Comm 3610

What are the digital tools and systems through which political institutions conduct surveillance?

(state surveillance tools) Echelon - a secret data collection system. Screens all international communications by sifting through communication texts for phrases, keywords, and phone numbers that are deemed relevant for security purposes. Carnivore -kind of internet 'wiretap' US employs. Used by the FBI to monitor all incoming data into a particular IP address.

How is the producer-consumer relationship played out in the case of digital music?

- Digital content is easily produced, copied, modified, shared and distributed. -Open participation/ communal evaluation

How has the form and function of the Mobile Phone evolved over its four generations?

- Exponential growth of diffusion (spread, disperse). -Rates of more than 100% in some developed countries. -Age and wealth divides in mobile phone wondership.

How has the form and function of the Mp3 evolved over its four generations?

- diffusion about 20% in developed countries - dominant form of digital music consumption

What are the primary domestic patterns of the Digital Divide?

-A gap between the information rich and the information poor. -Creates problems for people in the same way not having a home does. Ex: No address makes it hard to get a bank account. No email address makes it hard to contact other people who are connected. -homeless -Quality of life, business connectivity and effectiveness, and social opportunities all important in this debate. -Digital divide is shrinking domestically

How has the form and function of the Wireless Internet evolved over its four generations?

-Average of about 20,000 wireless hotspot locations in the top ten countries. -Wireless internet more popular in developing countries.

How have mobile media changed our cultural traditions of "living and being together?"

-Enhancement of individual autonomy. -Personalized space and time. -Tensions between private and public space -Blurring of boundaries between work and leisure -Renewed creativity and use of imagination but: Dominance of consumer culture

What does Frasca and Aarseth argue about games and narratives?

-Games are rarely played only once, whereas narratives are often consumed only once. Aarseth: games as cybertexts characterized by 'ergodicity': co-creation through players' actions .

What are the most revealing patterns in related historical and international data?

-Groups are characterized by their willingness and ability to respond to opportunities of new technologies. -Theory developed for people who were doing aid and development in the "third world" (peace corps trying to convince villages without clean water to dig wells and use sanitation systems)

3 areas of potential transformation due to the influence of ICTs?

-Increased party competition, by giving a higher profile to a smaller or outsider party increased power diffusion due to increased emphasis on and engagement with grassroots support -Institutional adaptation, where the democratic potential of the internet is tamed by its engagement with mainstream politics

What are the politics of mobile media? *

-Mobile media has to do with the development of horizontal social networks that, in political terms, are critical of central authority. -Can also be used as a tool of control by governments such as athens when the riots broke out.

What are dominant features of gaming systems which influence how gamers interact with each other and form communities?

-Modding: (refers to activities that modify the original game) Communities emerge from modding through -> offering instructions, give potential to discuss online -Guild: game network: players create certain identities and reflect their own cultural capital

What are various arguments for classifying the narrative and generic qualities of games?

-Narrative components of video games are non-interactive, thus form an incidental part of the player experience or motivation to play. The games themselves usually lack dramatic content (narrative). -Narrative elements promote structure, motivation, psychological depth and context for player's actions. This adds immersive experience of the game. -Scholars argue that video games contain few essential elements of the 'narrative,' + approaching them as narratives fundamentally misses the integral features of interactivity that is their core. -Not a readable 'text,' because game outcomes depend on action of player.

Narrative and Generic

-Narrative: i.e. their capability for depicting stories. -Generic: how their media form and content can be classified.

Data Retention Legislation

-Private telecommunications and internet companies keep record of communications for a long period. So...that data can be used by governments in criminal and security investigations.

What is Cyber-conflict?

-Real world conflicts that spill over to cyberspace. -These both involve violence and the imposition of the will of few to the many. -They do not include cyber-activism: which is primarily aiming to change and influence public opinion. -Cyber-conflict antagonists use the internet as a weapon hurled against each other.

In general, why are economic institutions increasingly motivated to conduct surveillance?

-Resulting from the growing influence of bureaucratic structures. -Marketing and personal data collection

State surveillance tools: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

-States that all internet communications through the United States are now subject to government surveillance through various methods of 'wireless tapping'

What is Synopticon?

-Term coined by Mark Andrejevic in reference to a "new kind of lateral surveillance, in which peers watch one another" -With new media, social media allows for a similar kind of surveillance and more people have access to the techniques -Creates a general culture of insecurity and suspicion which-> feeds into and sustains the techniques of surveillance" (Sepiera, p. 109)

What is "the Digital Divide"?

-The inequality associated with ICT and its ease of and barriers of access depending on status, wealth, etc. -'The gap between those who do have, and those who do not have computers and the internet.

Historically, how has privacy been institutionalized as a legal matter?

-USA-PATRIOT Act

What are the primary causes of digital divide?

-Unequal distribution of resources creates unequal access. -Position in the labor market determines income/access to ICT through work. -Residence in a particular nation or part of it: which involves the availability of ICT in the region.

What are the primary international patterns?

-developed vs. developing worlds. -Need of information about health, education, pricing will often not get to those who need it most. -Lack of efficient communication structure inhibits less developed countries from connecting to solve problems.

How do they shape the democratic possibilities of the technology-society relationship? *

-ex: People can act as witnesses for a political event with their camera phones.

CONFLICT AND WAR

...

How do the concepts of "expropriation" and "recentralization" capture historical events?

...

How does development of video and computer games display the themes of convergence and mobility?

...

How has global diffusion of the Internet created inequalities of access within and between groups?

...

How has the mobile phone development affected the conditions of new media access and usage in developing nations?

...

Vertical Integration

A firm concentrated on one point in the production sector (ex: film production) expands into another part of production chain in the same industry (ex: film distribution)

Horizontal Integration

A firm in one industry (telecommunication) expands across to another industry ( media & broadcasting).

Technology Convergence

A process which several technologies with distinct functionalities evolve to a common digital format/language.

What demographic categories does New Media access and usage vary within? How do they vary?

Age -The older you are, the less likely you are to use the internet/new media Gender -More men than women tend to use the internet/new media, but rates tend towards equalization Race / Ethnicity -Less African-Americans and Hispanics are using the internet

How does E. M. Rogers' work on technology diffusion and adoption help us to understand this phenomenon?

Certain adoption types are categorized by the speed of adoption: -Innovators: venturesome, educated, multiple info sources -Early adopters: respectable social leaders, popular, educated -Early majority: deliberate, many informal social contacts -Late majority: sceptical, lower socio-economic status -Laggards: traditional, fewer info sources, fear of debt

What are some commercial and private digital surveillance tools?

Cookies - a small piece of text that is automatically downloaded onto a computer when its browser visits a webpage. Keylogging-(secret) software program that monitors keystrokes on a computer keyboard. Used by employers but can also be associated with fraud, privacy, and theft.

NAPSTER

Ease of peer to peer sharing represented a major threat to producers who could no longer profit from intellectual property. Commercial sharing in the collective commons.

How do new media operate in the following 6 modes of cyber-conflict?

Economic Sabotage-Belief that attacking key economic sites is way to cause damage to enemy. ex: World Trade Center Espionage - Use of digital ICT systems within advanced military and commercial organizations, not to destroy capabilities, but an inroad to spying. 2 Goals: 1) to steal advanced technology designs that can advance one's own military capabilities. 2) Embedding malicious software which allow an adversary to spy or disable an enemies communication in the future. (trojans and spyware) (Cyber)terrorism-Politically motivated attacks against information systems resulting in violence against non-combatant targets. Undertaken by sub-national groups or clandestine agents. Critical Infrastructure Attack-Offensive operation that targets and attempts to disable key areas of a nation's infrastructure: power grids, water supplies, air traffic control systems, etc. EX: SCADA Adjunct Attack -a combination of these methods with conventional terrorist or enemy attacks in order to magnify damage or loss of life.

Convergence Culture

How we as a culture react to technological and media industry convergence. -A 'participatory' media culture, with companies looking to expand and individuals looking to create.

How are the dynamics of the producer-consumer relationship played out in digital music?

Increasing power on the user, or consumer, of media which is an active agent in using tools in.. -identity construction -self creation -relationship formation.

What is profiling? How is present in political institutions and commercial?

Profiling- the production of identities through a collection of several bits of information is alluded to by the concept of the profile. APPLICATION: the state has a long history of profiling individuals, in relation to crime and health. -the marketing information revolution of the past three decades has allowed consumer profiling to become a dominant activity in the commercial world.

1996 Telecommunication Act

Removed barriers for telecommunication industries who wanted to branch off into other markets. - follows 'neo-liberal' practices... promoting competition and innovation

What are the different kinds of "access" that should be considered in making claims about the Digital Divide?

Some people have access at work, not at home. Others have limited knowledge of the internet while some are experts. Places like China restrict uses. -Theoretical Access- physical access -Effective Access- the ability to use the technology for some goal. -Motivational Access- people see a relevance or potential benefit for themselves using ICT -Material Access- physical access -Skills- the required skills to use the technology -Usage- access in terms of the number and diversity of applications, and amount of usage time available.

Media Industry Convergence

Technological convergence led to mergers in the media and telecom. industries. - meant smaller companies were absorbed by larger ones

Regulatory Convergence

change in the legislation that governed media industries, telecommunications and computer companies, coming together in convergence, to merge into one large interactive multimedia. Had large effect on structure of media-mid 1990's