We started our first tutorial of Networked Media on the first day of Semester 1, interestingly before our first lecture. In the tutorial we briefly discussed what the rest of the semester would consist of and what was expected of us and the aim for the course, which is to:

“think far more critically about the media you use”

Then the lecturer briefly introduced themselves and their career so far. Students then introduced themselves to those around them.

This then led nicely into the “meat of the sandwich” which is the course prompt for the semester:

“How do the affordances of Instagram affect the way photos and videos are authored, published and distributed in the network?” 

In small groups we discussed what we liked and disliked about Instagram then shared those thoughts with the class whilst the lecturer noted them down. Our group liked how Instagram takes most of the best features of the other major social media platforms with features like direct messaging, disappearing photos and stories. However, we didn’t like the self-centered behaviour Instagram encourages with people getting caught up in the likes and followers number games and the impact it can have on mental health.

We then briefly read the text Software Literacy. Education and Beyond from pages 1-12 and discussed different points of it in our small groups and then presented those thoughts to the class. The lecturer mentioned this reading was the last reading of last semester but for this semester was the first reading. I believe this was done because the article outlines the software foundations that our modern society is now built upon and that to understand these terms and theories makes understanding more complicated and specialized areas of software and social media easier.

During the lecture we discussed the differences of authoring, publishing and distributing media online compared to traditional media and social media. Essentially in traditional media each one of those areas has a more defined section. For instance making a film: production is authoring, editing is publishing and distributing the final product throughout cinemas is distributing. Where as in social media it is a more abstract process as authoring, publishing and distributing is done with a couple of button presses and filters.

Then we returned to the course prompt to round off the end of the lecture.