New Media Midterm #1
Case study: What is online sexism?
"Cyberviolence" or "online sexism" refers to a range of practices targeting girls and women including: online threats of violence including death and rape, sharing of unauthorized photos, doxxing, stalking, trafficking.
Networked Individualism
social phycological approach to new media > what special about social life when it is networked
Karl Marx
superstructure: media, family, education, religion, politics base: means of production and relations of production -Economic part that drives society which determines other things in the superstructure
McLuhan "the medium is the message"
technologies are first and foremost extensions of human selves and human capacities "the personal and social consequences of any medium- that is of any extension of ourselves- result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves or by any new technology
Technological determinism
technology itself will determine social outcomes e.g.: Nicholas Negroponte, One laptop per child- make cheap "expo" laptops ($100 ea) all over the world to kids in poverty, thought that it would put impoverished children at "par" with those in the wealthy countries
Proto-broadcasting
telephone; speed, co-ordination and reach broadcasting: larger audience, standardized programming ex: the NJ telephone Herald- a full day of scheduled programming
Speculative media theory
tended to approach the interaction between technology and culture in more future-oriented terms
Network Neutrality
the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.
Diffusion of innovation model
the spread of innovations within a society or a market
AC and DC
vaccum tube designs connected the radio to house hold electricity with alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC)- which was provided by Canadian Edward Samuel Rogers -also made a demand for wires for satellites
the main way that society is organized through networks (3 ways):
—> Computer-mediated Communication (CMC): Rainie & Wellman (2012): personal and centred around your self, the network affords multiple users, affords multitasking -Haythornthwaite (2002): strong, weak, and latent ties. Your ties in networks are of different strengths. > Turkle, Alone Together (2011): emotional dislocation, narcissism. We can't feel empathy anymore because we are always connected and always on our phones. A critique on how we always network around ourselves.
Self-presentation and new media
• Context: the way we choose to present ourselves depends on the context we are in. • Imagined Audience: "[to] imagine a specific subset of potential readers or viewers and focus on how those intended viewers are likely to respond to a particular statement" (boyd, 2014).
Memes and hypersignification
• viral circulation = just like how a virus spreads • hypersignification:Limor Shifman (2014) > when something is spreading virally, its meaning is constantly being changed and reinterpreted.
Networked Publics Danah Boyd: publics restructured by networked technologies
1) public spaces - twitter, tumblr all create this space that we enter, and we centre ourselves around 2) the imagined collective - fan communities. Looking at others as a collective that we enter, almost like a kinship.
Digital identity
1. "Multiple but coherent"(Turkle,1995) 2. Who you are online: what you post and what others post about you (digital footprint)
What does the internet refer to?
1. A technical infrastructure of computers and other digital devices permanently connected through high-speed tele-communication networks 2. the forms of content, communication and information sharing that occur through these networks
Threats
1. Cat-fishing • The phenomenon of internet predators that fabricate online identites and entire social circles to trick people into emotional/romantic relationships 2. Doxing • "Dropping docs" • Publicly releasing a person's identifying information including, but not limited to, full name, date of birth, address, phone number, and pictures. 3. Swatting • A hacker tricks 911 systems into deploying a SWAT team to an innocent vic+m under fake pretences 4. Identity Theft • Stolen information that is deployed in a digital network illegally to obtain money and goods
New Media 3 C's
1. Computing and information technology 2. Communication networks 3. Content and digitalized media, arising out of another process, a fourth c, convergence.
5 categories of the circuit of culture
1. Representation 2. Identity 3. Production 4. Consumption 5. Regulation -These are all influencing each other
Internet refers both to...
1. a technical infrastructure of computers and other digital devices permanently connected through high-speed telecommunication networks 2. the forms of content, communication, and information sharing that occur through these networks
Two parts of convergence Convergence and Thomas Friedman
1. convergence is creating a flat earth where activities conducted through digital media can occur in any part of the world 2. Convergence of morphing devices as they become multi-purpose units
Types of Globalization
1. economic 2. political 3. legal ex: Disney lobbying the Government for their copy right rights 4. cultural ex: privileges american pharmaceutical exports
What are the 5 characteristics of digital goods
1. non-rivalrous; use by one agent does not degrade its usefulness to other agents 2. infinitely expansible; every user can make and distribute as many copies of the digital image that they chose 3. discrete; they show indivisibility, so that only the whole digital good contains all of its value 4. a-spatial; they exist in cyberspace and are both everywhere and nowhere on the digital network, simultaneously 5. recombinant; they arise in part from drawing together existing elements in new forms that have features that were absent from the original, parent digital goods.
Electronic commerce can be in many forms depending on the
1. product or service sold 2. the transaction process 3. the nature of the delivery agent or intermediary
Amendments to Smythe's audience commodity
1. ratings systems —> data-mining 2. ads —> finely targeted marketing 3. audience —> users 4. watching —> production
New Media 3 elements according to Lievrouw and Livingstone
1. the artifacts or devices enable and extend our ability to communicate 2. the communication activities and practices we engage in to develop and use these devices 3. the social arrangements and organizations that form around these devices and practices
What are the two issues of the Internet spreading rapidly from North America to Europe
1."digital divide" 2. the importance of globalization as an economic and political force
Gina Neff cases
2 studies on Building Information Modeling in commercial design and construction and in consumer biosensors -Advocated new tools as "revolutionary" with the ability to enact sweeping organization and social changes in the systems where they are implemented. -Technologies are designed to change "social things" (problems) -These systems force users to contort themselves and their relationships around the tools, modifying and hacking their existing systems to fit the requirements of the new technology
Audience as a Commodity in New Media
> "Audience power is produced, sold, purchased and consumed, it commands a price and is a commodity." (Smythe, 1981) > alienation: leisure + consumption > the separation of the individual from their worth > advertisements try to form audiences into ideal consumers > Cookies, log flies, beacons, deep packet inspection > information is shared with third parties = data brokers such as Acxion and Datalogix > audiences are targeted, and ads are stereotypes
Podusers/ Prosumers
> 90-9-1 > 1% creating content, 9% actually engaging, 90% are just passively consuming > The Long Tail > more generic content such as the super bowl ads > more specific content, have a much smaller audience for niche products/ads
Visual Culture: Argumented Reality
> Augmented Reality (AR) > images become the main reality, distracting you from the actual reality, rearranging the way you see the world ex: like how cell phones have become apart of us
User Labour
> Communicative Capitalism (Jodi Dean) • circulation of messages that creates value • exploitation • surplus value > anything generated beyond what the user need > Web2.0 > user-generated content > produsers (user producer) > prosumers (consumer producer) going from passive to active = consumer to prosumer
Audience as Commodity
> Dallas Smythe (1977): "what do the media make?" > programs make money off advertisments, audiences are being paid for > Tv is a free lunch, luring an audience in to watch the advertisements > its the audience that advertisers are paying to reach
New Media: Interfaces
> Graphic User Interface (GUI): e.g., the desktop- allows users to interact with electronics through graphic icons and visual indicators > icons on the desktop represent things, a reference to an external reality > sometimes you think about your own identity through what your profile or profile picture is. > the way websites are designed influence how you interact, the interface has certain affordances which enable you do interact differently.
New Media: Aesthetics
> Internet Ugly: Eveleth Rose on Nick Douglas (2014) > Ugly memes, fails > the uglier images still contribute to communities, because its easy to create and share > the humour is important, and its not about being a talented artist
Yahoo creators
Jerry Yang and David Filo
online encyclopedia and creators
Jimmy Wales created an online encyclopedia called Wikipedia
What catchphrase goes along with political economy?
"Follow the money"
Networks
"Internetwork"= interconnected network -> shortened to internet -mid 90s: "an internet" becomes "THE internet"
Knowledge production recent acceleration is attributed to:
- the growing diversity of sources from which new knowledge is accessed -the role played between networked ICTs in accelerating the diffusion of new knowledge and the possibilities for collaboration -the ways in which ICTs enable new forms of codification of once-tactic knowledge through knowledge-management systems -the importance of knowledge communities of which the open-source software movement may be one of the most globally significant
When Old Technologies Were New: Mediated Publics
-1855: introduction of subscription model (people could subscribe like TV stations) Marvin: the telephone could reproduce the heinous as well as the hole local: party lines (smaller community lines) national: election returns (e.g presidential elections) 1900: AT&T (first major telephone company combining smaller lines together)
When Old Technologies Were New: Telephone
-Alexander Graham Bell, 1876 -vibrational energy to electrical signal -telephone network Ex: Paris Exposition Internationale d'electricity 1881 (when the telephone was first introduced to a large audience and was first introduced as a listening device not a two way form of communication)
Commercial New Media
-Capitalist context for new media industry -industrial convergence; a set of large media companies that contain multiple media outlets ex: Rogers hold CityTV, Yahoo, ex.
Visual Semiotics
-Images create and communicate meaning 0Signification: meaning as a system of signs ex; letters form a word which creates meaning in our brain ex: Queen Elizabeth II Signifier: The actual words Signified: Mental image of the Queen Sign 1: mental image Sign 2: wealth, power, riches
Media & Power Structure vs. Agency
-Like count and counterhype can be translated into structure vs. agency Marshall McLuhan: Extensions of man, media is the extensions of the man. The media is the driver/shaper Raymond Williams: We aren't shaped by the media, instead WE shape it.
Culture Studies Approach to examining power online
-Positions media within the social, cultural, economic, and political context in which it operates (understands new media as a part of culture) -Challenges technological determinism whereby technology is understood to shape social structure and culture values
Networked Publics
-Public space -imagined collective -> fan communities looking at others
Cultural Globalization
-Representation Hybridity: the way of thinking about what happens culturally when new media is exported all over the globe (i.e.: twitter) When something is exported it takes on features of that cultural context ex: McDonalds --> different menu items depending on the locations around the world
Tim Jordan summary
-There is a lot of value in focusing on the experience users have with technology and how it can be hard for users to analyze tech in contexts without a concept of technological determinism -Hackers actively seek out to be technologically determined (the hacker needs to know the software, tools they are using, and what bug they are seeking and in this sense the seek out technical agencies in order to determine their further actions) these actions reflect back by affecting them socially/culturally (AFFORDANCES)
Core principles of Web 2.0
-many-to-many in their connectivity -decentralized in terms of control -user-focused and easy for new users to use -open in terms of their technology standards and their applications programming interface -relatively simple and lightweight in their design, their administrative requirements, and their start-up and ongoing development costs -expected to evolve and changed over time as users make new modifications to the sites
ARPANET Packet Switching
-rather than circuit switching e.g. telephone circuits rather than needing a telephone operator -collect data into chunks (datagrams) and transfer them as packets -Each packet can be routed independently of other packets -packets go to wherever they're going right away without anyone needing to deliver or send it to someone else via operator
Newness
-relative (in relation to a certain time frame) -historical (what's new to us might be old to others) -mediated (changed the form, same idea?? ex: record player and radio)
Social shaping
-science and technology studies (needed for any new inventions)= a mutual shaping where scientific knowledge and technological systems shape both each other and society -socio-technical -values in design: technology is never neutral... creators always have a user in mind ex; Facebook and like buttons reflecting a positive space and personal input
Commodification
> Marxist political economy > (Follow the money) > economic impacts: education, family, other social dynamics > TV audiences were measured through Nielsen ratings > Nielsen still does this, through other less intrusive methods -ads are targeted to certain demographics
New Media: Representation
> algorithms and data collection get turns into visuals, which represent populations (describing how people use new media, through an image) > Data visualization (Bostocks reading)
Identity Politics and Critique
> civic engagement based on an axis of your physical identity > "The personal is political" - your personal identity plays out in your public one > your rights in relationship to your body, your physical trace in your online identity > Ex: Womens movements online, race movements online, #idlenomore Critique: > Slacktivism / Clicktivism (Malcom Gladwell, 2010) ( you click a link, but aren't actually doing anything) > Communicative Capitalism (Jodi Den)
Global Media Industries
> global knowledge economy > TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) > meant to reduce tariffs on exports > to create free trade zones on all the countries included > critiques about intellectual property and copy right, violates environmental codes
Memes: Representation
> memes have power, and can be used for political purposes > memes sometimes evoke mobilization - getting people to speak out, protest, etc.
Youth Online
> the most important thing that happens at adolescences is discovering yourself, and now social media is a huge aspect of this > Andrew Watts: Describes a bunch of social media sites from a youth perspective. Telling how people present themselves > saying that youth are consumers of these platforms, critiques Andrew for not acknowledging cultures, etc. rather than just naturally being able to use technology. > Millennials, Digital Natives = marketing terms that describe the idea of being born in 1980-2000 makes you entitled. That you should be rewarded, and get things now.
Innovators Dilemma
A choice that confronts those who develop new technologies, of whether or not to work on new technologies, even while the existing ones are doing well in the marketplace. Coined by Clayton Christensen used for companies falling into the trapping and failing to see the next big thing
Information society
A society dominated by the movement and use of information as well as information and communication technology
Digital Divide
A term used by the National Telecommunication and Information Administration. Describes the "falling through the net" reports on the differential access to networked personal computers. "The differential access to and use of the internet according to gender, income, race and location"
Global knowledge economy: globalization
A term used to describe a collection of interrelated processes including the ever-increasing flows of people, money, and information in support of trade, production, finance and cultural industries -Can also be seen as the increase of reliance on international standards, rules, laws and practices
Folksonomy
AKA "tagging" a definition or description (tag) for an object (photo/webpage) that is generated by users of a Web service AKA TAG or HASHTAG
Packet switching
ARPANET- said most significant development long messages were broken down into smaller "packets"; messages that could be rerouted if there was blockage at one message route or point of connection between two computers; and messages could be sent at asynchronous mode; meaning that messages would come at separate times after the message was sent.
ARPANET
Advanced Research Project Agency NET of the US Department of Defence (later DARPA) Used by: Military (cold war) and R&D (universities) -Developed 1968-1972, first message sent in 1969
Jordan and affordances
Affordance theory does a good job of encapsulating technological determinism because it is why Jordan believes that it has become a popular term. Jordan focuses on the affordance theory on its claims that technologies produce fields of actions, but not all actions are possible.
Digital goods
Bit strings, sequences of os and is that have economic value that include ideas and knowledge, computer software, digital images, music, databases, video games, blueprints, recipes, DNA sequences and codified messages
When Old Technologies Were New (1988)
Carolyn Marvin -introduction of the electric light and the telephone -communication revolutions
Longtail
Chris Anderson- Term used to illustrate the power of online access to books and other items that wouldn't merit stocking in a bricks-and-mortar store The large number of items which make up small sales volume individually but together may account for a non-trivial opportunity for retailers- such as Amazon- who can deliver these goods to people who want them
Identity politics
Civil engagement, raises consciousness ex: black lives matter Authors: Malcolm Gladwell (Slacktivism / Clicktivism) Jodi Dean (communicative capitalism)
CERN
Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucléaire aka the European Organization for Nuclear Research The World Wide Web -Allowed applications such as internet explorer and firefox -Created hypertext, allowing the linking of one information source from simple point-and-click access to other sources thus allowing "surfing" -Creation of the hypertext transfer protocol (http) and hypertext markup language (html)
Mediation of symbols
Construction of reality -There is no reality outside of images -Taking Stuart Halls theory one step further -Symbolic images help mediate our relationships to each other and the world outside
Representation, Stuart Hall
Cultural Representations and Signifying practices -he thinks of representation in terms of power, how it encodes certain kinds of meaning -representation creates meaning ex: dove add dark--> light skin/ believes this is organized in worst-best
Roland Barthes Mythologies
Cultural meanings get attached to signs ex: bravery, king of the jungle, all these ideas belong to myth
Cultural Studies: Paul du Gay, circuit of culture
Decoding influences everything, rather than looking at it ending how it influence the audience it continues to influence the producers in a "circuit" on how the programs get made after they are received through the audience. -Tries to close the loop between encoding (production) and decoding (consumption)
What are the two concerns of the new economy?
Digital goods and endogenous growth
What is the most important implications of e-commerce for distribution? What is it?
Disintermediation In the manufacturing sector the relationship between producers and consumers has traditionally been mediated through a chain of wholesalers, distributors, and retailers. With *disintermediation* the relation has become much more direct between the creator/producer of content, products, or services and their consumers
What is the difference between not fully pure e-commerce and pure e-commerce
E-commerce is not completely pure unless it is carried out fully in all digital formatting NOT pure ex: online shopping, clothes are material tangible objects Pure ex: Buying an app online
New Media and Identity Subjective and Objective
Subjective: your sense of identity Objective:the ways that you can be identified
Disembodied Selves Lisa Nakamura Power hierarchies
Early popular and scholarly discourse about the internet suggested that you can be anyone on the internet Lisa Nakamura: cyber identity tourism- the means of possibility for transcending one's physical body ex: a male could pretend to be female Power hierarchies: research has reveals how social power hierarchies are often represented in new media, shaping opportunities and experiences using the Internet, social media platforms, mobile apps, ex.
Globalization 4 parts
Economic: free trade, no terrifs on imports/exports Political: Governance outside national boundaries Legal: attending US copyright law to other countries Cultural: fewer diverse goods in other markets
Which of the following is and example of an affordance of infrastructure? Network structure Storage Electricity Platform Vid
Electricity- as it is PHYSICAL and therefore corresponds to an affordance of INFRASTRUCTURE
Electronic commerce (E-commerce)
Electronic transactions have become popular and have been broadened through: -It's open non-proprietary access protocols based on TCP/IP -the development of the Web and its standard coding system based on HTML -Ease of access to a diverse range of websites using web-browsers and search engines -Falling costs of personal computing and the growing ease Internet access from the workplace or home -the ways in which new media technology based on the Internet allow one-to-many communication and direct one-to-one interaction
Global knowledge economy and convergence 3 components:
Emerged from convergence in 3 components: the ubiquity of new media and globally networked ICTs, the ongoing and complex process of globalization, and the growing use of knowledge as a tool for wealth creation
New Media: Signification
Emoticons, Emojis > attaching meaning to these simple images
Explicit knowledge Tactic knowledge
Explicit knowledge is knowledge that is codified (written or recorded in some form of data) that can formally be taught or learnt and transferred from one context to another Tactic knowledge is knowledge derived from direct experience and the processes through which is acquired are often intuitive,habitual, and reflexive, best learned through practices of doing something and trial-and-error process associated with doing so.
Affordances of Platforms
Facebook (affords to ads, liking and interact with ads, but you also have the ability to not pay attention to them)
What are the 2 fastest growing mediums?
First was the mobile phone, second was internet growing 400% over a 10 year period
Stuart Hall encoding/decoding model
Flew & Smith p. 67
Economic Globalization
Following the money across the globe, where is the money located? Ex: Apple iPhone, HQ in California, Minerals come from Africa, Assembled in China with horrible labour conditions
Digital media
Forms of media content that combine and integrate data, text, sound, and images of all kinds; are stored in digital formats; and are increasingly distributed through networks such as those based on broadband fibre-optic cables, satellites, and microwave transmission systems
Cultural Studies Framework of Knowledge and Relations of Production
Frameworks of Knowledge: when media is produced, dominant meaning is added, people who are watching? -Relations of production: who produces the products and the relations between them -Technical infrastructure: the boundaries of the technical infrastructure
Affordances and power
Free and open source software and open software that allows you to write the code for a program -Hacktivism
Encoding/Decoding
How audience perceive media -Audiences aren't taking media as they are meant, the audiences are interpreting the media themselves. Formalizing how media is taken from production and the dominant meaning encoded into it or an intended reason. Decoding: Hall wanted to say that there is something more active about being an audience member and interpreting a media text, there can be multiple interpretations. Just like the moment of production, all the same 3 things go into the decoding of the media.
Global Political Economy
ICTS for Development (ICT4D) Digital divides: 1. access 2. skills 3. society Examples: West vs the rest of the world (poor) and new vs old generations Distributive paradigm: way of addressing divide by giving technology to those who don't have it -non-liberal, neocolonial, deterministic
Media Power Adorno and Horkheimer
Ideology: A world view that we often have and usually "take for granted" Hegemony: A dominating group accepted the rule of a certain group
Symbolic Power
Images hold a great amount of power, which is why we delve into them.
Neff and technological determinism
In technology, technological determinism is dead. The gap has been corrected technologically deterministic theories to account for user agency and the social construction of tools. It has been "overcorrected", too far in the direction of human power- ignoring the serious questions that remain on how tools are designed, how they function socially, and how users are aware of their positions and power.
Affordances
Infrastructure Don Norman, technology design professor The properties of an object and the person, the relationship and interaction, and what the person can do with the object. SOCI- what we do with it TECHNICAL- the thing itself. There is a set of affordances that something has built into it
Jordan and technological determinism
Is an everyday phenomenon whereas cultural/social construction is meta-social construction done at the micro-level.
New Media and Power Structure vs. Agency
Jodi Dean: communicative capitalism- social networks no matter what benefit you get out of social networks ultimately all you're doing is being a "cog in the machine of capitalism" all you're doing is help contribute for capitalism to make money Manuel Castells: "network power" new media lets us build our own networks ourselves
Affordances of Algorithms
Lawrence Lessig: code as law -like Netflix, dad is plugged into an "equation" and gives you recommendations as a result -Algorithms have biases because they are made by people--> ex: Google, the first few pages are tailored to you and your location
Lead-user innovation User-Centred innovation
Lead-user innovation: Attending to, and adopting if possible, the changes made by your leading customers when they adapt or extend your products User-centred innovation: Innovation led by the users who may create amateur or home-built versions of what they hope to use, but which is then adapted, refined, and manufactured by companies
What did packet-switching overcome?
Limitations of the telephone (blocked access due to heavy use by others) and it established the principle of decentralizing network from where the internet can't be controlled from a single point.
Always Already New (2006)
Lisa Gitelman -cultural histories of "new media" -case examples: sound recording and networked computing
LAN/WAN breakthrough TCP/IP
Local Area Network, Wide Area Network: Networks that allow the intercommunication between computers. LAN covers smaller geographical areas such as home, school, office. WAN covers larger areas such as cities and nation to nation communication. Open-architecture network TCP/IP (transmission control protocol and internet protocol) the quasi-privatization of ARPANET for university and commercial interests began to form the internet that we know today TCP: manages the assembling of messages into smaller file packets and then sends them over the internet IP: handles the address of each packet to make sure it gets to the right destination
Social shaping of technology
Major alternative to technological determinism This theory argues that social, institutional, economic and cultural factors shape the choices made about the forms of technological innovation, the content of technological artifacts and practices, and the outcomes and impacts of technological change for different groups in society
Characteristics of digital media
Manipulable: Digital information is easily changeable, adaptable, at all stages of creation, storage, delivery, and use Networkable: Digital info can be shared and exchanged between a large number of uses simultaneously across large distances Dense: Large amounts can be stored in small places; i.e. flash drives, USB, ex. Compressible: The amount of capacity that digital information takes up can be reduced through compression, and decompressed when needed Impartial: digital information carried across networks is indifferent to how it is represented, who owns or created it, and how it is used.
Digital media characteristics
Manipulable: information is easily changeable and adaptable at all stages of creation, use, delivery and storage Networkable: Digital information can be shared and interchanged between large numbers of users simultaneously and across an enormous distance Dense: Very large amounts can be stored in small physical spaces i.e. USBs, or network servers Compressible: the amount of capacity that digital information takes up on any network can be reduced dramatically through compression and decompressed when needed Impartial: digital information carried across networks is indifferent to how it is represented, who owns or created it, or how its used
Media and power: Structure VS. Agency Mashall McLuhan vs Raymond William
Marshall McLuhan argued that media didn't just affect what people think but also how people think. "The medium is the message"- technologies are an extension of human selves and capacities, the environment and how we interact is changed based on the medium. Raymond Williams (in opposition): Looks at how technologies are shaped by social, cultural, political and economic forces. Looked at how social forces, power relations, and conflicts lead to technical options being pursued. McLuhan believes that media changes us and how we think (technological determinism). Williams believes that we effect and chose how media is developed and adapted.
Cultural Studies: Stuart Hall, encoding/decoding model 1980
Meaning structures 1--encoding-> program as meaningful discourse--decoding--> meaning structures 2 Hall breaks the meaning of things into 3 things: 1.frameworks of knowledge 2. relations of production 3. technical infrastructure
Technical agency
Neff, Jordan and McVeigh-Schulz (2012) Infrastrural affordances; there is a set of things that we can and can't do. The thing itself is suggesting certain types of uses. Example of video games: There is a set of rules, but people can go against the rules and do whatever they want.
Work systems and technical agency
New forms of "Taylorism", once installed these work machines have agency of their own, always on, working, and watching. According to kelly the technology wants, drives, does and demands.
New media and globalization
New media technologies, firms and practices are very much a part of globalization as technology (such as a mobile phone) is designed for a global consumer base
Jordan and actor-network
Nothing is irreducible and everything can be followed as an actor. All actants or actors in the making of a world are mingled together in their actions or connections, and perception of what is being "acted" or "just a part of construction" gets distorted. -We have to follow the actants/actors and that we will find technical agency because nothing stops a actant from having agency- whether technical or human. EVERYTHING is traceable.
Ness observations in workers in architecture and healthcare
Observed that they feel a lack of control and power within these systems -There is a fear in society that we can't control the systems around us
"Follow the money"
Ownership: who owns the media and what their company owns Regulation: Government controls ex. Advertising: such as ads on FB Labour: The production and workers
What was the most significant development from ARPA? What is it?
Packet switching- meant that long messages could be broken down into smaller "packets"; messages could be rerouted if there was blockage at one message route or point of connection between computers, and messaged would be received after it was originally sent
Political economy
Sees technology as part of the interplay of power and domination in society -the study of the social relations (specifically power relations) that constitute the production, distribution, and consumption of resources -studies of media and communication ownership and control "interlock historically and theoretically with wider analysis of capitalist society, capitalist economy, and neo-capitalist
Google creators
Serge Bin and Larry Page
Network Individualism
Sherry Turkle (2011) computer-mediated communication 1. personal- structured AROUND you (in the middle of everything) 2. multiple users- once our network is set up multiple users are able to use it 3. multi-tasking- can be used whilst doing multiple tasks on your network
"Microblogging"
Sites that allow you to share brief updates such as Twitter and Facebook
Infrastructure Star&Bowker
Socio-technical Technology embedded in social context, designed and reflecting the values of that context.
Socio-technical
Star&Bowker (2000) Technology and scientific knowledge shape our society Product-distribution-exhibition -technology shaped by and shapes existing social life, it emerges from a social context -not just about technology, but also the meanings that we give to new media -unanticipated consequences
Paul du Gay et al. circuit of culture
Student of Stuart Hall It is a "circuit" of meaning that effects us. Used in an example of a cassette player. 5 levels: Representation, Identity, Production, Consumption, and Regulation. All are affected by one another and effect each other continually.
Technology S curve
Takes it shapes for 2 reasons 1. From the point view of technological innovators, early applications of the technology may possess bugs or faults, or the relationship between the technology and its applications may remain unclear, but there is a threshold point where improvements are rapidly made to the technology as dominant standards emerge with product characteristics and consumer preference until it matures until market accepts it 2. Users and the five-fold distinction between enthusiasts, early adopters, mainstream adopters, late adopters, and laggards, where the bulk of the population tends to sit in the middle rather than on both ends of the spectrum
Disruptive technologies
Technologies or services that undermine or overwhelm the value proposition of an existing product or service thereby causing its demise in the market. They are often unappreciated by suppliers of existing solutions, since they seem unrefined or unsuited to do the tasks that their customers demand
Danah Boyd
Teens use of social media is significantly shaped by race, class, geography and culture background It's Complicated (2014): there are all sorts of intervening factors affecting how people present their identity online • identity • privacy • safety • danger • bullying
Neff argument
That tools don't make change, people make change. We are unaware of how programmers create tools that change how we think, act, and organize
Knowledge economy
The buying and selling of knowledge -Different from an information economy because knowledge is learned over time and enables action
What set back e-commerce?
The collapse of NASDAQ (the US-based index for high-tech shares)
Convergence
The process by which media technologies, industries, and services merge- through the changes in computing, communication networks and content. The convergence of products, services, and activities that have emerged in a digital space.
Technological determinism
Thinking about the relationships between new media technologies and society. A technological determinist sees people as being forged in a crucible of technological forms. The way in which those technologies arrived among us, or how they work, is generally left unexamined in a rush to see the "impact" of technology
Digital natives
Those born after the 1980s, everyone is dependant on IM, text, internet, email, instant photo, mobile phones, ex.
World Wide Web
Tim Berners-Lee 1990/91 -Created hypertext documents allowing surfing and links properties of WWW: -open and decentralized, based on standards, and easy to use -antitemporal: things are not placed on the internet to be stored for ever, ex: 4-0-4 Error
The Web
Tim Berners-Lee at CERN the WWW allowed "surfing" through hypertext principles (links)
Web 2.0
Tim O'Reilly describes World Wide Web sites that emphasize user-generated content, usability, and interoperability. the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.
Affordances of profiles example
Tinder and Linked, different affordances due to the design of the application
ARPANET: TCP/IP Protocol
Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protcol -Vint Cerf, 1983 "network of networks" -creates a standardized way for all users rather than just military use
YouTube
User-generated content for amateur filmmaking created by three former PayPal employees Steven Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim who sold it for 1.65 bill.
Reintermediation
Where intermediary functions remain but are conducted by organizations whose operations are driven by the new e-commerce marketing logics such as shift toward partnership with consumers, "permission advertising", product and service customization, and multiple modes of communication with consumers
Global knowledge economy: The ubiquity of new media and globally networked ICTs
Will be familiar to almost all citizens of the modern world. New media are central to globalization because they constitute the borderless technological and service-delivery platforms streaming the images, information, finance and communication that make up a globalized world. -New media is usually the push for companies to expand and integrate globally -New media should not only be recognized as forms of communication, but also as a way of weakening cultural bonds that tie groups to communities and nation-states
Globalization
a term used to both describe and make sense of a series of interrelated processes such as the rise of multinational corporations; international production, trade, and financial systems; global social movements; the development of international governmental organizations, regional trading blocs, and international non-governmental organizations; and global conflicts.
Structure Vs. Agency
a) from audiences / consumers to users • technology design, innovation • "active internet contributors" (José Van Dijck, 2013) b) from users to produsers (consumers to prosumers) > Ex: Social TV = where you or on your phone (such as tweeting and engaging) as you watch a tv show > disintermediation — taking out the middle party, such as using Air BnB (taking out the hotel) > the sharing economy, "Pro-Ams" > disintermediation or reintermediation > Uber, Air Bnb, are they ruining their markets or creating a better market more available to consumers
Endogenous growth
aka "new growth economics" A theory from economics that recognizes the importance of innovation in the growth of an economy and importantly that it is not outside of the economy but a part of it
Telegraphs and Metcalfe's Law
describes the increasing value of a network according to the number of connections it has "the value of a network increases at the share of the number of connections"
Affordances of networks
ex: packet-switching and TCP/IP protocol -interoperability -end-to-end structure
political economy approach
focuses more specifically on politics and power relations embedded in technological development. The understanding of how technologies develop both historically and in the present era requires that close attention be paid to dominant economic relations, social relations go production military priorities, the role of state and gender relations.
Digital media
forms of media content that combine and integrate data, text, and sounds of all kinds
Kevin Kelly
founder of Wired and "tech guru" who recently published a book about the wants and drives of technology. -Argues that technology changes our lives and evolves -Ness argues that Kelly is a prime example of those who would fail when it comes to commitment in Technological Determinism -Technology in this "worldview" is not only capable of making social relationships and institutions function more efficiently but the purpose behind the design of tools is often expressed as a desire to make society work differently through new tools
Hype and counter-hype
how people were receptive to new media: some where extremely excited while some where against it Hype position on the internet: gave us new insight, connection to the world, equality Counter-hype position on the internet: inundation of truth, addiction, always there and can't get away, lose time with family, don't know who you're talking to -Thus the meanings of the internet are being socially constructed
Cognitive surplus
human-mind power that is liberated when we stop doing something that has been taking up a lot of time and turn our attention to something else
Diffusions of innovations model
is associated with the communications theorist Everett Rodgers who sought out to model the rate of adoption and eventual spread of an innovation in the social system through communication via particular channels- influential individuals, related businesses and social networks, over time.
Online ethnography
looks at the use of new media and the Internet in everyday life
Media archaeology
method: reading the 'new' against the past - recreating moments in time for how we think about the newness in medium -positioning digital media within broader histories -disconnected moments; not a grand single narrative -multiple histories, case studies
Memes Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene
mimesis+gene=meme -cultural forms spread like a gene -Alfred is supposed to be representing stupidity and a stereotypical stupid Irish Immigrant; used in cultural pieces negatively MAD magazine political critique, circulates, and then becomes a meme
Remediation and convergence
new media as socio-technical systems -has both technical and social aspects to it Remediation: When you take an older form and reimagine as a new form Convergence: Different media that converge into one device ex: smart phone: radio, calculator, camera, flashlight, ex.
Critical political economy
questioned whether policy-making organizations possess sufficient distance from most powerful private interests to be able to act in the public interest
Cultural globalization Hybridity:
refers to the transmission of ideas, meanings and values around the world in such a way as to extend and intensify social relations. This process is marked by the common consumption of cultures that have been diffused by the Internet, popular culture media, and international travel. *Hybridity*: is a cross between two separate races or cultures. ex: Twitter used over several cultures and countries
Historicizing online sexism: private and public space
■ Scholars have discussed online sexism as indicative of longstanding tensions regarding the gendering of private and public space ■ Historically: women as located within the private and domestic space of the home, while public space was understood as masculine ■ When women were out in public space, their motives were suspect... figure of the prostitute, bodies at risk
