between games and stories. You can have games without narrative and you can’t win a narrative. What seems to link the two together is the notion of ‘play’.

Adrian explained this idea clearer in his blog post by showing that you can play with both games and stories. So, you can play without needing to win and play with stories and words just like you can play games. When thinking about the word PLAY it is important to note that the end goal is not always winning. ‘Play’ can cause different results depending on what is being played- so playing with a story and language or playing a game. So, while games can have stories they don’t necessarily need to have narratives. The end purpose is to win.

Another important point, was about filtering content on the internet. Filtering means that depth is encouraged rather than exploration. Adrian told us he believes the future of this will see the ‘recommender’ become ingrained in this system.

07 READING: THE RICH GET RICHER RULE

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The second reading for the week was again by Barabasi, on the “rich get richer” rule. To be perfectly honest, this week’s readings have (so far) failed to interest me. They seem to just drizzle on about nodes and hubs and linking and wind up getting a bit complicated.

Barabasi compares networks such as the Web to Hollywood to demonstrate his points. This is what I got from the reading:

– If networks as varied as the Web and Hollywood both display a power-law degree distribution then there must be some universal law responsible for it that could apply to ALL networks

– The rich get richer phenomenon could explain the power laws

– EVERYONE agrees that the Web is growing

– Despite the enormity and complexity of the web it continues to grow incrementally node by node

– If we consider Hollywood with the Web both start as small networks and then expand as time goes on.

– Most real networks share an essential feature: GROWTH

– We link to things based on our knowledge and experience of the world
– When deciding where to link on the web we follow preferential attachment: So while our individual choices are unpredictable as a group we follow strict patterns.

Hopefully next week’s readings are a little more interesting…

 

 

 

 

07 READING: THE 80/20 RULE

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The Barabasi reading considered the idea of rules to explain the ‘network behind the web.’  Barabasi structured his article around Pareto’s Law known as the “80/20 rule.” That basically said that ‘four-fifths of our efforts are largely irrelevant’.

To explain this point, Barabasi used examples in management. So, 80% of profits are produced by only 20% of employees. Which to elaborate on in terms of the economy seems to say as the title of the 2nd reading does “The Rich get Richer”.

Anyway, the point of this reading wasn’t for us to examine the economy (well perhaps as a side note) but to see how the 80/20 rule can be applied to networked media. In terms of finding an exact science that has created the network, various studies have been conducted. It was hypothesized that ‘webpages are connected to each other randomly’.

Enter: The POWER Law. So basically, this power law doesn’t peak like a bell curve and implies that many small events coexist with a few large events. What they found, was that “millions of website creators work together” (perhaps inadvertently) “to generate a complex Web that defies a random universe”.

And in some way, I think this includes us as we are webpage creators of our own mediafactory sites. Together we create this network that operates the web.

 

INTERACTIVITY IN NARRATIVES….

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The Marie-Laure Ryan reading this week was all about interactivity in narratives in the DIGITAL world.

Overall, it was really interesting and I found the reading engaging enough to gather several takeaway ideas.

The key word in this area seems to be IMMERSIVE.

Game designer Chris Crawford says digital narratives “mandate choice for the user”.

  • No choice= no interactivity
  • “This is an absolute, uncompromising principle “

SO, interactivity seems to be the BIGGEST difference between “old” and “new” media.

But there are a few problems with working out how to be interactive in a narrative as Ryan says because narratives rely on linearity and unidirectionality of time, logic and causality. But interactivity is all about a nonlinear structure!

The key is to give users a “sense of freedom” while disguising the narrative design as an “emergent story”.

It all sounds pretty complicated, but the results definitely seem worthwhile!

It includes:

– Literary hypertext fiction

– Text based adventure games

– Interactive drama

– Single-user video games

– Multiple user online role playing games

VINT CERF RESEARCH

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For my Niki this week, I’m working on an interview with Vint Cerf.

So who is he, what has he done and why is he important?

Who is he?

An American computer scientist regarded as one of the “fathers of the internet”.

What has he done?

-Was fundamental in producing the first commercial email system connected to the internet
– A founder of ICANN (IP)
– Vice-president + Chief Internet Evangelist of Google
– Helped developed IP
-Key role in development of the internet and related data packet and security technologies

How does this relate to the internet, digital media and networked media?
– Email is an important function of the internet
– Connects people
– Easy communication method
– Email forms part of our networked society

Significance of what he has done?
– Won the US Presidential Medal of Freedom that recognises his work on software code used to transmit data across the Internet has put them “at the forefront of digital revolution that has transformed global commerce communication and entertainment”
– Large significance to the digital world

Ideas:
– Looks at the future world with every device being smart, connected to the network and location aware

WRITING AS TECHNOLOGY

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The reading this week was about “Writing as a technology”.

Bolter argues that the role of writing is for “collective memory, for preserving and passing on human experience”.

I consider myself a writer and a thinker. I look at the world around me, listening and watching out for potential stories. I use things that happen in my life as inspiration for my writing. So this definition of writing makes perfect sense.

Writing enables us to ‘arrange verbal thoughts in a visual space’. It can definitely be therapeutic, let you rip open the bottle of your pent up emotions, and encourage you to think out your problems.

And hand in hand with writing comes reading. What makes some novels absolute classics? Celebrated and remembered hundreds of years after the death of their creators?

This reading would suggest that the power of writing and words is so vast it can transcend time. Great works of literature possibly stand the test of time because they deal with important elements of the human experience that remain the same forever.

It’s encouraging to think that even though our writing technologies and publication methods are changing our writing can have an everlasting impact…

0.4: THE Q&A BEGINS

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This week saw the symposium style lecture put into action! After constant discussion about the new ‘unlecture’ format, it was refreshing to finally get down to business.

These are my key takeway ideas from the Q&A:

//Why bother with design fiction if you’re not a designer?

You don’t need to be a designer in the pen and paper sense to engage in design fiction. Being a designer is about developing a “toolkit for dealing with complex problems”. You can literally attempt to solve problems before they occur in the future by simply asking “what if”.

//What will the future of networked media involve?

It will enable us to “make things and build a reputation in our chosen areas free and easily”. We will continue to publish our own content instantly in an arena that can be viewed by everyone with an internet connection. Perhaps the difficulty will lie in users sifting through information and content overload to find quality content.

//How will we get paid in this industry?

THIS was my favourite point: “You must sell the experience, not the product!” In the modern age where everyone has the ability to be a content producer and self publisher it can be hard to make our work stand out. So we need to sell the fact that we are ‘experts’ in our field and provide something extra that the everyday person cannot deliver.

THE UNLECTURE 03

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Knowledge.

Adrian stressed the point that ‘education isn’t a passive one way transaction’ in this week’s unlecture.

I have to admit I have become all too used to the high-school method of education. You sit and listen while the teacher talks AT you in the hope their knowledge will be poured and stored into your brain. Sure, I realised it was a give and take relationship and it wasn’t just this simple to learn. But I accepted this format of learning without thinking too much about alternative methods.

It was interesting to think about the difference between buying an ‘experience’ instead of buying a ‘product’ in our university education. If we use this analogy between an experience and a product, it’s clear that an experience has much greater value over a product if only for its longevity. Products date, malfunction and need to be replaced when new products are created. So it is only logical that we should aim to buy an experience instead…something long lasting and enriching.

So, part of this course seems to be illuminating the two-way transaction style of education and teaching us to become aware of our learning. This course, is nothing like what I initially expected (thought it would be all about html and IT) but I am starting to see some serious value in alternative methods.

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DAVID WEINBERGER…WHO AM I?!

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In his novel, David Weinberger raises questions about the relationship between self identity and the internet. How do you present yourself online versus the way you present yourself in reality? I found this really interesting to read about because of my work on ‘Augmented Reality’ in Comms last semester (more on that later!)

David talks about the internet offering the promise of anonymity, which essentially means users are free to build a new identity for themselves in the online world. So, the way we construct our profiles on Facebook may be vastly different to the way we present ourselves to our teachers or family. However, having said this, it’s true that humans also present different versions of the self in the physical world. The way you act when interacting with your mum compared to how you act when bar hopping will possibly be vastly different! I think the point is though that the internet makes us actively think about self representation by giving us the tools to easily construct who it is we want the world to believe we are.

The idea of self representation online is really obvious if you look at online dating. Functioning as a mediator between the online world and the offline world, the sites allow users to create their own profiles and find their ideal match. More often than not, many users engage in some kind of misleading self-presentation on these sites to attract more promising partners. In this way, the internet allows people to create their ideal selves easily and project this image through cyberspace.

An interesting term that stuck with me from this reading was “internet intoxication” (Sounds deadly!). It basically acknowledges that the internet has an effect on human lives and can assist people to create new identities.

This constant discussion of identity is again scarily Comms like (WHO AM I?!) But in all seriousness, maybe what is so scary is that the internet asks us to consider who we are, who we want to be and gives us (and others) the tools to re-create ourselves.

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