The Convergence of Media

Jenkins states convergence as "the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences."

The rise of the internet has allowed for a mix of old media and new media, with different kinds of information from all platforms becoming interlinked from computing and other information technologies. Convergence lets individual consumers interact and connect socially to create new forms of media and content accessible to wide audience with the birth of the digital revolution.

All entertainment technologies have been adapted to the internet with the radio, films, music and television being accessed with the web. As a student, I watch everything online without owning a television on iPlayer or 4OD, the BBC and Channel 4 have brought a catch up TV service to the web making it more accessible to many who don't own a television or who would like to watch a show from anywhere with an internet connection. I also  listen all my music whilst surfing the net, mostly on Spotify, a free streamer of music with adverts played between several songs. More recently, Spotify has allowed a premium service for streaming music on mobile devices for a monthly charge. Your account can also be connected with Facebook to share music with friends, allowing users to interact socially and see what their  friends  are listening to.

Another example of web convergence is the use of making free calls online via Skype, letting users call across the world and make video calls without using a home landline or mobile device at a cost. I use this frequently to contact friends and family at home whilst at university enabling greater social connection.

Convergence not only applies to the web but in portable devices such as smartphones and in particular iPhones and android devices. I find that my own smartphone is something which, besides using the phone for basic functions like  calling and texting, I spend alot of time using it for many other purposes which i would ordinarily would have gotten up to go on my laptop to do something. I find myself flicking through various social networking sites, using apps for the Guardian and other news sites to keep up to date, checking the weather, emails, googling information and keeping up with my finances with a mobile banking app. I use my smartphone to the extent that it organises my life and the synchronisation of my emails and other accounts helps to make that a little bit easier. Having the ability to do all of these things from my phone in any location has greatly improved my media experience through the technological convergence of the web.

Overall I find that media convergence has helped to develop and improve my lifestyle and social connectedness with easier access to all kinds of different technologies and media, I feel that media convergence has made a positive impact on society and will continue to make further developments in the future. 

Social Media and the Public Sphere

Jurgen Habermas developed the idea of the ‘public sphere’ providing a platform for individuals to discuss affair. It allows many to form public opinion about various matters in the hope that it transpires political change.

The internet and emergence of social media has been seen as being a positive influence on the Public Sphere in the way that it has promoted civic participation. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are used by many and with information constantly shared and at such a quick pace, the role of ‘citizen journalist’ has allowed many people of whom own camera phones to upload videos and photographs as and when they are happening in 'real time'.

The role of citizen journalism has fast become a strong and popular platform for many to report their goings on and upload straight to YouTube for millions to see. In turn this allows a fairer and democratized society for the public sphere in the sharing of information from members of the public, instead of receiving news from only official news broadcasters who, in higher positions are subject to political bias and the censoring of news.

As our notions of democracy are tied closely to the public discourse and opinions of others, social media has allowed us to be producers of our own content rather than just consumers from a mass audience. Although there may be more ways of producing opinions and generating social commentary, Turner’s research suggest that the hierarchy of the web allows many voices to go unheard due to search engines showing at the top of its lists the most searched sites. Much of the public’s written opinion on blogs and various sites are rarely heard due to the popularity of other sites published by a minority of 'white, highly educated, male, professionals who are vastly overrepresented in online opinion.’ (Turner, 2010) 

The internet has greatly allowed for public opinions to be voiced and furthered the development of the Public Sphere. Important topics that have trended on Twitter, such as recently the Leveson Inquiry has allowed many to voice their thoughts and opinions online using hashtags which has brought more people and not just followers to see the content you've published alongside it, increasing the spread of information and opinions. 

Overall I feel that the internet and the rise of social media have contributed to the Public Sphere in a positive way, allowing a place for individuals to voice their own opinions on important matters. The impact of social media has given more attention to the views of others and enabled the widespread of information to different audiences through social networking at a easier and quicker pace.

Digital Identity

Since the technological advances of the 20th century, the invention of the World Wide Web has allowed it's users to develop multiple identities. An individual is no longer one personality or one image, we have allowed ourselves to create these many identities through online persona's which we adopt for numerous websites, particularly social networks such as Facebook or Twitter or virtual communities such as SecondLife or World of Warcraft.

There are always dangers with posting your real identity online without letting too much information into the World Wide Web accessible to virtually anyone with online predators and stalkers on the web who exploit other user’s vulnerability. An interactive website called http://www.takethislollipop.com/ became a viral hit when it showed users when connected to their Facebook how their private information can be used, showing a creepy man stalking their personal profile. 

As an internet user, I also have profiles on the web for social networks to keep in touch with friends and their usual status updates and photo uploads. I feel that my identity online closely matches with my own real identity as a person with the use of my real name, picture and educational information although i feel that this allows other 'friends' to add me based on if they know me from attending the same school or as an old friend who recognises me from the photo, this is the only information that can will be displayed to those who don't already have me as a friend. I don't attempt to create a false identity in using real information but only so those who know me can add me. I take control over what I post on the web and there are settings for changing which audiences are allowed to view what. I feel in this way that my identity online is well-protected when aware of what privacy settings are available.

The importance of the digital identity has become essential in youth culture. As we as young people have come together to create our own identities through the representation of our online media from our photographs to our hobbies and likes. We each create an identity to represent to others, often identifying with an aspect of our culture with regard to particular groups and activities (e.g sport teams/societies or musical interests). Erving Goffman’s theory of self-presentation talks about the roles we play in many parts and our persona as a ‘mask’, we present a performance to observers of what we want them to believe and in this way create a public self through our online representation.

This online identity is a way of creating our ‘ideal self’ - the kind of person you would like to be and how you would like others to see you. Through gatekeeping we can filter out information that could cause negative perceptions, such as removing content like embarrassing photographs and adding interests or status updates to give a certain idea to others of what you might seem like. The reality of it is that in the flesh people are not what they seem to their online identity, thus creating false personas and identities.

Our identities or images of ourselves often change over time and is formed through our interaction with other people. Our social interaction with people can make us feel part of a community or part of interweaving friendship groups maintaining contact online. The interaction we have with others is important in forming opinions and changing views, especially for bloggers who express their opinions online.

Burton (2005) talks about how our ‘identity has a number of dimensions’ including ‘a sense of place, history, cultural practises, role and relationship and occupation’. These aspects of identity are important and show identity as becoming a combination of many factors. Our online identity has further allowed us to reach more people with similarities and keep contact with many across the world, yet maintaining barriers to onlookers of their true self. I feel that our digital identities are are not just one stable and homogeneous identity but now consist of fragments which are always changing. 

Sources:
Burton, G. (2005) Media and Society: Critical Perspectives, Open University Press.

A Day Without Technology

For this weeks workshop, we looked at creating our own media campaign video to raise awareness of a particular cause of our choice.

Working in groups, we looked at several issues we could potentially explore and use in our campaign. We watched an interesting video for a campaign for 'Free Hugs' (http://www.freehugscampaign.org/) which I thought was a really nice way of promoting togetherness and found it to be a simple idea for something which has since influenced others in different countries to give out their own 'free hugs'.

Free Hugs Campaign (PeaceOnEarth123, 2006)

We found it difficult to come up with a idea for our campaign and brainstormed many ideas, we then asked ourselves what is relevant in our lives and important to us that we consider a worthy cause. We came to the conclusion that as we live in a technological age, we are constantly using our phones, iPods, the internet, television and various other technology that we as students have always grown up with. We asked ourselves one fundamental question:

This became the basis of our campaign - A day without technology. We wanted to look at how we as students could go without technology for 24 hours when in this day and age we have become so used to checking our phones and email everyday, using the internet, watching television or listening to music on portable MP3 players or iPod's. 


Jenkins (2006) wrote "media technologies are fully integrated into our everyday social interactions", we use technology in our everyday life as a means of communicating with people via social networking and mobile communication. We do so much so in a way that we as a society have come to rely on technology for almost anything, particularly socially in which we continue to carry conversations over the web and in a mediated form at home rather than in person. The ability to do things without leaving a room has put social interaction as well as even physical movement to a bare minimum. To the extent that losing this immediate form of mediated interaction such as the loss of phone or internet access can leave many feeling isolated and helpless. Technology has allowed us to be more sociable and given us a faster and convenient way of communication as well as deliver us information where new media has now become the first choice for many for their source of information. Our campaign attempts to show one student given the challenge of avoiding many types of technology and demonstrate to others the pros and cons of relying on technology in the day of a life of a student. 





The campaign video showed one student, Luke, as the subject as we followed him in his daily routine without the use of any of his personal technology (mobile phone, television, iPod and laptop).

Much of the video depicted him talking to the camera and explaining what he was doing as we were going along. We used several scenarios to show Luke refraining from using technology and using other activities and resources:  Luke talking to several flatmates to organise a game of football showed how we had to avoid using his mobile phone/social networking and use face-to-face interaction.

Another scenario showed Luke going to the library to write an essay by hand as a substitute for using Microsoft Word on his laptop. A scenario also involved Luke getting his news from a newspaper with the rates of newspaper sales in decline to show a way of avoiding reading news from online news sites and social networking like Twitter which tends to break news as and when it happens.. 


The last scenes of the video showed how his friends had failed to meet him for a football game and reflected on how important technology is in his life and how he relied on it to organise events and needed this to keep in contact with many of his friends. He concluded that technology can have it's good and bad points but overall felt he needed technology to help him with most of his day, realising what a strong reliance he had on it. The overall point of the campaign video demonstrates our constant need for information and contact with our friends so much so in creating feelings of isolation, as young people we use it more than any other age group and has become a huge part of our lives as we grew up always using technology, we know no existence without it.

Campaign Project - A day without technology

Sources: 

Jenkins, H. (2006) Eight Traits of the New Media Landscape [WWW] Available from: http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/11/eight_traits_of_the_new_media.html (Accessed: 26/03/2012)

Psychogeography Project

We began an interesting project before Christmas based on the concept of Psychogeograpy, defined by Guy DeBord as ‘the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals’ (DeBord, 1955)

Psychogeograpy is mainly concerned with how humans shape their environment and more importantly, how the environment shapes humans. With roots in the Situationists, DeBord looked at the ‘ambiance’ of places, the atmosphere within urban landscapes to invoke emotional responses through mundane surroundings.
It begins with a journey, taking the viewer through everyday life with particular focus on details that would normally be missed. Psychogeography allows its spectators to see more than meets the eye within their daily routine by making a journey unplanned and drawing attention to the ordinary, simply by changing the way a journey is taken. For example, choosing which route to take by the roll of a dice or documenting the journey through photographs can give a journey a whole new purpose.

After watching several videos from previous students, in groups we brainstormed ideas and looked at locations for the setting of our journey. We decided to set it in Birmingham as it was a setting that was unfamiliar to us all and would make it more exciting set in a different City. After a group meeting in the library, we planned how we would set the journey up and how we would decide the route. We looked at writing a list of routes and directions to show where we go but decided that it wouldn’t be random enough. We came back to the idea of rolling a dice but settled on the idea of using a paper fortune teller as we thought it would be more interesting to follow a route determined by allowing the participant to select from emoticons in keeping with the theme than a list or numbers on a dice.

The journey (as shown below) began from Leicester train station to Birmingham New Street station, where the route taken was around the centre of Birmingham following directions (left, right, straight) using the fortune teller.

We each decided who do what in the project and assigned roles with two members of the group filming and taking photographs then we each had a go at doing filming, trying to follow a plan of how we would shoot the video. We used Hannah as our subject of the video, who we shadowed and filmed for the whole day as we thought it would be easier for viewers to watch Hannah (below) and follow her through her journey to Birmingham.

We spent a whole day in Birmingham filming and ended the journey back at Birmingham New Street Station. We used several locations such as the stations, the city centre and various back alleys and streets in the city of Birmingham to show where many people walk on their daily routines but as we had all never really seen Birmingham before, we were all taking our journey through the City with fresh eyes, taking note of every detail.

As the journey is about mapping emotions through Hannah's journey, we asked members of the public to write down one word on a board to describe how they were feeling at the time and place. We then asked permission to take their photograph and use this within our video, although we found that some people were quite reluctant to have their photo used.

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For the editing process of the video, we used Final Cut Pro as it allowed us to explore and be more creative with our video as the software is used by many professional film makers. We spent several days editing and putting together the journey, cutting many hours of footage down to six minutes. We added the photographs of people writing their emotions on the board at the end as a montage.

The music we used was Alex Turner's Piledriver Waltz, which we all agreed after various suggestions that it was a good choice and was melodic enough to fit the journey and it's purpose well.

The following week we presented our finished project (above) by showing the video in our workshop. The feedback we received was generally good yet we went over the time limit for how long the video should be which dragged on with all the walking scenes. I felt pleased with our finished project and enjoyed the experience of filming and exploring Birmingham. 

Web 2.0

In this week’s workshop we considered the idea of Web 2.0, a term coined by Tim O'Reilly in 2004. We looked at a reading by O’Reilly entitled "What Is Web 2.0?" and discussed the meaning of it and related concepts such as:

The Long Tail

-          Finding niche things to sell to mass audiences

-          Selling lots of less popular items to specific audiencesFolksonomy

-          Where many sites categorise key words or ‘tags’ for easy browsing (i.e. Flickr, YouTube)

Collective Intelligence

-          where users can contribute and edit content to websites (i.e. eBay, Amazon)

In the lecture earlier in the week, we looked at problems with the early web known as Web 1.0 such as copyright issues, searching and indexing page content, the need for considerable technical skills to publish online and the lack of social involvement.

We then looked at cloud computing allowing users to store files online and the development of Web 2.0 which has made considerable progress and allows users to interact with each other and the web, placing users in active roles rather than passive ones as consumers.

For the second half of the workshop, we then had to get into groups and make our own Pecha Kucha PowerPoint based on one aspect of O’Reilly’s Web 2.0. We watched a video demonstrated what a Pecha Kucha presentation and how to make one. The video explained that PK presentations typically last around 6.40 minutes, consisting of 20 slides each lasting 20 seconds each. The point of PK presentations are that there is an important picture or key word on each slide for the speaker to be able to verbally communicate their point rather than read a long paragraph off each slide.

Pecha Kucha: Get to the PowerPoint in 20 Slides (WiredNews, 2007)

We chose to focus on Collective Intelligence from O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 in the style of a PK presentation; we were only allowed a 5 minute presentation consisting of only 15 slides for 20 seconds each.

Each member of the group researched and looked up the relevant links in the handbook for that aspect and picked out important points using Internet sources and images from Google. We used Microsoft PowerPoint as it was the simplest and quickest way of putting together a slideshow of relevant points. We looked at the definition of Collective Intelligence, examples such as eBay, Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, social networking sites such as MySpace and Twitter and the advantages and disadvantages of Collective Intelligence.

In the following week, we then presented to the class, whilst being just over the time limit I felt that we did well but from feedback it became clear that we didn’t fully explain what Collective Intelligence was which was important for the overall presentation.     

Web 2.0. - Collective Intelligence

Sources:

O'REILLY, T. (2005) What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software [WWW] Available from: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20-html

WIREDNEWS. (2007). Pecha Kucha: Get to the PowerPoint in 20 Slides [online video]. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NZOt6BkhUg [Accessed 24/10/11]