As the semester comes to an end, final assessments are creeping up on us. For our final assessment I will finalise and write about my groups niki page about the highly humerous dating app ‘tinder’.

So in light of that I thought Id share with you our tinder niki page.

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/niki/niki/index/tinder/

Additionally I thought I’d share with you one of the worlds worst tinder pick up lines.

Tens Dreams of Technology

Steve Dietz readings entitled “tens dreams of technology” is a speculative Piece that comes from the point of view of art.

The article “presents the ten dreams of technology that frame the author/curator’s selection of ten new media artworks.” The author notes that these dreams of technology have a future, even if they have not yet been determined.

The dreams are simplistic and complex however “we must acknowledge their inability to change humankind into the likeness of their vision.”

TEN DREAMS:

  1. The Dream of Symbiosis
  2. The Dream of Emergence
  3. The Dream of Immersion
  4. The Dream of World Peace
  5. The Dream of Transparency
  6. The Dream of Flows
  7. The Dream of the Open Work
  8. The Dream of the other
  9. The dream of new Art (technology will lead art to a whole new art form, just as moving images eventually created cinema)
  10.  Hacking the Dream

Take Away from Lecture

One key factor that I took away from this week’s unlecture was that todays model of media has changes so dramatically that it has become the opposite of what it once was. All aspects are changing, especially considering the internet is under such high demand, highly used and easily accessible. According to Andrian, “its not Kansas anymore”.

Byron Bay

Apologies for my absence in the last week. I have just been living the dream up in Byron Bay, so I thought I’d share an amazing photograph of Byron’s main beach with you just to make everyone jealous on this awful rainy day.

Specular Economy

When we post on a social media site such as Facebook , Instagram or Twitter, we have to think twice about what we post. When we post something on the internet it creates a digital footprint. In other words anything we post can be accessed by anyone regardless of how private we may believe our accounts are. This concept relates directly to the specular economy. The way we present ourselves online is the way in which we would like others to view us online. According to Marshal (2010, p.498) the specular economy is “a two way mirror projection on to the screen, and the circulation of and interaction with those images and texts into the wider world.”

 

As an ordinary citizen, our social network is fairly small. It would generally comprise of our friends and families, and would be in the hundreds. However, imagine if you were a celebrity. Your social network would comprise of people you don’t even know so you could have millions of follower or ‘friends’.

Everything that celebrities decide to post online can be view and monitored by anyone and everyday who wishes to do so.

 

News forms of media such as Facebook and Instagram allow celebrities to create an online public persona. In other worsts they can create an image of themselves online however they wish for people to view them. These accounts also allow their fans to go beyond writing a simple ‘fan letter’. They can now attempt to create an online relationship through their social media interaction with their favourite celebrities.

Actor Network Theory – Bruno Latour

The actor network theory, often abbreviated as ANT, is an approach to social theory and research originating in the field of science studies, which treats objects as part of social networks.

 

The Paris group of science and technology studies has set out to explore the properties of actor-networks since the beginning of the 1980s

Bruno Latour’s paper lists some interesting properties of networks and explains some of the misunderstandings which have arisen (due to common usages of the word network and the implied connotations).

 

According to Latour, the first mistake/understanding is to “give it a common technical meaning in the sense of sewage, or train, or subway, or telephone ‘network’”.

The second misunderstanding is that the actor-network theory has very little to do with the study of social networks.

Social Media’s impact on Journalism and Public Relations

As we come close to the end of semester, I am another year closer to finishing my degree and heading out into the work force. With one year to go, I feel that I should start to think about which direction I wish to head in, whether that be journalism or public relations. Although I already have a good idea of my future movements, that being in the direction of PR, I thought it would be necessary to have a close look at the two industries in relation to how the internet has recently impacted and changed them.

 

While the Internet is an exciting place full of new possibilities, it is also eroding the very industries that we aspire to. The rise of the Internet has had a vast impact on mainstream journalism. Social media and the Internet allows for information to be shared across the globe in real time, with virtually an unlimited audience. This exchange of real-time information has changed the way people receive their news. Previously news outlets such as CNN, BBC, ABC and newspapers were the only ways to receive news however the uprising of social media has changed the news industry providing a new media outlet for news.

 

Additionally, through social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and online blogging, recent history has shown that anyone can be a journalism and broadcast news.

 

On the other hand, social media seems to have had a more positive impact on public relations. Social media has reignited the PR profession as these practitioners have the ability to expand their roles. There is a new possibility for them to take on new responsibilities in their profession and expand their practices. For example PR has taken flight on social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook. Companies can create a portrayal of their company through these sites illustrating aspects and features that they want to reveal to their customers.

 

This positive change for the Public Relation industry gives me hope for the future. While Journalists still seem to be searching for the light at the end of the tunnel with this recent rise of social media, PR practitioners seem to have found it.

Books without endings?

In our tute last week (week 5) we were told to use the prompt ‘books without endings’ as an idea for a blog post.
I’m not going to lie, I am not quite sure what this really means…  But my interpretation of the concept a book without an end is when the author leaves us with an open-ended conclusion. In other words they leave the end of the novel open for interpretation and the reader can decide how they believe (or want) it to end.

 

An example of this is in the movie ‘inception’. The ending of inception is extremely debatable and open ended. Is Cobb still dreaming? When Cobbs spins his totem in the finale of the movie the filming cuts out just as the totem is about to drop so it is left to our own interpretation to decide whether it drops or whether it keeps spinning and he is still in a dream.

 

Many people argue that Cobb’s reality is in fact another level of a dream and that the entire movie is Cobb stuff in his own reality loop.
As everyone um and arhhhs about whether or not the totem drops, I’m going to make my ending for this movie. Being optimistic, I’ve come to the conclusion that it drops and he made it back to reality.

YouTube

In light of our group research project about Youtube, I thought I would share with you my favourite Youtube video.

Watch this space for our Youtube Video about YouTube!!!

Essendon Saga

BREAKING NEWS

 

For the past few months the headlines have been dominated by speculation and debate regarding the Essendon drug saga. However, the AFL has finally come to a decision in terms of their charges and punishments.

 

At 8:15pm on the 27th of August, Andrew Demetrious and Mike Fitzpatrick address the media on channel 9.
Essendon has been banned from the 2013 final series (meaning they cant play in the finals). Furthermore they are banned from the first two rounds of the national draft and they have been fined $2 million.
In regards to James Hird, He has been suspended from the AFL for the next 12 months.

 

Essendon football club were involved in a situation which not only was cheating the system, but it also put their players in danger. They deserve all the penalties which are throw at them and hopefully these harsh punishments will deter clubs from involving themselves with similar misdealing’s in the future.