#avjsanders13

This week we were introduced to the notion of “big data”, a concept that classifies our online participation as a new kind of knowledge just waiting to be organized and interpreted. In this weeks lecture Darryl Woodford discussed new media and telemetrics, defining big data as “a currency across industry, business intelligence and data markets” (Woodford, 2014). Societies prolific use of social media has prompted television and media bodies to utilize this medium as a tool for measuring and interacting with audiences (Ibid, 2014).

  “Big data is used to describe the exponential growth and availability of data, both structured and unstructured” (SAS, 2014). As early as 2001 analyst Doug Lanely articulated the potential big data poses to those organizations that accurately analyse it. Sites like Twitter and facebook hold “data that embodies a priceless collection of experience from which we can learn” (Siegel, 2010). That’s right, no matter how benign or mundane the tweeter post, that public declaration on your newsfeed is encoded as data and warehoused (Siegel, 2010). As discussed, Twitter is at the forefront of big data analysis, and as Axel Bruns discussed, “Twitter as a platform, and can be understood as corresponding to micro, meso, and macro layers of information exchange and user interaction”.

    Twitter trends are increasingly conceptualised through user “hash-tagging”. Every time a user “hash-tags” they are essentially marking a tweet as being relevant to that specific topic, effectively making it more discoverable to other users and researchers (Bruns, 2013).

    Woodford’s article, “Telemetrics: Towards Measuring Social Media Engagement with Television”, provided an insight into the development of sophisticated and nuanced metrics to understand how Twitter uses are reacting to the content of particular broadcasts (Woodford, 2014). The article discussed two modes of evaluating the performance of television shows through twitter. The twitter excitement index, performs show-to-show comparisons of audience engagement as it measures the volatility of Twitter discussion throughout the show. This method thus allows comparisons across genres and between networks and countries (Woodford, 2014).  The second form of twitter analysis is undertaken through a seaonsonal model evaluating episodes independent of their context (ibid, 2014).

Google’s’ recent investment of $130 million to finance the start of Flatiron Health Inc. represents the financial worth big data possess. (Hay, 2014) Flatiron health aggregates cancer-patient data from a wide variety of sources, and with Google’s investment it can now allow doctors to acquire patient records to help make more informed treatment decisions. (Ibid, 2014). 

    We live in a hyper-personalized world, and the analysis of big data by organisations permits them to personalize content dependant on the needs of the consumer. The leveraging of big data tools by organisations is just another instance in new medias continual evolution. As this process benefits both the consumer and the organisation I can only advocate its use. 

      Woodford, Daryl. “KCB206 Internet, Self and Beyond: Week 9 lecture notes.” Accessed May 7, 2014. http://www.dpwoodford.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/KCB206-Big-Data-Lecture_Small.pdf

  Siegel, Eric. 2013. “Introduction: The Prediction Effect.” In Predictive analytics: the power to predict who will click, buy, lie or die, 1-16.Hoboken, NJ: Wiley

    Woodford, Darryl, Katie Prowd and Axel Bruns. (forthcoming). 
     “Telemetrics: Towards Measuring Social Media Engagement with 
     Television”. Accessed May 8, 2014.
     http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-5234702-dt-content-
     rid-2118244_1/courses/KCB206_14se1/Woodford%2C%20Prowd
     %20and%20Bruns%20-%20Telemetrics%20Towards%20Measu
     ring%20Social%20Media%20Engagement%20with%20Television
     .pdf

Bruns, Axel. 2013. “Follower Accession: How Australian Politicians Gained their Twitter Followers.” Mapping Online Publics Blog, July 8. Accessed May 9, 2014. http://mappingonlinepublics.net/2013/07/08/follower-accession-how-australian-politicians-gained-their-twitter-followers/

    Hay, Timothy, 2014 “Google Ventures Leads $130M Round For Big Data Medical Software Company Flatiron Health” Wall Street journal, may 7th, Accessed may 9th, 2014. http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/05/07/google-ventures-leads-130m-round-for-big-data-medical-software-company-flatiron-health/

Over the past few weeks we have come to understand that with the advent of the internet, the influence of mass media has grown exponentially. We trust the media as an authority for information, as an avenue to share and engage with content, but as recent weeks have discussed the influence of the Internet is completely dependant on its availability and pervasiveness of media. Today I will be investigating content covered in week 8’s lectures and readings - how new media has prompted a new wave of engagement in the political arena.  

  In week 8’s lecture Theresa stated that society is constituted by power relationships. Whoever has power shapes the institutions and organizes society around its interests and values (Sauter, 2014). However, wherever there is power, there is counter-power, and in recent times new media has provided a medium for social actors to challenge the domination embedded in the institutions of society (Ibid, 2001). Early discourses suggest that the role of new media has revitalized public participation, effectively strengthening relationships between governments and citizens. Albrecht Hofheinz went so far as to stipulate that new media in its many forms has precipitated an activism and mobilization which facilitates the development by undermining governments’ hegemonic control over the flow of information (Hofheinz, 2009).  

    An article from this week that particularly resonated this new wave of liberalization was clay Shirky’s “The Political Power of Social Media”. During the impeachment trial of Philippine President Joseph Estrada in 20, loyalists in the Philippine Congress voted to set aside key evidence against him (Shirky, 2001). Within hours of this decision being announced thousands of Filipinos, arranged via mass txt messages to converge on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, a major crossroads in Manila (Ibid, 2001). In the next few days, over a million people arrived, choking traffic in downtown Manila (Ibid, 2001).. The public's ability to coordinate such a massive and rapid response close to seven million text messages were sent that week so alarmed the country's legislators that they reversed course and allowed the evidence to be presented (Ibid, 2001). As these riots reflect the participatory nature of online culture and increased freedoms it permits has helped to loosely coordinate public change.

As shirky emphases, political freedom has to be accompanied by a civil society literate enough and densely connected enough to discuss the issues presented to the public. Activists in both repressive and democratic regimes will use the Internet and related tools to try to effect change in their countries (Ibid, 2001). But we must remember that social media tools are not a replacement for real-world action but a way to coordinate it.

Sauter, Theresa. 2014. “KCB206 Internet, Self and Beyond: Week 8 lecture notes.” Accessed April 28, 2014. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FlistContent.jsp%3Fcourse_id%3D_108110_1%26content_id%3D_5232450_1

This week of kcb305 focused on the ways in which new media has re-conceptualized our communicative practices. Interaction is no longer limited to a face-to-face meeting or phone call. As technology evolves so to do the ways in which we interact. With the advent of social media we prefer to re-connect with friends through a comment then an email.  And it’s always better to hash things out through a long winded text then a phone call.  This process of new technologies becoming new component of daily living has been referred to as “doestification” (Silverstone & Haddon). As communication technologies become increasingly domesticated does our language evolve along with the changes in the way we interact with other people?

    As our tech-dependence becomes more and more pronounced it seems our cumulative experience with communication technologies has gradually altered behavioural and social norms. Nancy Bayum, author of “personal connections in the digital age”, states that Face to face is much more personal; phone is personal as well, but no form of communication as intimate as face to face. However, although the Internet is the least personal its consistent availability supports our need to remain connected on a 24/7 basis (Bayum, 2010).  In the context of new media, O’Sullivan stated that it is common for users communicate through immediacy cues, as it reflects approachability (O’Sullivan, 2004). This notion of immediacy language is referred to as CMC or computer mediated communication (Ibid, 2010). It is informal and filled with non-standard spellings, casual vocabulary and abbreviated slang (Baron, 2008).  There has been much debate as to whether this new form of communication enhances or impoverishes practices of communication, language, and relations.

      Baron argues this new era of CMC communication is eroding language, both spoken and written and marks the end of anticipation," because we no longer await the return of family and friends to share in their stories” (Baron, 2003). However the “scant evidence so far does not offer strong reasons for concern, there are far fewer such deviations from standard language forms than people think” (Baron & Ling, 2003).  Baron argues that computers are not the cause of contemporary language attitudes and practices," but, "like signal boosters, they magnify ongoing trends” (Baron, 2003). The language used on these online mediums is shaped by social forced with their signal boosted by mediation (Ibid, 2003). Mediated communication demonstrates many new qualities, but despite the concern “the social structures that shape us and our potentials manifest in our communication, identities, relationships, communities, and networks online just as they do offline.” (Ibid, 2003)

  Baron, Naomi, (2008). Chapter 1 : Email to Your Brain : Language in an Online and Mobile World. In Baron, Naomi, Always on : language in an online and mobile world, (pp.3 - 10). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Accessed April 10, 2014. https://qutvirtual3.qut.edu.au/qv/olt_material_search_p?p_unit_code=KCB206

Reconfiguration of Labour

  With the emergence of Web 2.0 and online interactive media, it seems a reconfiguration of what we consider our labour market and economic practices is occurring. It’s apparent that we have all become accustomed to an informational economy that is collaborative, instantaneous, and attainable anywhere and at any time.  However, as Manuel Castells highlights “an economy that sources the productivity and competitiveness for firms, depends more than ever, on knowledge, information, and the technology of their processing” (Manuel Castells, 1999, 400). Ritzer and Jurgenson argue that web 2.0 facilitates the emergence of "prosumer capitalism", in which the boundaries classifying our interactions online as either professional or personal producers or consumers have become blurred (Ritzer and Jurgenson (2010)).

  Fuchs stated that the outsourcing of work to consumers is a general tendency of contemporary capitalism, and a concept more prevalent than most users may realize (Fuchs 2014). Crowd sourcing aims to harness collective resources i.e. (knowledge money, creativity) in order solve problems and/or produce things by outsourcing work to audiences across multiple different platforms (Sauter, 2014). Satellite Company DigitialGlobe recently evidenced cloud labour, a form of crowd sourcing. The company launched an international crowd-sourcing campaign to help locate missing Malaysian airline flight (Ralson, Nick, 2014). The company made available high-resolution images from the search area where evidence suggested the plane carrying the 239 passengers might have crashed. The company encouraged volunteers to log onto its Tomnod site and comb through images in the hope of locating something of interest (Ralston, 2014).

    Tronti describes this new production of economic value as the “factory” and states that all of society lives as a function of the factory, as the factory extends its exclusive domination over all of society" (Tronti, in Cleaver 1992, 137). Fuchs introduces the concept of “playbour”, a form of unpaid labour that is connected to other forms of exploitation; as it seeks to create the illusionary impression that users are not being exploited by making tasks feel like (Fuchs 2014). Jonathan Zittrain, the Professor of Law at Harvard Law School in his “Minds for sale” lecture, discussed the emergence of gamification. That is, encouraging users to perform desired actions by engaging with them through game-related approaches in a non-game context (Zitrane 2008).  An instance we have all witnessed at one stage or another is reCAPTCHA, used by sites to determine whether you are a human registering or ordering. In an additional field you enter the text that is displayed on an image, the text is usually scanned from old texts, in which text recognition software has had trouble configure the letters (Zitrane 2008). 

  “Commercial social media show that exploitation/capital accumulation and ideology are two important and entangled dimensions of the media in capitalism (Golding and Murdock 1978). Fuch suggests that exploitation tends to feel like fun and becomes part of free time, but as it seems the value and price of the commodity currently being provided by users does not coincide (Marx, 2006).

  -Zittrain, Jonathan. 2009. Minds for Sale (video, 1hr 16mins) Accessed March 20. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/2009/11/berkwest

  -Sauter, Theresa. 2014. “Week 4 – New Media Enterprises Powerpoint” Accessed March 20, 2014. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FlistContent.jsp%3Fcourse_id%3D_108110_1%26content_id%3D_5232446_1

    -Fuchs, Christian. 2014. “The Power and Political Economy of Social Media.” In Social Media: An Introduction, 97 – 125. London: Sage Publications.

  -Sauter, T. (2014). KCB206 New Media Enterprises [lecture notes]. Retrieved from http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FlistContent.jsp%3Fcourse_id%3D_108110_1%26content_id%3D_5232446_1

As new media technologies evolve so to does the way content is created in these new media scapes. Week three of the KCB205 unit considered who is in control of this creating and consuming process and how content convergence though media devices has reshaped this process. The theory that the media is able to simply inject an intended message to audiences and have it consumed without question or rebuttal is all but obsolete. Green and Jenkins have proposed the notion of spreadability- in which media messages are not apparent, audiences appropriate and interpret media based on their own experiences, understandings, backgrounds and contexts.

The point of consideration is whether media audiences are empowered or disadvantaged when bestowed with the power to create their own content? Tim Burner-Lee stated we ought to be able to find any document on the web, but also create any kind of document easily. This two-way flow allows people to participate more and generate own content. This notion was brought to fruition with the rise of Web 2.0, giving users more power to engage in the participatory culture and reengagement audiences have the more ability to collaborate. As discussed in this weeks lecture, powerful new production tools and distribution channels are enabling the mute to speak and the invisible to be seen, allowing for a more participatory culture, and embodying the “technologies of freedom” predicted so many years ago by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1970/2000), (Green, Joshua and Henry Jenkins. 2011).

The reconceptualising of new media audiences has undoubtedly spawned as audiences have graduated from wanting media when they want it to wanting it without the filler, to wanting media to be way better than it is to publishing and broadcasting ourselves when it meets a need or sounds like fun (Rosen, J 2006). The concept of spreadability on the Internet seeks to motivate and facilitate the efforts of fans and enthusiasts to “spread” the word, expand audience awareness through the dispersion of content through social networks (Green, Joshua and Henry Jenkins. 2011) . An instance of this notion is exhibited through the rise of Susan Boyle, it was through audiences collective choices and affiliations that made the content culturally meaningful. As Green, Joshua and Harry Jenkins discussed the spread of this content was caused as the participating public has become literate about social networking and our viral interactions with other people is often through the sharing of meaningful bits of media content. As Clay Shirky points out “Every time a new consumer joins this media landscape, a new producer joins as well because the same equipment- phones, computers - lets you consume and produce” (Shirky, C, 2007).

Green, Joshua and Henry Jenkins. 2011. “Spreadable Media. How Audiences Create Value and Meaning in a Networked Economy.” In The Handbook of Media Audiences edited by Virginia Nightingale, 109-127. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

  In past years there has been a materialization of social media, that has triggered a hybridity or entanglement of our social practices, technologies and people, as explored in week 2’s “society/identity”.  Indiana University’s, Mark Deuze, explores this concept by stating that the invisibility of media is exemplified as our use of new media intensifies. As the digitalisation of media evolves, so with it does our consumption and use. It has become commonplace to converge our daily tasks through the use of technology- ipad’s are wired to control household technologies and social media forums and blogs allow us to exist and progress on a virtual level.  This virtual existence allows us to type ourselves into being, as we reaffirm and shape our personal psyches through our online relations and experiences (Boyd and Ellison 2007, 211). Facebook, is arguably the cause of this prolific shift in how we communicate online. as it has provided an entirely new platform to express oneself. It provides one with the convenience of being able to instant message a friend, or video call, a distant relative or reiterate our likes and dislikes online through publicly re -blogging and sharing content.

  As Pearson, articulately states, our prolific dependence and affirmation one receive when they publish that #foodporn Instagram/Facebook post, opens to door to the glass bedroom idea (Pearson, 2009). As we look affirm our self-formation through online exchanges, a blurring of what should remain public and private occurs. Dependant on ones privacy settings, the people we allow to view ones profile and the multiple mediums we use when blogging/sharing content causes a convergence of different publics. As information sharing is in most cases a voluntary submission to self-disclosure and self-surveillance, it is becoming apparent that we are managing our privacy in new ways,(Raynes-Goldie 2010) Boyd 2011.  However as articulated by Papacharissi and Gibson ,“Sociality has always required some (voluntary) abandonment of privacy. In order to become social, we must give up some of our private time and space so as to share it with others.” (Papacharissi and Gibson 2011, 78)

    As our technologies continue to evolve, so to will the ways in which seek to reaffirm our sense of self and identity within society. One must continue to remain mindful that the more the process of self-formation is enriched by mediated symbolic forms, the more the self becomes dependent on media systems which lie beyond its control”(Thompson 1995, 214).

    Deuze, Mark, 201. “Media Life” Media culture & society 33(1): 137-148. Viewed march 11th, 2014

  Lessig, Lawrence, (2008). Chapter 7: Hybrid Economies. In Lessig, Lawrence, Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy, (pp.177 - 224). New York: Penguin. Viewed, march 11th, 2014

  Papacharissi, Zizi and Gibson, Paige L, (2011). Chapter 7 : Fifteen Minutes of Privacy : Privacy, Sociality, and Publicity on Social Network Sites. In Trepte, Sabine and Reinecke, Leonard, Privacy online : perspectives on privacy and self-disclosure in the social web, (pp.75 - 89). Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Viewed march 11th, 2014