Task 3: Think back to our discussions on Second Life. What are the social concerns of the development of the kind of technology discussed in this article? How is it changing the way we interact? What are the issues on control and censorship? Who is left behind? Post an entry of 300w in response to these questions. Do some of your own research and find actual examples to back up your points.
Instant messengers, such as MSN Messenger, allow people to communicate online, cutting the costs on phone bills. Although some may argue that this has a negative effect on telephone businesses, it is undeniable that the internet, especially social networking sites, has created more of a global village allowing people to interact across the globe.
Second Life is an internet-based virtual world, with no rules, which has proved controversial. And with it costing somewhere between 40 and 50 million dollars to create a virtual world, the benefits have to be substantial. Second Life certainly has proved worth while. However, an investigation in this virtual world by Sky News has proved there may be a dark side to Second Life. Could this lead to the fall in what seems to be the latest craze?
This video on Youtube by Jason Farrell of Sky News uncovers the "dark side" of Second Life.It reveales a huge sex industry, and raises questions over the age of people accessing the material available. A virtual investigator found that hidden behind shopping mall on one virtual island is a place called Wonderland. At first, it looks like a playground, with a number of young children. However, these children aren't just playing around, they are performing sexual acts to too. These are children are off all ages, even todlers. You can agree a price and carry out a range of sexual acts with them.
An issue raised with the virtual world is that virtual crime has real victims. A major concern is that people will bring their fantasys from the fantasy world to the real world and act it out. An example of this is a Archibald Wood, a pedophile who moved from fantasizing in internet chatrooms, to real child abuse. His computer hardrive logged his activities, and helped to convict him. However, in Second Life, actions are not recorded. Following the sky news investigation, Second Life said that virtual detectives will be sent in to check out Wonderland. This is censorship and control. It is hard to monitor who does/says what, as we never know who is behind the avatar (user). There are not enough people willing to take jobs to control a virtual life and because of that there has been a moral panic based upon this issue. However, these detectives hope to uncover areas such as Wonderland, and stop them.
Monday, 7 January 2008
Where will technology take us?
I read the article Tell me the future (3/12/07) from the Gaurdian Unlimited and answered the following questions:
Who is Chris De Wolfe and what does he say is the future for social networking? What impact will portable hardware have on this area of technology?
Chris De Wolfe (CEO and co-founder of an extremely popular social networking website MySpace) says that the global village is becoming more personal and portable, people are logging on to these social networking sites now more than ever, affecting other industries such as music and advertising. He says that the future of the social networking web is more personalised and the realtionships formed or developed through this technology will grow closer and closer. Due to technology these days, mobile devices such as phones and laptops, we are able to minimise the boundries of social networking.
Who is Chad Hurley and what does he say is his company's goal? Is he a positive or negative technological determinist?
Chad Hurley (CEO and co-founder of an extremely popular video-sharing website YouTube). Says his company's goal is to include everyone to simple accessible technology, and to make it almost second nature to us (such as making a telephone call). YouTube aim to improve the ease of uploading videos onto the site, and want to increase the diversity of the videos. They want more orientated around friends and family, news, music, sports, cooking etc. He is a positive technological determinist. He descirbe this technology in a positive way, with no reference to technology being negative. He talks of how he wants to make his website easy to access, from a number of places, clearly indicating he believes new technology has a positive effect on out lives.
What does Maurice Levy say is the challenge for advertisers and what is 'liquid media' compared to 'linear media'?
Maurice Levy compares the digital and analogue media, and says the possibilites of the digital advertising is much greater than the traditional advertising. Linear media is the old way of advertising, with no interactivity in it. Liquid media, which Maurice describes as "seamless", can interact, change settings, jump and skip parts of playlists, and many other options. It is the new digital media. It gives the user the ability to multi-task, for example, pausing, rewinding and fast forwarding live TV.
What parallels does Norvig draw between Edison inventing electricity and the development of online technology in terms of searching for information?
Norvig explains that Edison inventing electricity, was almost the flood gates, opening to whole new range of ideas and possibilites. He describes how the current technology will enable us to improve and build faster, better machines with what Edison invented.
What are the issues for the developing world? How is this evidence of a 'digital divide'? (socio-economic divide due to access to technology)
There are major differences between MEDCs (more economically developed countries) and LEDCs (less economically developed countries). New digital media helps us to understand what is happening in the world and the divides created between these countires. LEDCs may not be able to access this new form of technology and therefore not receive the up to date detailed information that the MEDCS are able to.
Who is Chris De Wolfe and what does he say is the future for social networking? What impact will portable hardware have on this area of technology?
Chris De Wolfe (CEO and co-founder of an extremely popular social networking website MySpace) says that the global village is becoming more personal and portable, people are logging on to these social networking sites now more than ever, affecting other industries such as music and advertising. He says that the future of the social networking web is more personalised and the realtionships formed or developed through this technology will grow closer and closer. Due to technology these days, mobile devices such as phones and laptops, we are able to minimise the boundries of social networking.
Who is Chad Hurley and what does he say is his company's goal? Is he a positive or negative technological determinist?
Chad Hurley (CEO and co-founder of an extremely popular video-sharing website YouTube). Says his company's goal is to include everyone to simple accessible technology, and to make it almost second nature to us (such as making a telephone call). YouTube aim to improve the ease of uploading videos onto the site, and want to increase the diversity of the videos. They want more orientated around friends and family, news, music, sports, cooking etc. He is a positive technological determinist. He descirbe this technology in a positive way, with no reference to technology being negative. He talks of how he wants to make his website easy to access, from a number of places, clearly indicating he believes new technology has a positive effect on out lives.
What does Maurice Levy say is the challenge for advertisers and what is 'liquid media' compared to 'linear media'?
Maurice Levy compares the digital and analogue media, and says the possibilites of the digital advertising is much greater than the traditional advertising. Linear media is the old way of advertising, with no interactivity in it. Liquid media, which Maurice describes as "seamless", can interact, change settings, jump and skip parts of playlists, and many other options. It is the new digital media. It gives the user the ability to multi-task, for example, pausing, rewinding and fast forwarding live TV.
What parallels does Norvig draw between Edison inventing electricity and the development of online technology in terms of searching for information?
Norvig explains that Edison inventing electricity, was almost the flood gates, opening to whole new range of ideas and possibilites. He describes how the current technology will enable us to improve and build faster, better machines with what Edison invented.
What are the issues for the developing world? How is this evidence of a 'digital divide'? (socio-economic divide due to access to technology)
There are major differences between MEDCs (more economically developed countries) and LEDCs (less economically developed countries). New digital media helps us to understand what is happening in the world and the divides created between these countires. LEDCs may not be able to access this new form of technology and therefore not receive the up to date detailed information that the MEDCS are able to.
Key concepts relating to new media
Digitality:
This is a new way of coding information in a series of 0's and 1's. This is called a binary system. A huge amount of information can be delt with in this format.
Interactivity:
New ways of streaming information, compressed. Whether this is through the air (a satelite system), ISDN (broadband), telephone cables or a cable satelite system. This was means more width can be given i.e. we can now send multiple strands of information via 1 feed, this is because it is made compressed. This is why when we are on the internet saturday night, it is slower than it was tuesday night (for example), because we are sharing it with other people in the street. The more people using it, the more band width used, which means less space for everyone else as there is a limited amount of band width. Because it is interactive, it's a field that can go both ways. You can: interact with eachother, you can respond to it or make it respond to you, say yes or no to it. This changes the way that text can be made, text can work, meaning we can upload aswell as download.
Hypertextuality:
Organisation of text is no longer linear, now you can access it anywhere you like, rather like a DVD. We are able to jump whichever way we like, whenever we like, from one text to another. The people who produce the text no longer have control how we read it (in which order), they must also ensure you are able to jump around and realise that you may jump out of their text and into someone elses. For example, this is why TV is broken down, not only for adverts, but to keep interest and stop you from changing the channel.
Dispersal:
This is how information can be and is shared and communicated. It's to do with the market share and size, aswell as the take up (who's using it). You may look at how much access users actually have, and how the producers target those users and how they maximise their markets. The dispersal might be across a wide network, which coupled with the digitality, increases the market expenentially. It makes a huge market for producers.
Virtuality:
This is the idea of leading and linking with the real and representation. For example, cartoons are representational, and so are virtual worlds. This leads to questions such as, what is real? Who is representing the world, how, and why?
Convergence:
This is a very large issue related to new media technologies. New technologies are converging into one, for example, mp3 players can now show photographs, and you can send e-mails from your mobile phone. The debate with this is over where it will take us next, and whether people will use it. This is also related to size, how much small data can be stored, the size of some of these gadgets (how they converge). Before, it was impossible to make all these things into one because it was too big in the first place, but now, because of the size, we are able to make these things into one device. For example, my phone is now my camera, e-mail station, brouser etc, and it is as thin as a CD case.
WE ALSO NEED TO CONSIDER:
Audience:
- How does the audience use the technology?
- Do they actually use it?
- Does it change the way they use it?
- Did they used to use it?
- Does it change the way they used it before (if it is a new version)?
- Has technology developed due to consumer demand or has it been led by the industry? (have people demanded it or have the people who make it made use think we want it?)
- Who has actually got access to these things? (for example, many people in Africa don't have internet access)
- Who doesn't have access and is being cut out of these new markets?
- Is there any control over the technologies use? If so, by who?
- Should there be control?
- What do they do about copyright issues?
- What are the implications?
- Is it realistically possible to control things?
- What's the impact of this having on producers? For example, we can all copy music and share it, so CD prices have been pushed down.
- What potential impact is there for the government?
- Who owns the technology and does that make a difference? For example, if Sony or Microsoft owns something:
- How much money they've got
- Whether they're able to close out the market
- How they compete with eachother
- How do they use their money and their brand to sell something
- Who's got control on their messages, products, brands, and how does that affect the way they sell it to you?
- How does your buying it, or not, and the competition affect what they sell and how they organize themselves?
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