Category Archives: Networked Media

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Community or not to community?

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • April 18, 2016 ,

Assessment 2 is beaming like a bright light in the distance coming towards us Networked Media children. As it begins it’s decent onto planet “oh my god another assessment is due”, I must begin to investigate a community of my choosing and reflect on the interactions within it.

As a mad lover of the TV show Wentworth, I thought I might delve a little deeper into the community of Wentworth Fans that I am already somewhat involved in.

At the moment, I use Twitter to get involved in the conversations, especially as the Wentworth Twitter account follows me (and therefore I feel obliged to be up to date because I’m one of the lucky 67 accounts that they follow).

But I want to delve even deeper into the community and see more of the world that exists surrounding the show.

A few places that I think I will explore include:

The #Wentworth Tag on Twitter – Whilst I currently use this tag when commenting on the show, it will be interesting to properly read what is out there already/what will come/anticipation (as Season 4 commences May 10).

From first glance, it appears that the most common place for Wentworth lovers to talk about the show are these two Facebook groups:

‘Wentworth’ – https://www.facebook.com/groups/239278402866843/

‘Wentworth TV Series’ – https://www.facebook.com/groups/547193018653526/

With both groups attaining over 13,000 members each, it seems that there are new discussions going every day. I have since requested to join both groups and have been accepted into both.

Screenshot taken on 18th April 2016, Facebook - Accepted into Wentworth TV Series Group

Screenshot taken on 18th April 2016, Facebook – Accepted into Wentworth TV Series Group

Screenshot taken from Facebook on April 18 2016. Accepted into Wentworth Group on Facebook

Screenshot taken from Facebook on April 18 2016. Accepted into Wentworth Group on Facebook

Wentworth Cast Twitter Feed – I have since subscribed to this feed enabling me to keep up to date with what the cast are saying about the show.

#Wentworth on Tumblr – this hashtag allows me to access various different Tumblr accounts that house various different videos, gifs and even comments/fanfics about the show.

The Wentworth Website has a few trailers and links to the Wentworth Twitter account but may not be as useful in regards to finding the community that exists.

It must be noted that the above mediums (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr) are all used to interact and therefore allow for communities to be housed as there is a sense of the ability to comment/like/repost.

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Sunday went OFF!

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • April 14, 2016

As you may not already know, I work at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre at South Wharf. I am a Customer Service Attendant so I basically help usher customers to various areas, show people to their seats, open and close doors, hand out flyers and get to watch various productions/concerts and speeches to name a few, live. I also get a radio so that makes me look pretty damn cool.

I absolutely love the job so far. Every day there is something different on and it makes it really exciting to come to work knowing that you’ll be doing or seeing different people from your last shift. I’m all about being kept on my toes and constant change!

This Sunday was one of those extra cool days where I got to work a concert. But this wasn’t just any concert… this was the A-mei, a mandarin popstar and so called ‘Pride of Taiwan’ who received a World Peace Music Award in 2004, and remains as the only Chinese performer to ever have won one.

Her stage presence was absolutely astonishing. She went from Heavy Metal, to Ballads to Dance Music all in the one night with hundreds of various dance moves, vocal tricks and more. Despite the fact I understood .1% of the concert (when she sung a few lines from Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars) (the whole show was in Mandarin), she was still able to give me those usual goosebumps and that feeling of wanting more from her.

Linked below are one of the songs that went off from the night. The song itself doesn’t even do justice for the live show but it’ll be interesting to see if she becomes a part of my Spotify playlist for 2016!

 

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Where am I now?

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • April 10, 2016

This week in Networked Media I started here: www.facebook.com/

and, I ended up here: https://www.youtube.com/user/HubbleESA/featured?nohtml5=False

But why did I even bother to venture outside of the realm of Facebook?

Well, this week’s reading discusses the idea of Hypertext being an ‘open-bordered text… that cannot shut out other texts” (Landow, pg. 114) and the idea that the “supposed end and beginning of a work” does not exist, and that there are many beginnings and endings, if any.

We could say that the internet is almost a ‘choose your own adventure’ space where all you need is a brain and an internet browser.

As Hannah went around the class, many of my classmates mentioned the different places they found themselves in, I think reinforcing the idea that there is no set path on the internet. Even if we all start in the same place i.e. Facebook, we’re all bound to end up somewhere different.

But in regards to Facebook and even Twitter, I think we must also highlight the fact that they are very open in regards to their hypertext. You can really end up anywhere when using these sites, as these social mediums rely on outside ideas and spaces to run (so if we refer to my comment above about why I bothered to venture outside Facebook, this is due to the fact that I was prompted by a sponsored hyperlink on the site to take a look at Swiburne’s Astronomy Program (I was then interested in what they had to say and ended up at Hubble NASA/ESA)). A site like YouTube on the other hand has mainly videos, that link to other videos, to other videos and to other videos within the same website. Uploaders have the ability to link to external sites, but this isn’t always the case. However, often these links are hyperlinks to their own website where they sell merchandise, rather than an external article or anything alike.

We are becoming more and more connected with the world around us thanks to these hypertexts. I cannot wait to see what I will explore next!

Bibliography:

Landow, G 2006, Hypertext 3.0, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. 2006. Print. 107-124

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Assignment 1 – Blogging IS important!

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • April 6, 2016

Due to the shift of the media platform to the internet, it is important that we understand ways in which we can express our ideas and thoughts freely to the universe, as you would with a magazine or newspaper.

Despite the fact blogging was a prerequisite for Media One in 2015, this semester in Networked Media, I have truly begun to properly understand both the theoretical and practical aspects of blogging and how they intertwine.

As mentioned in my Week 1 Reading Blog, I refer to the idea of blogging and the importance of having a place within the online community, stating that “I think that it is so important that I continue to use my media blog throughout my degree, as it is a public document that showcases my folio of work.” Blogging “also enables me to become a part of the “larger community” (Miles, pg. 67) whenever I contribute or others comment on my work”, which in turn, is also relevant to the ideas presented in Week 4 about Hypertexts and Hypermedia.

By acknowledging the works of others, we not only become network literate but we can make our writing intertextual; “we must write with an awareness that we are writing in the presence of other texts” (Landow, pg. 77). Whilst it could be said that it is very hard to be original, the opinions we offer on the various ideas within the docuverse are original. We each have our own set of thoughts and blogging allows us to express these opinions, whilst linking back to the work of others.

As seen in my ‘Am I Lazy?‘ post, I have also begun to develop an understanding of general licensing practice and more specifically, Creative Commons. Below each of the photos within this blog post, I have included a clear caption that cites where the screenshots have been taken from. Whilst it is important to show a clear link to the opinions of others, it is important to give credit to the original owner, especially in order to avoid plagiarism and the legal consequences of plagiarising. In my opinion, it is also important to cite others works, as you are clearly showing evidence surrounding your topic of choice. Furthermore, I like to relate my ideas to the ideas of others, as I can show that I am placing my work within the wider docuverse, and proving my online presence.

I have placed a Creative Commons license in my blog’s sidebar which allows anyone to read and distribute my work as they please, as long as I am credited. Without this license, it would be a lot harder for others to comment in their own spaces about my ideas, thus making my opinions more ‘closed’ to the wider network community. The use of Creative Commons “facilitates sharing, building and remixing on top of content, where the authors opt into this more balanced and rational copyright system and supports the idea of remix or participatory culture” (Lasica 2006).

Now that I have a deeper understanding to the real reasons we blog, and the best ways to do it, I feel that I am really beginning to enjoy it. I have never been much of a writer but because of the theory presented to me each week in regards to blogging, I am becoming more and more aware of the ways in which work can be presented online. It is clear to me that these theories are relevant even to professionals in the media industry (as seen in the blog posts of this blog linked in my blog roll: Refinery 29), so I feel that I am becoming more professional too!

Bibliography:

Miles, Adrian 2006, Blogs in Media Education: A Beginning [online], Screen Education, No. 43, pg. 66-69.

Landow, G 2006, Hypertext 3.0, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pg. 69-85, 107-124.

Lasica, J 2006, Prof. Lawrence Lessig Explains Creative Commons Licensing, accessed April 6, 2016, from <https://youtu.be/AWxyx5iYdvI>.

 

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To Voice Overs and beyond!

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • April 6, 2016

So as some of you may not know, I undertook this Bachelor of Media in an attempt to explore the world of media, before I attempted to become a media presenter. I’ve already learnt so much from the course and I know that there is still so much more to learn.

There are some things I’ve learnt that I didn’t think I would ever need to know about, but it’s an amazing feeling knowing that I now have skills that other media presenters may not necessarily have. I think as well, these skills open up so many other doors and career paths for me, so I will always feel I have a place in the industry.

Before Easter and my stomach full of Haigh’s Chocolate, I went into the studio with a guy named Peter. He heads up a company named Audio and Image Solutions PTY LTD, who in short, is an “Australian company that provides all forms of multimedia production and services” (Audio and Image Solutions website, ‘About Us’ page). We recorded a voice over demo that showcased some of my best and different style reads. I then went away over the Easter break and showed it to my friends and family, who gave me feedback on what they liked, didn’t like and what I should keep or change. I think being able to seek feedback from those close to you is really a hard thing, because sometimes they’ll be more honest, which can in turn be a little too harsh. But I loved every single piece of feedback I was given. The more constructive it is, the better it is.

I went into the studio yesterday (5th of April, 2016) and took all this constructive feedback into the studio. My demo went from a 5 to an 9. I got rid of a few reads that I didn’t feel showcased my work very well, and added in some new reads that I definitely think reflected particular styles that I have. I’m really happy with where it’s at, at the moment, and am really looking forward to seeing where it takes me.

So without further ado, attached below is the demo. Have a listen and let me know what you think in the comments below! Here’s to *hopefully* a future in Voice Over.

 

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Am I lazy?

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • April 4, 2016

I’ve never understood to the extent how lazy I really am. I mean, are there levels of laziness? Is there a laziscale?

So I’ve just done a Google Search for ‘Lazy Scale’ and this is what has come up. (Yes I did click something already but it’s only because I’m eager).

Google Search - https://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Lazy+Scale

Google Search  – https://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Lazy+Scale, accessed 4th April 2016.

Alright so it looks like the ‘Laziscale’ hasn’t been created yet. But let’s take a look at ‘How lazy are you on a 1-10 scale’ and see what comes up.

Ok so far all I can gather is that it’s a forum based on asking people how lazy they are. Two relatable comments to me right now from this forum are probably these two:

Iam3green - http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/off-topic-31/how-lazy-are-you-on-a-1-10-scale-414551/

Screenshot of comment by user iam3green – http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/off-topic-31/how-lazy-are-you-on-a-1-10-scale-414551/, accessed 4th April 2016.

Screen Shot 2016-04-04 at 1.21.05 pm

Screenshot of comment by user ArchScabby – http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/off-topic-31/how-lazy-are-you-on-a-1-10-scale-414551/, accessed 4th April 2016.

I’m pretty motivated most of the time, but sometimes I have days where I’ll do a whole heap of homework but will be too lazy to get up and make myself a coffee. The problem is, other days I’ll be more than happy to go to the pantry, but too lazy to plug in my dying computer whilst writing a 2000 word essay.

Right now, I feel too lazy to even outline what the Laziscale levels would consist of exactly… but I’m thinking in short maybe levels ranging from 1 to 5; 1 being fully motivated to do whatever comes at you, and 5 being; I have been needing the bathroom for 8 hours now but I’m too lazy to move.

So now that the Laziscale has been established, let’s chat about how I feel in this exact moment, and maybe you can tell me where you rate on the Laziscale and why in the comments below.

It’s the beginning of Week 5. I’ve just moved into a new family home 4 days ago with mum and my brothers and the oven isn’t working. A guy will arrive soon to fix it. FOR ONCE, I actually got up and got dressed and was ready for the day ahead, at 9am. However, I’ve spent 4 hours since then, on the phone to Qantas Cash, AMIST, HostPlus, my mother and a guy recording my Voice Over demo’s. Ok, so that’s not exactly lazy, but in between those calls, I have been stuck on good ol’ Facebook – in this case it’s BAD ol’ Facebook though. I probably should have done a little more work at this stage considering I have an Essay Plan and readings due next week for Music in Pop Culture, a Networked Media Assignment and readings due next week and readings for my Media studio, It’s Alive.

I guess you could say I’m a number 2 on the Laziness scale right now, fully motivated to do everything BUT university work, and that includes making multiple trips to the pantry to find that there is STILL no food from when I checked 10 minutes ago.

So this has been a pretty pointless post, but I guess it’s good that I’m blogging at all. After all, I’m always TOO lazy to blog.

Catch ya folks’!

 

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CHROMATICITY

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • April 4, 2016

I’m not a big Vimeo user. It’s one of those sites that I’ve signed up to, purely for rare University use. However today I decided that I might take a look at the wonderful ‘Staff Picks’ section.

This section shows off, well simply, videos that the staff LOVE (“We really love videos, and these are the videos we really, really love. All of these videos have been hand picked by the real humans who work at Vimeo. We hope you enjoy them!” – Vimeo Curation, Vimeo Staff Pick Page, https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks).

One video that particularly took my fancy, posted by Paul Trillo has taken out a Staff Pick this week, for very obvious reasons.

CHROMATICITY is a video capturing “an ethereal flight over the ocean as mysterious coloured smoke leaves its mark across the sky. A beautiful choreography between four drones simultaneously in flight and hundreds of smoke grenades.” (Paul Trillo, https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/160730254).

I’m not sure whether it was just the colours that took me or the fact that they used drones, but something about this video really caught my eye. The music is dreamy, the setting is simple, and we have beautiful colours dancing across the sky. The only thing I do wish, is that I could have been there.

Check it out below or click this link to watch it on the Vimeo website: https://vimeo.com/160730254

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Are Tasmanian’s Happy?

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • April 2, 2016

Thanks to the ‘The Are You Happy Project‘, I was left in tears after watching a wonderful video filmed by a lady named Kate Nash, in Tasmania. The video is set outside MONA museum in Tasmania and visitors are prompted with questions in regards to whether they are happy and questioned about the definition of happiness.

In this weeks class (Week 4), we discussed the idea around Hypertext. Hannah (my tutor), linked us to a few websites that she liked that showed us examples of hypermedia and hypertext. I found that I really liked the idea surrounding the ‘The Are You Happy Project’. It centres around an experimental documentary from fifty years ago, asking people on the streets of Paris, “are you happy”. The website links back to this documentary by creating an online space where any person can get involved, either by tweeting about happiness, commenting or linking or even by going out into their local area and asking people whether they are happy.

The idea surrounding this website prompts me to consider the ways in which my work can be said to be a hypertext. By the use of simply commenting, tagging or even just linking, I can create a blog that screams hypermedia and hypertext from the rooftops. It enables me to delve deeper into the world of the internet, showing clear links to other things out in the world. I can have an online presence that doesn’t just solely reflect my work, but the work of others, seen through my eyes.

So are Tasmanian’s happy? Are Argentinian’s happy? Find out for yourself on the website here: http://theareyouhappyproject.org/

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Reading Week 3 – Copyright and Creative Commons

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • March 15, 2016

I think it’s very important to distinguish the difference between Creative Commons and Copyright. They both work in different ways and effect us as online content creators.

Copyright has a wonderful way of automatically protecting your work once you place it out to the world. Most definitely not a bad thing, right?

The issue is, copyright often places some pretty hefty laws around those that want to use your work or just share it. This means that when you write that fabulous post that gets everyone talking, you’ll have Aunty Jan, Uncle Pat, Cousin Fan, Great Grandma Robin and even Step Mother February asking if they can all share your work. I mean, if we can avoid having the internet turn into a Grandpa’s 90th birthday, why don’t we use all that we’ve got?

This is where Creative Commons comes into play. The not-for-profit organisation allows anyone in the world wide web to structure their own license for their own work. Not only does this save your precious time from licensing every piece of your work, I mean, “ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat” but Aunty Jan, Uncle Pat, Cousin Fan, Great Grandma Robin and even Step Mother February, can now share your work, without having to ask for your permission. So now, we can avoid the slobbery kisses on the cheek and the questioning about where your boyfriend or girlfriend is.

So if we break Creative Commons down a little more, we can understand that it doesn’t counter copyright, but works along side it, making the sharing process between the author and reader, a little swifter.

Screen Shot 2016-03-15 at 4.54.43 pm

 

Screenshot image of text taken directly from: Creative Commons Australia: Licensed CC BY 4.0.

As we can comprehend from the above image, one must attribute the original owner of the work, even when they are transforming the original copy. Authors can select a Creative Commons license that either agrees or disagrees to their work being used for commercial purposes and whether or not someone can modify their work.

The Creative Commons license gives the author a lot of flexibility in terms of how their work is used once it is posted. For example, for this Media Factory blog, I added a Creative Commons license in the right sidebar of my blog, outlining that I have chosen the option of allowing my work to be shared and adapted, even for commercial purposes.

In all honesty, I am looking for people to credit my work if they are going to use or share it and this is why the Creative Commons license is important.

I think that because I now have the Creative Commons license on my blog, I feel a lot safer about the work that I do. I want to become more network literate and to be able to have an open opinion on particular topics that I like, whilst not feeling like someone is going to come along and rip me off. It also means now that I will take greater care when sharing others work, as I now understand how important copyright and licensing is to a creator.

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Reading Week 2 – Network Literacy

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • March 7, 2016

The reading for Week 2 in Networked Media made me really consider the way the world is changing. Because of the fact that we are becoming more technological than ever before, we can begin to compare the old ways of finding a categorised book in a library to finding information on blogs and being able to categorise information.

It fascinates me that there is this term ‘network literacy‘. You would think that it means that one is literate in computers (understanding the functions of a computer). But in actual fact, network literacy is the ability to participate in various networks that we can share knowledge through. It’s an understanding of the “logics or protocols of these networks” (Miles, pg. 26). It includes a basic comprehension of network identities, privacy settings and communities.

This idea reminds me of Twitter and the ability to use hashtags. I am a huge user of Twitter and I find that I have definitely been able to voice my opinions over the years with hashtags. I’ve even had photos posted and retweeted several hundred times, as my opinion is shared by many. Screen Shot 2016-03-11 at 12.19.20 PM

Hashtags allow any user within the network to comment on a particular topic, allowing any type of person to comment on something. These people don’t necessarily have to be professors in the area but just need some sort of opinion on a topic.

In order for me to become more network literate, I have decided that I want to further comprehend information filters within various networks. This will enable me to assess and interpret the quality of various information I find more efficiently, allowing my blog posts to become a lot more concise and to the point.

Often it is easy to trust any site that you Google, but I think it’s important to use my resources through university, my fellow peers or preferred blogs as often their ideas will be more precise, or more creative.

As Adrian Miles states, it’s important to use tags to catalogue different works. This makes it very easy for others to roam through your blog to find information they are after and also makes a blog become a part of a wider community of users who also tag posts of similarity. This allows you to become a part of a broader community of users.

Week 2 Reading: Miles, Adrian. Network Literacy: The New Path to Knowledge [online]. Screen Education, No. 45, 2007: 24-30.

Featured Image from: https://blogs.extension.org/militaryfamilies/files/2011/09/netlit_wordcloud.png