Watching & Listening:
View: Did You Know 4.0
Although this video uses American statistics, it illustrates the rapid changes effecting the production, distribution and consumption of media texts as a result of the digitalisation and convergence of technologies.
Comments:
This is a collection of statements and assumptions that would need a little more detail to be fathomable by those who watch the video. Really - it's a waste of time.
Reading:
Henry Jenkins, "Critical Information studies for a participatory culture (pt 2)", blog post, April 10 2009.
Comments:
Comments:
An interesting article and a lot to discuss. However, my main issue - older generations being left behind and intimidated by the shear vastness and complexity of the Web - is not discussed. Also I am waiting for someone to tell me that trades will be online too, very soon. It seems to me that there is always a little bit of hysteria going along with the 'all new' Web. Of course it is amazing what is possible with new media and it is absolutely fantastic to think that what was impossible few years back is now easily achievable in terms of communication.
Also, sometimes traditional thinking is used to explain how things will develop in the future. There are certainly online communities that block themselves off (silos) against other parts of the online community. However, looking at examples like Facebook or ASmallWorld, participants seem to be happy with the idea of being part of an exclusive society on the Web. But isn't this a behavioural pattern that we can also experience in the real world? Why do clubs attract crowds, when it is very hard to get inside? Because people like to be part of an exclusive society - the in-crowd.
I could go on and on about this...
Class discussions
Response to Deb's questions:
How do you use media?
My habits towards media have changed a lot over the past few years. I immigrated from Germany in 2007 and the first thing I realised was how aggressively media is used to advertise. Watching commercial TV is very annoying as you will spend most of the time staring at the screen while someone is shouting at you, basically telling you that you are stupid if you don't buy their stuff. I get particularly annoyed when I have to watch a stupid commercial over and over again. Top ranking on my hate list are Harvey Norman, Godfrey vacuum cleaners and Coles supermarkets.
Also, what they call news on channel 7, 9 and 10 is hilarious. Mostly it's fallen trees, crashed cars, bad weather and celebrity gossip.
However, ABC TV isn't much better. You get a break from stupid commercials, but current affairs are always about suffering and in terms of feature films or series you might be happy if there is one Australian production featured every two months. Everything else comes from mother England. In terms of news you may get one or the other item from the US or somewhere, where Australian soldiers are stationed. Also news, especially 7.30 Report and Lateline, comprise of the above combined with a game they call interviews. Anchormen and women ask "hard" questions, politicians avoid giving anything away, anchormen and women interrupt and insist on more specific answers, politicians say nothing again, phrasing it a little different etc. pp. However, I do love to watch Q&A every now and then. Not because of the panel, but because of the Tweets displayed at the bottom of the screen. What the public has to say in 140 characters is more interesting than most of what panelists will say during the whole show.
That is why my average TV-digest comprises of 10 minutes per day, watching the weather report on ABC breakfast TV and 2 hours on Fridays, watching Rage.
I don't hear any radio at home because the reception is really bad. Sometimes when I can't afford to take the risk of public transport, because I have to be at work on time, I listen to PBS FM in my car on the way to work. An independent radio station, run by it's members, playing really interesting and awkward stuff. It's all about music and no gossip at all.
I have tried to read The Age for a while, but didn't find the reading very interesting. Also, I hated to crawl around in the shrubs on weekends to find my copy.
What are your preferences within your personal media life - do you read the morning newspapers or get your headlines from the television, news websites, or via posts on Facebook or Twitter (or indeed, all of these and more!). What media do you use for entertainment, information, and communication purposes?
I prefer to engage with others online. My favourite spaces on the Web are Youtube (music, slow TV, recordings from conferences, what social commentators have to say), LinkedIn (job related information, contributing to association groups like APESMA, NAGCAS or networking with business contacts), Twitter (work related announcements, seeking interesting articles or sharing stuff that I find interesting), Facebook (for laughs and to run my "What Are You Listening To Right Now"-group, which is dedicated to popular music that's been forgotten or to share some interesting finds with other group members and to comment on them).
Also, sometimes traditional thinking is used to explain how things will develop in the future. There are certainly online communities that block themselves off (silos) against other parts of the online community. However, looking at examples like Facebook or ASmallWorld, participants seem to be happy with the idea of being part of an exclusive society on the Web. But isn't this a behavioural pattern that we can also experience in the real world? Why do clubs attract crowds, when it is very hard to get inside? Because people like to be part of an exclusive society - the in-crowd.
I could go on and on about this...
Class discussions
Response to Deb's questions:
How do you use media?
My habits towards media have changed a lot over the past few years. I immigrated from Germany in 2007 and the first thing I realised was how aggressively media is used to advertise. Watching commercial TV is very annoying as you will spend most of the time staring at the screen while someone is shouting at you, basically telling you that you are stupid if you don't buy their stuff. I get particularly annoyed when I have to watch a stupid commercial over and over again. Top ranking on my hate list are Harvey Norman, Godfrey vacuum cleaners and Coles supermarkets.
Also, what they call news on channel 7, 9 and 10 is hilarious. Mostly it's fallen trees, crashed cars, bad weather and celebrity gossip.
However, ABC TV isn't much better. You get a break from stupid commercials, but current affairs are always about suffering and in terms of feature films or series you might be happy if there is one Australian production featured every two months. Everything else comes from mother England. In terms of news you may get one or the other item from the US or somewhere, where Australian soldiers are stationed. Also news, especially 7.30 Report and Lateline, comprise of the above combined with a game they call interviews. Anchormen and women ask "hard" questions, politicians avoid giving anything away, anchormen and women interrupt and insist on more specific answers, politicians say nothing again, phrasing it a little different etc. pp. However, I do love to watch Q&A every now and then. Not because of the panel, but because of the Tweets displayed at the bottom of the screen. What the public has to say in 140 characters is more interesting than most of what panelists will say during the whole show.
That is why my average TV-digest comprises of 10 minutes per day, watching the weather report on ABC breakfast TV and 2 hours on Fridays, watching Rage.
I don't hear any radio at home because the reception is really bad. Sometimes when I can't afford to take the risk of public transport, because I have to be at work on time, I listen to PBS FM in my car on the way to work. An independent radio station, run by it's members, playing really interesting and awkward stuff. It's all about music and no gossip at all.
I have tried to read The Age for a while, but didn't find the reading very interesting. Also, I hated to crawl around in the shrubs on weekends to find my copy.
What are your preferences within your personal media life - do you read the morning newspapers or get your headlines from the television, news websites, or via posts on Facebook or Twitter (or indeed, all of these and more!). What media do you use for entertainment, information, and communication purposes?
I prefer to engage with others online. My favourite spaces on the Web are Youtube (music, slow TV, recordings from conferences, what social commentators have to say), LinkedIn (job related information, contributing to association groups like APESMA, NAGCAS or networking with business contacts), Twitter (work related announcements, seeking interesting articles or sharing stuff that I find interesting), Facebook (for laughs and to run my "What Are You Listening To Right Now"-group, which is dedicated to popular music that's been forgotten or to share some interesting finds with other group members and to comment on them).
How often might you use these different media?
I am a fan of seldom heard music. I love to listen and explore it and find a gem every now and then. This is why I am on YouTube a lot. I think it's my favourite entertainment area.
At work I am online on LinkedIn and Twitter most of the time.
We have a Facebook page to engage with our students. As an administrator I regularly update the account or delete inappropriate entries from third parties. Also, I make sure that comments or questions about posts are attended for a.s.a.p.
How might the views on media developments differ between students and friends/family/older generations/different cultures, and why? You can think about your own personal experience as well as the readings for this week in answering the questions!
I could write a book to answer this question, looking back at the development of media, post vinyl and cassette tape. It is a bit more than 25 years ago, during the New Wave era, that CDs became popular. In the mid 90s we started developing our own Websites. 10 years later Web 2.0 happened and slowly began to deteriorate the media monopoly of the big news agencies, music labels and any organisation that was engaged in filtering and delivering information, from news to entertainment, to the masses.
The development of the digital world as we know it today has commenced at neck breaking speed. And it seems to me that the speed is still increasing.
My own experience is that specifically older people who are not or have not been particularly engaged in IT are falling behind, having trouble to understand this increasingly crazy world. My mum is scared of the Internet and only uses her Web connection for emails. She doesn't even open attachments.
I am a fan of seldom heard music. I love to listen and explore it and find a gem every now and then. This is why I am on YouTube a lot. I think it's my favourite entertainment area.
At work I am online on LinkedIn and Twitter most of the time.
We have a Facebook page to engage with our students. As an administrator I regularly update the account or delete inappropriate entries from third parties. Also, I make sure that comments or questions about posts are attended for a.s.a.p.
How might the views on media developments differ between students and friends/family/older generations/different cultures, and why? You can think about your own personal experience as well as the readings for this week in answering the questions!
I could write a book to answer this question, looking back at the development of media, post vinyl and cassette tape. It is a bit more than 25 years ago, during the New Wave era, that CDs became popular. In the mid 90s we started developing our own Websites. 10 years later Web 2.0 happened and slowly began to deteriorate the media monopoly of the big news agencies, music labels and any organisation that was engaged in filtering and delivering information, from news to entertainment, to the masses.
The development of the digital world as we know it today has commenced at neck breaking speed. And it seems to me that the speed is still increasing.
My own experience is that specifically older people who are not or have not been particularly engaged in IT are falling behind, having trouble to understand this increasingly crazy world. My mum is scared of the Internet and only uses her Web connection for emails. She doesn't even open attachments.
To the contrary, students at the university, where I work organise their life around their iPhone. There is nothing awkward to them about sitting around a table in a cafe and texting away rather than engaging in face-to-face communication. In places like Finland there are already more mobile phones than inhabitants. You might assume that mobile phone applications are a great pass time to get them through a long and dark winter...
I think, that there has always been a lot of chauvinism involved in being IT-savvy. If you weren't up to using the latest technology, that made you uncool in an instant. Not having a CD-player, later not having your own Website even later not being on Twitter or Facebook and finally not having an iPhone, Blackberry or Samsung Galaxy was very uncool. I'll reveal something here: I don't like my mobile phone at all. It's not even an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy. It's a stock standard Nokia, but it can read QR-code. You don't know what QR-code is? That is so 2011. Anyway, I hate being called at all hours by friends who are bored and just want to talk to someone. These friends are so "me" that they don't even get it that I might actually have something more important to do than listening to their rant. On the other hand I don't have to attend to every single call if I don't want to.
Today the CIO of ComputerShare held a presentation in front of our students, explaining the undertakings of the organisation and which technology they use, to our students. As a representative of my department that organises the presentations I was around, trying to follow what he was talking about. It has always amazed me how much these people know about IT. While I completely lost the plot, students engaged in asking questions about certain technological aspects and laughed together with the CIO where I didn't even get the joke. It is almost like a parallel world, a culture silo that exists next to the "real world".
While this is a western culture experience there are also those people in 3rd world countries who cannot even write or read. I wonder if they will ever be able to catch up with the development in the first world or if they will stay behind forever.
I think, that there has always been a lot of chauvinism involved in being IT-savvy. If you weren't up to using the latest technology, that made you uncool in an instant. Not having a CD-player, later not having your own Website even later not being on Twitter or Facebook and finally not having an iPhone, Blackberry or Samsung Galaxy was very uncool. I'll reveal something here: I don't like my mobile phone at all. It's not even an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy. It's a stock standard Nokia, but it can read QR-code. You don't know what QR-code is? That is so 2011. Anyway, I hate being called at all hours by friends who are bored and just want to talk to someone. These friends are so "me" that they don't even get it that I might actually have something more important to do than listening to their rant. On the other hand I don't have to attend to every single call if I don't want to.
Today the CIO of ComputerShare held a presentation in front of our students, explaining the undertakings of the organisation and which technology they use, to our students. As a representative of my department that organises the presentations I was around, trying to follow what he was talking about. It has always amazed me how much these people know about IT. While I completely lost the plot, students engaged in asking questions about certain technological aspects and laughed together with the CIO where I didn't even get the joke. It is almost like a parallel world, a culture silo that exists next to the "real world".
While this is a western culture experience there are also those people in 3rd world countries who cannot even write or read. I wonder if they will ever be able to catch up with the development in the first world or if they will stay behind forever.
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