Gender and the Internet

The first thing I notices from most of the sources I looked at was the standard that the internet is mainly dominated by a male presence. However, in recent years that number has been dramatically decreasing.
The studies i read basically concluded that the things they expected to be present in more male dominated discussions were not able to be confirmed and would not apply to all studies anyway. The same thing goes for studies on female dominated discussions. Basically, it seems that the gender gap begins to break down over the internet. Men and women both act differently than they would in real life. The generally held assumptions on how different genders act towards others in conversation dissappear in the impersonality of the internet. I would speculate if this has as much to do with the impersonality of the internet as it does the direction our culture is taking us. Calling for women to be more masculine in the world and men to be more sensitive or effiminate towards others. This is strictly speculation and opinion but i think this could be playing a major role in how people communicate not just on the internet but in person too.

Important Media Communication advances

telegraph - one could communicate with someone many miles away in just a few seconds. There was no more need for face to face communication.

telephone - Now one could directly speak to someone far away. However, this was limited to one on one conversations
 
internet - The emergence of the internet allowed for anyone to share their thoughts with the world. Television and radio had limited who could speak or be on to just the people that had the extra money to use such devices for their own gain. The internet enabled people to communicate with multiple people all at one time.

email - email is like an instant letter. People can send one and whoever they sent it to can look at it at their own convenience.

Instant message - people could now communicate and still do other things. As people began to multitask more this became a growing importance

smart/cell phones - People could now talk to each other on the go, they were no longer limited to a specific place in order to communicate long distance with others. These also enabled people to stay in touch with all the activities and information they would normally only have on their computer.

Convergence

While I do agree with some of the points made throughout the book I think he was far too focused on pop culture and less on media convergence. In almost every chapter the author got far too caught up with the story of what he was talking about or with the specific media and less focused on the larger picture of what that media did for the whole. The book could have been condensed to about forty pages if he had stuck to the important issues. As pointed out in class, he also needed to get off fan stuff. I'm fairly certain that the fan sites and such that he talked about are such a small minority that it doesn't affect the majority of people in any way.
Aside from that he made some good points about where social media is at. He didn't look into the future much but he did a good job of defining now.
But overall I found the book very mundane and uninformative for what it was supposed to be talking about.

Media Literacy

Media literacy has expanded to so many different platforms that I don't think anyone can be completely literate in every type of media. However, there are certain types of media that people must be literate in to succeed in business and social interactions. Above all else people must be competent with computers. If someone cannot find they're way around a computer they have basically been cut of from all new media literacy. However, Media Literacy in the Information Age says that media literacy has just started in America even though we are the leader in new media. Our knowledge is no longer keeping up with our technology. Especially since the technology spike happened at the end of the current generation. However, the media literacy requirements have not slowed at all because of this. In fact, as things converge they would appear to the younger generation to get simpler but to the older generation it just gets more and more complicated. This is occurring because the younger generation is becoming the controlling generation. Understanding this convergence of media is one of the very foundational stepping stones to being able to understand where media will go and why it works the way it does. No one, not even the younger generation, uses converging media to the fullest extent though and that is how it will always be with new media and new ideas. The vast majority of the population just gets a handle on something new and finally understands how to fully utilize something when a new product, idea or innovation comes out that throws everything out the window.

Media Literacy in the Information Age  Information and Behavior Vol. 6. Robert Kubey. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rpdHWLVwnikC&oi=fnd&pg=PA79&dq=being+media+literate&ots=ZfjfuuSX3B&sig=MSoSG2cPwez8a6jztlaaN8_xbIQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Livingstone, Sonia.  "The Changing Nature and Uses of Media Literacy". Quelle: http://www.lse.ac.uk
       /collections/media@lse/pdf/Media@lseEWP4_july03.pdf [09-
       27-2004]. London 2003.

UNESCO: MENTOR. A Media Education Curriculum for Teachers in the
        Mediterranean. The Thesis of Thessaloniki, First Version, March 2003 (CD ci.com series).
        2003. P. 1-17.

Fan/Community Site

I chose to do deviantart.com. This is an art community where people are free to share their art and view others art and comment. Any member can comment on an artists work but only paying members can critique or ask for critique on their art work. The website offers a variety of copyright options when you submit art. Although even with those I have seen cases of peoples art getting stolen. If someone is found to be doing that they are banned from the site and their account is cancelled. Generally people offer positive critiques or comments on each others art but there are always people that will trash others art just for the fun of it. There are many people that submit fan art from tv shows or other things they like. Since, these types of things are divided up into sections it helps build community around peoples interests on the site since it is host to many different types of art and reasons for the art. People can easily find what they are interested in and get involved with others of similar interest. The forums and chatrooms also help build this community since chatrooms can be specified by interest.

The Matrix

I believe that media will continue in the direction it is currently in. It will continue to merge digital media with the online world. However, I don't think the online world has been fully realized by the vast majority of the world. Movies and the like have begun to access this huge resource, but they still tinker with it like a new toy they don't fully understand. Some, like The Matrix, spread themselves too thin all over the place in many different media forms and expect the audience to work to understand everything. That might work if your main product is something like a video game that requires some sort of activity or effort from the audience, but if your main product is something like a movie then your audience just wants to be spoon fed the plot. They don't want to have to research other media elements to understand what is in front of them. On this I can speak from personal experience. It's just like the bottom of soda bottle lids. We want instant gratification on somethings. When I screw off that lid and look underneath I want an answer right then and there if I won or not. I don't want to have to go online and enter some crazy code to find out. Through trial and error I believe media will get the hang of using the internet wisely to benefit them and their audience and not hinder the experience for people.

the persuaders

Are we in advertisement overload? Absolutely we are. In the Persuaders they argue that everyone is trying to break out of the advertisement clutter with their own advertising but in doing so they just add to the clutter. Because of this many companies are going minimalistic on their advertisments. Apple is a prime example of this. I don't think I've seen an Apple advertisement in the past few years with more than two colors and maybe three words. This uncluttered approach attracts attention away from the clutter of everything else.

As far as the primal instinct idea to advertising goes, I don't think that really factors into selling power that much. Primal instinct is no different than making consumers believe they need something to live. I believe there is a science to advertising but when you try and get that deep into it you lose sight of the real objective which is selling a product.

However, how things are worded does make a difference. I felt my feelings change on things during the show when it showed companies change their wording to better relate to consumers, but I think using different wording is most often used to obscure and confuse consumers instead of simply appeal to them more.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia

Collective intelligence is something people have relied upon for a very long time. With the introduction of the Internet it has become all the easier to use our collective intelligence to answer questions and provide information for just about anything. However, with this free collective intelligence the question comes as to whether who or what people get their information from is a source or person who actually knows what they are talking about or just some kid messing around on the computer. If I were trying to diffuse a bomb I would probably want someone telling me how to do it that actually knew how or had done it themselves. No where is this question brought up more than for the web source Wikipedia.

Why is Wikipedia not considered a credible source for just about any serious writer? Is it the lack of accredidation or the fact that literally anyone can change anything they want on Wikipedia? An article in Le Monde Diplomatique address this issue by discussing that almost everything on Wikipedia is sighted to more reliable sources. The article also found that the average time for correction of blatantly wrong edits on pages was around three hours. However, the article acknowledges that does not discount that there are continual fallicies throughout Wikipedia especially on emotional issues and subjects.

An article in Journal of Computer Mediated Communications called Cultural Differences in Collaborative Authoring of Wikipedia also brings up the issue of culture and nationality having an effect on the content and tilt of articles in Wikipedia. However, this occurs in just about any credible or noncredible source. If one was to read a history book about American Independence that was written in America and then read one written in England the differences would become extremely apparent.

True, Wikipedia is not accredidated and therefore not considered a reliable source but soon it may eclipse traditional means of gaining knowledge by its vastness alone.

Pfeil Ulrike, Panayiotis Zaphiris, Chee Siang Ang, Journal of Computer Mediated

Communication. Cultural Differences in Collaborative Authoring of Wikipedia

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue1/pfeil.html 2006.

O'neil Matthieu, Le Monde Diplomatique Wikipedia: Experts are Us.

http://mondediplo.com/2009/05/15wikipedia 2009.

New Media in Cultures

Indonesia is one of the fastest developing countries right now and they are quickly gaining access to all sorts of new media and resources. For example, over 80 million people in Indonesia use cell phones http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933605.html as opposed to it being almost none existent just ten years before. Part of the reason for this is the sharp drop in cell phone costs after 1999. A text message in Indonesia is 1 rupiah which comes out to .01 cent in dollars.

Indonesians are also gaining access to social networking sites as their country permits. the country officially stated that facebook was ok as long as there was no flirting, or vulgar usage happening on it. http://www.smh.com.au/world/indonesia-gives-facebook-the-nod-but-no-flirting-please-20090522-bi9v.html which seems odd but considering that facebook is the most visited site on the internet in Indonesia even beating google, the clerics in Indonesia really had no other choice but to ok it. Several ISPs in Indonesia have blocked sites like youtube and myspace due to indecent content but the bans usually don't last very long. Indonesia's web population grew ten times over from 2000 to 2007 and they are currently the 5th largest internet using country in Asia with a web population of 25 million http://www.bobmarketing.com/internet-marketing-indonesia/ . there are apparently over a million bloggers in Indonesia although these are unofficial numbers. http://www.earningstep.com/news/are-you-one-of-millions-indonesian-blogger/
even the country as a whole is beginning to use the internet for acedemic purposes and political communication http://www.indo.com/neighbor/ina_web.html.

Although Indonesia is still a developing country in terms of new media they are beginning to use it exactly how I and other Americans use it. We all facebook, and youtube, and blog. with most indonesians being required to pass an english test to pass high school they are more easily integrating themsleves into the english dominated internet. While I was in Indonesia I noticed that just about everyone, regardless of social status, owned a cell phone. their houses could be falling apart but they definitely had a cell phone to text their friends about the roof falling in. I saw people in the rice fields planting rice and making cell phone calls. it was an odd clash of old and new societal norms. I suppose thats what happens when a country advances so fast in a ten year span. my last day in Indonesia i went to an internet ummm... gaming center? to check some email and judging from that experience i would say the indonesian online gaming community is about to explode. when an hour of internet usage is $.80 its easy to understand why these "advanced" technologies are becoming so popular so fast in Indonesia