Introduction:
The article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” served as the initial inspiration for a topic on internet searches. The idea behind how individuals process, think about and navigate the internet is very interesting. Searching for information online takes skill and contextual interface knowledge about the internet. User knowledge and skill must continue to evolve as the internet evolves with both technology and content. The way that individuals adjust to this changing and converging medium is fascinating. People actually change their behavior and thinking processes. This change is part of the convergence cycle. Internet users call for the convergence and advancement of technology while and at the same time they want to know what to expect. They want to know how to interface with a computer and the internet and get what they need. The call from users to be able to find information from the internet quickly and efficiently and the industry advancement of the medium is both “top/down” and “bottom/up.” Within this area of exploration there is much that can be analyzed and many implications for research projects, but one particular idea will be looked at in depth:
Thesis: Higher socio-economic status has a direct impact on successful internet searches.
Literature Review:
To understand how socio-economic status relates to internet searches it is important to look at issues of access. In order to be familiar with a computer and the internet these mediums must first be available for use. The article “Socio-economic determinants of broadband adoption,” looked at how socio-economic status can affect whether or not people use broadband to access the internet. The study explored different factors within the area of socio-economic status such as age, gender, education, income and occupation. Researcher used a survey method and sent the survey by mail to 1,500 randomly selected individuals from this sample there were 358 respondents. It was found that with the increase of income the number of broadband adopters increased as well. Sex did not prove to be a strong indicator for broadband adaption. The break down of the age category showed that the highest level of broadband adaption was between 25-54 year olds. The age group with the lowest number of adapters was the 65 and above age group. Researchers offered an explanation for this group saying that 65 year olds and above may not have a need for a computer and therefore do not have a need for broadband. It was found that the majority of broadband adapters had a degree and a higher level of education.
After looking at who was adapting and using the internet it is important to also focus on why people are using the internet. The article “Social and Usage-Process Motivations for Consumer Internet Access,” looked a little less at why people were choosing to use the internet. This study looks at internet users in two ways, light and heavy users based on their needs and want for using the internet. Heavy internet users look for socialization. Light users are more interested in the process they need to take to get what they want or need. To explore these ideas researchers surveyed 915 people using America Online. Respondents were classified as heavy or light users based on their response to a specific survey questions about use. They were then classified as a light or heavy internet user. From there the responses were coded based on their heavy or light status. It was found that light users did not use the internet for social gratification or for “surfing” the web for content and heavy users did. This includes the use of e-mails and other communication tools.
Delving even further into looking at who is using the internet the article “Global internet use and access: cultural considerations,” looks at how different cultures use of the internet. A person’s culture has an affect on how they use the internet based on their societal norms and their access to technology. Researchers examined the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Report, found the e-readiness rankings for 58 countries. Through analysis of education level, cultural norms and the EIU report and the application of the diffusions of innovation theory, researchers found that cultural influence does affect internet use. The diffusion and innovation (DOI) theory looks at innovation, channels of communication where innovation can be expounded, the time elapsed since the innovation was introduced and the social system that the innovation was diffused into. Different cultural factors contribute to how quickly or in what way technology is picked up. The way that a message about technology is communicated to a society has a lot to do with the success of the adoption of this technology. In high context cultures the context of the technology needs to be made clear. In low context cultures a description of the technology using words would be understood. Cultural norms such as power distance will affect adaptation because larger influencing companies or organizations can set the pace for maintaining the status quo or choose to utilize new technology or better yet, choose to be cutting edge and innovative. In cultures that have a high power distance people are less likely to go against the norms of society and avoid standing out (by doing something different or innovative). There additional implications for cultures that are collective versus individualistic. Individualistic cultures adapt technology and new ideas much quicker then collectivistic cultures because they like to stand out and are always searching for a competitive edge that will help to differentiate themselves from the rest of their collogues. Researchers also pointed out that the level of education also has a direct influence on economic growth. With economic growth there is an adaption to new technologies. The most room for expansion is in developing countries.
Another article that explores issues of diffusion but focuses specifically on how income influences internet use is “The Income Digital Divide: Trends and Predictions for Levels of Internet Use.” Researchers make the point that the internet has the potential to be a unifier among different groups because the internet provides an access to information and tools better than many other mediums. However, this is only the case if people have access to the technology, such as a computer and the internet. This is where income comes to the forefront of the issue of technology adaption. If individuals cannot afford the technology then they will not use it. If none of their friends have the technology then they will not be able to communicate with friends through technology. The more that society moves their infrastructure online, the more isolated groups will become if they do not have access or do not utilize technology. To illustrate these points researchers analyzed a U.S. Department of Commerce report that captured the rate of growth of internet and computer use. There was evidence of slow diffusion of internet use to lower income groups therefore causing a lower rate of use.
In order to be order to be able to successfully complete internet searches a certain set of skill and knowledge are needed. A level of familiarity and use of the internet is involved in a successful search as well. The articles that have already focused on the fact that if an individual does not have access to the internet or a computer then they will likely not even touch the issues of successful internet searches. The reality of the digital divide is true, those who have access and use new media will have more familiarity over those who do not. The study “Development and Test of an Internet Search Evaluation Measure” looks at who uses the internet and what they are using the internet for to measure the success of their actions and intentions. The article divides up internet use into two categories, those who use the internet for informational purposes and those who wish to engage in informational and social or entertainment internet interaction. Information seekers are goal oriented and access the medium with a specific goal they are trying to achieve. Achieving the goal requires specific strategies and skills. The achievement of this goal is measured in goal completion and the amount of time it takes to achieve the goal. There are other key indicators about goal success and that is the number of time search criteria was changed, the use of the back button or the phrasing or rephrasing of the criteria to achieve the goal.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Blog 11
The articles “The Aesthetics of Failure: “Post-Digital” Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music” and “Loving the Ghost in the Machine” explored how raw bare sounds and every day “noise” can be seen as digital music. Both articles also looked how the process of recording these sounds becomes digital music. Vanhanen said that when music is recorded, it starts to decompose with the use of tools. The act of recoding takes the true essence away from the live performance and actually makes sounds into data. Music becomes groves in plastic, the sounds becomes a cog in a machine instead of an actual experience. Cascone said that when we break music down and put it online it becomes less about the actual score and more about the technology and the sharing or distribution.
As a result of advance technology music has elements such as the refrain, “refrain isn’t the origin of music but rather the means of preventing it, warding it off,” (Vanhanen 2000.) The evolution of how music is now produced changes the nature of music as well. “Phonography, the art of recoding sound, allows the production of a smooth sound plane, on which all relations between its various musical elements are immanent as recoding extracts or constructs a block of time, a musical time that is present as sound penetrates our bodies but emerges as a result from an (quasi) event which is distant from use specially and temporarily,” (Vanhanen 2000.)
Music can be manufactured through a computer instead of in a thoughtful soulful way. “Phonography deterritorializes sound, flattens down the hierarchical organization of music into a rhizome, which is an open, multiple and temporal form of organization and susceptible to constant de-and recording,” (Vanhanen 2000.) The imperfections or “glitches” can be isolated and new sounds can be produced from the micro-level, a level not previously looked at or possible with out machines to break down sound and noise to a minute scope. The glitch itself can become music with the use of technology many glitches can be put together and form a new music made possible by technology. . “The medium is no longer the message in glitch music: the tool has become the message,” (Cascone 2002.) These types of arrangements or composition lead to new genres of music, like dance and techno. It can be argued that the convergence of technology that allows for this new way of making music becomes less about the actual music that is produced and more about the process or the tool.
Questions:
Does use of technology in the composition or creation of music take away from the purity of the form? Or does the form just evolve into something different?
Is it ethical to break down imperfections in music and edit them to be “perfect” through the use of technology?
Does the use of technology to compose and arrange music make it possible for more people to participate in this process or is the participation only limited to those with access to technological, tools and knowledge?
Is composition of music through technology more socio-economically limiting than creation or composition of music by access to actual instruments and knowledge of how to play and arrange music?
Is there a direction or industry leader in the field of music creation through digital technology?
Difficult concept:
I thought the readings were really interesting, but I am not sure that I see all of the future implications or connection of these concepts. What I need illustrated for me is how this affects and connects to the other things we have been talking about in class and how the creation of music through technology affects how we evolve through convergence.
Relation to research paper:
The idea that people can use tools to create music through technology and share this knowledge online has some implications for me research paper. I am really more interested in the thought process of how people make choices to find what they are looking for online – how people find music, information to make or arrange music, or even just sound samples online. I hope to be able to better answer this question after our class discussion, where I might get help with understanding how these concepts relate to the other topics we discussed in class and how the convergence of music technology has evolved the form into something new and different.
As a result of advance technology music has elements such as the refrain, “refrain isn’t the origin of music but rather the means of preventing it, warding it off,” (Vanhanen 2000.) The evolution of how music is now produced changes the nature of music as well. “Phonography, the art of recoding sound, allows the production of a smooth sound plane, on which all relations between its various musical elements are immanent as recoding extracts or constructs a block of time, a musical time that is present as sound penetrates our bodies but emerges as a result from an (quasi) event which is distant from use specially and temporarily,” (Vanhanen 2000.)
Music can be manufactured through a computer instead of in a thoughtful soulful way. “Phonography deterritorializes sound, flattens down the hierarchical organization of music into a rhizome, which is an open, multiple and temporal form of organization and susceptible to constant de-and recording,” (Vanhanen 2000.) The imperfections or “glitches” can be isolated and new sounds can be produced from the micro-level, a level not previously looked at or possible with out machines to break down sound and noise to a minute scope. The glitch itself can become music with the use of technology many glitches can be put together and form a new music made possible by technology. . “The medium is no longer the message in glitch music: the tool has become the message,” (Cascone 2002.) These types of arrangements or composition lead to new genres of music, like dance and techno. It can be argued that the convergence of technology that allows for this new way of making music becomes less about the actual music that is produced and more about the process or the tool.
Questions:
Does use of technology in the composition or creation of music take away from the purity of the form? Or does the form just evolve into something different?
Is it ethical to break down imperfections in music and edit them to be “perfect” through the use of technology?
Does the use of technology to compose and arrange music make it possible for more people to participate in this process or is the participation only limited to those with access to technological, tools and knowledge?
Is composition of music through technology more socio-economically limiting than creation or composition of music by access to actual instruments and knowledge of how to play and arrange music?
Is there a direction or industry leader in the field of music creation through digital technology?
Difficult concept:
I thought the readings were really interesting, but I am not sure that I see all of the future implications or connection of these concepts. What I need illustrated for me is how this affects and connects to the other things we have been talking about in class and how the creation of music through technology affects how we evolve through convergence.
Relation to research paper:
The idea that people can use tools to create music through technology and share this knowledge online has some implications for me research paper. I am really more interested in the thought process of how people make choices to find what they are looking for online – how people find music, information to make or arrange music, or even just sound samples online. I hope to be able to better answer this question after our class discussion, where I might get help with understanding how these concepts relate to the other topics we discussed in class and how the convergence of music technology has evolved the form into something new and different.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Blog 10
Overview
The idea of folk culture, the production of original works evolved into grassroots activism, or response to mass media culture. The concept of mass culture is when mass media products influence further development of the media by ordinary people. Popular culture is when mass culture gets “pulled back” into the folk culture and individuals make the product or media their own. These concepts have further implication for media convergence in terms of the top-down-bottom-up cycle, the impact media has through mass/popular culture on intellectual property, and how folk, mass media and popular culture influence convergence culture.
Top-down – bottom-up
In the chapter, “Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars? Grassroots Creativity Meets the Media Industry” the author examines the impact that grassroots innovation can have on larger media. The author’s exploration of this topic is really a top – down – bottom – up discussion. The debate about whether grass root productions positively impact popular products by personifying its creative genius, or whether it takes away from a product by changing these ideas/building on them. Do independent productions infringe on intellectual property or grow the popularity of a production? Or does it do both?
Intellectual property
The author says that the popularity of a production can grow, but through grass roots campaigns the actual portrayal of the original content can change in a direction that the author may not want. An example of this the production of “Star Wars” movies that are rated “X” versus the original films that are rated “PG”. The producer of “Star Wars” may not want it to be associated with “X” rated content and might want to limit the right of grass root producers from being able to use the “Star Wars” intellectual property for unapproved purposes. Napster is another example used to illustrate the compromise of intellectual property by a grassroots movement. Did Napster take anything away from the original production of the product? Will the sharing of media create a bigger demand for a product or will it lead to people no longer purchasing music because they can get it for free? In both examples the sharing or reproduction/further development of intellectual property is made possible by through convergence.
Convergence culture
Without the internet or the convergence of technology and media these grass root productions would not be possible. Many of the tools that grass root producers need to make their products they get from the professional productions. As a result of the grass roots productions does the popularity of the professional productions increase? Is it better for big producers to work with grass root groups to encourage their creativity and innovation to promote their product? The author makes the point, that the bigger media producers need the fans – just as much as the fans need them. The fan can take a production and expand its popularity and reach through their own grass root works.
Questions:
As a result of the grass roots productions does the popularity of the professional productions increase?
Is it better for big producers to work with grass root groups to encourage their creativity and innovation to promote their product?
Do independent productions infringe on intellectual property or grow the popularity of a professional production? Or does it do both?
Challenging concept:
I found the concept of folk culture a little hard to nail down. How is it really different from popular culture?
Relates to presentation:
The ideas around how media influences people to reproduce popular content and inspires people to act relates to my paper topic. I am interested in finding out more about what media content motivates and inspires people to use media and access it.
The idea of folk culture, the production of original works evolved into grassroots activism, or response to mass media culture. The concept of mass culture is when mass media products influence further development of the media by ordinary people. Popular culture is when mass culture gets “pulled back” into the folk culture and individuals make the product or media their own. These concepts have further implication for media convergence in terms of the top-down-bottom-up cycle, the impact media has through mass/popular culture on intellectual property, and how folk, mass media and popular culture influence convergence culture.
Top-down – bottom-up
In the chapter, “Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars? Grassroots Creativity Meets the Media Industry” the author examines the impact that grassroots innovation can have on larger media. The author’s exploration of this topic is really a top – down – bottom – up discussion. The debate about whether grass root productions positively impact popular products by personifying its creative genius, or whether it takes away from a product by changing these ideas/building on them. Do independent productions infringe on intellectual property or grow the popularity of a production? Or does it do both?
Intellectual property
The author says that the popularity of a production can grow, but through grass roots campaigns the actual portrayal of the original content can change in a direction that the author may not want. An example of this the production of “Star Wars” movies that are rated “X” versus the original films that are rated “PG”. The producer of “Star Wars” may not want it to be associated with “X” rated content and might want to limit the right of grass root producers from being able to use the “Star Wars” intellectual property for unapproved purposes. Napster is another example used to illustrate the compromise of intellectual property by a grassroots movement. Did Napster take anything away from the original production of the product? Will the sharing of media create a bigger demand for a product or will it lead to people no longer purchasing music because they can get it for free? In both examples the sharing or reproduction/further development of intellectual property is made possible by through convergence.
Convergence culture
Without the internet or the convergence of technology and media these grass root productions would not be possible. Many of the tools that grass root producers need to make their products they get from the professional productions. As a result of the grass roots productions does the popularity of the professional productions increase? Is it better for big producers to work with grass root groups to encourage their creativity and innovation to promote their product? The author makes the point, that the bigger media producers need the fans – just as much as the fans need them. The fan can take a production and expand its popularity and reach through their own grass root works.
Questions:
As a result of the grass roots productions does the popularity of the professional productions increase?
Is it better for big producers to work with grass root groups to encourage their creativity and innovation to promote their product?
Do independent productions infringe on intellectual property or grow the popularity of a professional production? Or does it do both?
Challenging concept:
I found the concept of folk culture a little hard to nail down. How is it really different from popular culture?
Relates to presentation:
The ideas around how media influences people to reproduce popular content and inspires people to act relates to my paper topic. I am interested in finding out more about what media content motivates and inspires people to use media and access it.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Blog 9
The article “Why the Digital Computer is Dead” examined the bare elements of the computer. The process of how a computer works and the difference between analogue and digital were dissected and examples were applied to illustrate future transcendence and use. “When people look at supposedly 'digital' images they can't easily distinguish them from other images. These images are different because they have been invoked from memory to a screen, and not layered onto a surface like paint, projected through celluloid, or played back from videotape. The difference does not mean they are 'digital' in the philosophical sense. This mistake leaves many people confused about the wider distinction between 'digital' and 'analogue',” (Chester, 2002). The philosophy digital and anologue use shows that one is not necessarily better than another, but they depend on each other to evolve. The way that we use the computer to project an image or find the information we are looking for, combines both digital codes and anologue substrates. Through this partnership between analogue and digital the way we get information from a computer has changed without most people even being conscious of the shift in accessibility. This process gowns even further as digital transcends to invocational media. “Invocational media, by contrast with reductive rationalist digital computers, have pragmatic and material histories drawing together technology, language and magic. But computers were always invocational, and invocation to artefacts long predates computers. Invocational media can be situated in a tradition of technologies that make the material world perform as language,” (Chester, 2002). Invocation media ceases to be about the actual medium, the computer, instead it is about the process of asking for content or memory from medium. This is assuming that the groundwork and structure has been established to be able to invoke this content from an accessible platform.
I found this article a little hard to follow. I understood the exploration of different technologies and their applications and transcendence to the new philosophy of invocational media. However, I feel like I have missed some important nuances in how invocational media can be achieved and how one can use past examples to illustrate how invocational media has occurred already. I feel like after some debate and though exploring some examples, I might have a more grounded understanding of the article and concept.
Invocational media has implications for how people use and process media, which is what I am working on for my paper. The theory behind invocational media could provide some illustration about future direction and use of media in my paper.
Study questions:
Are there any invocational mediums that currently exist? If so talk what is an example of one?
What are future implications for use of transcending invocational technologies?
How has this transcendence already taken place using past examples of access and mediums?
The article “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” looks at how the evolution of media itself influences the production of art over space and time and through different mediums. The ideas behind how “new art” is produced, such as film, and how this and “old art” such as sculpture, can be reproduced, has many consequences around authenticity. Reproduction has affects on the “aura” of a piece. “The conditions for an analogous insight are more favorable in the present. And if changes in the medium of contemporary perception can be comprehended as decay of the aura, it is possible to show its social causes,” (Benjamin, 1936). The reproduction of art has different implications for quality based on the medium and content. The way art is produced and consumed today in mediums like film does not require the consumer to think and process the art and its details because the images are already in the mind of the beholder based on the nature of the art and its consumption. “Since, moreover, individuals are tempted to avoid such tasks, art will tackle the most difficult and most important ones where it is able to mobilize the masses. Today it does so in the film. Reception in a state of distraction, which is increasing noticeably in all fields of art and is symptomatic of profound changes in apperception, finds in the film its true means of exercise. The film with its shock effect meets this mode of reception halfway. The film makes the cult value recede into the background not only by putting the public in the position of the critic, but also by the fact that at the movies this position requires no attention” (Benjamin, 1936).
I found the ideas in the article very interesting, but I am not sure that I really understood or followed the entire debate of the writer’s argument. Is it really fair to say that people do not appreciate art anymore as they used to. Or that film has stolen some of the consumer’s exploration of art away because film overloads your mind with the entire picture not giving the consumer a chance to think about what they are seeing? If this is what the author is saying I will disagree. Having taken an entire semester examining a single director and his movies, I can see that there is so much more to good film then first meets the eye or the brain. I think that education on how to break down these films and look for the genius – just as you would when examining a phenomenal painting, are the same. You just have to make the effort and have the will to do so. However, with so much content and debate in the article I am not sure that I am hearing the writer correctly.
This article related to my paper in terms of how people process and access art. The idea that access and reproduction affects how people comprehend art has implications as well. For example, if someone will never get to see a great work of art in person, but can access its image through the internet does that mean that the quality for that person will be diminished? Is it better to not see the work of art at all or to have some access to see it in some form? Yes, the quality might not be the same, but isn’t it better to be able to have some connection with the art then none at all? Does the way that people access this art over space and time have implications for how they process and search for things online?
Questions:
Does reproduction of art or availability of art online diminish its quality? Is there less of an impact?
Does the production of art through new technology take away from traditional art forms?
I found this article a little hard to follow. I understood the exploration of different technologies and their applications and transcendence to the new philosophy of invocational media. However, I feel like I have missed some important nuances in how invocational media can be achieved and how one can use past examples to illustrate how invocational media has occurred already. I feel like after some debate and though exploring some examples, I might have a more grounded understanding of the article and concept.
Invocational media has implications for how people use and process media, which is what I am working on for my paper. The theory behind invocational media could provide some illustration about future direction and use of media in my paper.
Study questions:
Are there any invocational mediums that currently exist? If so talk what is an example of one?
What are future implications for use of transcending invocational technologies?
How has this transcendence already taken place using past examples of access and mediums?
The article “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” looks at how the evolution of media itself influences the production of art over space and time and through different mediums. The ideas behind how “new art” is produced, such as film, and how this and “old art” such as sculpture, can be reproduced, has many consequences around authenticity. Reproduction has affects on the “aura” of a piece. “The conditions for an analogous insight are more favorable in the present. And if changes in the medium of contemporary perception can be comprehended as decay of the aura, it is possible to show its social causes,” (Benjamin, 1936). The reproduction of art has different implications for quality based on the medium and content. The way art is produced and consumed today in mediums like film does not require the consumer to think and process the art and its details because the images are already in the mind of the beholder based on the nature of the art and its consumption. “Since, moreover, individuals are tempted to avoid such tasks, art will tackle the most difficult and most important ones where it is able to mobilize the masses. Today it does so in the film. Reception in a state of distraction, which is increasing noticeably in all fields of art and is symptomatic of profound changes in apperception, finds in the film its true means of exercise. The film with its shock effect meets this mode of reception halfway. The film makes the cult value recede into the background not only by putting the public in the position of the critic, but also by the fact that at the movies this position requires no attention” (Benjamin, 1936).
I found the ideas in the article very interesting, but I am not sure that I really understood or followed the entire debate of the writer’s argument. Is it really fair to say that people do not appreciate art anymore as they used to. Or that film has stolen some of the consumer’s exploration of art away because film overloads your mind with the entire picture not giving the consumer a chance to think about what they are seeing? If this is what the author is saying I will disagree. Having taken an entire semester examining a single director and his movies, I can see that there is so much more to good film then first meets the eye or the brain. I think that education on how to break down these films and look for the genius – just as you would when examining a phenomenal painting, are the same. You just have to make the effort and have the will to do so. However, with so much content and debate in the article I am not sure that I am hearing the writer correctly.
This article related to my paper in terms of how people process and access art. The idea that access and reproduction affects how people comprehend art has implications as well. For example, if someone will never get to see a great work of art in person, but can access its image through the internet does that mean that the quality for that person will be diminished? Is it better to not see the work of art at all or to have some access to see it in some form? Yes, the quality might not be the same, but isn’t it better to be able to have some connection with the art then none at all? Does the way that people access this art over space and time have implications for how they process and search for things online?
Questions:
Does reproduction of art or availability of art online diminish its quality? Is there less of an impact?
Does the production of art through new technology take away from traditional art forms?
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