To my blog,
I am so sorry for neglecting you.
I’ve been too busy with uni, work, being sick and trying to keep myself alive as my mum decided to go to Europe and leave me to fend for myself.
It’s mid-semester break now and I promise to shower you with love, posts and cat videos.
Yours truly,
Amy
http://www.mediafactory.org.au/sarah-ormsby/2014/08/07/teaching-network-literacy-to-the-illiterate/
As much I can agree with Sarah’s frustration and extreme test of patience when it comes to teaching the olds about Facebook, she and I have both since noted that ‘Network Literacy’ is not particularly relevant to this issue.
Whilst most of us aren’t 100% network literate, (hopefully) we’re all on track to grasping this concept in years to come. Further learning, practise and interaction will propel us towards this goal.
Adrian has made it very clear during the last two symposiums that actions such as knowing how to post to Facebook does not make you network literate. To suggest that would be similar to saying that knowing how to write on a piece of paper makes you print literate. To be print literate means you understand the entire process of producing print through means of the physical acts of making that product. From what I can take from the symposium’s, the same applies to network literacy.
Just because Sarah’s dad, Sarah and I can all use Facebook to suit our needs, does not mean we are all network literate. Rather we are Facebook-functions-literate, perhaps?? Aside from this little pickle that I feel we’ve unpicked, Sarah’s post is just too darn accurate. And I know the pain she went through all too well – I’ve just taught my 71 year old grandmother how to use Facebook… need I say more?
In week one of this course we were told we would have to sit an exam on basic HTML formatting.
“Easy, I’ve got this no worries” I thought to myself as I sat with a smug smile on my face in the back row, paying more attention to Candy Crush on my phone than the crucial information being discussed in the lecture.
That evening I got the train home with a friend who studies fine art and therefore doesn’t understand what it’s like to do real work for uni. I complained about my concerns for the onslaught of work I would no doubt face in a matter of weeks. However I very clearly remember making light of the fact that I had an ‘exam’ on HTML.
You see, this friend and I used to very good at HTML back in the olden days of MySpace. Some would say we were too good (and by that I mean that when I wasn’t spending my time playing Sims, I was pimpin’ out my MySpace page. They were very exciting times my friends. My pre-teen years were clearly not kind to me). I occasionally used to make $5 or so for styling my friends’ pages on their behalf. I was almost renowned for my HTML abilities through the smelly, sweaty year 7 corridors.
So of course, keeping in tune with my naivety I had very little concern for this exam. Oh dear. How wrong was I?! Turns out one can (and will) forget all of their supposed HTML wisdom over the 7 years that have been since the MySpace days. It’s now almost 2am on the day I sit this exam and I’m beginning to realise just how extremely naive I have been building up to this. And naturally rather than facing the crisis and potentially even practising (woah that would be insane!) for the exam, I decided to put all of my time and effort in to writing this blog post.
12 year old me is really not impressed with my current day self’s stupidity and rather negligent attitude. Here’s hoping 18 year old me can impress 12 year old me in the exam later on today.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/17/andrew-bolt-declared-racist-craig-emerson
In my best attempt to refrain from defaming anyone or tainting my future career by sharing potentially controversial opinions, I will simply open this post by stating I do not always agree with Andrew Bolt.
In recent years I’ve taken up a new hobby in which I follow every article, blog post and controversial opinions published in the public media by Bolt. To say the least I find him to be an interesting character with some bizarre thoughts and ideas on Australian culture and world events.
On the weekend a new interesting Bolt event took place in which a former Labor MP labelled him as racist. This isn’t exactly exciting news, there’ve been many to make similar accusations in the past. However I don’t want to get in to the nitty gritty of certain morals, beliefs or opinions of Bolt nor any other prominent personalities.
Rather I wanted to touch on the many ways audiences can interpret a statement or a viewpoint you express – whether it be in the media as controversial journalists and personalities do so or even just as we students can do so on social media. Bolt clearly did not write his articles with the intention of being racist, yet the Labor MP has interpreted the articles among many other of his actions as a demonstration of his “racist” attitudes. This makes me wonder how people may have perceived rather outlandish remarks I have made in past, or statements I will undoubtedly make without thinking in future. It’s a dangerous game trying to please and impress everyone!
Last night I went and saw Australian DJ duo Peking Duk perform at the Corner Hotel and without getting in to too much detail about how insane it was or how extreme my post-gig depression is, let’s just say it was pretty bloody good.
The one thing that compromised the quality of my night was my little ‘media-voice’ in the back of my mind wondering if they had legal rights to use all the songs they incorporated. After discussing musicians’ access to the work of others in the Network Media symposium a few weeks ago, I spent the whole night thinking about the process they would have gone through to be legally able to use the songs of others in their remixes – which they make a lot of money from in both sales and at gigs.
The pair behind the music in this band seem like pretty laid back dudes and are friends with some of the musicians they borrow songs from, so I can’t exactly imagine them pursuing strict guidelines in regards to getting proper legal rights to content. I guess they probably have a whole team of managers and assistants taking care of this business for them. That would make a whole lot more sense.
Since the gig I’ve been left halfway between annoyed and impressed with these thoughts lingering in my mind. I never anticipated my love for music would combine with my love for studying media in such a way.
Every week in class we’re asked to fill out a little survey, ticking the boxes of what we have and haven’t completed on our blogs.
And every week I see the little requirement about embedding pictures/moving images/sounds/etc in to blog posts and inside my brain starts screaming.
What am I supposed to use? At no point during the creation of any of my blog posts have I had a light bulb moment in which I thought the incorporation of another media source would improve the post. The only thing I could see myself potentially using is cute pictures of cats – however I hardly thing that’s relevant nor beneficial.
However I did just have a small little idea as I wrote that paragraph. What if I embed media source that directly relate to our media learning?! Mindblowing!
Here’s hoping I muster up the courage to take the step into never-ending media source embedding in the near future.
Until next time, here’s a video of groovy kitty rockin’ the keyboard.
Last week I had a really interesting conversation with a new friend during which we discussed our media-related aspirations. I remember at the beginning of this year I spoke only of wanting to work in radio and refused to even consider other fields. However over the last six months or so, and in particular with what I have learnt in Network Media so far, I’m beginning to realise there is a huge wide world out there.
Studying media at uni doesn’t just have to be about becoming qualified to produce radio shows. It doesn’t have to be about becoming ‘qualified’ to do any specific job. I’m gradually welcoming the concept that rather university is a means of opening our minds to the world and teaching us how to interact with it. How to engage with colleagues, how to express our thoughts, how to develop ideas and how to do all of these things in a broad range of ways i.e. different mediums.
Media to me is no longer just about a narrow-minded radio career goal, rather it’s an ecology of networks interacting with each other. I’m fascinated by the way my entire thoughts and understandings on this have so radically changed in a mere six months. I’m so incredibly excited to see where my mind and my goals will be at at the completion of this degree in a few years.
When this (un)lecture began with what seemed to be a boring discussion between Adrian and the panel of tutors about copyright law, I have to admit I sighed as I prepared to sit through an hour of playing games on my phone waiting for it to finish.
But ten minutes in I found myself totally immersed in the intellectual conversations, and in particular the examples of well known intellectual property court cases in Australia and the US. I was really fascinated by the strange and at times incomprehensible laws surrounding copyright, patenting and defamation. Similarly I was intrigued by who could be to blame for these sorts of issues, in particular in the case of blogs.
I had a few mini freak outs as I look back on my actions online in the last few years and realised there were a few things I’ve done that have probably broken both copyright and defamation laws. In particular I was concerned about a seasonal radio show I hosted earlier this year in which I said some nasty things about a very prominent Melbourne journalist – which have since been uploaded as podcasts to a website I have no control over. I fear that this may greatly impact my prospective employers in future as there is clear proof of me (potentially) defaming a huge personality within the media industry… the industry that I very much hope to work in…
So am I left wondering if and how I can remove this content from the internet. As Adrian, Betty and so many other people have told me throughout my life, once something is uploaded to the internet it can never be fully erased. Is there much hope of me erasing this content in a manner that protects my dignity to employers who will no doubt research my online activity?! I shall research this over the coming days and hopefully in the near future I can write a positive blog post about having eradicated this concern.
Yes! Yay! A post where I talk all about myself and what I love!
I have an incontrollable love for the medium of radio. I love sound, and music, and the freedom that radio gives producers to explore these tools to create meaningful and inspiring audio pieces (unless you’re listening to commercial radio in which case nothing is meaningful and everything is crap).
I’ve known since primary school that I wanted to work in the media industries; until about year 10 I had my heart set on a career in journalism. As I slowly learnt more about the broad media landscape I began to see a lot of potential for creativity and freedom in radio production, and since this realisation I’ve never looked back. In year 10 I completed a week of work experience at the Australian Radio Network in Richmond which just completely solidified my career aspirations to work in the industry.
I spend a lot of time volunteering at SYN, working on a variety of shows ranging from newsreading, to a late night show about sex and relationships, to a show I produced and presented all by myself about the current happenings in popular media. Many friends, family and peers struggle to understand why I would spend countless hours contributing to these shows unpaid, but to me it’s just like playing your favourite sport or playing in a band. It’s my passion.
For the moment I have no particular aspirations or predictions for my professional future, rather I seek to continue to place all my focus and energy on gaining invaluable experience in community radio in order to (hopefully) prepare me for a happy career.
“Chris Argyris: Theories of Action, Double-Loop Learning and Organizational Learning.” http://infed.org/mobi/chris-argyris-theories-of-action-double-loop-learning-and-organizational-learning/. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 July 2013.
As I read the intro to this reading all I could think was “oh God this going to be bland and boring” however I found myself surprisingly enjoying piece by the end. It was very interesting and made points about learning I had never before considered nor realised.
However I must say I struggle to see the relation between this information and the learning we engage with in Network Media. I don’t quite understand what would have compelled the course coordinator to include this text as a part of the prescribed reading list.
Nonetheless it was very interesting and more interesting than other texts read so far for this course.