Annie Moon-Arkell

For some reason the Dumitrica, Delia & Gaden, Georgia reading would not open on my computer so I will have to stick with Meadows.

Meadows writes a passionate account of his own personal immersion in avatars and society’s immersion as a whole. Virtual worlds are, by nature, somewhat immersive. Unlike video game worlds, virtual worlds are immersive because they contain people. Actual, real people. Virtual worlds are immersive because they represent the same complex social interplay and situations that you get in the physical world. If you think that Second Life is more full of drama than the physical world, you don’t get out enough.

Meadows also discusses paedophilia. In second life there are some areas where avatars dressed as children were offering virtual prostitution. Role-playing and sex are two common activities on Second Life, and users frequently select avatars of different genders, races, ages or even species, and then do it like they do on the discovery channel, so to speak.

The problem with this is that although the ‘play’ it between two consenting adults it can be seen as a promotion of the act in real life as well. There is a worry that some may not separate the values and structures of second life from those of the real world.

Resources-

Mark Stephen Meadows. “Why?” I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life. Indianapolis: New Rider s, 2008. pg. 82-87

Second Life is a virtual world where people can explore, interact, socialise, play and work all in the form of avatars. With the growing popularity of Second Life people are forgetting how ‘virtual’ the world really is. Second life has become more than just ‘ones and zeros rendered on a computer screen’. Boellostorff describes second life as ‘a resident-built environment organised around the creating and selling of objects’(Boellestorff, 2008, pg 97). People invest real emotions, time and money into the game which make many feel the happenings and tribulations inside the worlds are then also ‘real’(Boellestorff, 2008, pg 93).

Boellostorff talks of this ‘realness’ in relation to space, arguing that ‘placemaking is absolutely foundational to virtual worlds.’ (Boellestorff, 2008, pg 91). He analyses how Second Life makes land owning and building as realistic and cultural synchronised as possible; noting the emotional investment into land ownership and use.

Boellostorff goes on to explore the technical side of ‘builds’. Explaining the ‘prism’ allocation, being as a resident owns a piece of land they are only given a certain amount of prisms to build on that land as the world will then load at a faster rate.

Resources –
Boellestorff, Tom. Chapter 4: “Place and Time”. Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Pg 89-117.

“The emergence of the Web has intensified the conflict between fans and the legal owners of mass cultural properties because of the Web has enabled fans to create more dispersed communities of popular cultural commentary.”
(Coombe and Herman, 2001, p.926)

With the emergence of new digital cultures a ‘war’ has begun. On one side, the corporate world, on the other, the fans. Cooperation’s become the owners of ‘trademarks’. This semiotic possession allows them to ‘shape forms of symbolic practice’ (Coombe, Rosemary and Herman, Andrew 2001, p922). The main issues surrounding the ownership of trademarks are the possible defamation by outside contributors such as fans. Fans using trademarks such as Barbie, Coke and Playboy have the ability to change the meaning of the sign at the companies disadvantage; therefore cooperation’s vigorously fight to protect their ‘signs’.

Cooperation’s are faced with the choice to either “reincorporate fan activity within the symbolic economy of mass culture or … attempt to eliminate it altogether” (p.926). This mettlesome fighting cannot always be beneficial, for instance some online fan culture can function as a form of free advertising. It is therefore more beneficial to incorporate the fan culture rather than abrade it.
Personally I believe self defined copyright systems are a much more current way of licensing. These include companies such as creative commons which encourages the communal creation of culture. Cracking down on personal creativity by the sole ownership of certain shapes symbols and ideas is only limiting cultures growth.

Coombe, Rosemary and Herman, Andrew 2001, ‘Culture Wars on the Net: Intellectual Property and Corporate Propriety in Digital Environments’, The South Atlantic Quarterly, vol 100 issue 4, p.919 -944

Our good friend Wikipedia defines evil as ‘something that is immoral, causes pain or harm, is offensive, or threatening’ (Wikipedia, 2010).

Is Google immoral? Probably.

Does it cause pain or harm? Not directly but in a stalker-Googling-you-and-possibly-stabbing-you kind of way, yeah, maybe.

Is it offensive? If you search hard enough.

Threatening? Yep. Threatening to our privacy and threatening to its competition.

Does this answer your question? No? Damn!

So Google changed the way we acquire information.  Their desperation for data collection has lead to a threat to our privacy and suddenly our server is a huge informational hub at the easy access of stalkers, hackers, online thieves, and possibly our government. But is Google evil or the people who have access to it?  Google doesn’t always do the right thing and it will probably continue that way but will it come alive and kill us all? No.

From the start, Google’s casual motto has been “Don’t Be Evil,” but Google’s entire value proposition is to figure out what people want and this comes at a price, our privacy. Google works hard to protect its “not evil” image but like any company, ‘Faced with doing the right thing or doing what is in its best interests, Google has almost always chosen expediency’(Penenberg, A L 2007). Again, Does this make them evil or unfortunately normal?

Google is frequently dubbed as ‘evil’ by struggling publishers who are now realizing offering free online content probably wasn’t the best idea. So now ‘Google–the ultimate source of free content’ is suddenly fired upon as the problem (McCarthy, C, 2009). Google insists it is not part of the problem but rather part of the solution (Macgillivray , A, 2009). Google insists they work hard to help publishers earn revenue. ‘Our AdSense program pays out millions of dollars to newspapers that place ads on their sites, and our goal is that our interest-based advertising technology will help newspapers make more from each click we send them by serving better, more relevant ads to their readers to generate higher returns.’ (Macgillivray , A, 2009)

So Google probably isn’t evil. They may not be a colossal angel sending love rays around the globe and they may choose money over their conscience at times, but they are not evil. The real problem is they hold too much power and no one should hold that much power except you and me right? Yes Google is very powerful and therefore we should have one eye on them at all times and scrutinize their every move, but evil? Really? Talk to me when they start making man-eating spiders.

References-

McCarthy, C, 2009, Google To Publishers: We’re Not Evil,10/03/2010,http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/07/tech/cnettechnews/main4926528.shtml

Macgillivray , A, 2009, Some questions related to Google News and the Associated Press, 10/03/2009, http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/04/some-questions-related-to-google-news.html

Munster, A 2008, ‘Welcome to Google Earth’, in Critical Digital Studies: A Reader, eds Kroker, A & Kroker, M, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, pp.398-416.

Penenberg, A L 2007, Is Google Evil, 09/03/2010, http://motherjones.com/politics/2006/10/google-evil

Wikipedia, 2010, Evil, 10/03/2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil

http://momotruths.tumblr.com/post/1019165371/via-saturdaysandsex-gotcaughtdaydreaming-wattt

I am a fan of the simple and the bland. I myself am a photo blogger, not on Flicker, as it is far too convoluted for my simple and bland mind so I blog on Tumblr. The aim of my blog is to amass photos that are beautiful in their simplicity; naked and vulnerable bodies, twisted old trees, giggling children. The types of everyday happenings that make you smile and can take your breath away. I agree photography is changing but so is every other aspect of culture. Cry me a river.

I’m not going to deny that blog sites such as flickr can be a bit absurd at times, for instance Murrays windows group example.  Having said this, of the millions of people blogging beautiful and moving work on Flickr a small few make a asinine group and suddenly the site is removing respect of ‘ traditional amateur/professional hierarchies’? I take at least one photo a day but don’t count myself as a photographer. I have never been trained, I don’t know what I’m doing and my photos are nothing compared to the greats. The greats with whom I RESPECT.

You could call my taste insipid and some do but beauty in simplicity will always hold my heart.

http://textthings.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/texting2.jpg

Mobile technology is my life and at life’s throbbing heart is my iPhone. For me the Apple IPhone was inevitable. It is apparent that iPhones have ‘risen to such prominence that they have become a kind of icon, or iCon, of the age’ (Beer, D 2008) and despite competition from other phone companies has risen above the pack (Murray, D. C, 2008). The iPhone functions both as a signal adaptation of the mobile phone at the same time as it introduces new practices and politics of adaptation.

The introduction of the iPhone ‘underscores the active role that people play in the orchestration and use of culture’ (Goggin, G 2009). It is evident that mobile phones have become an object by which we are known and identified (Cupples, Thompson p.2 2010), not only by those who are contacted by it but also by those who see us use it. Through our uses of iPhones, through the way we act out these uses, we define our belongings and our identities. What was invented as a communications tool, something with a distinct use for those out of reach of a landline has become a token of respect and status. Simply put, iPhones have developed a cultural meaning beyond their use and we have adopted them as part of our popular culture.

As Will helpfully concludes ‘Cupples and Thompson put the popularity of texting not just down to cost, but also because texting facilitates the creation of identity’(Dawson, W 2010). ‘Cell phones are proving to be socially useful (…) as they negotiate the complexities of making friends, meeting people, and constructing identity and self’(Cupples, J, Thompson, L (2010).It is evident that to be unplugged is to be an outsider.There are new speeds and rhythms of everyday social practice, new connections between global and local culture, and the creation of new spaces, places and meanings, all of which create a contrast between contemporary social meaning and that of just a decade or two ago.

iPhones and similar tecnologies have also made mobile technology a fetish, there is now such an immense emotional meaning attached. iPhones have brought to life mankind’s narcissistic tendencies and the vital importance of human connection in today’s world of electronic communication. Now days a person is defined less by what culture they enjoy than by the mobile they use to store and transmit it.

Resources -

Beer, D 2008, ‘THE ICONIC INTERFACE AND THE VENEER OF SIMPLICITY:MP3 players and the reconfiguration of music collecting and reproduction practices in the digital age’, Information, Communication & Society, 1468-4462, Volume 11, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 71 – 88, accessed 27/08/2010, Informaworld

Cupples, J, Thompson, L (2010), Heterosexuality and Digital Foreplay’, Feminist Media Studies, vol 10, issue 1, pp1-17.

Goggin, G 2009, ‘Adapting the mobile phone: The iPhone and its consumption’, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 1469-3666, Volume 23, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 231 – 244, accessed 28/08/2010, Informaworld, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10304310802710546

Gordon, J 2009, ‘The Mobile Phone: An Artefact of Popular Culture and a Tool of the Public Sphere’,Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, September 2002; vol. 8, 3: pp. 15-26, accessed 27/08/2010, http://con.sagepub.com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/content/8/3/15.full.pdf+html

Murray, D. C, 2008, ‘iReference: Using Apple’s iPhone as a Reference Tool’,The Reference Librarian, 1541-1117, Volume 49, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 167 – 170, accessed 28/08/2010, Informaworld

Dawson, W 2010, Heterosexuality and Digital Foreplay, http://uowblogs.com/digcwvd566/2010/09/05/heterosexuality-and-digital-foreplay/

After reading the Lange reading I began to think of just how many ‘friends’ youtube celebrities actually attract. Lange believes that  once a performer opens their work to the public they may then attract an array of strangers which then creates celebrity.  Some videos become famous and rack up hundreds of thousands of views. Many videos of docile things such as the singing of a popular song or a comedy routines achieve YouTube fame, but the desire for such fame has led to dangerous undertakings and incidents such as the making of fighting videos.

Sometimes fame was not always welcomed. For those who haven’t read about the YouTube Star Wars Kid I suggest you do. It was in 2003 when a student came accross a video on one of the school cameras. It was of a fellow student swinging a golf ball retriever around as a weapon. The video was distributed amongst school students until one uploaded it to the internet and eventually it became a viral meme through YouTube. The student was harrassed so badly he is under constant sycological care and filed a $250,000 harassment law suit.

When doing a little research for this blog I also came across this video. The vídeo ‘The Machine is (Changing) us, YouTube Culture and the Politcs of Authenticity’ is a record of a speach by Michael Wesch (2009) in the ‘Personal Democracy Forum’. In the video Wesch states that the new media supports the search of ourselves, but also changes the way we do that and, at the same time, changes notions such as authenticity. He asks who we are talking to when we present ourselves in YouTube or other services like blogs, micro-blogging or social networks. He also suggests that it now seems to be important, not how the other sees me, but how I will see me in an other moment on the Internet.

Lange, P 2008, ‘Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube’, Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, vol 13, pp 361-380

In my family there is a very clear generation gap between, well, my little sister (aged 15) and everyone else (18+). This is most clearly reflected in our differing uses of online communities. My little sister communicates through msn and Myspace whereas the rest of my family can be found on Skype and Facebook. Neither side of the gap understands one another or their choices.

After discussions with my family I have concluded the differentiation can be found on two levels. To quote my little sister ‘Myspace is fun and colorful and Facebook is boring’. When Myspace began the company decided to be dissimilar and allow HTML editing. This allowed users to change the color, theme and other appearances of their personal profile. While this is very amusing it is also time consuming; A commodity that the older generations do not have to throw around. Therefore the more straightforward and uncomplicated site, Facebook, became a haven for the ‘mature’

It seems the switch from Myspace to Facebook has almost become a rite of passage. My middle sister (18) and I both switched over to Facebook as we moved into our senior years at highschool. A year apart, we both moved as our lives began to fill with school, social and work commitments. Neither of us saw it as a comfortable move but both believe we had no choice as our social circles were no longer on Myspace. From the beginning Facebook was restricted to the 18+ crowd and although they have opened their doors to anyone and everyone the demographics have barely changed.

Boyd, Danah and Ellison, Nicole (2007), ‘Social Networking Sites: Definition, History,and Scholarship’, Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, vol.13, no.1, pp. 210-230.

In the future I hope to become an image consultant. Therefore I am using this project to research my love and explore the world of consultancy.

Already I have done alot of backround reserach in order to fill the website but i cannot yet put it on there as i am still finding my feet in the google sites world.

I have named my site ‘New Moon Consultancy’. Mainly to stroke my ego and incorporate my own name and also the connotations of the saying new moon.

http://www.tcd.ie/disability/projects/DS3/images/facebook.jpg

Many live in a haze of ignorance to the power and influence that social networking sites such as facebook hold. We contentedly flock to these online communities, flaunting our private information in what Gregg Cohen (2008, pg 207) describes as ‘broadcast impulse’. It is not often that we sit back and consider what it is that is keeping these sites running. These sites feed of our harvested personal information. As Cohen expresses ‘Facebook’s economic model is based on monetizing user-generated content’

The main issue we find in these sites is that of privacy.  As Cohen points out ‘Facebook itself has acknowledged that members’ data may be used without consent’. Now while this sharing of data may not be particularly damming it is a question of the basic human right to privacy. Why do these ‘people of power’ suddenly have the right to literarily sell our ‘likes’. Do we really sign it all away when we click ‘accept?

On the other side of the debate is the premise that is it us, the users, that should limit our broadcasting; that it is infact our fault for giving them the information in the first place. This is true, and we are in part responsible for our own actions but it is the manipulation and control that surfaces when proceedings such as the simple act of becoming a fan of a particular page creates a cesspool of  data we are not aware of creating.

Cohen, Nicole,2008, ‘Gendering Facebook: Privacy and Commodification’, Journal of Feminist Media Studies, vol 8 issue 2, pp.210-214