[insert politian's name here] is my Facebook friend, Week 4, 1.6

Kinds of involvement that two political websites encourage (from nominated list)

While Coombs (2009) states that direct communication with politicians has never been easier, this is not evident in the websites for the leaders of the two major Australian political parties

There is very little opportunity for participation on the Prime Minister's (Prime Minister of Australia) website and encouraging involvement appears to be limited to signing up to a newsletter via email, contacting the Prime Minister via the contact page or visiting her external sites on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Youtube.  Were you to use the contact page to send a message, if it was greater than 10,000 characters - about 1,500 words - the communication would need to be sent via regular post.  When accessing the Facebook button a popup window appeared stating that you were leaving the PM's site and they had 'no control over or responsibility for external sites'; not accurate as while they do not control the websites they do have some control over content and comments on Facebook, Flickr and Youtube with permissions and editing rights.

The Facebook page had much greater opportunity to contribute, but only by commenting on the PM's posts, and contributors who were opposed to her or the ALP did not appear to be deleted.  The PM seemed to use this as a less formal news feed and there was an image of a social media flyer (Social Media Guide, 2011) for the ALP national conference held in December.  This flyer contained details of how people could follow what was happening and communicate with the ALP during the conference, particularly via a dedicated Facebook page and specific Twitter hash tags.  Following another link took the visitor to the ALP website and a section dedicated to encouraging people to 'Get Involved' .  This provided specific ways and tools for people to share and discuss ideas and opinions

The Opposition Leader's (Abbott) website content and opportuntity for participation was almost identical to the Prime Minister's with the addition of a link to 'Tell us what you think', a community survey for the Opposition Leader's electorate only.  The links to the same social networking sites were also prominent and  the same path to Facebook ended up the Opposition Leader's page.  A link to the Liberal Party's website needed to be specifically sought rather than directed there from other information and that site (Liberal Party of Australia) was similar to the ALP's and had a tab to 'Get Involved'.  The layout of this page was simple and an easy way into participating with the Opposition on matters that interest the visitor.

Both Parties' websites' participation pages provided a diverse range of areas or ways for those wanting to participate.

Coombs, A. (2009).  How cyber-activism changed the world.  Retrieved from http://griffithreview.com/edition-24-participation-society/how-cyber-activism-changed-the-world/all-pages

Get Involved.  Australian Labor Party.  Retrieved from http://www.alp.org.au/get-involved/

Prime Minister of Australia, Retrieved from http://www.pm.gov.au/

Social Media Guide [Image]. Australian Labor Party. Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150471412757328&set=a.10150173759707328.302398.161674172327&type=1&theater10 Ways to Get Involved with the Liberals, Liberal Party of Australia, Retrieved from http://www.liberal.org.au/Get-Involved.aspx

Tony Abbott, Retrieved from http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/

Faith and Spirituality Online, Week 4, 1.5

How has the internet been used to resist or counteract religious persecution and human rights abuse?

In my searches for sites around religious persecutions a good number of sites returned focussed on China.  And it seems like religions, or in China's and Russia's cases, state atheism - where the religion governs the country, would be threatened by the internet.  Those authorities can control the internet to some extent but savvy users (and bold given the penalties) can risk working around the firewalls.When religious beliefs are made public they can be questioned.  China's sensorship of the internet made headlines (Bennett, 2011) earlier this year when Google took the country on, but there are harsh penalties for anyone who breaches the government's internet laws.  Therefore, those wanting to speak out about persecution or abuse would generally do so from outside their country.  If they choose to use their own name it is knowing that they are unlikely to ever be able to return.  The persecuted, those who are close to them or those who oppose human rights abuse such can create websites such as the Falun Dafa Information Centre (2008), which provides background information for those unfamiliar with Falun Dafa and their persecution.  This particular website states it is the 'official source' of Falun Dafa information and while it is managed out of the US it does contain reports from inside China.

Scientology has a reasonably high profile due to its celebrity membership: John Travolta and Tom Cruise in the US, Kate Ceberano in Australia.  Its website is very well organised and is non-confrontational with plenty of reasoned statements about the foundation of its belief system. There is another side to this church as shown via websites, such as Ex Scientologist and it's message board Ex Scientology Message Board.  These sites provide resources and an opportunity for ex-Scientology members or those in that church and questioning it to share their stories, provide resources and create a supportive community for others who might have experienced abuse or intimidation by that church.  The two points of view can coexist in the one place.  

Bennett, I. (2011). Media Censorship in China. Council on Foreign Relations. http://www.cfr.org/china/media-censorship-china/p11515
Ex Scientologist.  http://www.exscn.net/ 

Ex Scientologists Message Board.  http://www.forum.exscn.net/forum.php?s=2ea5591c6cff68078e34a4b6bfcf691f

Falun Dafa Information Centre.  (2008). http://www.faluninfo.net/

Health: what my doctor didn't tell me, Week 3, 1.4

First thing I noted was Mike's (lecturer) notes about medical advice needs to be based on trust and identity:  not unlike the previous topic of online romance and sexuality.


When I was seeing a specialist recently I joked that self-diagnosis via Google (Eysenbach, 2008) was probably his worst nightmare.  He wasn't so dismissive, saying he 'Googles' frequently.  But, for me, the difference between a non-medical practitioner and a practitioner hopping online to research medical conditions is that the medical practitioner has a little more understanding about what they're reading than the non-medical person.  Having said that, the searching could be influenced by their own bias - and Google's filter bubbles (Pariser, 2011).

In searching for information regarding Atrial Fibrilation (AF) google predicts what I might want to type and suggested four search terms: treatment, causes, emedicine and ecg.  I chose causes and was faced with pages of links.  How do I assess quickly which are credible?  Ordinarily I might limit the results to Australian pages, but, in this case I won't because of the opportunity for global knowledge.  I scanned for sites or names I recognised and ended up linking to It's My Health because it was an Australian link.  I was expecting it to be a little tacky, but, it was very clean, clear and easy to navigate.  It also gave the name of the writer, who was a GP in Australia, so I felt a certain level of comfort.  I also expected the information to be very wordy; it wasn't and all the information was explained very simply in a paragraph or two and dot-points.  This site linked to AF section on The Australian Heart Foundation website, which had the same information but linked to an AF information sheet (pdf).  This contained a lot more detail and was around eight pages.  It was easy to read but would've been better with links to heading or an index of some sort.  The It's My Health site had several ways of finding what you were looking for: by name of condition, symptoms or body part.  While there I did a search on another medical condition that had no information on the site.

The next site I went to from my search results was the Mayo Clinic - AF. This site had a similar depth of information to the others but included diagrams.  Because there was no personal information on the page it took me to, ie. a doctor's name, I scanned the page for information about the clinic.  I found a link to a Mayo Clinic Health Manager tool where there was 'About' link.  It's a site which manages a family's medical matters, not unlike the centralised data described in Eysenbach's reading.  From what I can tell it seems to be a US based site.  The legal information refers to Microsoft Corporation and a little further reading reveals that you must have a Microsoft Health Vault account as well to use the service.  I'm not sure I'm comfortable revealing information this personal to Microsoft.  I got more interested in looking around the Mayo Clinic's site - you can look for a doctor or make an appointment.  I can imagine that this could work for some people who may put off calling to make a time and would rather fill in the fields in the online form, hit send and wait for a call.  When digging around the education section I discovered there is a Mayo Clinic College where you can get a degree in medicine.  This site seems to be a coming together of many parts of medicine and provides a community where anyone can find information relevant to their purpose, as a patient, professional, researcher or student.  The clinic seems to have established a very intricate online presence and the visitor should be able to navigate their way around the site fairly easily.

All the information about AF matched fairly closely with what I already knew about the condition.  In fact, when hearing or taking in this information for the first time there is so much that plenty is not remembered.  It was useful to go back.


The Australian Heart Foundation, Artrial Fibrilation, http://www.heartfoundation.org.au/your-heart/cardiovascular-conditions/pages/atrial-fibrillation.aspx
Gunther Eysenbach. (2008, August 25). Medicine 2.0: Social Networking, Collaboration, Participation, Apomediation, and Openness. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 10(3).
It's My Health, Artrial Fibrilation,  http://www.itsmyhealth.com.au/conditions/heart/atrial-fibrillation
Microsoft Health Vault, http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/healthvault/default.aspx
Pariser, E. (2011).  Beware online "filter bubbles". http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html

Dating, Intimacy and Sexuality Week 3, 1.3

How far does a partner need to go online before it's considered cheating?  Is flirting acceptable? Is cybersex real?

These questions highlight that activity on the internet is similar to any other activity away from the internet.  When we do anything we bring to it our own set of ideals and values, and they may well be different to others.

Some of the student discussion around this agreed that it depends on the people involved and the boundaries set.  The word 'guilt' popped up, but, cheating doesn't depend on someone feeling guilty; their nature may mean they feel no guilt at all about behaving in that way.  However, if the user feels the need to be secretive or deceptive about their activity it's likely that would be considered cheating.  The hurt can be as intense online as offline. 

Flirting on the other hand is a little greyer: what one person considers flirting may not be to the other.  Each person brings their own influences (or agenda) to the way they interpret another's actions; what one person intends to be sarcasm another may perceive it as an insult.  Pascoe (2009) mentions that the teens researched are very careful to make what they're writing 'say' exactly what they mean it to.

When participating in online activity users need to always have in mind that what they say and do may be interpreted by others differently.  If you already know someone offline this may be less of an issue; although, if they have a reputation for being flighty it could be exacerbated online.

I remember some of my first chats online and one of the first questions asked was 'a/s/l?' - for age/sex/location?  I found this quite confronting, particularly because I felt it was almost irrelevant or that the person might change their behaviour based on what I told them.

Pascoe, C.J. (2009). Intimacy in Mizuko, I et. al. Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media. Available from http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/book-intimacy

At work no one knows I'm a wizard Week 2, 1.2

"implications of the rise of casual and social games on the internet"

The first thing that I think of is that the ability for games to be played online is an opportunity for people to be more social than less social.  Brooks (2008) states the culture of gaming in Korea being more mainstream or socially acceptable than gaming in the US.  And the state provide a solid infrastructure which supports this activity, with an abundance of high speed cabling made easier by the compact geography and population.  The availability of high speed broadband makes a more diverse group of online gamers accessible anytime.  The accessibility of sofware and hardware to Korea from neighbouring producers must make this easier too.

Business is now using gaming to engage their consumers, using the psychology of rewards (badge system) (Derryberry, 2011; 2008)

Brooks, Geoffrey.  (2008).  Counting Rupees: Korea bangs. http://www.joystiq.com/2008/07/08/counting-rupees-korea-bangs/

Derryberry, Anne (2011). Badges?! We don’t need no stinkin’… Oh, wait, maybe we do.

http://imserious.typepad.com/imserious/2011/10/badges-we-dont-need-no-stinkin-oh-wait-maybe-we-do.html

Derryberry, Anne (2008). Serious games: online games for learning. http://www.adobe.com/resources/elearning/pdfs/serious_games_wp.pdf

I want my MP3, Week 2, 1.1

Task 1.1 Signing up for a lastfm account

For once I thought I'd look at the Terms and Conditions and the first thing that struck me in the first paragraph was that lastfm could change the terms, without notice at any time.  The user is responsible for checking back at the T&C from time to time to see if they've changed.  Given that you have to use an email address to sign up I don't see why they can't notify users that they've changed.  While the service is primarily web-based it does require access to information on the user's computer - eg. iTunes.

I was a bit suspicious about how this service works, but after I plugged in a dozen or so names of artists I like the service pulled up matching albums and similar artists to buy.  Some of those suggested were pretty accurate.  And it also did a search for free mp3s that were available (none).  One of the bands I plugged in was a less well known Australian band from the mid-90s and it returned a number of their albums - their radio station didn't respond particularly well.  I switched to the station associated with Sarah Blasko's and the associated station played artists that had definite appeal to me.  There is something strangely engaging about knowing someone is listening to that song at that very moment - I will confess I crave Spotify.  I found lastfm not particularly easy to navigate and work out how it is meant to network.  I'm not the sort of person to put in keywords and seek out people who might be listening to similar things; I prefer things a bit more random.  If friends were using it I would be inclined to seek them out.

I have noticed that after playing 50 tracks for free the service will end unless I pay $3.00 per month.  But, I'm feeling really uncomfortable exploring, downloading addons (scrobbler) and linking profiles with twitter or facebook - I'm just not sure I want to be associated with this sort of service.  I do not think it's right to be streaming music without any royalty structure to the artists.  Having said this, I discovered a bonus album that came with an album I own - except I didn't get that edition.  So, off I trotted to iTunes and bought it for around $10 - as easy and spontaneous as that.

I already had a Grooveshark account that I signed up to early in 2011.  I got onto this through following Adelaide Fringe on Facebook and Twitter.  Each Friday they would set up a theme and invite requests from followers and add them to their playlist.  Each playlist stayed there and I could access it anytime.  I also set up one or two of my own playlists (from music listed on there that I already owned) for accessing when I didn't have my ipod or it wasn't convenient.  Nice idea; except that the site doesn't seem to have the necessary permissions from copyright owners, so, I have disables my account.  A fellow student also pointed out detail of one of the T&C's which was the decider for me to deactivate the account:  "You are solely responsible for any necessary payments that may become due to any third parties as the result of your posting of or linking to the User Content and EMG's use thereof"

I am very curious about Spotify, the music service that Facebook has linked with in the US (and maybe UK?), where you can see what your friends are listening too in real time.  This service does have licensing for millions of songs, so I think they are starting to recognise the value of friends recommendations.

Everyday Life, Week 1

Discussion task 1

My first experience of the internet was when my mother was chatting to a housemate about it and he offered to show her how it worked at his workplace - he worked for a government (health) research area that had a couple of computers connected.  I do remember very vividly that the browser was Netscape, which seems to have morphed into Mozilla Firefox.  But, the idea of the internet and the web was too abstract and I had no point of reference for how it could work for me.  It was another two or three years before I worked in a place where it was available.  While we had networked computers only one communal station had access to email and internet and someone (me) checked a couple of times a day.  Internet browsing was limited, and for the most part, because it was a design industry not really used a great deal due to file size and speed.  I think it's only been the last 6 or so years where it started to become accessible at home - affordability of services and hardware (my first modem was about $300 - now the same modem or better is less than $100).  Even have two services - ie. home via landline and 3G via ipad, is not unreasonable.  Not to mention the inclusions on mobile phones/pdas.  When I think about it, it's become broadly accessible around the world in an extremely short period of time.  Now, I have access to the internet in any number of ways through all of my waking hours, for work and personal use.  Only in the last couple of days I've been 'researching' possibilities for New Years Eve activities - very important stuff. I am constantly checking things via the web and rarely take a plunge now into something that's unknown - accommodation, I try to find out as much as I can about a place unlike the risks we used to take.  There are so many review websites now, where users can provide feedback.

Discussion task 2

We were asked to comment on an internet controversy, so only this week I followed Paypal freezing Regretsy's (Regretsy: where DIY meets WTF, yes, a spoof of Etsy) account and ordering them to refund money to 'donors', because they claimed Regretsy had misused the Donation button.  I couldn't look away for the following 24 hours, where social media and blogs went nuts about the evils of paypal.  What could've been financially disasterous for Regretsy, as became evident by other organisations who've experienced Paypal's policing, ended up being resolved within a day or so.  Paypal came under fire from  many people very publicly, and word was spread very quickly - it helps when a highish profile on twitter manages to retweet about it.  Bloggers analysed Paypal's policies before and after Paypal had made a statement and pointed out the problems.  But, it also meant that there was a wealth of people who proposed substitutes (Paypal's lesser known competitors).  I found out about it via a Facebook friends 'share'.

This incident got me thinking about governance.  In the non-online world there are bodies that you can go to when this sort of thing happens - ombudsman, authorities, regulators.  But, online, it's a bit harder.  In this case, luckily for Regretsy, the governance came from the online community.

So were Paypal right to do what they did?  Clearly, they look for odd behaviour to try to prevent fraudulent activity, which in itself is not a bad thing.  After reading the correspondence between R & PP, PP's statement and analysis by bloggers there are some major issues in the way PP communicates with its users. 

Which goes back to the faceless names we deal with online.  When there's no or limited personal interaction is it easier or harder to be less emotionally involved or misinterpret what's being said.

All the world's a game: virtual worlds, interactivity convergence (Week 7)

Readings

Alternate Reality Gaming (Ornebring)

Ornebring mentions the concept of a central text and argues that Jenkins is not necessarily accurate with his example of The Matrix having a number of texts, an intention to use various media for the idea of the matrix, and there is no central text.  I agree with Ornebring that convergence culture doesn't necessarily mean that the central text has to take a back seat and not feature.  A text is what it is - it doesn't change because something expands on it, but the narrative is no longer limited to a single text.  What can change is how a consumer perceives a text if they see another part of the narrative before seeing the original or central text (Bonner & Jacobs, 2011). For me a classic example of this is the BBC series of Pride and Prejudice.  Those who see this series before reading the Jane Austen book will likely visualise Mr Darcy as Colin Firth (primary source: me!).  In the case of role playing games coming across a text in a MMORPG/ARG may well influence their ability to engage with an original text.

Economy of popculture

I hadn't really thought about the value of cultural labour until this week and the value that fans add to a product.  Does this influence producers to lean towards transmedia narratives?  If prosumers (producer/consumer) don't want to do it for free they won't do it - or they'll just take it somewhere else that's not governed by the text owner.  I'm not sure that creators of texts can make others engage with it, but they can do what they feel might - there's no guarantee in a commercial world.  The difference with ARGs could be the addictive nature or habit of continually playing these games, but the complementary texts need to be as engaging for the consumer to want to participate in that too.

Playing on the digital commons (Coleman & Dyer-Witheford)

The first key point Coleman and Dyer-Witheford make is regarding the accessibilty to copy and circulate media now has surpassed media text ownership, or the ability to control it.  That's not to say the 'rules' don't exist around copyright - they still do, but, ignoring or lack of awareness of copyright infringement takes place on a massive scale, eg. through fanvids on YouTube.  However, when online communities share creations with a creative commons they flourish.  I had to chuckle when reading about the use of a computer for play. 
I feel the attitude for this is not disimilar to the attitude now about media text ownership and allowing others to use their property for other media creation.  That's not to say that explicit piracy is ok; I don't believe it is.  Copying anything - games, music, dvds - to keep when you don't own the original material or to copy for someone else is theft, in my opinion.  This is where someone is making money from another's intellectual property.  However, taking snippets of a text and creating something new from them for non-commerical use is a slightly different matter and needs to be viewed in the context of whether it adds value, devalues or neutralises the original text.  Of course, this can be subjective.  I suspect that this area or dispute has evolved far too quickly and it will take a long time to equalise, if it ever does.

There's an interesting observation about games always having been exposed to the issue of piracy, whereas the technology to copy music and television has not been around for its life.  Therefore game makers seem to be less proactive about pursuing breaches.  Now, it's almost like a game in itself to crack any built-in anti-copying software on to digital media.

Then there's the digital tinkering - I love that phrase: digital tinkering. This is similar to the fanvid concept where the creative and technically savvy create additional components to the games using game elements.  This is where the creative commons would kick in. User make mods and enhance the game and keep the consumer interested.  By sharing the game producers are getting free, cultural labour.  I think more game makers are recognising the value in this.  It has to give the game longevity.  And creators don't have the luxury of time between sequels now - because they have in the past, doesn't mean that it has to always be that way, and they may just have to get used to it.  I had never heard of machinima before reading this article and I'm afraid that in my online searches I struggled to find anything that I thought was particularly good.  A little like the vidding concept.

Economy
I also hadn't realised the scale of dollars involved with MMOGs.  The subscription thing seems to be a reasonable way to continue to generate income from a game well after it has been released.  However, in order to encourage users to continue to subscribe they need to be sure they're going to get access to things that they wouldn't be able to otherwise.  But, having a community of users who are collaborating and building friendships means that they discuss aspects of the game they like, don't like, they'd change or like to see.  This can encourage those with the skill or drive to create extensions of the game with Tizania Terranova's term, 'free labour' or the cultural labour I mentioned earlier.  Coleman and Dyer-Witheford do discuss the conflict over ownership, an issue on which I'd like to do some more investigating (and will).  The issue of game publishers stepping into user generated content to moderate elements may be justified in some cases, but the discrimination example where the publisher was overruled also seems justified to me, and the fact that it happened seems a symptom of a society that hasn't got it's head around what's discrimination and racism, and this needs to be challenged.  The online nature of these communities means that groups can get together and mobilise against this sort of behaviour where geographical governance permits, ie the laws of the country where the publisher is registered.  Of course, geographical governance can vary from country to country and what may be accepted in one may not be in another.  So, copyright and ownership seem to have similar underlying issues with governance.

Personal experiences of, and responses to, MMORPGs

I don't have much experience playing MMORPGs but I have watched others play a lot, so I do have some observational knowledge of it rather than emotional experience (I have witnessed emotional - expletive - experience). I had some discussion about online gaming; most had played and there was a little bit of discussion about the addictive nature of online games.  Some students couldn’t understand the appeal and didn’t see it as social at all.  There was also a fair bit of concern about violence in games.  Interestingly, not a lot of discussion on the lack of a R18+ game rating in Australia, which has been in the news recently.  There seemed to be a general agreement about games in moderation.  There was one view that games for educational purposes or that had some sort of intellectual stimulations had merit but otherwise couldn't see the point in playing.  I’d be curious to determine merit of game as escape or just for fun.  Why does it have to feed the brain?  I can understand if a game with limited stimulation is played for hours without a healthy balance of other stimulation.

Following one of the lectures in the first few weeks I looked for the back story of Wil Wheaton (Star Trek phenomonon) and stumbled across, what I think is an excellent, keynote speech he gave at the Penny Arcade Expo in 2007.  He talked about the sense of community that playing these games creates and that his sons have cried when a game's over because: A - they won't be the character anymore and B - they won't be with the friends they've created.  The collaborative nature of these games can teach skills and create a way of interacting with other people that you don't get through other media participation.

David Savat Lecture:  reasons to play: curiosity, digital media significance, cultural significance, existing and emerging possibilities – politically, economically, socially, cultural (Savat, 2011)

Remediation

I have stuck with my original idea of changing a dictionary to a video and I'm starting to realise just how much work is involved in creating something like this.  It really does take commitment and a passion for the subject would surely help.  I've mucked around with a couple of software programs to try and animate the text but have limited knowledge of the Adobe stuff so I've had to resort to power point.  I did a fair bit of digging for ways in which to record the slide show and found some open source software. I've used pictures from Flickr under a creative commons licence, I've used audacity to take a snippet of a song, trim it, loop it while trying to get the transition from the end to the beginning not obvious.  I used microsoft movie maker to layer the visual with the audio, and then again to layer the voice.  And finally published for anyone who has the link to see on YouTube.  All in all it was laborious and one hell of an effort.  but I'm there.

As for the intended audience?  I have no idea.  If it were better executed it would be more for the motion graphic stuff and a creative side, but I'm not that talented (yet).  Perhaps a random browser and fellow students in this case.  While I've published the video to YouTube it's not listed to be found in public searches.  Maybe I should given how many other students have made theirs public.

Bonner, F & Jacobs, J. (2011).  The first encounter: Observations on the chronology of encounter with some adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books.  Convergence, 17(37).  Doi: 10.1177/1354856510383361
Coleman, S. & Dyer-Witheford, N. ( 2007).  Playing on the digital commons:  collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture.  Media, Culture and Society, 29, 934.  doi: 10.1177/0163443707081700.

Ornebring, H. (2007).  Alternate reality gaming and convergence culture.  International Journal of Cultural Studies, 10, 445.   doi: 10.1177/1367877907083079
Savat, D. (2011). 2.5 All the world's a game: virtual worlds, interactivity, convergence. Podcast. Retrieved from Curtin University database
Wheaton, W. (2007).  Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) 2007 Keynote: Wil Wheaton.  Retrieved from http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4616592653905673144 

Entertain Me! Who makes your entertainment? Institutions, audiences & participatory culture (Week 3)

Vidding & Fanfic

Ok, I'm just going to say it: I dislike fanfic; I'm more tolerant of vidding.  Possibly because what I've seen of fanfic is awful, cheesy, cliched, bares no resemblance to the integrity of the creator's craft or is just not very good (in my opinion).  It is great that the creator is passionate about the text or topic of choice.  

Having started to explore what programs or software I might use to create my remediation (reference - themed dictionary to video) I appreciate that producing videos are particularly labour intensive and the fan would have to be passionate to want to produce something.  One of the videos mentioned a fanvid newbie learning from someone who has done it and 4 hours later having a vid (techtv.mit.edu  :Collaboration and Community).

So, I guess I tend to stay away from anything that I think might annoy me.  I wonder whether I'm more tolerant of fan created homages that are based on video texts that interest me - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, LOST, The West Wing, Serenity/Firefly, Harry Potter - and seek out producers (video, writing, creativity).  With the exception of Harry Potter, the others tend to have more cult-like followings, particularly the Joss Whedon and Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse stuff.  They seem to have been more open to collaborating with their fans outside of the main text.  And is it possible that the sorts of people attracted to these shows who would want to create fan products are more likely to produce something I find acceptable, or be like-minded?  Perhaps I'm being a fan-snob.  The reason I find them more appealing may be because we have both engaged with the same text.

It's possible that this is related to how good the fan perceives their work to be.  For me it is a paradox:  I want to encourage people to learn new skills, experiment with tools and broaden their knowledge, which means the likelihood of their work being less-than-ordinary is high.  But, they can't be perfect from the start.  I don't mind plays on words or creative mashups where the meaning of the text has been changed (eg. comixed.com), but, this may not be limited to fans, rather inspired creative typse.  eg. Star Trek and Harry Potter. 

Who makes my entertainment?

Media has the potential to engage in so many different ways.  LOST was a terrific example where the viewer could just watch each episode on tv and would get a standard television experience (with the exception of the cryptic, fantasy storyline).  Having said that, I believe the viewer's experience would've been enhanced by exploring some of the additional LOST material. The creators ran a, mostly, weekly podcast where they discussed a few things around the episode that had just aired, but they encouraged questions from fans, and creative speculation from fans. Lindelof and Cuse clearly enjoyed playing with their fans via Twitter.  They created additional videos that added to, but not necessary to, the story.  Fans got together on discussion boards and shared bits and pieces they had discovered, or theorised about what could be happening.  Some of the cast made their own podcasts ('Hurley'/Jorge Garcia).

So, in pondering all of this I stumbled across Lostpedia which is a wiki created by LOST fans.  Lost challenged the viewer's assumptions, raised questions and created an environment where they needed to debrief (many episodes ended with the viewer exclaiming 'what the?' and hopping online to chat with fellow fans).  The wiki creates a central space than changes as new information is found and pooled by the masses (

Assigned reading

Interactive Media Texts

There has been discussion on the uni discussion boards about various interactive media texts:

Choose your own adventure series of books - I grew up with these.  A relatively simple concept, possibly very trick to write, where the reader makes the choice of a particular character at the end of a section and then turns to a page where the outcome is revealed and another choice needs to be made.  I suspect they may have appealed more to a non-reader as the portions were small and broken up the reader having to think about the decision.  It reminded me of a game series I didn't play, called Fabled Lands, which was a role playing, single-player game, where you made decisions and progressed through the games based on the outcome of your decision.  A couple of years ago a friend of mine recreated these as an online version and became part of an online fan community.  While he's done most of the work, some fans have contacted him to get involved, others have just expressed their gratitude for them driving it.  He has also liaised with the creators about using images and material.  I believe they have permitted it, as long as it's not for profit and it's the out of print material.  It's amazing how supportive these communities are.

Role Playing Games (platform or PC) have expanded from being interactive as single player to multi player online with other people.  In fact, even traditional games have become broader in that you can play with anyone around the world in an instant.  I've played UNO with three others, in the US, UK and Europe.  It's quite a strange feeling when pondered.  Many of my friends have continuous Scrabble-like games through apps on facebook, speaking of which, there's another interactive media text.  Facebook keeps us just a few keystrokes away from our social contacts.  Friends of mutual friends end up conversing that may not ordinarily.

Cucco - The promise is great: blockbuster and the Hollywood economy

The first major shift in the way media is/was consumed appears to be in movie advertising on triggered by the adverising of movies on television; while not the first film to use this strategy Cucco uses Jaws as an example which was showed in cinemas while being advertised on television, and the film was multi screened across a number of theatres on the opening weekend.  He then mentions the secondary market now - videos/dvds, subscription television, and eventually free-to-air television.  I think it's worth noting that people can own copies of movies or television series very easily, and the secondary market provides a second chance for films or series that were considered flops by the copanies that aired them.  Eg Firefly/Serenity was a failure on television but has a cult following and led to the making of the film and its success.  Fans got together online to promote it, possibly going to see it multiple times, then owning a copy of it.  Being a regular watcher of At The Movies on the ABC, I was amused by the power of the fans to get Serenity to number 38 in the ABC My Favourite Film, beating classics like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Alien, The Wizard of Oz, Kill Bill: vol. 1 and Back to the Future.  I'm not sure how reliable lists like this are now that fans of a specific media text can mobilise and skew results.

Another point that Cucco makes is that the blockbuster is a means to generate massive income.  This creates profits for the studios that make them, but, it also provides money to underwrite other non-blockbuster types.  Avatar springs to mind for me.  The rumours for the cost of making that range from $200M to $500M.  But the technology that James Cameron used to make it was groundbreaking and makes that sort of technology more attainable for movies that follow.  So, we've gone from traditional film production roles like directors, camera operators, sound operators, set designers, actors, distributors, consumers to include other skill sets in graphic design, computer programming, technology designers (eg for the 3D component).  This technology get used in areas other than cinema, eg. the London Eye.  Cucco also states that the motivation to make a blockbuster is to sell their product ("pack in the public") rather than creative merit (although he contradicts this in a paragraph a little later).  There may be something in what Cucco's saying but in Avatar's case the technology and creative vision were very marketable components of this blockbuster.  Perhaps marketability and spectacular nature are what makes a blockbuster a blockbuster rather than just the budget, rather than just commercial success.

All of this becomes marketable outside of just showing the film - you get food outlets purchasing a licence to brand some it's products and market in sync with the showing, and other merchandise.  Maybe even a sequel or four, eg. Shrek.  I was going to say Harry Potter here, but I deleted it and thought about it a bit more.  I would consider HP a blockbuster - it has commercial appeal, but it contradicts Cucco's argument again about the artistic side.  I think that side of things has been extremely important in its success, and the movies are better for it.    Perhaps Cucco's points were accurate when he wrote this paper in 2009.  I guess it illustrates how quickly the way we consume media is changing.

Other observations about who produces our media

In reflecting on makers of film I was thinking about who makes them now.  Not the studio, but the actual people behind them; the individuals.  There seem to be a lot more people who were or are known as actors moving into the directing producing roles - Drew Barrymore, Sean Penn, Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood, George Clooney.  I will see anything that Clooney has a hand in, in front of or behind the lense.  Accessibility to finding out who makes our media has made me more selective about what I choose to engage with.

Favourite Media Text

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV Series) 
I wouldn't say that this media text is particularly interactive.  However, its creator, Joss Whedon, approached the subject with specific ideas and the show grew from that.  It could be that because the movie that it spun from was a flop there was less pressure (or opinions) from the big companies and they left him to it.  Still, I was suprised by the number of companies involved in the series - production: Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox Television, Kuzi Enterprises and Sandollar television; distributors include: 20th Century Fox Film Corp. and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Warner Bros, BBC, 20thC Fox Japan, MTV, Sky One; Special Effects - visual, make-up include: Almost Human, Area 51, Optic Nerve Studios; as well as translaters - V & J Translations, post-production Sound - Todd-AO Studios, cast and star trailers - Movie Movers; film laboratory - 4MC Laboratory.  It also looks like that as well as filming at Universal Studios some filming was done on various private locations for Buffy's house, California Stat University Northridge, Castle Green Apartments, Torrance High School, Walt Disney's Golden Oak Ranch.

While I haven't considered it interactive there are plenty of fan sites for collaborating with and sharing the Buffy joy.  Fan fiction sites, where fans write alternative stories about the characters from the TV series, such as Fanfiction.net, Every Six Seconds or The Bloodshed Verse; wikis like Buffyverse or Wikiquote, where fans pool their knowledge to create a reference for other fans or curious onlookers. There are plenty of fan vids on youtube as well.

Cucco, M. (2009). The promise is great: the blockbuster and the Hollywood economy. Media, Culture & Society, 31(215), 215-230. doi: 10.1177/0163443708100315 

Company credits for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118276/companycredits 

Technical specifications for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118276/technical  

Filming locations for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118276/locations

The medium is the message: when media converge (Week 2)

Four Puzzles from Cyberspace

Borders
What's interesting about borders is the replication of real life - there are physical property borders in the online life, and then borders within which participants function.  In real life, though, amending the function border is a lot more difficult than online.  When Martha and Dank are negotiating they are not talking about real flowers, dogs or land.  However, while there is emotional attachment to what they've built, when an online action or item affects the solutions can be a little more unorthodox or unrealistic.  In Martha and Dank's cases they suggested (or argued) solutions that were simple enough online even if not in real life - so the constraints are different and to function in a virtual world online the participant must think differently.

Governors
Geography has changed the rules - geography doesn't matter in cyberspace.  Something can be banned in one geographical location, but if the operator is savvy enough they can still operate that same business out of another geographical location.  Online technology has made it far easier to operate 'virtually'.  It has changed the regulability of online activities.

Jake's Communities
I connected with the identity issue and the matter of attribution.  Jake could be a writer in the real world, write the things he did, have them published and he'd just be a writer (albeit a very genred one).  Other novel writers write some horrific stuff but they're not scrutinised as much as those online.  Television crime shows frequently show graphic violence towards women.  This particular story raises all sorts of ethical issues about what and who is online.  But back to the attribution.  Jake was arrested based on his email exchange with one of his readers.  And, as the story states, there was no evidence that what Jake said was anything but fiction.  So, was the crime wrongly attributed to Jake instead of the fellow who was reading the material and saying he was going to re enact the crime?  There's a number of issues here - firstly, the 16yo reader's father, who, if he hadn't recognised the university tag probably wouldn't have pursued the author.  Secondly, should the news sites have more security or warning to readers before they get to explicit or graphic material?  Thirdly, should Jake have been using his work hardware/software to access this material?  Fourthly, does the father have a responsibility to put a net filter on his daughter's computer when they're so readily available?
This story also illustrates the vessel that online publishing becomes for those who have a love of a craft.  There was no money involved in this - Jake just produced online media because he liked to do it.

Worms
What you don't know can't harm you, right?  I'm a firm believer in the end never justifies the means - only the means justifies the means.This particular section of Lessig's paper centres on privacy.  Allowing a worm to inspect a random anyone's computer just incase they have something illegal is no different to searching someone's house without their knowledge or a warrant (maybe I've watch too many crime shows - do they have warrants in real life?).  It's important that the technology exists to deal with any criminal activity, given that online activity can be particularly hard to trace. Because the web is global, privacy from another governing body (outside your own country) is not guaranteed and any web user is at risk.

These four stories in the Lessig book talk about the undefined nature of rules (boundaries) and the way that rules can be challenged in a ficticious virtual world, management or governance, identity and issues of privacy.  This technology has moved so quickly that I'm sure the global nature of the internet means that we (entire web community) will ever be able to come to some sort of consensus on how these four issues should we.

Jenkins on Participatory Culture

Here Henry Jenkins briefly talks about the way media is used now and the way that we have become contributors, participators rather than observers; active rather than passive.  Later we'll look into copyright laws in more detail, but Jenkins mentions the domination by a few large organisations and that they used to have the ability to manage their product.  Now, with online media and software the consumer can easily take portions of their product and give it their own gaze, meaning that the producer loses control over their product.  They still have creative control, but it's more difficult to manage third parties.  So, just because we have the means to take a snippet (or a little bigger .... ) and use it creatively to produce something else does that mean we can or should?  I guess that's one aspect of this debate.

In addition, the observer can now be a storyteller.  Particularly in news media - we're not limited to the side of the story.  Earlier this year Adelaide experienced a minor earthquake.  Within minutes the information about where and the intensity of it was being shared on Twitter.  People were talking to other people that they would never have been likely too.  In countries where internet is regulated, online technology savvy users can get around it and have a voice to the world.  Sites like CrowdVoice crowdsource info about protests and events or activism around the world.  It's much easier to find up to date information if you can quickly establish credibility.

Collective intelligence - more complex explanations or ways of information gathering to get a more accurate picture than the limitations of one person or group's knowlege.

A favourite media text

I really struggle to narrow down a favourite - it changes regularly, each time I watch, listen, read something new that I love it builds on all the others.  So, for the sake of this exercise I'll go back a few years to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV Series).  I think the reasons why I love this so much are the writing and production - Joss Whedon is a genius.  This started before online stuff became accessible to the masses - I was working in an office that had one shared admin computer and we checked the email manually 3 or 4 times a day.  There was no internet - data was too costly and too slow.  Whedon's wit was incredible and his team of writers were clearly on the same page.  He crosses many genres with this fantasy-teen series, and plays with everyday realities of life. 

As for consumers, probably not so much involvement initially but as online media became more accessible fansites would have popped up, discussion boards or newsgroups (like the browncoats for his Firefly series) and possibly fan fiction (maybe Comi-con).  I can't say I ever sought it out, but I follow Jane Espensen (regular writer) on twitter.  It's also interesting following the other projects various contributors to that series have done, including actors, writers and directors.

Jenkins, H. (2008). Henry Jenkins on Transmedia. Retrieved from http://vimeo.com/4672634
Lessig, L. (2006). Four puzzles from cyber space. In L. Lessig Code version 2.0  (pp 9-30). New York: Basic Books.

How does the media engage you? How do you engage with the media?

Major changes in the move from old to media and the impacted on – access, audience, production, consumption, media institutions, economics

One of the significant new media changes has been the move from a observer to participant in the web. While Jenkins (2009a) states that participatory culture is not the same as O'Reilly's Web 2.0, Web 2.0 has made participation in web media accessible to a much wider audience. The term 'new media' goes beyond the media itself to accessibility; when something becomes accessible/usable by a diverse group of people it makes itself new.  Digital cameras have been around for many years, but good cameras mainly used by professional photographers due to affordability.  Functional digital camera can now be bought for under $100, which makes this media available to an exceptionally broad group of people.  But, what makes this more than just camera technology is the ability to then link in with software.  The availability of open source software for image editing (GIMP) and tools for video editing give the consumer the ability to become producer and participator.  In addition to this, the Web as a platform for delivering an array of tools for users to express themselves:  Flickr, Product reviews, Blogs (Wordpress, Blogger, Livejournal), Forums, personal websites, video publication (Youtube, Vimeo), video production (PrimaryAccess), fanfiction, social media (Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Twitter), reference (wikis) and gaming (Second Life, Eve Online).

In addition to this, software (and hardware) has become more affordable to the home user - as a student I can buy a package of website creation, image and video production/editing and software for $500 instead of its commercial price of $4000.

Jenkins

• Agency and structure -
• Media reform
• Fear - privacy, intrusion, safety.  Interesting separation of sexual fear - boys just as much targets, so why is that not mentioned?  "develop strategies for decreasing the role of ignorance and fear in public debates about new media"
• The speed with which we can communicate with one another, quickly spread the word when we want comrades to rise up, is immediate.  Ask columnists who are the target of vitriol from the cultural warriors Jenkins talks about. On Monday night ABC aired an Australian Story on David Hicks and followed online many and diverse comments from the general online public about his actions.  Behind a pseudonym people can be pretty horrible.  (Although, pseudonyms have their place too).
• Wisdom of the crowd, collective intelligence, citizenly engagement - people pooling their knowledge and self-governing.
• Mapping of social networks in cyperspace
• Redefining web practices - fair use.  Youtomb does acknowledge that some videos that may be Fair Use will be innocent victims of its automated program.  So, the key is in educating users about their rights.  I think there'll be a shift in this over time - the instinct to take something you receive or see online at face value can be rewired to question and be given the tools to work out how they find out whether they need to be concerned.  I'm reminded of the 'fear' emails about muggings in shopping centres that get mass forwarded; however, if they'd done a quick search they'd have found that it's been doing the rounds for a long time and there is little evidence to support that something happened, not to mention the gaps in the science of the incident.

My Use of media

It can be hard to engage sometimes.  I was discussing distraction with a friend and how easy it is to get distracted with continuous access to the internet.  It has become second nature to instantly go and check something as we think of it; to grab a computer, tablet or smartphone and check something as we are watching tv.  It takes particular concentration now to resist the urge to do that, not just on computer but attending to everyday things, such as tasks around the home.  So what do I use?

Web - reading blogs/shopping/researching, social networking - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yammer, Bookmarking - Delicious, email, Skype, mobile phone - calls, sms, browsing, tv - digital hard drive to watch what I want when I want to, digital radio, itunes (ipod), ipad, the Saturday newspaper (The Age) and maybe some online news each day (ABC for real news and Adelaide 'Tiser for local).  I'm contactable and online most of the day, most of the time.


References
Jenkins, Henry. 2009a. Critical Information Studies For a Participatory Culture (Part One). accessed on Sept 4. http://henryjenkins.org/2009/04/what_went_wrong_with_web_20_cr.html
Jenkins, Henry. 2009b.  Critical Information Studies For a Participatory Culture (Part Two). accessed on Sept 4.  http://henryjenkins.org/2009/04/what_went_wrong_with_web_20_cr_1.html 
O'Reilly, Tim. 2005.  What is Web 2.0. Accessed on Sept 10.  http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html?page=1