Blog, week 11; Aggregation

This is a video blog on Aggregation. It discusses some readings from Weeks 11 and 12, in particular, Guillaud's (2010) and Edward's (2010) readings, and the trend towards aggregation on a global scale, the positive effects of this, and the tools needed to develop a global aggregation of information that can be accessible to the wider community. I can provide the written form of this blog if required.

VIDEOBLOG:  

 Bibliography:

Dodson, Wes (2009) ‘Dawn of the Systems Age’, Page 3.14 <http://scienceblogs.com/seed/2009/12/dawn_of_the_systems_age.php#more>

 Edwards, Paul N. (2010) A Vast Machine Cambridge, MA:MIT Press. Read pages xiii-xxiii (in“The Introduction’) and all of ‘Chapter One’. You can download both of these from <http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12080&mode=toc>. [I’m hoping these remain available, which is likely .. it's very worthwhile buying and reading this book. I've done so and it's really quite something]

Guillaud, Hubert (2010) (on Danah Boyd) ‘What is implied by living in a world of flow?’, Truthout, January 6, <http://www.truthout.org/what-implied-living-a-world-flow56203>

Nachmanovitch, Stephen (n.d.) [1982] ‘Gregory Bateson: Old Men Should Be Explorers’, Whole Earth Catalog (‘Understanding Whole Systems’ section) <http://www.wholeearth.com/issue/2035/article/298/gregory.bateson.old.men.ought.to.be.explorers

My YouTube video, uploaded from my computers webcam: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2tFZtu1h2w&feature=youtu.be

Presentation link...

http://prezi.com/0foevytm8z-v/does-context-sell/

Blog, week 9; Do visual media work differently to other media forms?

Blog week 9:



image:
  
Visual media and visualisation in general differ to other forms of media in the way that they communicate their messages to the public. Visual media is used to communicate information that other forms of media may not be able to communicate. For instance, in this week’s readings, the topic of climate change has been discussed, in both a positive and a negative light (Anon, 2009). One recurring theme in the readings is of visual media, in particular graphs, that are used to represent otherwise complex data strands that would be listed on a page or written in an essay. Here we can clearly see that the graphs show us valuable information in a visibly simplistic way (Anon, 2009). We are able to gain an understanding of the serious effects (or hoax if you are a skeptic) of climate change over the long history of the globe, to the present day (Anon, 2009). By visually expressing this data, a great deal of archived information is communicated to the public, often in exciting and colourful, yet easier to understand ways (Mosher, 2012). This has effectively opened up communication levels as far more people can become involved in the debate and bring forth their own ideas, all through the power of visual media.


Visual media also differs from other forms of media in terms of construction, in that visual media initially consists of a series of codes of data before being presented in a clear way. Where audio and textual media can be informing and cover a diverse range of topics, it can also be a long process that serves to confuse viewers in comparison to a block of information that is put in front of viewers.

Halls encoding/ decoding Model.

This hard to distinguish and poorly photographed graph is based on Halls encoding/ decoding model, in which there are 3 readings; dominant, negotiated and oppositional, to each text. The first is labelled dominant, the second negotiated and the third oppositional. The vertical axis is the number of people who looked at the text (Hall, 1980).



This is just an example of visual media, which tells us that most people would take the dominant reading from a text. Instead of a lengthy essay or audio commentary, the graph is a simplistic way of showing information, although it does require considerable explaining to properly explore Hall's theory (again I stress it is a rough example!) (Hall, 1980).

Bibliography:

Anon. (2009) ‘The Global Warming Skeptics versus the Scientific Consensus’, Information is Beautiful,

<http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/science-visualizations-2011/>Hall, S 1980, “Encoding/decoding”, in S Hall (ed), Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies,1972-79, Hutchinson, London in association with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, pp.107-116.

Mosher, David, 2012, Email Author, <http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/science-visualizations-2011/>

Polar bears and climate change, google image search result: http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=polar+bears+and+climate+change&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&qscrl=1&nord=1&rlz=1T4SUNC_enGB375GB376&biw=1366&bih=609&tbm=isch&tbnid=3WA4BnP-0gRFnM:&imgrefurl=http://www.futuretimeline.net/subject/energy-environment.htm&docid=Yp1VDXmWRdUK0M&imgurl=http://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/images/polar-bears-global-warming.jpg&w=750&h=556&ei=v3fAT6r2HYSwiQek5M2UCg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1032&vpy=282&dur=922&hovh=193&hovw=261&tx=147&ty=108&sig=111442489915568246197&page=1&tbnh=132&tbnw=193&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:0,i:94

Blog, week 8; Information Graphics

Information graphics (IG) are basically a different way of representing information, in an easy and clear way. As opposed to other ways of representing information, such as through essays, books, maps etc; information graphics are a more decisive and (in most cases) efficient way of producing information.

IG’s are being used more and more frequently in the media. It can be seen in a variety of different mediums which it has helped to gain popularity, and is continuously evident in our day to day life. ‘The dashed line in use’ demonstrates the incredible explanatory power of IG’s, as Arnell discusses the seemingly simple use of the dashed line to communicate a number of different types of information ranging from graphs to simple signs to paths (2006).

IG’s are related to archives, in that the development of information graphics and its efficiency is closely linked to our desire to archive, aka archive fever. Whilst archiving is the aggregation and organisation of data, IG goes one step further and involves the distribution process. Like archiving, it is necessary to organise the information that has been presented, however it is also about presenting (distributing) the information in the clearest and most efficient way possible.

Whilst information graphics fundamental role is to explain in the simplest way what cannot be explained in words,

Image

It can also be quite complicated at times:

Image

I think that the sudden increase in information graphics is a reflection and manifestation of people’s fascination and seeming obsession with archives, as both relate to collecting and organising data, and IG's effectively complement archives. Described by Friedberg (2007) as the "entangled forces that contribute to the evolution of technologies of vision", the sheer volume of data that we are subjected to on a daily basis is extraordinary, and information graphics is a way of categorising this data and effectively reading it. It also improves our level of communication on a global scale, as with the case of much information graphics these days, the language of the graphics is global, and although there may need to be some explaining, it is generally easier for a range of cultures and languages to understand one another through IG’s much easier than if they were trying to communicate verbally or textually.

Of course we must be careful not to trivialise IG’s, and use it for important information, lest we end up like this:

Clip:

Bibliography:

Arnell, Timo (2006) ‘the dashed line in use’, <http://www.nearfield.org/2006/09/the-dashed-line-in-use>

Friedberg, Anne (2007) ‘The Virtual Window Interactive’ Vectors, 2(2) <http://www.vectorsjournal.org/index.php?page=7&projectId=79>

Wikipedia, 'Information graphics',  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_graphics>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_J8QU1m0Ng

Information graphics image search results:
Simple:
http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://coreldesigner.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/info-04.png%3Fw%3D500%26h%3D512&imgrefurl=http://coreldesigner.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/designing-better-information-graphics/&usg=__g7ubyi5Rvm5rCgqFGp5uI0fGF2U=&h=512&w=500&sz=98&hl=en&start=1&zoom=1&tbnid=hXyCK0ZjQ-QD0M:&tbnh=131&tbnw=128&ei=Tu2UT72YHqOpiAe29f2EBA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dinformation%2Bgraphics%2Bsimple%26hl%3Den%26gbv%3D2%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1

Complex:
http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=information+graphics+examples&um=1&hl=en&qscrl=1&nord=1&rlz=1T4SUNC_enGB375GB376&biw=1366&bih=609&tbm=isch&tbnid=mbl1qRFMvP9AoM:&imgrefurl=http://p-adamek0912-dc.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html&docid=JxNGLZfQ-v8NEM&imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKsLKoR7LMKcDIJoAC0KH-_H-WGW95fYEIZn-WqBKK9sGv3Fiw3Yru-EmsNQx_E5JPZkDSTgjhyphenhyphenNSR8hbUHCW7um0pEVou74A9DkCx2qIPQpVUugwnYeoJnrkuyM5S2KInBFi4w9dYZ6Y/s1600/GTF%252B-%252BDDD%252BGallery%252B50%252BProjects.jpg&w=392&h=550&ei=AQ_DT4jgIKaEmQXjhPnMCg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=267&vpy=210&dur=1204&hovh=266&hovw=189&tx=103&ty=204&sig=111442489915568246197&page=3&tbnh=128&tbnw=93&start=47&ndsp=29&ved=1t:429,r:9,s:47,i:192

Blog, week 7; Piracy

Whilst last week’s readings discussed the positive and negative aspects on our attention in the transition into a technological world, this week’s blog topic is equally as controversial, as it discusses piracy within the publishing world, and media world in general. Piracy is an important topic leading into our week of debating because it is not a clear cut, wrong and right issue. Because we are living in a world rich in information and communication, it is extremely hard to monitor internet content, when so many people are accessing online material and producing their own (Madrigal, 2012).

The SOPA (2012) (the ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’) and ACTA (2012) the ‘Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) dealt with issues regarding the protection of intellectual property (ideas) of content creators, and the online distribution of this intellectual property as well as counterfeit objects. However these legislations have sparked debate over the decline of freedom of speech, a likening to the Chinese firewall, and a host of other copyright legalities that could arise due to the broad nature of SOPA and ACTA (Wikipedia, 2012). By broad language, I mean that the legislations are not specific enough in the copyright laws that they want to uphold, and this could result in punishment for internet users who unintentionally use other people’s work, for well meaning internet based businesses, and other cloudy and lengthy court processes. In this circumstance, the internet is such a massive platform, which would make it extremely hard and time consuming to monitor, and the end result could mean that the “bad guys” who are actually committing the copyright infringements may never be punished, whilst the relatively innocent and unaware users could be (Wikipedia, 2012).

The debate of piracy, censorship and privacy is further complicated when looking at case studies such as wiki leaks and the issue of online piracy, or the various social media sites and the issues of privacy. However whilst we will be covering these cases in class, I’d like to look at the incredibly frequent piracy of online audio and visual content. Whilst pirating music, movies and other types of internet based material has an extremely negative economical impact on the content creators, is it appropriate to treat the act of piracy as a serious crime, in which the users of these streaming sites are as at fault as the creators? I think that it’s such a shame that the music and film industries within America are struggling due to online piracy, but I don’t think that promoting adds that treat piracy as if it were a serious crime (like stealing a car or a handbag etc) are very effective, and I myself have been guilty of downloading ‘free’ songs online. I think that the creators of these streaming sites need to be addressed, however because the internet is such a huge platform, we have shot ourselves in the foot, so to speak, because individual liability is now so hard to monitor.

image:

 Bibliograhpy:

LOLROFLMAO, 2012, <http://www.lolroflmao.com/2011/08/28/if-rap-artists-always-brag-about-hot-they-used-to-be-criminals-then-why-do-they-think-its-wrong-for-us-to-torrent-their-music/>

Madrigal, Alexis, ‘Reading the Privacy Policies You Encounter in a Year Would Take 76 Work Days, The Atlantic, 2012, < http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/12/03/the-national-cost-of-reading-privacy-policies-would-be-greater-than-the-gdp-of-florida/253851>

Wikipedia, 'Anti - Coungterfeiting - Trade -Agreement, 2012, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement>

Wikipedia, 'Stop - Online - Piracy - Act, 2012, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act>

Blog, week 5; Archive Fever

In this weeks readings, Derrida speaks of the great importance of Archives within society (Enzser, 2008). In reference to Archive Fever, he sees this as the different ways that archives are managed and the various impacts that archives can have on all aspects of our lives (Enzser, 2008). When actually taking some time out to think about archives, they are evident everywhere! Address books, contacts in mobile phones, photo books, book shelves, emails, ipod playlists, messages in phones, data from online social networking sites etc, etc, etc. The last few examples are more modern and display the different types of Archives available, always adapting and changing, as people get Archive fever and invest in the new mode of publishing to archive their lives.

Sharon Howard (2007) also speaks of our reinvigorated "want" to archive. She says that the web 2.0 has a great potential for organising and storing useful information that can be easily and efficiently accessed decades (if not longer) down the track (Howard, 2007). However, like Howard and Derrida, I think that because technology is constantly evolving, we are struggling somewhat to adapt, and as a result, what should be seen as archiving in its purest and most brilliant form, is just a collaboration of blogs, tags and computer codes that are seemingly impossible to manage (Ogle, 2010).

Howard stresses the need for ingenous ways to manage the web 2.0, and although I am not exactly computer literate (and in no way would suggest how), I most certainly agree (Howard, 2007). Because publishing has become a universal platform for anyone to embrace, the thought of trying to archive the trillions of publications that are constantly being uploaded makes me nautious. But if it could ever be accomplished, the information stored in the past, could prove invaluable to the future.

Now for some comical value and to enable you to draw a comparison with an organised archive like the one in the picture above...a picture taken of my own study and the books that I own:

Bibliography:

Enszer, Julie R. (2008) Julie R. Enszer (personal blog), ‘Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression by 'Jacques Derrida', November 16, 2008, <http://julierenszer.blogspot.com/2008/11/archive-fever-freudian-impression-by.html>

Howard, Sharon (2007) ‘Reposted: Archive fever (a dusty digression)’, Early Modern Notes, September 25, <http://emn.sharonhoward.org/2007/09/reposted-archive-fever-a-dusty-digression/>

Ogle, Matthew (2010) ‘Archive Fever: A love letter to the post real-time web’, mattogle.com, December 16, <http://mattogle.com/archivefever/>

Stokes, Jon (2003) ‘Reading Notes: Archive Fever’, Ars Technica, June 27, <http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2003/06/130.ars>

> image taken from my family home in Wentworth Falls, from my camera.

Blog, week 4; Assemblages

According to this week’s readings, Assemblages are a combination of elements that allow for an interaction on (in the case of publishing and publics) a social and technological level (Wikipedia, 2012). There are two particular theories of Assemblages that help us to understand the concept better. 1. The Actor Network Theory is a clearer way of looking at assemblages and proposes that a number of actants (both material and semiotic) can come together and work in a network towards a positive outcome (Wikipedia, 2012). It is a flat ontology which means that every actant is equally important (Wikipedia, 2012). 2. ANPS - also occurs in a flat ontology where every actant is of equal importance, however each actant has is composed of a number of different qualities, each with a different role. These roles include; Material, expressive, aesthetic, territorial, deterritorial and linguistic/coding (Wikipedia, 2012).

Particularly in relation to media ethnography, Assemblages and the Actor Network Theory are important tools in researching levels of society that are in between the individual (micro) and the mass public (macro).




 Image.





Using the weeks readings and some of last years blogs for inspiration, I have chosen to portray a basic diagram of my local newspaper and some of the major actants that come together to form this newspaper publication that informs much of the Blue Mountains (Blue Mountains Gazette, 2012).

Even this newspaper, relatively basic in comparison to mass produced papers throughout Australia and the world, has an online viewership, which extends the list of actants considerably (Blue Mountains Gazette, 2012).

- NOTE: It is also important to acknowledge that this is a rough diagram and the nature of assemblages is transcendent in that there are always smaller actants within actants, and so on.


Bibliography:

‘Actor Network Theory’, Wikipedia,<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor-network_theory> (very short, very useful summary of Latour)

‘Actor Network Rochambeau’, any-space-whatever blog, <http://www.anyspacewhatever.com/actor-network-rochambeau/>   , November 14, 2010

‘A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity’, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Philosophy_of_Society:_Assemblage_Theory_and_Social_Complexity>


Blue Mountains Gazette (2012) About Us, Fairfax media, 16/03/2012
<http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/contact.aspx>

- Image
<http://www.sixfoot.com/images/media/gazette2002_resized.jpg>