Community (Learning Journal wk4)

Briefly analyse a site that you have come across recently.

Although i've sometimes listened to BBC radio1 as most people have, i have to admit that as weird as this may sound, i have become addicted over the past months to the redio1 site. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1. I think it began while doing research for an essay i had to write. the site gives you information about radio1. The home page lists the week's official chart, gives snippets of the day's news, and hollywood gossip. It also gives links to all that the site has to offer, for example, the dj shows, the schedule, events podcasts, webcam, listen live etc. The site also explores and presents various music cultures such as rock, dance, indie, hip hop, rnb and so on.
The site enbles users to comment on news reports, ranging from politics to Britney's shaved head. More importantly, it offers a listen again/podcast service which allows listeners listen to interviews done with music/film stars and celebrities. The site also allow users post and view pictures online. It also offers pages on the station's dj. Also, the site enables users interact with the dj's i.e. win music cd's, take part in live quiz etc during live shows via email. Furthermore, the site provides hypertext via links to band websites and other music events eg glastonbury.

Selves and Others Online (Learning journal wk 3)

The Killers Forum

This forum serves as a communication medium for the fans of the band. The subscribed users can post new comments, view other comments, chat and share their opinions about the band's music, members, tour dates and gigs. The forum also creates a special friends section which refers to not only friends of the band but also fans and their friends. I.e, they can meet online and interact with people they already know. The dynamics of the forum creates security by requesting individual's details during the siging up process. The security also ensures that absue of the site is limited or almost non existent. The forum allows the use of colloquialisms and in some cases swear words, this accounts for the freedom of expression practiced by the forum. However, absurd language and statements could be frowned upon and could lead to one losing their membership right.

The site allows for freedom of expression as it is a music fan site, therefore one could assume that members all share similar tastes in genre(s) of music. The freedom to express their views about the band mean people can slate the band's album or current release if they are in anyway dissatisfied eg with the tune of a particular song, a member of the band, the tour dates, or the band's performance at gigs. It simply enables fans to discuss what they want from the band in future, their likes and hates. The topics are some times iniciated by fans themselves or sometimes by the band's albel or those in charge of the site. The forum is free and can be used by both genders and those aged 12 and above.

Interactivity and All That.(Learning journal wk2)

Interactivity
http://www.facebook.com

whilst most online communities connect people annonymously, facebook is a community centred around school, company, and university. The idea is to connect and communicate with people you know. It's interactions are based on sharing information with others, looking up those around you and seeing what one's friends are up to. These communications take place via e-mail or instant two-way chat. the site enables people to exchange photos and express themselves and air their views by leaving comments on other people's blogs. The shift from one person's blog to another is possible via hypertext, which makes it easy to surf through links provided.

http://www.comunita.thekillersmusic.com

This online community for 'The Killers' a rock music band enables fans to comuunicate with each other and leave messages for the band. Users also air their views about the band's new releases. Also, the band members use the site as a blog/diary for their fans. This community serves as a social communication forum for users as fans from all over the world can unite on this site and make comments about their idols.
In answering the debate scholars have about the social significance of interactivity, this site proves that online communities are indeed nothing more than a social meeting place for people of all age groups and gender to discuss issues or cultures that appeal to them.

Hypertextuality

Examples of hypertextuality can be found on the google search engine and the you tube website. As little as a single word search on google, provides links to other similar sites. The same occurs on you tube, as one views an online video, similar video links are given for people to view. Hypertext has certaingly worked for you tube and google as it has enabled other sites and videos have more hits than they normally would without the hypertext link. Well...i suppose hypertext could'nt be that bad afterall, or annoying, at least its not a pop-up!

What Are New Media? (Learning Journal wk1)

New Media means basically just that: new media. The latest form of mass communication developed by society always tends to be given this label. In years past it was radio, television, cable TV, satellite TV, etc. Nowadays it tends to be used primarily to talk about emerging digital/electronic communications forms, particularly the internet and the World Wide Web.newpeoplemedia.org/abbreviations-acronyms.htm
New Media is a relatively new (sorry) field that includes all forms of computer-enhanced communication. In addition to digital video, examples of New Media communication are web sites, emails, CD-ROMs, DVDs, streaming audio and video, interactive multimedia presentations, and computer animation. New Media is a convergence of the older styles of communicating with the new, computer-enhanced styles. ...www.newmediabrew.com/terminology.htm

What is Digitisation? (Analogue vs Digital)
In an analogue medium such as an LP record, information is recorded in the form of a direct physical correspondence between the medium and the event that is being captured.
Digital representation involves measuring the original event at frequent intervals and storing those measurements as a string of digitally encoded numbers.
The greater the range of numbers available, the greater is the accuracy and quality of the digitised result.
Data imported into a computer takes up space; the more information used, the greater the storage space required.

In 1977, the world changed with one key stroke when Dave Crocker, a graduate student at the University of Southern California, and his colleagues sent the first electronic mail. That email changed the way humans communicate. Since then, email and similar technology has been connecting people across the globe.Before the emergence of electronic communication, communication meant writing letters, calling on the phone or meeting face to face. Today, we are flooded with possibilities to contact each other. We can send information through emails and online messaging services. We can communicate through text message by mobile phones and some palm pilots.

Online Communication Forms
Image 1. AOL’s online messaging service, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), is the most popular IM service in America. (Click image for larger version)
http://www.jyi.org/features/ft.php?id=258 [accessed: 23/02/07)

COMMUNITY(lecture)

So, its week four. this week's lecture was on community,
the theories and concepts of a virtual community. Guy gave an
example of 'the well', the most famous online community in terms
of history of the cyber space, founded in 1985. From my understanding,
i think one of the main issues for debate is are 'virtual community'
different from 'real community'?. Despite the positives of an online
community, i think it is definately different from a real community
and should in no way be compared to real life. I think people who
indulge in online communities do so as a form of escapism from reality.
I agree with John Perry's question 'is online community truly diverse?'
his answer was 'NO' because we can choose who we engage with. I think
this sums up the realism and not reality of an online community.
Take for example communities /shared sites such as myspace and face book,
you 'add' to your list of friends those you wish to. So, what is the point if you
can sift through whom you wish to talk to or not.
Furthermore, the lecture also covered computer mediated communication
(CMC). Steve Jones in discussing this said with relation to the forms of comm-
unication said "the notion of community depends on cmc and the ability to
share information simultaneously across vast distances". This of course
highlights the positive aspects of a community as it transends beyond space,
time and has almost no limitations.
The exciting thing about cmc is that people can form a new world which they
like and wish to participate in (Neo-centric culture). Whether or not this new
world is beneficial to their growth, communication and social skills remains the
basis for discussion.
As argued in the online seminar, i think an online community aid no social and
communicative skills whatsoever. I disagree that it builds individuals' social skills.
I however think that the strength of online communities is in their ability to give
people a voice, a place to air their views and create changes in their own ways.
I also think accademic communities help people build and improve their
thought processes which is reflected through better and improved writing skills.
Anyway, im finding this quite interesting, contrary to my prior opinion, this
blogging and online seminar definately makes on think. More interesting comments
are on the mchome seminar space, ther i gave my views on music downloads and its
effects on popular music.
Until we meet again mi ever attentive readers, tis' Ta dah! from me,
off to scuff some well deserved chocolate mm!

SELVES AND OTHERS ONLINE(lecture)

So its week three, still need to get used to this, i just lost everything i typed
for this week's post. Anyway...
the lecture was about online relationships. Guy talked about the three era namely;
Oralism, Exhange and Electronic mediation. i agree with Poster's argument
that "nature of the self and its symbolic relationship to the world has shifted"
Although his point is seen as broad and general, i think there is some truth in it.
In this present postmodernism world, people want to be heard, far from the days
of oralism when interaction was face to face, the internet creates the opportunity for
people at different places to air their views. This i suppose is the basis of fear
expressed by many parents who have to endure the pain of their child's online
relationships which in most cases make them an easy target for online grooming/
paedophilia. the various discussions about this issue on the seminar site makes
an interesting read. I suppose at some point, one should expect society to change
the shame however is that abuse of that change is often inevitable. Society today
as was talked about in the lecture has the "freedom to modify itself". A society
whereby reality can be reconstructed through images of reality. Whilst some think
of the idea of online relationships as absurd, without doubt, it is to some a haven
for freedom of expression, which in most cases like an 'open architecure', has
little or no restrictions.