Assignment 1- Annotated Bibliography

Name: Anhar Al-Shameri s3678518

I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration – https://www.rmit.edu.au/students/support-and-facilities/student-support/equitable-learning-services

Blog reflections

These blog entry titles would have links to each weekly post in your blog.

Week 1 – Blogs

Week 2 – Affordances

Week 3 – Networks

Week 4 – Social Media

Annotated Bibliography

Selected text 1 – Blogs in Media Education: A beginning

Miles, A 2006, ‘Blogs in Media Education: A beginning’, Australian Screen Ed, vol 41, pp. 66-69

The author aims to introduce ‘blogging’ into current media education. It facilitates the readers into this notion by explaining the meaning of a blog – a web-based production appearing in the form of posts that, according to Miles, will add a whole new meaning to ‘Network Literacy’. To make a convincing argument, the author proceeds to list the numerous benefits of blogging as a medium of education, some of which are: encouraging process-based learning, nurturing collaboration, providing a record of achievement, and developing students’ multi-literacies to give them the advantage of participation as creators rather than passive consumers. To pursue this further, the author singles out the most important outcome of a successful blogging that is post-print literacy, which is least to say an important aspect of network and digital literacies. Not to forget the added value of a blog’s publicness, which contributes in creating a considerate and well-made publications. According to Miles, this public awareness is of vital importance as it takes part in making the collaborative online community that media students will need to adapt to in the future. Furthermore, Miles suggests that present-day Media students should be taught the importance of blogging via integrating it into their course structure and pushing them to frequently participate. The author concludes his step-by-step manual of blogging by emphasizing the future of society’s social aspects given the revolutionary changes to the internet practices, and the preparation of media students for this intense communicative shift through blogging. 

The author provides a straightforward ‘how-to’ guide of blogging as an educational feature for media students. Miles establishes his academic expertise and lengthy experience on blogging, which increases the reliability of his work as a guide to be implemented by media institutions. Although, providing some statistical data as proof would have aided his credibility. The author presents his argument in a simple, well-structured format, as opposed to the usually complicated academic articles. It is also worthy to note the pattern through which the information was put, the way it answered all the WH questions and finalizing his argument with a satisfactory conclusion.

In relation to the course’s prompt, contemporary media students need to be prepared for the arising digital literacies, so as to adapt to the nature of social networking sites i.e instagram. The author establishes the basis of online public communication. Blogging gives students the opportunity to publish digital material like photos and videos, a skill that is necessary to explore the way instagram’s affordances affect digital media’s authorization, publishing, and distribution in the network.

Selected text 2 – Affordances 

Norman, D 1998, The design of everyday things, Basic Book, New York

(Sections: Preface vii-xv; Chapter one 1-13; Chapter 4 (constraints) 81-87; (computers) 177-186).

The author aims to describe his concept of ‘affordances’. According to Norman, affordances are the capacities of an object towards its uses i.e. its functions. Norman argues that affordances need to be visible in order to achieve maximum user engagement and to provide clues on how to operate a device. The author also gives insight into the antonym of affordances – constraints, which are the limitations to the perceived operation of a device. Norman lists four kinds of constraints: physical, semantic, cultural, and logical. Physical constraints relate to the mechanisms of one part fitting with another part of an item. Semantic constraints relate to the understanding of the world surrounding the user. Cultural constraints refer to cultural conventions that evolved overtime and require a community of practices and how they affect the usage of an item. As for logical constraints, they are reliant on the logical relationship between the spatial or functional layout of components and the things that they affect or are affected by. Furthermore, he explores the challenges that may face a designer. Particularly, the way designers find it difficult to conceive all the possibilities of usage of an object.In addition, the author addresses ‘the invisible computer of the future’, where he suggests that users will not realize that they are dealing with a computer in the near future. Hence, the term ‘invisible’. It is noteworthy to acknowledge that people, in the present, think that they’re doing the tasks that are actually done by computers. Norman used this concept as the basis for his suggestion.

Don Norman’s overview of design principle were presented in a structured manner. Norman provided detailed explanations and numerous examples of his concepts, as well as he provided pictures to ease the relay of his ideas to the readers. The author was successful in raising awareness of the lack of attention paid by the designer to the users. Norman managed to use personal anecdotal evidence to support his claim, as opposed to providing statistical evidence that would have fashioned his argument with more reliability. Moreover, this limitation is a disadvantage in displaying his promotion of the concept of affordances in an objective and educational manner to contemporary media students. Furthermore, it should be taken into consideration that Norman released his book in 1998, which in a publishing context could be viewed as a limitation as the concepts could have developed and evolved ever since. So if his concepts were to be taken seriously, it would be wiser to refer to a later edition of this book.

The author’s successful introduction of the concept of affordances gave me a much a needed insight into the manner that people use certain devices. Although he tackled the perceived affordances of physical objects, his concept of affordances, conceptual maps and constraints could only be applied to social networking sites to a minimum, which he honestly stated in his book.

Selected text 3- New Media: A critical introduction

Lister, M, Dovey, M, Giddings, S, Grant, I & Kelly, K 2009, New Media: A critical introduction, second edition, Routledge, London

The authors address the networked forms of new media. It presents a specific focus on the relationship made between economical, political, and the social aspects of media culture through the advancement of net technology. To support their claim, the authors presented the intensity of the link between the human-made content, the development of technology, and the commercial drive  that shape modern society. From an economical perspective, the authors managed to show interest in the parallel between people’s need to have social relations and making profit. They introduced networked media as the outcome of this parallel. They also explored the concept of ‘Long Tail Economics’, in which there’s a greater demand for less popular items as opposed to the decreasing demand for popular items (hits). As for the technological potential, the authors navigated through the invention of the internet. The authors defined the internet’s data flow using the concept of ‘open architecture’, in which data could flow one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many. Furthermore, an emphasis was put on the world wide web and HTML. HTML is the foundation of web browsers and is responsible for the world wide web’s present social form. With respect to the human aspect of the introduction of new media, the authors tackled with the concept of web 2.0 and the user-generated content (UGC). Web 2.0 is the present state of the web, a state that has a better collaborative nature to it. The communicative nature of web 2.0 resulted in the formation of large social networking sites (SNS). Through the introduction of SNS, media became more of a participatory environment. This gave rise to the user-generated content – blogging, peer-to-peer music, and video sharing on Youtube, where media consumers transformed into producers. As a result, an immense change occurred to the mass media industry, as media isn’t controlled by professionals like it used to.

The authors presentation of information for their target audience – media students- was apparent due to the factual nature of their book. They showed a substantial amount of analysis and demonstration of ideas and concepts. They had a successful attempt in discussing important aspects of the new media. 

This excerpt was useful due to its explanation of the emerging media culture and the factors that played part in its transformation. Since instagram is a social networking site that deals with content production and sharing, these factors and influences should be considered in the exploration of its affordances.