The outbreak of the COVID-19 is going worldwide pandemic, classes and lectures were announced to be suspended or moving online this week. As an exchange student from Hong Kong, it is not surprised that courses are going to deliver online, as we experienced before. Despite this, I still struggle with what to write in this week’s blog.
Yet, until I saw the focus of this week is ‘Network’.
Things nowadays are connected to the networks, it becomes essential to everyone’s lives. Although the classes were not conducted face-to-face, we still can have it online, this shows network leads to our daily functions are still able to be continued.
WHAT IS NETWORK?
Networks have been developed for decades and now is the age of Web 2.0, which allows websites and software to let people share images, videos and texts easily on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. Nonetheless, it also provides a framework or platforms for users to contribute their content as a way to gain access and like or follow. This can be identified as a two-way media. Lister et al (2009, pp223) had mentioned that ‘interactive’ users are constructed as being part of an ever more intimate feedback loop with media producers, where media making and sharing have seems to be democratized, thus people who are not skilful in programing could also afford to share their work. When conducting this to our learning presently, tutors and lecturers generate course resources and publish them online through the platform ‘Canvas’ or ‘Collaborate Ultra’, students could access to it when they are linked up with the network, thereby students could also share their opinions and comments in the platforms to receive an instant reply.
Uptake of the UGC
To the extent of the user-generated content (UGC) mentioned in class, “any form of content such as blogs, wikis, discussion forums, posts, chats, tweets, podcasts, digital images, video, audio files, advertisements and other forms of media that was created by users of an online system or service, often made available via social media websites” (The Audiopedia 2017), this reduces the difficulties and barriers to collaborate and discover which cultivate the interaction between users. Hence, the development of it enhances the accessibility of social media, users could interact easily, even they could share topics online with simple techniques.
To this point, can you realize that networks are actually surrounding us?
It makes everything that can be done online, putting networks in a vital position of humans.
Try to ask yourself, can you live without networking? For me, definitely a ‘NO!’ How can I live without networks when almost everything is tied up with it?
To the COURSE PROMPT
Coming to the course prompt, this idea greatly influenced the affordances of Instagram. Lister (2009) has mentioned that the new media technology has fostered the visibility of cultural exchange, community building and media activism. With this visibility, users would only consider posts that are well-structured and organized to be published, you would not see low-quality posts easily on Instagram. The reason is obvious – these posts would be discovered everywhere so they have to be in good quality. In addition, when media making is going communized, we can also discover photos and videos that are published, authorized and distributed with simple techniques and skills. In the meantime, Instagram also affords people to edit and structure their photo and videos properly and artistically before publish. Therefore, the impact of the network towards the affordances of Instagram should not be omitted.
References
Leong E 2020, Week 3 The Network, COMM2219 Networked media, Powerpoint, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne
Lister, M, Dovy, J, Giddings, S, Grant, I & Kelly, K 2009, New Media: A Critical Introduction. 2nd edn, Routledge, New York.
The Audiopedia 2017, What is USER-GENERATED CONTENT? What does USER-GENERATED CONTENT mean?, Youtube, 19 January, viewed 18 March 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrtIvP6B_7s>