Just did another google search on myself, I now come up on the 10th page when you search for Jane Weber – I guess this course did improve that!

Their Weeks.

I feel like Nethaniel may have had a little too much time on his hands this week with his post – although it was totally worth it, I’m impressed!

Kiralee misses year 12. A feeling I must admit I don’t share.

Brady does a bit of promotion for his Dad’s business using his blog.

And I’ve realised I can’t find anyone who has written anything this week yet!

Final Reading

So after I realised I did the Galloway reading a week early, I had a quick look at the Gitelman reading where the concept of ‘the media’ is examined and I think this was quite a nice way to end Networked Media. I particularly liked the idea of representation vs transmission, as even though we have these new technologies journalism and what we write is still important and cannot be forgotten in the whirlwind of new technology.

I also really like this definition:

“I define media as socially realized structures of communication, where structures in- clude both technological forms and their associated protocols, and where communica- tion is a cultural practice, a ritualized collocation of different people on the same mental map, sharing or engaged with popular ontologies of representation.”

Even though they say it keeps things ‘muddy’.

Intertwingled Symposium Nostalgia

Jokes. Well…. maybe.

It’s sad that first year of uni is rapidly coming to an end but honestly, I don’t think I’m the only one getting excited for days not filled with guilt because you chose to have a coffee with someone rather than be doing more research for those damned essays.

Instead days filled with sun, beer and laughter. Okay, maybe I’ve gone a bit too far and have an overly romantic view of what summer is like. For me, it is probably going to be more like pouring beautiful cold beers to customers getting to drink in the sun with their friends while I wear a hideous apron behind the bar. ANYWAY, enough of my rambling!

The symposium. I thought I’d pay homage to it for the semester by replicating a regular occurrence that Adrian and the other tutors are guilty of: where they capture one word of a sentence and have a full blown conversation revolving around that one word – even if it had little to do with the question initially asked.

INTERTWINGLED.

Yes. Adrian used the word intertwingled, which I had a little laugh at at the time, especially when I looked over to Elliott and saw him do his little nose twitch and slight hidden smile at Adrian’s use of such a funny word. And yes, my computer does not accept this is a proper word but I thought I probably shouldn’t doubt Adrian too quickly even though I’m learning to trust that I am right some times – especially when those customers try to tell you your wrong and that the beer you are pouring is a DRAUGHT NOT A LAGER – to them – draught means a beer that is on tap, it is not a style of beer and indeed the beer I was pouring for you WAS a lager.

Sorry I’m getting side tracked. Intertwingled is word that has been previously coined before Adrian’s use of it in the symposium. I googled it and the oh so trustworthy Urban Dictionary, told me that intertwingled is in fact a word. Initially used to describe “computerdom and information” but now can be used in any situation. So do not be afraid to use the phrase “EVERYTHING IS SO DEEPLY INTERTWINGLED” because, really, people shouldn’t laugh. Although, I did.

Mixed Media Essay Research

So for my essay, I’m looking at the online participation in the music industry, in particular for the artists themselves. As I feel nowadays, every public figure is expected to have a presence online and this obviously will help their music if they do, however, as an avid music fan it seems to take away from the quality of the music.

Miley Cyrus (albeit, an obvious example) is now better known for her close relationship with a plastic hand then for her music. 

 

The sexualisation of women in particular in the music scene has been terrible but this has been fuelled by the internet and trying to create a name for themselves amongst all the chaos.

I stumbled across this great article by Mia Freedman, which I’d suggest you have a read of here.

Week 11 Readings

Galloway’s reading was interesting, however, I feel like a lot of the technical stuff was going over my head and I really only got concepts from half of it. The ideas of the hierarchies that exist and communications betweens the nodes. The concept that “two nodes must speak the same language” to communicate is cool, it’s similar to humans communicating – I suppose this was all designed by humans!
This all then linked up to protocols and shared protocols which “define the landscape of the network”. I found the connection to Foucault’s work interesting too and that his relationships to other life forms are structured in a similar way to protocols.

Drawing onto Vapour theory was interesting since I’ve never heard of it before. It’s basically just forgetting the computer!

Protocols turning to be more ‘democratic’ definitely personifies protocols but this also makes the reading more relatable because you can draw the connections between what Galloway is saying about protocols and human relationships.

2nd Last Symposium

The symposium this week had a major focus on databases, something which I’ve never been interested in. And I’m sorry to say, this week hasn’t given me any big realisation or changed the way I think about databases. However, I did like how we connected it back to stories and the fact that humanss always seem to feel the need to make things into stories and make connections between things when they may not necessarily have had a connection to begin with.

The main thing I took out from the symposium is that: STORIES DON’T ACCOUNT FOR ALL OTHER STRUCTURES IN OUR WORLD. 

 

Public Spheres

I caught up with a friend last night and we were having a chat about art and he mentioned some street art in Canberra which I’ve passed plenty of times and I realised that we are now so accustomed to the internet and social media being a public sphere of information and art, however, there are other ways of things coming into your attention without you seeking it out.

The artist is known as Abyss .607 and does everything anonymously. His art is awesome and can be seen around Canberra.

I just wanted to take notice of this cool art form and make a point about sharing things in another public space.

Shout Out

So while realising that I should really do the post referencing 4 other people’s blogs, I went down the list and clicked on Luke Egan – I want to do a shout out to his blog, as it provided me with a few good minutes of entertainment. I particularly like the sneaky photos of Elliott!

Another post that provided me with much needed laughter was Seonaid’s blogging about Josh Thomas. (thumbs up to Josh Thomas for that QandA episode – by the way!)

I also really liked Nethaniel’s post with the street art in it.

And of course, Sam’s blog is a good read as per usual.