My name is Amy Goodwin, and I did a project on cyber-bullying for Textual Media (ENGL 348) at George Mason University. I wanted to open up a place for people who have seen my project or have stumbled on this by mistake to be able to comment on their experiences. Comments can be made anonymously or logged in. The journal is set to allow both.
Please share your experiences with cyber-bullying, either as victim or instigator, or just reflections on the problems caused by it and the difficulties in preventing it.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Dear Representative Christopher Van Hollen, Jr,
I am writing about the bill HR4137. In one section of the bill, it suggests that federal funds for financial aid should be contingent on issues of "digital theft," pulling federal financial aid for all students if the university did not agree to test technology-based deterrents. As a college student, this bill makes me very upset.
I think this is incredibly unfair to all students who are in university or may one day hope to attend a university. On a most basic level, holding hostage financial funding for low- and middle-income families in order to help corporations preserve their bottom line is unethical and unfair. I don't deny that file sharing does lose money for the complaining companies, but to blindly punish certain students, even if they do not own a computer, and certain universities which rely more on federal funding than others, is not the right solution.
Then there is the question of what will satisfy the deterrent qualification. Some universities offered an opt-in music subscription service as an alternative to file-sharing, with moderate success. Articles criticizing this bill suggested forcing people to subscribe. Is this fair again to lower and middle income students? To increase their tuition even small amounts in order to pay off the MIAA and RIAA, when even that subscription fee could make it impossible for them to continue at the university or to pay the rent or eat. As a college student, I find this very upsetting. I have friends who can barely make ends meet month to month. They live off campus and take the bus to class in order to save money, and can end up living off of the good will of friends and low cost foods like ramen noodles by the end of the month.
Another solution is to cut out all possible peer-to-peer networks, for example all torrent files. This is also not a very good solution. There are legitimate reasons to use these files - from simply an easy way to give a big file to a classmate for a project, to downloading large files like linux distributions, which are free to use and share but are too large to share easily in other ways. If we start limiting types of files or certain sites, we limit the free speech and ability to learn. There are also cases where files are being used for fair use in courses, which would be restricted. I can't think of a place where having completely open access to the internet and information could be more important.
I don't download music illegally, I prefer systems like iTunes. I also don't need federal financial aid, because I am fortunate enough to have been born to a family that can afford college and is willing to support me through my education. Neither of these facts make this bill less troubling to me. I know it would fundamentally change the quality of my education, through the access to information I have, the respect and trust for the university I hold, and the people I get to know.
Thank you for taking the time to read this note.
Sincerely
--Amy Goodwin
I am writing about the bill HR4137. In one section of the bill, it suggests that federal funds for financial aid should be contingent on issues of "digital theft," pulling federal financial aid for all students if the university did not agree to test technology-based deterrents. As a college student, this bill makes me very upset.
I think this is incredibly unfair to all students who are in university or may one day hope to attend a university. On a most basic level, holding hostage financial funding for low- and middle-income families in order to help corporations preserve their bottom line is unethical and unfair. I don't deny that file sharing does lose money for the complaining companies, but to blindly punish certain students, even if they do not own a computer, and certain universities which rely more on federal funding than others, is not the right solution.
Then there is the question of what will satisfy the deterrent qualification. Some universities offered an opt-in music subscription service as an alternative to file-sharing, with moderate success. Articles criticizing this bill suggested forcing people to subscribe. Is this fair again to lower and middle income students? To increase their tuition even small amounts in order to pay off the MIAA and RIAA, when even that subscription fee could make it impossible for them to continue at the university or to pay the rent or eat. As a college student, I find this very upsetting. I have friends who can barely make ends meet month to month. They live off campus and take the bus to class in order to save money, and can end up living off of the good will of friends and low cost foods like ramen noodles by the end of the month.
Another solution is to cut out all possible peer-to-peer networks, for example all torrent files. This is also not a very good solution. There are legitimate reasons to use these files - from simply an easy way to give a big file to a classmate for a project, to downloading large files like linux distributions, which are free to use and share but are too large to share easily in other ways. If we start limiting types of files or certain sites, we limit the free speech and ability to learn. There are also cases where files are being used for fair use in courses, which would be restricted. I can't think of a place where having completely open access to the internet and information could be more important.
I don't download music illegally, I prefer systems like iTunes. I also don't need federal financial aid, because I am fortunate enough to have been born to a family that can afford college and is willing to support me through my education. Neither of these facts make this bill less troubling to me. I know it would fundamentally change the quality of my education, through the access to information I have, the respect and trust for the university I hold, and the people I get to know.
Thank you for taking the time to read this note.
Sincerely
--Amy Goodwin
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Free Culture by Larry Lessig
As a brief preface: I hate to say it, but sometimes I feel like this comic. I keep up to date on the issue, following the latest news at sites like slashdot, but I don't feel as strongly as them even though I still feel stronger than the average American.
Lessig discusses the protection of content vs. protection of form of content. This issue, I believe, is one of the most interesting. We discussed in my other class as well this situation with the adobe e-books, with all the restrictions. At one point, they even restricted copies to a single computer - if you buy it at home, but want to read it at work, you have to pay again. This is for works in the public domain - works that are supposed to be free. They also get into their restrictions of what you can copy and how much you can copy, all due to the "form" - their ebook, rather than the content - a work which is in the public domain and can be used in any way anybody wants. It is also of sketchy morality to sell something which should be - and sometimes is - available freely on the net.
Part of the problem, as we have discussed in my other class, is that companies are desperately trying to cling to their old models of the world - ones which do not involve the world wide web. It is understandable - the internet as we know it is an invention of the last decade, whereas book publishers and music companies have had their systems at work for far longer than that. Instead of moving with the times and trying to take advantage of the new market, even if it means losing some control over their products, these industries are sticking with the inertia of their state and trying to force the new technologies to behave like old ones. Some textbook companies will sell textbooks online - with passwords, that expire after a term. It is true that this will keep people from just passing on the file to a friend who takes the class the next or same semester, and will kill the second hand textbook market, but it is a ridiculous and exploitive idea. Demanding that people pay for a book, even if it is not as high a price as the print textbook, for something that you will not be able to use as a resource later, will not be able to resell - which the law allows, and is a good way of recouping some of the money expended each semester - is unreasonable.
Other companies, like overdrive.com, offer ebooks to libraries, which is a great idea, but again they try to shoehorn it into a product that it isn't. They not only restrict how long you are allowed to open the ebook - a perfectly understandable restriction, as you can't keep library books forever either - but they restrict the number of copies that can be taken out at a time. This is a completely arbitrary restriction - there is no reason every person who logs on couldn't be able to take out the same book - but is put together in a very stupid way (IMO) - books are not "returnable," they just expire, so there is no way to free up a book you finished for others to get sooner, like you might return the library book to the shelf. As a result, almost all books are already "taken out" and once a copy is out, there is a mandatory three week wait until it is available to another user.
Lessig discusses the protection of content vs. protection of form of content. This issue, I believe, is one of the most interesting. We discussed in my other class as well this situation with the adobe e-books, with all the restrictions. At one point, they even restricted copies to a single computer - if you buy it at home, but want to read it at work, you have to pay again. This is for works in the public domain - works that are supposed to be free. They also get into their restrictions of what you can copy and how much you can copy, all due to the "form" - their ebook, rather than the content - a work which is in the public domain and can be used in any way anybody wants. It is also of sketchy morality to sell something which should be - and sometimes is - available freely on the net.
Part of the problem, as we have discussed in my other class, is that companies are desperately trying to cling to their old models of the world - ones which do not involve the world wide web. It is understandable - the internet as we know it is an invention of the last decade, whereas book publishers and music companies have had their systems at work for far longer than that. Instead of moving with the times and trying to take advantage of the new market, even if it means losing some control over their products, these industries are sticking with the inertia of their state and trying to force the new technologies to behave like old ones. Some textbook companies will sell textbooks online - with passwords, that expire after a term. It is true that this will keep people from just passing on the file to a friend who takes the class the next or same semester, and will kill the second hand textbook market, but it is a ridiculous and exploitive idea. Demanding that people pay for a book, even if it is not as high a price as the print textbook, for something that you will not be able to use as a resource later, will not be able to resell - which the law allows, and is a good way of recouping some of the money expended each semester - is unreasonable.
Other companies, like overdrive.com, offer ebooks to libraries, which is a great idea, but again they try to shoehorn it into a product that it isn't. They not only restrict how long you are allowed to open the ebook - a perfectly understandable restriction, as you can't keep library books forever either - but they restrict the number of copies that can be taken out at a time. This is a completely arbitrary restriction - there is no reason every person who logs on couldn't be able to take out the same book - but is put together in a very stupid way (IMO) - books are not "returnable," they just expire, so there is no way to free up a book you finished for others to get sooner, like you might return the library book to the shelf. As a result, almost all books are already "taken out" and once a copy is out, there is a mandatory three week wait until it is available to another user.
The Importance of Science Fiction
This came to my mind once in class, but the conversation moved on before I brought it up. We were discussing how
...to finish later.
...to finish later.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Screen Grabs: The Digital Dialect and New Media Theory
There were several things in this article that I found very interesting, but the one I think is most important to discuss, and that we haven't discussed before, is the idea of "bit rot."
It comes up on page XX in the introduction, when he is defending having published a book instead of releasing it online. He says, "Nothing ages faster and become inaccessible quicker than electronic media." It's true, you can look at even just the storage that has evolved and what is now obsolete - 5 1/4" floppy disks, 3 1/2" floppy disks, zip disks - thought to be the next new technology and actually installed in computers, now never seen. CD-ROMs became pretty standard, but that's now becoming displaced by DVD-ROMs.
It really is a problem in terms of getting people to embrace technological copies of things. People are happy to try new technologies, but they don't want to use them for anything lasting, like books or music. People are happy to use new technologies and hype them up, but if you ask them to invest in technologies that they're not sure are steady. VHS and DVD have been embraced, though VHS is dying. But people won't invest in Blu-ray or HD-DVD except the people who really want to be at the forefront and have the best new gadgets, because one will triumph over the other at some point.
My dad, who does photography, runs into this problem. Negatives can fade or break, but people know how to take care of them. However, if you store digital photography on cds, the CDs will fade after a while and people don't know the lifetime of them. On top of that, you may save the file in a format that becomes obsolete, and you won't be able to retrieve that picture again, whereas the negatives and enlargers have been used for the past hundred years, and will continue to be used in the same way as they have for a long time to come.
Some systems are backwards compatible, but to build a less clunky, more efficient computer system you need to take out the backwards compatibility. Windows XP upset a lot of people because it wasn't backwards compatible to Windows 95 or 98. New game systems like X-Box 360 weren't backwards compatible, which upset a lot of people, so they released individual patches for individual past games.
It really is a barrier to embrace of technology as a whole, to assure people that they can embrace technologies even when it's going to be replaced sometime in the future.
It comes up on page XX in the introduction, when he is defending having published a book instead of releasing it online. He says, "Nothing ages faster and become inaccessible quicker than electronic media." It's true, you can look at even just the storage that has evolved and what is now obsolete - 5 1/4" floppy disks, 3 1/2" floppy disks, zip disks - thought to be the next new technology and actually installed in computers, now never seen. CD-ROMs became pretty standard, but that's now becoming displaced by DVD-ROMs.
It really is a problem in terms of getting people to embrace technological copies of things. People are happy to try new technologies, but they don't want to use them for anything lasting, like books or music. People are happy to use new technologies and hype them up, but if you ask them to invest in technologies that they're not sure are steady. VHS and DVD have been embraced, though VHS is dying. But people won't invest in Blu-ray or HD-DVD except the people who really want to be at the forefront and have the best new gadgets, because one will triumph over the other at some point.
My dad, who does photography, runs into this problem. Negatives can fade or break, but people know how to take care of them. However, if you store digital photography on cds, the CDs will fade after a while and people don't know the lifetime of them. On top of that, you may save the file in a format that becomes obsolete, and you won't be able to retrieve that picture again, whereas the negatives and enlargers have been used for the past hundred years, and will continue to be used in the same way as they have for a long time to come.
Some systems are backwards compatible, but to build a less clunky, more efficient computer system you need to take out the backwards compatibility. Windows XP upset a lot of people because it wasn't backwards compatible to Windows 95 or 98. New game systems like X-Box 360 weren't backwards compatible, which upset a lot of people, so they released individual patches for individual past games.
It really is a barrier to embrace of technology as a whole, to assure people that they can embrace technologies even when it's going to be replaced sometime in the future.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Harry Potter and the Internet Meme
I think it would be interesting to discuss in class how the "Dumbledore is Gay" announcement was spread so quickly around the web, and how it organically (or virally) spread from location to location before it even was picked up by mainstream media. It was really interesting to watch how long it took to reach some places and how quickly others, kind of like an earthquake - an epicenter and gradually spreading ripples spreading out from it.
digital photography
I think digital photography is an interesting new technology - I've been following the evolution of the technology pretty much since it became commercial, because my dad does fine art photography and has been trying the technology since it came out. The first digital camera he got was 1.2 megapixels, which is less than my phone has now. He now has a 13 megapixel camera, which allows him to have the picture stretched and printed at 11inchesx14inches without pixilization, so it is actually a reasonable substitution for traditional photography.
One of my dad's dislikes for digital photography is that you can photoshop it to take out problems - kind of like painting. With a painting, you can "edit" while you paint to take out things like telephone poles from photos of beaches, etc. whereas you had to actually find the picture with photography. Now, you can *take* that picture and just make it "look right" to you.
Photoshop is fairly easy to do - websites like fark.com have photoshop contests every day that show really realistic (or not, depending on the contest) photos. Something Awful does photoshop phridays with similar ideas. It is a problem when one of these images are taken seriously and spread around the web (you can typically see examples on snopes.com of images that started as jokes but were then taken seriously).
An example of a fark.com photoshop:
(the original)
and 
This movie I thought was also very interesting in terms of ease of photo manipulation - becoming easier every day.
One of my dad's dislikes for digital photography is that you can photoshop it to take out problems - kind of like painting. With a painting, you can "edit" while you paint to take out things like telephone poles from photos of beaches, etc. whereas you had to actually find the picture with photography. Now, you can *take* that picture and just make it "look right" to you.
Photoshop is fairly easy to do - websites like fark.com have photoshop contests every day that show really realistic (or not, depending on the contest) photos. Something Awful does photoshop phridays with similar ideas. It is a problem when one of these images are taken seriously and spread around the web (you can typically see examples on snopes.com of images that started as jokes but were then taken seriously).
An example of a fark.com photoshop:
(the original) and This movie I thought was also very interesting in terms of ease of photo manipulation - becoming easier every day.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Games and Noise
I thought the point about interpreting noise and decoding messages was really interesting, because I used to be really interested in cryptography. My interest really started with Alan Turing, one of my personal idols, who helped build the machine that decrypted the German codes during World War II. This is a good example of the Maximum Entropy Formalism, where you leave your mind most open to ideas to find the right solution. In this type of encryption, each letter is not only encrypted, it not necessarily encrypted in the same way as the letter previous. If they had expected the letters to follow the patterns they already knew, they would never have decrypted them.
I also thought Johnson's points about the good parts of video games are important to understand. Especially the feedback you get when playing. It made me think about these games aimed at children, which test and develop reading and spelling skills, and how those games are probably better in a lot of ways to teach children on their own than just books, since they'll get immediate feedback. I know a lot of parents worry about kids using computers too much, because they think they are mindless and have no good qualities.
I played games like that when I was younger, and probably they helped me understand things like homophones faster, because they were fun. Instead of just reading in a book (not that I disliked books, I actually loved them), you were matching up words to clear a carrot patch and get points in a game. The games are way more advanced and helpful now. I think it would be really interesting to look at all these games again and study what qualities are most helpful.
I also thought Johnson's points about the good parts of video games are important to understand. Especially the feedback you get when playing. It made me think about these games aimed at children, which test and develop reading and spelling skills, and how those games are probably better in a lot of ways to teach children on their own than just books, since they'll get immediate feedback. I know a lot of parents worry about kids using computers too much, because they think they are mindless and have no good qualities.
I played games like that when I was younger, and probably they helped me understand things like homophones faster, because they were fun. Instead of just reading in a book (not that I disliked books, I actually loved them), you were matching up words to clear a carrot patch and get points in a game. The games are way more advanced and helpful now. I think it would be really interesting to look at all these games again and study what qualities are most helpful.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Unfinished Business
I think Lunenfeld's discussion of how new media encourages "unfinished" is really interesting.
I know I encounter it a lot in fandom. Books like Harry Potter have an entire world beyond the actual written text. People continue the stories between books (There are a few hundred "Book Seven"s online). They also rewrite the books with a twist - I've read stories where the Sorting Hat doesn't listen to Harry's request not to be in Slytherin, and famously (well, internet-famously) some Harmonians, fans who think Harry and Hermione should have gotten together, rewrote book Six by taking the text of the book and just changing any scene where Hermione and Ron get closer to getting together into either Harry/Hermione scenes or Hermione encouraging Ron to stay with Lavender.
Some authors are fighting this trend - Anne Rice is fully against the idea of fanfic and her lawyers send cease and desist letters to any archive that has stories based on her characters. Others embrace this new way for fans to interact with the work - J. K. Rowling likes fan fiction and online communities about the stories (though she cannot officially allow it for copyright reasons).
The continuation of the fan base online can allow for new projects. Firefly, a series on Fox that was cancelled after half a season, got a big screen movie. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is now being continued in a comic series.
I just think it's really interesting that where series were only "unfinished" if it was a series, made up of "finished" books, except for a few fans who went to conventions or wrote stories for fanzines, but now the internet has allowed for an extended community of people who extend the stories beyond the official end.
I know I encounter it a lot in fandom. Books like Harry Potter have an entire world beyond the actual written text. People continue the stories between books (There are a few hundred "Book Seven"s online). They also rewrite the books with a twist - I've read stories where the Sorting Hat doesn't listen to Harry's request not to be in Slytherin, and famously (well, internet-famously) some Harmonians, fans who think Harry and Hermione should have gotten together, rewrote book Six by taking the text of the book and just changing any scene where Hermione and Ron get closer to getting together into either Harry/Hermione scenes or Hermione encouraging Ron to stay with Lavender.
Some authors are fighting this trend - Anne Rice is fully against the idea of fanfic and her lawyers send cease and desist letters to any archive that has stories based on her characters. Others embrace this new way for fans to interact with the work - J. K. Rowling likes fan fiction and online communities about the stories (though she cannot officially allow it for copyright reasons).
The continuation of the fan base online can allow for new projects. Firefly, a series on Fox that was cancelled after half a season, got a big screen movie. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is now being continued in a comic series.
I just think it's really interesting that where series were only "unfinished" if it was a series, made up of "finished" books, except for a few fans who went to conventions or wrote stories for fanzines, but now the internet has allowed for an extended community of people who extend the stories beyond the official end.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Presentations
I really enjoyed these presentations. Seeing several case studies helped me understand information ecologies, particularly the ones who organized their presentations into those categories. I think it's a concept that is really best explained by example rather than just text.
The presentations were also very interesting on another level, bringing up ideas beyond just the information ecologies. I've grown to really enjoy Nardi and O'Day, many of their chapters make me reconsider the world around me. I liked the idea of the gardeners, and I like to think I'm a gardener in many situations, though I know I sometimes need to slow down. I do make the effort to explain, so in many situations I can end up in that position.
I also found the idea of the dysfunctional ecologies very intriguing. It's one of many situations where the people who interact directly with the technology are not considered, just the larger picture. It's kind of a not seeing the trees for the forest situation - yes, the hospital could be benefited by having this video and audio footage, both for the patients and for the neurosurgeon to be able to help on more surgeries. (This could be used for situations where a specialist lives far away from the hospital as well. I hate to bring up an example from Grey's Anatomy, but in that show they once brought in a satellite link to the specialist on a certain surgery who lived in another country.) They manage to forget the major privacy issue and the rights and comforts of the surgeons.
I enjoyed working on this case study - I really liked the chapter we were assigned. Looking at the feedback for our group, I wish we had been a bit shorter (I tried my best to be concise - I think my part might have been too short?) and that I could have shown it. After reading the feedback, I think my idea of showing Virtual Magic Kingdom may not have helped, since most people wondered what a text based world looks like, or wondered how it works without graphics. (I liked the line in the book where they said it was like being in a novel, but I think I didn't present that idea as clearly as I could have. I also think it's something where you can't visualize it unless you've played a game like that before.)
The presentations were also very interesting on another level, bringing up ideas beyond just the information ecologies. I've grown to really enjoy Nardi and O'Day, many of their chapters make me reconsider the world around me. I liked the idea of the gardeners, and I like to think I'm a gardener in many situations, though I know I sometimes need to slow down. I do make the effort to explain, so in many situations I can end up in that position.
I also found the idea of the dysfunctional ecologies very intriguing. It's one of many situations where the people who interact directly with the technology are not considered, just the larger picture. It's kind of a not seeing the trees for the forest situation - yes, the hospital could be benefited by having this video and audio footage, both for the patients and for the neurosurgeon to be able to help on more surgeries. (This could be used for situations where a specialist lives far away from the hospital as well. I hate to bring up an example from Grey's Anatomy, but in that show they once brought in a satellite link to the specialist on a certain surgery who lived in another country.) They manage to forget the major privacy issue and the rights and comforts of the surgeons.
I enjoyed working on this case study - I really liked the chapter we were assigned. Looking at the feedback for our group, I wish we had been a bit shorter (I tried my best to be concise - I think my part might have been too short?) and that I could have shown it. After reading the feedback, I think my idea of showing Virtual Magic Kingdom may not have helped, since most people wondered what a text based world looks like, or wondered how it works without graphics. (I liked the line in the book where they said it was like being in a novel, but I think I didn't present that idea as clearly as I could have. I also think it's something where you can't visualize it unless you've played a game like that before.)
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
"Has led to" and "Inevitablility"
I found the Williams reading very interesting, especially together with the Nardi/O’Day chapter from earlier this month about inevitability.
Both readings have made me really stop and consider how I think, not only about technology but about everything. The discussion of "inevitability" in the Nardi/O'Day reading, which I discussed earlier on my blog, made me realize how often I have heard people use that phrase in relation to technology.
This reading made me stop and look at how often people say that technology has "led to" a change or that it has had "effected" society. I'm guilty of it too. The comparison of the various statements on page 11 especially brought to the forefront how familiar these phrases are, and how insufficient.
After reading, I thought about how I always thought that new technologies like the internet, broadband, social networks, had all "changed" society and how it works. It is true that society has changed, but as Williams said, you have to think whether the technology brought about a change or whether the change brought about the technology. I think this is the case with the internet - it was developed for a specific need, first with DARPA and then with universities. Out of that it developed into a wider social tool. Websites like facebook and myspace have "changed" how we keep in touch with each other, but really they are responses to the already changing technology and communication systems in place.
Then again, I don't think it's fair to rule out technology changing society as well. It may be true that sites like facebook and myspace were responses to the way people used technology to communicate, but they also exacerbate these ways of communication to the point that people's communication and social skills both adapt and evolve into these new methods and no longer are as suitable for other methods of communication. The same can be said of the inevitability of these systems coming about, as I discussed in the past blog entry.
Together, the two articles have made me look around with fresh eyes, and I plan to keep this in mind in the future when looking at news and new technologies.
Both readings have made me really stop and consider how I think, not only about technology but about everything. The discussion of "inevitability" in the Nardi/O'Day reading, which I discussed earlier on my blog, made me realize how often I have heard people use that phrase in relation to technology.
This reading made me stop and look at how often people say that technology has "led to" a change or that it has had "effected" society. I'm guilty of it too. The comparison of the various statements on page 11 especially brought to the forefront how familiar these phrases are, and how insufficient.
After reading, I thought about how I always thought that new technologies like the internet, broadband, social networks, had all "changed" society and how it works. It is true that society has changed, but as Williams said, you have to think whether the technology brought about a change or whether the change brought about the technology. I think this is the case with the internet - it was developed for a specific need, first with DARPA and then with universities. Out of that it developed into a wider social tool. Websites like facebook and myspace have "changed" how we keep in touch with each other, but really they are responses to the already changing technology and communication systems in place.
Then again, I don't think it's fair to rule out technology changing society as well. It may be true that sites like facebook and myspace were responses to the way people used technology to communicate, but they also exacerbate these ways of communication to the point that people's communication and social skills both adapt and evolve into these new methods and no longer are as suitable for other methods of communication. The same can be said of the inevitability of these systems coming about, as I discussed in the past blog entry.
Together, the two articles have made me look around with fresh eyes, and I plan to keep this in mind in the future when looking at news and new technologies.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
ideology
Post a definition of ideology and a short discussion of how you see ideology at work around you.
"Ideology is a term developed in the Marxist tradition to talk about how cultures are structured in ways that enable the group holding power to have the maximum control with the minimum of conflict."
(Find notes from last class. write more about how it functions and what it is.)
We can see ideology at work all around us, most often in teh context of political party platforms and ideals, but we can also see it in smaller places.
Within online media, there are a number of different ideologies. One says that you should conserve your property, and if you allow it to be obtained freely you are giving away a large part of your income. Another says that it is inevitable (that word!) to have tv shows, movies, and music get online for "free" (illegally), and they try to *shape* how it is being obtained rather than prevent it from happening. Companies like Disney/ABC offer their entire season of shows online to be watched for free on their website. This way they can still sell ads and control the distribution of it.
On the other extreme is the RIAA, working with/on behalf of the record industry. They are almost comically fanatical about trying to stop music trading. Even though they have (in a questionably legal way) strong armed money out of a number of poor students, they haven't had much success in stopping online music trading. Instead of trying to stop the -- not quite "inevitable," since it's already happened. It is like they are standing trying to plug a dam that has a ten foot wide hole in it by dropping bubble gum into the water flowing away. Instead, they should be trying to embrace the change and shape the direction the technology goes, so that they can find a way to benefit from the release or trade of free music in a legal way.
"Ideology is a term developed in the Marxist tradition to talk about how cultures are structured in ways that enable the group holding power to have the maximum control with the minimum of conflict."
(Find notes from last class. write more about how it functions and what it is.)
We can see ideology at work all around us, most often in teh context of political party platforms and ideals, but we can also see it in smaller places.
Within online media, there are a number of different ideologies. One says that you should conserve your property, and if you allow it to be obtained freely you are giving away a large part of your income. Another says that it is inevitable (that word!) to have tv shows, movies, and music get online for "free" (illegally), and they try to *shape* how it is being obtained rather than prevent it from happening. Companies like Disney/ABC offer their entire season of shows online to be watched for free on their website. This way they can still sell ads and control the distribution of it.
On the other extreme is the RIAA, working with/on behalf of the record industry. They are almost comically fanatical about trying to stop music trading. Even though they have (in a questionably legal way) strong armed money out of a number of poor students, they haven't had much success in stopping online music trading. Instead of trying to stop the -- not quite "inevitable," since it's already happened. It is like they are standing trying to plug a dam that has a ten foot wide hole in it by dropping bubble gum into the water flowing away. Instead, they should be trying to embrace the change and shape the direction the technology goes, so that they can find a way to benefit from the release or trade of free music in a legal way.
babble babble (techology is a good thing, "inevitability" is a bad thing)
I think the chapters in the Information Ecologies book was interesting. I agree that more people should join the debate about technology and where it is headed, instead of finding it inevitable, even if they don't know all the issues. If they don't make an effort, they will never learn enough to be a real participant.
The authors complain about how the two extremes, the technophiles and technophobes (dystopians), take the lead in the debates. I think this is normal and can be seen in debate in all topics, not just technology. The extremes have the most vehement opinions, and often are more well read up on the issues they feel so strongly about.
I would say that there is definitely a disconnect generated by online relationships, and this can be seen from both the side of the techophile and the technophobe. My friends and I have blogs, and we keep in touch that way. Through blogs, and to a lesser extent, facebook, I can keep up to date with people without ever talking to them. When my mom asks, "How is Cameron doing these days?" I can tell her that she spent a semester in France and loved it, and that she's now back in the DC area finishing up her last couple of semesters. All this, even though I haven't spoken to Cameron directly beyond a couple of comments on her blog in the past three years.
As portrayed in the video clip, social networking online can be seen as inevitable, when really it has been created by people. Looking back, it is easy to say that a network like this would become widely used. I don't think it was entirely inevitable. It is not inevitable that a project like Wikipedia would appear either - it took massive organization of a group of people with a vision to set it up and have enough passion to keep it going.
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Describe how you can change how techology is being used: (How can *you* influence?)
Roadshow. encourages others to interact with techology more often.
I think at home I can influence how techology is used by encouraging my parents/siblings to understand the techologies they use better. I think it would be interesting to try to influence how techology is used in classes, at least my classes, at CMU. I love the internet, and I love having computers around, but it is true that they encourage people to not pay attention. Synchron-eyes doesn't work. Clearly something else is needed. This isn't really what they want us to look at.
The authors complain about how the two extremes, the technophiles and technophobes (dystopians), take the lead in the debates. I think this is normal and can be seen in debate in all topics, not just technology. The extremes have the most vehement opinions, and often are more well read up on the issues they feel so strongly about.
I would say that there is definitely a disconnect generated by online relationships, and this can be seen from both the side of the techophile and the technophobe. My friends and I have blogs, and we keep in touch that way. Through blogs, and to a lesser extent, facebook, I can keep up to date with people without ever talking to them. When my mom asks, "How is Cameron doing these days?" I can tell her that she spent a semester in France and loved it, and that she's now back in the DC area finishing up her last couple of semesters. All this, even though I haven't spoken to Cameron directly beyond a couple of comments on her blog in the past three years.
As portrayed in the video clip, social networking online can be seen as inevitable, when really it has been created by people. Looking back, it is easy to say that a network like this would become widely used. I don't think it was entirely inevitable. It is not inevitable that a project like Wikipedia would appear either - it took massive organization of a group of people with a vision to set it up and have enough passion to keep it going.
====
Describe how you can change how techology is being used: (How can *you* influence?)
Roadshow. encourages others to interact with techology more often.
I think at home I can influence how techology is used by encouraging my parents/siblings to understand the techologies they use better. I think it would be interesting to try to influence how techology is used in classes, at least my classes, at CMU. I love the internet, and I love having computers around, but it is true that they encourage people to not pay attention. Synchron-eyes doesn't work. Clearly something else is needed. This isn't really what they want us to look at.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Disneyblog questions.
Questions to answer the Disney Blog's Birthday Contest.
I've celebrated my birthday once in Disneyland. It was my 22nd birthday, this past June. I was working at the Walt Disney Studios as a Summer Associate, and I figured it was probably my only chance to get there on my birthday (June 26th) since I don't live near either park. I took the day off - it was a Tuesday - and drove down at 8AM. I got there right around 9:00, parked, and went in, stopping by City Hall to get a birthday pin and a call from Goofy.
I actually really enjoyed going alone. It took away a lot of the stress of getting everywhere everyone wanted to go. Instead I just wandered, went on the rides I wanted to (including some which I remembered from when I was little that nobody would go on when I went with some friends). I ate lunch at the Blue Bayou, with a perfect table where I could see the boats drift by. Between the two parks, I stayed until about 11pm, before I started back home so that I'd get enough sleep to show up bright, early, and perky to work in the morning.
The single rider line rides have an S next to them on the map. Also, as everybody says, fast pass is totally worth it. You spend more time on rides instead of in line, and if you are patient enough to go around and get your fast passes, mostly on crowded days, you'll be so much happier.
- Have you ever celebrated your birthday at a Disney theme park? If so, tell us about it.
I've celebrated my birthday once in Disneyland. It was my 22nd birthday, this past June. I was working at the Walt Disney Studios as a Summer Associate, and I figured it was probably my only chance to get there on my birthday (June 26th) since I don't live near either park. I took the day off - it was a Tuesday - and drove down at 8AM. I got there right around 9:00, parked, and went in, stopping by City Hall to get a birthday pin and a call from Goofy.
I actually really enjoyed going alone. It took away a lot of the stress of getting everywhere everyone wanted to go. Instead I just wandered, went on the rides I wanted to (including some which I remembered from when I was little that nobody would go on when I went with some friends). I ate lunch at the Blue Bayou, with a perfect table where I could see the boats drift by. Between the two parks, I stayed until about 11pm, before I started back home so that I'd get enough sleep to show up bright, early, and perky to work in the morning.
- What is your favorite or most useful tip for guests of Disney's theme parks?
The single rider line rides have an S next to them on the map. Also, as everybody says, fast pass is totally worth it. You spend more time on rides instead of in line, and if you are patient enough to go around and get your fast passes, mostly on crowded days, you'll be so much happier.
- What is your favorite Disney theme park attraction or show and why?
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