The temperature hit 41 degrees on Wednesday for our Networked Media workshop, but inside RMIT it was a very comfortable 20 degrees. In fact, I almost had to grab a jumper it was that cool! The attendance was a little light on due to the weather, but for me uni was the best place to be on a day like that.

The symposium was a useful time of discussion as we looked into the readings and other topics that came up. We spoke about how the readings were relating to how to store knowledge and information in a useful and practical way. And then delving into how accurate that information is anyway.

We also looked at hypertext, and understanding how it can be used to include information that links to other information. Nelson wasn’t fully sold on the idea of hypertext because at that time it was fully textual. However, nowadays hypertext has been broadened to include ‘hypermedia’, for audio/visual media can also be linked in this way.

The symposium then took a bit of a random tangent off in the direction of web search engines. Elliot brought up an interesting point, saying that large Internet providers are currently debating how much search engine results should be tailored based upon the individual’s past web history, browsing interests etc. They are worried that having the results focused too heavily to match the individual’s characteristics, they may in fact be limiting the individual from accessing areas of the Internet. It’s complex, I know!

Finally, we were introduced to two types of determinisms – technical and social. These terms are used to describe society’s relationship with technology, or how technology relates to us.

Technical determinism is the idea that the advent of new technologies determines the way that society and cultures operate. And then the social determining of technology is the idea that if society wants a particular technology, they’ll probably find a way to achieve it.

Personally, I feel that both ideas can be true at times. Technology has definitely changed the way that we operate, and I believe that if society wants and needs a certain type of technology, they’ll work to either achieve it or find something that would do a similar job.

Over and out.