This week in the tutorial (the last one seemingly for a while) we had Elaine as Seth was sick. Because last week’s tutorial and lecture fell on a public holiday we didn’t have it, so this week Elaine recapped and went through last week’s topic which was affordances. After we were up to date Elaine then went through what is expected with the blog posts and the first assignment.
After the tutorial was the lecture which focused on this weeks topic of: ‘The Network”.
From the readings, we gathered 4 main insights.
1. THE INTERNET IS NOT THE WEB
This was something that I wasn’t aware of as I used both terms interchangeably, which now I realise isn’t the case. Elaine used a great a analogy to make both terms clear. The internet is like the roads, and the web is the shops. The internet is the framework that the web lives in.
2. THE WEB DECENTRALISED INFORMATION
The three main methods of distributing information is centralised, decentralised and distributed.
Centralised information when all information comes from one point. For example a village having one newspaper.
Decentralised information is when information comes from multiple points. For example a city having multiple newspapers.
Distributed information is when every person has access to information. For example everyone having their own newspaper.
The web radically distributes information in a mode that is highly networked and non-hierarchical. Information on the internet uses the distributed mode of information dissemination.
3. “THE NETWORK” IS A COMMUNICATION PARADIGM
The internet depends on communication. It is like a train network, each stop (or website) is visited by commuters using the rail tracks and trains (internet) to connect information in a hyper decentralised form.
4. USER-GENERATED CONTENT AFFECTS US ALL
The web affords user-generated content to be shared and viewed by anyone with a connection. This is great as it democratises everything from information to video content. We no longer rely on people educated in a specific field to show us what we need. For example, we can now watch videos on YouTube filmed by someone with their phone. Rather than watching a video on a projector managed by a projectionist, filmed on a video camera by someone who went to film school to use. “New media technologies have profoundly altered the relations between media producers and consumers” (Jenkins in Lister et al 2009, 222). However, this means things that are false can be shared with with everyone thinking they’re real allowing things like false information to be shared and widely believed.
I found these insights from the readings very useful in understanding how the network works. Getting a better understanding of the network has made understanding the course prompt easier.