#izzcassidy

According to the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, the amount of data that humans created since the beginning of civilisation through to 2003 is now being produced every two days (Siegler, 2010). To many, including myself, this concept is frightening to say the least. However, to giant global companies and governments, big data presents a world of opportunity. 

Big data is gathered and analysed with several purposes, the most interesting of which is what’s called predictive analytics. This is when data is mined and analysed in order to create predictions of outcomes for the future or otherwise unknown events, including elections or trends in the stock market. 

As well as predicting the outcomes of economic and political events, the mass amounts of data mined from social media sites can be used to predict events and trends in popular culture. At this very moment, the hash tags #eurovision, #sbseurovision and #joinus are trending globally on Facebook, tumblr and twitter. This is due to the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest, a massive competition that involves every European country, which took place this weekend. Each country must select a band or musician to represent them with a song written specifically for the competition. Eurovision has been running for 59 consecutive years and although it only involves European countries its eccentric and outlandish nature has attracted a global following. This year’s winner Conchita Wurst, a bearded lady from Austria, has captured the hearts of many and gained an immense social media following. 

Data pertaining specifically to the Eurovision Song Contest can be collated using the hash tags, which additionally prompt audience members to participate in and fuel further discussion. Surveying the data from these tags gives audience members an idea as to which performers are most popular, and gives hosting countries and advertisers clues as to how they can improve the monetisation and ratings of future broadcasts. In addition to this, the hash tags tap into the notion of participatory culture frequently discussed in our lectures and tutorials, particularly the tag #joinus which was the slogan for this year’s competition. The interval act for last night’s semi final was a Eurovision dance, comprised of audience members who had posted videos of themselves dancing and tagged them. The dancers in the most popular videos were flown out to Denmark where the competition was held, to perform their moves on stage in front of the live stadium audience. 

References

Eurovision TV. 2014. “Eurovison #JoinUs Dance”. YouTube video, posted May 10. Accessed May 11, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV7n3tLKHSk

Siegler, MG. 2010. “Eric Schmidt: Every 2 Days We Create As Much Information As We Did Up To 2003”. Accessed May 11, 2014.http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/04/schmidt-data/

According to the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, the amount of data that humans created since the beginning of civilisation through to 2003 is now being produced every two days (Siegler, 2010). To many, including myself, this concept is frightening to say the least. However, to giant global companies and governments, big data presents a world of opportunity. 

Big data is gathered and analysed with several purposes, the most interesting of which is what’s called predictive analytics. This is when data is mined and analysed in order to create predictions of outcomes for the future or otherwise unknown events, including elections or trends in the stock market. 

As well as predicting the outcomes of economic and political events, the mass amounts of data mined from social media sites can be used to predict events and trends in popular culture. At this very moment, the hash tags #eurovision, #sbseurovision and #joinus are trending globally on Facebook, tumblr and twitter. This is due to the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest, a massive competition that involves every European country, which took place this weekend. Each country must select a band or musician to represent them with a song written specifically for the competition. Eurovision has been running for 59 consecutive years and although it only involves European countries its eccentric and outlandish nature has attracted a global following. This year’s winner Conchita Wurst, a bearded lady from Austria, has captured the hearts of many and gained an immense social media following. 

Data pertaining specifically to the Eurovision Song Contest can be collated using the hash tags, which additionally prompt audience members to participate in and fuel further discussion. Surveying the data from these tags gives audience members an idea as to which performers are most popular, and gives hosting countries and advertisers clues as to how they can improve the monetisation and ratings of future broadcasts. In addition to this, the hash tags tap into the notion of participatory culture frequently discussed in our lectures and tutorials, particularly the tag #joinus which was the slogan for this year’s competition. The interval act for last night’s semi final was a Eurovision dance, comprised of audience members who had posted videos of themselves dancing and tagged them. The dancers in the most popular videos were flown out to Denmark where the competition was held, to perform their moves on stage in front of the live stadium audience. 

 References

Eurovision TV. 2014. "Eurovison #JoinUs Dance". YouTube video, posted May 10. Accessed May 11, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV7n3tLKHSk

Siegler, MG. 2010. “Eric Schmidt: Every 2 Days We Create As Much Information As We Did Up To 2003”. Accessed May 11, 2014. http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/04/schmidt-data/

New media has completely changed the way audiences engage with creative content. In this previous blog post, I discussed Jay Rosen’s notion of “the people formerly known as the audience”, which revolves around the premise that people once had a very static, passive relationship with media content and now have basically the exact opposite of that. This idea is extremely relevant in regards to fan or “fandom” culture. The interactive nature of social media has created a demand for more attention paid to the needs and input of fans/consumers. 

“Observers who argue that the contemporary web and social media are participatory, cause revolutions, facilitate democracy or advance the public sphere, facilitate an ideology that celebrates capitalism and does not see how capitalist interests predominantly shape the Internet.” - Christian Fuchs (2014, 102)

I love the internet, I really do. It can connect me with all my friends, give me access to all my favourite movies and TV shows and answer nearly any question I can think of. The internet and I spend a lot of time together, and although our relationship seems to benefit me much more than it does the internet, this is not the case. In fact, the internet is using me. Well, more specifically, the corporations that control the internet are. These corporations are logging my online activity in order to create a detailed profile of my personal interests and online behaviour, which will be sold on to advertisers to make a profit. This experience is not unique to me, but standard practice for all internet users. We are being exploited.