Monday 18 April 2011

Week 7 (chosen blog)

Thanks new media, I’m eternally grateful for your contribution to the break down on menial labour and tedious office work. Instead pencil pushers, wage slaves and desk jockeys, we have flexi-workers, cybertariants and technobohemians. Titles of which sound far more appealing and to be honest, fun. A sentiment i know many of my new media colleagues share. 

With great innovations in new media; examples include skype, google docs, shoutbox; the face of  modern employment has been drastically altered. Prior to our information age, there were the pre- industrial and industrialised labour periods, both characterised by the hands on application of labour. These days work is intangible and done around the clock. In this weeks additional reading Thompson suggests that the speed in which work can be done due to new media has begun funding corporate bottom lines. “Time is now currency; it is not passed but spent”. Corporate professionals working in this age take work home, juggle several projects at a time and as a result are now experiencing a poor work/life balance. And when work becomes life there is the potential of this happening ...


REFERENCE 


Gill, R. (2007). Informality is the New Black. In Technobohemians or the new Cybertariat?New Media work in Amsterdam a decade after the web. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures: 24-30 & 38-43.


     E. P. Thompson, 1967, Time, Work-Discipline & Industrial Capitalism, p. 304, my emphasis


(Video)


Blakelewisfan1. " YouTube - boredom.wmv ." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. . N.p., n.d. Web.                  18 Apr. 2011. www.youtube.com/watch?v=drhq8szZiUk.


Lockergnome. " YouTube - The Office : Second Life is the same ." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. . N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2011. www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3d_fqDcN1s. 


(Links)


"You're welcome.." You're welcome.. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2011. http://generationrepulic.blogspot.com/


"Skype - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype 


"Google Docs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_docs

"Shoutbox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoutbox











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Sunday 10 April 2011

Week 6 (chosen blog)

I think it has stemmed from having a mother who is an unsympathetic ER nurse. She often said to me “I don’t care if you aren’t bleeding to death”. Therefore, I found it difficult to relate new media health as this weeks topic of study. I am aware that obviously the internet is easier, cheaper and faster than a trip to your real doctor. And in the case of hypercondirac's, they are able to google the rare diseases they think they have instead of clogging up emergency rooms.



 However, I must be in the minority when I say I just don’t trust the internet. Call me old fashioned but when it comes to my health I put my faith in the hands of someone I know slogged it out at 5 years of medical school, not an anonymous individual online.


However in terms of new media and well-being, I will be frank, I am a closet Googler of fad diets, fat burning berries, age suppressing wonder grains and DIY beauty treatments. I trust the internet with research regarding my own vanity. I trust forum participants who tell me olive oil is good for split ends. I trust yoga instruction videos on youtube.com.

I do not trust the internet however with matters of health, I maintain that it is best left to professionals. No matter how over-priced, inconvenient and running behind schedule they are.

For some more thoughts on this visit the bagatelle.


REFERENCE

·       Lewis, T. (2006). Seeking health information on the internet: lifestyle choice or bad attack of cyberchondria? Media, Culture & Society, volume 28, issue 4: 521-539. Available on CMD.

(Links) 
(Video)

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Sunday 3 April 2011

Week 5 (chosen blog)

 “Gemma is at the fox, getting ‘slizzard’”. “Rhys is eating steak”. “Jess is cooking dinner for her man”. “Hannah doesn’t care!”

Our life, as suggested in this week’s reading by Mark Deuze, is now a media life (Deuze, 2011). There is no longer a clear separation of the two. The iPhone plague which has now swept our society relates explicitly to another theory offered this week known as the Age of the Thumb (Bell, 2006). The manner in which we can now carry the internet around with us in our pockets has lead to social interactions being documented on social networking sites, instead of being developed face-to-face. People don’t live in the moment, they live online. An explanation for this was offered in the tutorial, people think tagging themselves at hip clubs with 20 friends makes them seem cooler. Once again social capital is at the root of this behaviour (Pearson, 2009).




I can relate to wanting to increase my social capital. I only chose the very best photos to be my display picture. I untag myself if the photo is hideous. I even occasionally complain about hangovers so people know I had a big night prior. Though as my pockets are iPhone free, I must say I'm good in comparison to others. Its basic common decency to look at a person when you’re talking with them, though with the iPhone and the constant documenting of your life conversations now occur with heads down and thumbs moving to spell out a new endeavour to gain social capital.  

Reference 

(Video) 
  • footynutguy. " YouTube - Facebook Song ." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. . N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSnXE2791yg>.
(Hyperlinks)
  • "iPhone Sales Statistics Australia | Nokia Sales Statistics." The Age - Business, World & Breaking News | Melbourne, Australia. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2011. http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/apple-threatens-nokias-dominance-20100521-w0f7.html
  • "Incompatible Browser | Facebook." Incompatible Browser | Facebook. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2011. http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/visualizing-friendships/469716398919
    •       
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Thursday 24 March 2011

Week Four.

We’ve known for a long time the world can be a nasty place at times. Hamelink explains “All the immoralities of physical life occur in virtual reality: censorship, lust for power, treason, stalking, lying, gossiping, peeping, stealing, cheating, seducing, breaking promises, insulting, and being unfaithful, unreliable, uncivilized, or abusive.”  As a result of this those who were naive and sheltered before are being exposed to society’s grimy underbelly earlier and more often. Prior to the internet and its subsequent misuse one could live in ignorant bliss, ignore badness on the news and simply avoid the dark alleyways of Fortitude Valley.  
Does this make online immorality acceptable? Not in the slightest, though short of absolute censorship there is next to nothing that it can be policed and controlled. As has been seen in Libya, Egypt and now China, even totalitarian government regimes can’t control what is aid over the internet. Online gate keeping is being left to the content creator, therefore it is up to us to choose what we consume and then believe online. At the risk of sounding crude and unsympathetic, the only remedy to poor online ethics is to wise up, and when that doesn’t work harden up. It’s the information era, being oblivious is no longer a feasible lifestyle choice.

Reference List

  • Hamelink, C. (2006). The Ethics of the Internet: Can we cope with Lies and Deceit on the Net? In Ideologies of the Internet, K. Sarikakis & Daya Thussu, pp. 115-130. New Jersey: Hampton Press. Available on CMD.
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Thursday 17 March 2011

Week 3.


I am somebody who would most certainly lose an L-Train battle.  My playlistth Floor Elevator and Serge Gainsberg to Guns n Roses and Kanye West. If my playlist was spied on by a complete stranger they would probably conclude that I had a personality disorder.
 However, I I’m a serial offender when it comes to judging people based on their music tastes. Not quite to the extent it seems of those on the L-train. I don’t share the opinion that if a band is hard to find they must be good; quite the opposite. It seems common sense to me that if a band is at least half decent their music would be in a record store or at least on iTunes. Yes, a record store.



So if what this week’s reading by Levy and our lecture content is true, does this mean my personal and social capital would take a beating? With a somewhat hypocritical view of music snobbery I must say it most certainly would. The reading by Levy linked Goffman’s theories of impression management to deliberately making playlists "trendy". I dont see this happening to my admittedly terrible iTunes account. I dont listen to the music I do to be cool, I listen to it because I like it. Sometimes that means Beck is playing, and sometimes it's Meat Loaf.

Reference List
Levy, S. (2006). The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness, New York: Simon & Schuster, pp. 21-41. Available on Course Materials Database (CMD) via QUT Library website.
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Saturday 12 March 2011

Week 2.

Pearson explains a theory known as identity- performance and compares the modern process of self-presentation to that of an actor superficially constructing the personality of a character (Pearson, 2009). People are living their lives simultaneously through Facebook, in what is known as glass bedrooms. We are now at a stage of digitalisation that our identities are pre-meditated and deliberately constructed. On Facebook we don’t need to be ourselves, we can be who and whatever we want to be.  We can be cooler, funnier, and wittier online.

 However, how is this any different, or worse than school yard conforming? Long before the internet children have changed their self presentation to fit a mould and therefore be socially accepted. A pop culture reference, Sandy and Danny in Grease both deliberately re-create their identities. I see few differences between this and saying your favourite film is kill bill instead of the little mermaid.

 My only criticism, as discussed in week 2’s lecture is the notion of friends as a commodity (Leong, 2011). The obvious motive behind creating a more desirable online persona is unquestionably to accumulate more friends. Quantity over quality has become the opinion of a generation. It is this element of online identity-performance that causes concern and gives credence to agreements against the use of SNS.


Reference List
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