Name: Catalina Sánchez Barry
Student ID: s3830050
I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration – https://www.rmit.edu.au/students/support-and-facilities/student-support/equitable-learning-services
Blog reflections
Annotated Bibliography
Selected text 1 – Affordances (word count: 518)
Norman, D 1999, ‘Affordance, conventions and design (Part 2)’, Nielsen Norman Group, blog, viewed 1 April 2012, <http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordance_conv.html>
The essay written by Donald Norman intends to correct some misconceptions about what he explained in his book “The psychology of everyday things” (POET), later renamed “The design of everyday things”, specifically the notions of affordances, constraints and conventions. He starts declaring that for the creation of an intuitive object, the designer needs to produce a conceptual model he or she can keep up to. Here is when the author assumes a big mistake he made. In all of his book he was talking about perceived affordances and not real ones, which led to a confusion in the design industry in terms of the real extent of their work. What the article really wants to focus on is in clarifying that the designer cannot control real affordances on screen-based interface, and changes on what a graphical object can do on the screen is, indeed, a learnt convention or cultural constraint that reflects shared uses.
Right away, you can notice that the piece has a very defined purpose and a targeted audience because it is intended to correct some misinterpretations about Norman’s previous book. With that in mind, it isn’t useful for someone that’s unfamiliar with the concepts referred to in the text. While the essay is not very long, it goes straightforward to what the author wants to get clear in a concise and precise way, without rambling about others ideas so readers will not lose the main focus. The structure of it is well organized and easy to read, with the right amount of headings to separate the topics, and a final conclusion. This addition is fundamental for people that want to understand the process making of a good design at its full extent, hence the importance of the clarifications to the research field.
Personally, I think the essay is a real contribution to the people that read Donald Norman’s book but didn’t fully comprehend the concepts he was presenting. In regards to my research about networked media, it is of great importance that I can have knowledge on how a conceptual model is the foundational notion for the creation of a media interface, which is, at this point, part of our everyday life. Nowadays, a lot of people contribute to the designing of screen-based products and, in order to be able to analyse them in the way that I am supposed to, it is important to know how to differentiate between what’s a real affordance and just a convention. Networked media affordances are usually related to what the publication medium allows us to do in terms of authoring, publishing and distributing a product, but the actions we can execute on the screen are purely conventions we learn through years using the internet. Those cultural constraints can be redefined but will still have the same intention and that’s what the author wanted to express. Most writers would never assume that they made a mistake and much less would take the time to explain what was their initial idea and why it wasn’t understood by a group of people, and that’s why this piece has an elevated value.
Selected text 2 – Network (word count: 520)
Lister, M, Dovey, J, Giddings, S, Grant, I & Kelly, K, YP 2009, ‘Wiki Worlds and Web 2.0’, in New Media: A Critical Introduction, 2nd edn, Routledge, New York, pp. 204-209.
The aim of this chapter of the book New Media: A Critical Introduction, is to describe the birth of the Web 2.0 after the negative outcome that the “dotcom crash” had on the economy and in internet based companies. This new era of the web has as main attributes the participation and creativity of the user, revealing different economic and commercial possibilities through online behavior data; the Long Tail theory is an example of that. The piece also presents the case of Wikipedia in order to illustrate a web page that functions with the idea of collective intelligence, which means that the users co-create their own knowledge space. Consequently, the authors concur that what users achieve on the web has to be recognized as free labour due to the impact it has on the economy, but, at the same time, that vision coexists with the significance it has on today’s culture.
This chapter focuses on four main ideas: The characteristic of the Web 2.0 and its difference between the Web 1.0; the economics of web media; the thought that users create value by their own online activities and the acknowledgment of “social factory” on the internet. First of all, the authors include a table in which you can clearly see the contrast aspects of both webs, making it easier to understand why they are considered two different internet eras, and also giving a context for the concept in which the section will elaborate. Then, it proceeds to explain the economic aspect of this new media centered in user participation. This specification allows readers to understand another aspect that results from this software openness, commerce opportunities. The theory of the Long Tail is introduced at this point, allowing readers to understand how niche consumption is perceived with trust by the market. With the commercial point explained, the text showcases Wikipedia as an example of what the Web 2.0 main purpose was: for people to co-create meaningful content for everyone to see and edit. The case chosen makes a very clear point because the majority of people that have a minimum of internet experience have used the online encyclopedia. Lastly, the chapter presents a final notion and clarifies that what users think is content creation, it’s really just free labour that companies can take advantage of, demonstrating the tension it has with the understanding of web media as a purely cultural hub. The idea gives the reader something to think about, but doesn’t elaborate in an answer for that juxtaposition.
This type of narrative explanation of the two main components of the Web 2.0, commerce and culture, makes it easier to understand their complementary nature. Acknowledging that the new version of media is both an empowering tool for users as is a business opportunity helps the reader to get a full picture of the object of study and, at the same time, gives the necessary context to understand how networked media originated. Every chapter of this book helps media researchers understand the past, present and possible future of the infrastructure and interface of our now digital world.
Annotated Bibliography – Social Media (Word count: 547)
Chun, W.H.K , YP 2016, Introduction: Habitual New Media, or Updating to Remain, in Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media, MIT Press, Massachusetts, United States, pp. 1-20.
The introduction of the book begins by stating the main problem that new media has, and that is that developers are putting so much effort on modernizing it that they don’t realise that it matters the most when it becomes something usual, a habit. With that last concept the author begins to theorize the components of the new media’s interpretation, aiming that the reader gets a full understanding of its paradoxes. The extract introduces the next four chapters mains ideas, emphasising, between other things, on the importance of updates, habit natural contradictions and the network separation between publicity and privacy. As a form of conclusion, the author shares the aphorisms of habitual new media that encapsulates the fundamental notions of the book, concluding that we need to embrace the vulnerability that is networking and stop reducing memory to storage.
This chapter of the book gives a deep and complete insight about the most important elements of the piece thesis. As the introduction it is, it starts by presenting the reader a problem the piece will try to resolve. This is a significant step as it gives the person a start point from which the main idea will develop. Later, the author brings up the concept of “habit”, which is elementary to understand the implications of new media, providing contrasting interpretations made by different authors and allowing the readers to have a complete picture of what the word can mean in the context given. In the same line, Chun discusses publicity and privacy in new media and their relationship with neoliberalism and habits. While the mix of these terms may seem confusing, the author uses an example that most people that know a little bit of social media can identify: the notion of “friend”. With that, it is explained how the users are considered private figures but interact in very public and insecure spaces. After providing detailed arguments about the ideas mentioned before, the chapter finishes by summarizing its final conclusions in form of just four aphorisms that would be elaborated afterwards. Although the piece includes some extra information that could have been kept for later, this methodology helps the readers fully understand the text and the essential ideas that should linger before they start getting into the focal chapters.
Overall, the material presented is useful for any person that is looking for an article that would help them understand the theory behind new media. It provides various definitions for the concepts employed in the chapter and contradictory author’s visions for some of the ideas presented, which is useful for those who want a deeper comprehension of them. The approach the author has is student-friendly since it presents examples that can be understood by young people, like the case of Amanda Todd. In addition to that, the last part of the text has a summary of the main conclusions scoped by Chung, making it easier to comprehend. However, one of the most important characteristics for this book is the year of publication. It helps a lot that it was written in 2016 because, as it was said the book, new media only exists as is renovated; so the newer the version, the better is the insight the author will present in relationship with the technology of the moment.