What Does Our Future Hold?

First of all… How cool is the video that Ted showed us about the Internet of Things! Here is another clip that hows what the technological future holds for us.

 I’m not a sci-fi fan but to think that all of this could be possible within our lifetime is an exciting, albeit daunting thought.

A recent blog on The Economist highlights issues with the infrastructure, privacy and the danger of a disastrous failure in an Internet of Things world. Perhaps the most pressing of concerns Schumpeter raises is that of who will end up owning and controlling the data from the Internet of Things.

We are rapidly proceeding to a point where the range of data being collected can literally be used to reconstruct a person’s life. The privacy issues brought about by the Internet of Things will make concerns about our interactions on social media giants such as Facebook seem trivial by comparison.

The Internet of Things can ultimately be used for the benefit or detriment of individuals and society as a whole. Although business will argue a whole raft of benefits that include increasing efficiency, safety and health, these need to be balanced by safeguards and controls.

I’m really interested to hear what you’re thoughts on how you think the ethics of mass connectivity will or should be developed, and the things that we must think about before we become fully reliant on a technological world. 

A Land of Contradictions

Ok, this might not be the best week for me to express my opinions because I am actually 100% impartial to the Apple vs Google war. My phone is an old 3315 Nokia (I like to say ‘vintage,’ it makes me seem cooler), and I have owned both a PC and a Mac laptop in my time, with no undying preference for one over the other (apart from the Mac’s battery power!).

I can see the pros and cons of each, and in order to create some kind of argument, I have decided to evaluate my technological usage of the two companies.

My chosen Internet server is Apple Safari, but my preferred search engine is Google. I am currently blogging via Google's Blogger, however I am accessing it on my Mac. I use Picasa to upload and edit pictures, but I usually take the pictures off my friend’s iPhone.

In this land of contradictions, the only conclusion I can come to is that they are both relatively evil corporations who make their technology become obsolete too quickly. I guess in the end each individual will chose what’s right for them!

Here’s an interesting graphic produced by GigaOM that shows Apple and Google squaring off in different areas. 

The Role of Social Networking

We all agree that the development of social networking sites has transformed the way we communicate, and perceptions of this are often negative. We all have those friends who feel the need to spread the word that they are hungry, ‘check in’ to their bed as they fall asleep each night, or even employ Facebook as their personal thought system, explaining how much they love their boyfriend or hate their job. But amongst this meaningless chatter, there are communities out there using social networks to create change.

In the MENA revolutions, social networks were used to broadcast pictures and stories, as well as coordinate protestor’s thoughts, demands, and actions. The power of social networks as a tool for change can best be clarified in two examples.

1. In January 2010 Londoner Ayman Najafi was sentenced to one month in jail followed by permanent expulsion from the UAE for sharing a greeting kiss on the cheek in Dubai. A Twitter campaign began with the hash tag #freeayman. In less than forty minutes from the first tweet from a desk in Doha, it was trending worldwide; with many people demanding (as Ayman holds an American passport) that the US authorities intervene. The US State Department was informed; contact with senior regime figures was reportedly made and a short time later Ayman was released.

2. I know Ted has already shown us this example, but I am still overwhelmed at the magnitude of it. Assmaa Mahfouz made a video calling for a protest in Tahrir Square on January 25 to fight for basic human rights. Her message spread virally over YouTube, recruiting over one million people to stand and fight for the cause. This shows that social media was a key driver and a game changer in Egypt, primarily because it bridged the gap between social classes, and for the first time, created a much larger united anti-government front that included rich and poor.

Tahrir Square on Jan 25th 2011

Social media has become an invaluable tool for many individuals and news organsations, constructing a way around restriction and censorship. It has also weakened the mainstream media’s role as gatekeepers as they now do not have exclusive control over stories covered.

All in all, the idea of social networking to do with revolutions and social and political change is fascinating and ever changing. I urge you to read further in to the amazing stories of how social networking has allowed ordinary citizens to create the much needed change in MENA, starting with this: http://newsgroup.ae/amir2011/amir-march-29.pdf

Em. 

The Ethics of Hacking

So what is a hacker? Do you automatically think of evil people who sift through your private and personal information in order to steal your money or identity? Or, as our political climate continues to change with the constant development of online technologies, are you starting to think of hackers as people who might be able to explore and make sense of the information withheld from us, mainstream society?

Ted Mitew discussed the difference between White and Black Hat Hackers, or good hackers vs evil hackers retrospectively, but the ethics of hacking still remains to be somewhat ambiguous with the line between the good and the bad being quite fine.

One example of the ‘White Hat’ good guys is Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is an organisation made up of volunteer hackers, whistleblowers and online activists, with the aim of reveal hidden information to society to make a point. By empowering the public with knowledge, this organisation gives the mainstream public a chance to understand information for themselves and create social change, instead of simply believing everything that Governments and politicians preach to us. As James Crabtree notes, "the political potential of the internet lies not in connecting people to politicians [but] in the possibility of bringing citizens together to help themselves." Does this kind of hacking fit within our moral beliefs, or should hackers like this be persecuted?

It is clear what major players like Governments and corporations think, with many of the major banks in the US blocking any forms of donations to WikiLeaks. Although there have been consistent attempts to stop the organisation from running from governments, the army and through litigation, none have been effective as of yet.

In keeping with the focus of ethics, I am going to sum up my queries and propose them to you. If we consider that we are now living as part of the information economy with privacy being a controversial leading issue, can hacking be ethical? If we can justify the actions of the White Hats enough to agree that yes, it can be ethical, then is it fair for hackers to be oppressed? And finally, should we be forcing Governments and organizations to become more transparent? In a previous post I discussed the sniffer worm and the fact that governments can easily track our day to day activities. Why is this not reciprocal?

I am looking forward in seeing what you have to say in regards to this.

The Twitter Debate

Will Twitter change the way we live? Social networking has certainly revolutionised the way we interact with one another, the way we procrastinate, and indeed the way we learn about and discuss news issues. With 200 million followers Twitter has shaken up traditional modes of journalism. The hashtag # and @ phenomenon have become a central part of the Twitter experience (Johnson), making it effortless for any user to follow a live feed concerning events and news worthy issues, while providing a platform to add to the discussion.

So, I think we can unquestionably agree that Twitter and other social networking sites are changing the traditional journalism landscape, but what does this mean? Is this beneficial to society or are we gradually destroying the respected art of the qualified journalist?

Alec Ross, Senior Advisor for the US Secretary of State, says that Twitter, and citizen journalism in general, heralds democratisation, however, also brings the threat of misinformation.

For example, citizen journalists used social media to organize protests and spread assurances of safety during the Arab Spring throughout the Middle East and northern Africa. Ted mentioned that "tiny chunks of content can form a coherent and dynamic narrative." When numerous users begin to Tweet about the same incidents, a “dynamic story” evolves from a variety of angles. Citizen journalism diminishes the power that traditional news sources used to have over the approach of a story.

However, social media can also spread misinformation just as rapidly. Fake tweets about a bombing in Mexico led to car crashes as thousands of panicked parents raced to their children's school. Examples like these highlight the problem of some users' inability to distinguish true from false journalistic posts, especially given the prevalence of anonymity on social media networks. It also underscores social media's potency, but more established practices may have to be developed around Twitter and Facebook to better gauge veracity.

From my micro world perspective? I am the first to admit, I am not a huge fan of the single sentence updates that Twitter is so well known for. Johnson says that “we don't think it at all moronic to start a phone call with a friend by asking how her day is going. Twitter gives you the same information without your even having to ask.” I am actually a huge advocate against social networking sites for this exact reason, but it drives home the point that Twitter is changing the way we live.

I believe that Twitter and social networks have both valuable and harmful aspects to the way we increasingly digitalise our lives. So I leave you with a debate. Twitter is changing the way we live. That’s a fact, not a question. The question is… for better or worse?

Anyone Can Edit... so?

Recent decades have seen the dual trend of increasing digitisation of content, and of growing access to tools that allow us to produce, manipulate, publish and distribute that content.

Advertising campaigns, like the iTunes ad below, openly encourage users to 'Rip. Mix. Burn.' and it has become part of our culture to share our thoughts and creations with the rest of cyberspace. The Internet has completely transformed the way we consume information, and the dominance of the traditional producer > publisher > distributor value chain has weakened. Marshall McLuhan's dictum 'everyone's a publisher' (McLuhan 1964) is on the verge of becoming a reality - and more to the point, as the Wikipedia proudly proclaims, 'anyone can edit.'

The effect of these changes is that users are becoming active producers of content in a variety of open and collaborative environments. Whether it be audience participation (such as user comments attached to news stories, personal blogs, photos or video footage captured from personal mobile cameras), full-fledged participatory news sites like OhmyNews, or collaborative and contributory media sites like Slashdot and Newsvine, internet users are now no longer producers or consumers, publishers or audiences, but both at the same time.

This ability to create content so easily has created an environment of abundance, although the ‘abundance of information leads to scarcity of attention’ (Kelly 2008). The internet offers free and easy access, no quality filters and little risk, creating a wealth of user generated information. Does this type of information-heavy community benefit users or does it just become a major problem for those wishing to gain attention and break through the clutter?

This conundrum is encapsulated well in Kelly’s statement, ‘when copies are super abundant, they become worthless. When copies are super abundant, stuff which can’t be copied becomes scarce and valuable’ (Kelly 2008). So should we spend more time valuing the scarce- also known as the traditional media, the shop fronts, and the content which can’t be made up by a twelve year old girl posing as a professor on Wikipedia? Or should we embrace the produser and the clutter that derives from it?

My personal view is that if we don’t embrace the produser we will never get the truths, creations and revolutions that do not get exposed through the typical publishing route. I say this with the thought of Asmaa Mahfouz fresh in my mind. Let me know your thoughts!

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw Hill, 1964.

Kelly, K. (2008). Better Than Free.[URL: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html]

Our future...

According to Jenkins (2004), media convergence fundamentally outlines the process of content flow across media platforms, and the relationship between media technologies, industries and audiences.

Convergence is a vital aspect of life in the digital era. Our mobile phones have gone way past the basic function of calling and texting, they now serve as our cameras, GPS systems, and computers. The transportability and spreadability of this digital information has enormously affected the way we consume content and use our 'everyday' technologies. 

The idea of the "prosumer" or "produser" is another interesting aspect of our digital age. These terms describe how the internet can be a medium for both producing and consuming media content. Blogs, online magazines and youtube video channels have diminished the need for specializations in print, broadcast or online industries, requiring today's qualified media content producers to have a broad knowledge of a variety of media platforms. As Deuze (2007) notes, "the blurring of real or perceived boundaries between makers and users in an increasingly participatory media culture challenges consensual notions of what it means to work in the cultural industries."

So as production and distribution costs of content are lowered (Jenkins, 2004) and the amount of produser/prosumer content available online continually increases, what will happen to the professionalism of the media industry?

I know that many of my friends have stopped buying newspapers and magazines in order to get stories from online sources for free, both accredited and from produsers. Instead of watching television, a night might be spent searching for YouTube clips. Is this the path that new technologies and convergence is leading us down? I’ll be interested to hear any stories of how you think this might affect us and our careers in the future. 

Deuze, M. (2007) Convergence culture in the creative industries, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 10/2, 243-263.

Jenkins, H. (2004) The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 7/1, 33-43.

A world without copyright?

Copyright has a cultural purpose; it motivates artists by enabling them to profit from their work, and prevents others from exploiting them for their own profit. But as Ted explained in our lecture, modern copyright law is becoming increasingly out of touch with the way artists of all sorts communicate with their audiences. The digital era we are currently in has provided us with the opportunity to become produsers; reproducing and distributing digital work extremely cheaply, and to a high quality. It would seem that copyright and intellectual property laws would be more important than ever due to the simplicity of exploiting artists work.

This thinking, however, goes against Stewart Brand’s “information wants to be free” argument and underestimates the extent of the cultural changes we are living through.  Because of the enormity of the internet, and the global markets that are a consequence of this, the modern problem for artists is not about protecting their work, but more about ensuring it is visible. In this economy of abundance, artists must be prepared for the fact that if they are not willing to give away their work for free, someone else will. So is copyright still enforceable? And does a world without copyright mean a world without incentive for creativity?

I really don’t think it does. From an historical perspective, we may note that the concept of private intellectual property rights has traditionally been absent from most cultures, yet there has always been artists who have created and performed works.  In the digital age, the eradication of copyright laws would enable an interesting production of creativeness, with people finding inspiration, themes, or certain forms of expression in works previously produced, both long ago and recently.  Girl Talk is a noteworthy case study of this. His music is entirely created through remixes of other people’s music, so does he breach copyright laws? And for an even better question… should he?

I do think some sort of regulation should be implemented, as you can see in the below Gotye documentary, artists work so hard to be unique and they definitely deserve to reap the rewards from the work they put in. But as you can also see in the documentary, artists as individual as Gotye still source inspiration from past creations, possibly breaching copyright. How far should lending and borrowing of inspiration go before the law should step in? And will our creative culture suffer if we do move into a world without copyright?

Thoughts very much welcome.

Welcome to the 'weisure' network!

What ever happened to compartmentalizing our lives so that we could ‘switch off’ and enjoy our leisure time after we finish our traditional nine to five jobs? The industrial age has gone and we are left with a communication economy that that blurs the line between work and lesuire more than ever, and this is not only accepted, but expected. Why?

Mobile technology has made it possible for people complete work outside of office workers, thus creating an obligation workers feel the need to fill. Gregg discussed a concept called the ‘function creep,’ where employees would prefer to finish off work tasks at home in order to 'keep ones sanity' while at work, but accessing work in unpaid circumstances has created a situation in which too much is expected. This social shift of expectation in the workplace has created problems of self-blame due to the responsibility employees now feel to be constantly ‘wired to work’.

After reading this weeks readings, I have several ponderings. Should the advancements in technology encourage us to converge work with leisure? And more importantly, should we feel pressured to relentlessly have one eye on the ball when it comes to work?

As we increasingly use our phones, laptops, and other mobile technologies for leisure, it’s becoming more common for us to just ‘quickly check our emails,’ but my next question is, can we find this elusive balance? I believe that finding the balance between work and leisure is going to be the key for workers’ sanity’s all over the networked globe. I would find it difficult to switch off completely from my physical work space and not even have the option to check emails and finish that report, however, I do not have any problem with keeping my spare time open for leisure activities and seeing friends and family. As with everything, balance is necessary…so I suppose my last statement here can be; thank God we have grown up multi-tasking! 

3. Too much of a good thing?

I found John Barlow’s article, "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace", absolutely fascinating this week. I really enjoyed feeling the passion that can be extracted from it, however, despite Barlow’s enthusiasm and absolute belief in his argument, I can’t quite come to grips on accepting the idealistic situation he illustrates.

Barlow describes cyberspace as "the new home of the mind, which grows itself through collective actions". It “consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.”

I love this definition, and the idea that humans have created this amazing industry based on these intangible qualities. Kelly says that “as tremendous as the influence of financial inventions have been, the influence of network inventions will be as great, or greater,” and I agree. The Internet has changed the way humans live their lives, but can too much of a good thing turn bad?

Despite Barlow’s optimism, I believe that our cyberspace needs some sort of control and regulation, where this line should be drawn is a question for another time. Laws and regulations are already having difficulty keeping up with the pace the Internet is growing, and we need these laws to help address the myriad of problems (including privacy, security, and copyright) that come hand in hand with entering cyberspace. Will we ever be able to manage Internet regulation? Or are we going to spin out of control with too much information, too much freedom?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Em

Beware Of The Sniffer Worm!

So last week the lovingly titled ‘Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011’ was passed through US legislation. This law requires Internet Service Providers to retain customer names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and dynamic IP addresses for 18 months. This made me think about the ‘Sniffer Worm’ theory that Lessig discusses in his chapter “Four Puzzles From Cyberspace.”

Lessig explores how the online world, or ‘cyberspace,’ is evolving much faster than our laws, and muses the numerous dilemmas and gray areas that exist due to the Internet now, and probably in the future.
Lessig alludes to the idea that further regulation of Internet usage would be a positive thing, and that the “innocent have nothing to fear.” I am not entirely sure how comfortable I am with this Big Brother approach, even if it doesn’t “interfere with ordinary life.”

Giving any Government the power to ultimately monitor and collect data about us in this exceedingly efficient manner is a dangerous move, even if they only intend to use the information for good. To support this argument I’m going to compare the idea of the worm to the recent British phone hacking scandal. Similar to the phone hacking scandal, the victim (yes, I have purposely used the word ‘victim’) doesn’t know that they are being listened to or having their records searched, creating an invasion of privacy. Can we really try and use the argument that this probe is fine and appropriate just because there is no burden on the individual searched?

I agree that there should be some sort of regulation on the internet, but I don’t have an answer to where this line should be drawn. I pose these ponderings to my fellow bloggers;

Do you agree with the ‘sniffer worm’ theory? That having the Government secretly probing into people’s computers is OK — with or without warrants. If we are innocent and are oblivious to the probe, thus avoiding harm and embarrassment — should we care? And does anyone have an answer to Internet regulation, or is there even an answer that will keep up with the pace of technological change?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Em

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/18/us-newscorp-quickguide-idUSTRE76H5SA20110718

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.01981:

L-Plate Blogger

Hi there fellow DIGC202 students!

My name is Emily King, I am 19 years old, in my second year of BCM majoring in Advertising and Majoring and International Media and Communications, love music, photography, graphic design and travel. 

Now that you know a bit about me I hope its not too early to slip a secret confession to you... 

I am a blogging virgin. 

Actually, until our last DIGC class I had never even had a Gmail account, let alone Twitter, and I had never heard of Blogger or Delicious. That makes me a pretty bad media student right? So it's about time I look ahead and begin my exhilarating journey into the digital world, improving my abilities, skills and knowledge along the way. 

This blog will be the first (and least academic) blog in chronicling my exploration into Digital Communications. Looking forward to having you guys come with me on this journey!