Final Blog

As we come to the close of summer school I would like to thank you for reading my blog, it certainly has been an interesting experience posing as a citizen journalist, you never know, I might just keep it up!

Tutorial task 9

Media inventory:
This is a stock inventory of all of the media I have encountered today:
- I woke up to the alarm on my iPhone, and had an SMS waiting for me
- I turned on my laptop, checked my facebook, and my emails
- I listened to my iPod on my iPhone as I got dressed to come to uni
- I turned my laptop back on to check the Griffith portal to make sure class is still on
- at the bus stop I read the bus timetable- and read it again when the bus was 15mins late (yes I'm aware that doesn't actually convey my aguish to the bus but I feel like it helps)
- once the bus finally arrived, there was colorful sticker advertisement on the side of the bus, and many posters on the bus, advertisement for the go-card system, info about the fare increases, etc
- along the bus trip I saw billboards, street signs, stop signs, electronic road signs
- as the bus approached the uni I saw the 'Griffith university' signs, on campus there are a variety of bulleient boards, writing on the buildings for building and room numbers, more griffith uni signs
- in the lecture the lecture notes were displayed on the projector screen, Adam spoke to us, and videos and pictures were shown, I took notes during the lecture on my iPad, and may have checked my emails and facebook (of course not while you were speaking Adam)
- walking around campus I saw a guy wearing a Kurt Cobain tee shirt, with a picture of him in a straightjacket and the words "I hate myself and I want to die" on the back
- there was even advertisement from the uni about hygiene and safety on the back of the toilet door

I guess this would be a typical day in my life (while at Uni), and since we are only half way through the day there would be more, pretty much everything in reverse as I make the trip back home, then some TV.

I thought it would be more interesting/accurate to give an account of all the media I have experienced today, rather then trying to think of what I would have encountered on a typical day, because I would never have thought of half the things on my list.

It is somewhat amusing, possibly even a tad alarming to see how much media, in all its various forms that I encounter everyday, we are overloaded by messages everyday in modern society, and it really does highlight the message from todays lecture, that the media is invisible in our environment unless you selectively choose to pay attention to it!

Response to lecture 9

"The present is always invisible because it is environmental" (McLuhan, 1969)- the environment around us is invisible, unless cognitive attention is paid, you are not aware of the temperature, or the brightness of the light, it is there but unless specific attention is paid it is invisible from a sensory perspective. McLuhan's quote refers to the media in our environment. We are not aware of the media around us, unless conscious effort it is made to perceive it directly. all media within our perceptual field contributes to our environment, we belong to an ecosystem of the media, just as we belong to an ecosystem of the environment. Your experience of the media is not singular, we do not receive information from one media, we have tv, Internet, social interactions, media is intergretted into our every day lives, into our environment.
To move away from a conceptual ideal of understanding the role of the media in our environment, that the media is an invisible part of our environment, to a working application: the social, historical and technological context of media is always invisible. I think that is the message I have really taken away from this class is that media is part of our environment, and I'm only aware of the context and of the media itself now I hold it in conscious awareness.



*** Essay Update! Up and raring along on the essay front now! I am using second Life as my example and found a bunch of great articles (E.g. Walbot, 2009; Boellstorff, 2008; Varvello et al, 2008)
In my search to see if Reingolds concept of 'virtual community' is useful im comparing and contrasting it with the concept that internet interactions are 'participatory genre'

Response to lecture 8: 2nd life vid

In today's lecture we watched a four corners documentary looking at the online game 'second life'. I had been vaguely aware of the game, as having been a previous Sims addict (it's so sad there are no support groups!), it had been described to me as Sims gone viral, but seeing as I barely had enough time for my first life, it never really interested me. The video gave insight into a different aspect of the game, rather then the socially limiting, possibly psychologically scarring effects of having a life online rather then engaging in life hyped by other media. No the focus of this documentary was big business! It described how users had made real life millions off selling imagery property or items in the game. This raised an interesting point to me: ownership on the Internet. In previous classes we had look at issues of creative commons and copy right- issues of ownership of work you publish on the Internet, and how you may give others the right to reuse, edit and broadcast your work. It's interesting to contrast ownership on figurative of a mile of space on cyberspace as in second life, and ownership issues of works you publish on the Internet. In second life, you are paying real world money for imaginary property, ownership is not only stated by Second Life, but it is implied by the fact that you have paid money for something. But does ownership exist on the Internet? If nothing is tangible on the Internet, you can't physically touch or hold your Second Life property, nor can you touch and hold your blog or a paper you have written and placed on the Internet. If nothing on the Internet is tangible then can ownership can ever really exist?



*** Essay update! You have pushed me too far copyright! I found getting my head around the legal jargon on copyright just too difficult without a law degree! Inspired by todays lecture I have switched to the essay topic on whether Reingolds concept of 'virtual community' is useful for understanding todays online activity. I started off by reading his original 1993 work, it was entertaining, and interesting from a historical perspective, in him speaking about his daughter thinking his friends were trapped in his computer (I wonder how a 7yo in how modern society with view his internet interactions?), but Im not sure i really like his definition!
I found a few articles talking about virtual communities (E.g. Wellman, 1996; Erickson, 2002; Gefen & Riding, 2004)
The one I particularly liked was Wellman (1996), who disagreed with Reingolds definition of virtual community and suggested that it may be more useful to view online interactions as participatory genre rather than a 'community'

Response to lecture 8: Jason Nelson

In the introduction to this class we were introduced to the work of Marshall McLuhan, who conceptualised the idea of how we use media and communication as "media is the message". The work of Jason Nelson is an example of art where the medium is not merely the way in which the message is conveyed but media is the message.
The pieces of Jason Nelsons work I reviewed are:
-Stunning Harmful Songs:
An interesting piece which integrated video, sound and pictures. There are options of different songs, 1-9, which have a different theme, heaven, dead etc. I am not sure what the intended message is here, one of the themes is entitled 'Sabastopole', where a background picture of a city of beautiful lights, with fireworks type graphics and the heading 'Sabastopole, city of the future' is contrasted with a video of a graveyard, and Jason signing repeatedly the word Sabastopole. My interpretation of this piece is demonstrating the human path of destruction, despite any advancement in society or technology life still ends.

-game, game, game, game and again game:
This game integrates images, sounds and movies presented as a game platform is a true example of multimedia net art. Although, in all honest opinion this does not appeal to me, i found it loud and distracting, yet im sure this medium does appeal to a certain audience.

-poetry cube:
I like this piece the most, poetry presented in a spinning cube, where at any point the receiver can alter the poem, editing the order of the lines to make a new piece of work. This piece is interactive, more so then the others because not only is the audience clicking buttons and engaging with the piece they are actually altering what they see, changing the meaning interpretation of the piece

Tutorial 7: political participation

In an effort in to become politically active (as with Adams many literary quems, the term 'active' is one of mine... now that I am 'politically active', will I someday deactivate?- yet totally off topic)...
I have engaged in a variety of activities to 'push' my political agenda and become involved in the political area:
-As a Gold Coast resident I completed a longitudinal study on GC council consultations
-I twitted Barrack Obama & Julia Gillard (Juls is looking forward to a BBQ for Australia day tomorrow)
-I voted in a government e-poll, indicating that I do believe Australia is doing enough for climate change
-I wrote a response to professional news blogger Janet Albrechtsen blog 'Turnbull tolls own death knell', that I believe her analogy of Malcom Turnball as Shakespears Brutus is apt


With the political activation (or state of being politically activated) I achieved in 40mins in the tutorial maybe it is possible that the internet is becoming the new political area?

Response to lecture 7

"Oh won't somebody please think of the children!"... I bet you can hear Helen Lovejoys voice in your head right now.

In today's lecture the concept of government filtering content was introduced. From an idealised perspective protecting children's innocent eyes from the evils of pornography seems to be a noble pursuit. But as was discussed in the lecture, if censorship of content is introduced in any capacity where does it end?. If the government was to filter content they deem 'inappropriate' are they not filtering our rights as adults to view content that via any other media we are allowed to view. And if a filtering system was to be introduced to our Australian Internet system, blocking pornography, removing our rights to view pornography, what is to stop the government 'filtering' any other content they perceive as inappropriate? What if anti-government content was perceived to be inappropriate? What if any content from an opposing political party was deemed inappropriate for citizens to view. Any internet content filtering system would censor not only content but our rights. If the government, religious groups, parents and Helen Lovejoy are concerned about what children are viewing on the Internet then there needs to be more parental involvement in childrens Internet usage. Don't want your child looking at porn, or sites on how to construct bombs? Than don't let your child use the Internet unsupervised (or have access to large amounts of fertilizer), censoring my rights as an Australian is not the answer to your problem.




*** Essay update! I am starting to majorly struggle with the concept of copyright, the concepts here are either so abstract or so overly specific that you do not imply to the general concept of what copyright is. There is also so many years of history to review :/ copyright you are starting to wear on my last nerve! On the plus side I have found some good case examples for creative commons!
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/OER_Case_Studies