Presentation
Week 11 post
For the interactin design project I’m going to show the word ‘quick’. For that I’ll be using a colourful snail, although snails are slow, this snail will be a quick one, to avoid being hit by a flying object, among the object some vegetables also will be flying which should be caught by snail. The snail will duck on the action of clicking the button. If the child is quick using the button they will be ok playing this game which it should give a sense of exploration and difficulty.
Misogynism or jornalism?
Language is a very powerful tool of newspaper reporters, stories are manipulated and headlines are written to sensationalise the public, so far there’s nothing new about this system. Most of us are familiar and aware of it. Kate Clark in ‘The linguistic of blame’ explores how language in ‘The Sun newspaper’ (a British newspaper) may be used by reporters to manipulate stories in order to convey that violence against women is somehow the fault of the women.
Now, Kate has some very interesting points which I have not considered before. To a certain extent the facts pointed out are agreeable, however there is a very good stretch on her story to better suit her view, just like the newspapers do in order to sensationalize. From a cursory examination of The Sun (online) I have to agree with Kate to a point about the Sun newspaper’s methods, however, unlike Kate I do not think there is a conspiracy at Sun to denigrate women specifically. It is clear from the many stories in the crime section that The Sun uses these methods of sensationalisation across the board.
Kate starts by saying that ‘in our society men commit acts of violence on women every day. All women’s lives are affected by this: by actual violence or by the fear of it’ (pg. 243). Yes, in our society acts of violence are committed; however, it is not just women that fear for their safety. There are regular attacks on men and women both hetro and homosexual.
Kate also says that The Sun chooses to name attackers according to their crime. If the crime is shocking the attacker may be named a fiend, beast, monster, maniac, or ripper (pg.244), and if they think that the crime is not so shocking they may name the attacker sympathetically. Now, I am not quite sure of what Kate is trying to prove here, but this is the way headlines are commonly composed in newspapers such as The Sun in order to lure their readers. Kate uses this to show victimisation of women, but it seems to me that this is just the way news stories are composed independent of gender.
Note the use of the terms ‘twisted thug’ and ‘altar boy’ in the headline below in which no women feature.
From the Sun online newspaper ‘TWISTED thug Jake Fahri was jailed for life yesterday for murdering altar boy Jimmy Mizen — just because the 16-year-old “disrespected” him in a bakery shop’ (15/05/09, Sun Justice)
Clench, James. “Thug who murdered Jimmy, 16, given life” The Sun on the Web on 28 March 2009. 15 May 2009
< http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2346902.ece>.
Clark, Kate. “The Linguistic of Blame” In Toolan, M. Ed. Language, Text and Context London: Routledge, 1992, 208-224.
Audience
In the article ‘media audience’ Couldry analyses the contemporary media audience. Abercrombie and Longhurst refer to the contemporary audience as a “diffused audience that is almost permanently connected to one electronic medium or another, across almost every activity of social and private life”. With the modern or diffused audience interacting with so many forms of media in so many places, concerns about how to conduct research are raised.
Media researchers have been focused on the traditional forms of media and viewing practices, Couldry also analyses the technological and social shifts that may have affected the contemporary audience. Considering technology, it can be seen that our diffused audience is no longer re-arranging their schedule to fit a broadcast show, but alternatively they are using new technology to better suit their schedule. Also with media becoming decentralised, it is seen and used practically everywhere. Often while waiting for the bus, I’m able to check the latest news which is shown on a digital sign outside the channel seven building, once on the bus I listen to the radio via my mobile phone. Yes media has become essential in my life and I feel part of the audience at all times.
The technological shift is also linked to the social changes of the audience. Nowadays being part of the audience it is not seen as important it used to be. For an instance the Big Brother show is an example where the audience partly take on the role of producers, by choosing who stays on or leaves the show. Discussing the power of media institutions and audience, some other issues were raised, for example, the power of choosing who is to be broadcast, and the power of institutions over the information that will be broadcast.
It seems that with the contemporary audience interacting with media everywhere and at all the time, it is difficult to reach a conclusive form of research. It is clear that new research methods must be developed in order to help us understand the contemporary audience and the way they interact with modern forms of media.
Couldry, Nick,. “The extended Audience: Scanning the Horizon.” In Gillespie, Marie. Ed. Media Audiences. Berkshire: Open University Press, 2005, 184-196 & 210-220.
Network
Last week’s chapter was about how media convergence affects our lives and the traditional form of media. The article of this week takes a deeper look at the convergence of media, analysing the shift from broadcast media to network media, and it’s outcomes in society.
Most of us are familiar with the term network; Castells defines networks in a quite simple, yet technical way, referring to them as being connected by nodes without a centre. The network has the flexibility of including or excluding these nodes to better suit its purpose, the scability to expand or shrink in size and survivability to operate in wide range of configurations.
He uses the term network society which I gather refers to us, the humans using information and communication technologies. Castells made a very interesting point about the use of information and knowledge. Getting information without the knowledge of how to make use of it makes that information lose its relevance.
Network society is distinguished by time and space. Space refers to the places connected by electronic forms of communication. His term, space of flows is the place where activities take place, the material related to that activity and the content of the continuous information. Industrial society is organised with the flow of time and space. Contrary to industrial society, network society with the space of flows, maintains a system where events are continuous, without having to be concerned about time. Facebook is a place where activities happen and the material posted is related to that activity with continuous information. These space of flows helped to increase accessibility to information in a faster way, regardless of time in the communication network.
Castells refers to culture in network society as; theoretically: “a culture of protocols of communication enabling communication between different cultures on the basis, not necessarily of shared values, but of sharing the value of communication” (pg 169). Although the network structure seems to be globally used, for some cultures there is no term ‘network society’ but simply ‘network’. There is no interest in networking as a whole society where knowledge is given and gained but, there is interest simply to communicate. The point is that exchanging knowledge and information would make the network more productive, wealthy and powerful and that could be the culture of the network society.
Castells, M. Excerpts from “Informationalism, Networks, and the Network society: a Theoretical Blueprint” From The Network Society: A Cross-cultural Perspective. Cheltenham, UK, Edward Elgar, pgs. 3-7 & 36-45.
Convergence
In the chapter Challenges for Convergence the concepts of internetisation, mediatisation, enhanced media, networked individualism and social networking are analysed.
What is convergence? It could be said that it is the combination of different forms of media. Convergence involves technological convergence, industrial convergence and cultural convergence.
For Steve Jones, technological convergence is not seen as in the form of technologies combined into one device but, a continuing fast and often excessive spread of communication media, tools and activities. The down side of this process is that instead of making a single device, the new form of convergence deals with multiple devices. Convergence can affect the structural adaptation of traditional media, change the character of content of media and also the character of audience formations.
Evans and Wurstes offer a view of how industrial convergence affected the structure of traditional media. They suggest that digitalisation is separating what is called reach (number of people accessing the information) from richness (quality of information). Such a process may lead some corporations to deconstruction and/or disintermediation. Deconstruction can be exemplified as print newspapers being replaced by many people in favour on online news. Television also faces deconstruction because online corporations have the potential to customise and interact faster.
Fortunati has a more positive view, describing convergence as internetisation and mediatisation. The traditional media is slowly combining offline activities to online interaction. The reality television program Big Brother is an example of internetisation, where by the program is broadcast on television, and enhanced with online content, with the audience being encourage to go online to watch extra content or use premium SMS services to vote for certain outcomes. The mediatisation is understood as the constant confrontation over the redistribution of media contents, media rights and power over distribution of information.
Pierre Levy suggested that through technology the dependence on mass broadcasting will lessen with the replacement of form of media, such as television or cinema with the internet, mobile phones use, computer games and other forms of media where users have more control over their forms of entertainment, but this interaction in a sense leads to a lack of control due to the need for software and hardware upgrades, up-to-date drivers and patches, in order to properly interact with media.
In conclusion, I personally experience the process of convergence in my life. For instance I have replaced print paper news with online news and have also replaced the television with online interaction. Using a PCIE TV tuner card in my computer gives me a greater degree of control over my television contents. I can manage (recording) shows while performing other tasks and several channels at once should I wish to, recording one or more of them at will. However I would not SMS vote or pay to watch special content or interact more with television. I also often feel frustrated by the power of organisations and their manipulation of media rights.
Nightengale. Virginia. “New Media Worlds? Challenges for Convergence.” In Nightengale, Virginia and Tim Dwyer, Eds. New Media Worlds: Challenges for Convergence. South Melbourne, VIC” Oxford University Press, 2007, 19-36.
Mobile Communications
In this reading Mizuko Ito analyses the usage of mobile phone by the youth of Japanese society. This chapter brought me some memories of the time I spent in Japan. Living in Japan I personally do not remember taking calls while on the train and rarely saw people taking calls. As Mizuko describes, if they actually happen to take a call they try block the sound of the conversation with their hands in the form of a shell, and they keep the conversation as short as possible, actually text messages are the preferred form of communication on public transport. Last November while travelling in Japan, I witnessed an event that took place on a train. A teenager boy took a mobile phone call, and engaged in a loud conversation, laughing frequently. Sometime later a man whilst leaving caught hold of the boys’ collar and begun to choke the boy just as Homer is seen to choke Bart in the Simpsons, a popular American cartoon, only stopping to exit the train. The scene was quite shocking as it happened so unexpectedly, and especially because Japanese people are usually so complacent. Presumably the man was so outraged by the boy’s behaviour he in turn was moved to behave outside social norms.
As seen in the previous chapter, Moores in ‘Doubling of place’ narrates an event that occurred on a train in New York, where a young woman using an unpleasant tone was having a private conversation over the phone in a public place and became annoyed by another commuter making eye contact with her. Comparing both societies, there is a some evidence that the use of mobile phones on public transport is frowned upon in both, however perhaps in the west, it is not unusual and more of an annoyance whereas in Japan it is almost unheard of and perhaps, a moral outrage.
Another interesting analysis was accomplished in the household environment, which shows that once again the mobile is the preferred way of communication, which appears to be on account of greater privacy, an increased sense of freedom and less parental control. The same feeling is carried on in class where Japanese students just as students in many other countries, rely on text messages throughout class time. The efficacy of mobile phones was a boost for teenagers, enabling them to communicate free from the influence of time or space. Mobile phones heps to overcome the power geometry of time and space. I personally admire the subtle way (most of the times) in which Japanese society conducts its principle of behaviour.
Ito, Mizuko. “Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, ans the Replacement of Social Contact.” In Ling, Rich and Pedersen, Per, Eds. Mobile Communications: Re-negotiation of the Social Sphere. London: Springer – Verlag, 2005, 131-148.
Mediation – Space
In The Doubling of Place, the author Shaun Moores takes a further step in analysing media in our every life, talking about the internet and telephone as well as radio and television. He also talks about space along with Scannell’s idea about time, bringing up the concept of being in two places at once. I personally support this argument because, although my family and friends are in several different countries, I am able to stay in such constant contact, using not only the telephone but also the internet, that I still feel included in their lives in an intimate way, and do not feel the gulf of distance so acutely. Thanks to modern media I am able to be elsewhere, while I am carrying on with my everyday routine.
Joshua Meyrowitz argues that ‘Electronic media affect us… not primarily through their content, but by changing the “situational geography” of social life’ (Meyrowitz 1985: 6 in Moores 2004: 22). Certainly making use of media we are able to take shortcuts, for example, making a call instead of writing a letter is a much faster and more immediate way to communicate, however Meyrowitz argues the fact that we lose the sense, or even the opportunity, of physical experiences, in this case, the trip to the post office or some event that could occur on the way.
Moores in his discourse about electronic media, time, space and social relationships presents three events in relation to ‘doubling of place’. Live broadcast events offer viewers the feeling of being at the place or being more involved with the situation. Bombarding broadcasts of celebrities lives, may cause some viewers to lose control emotionally and when a public event takes place their lives may get disrupted, resulting in an interruption of their routine.
The second account is about the internet as part of everyday live, through internet games like real-time virtual world, users take on different roles, genders, and places among other things. In this way they experience other lives in other places without leaving their normal physical place.
The last account addresses mobile phones, and the fact that most of us do not think twice about using our phones anywhere and anytime, we are frequently so engaged in conversations over the phone, we forget about our physical space.
Media takes place within us and our world in a very subtle way. How it will affect us, only time will tell.
Moores, Shaun. “The Doubling of Place: Electronic Media, Time Space Arrangements and Social Relationships.” In Couldry, Nick. And McCarthey, Anna., Eds. MediaSpace: Place, Scale and Culture in a Media Age. London: Routledge, 2004, 21-37.
Dailiness
In Dailiness Scannell analyses how media takes part in our everyday life and how broadcasting shapes our understanding of time. Taking Scannell’s analysis and thinking about media in my daily routine, I realised that although I usually check the news on the internet before going to bed, everyday in the morning I check the news again as my ‘media ritual’. I actually feel excited to see what has changed overnight; I suppose that the idea of reading new news stories makes me feel that is a new and different day. In dailiness, Scannell talks about the caring and professionalism that is involved in broadcasting the programs that fill our day, each day. “Our sense of days is always already in part determined by the ways in which media contribute to the shaping of our sense of days (Scannell 1996, pg 149).
Time and space are two important concepts related to media. Media changes our sense of time and space. Space in this case refers to broadcasting events, an example is the Carnaval in Rio. Once the event could only be experienced through being physically there or through photographs in the newspaper, whereas today it can be listened to and viewed in many countries over the internet. Time refers to temporality, how media helps us to experience time. The morning news brings the feeling of a new day. Easter, Mother’s day, Christmas and many other events usually broadcast ahead of time bringing excitement for the coming season and reminding us of that time of the year.
Scheduled programs bring the dailiness feeling, and many of the audience follow tune in regardless of what is happening in the world. However, if that schedule is interrupted by some news break, for example, there may be a disturbance of the normal flow of the routine, the dailiness feeling. The business of scheduling programs is a difficult task, however the care structure of broadcasting supports the feeling of being connected to the world bringing meaning to everyday existence.
Scannell, P. “Dailiness” In Radio, Television and Modern Life. Blackwell, London, 1996, 144-178.
