Assignment 1 – Blogging IS important!

Due to the shift of the media platform to the internet, it is important that we understand ways in which we can express our ideas and thoughts freely to the universe, as you would with a magazine or newspaper.

Despite the fact blogging was a prerequisite for Media One in 2015, this semester in Networked Media, I have truly begun to properly understand both the theoretical and practical aspects of blogging and how they intertwine.

As mentioned in my Week 1 Reading Blog, I refer to the idea of blogging and the importance of having a place within the online community, stating that “I think that it is so important that I continue to use my media blog throughout my degree, as it is a public document that showcases my folio of work.” Blogging “also enables me to become a part of the “larger community” (Miles, pg. 67) whenever I contribute or others comment on my work”, which in turn, is also relevant to the ideas presented in Week 4 about Hypertexts and Hypermedia.

By acknowledging the works of others, we not only become network literate but we can make our writing intertextual; “we must write with an awareness that we are writing in the presence of other texts” (Landow, pg. 77). Whilst it could be said that it is very hard to be original, the opinions we offer on the various ideas within the docuverse are original. We each have our own set of thoughts and blogging allows us to express these opinions, whilst linking back to the work of others.

As seen in my ‘Am I Lazy?‘ post, I have also begun to develop an understanding of general licensing practice and more specifically, Creative Commons. Below each of the photos within this blog post, I have included a clear caption that cites where the screenshots have been taken from. Whilst it is important to show a clear link to the opinions of others, it is important to give credit to the original owner, especially in order to avoid plagiarism and the legal consequences of plagiarising. In my opinion, it is also important to cite others works, as you are clearly showing evidence surrounding your topic of choice. Furthermore, I like to relate my ideas to the ideas of others, as I can show that I am placing my work within the wider docuverse, and proving my online presence.

I have placed a Creative Commons license in my blog’s sidebar which allows anyone to read and distribute my work as they please, as long as I am credited. Without this license, it would be a lot harder for others to comment in their own spaces about my ideas, thus making my opinions more ‘closed’ to the wider network community. The use of Creative Commons “facilitates sharing, building and remixing on top of content, where the authors opt into this more balanced and rational copyright system and supports the idea of remix or participatory culture” (Lasica 2006).

Now that I have a deeper understanding to the real reasons we blog, and the best ways to do it, I feel that I am really beginning to enjoy it. I have never been much of a writer but because of the theory presented to me each week in regards to blogging, I am becoming more and more aware of the ways in which work can be presented online. It is clear to me that these theories are relevant even to professionals in the media industry (as seen in the blog posts of this blog linked in my blog roll: Refinery 29), so I feel that I am becoming more professional too!

Bibliography:

Miles, Adrian 2006, Blogs in Media Education: A Beginning [online], Screen Education, No. 43, pg. 66-69.

Landow, G 2006, Hypertext 3.0, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pg. 69-85, 107-124.

Lasica, J 2006, Prof. Lawrence Lessig Explains Creative Commons Licensing, accessed April 6, 2016, from <https://youtu.be/AWxyx5iYdvI>.

 

Reading Week 3 – Copyright and Creative Commons

I think it’s very important to distinguish the difference between Creative Commons and Copyright. They both work in different ways and effect us as online content creators.

Copyright has a wonderful way of automatically protecting your work once you place it out to the world. Most definitely not a bad thing, right?

The issue is, copyright often places some pretty hefty laws around those that want to use your work or just share it. This means that when you write that fabulous post that gets everyone talking, you’ll have Aunty Jan, Uncle Pat, Cousin Fan, Great Grandma Robin and even Step Mother February asking if they can all share your work. I mean, if we can avoid having the internet turn into a Grandpa’s 90th birthday, why don’t we use all that we’ve got?

This is where Creative Commons comes into play. The not-for-profit organisation allows anyone in the world wide web to structure their own license for their own work. Not only does this save your precious time from licensing every piece of your work, I mean, “ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat” but Aunty Jan, Uncle Pat, Cousin Fan, Great Grandma Robin and even Step Mother February, can now share your work, without having to ask for your permission. So now, we can avoid the slobbery kisses on the cheek and the questioning about where your boyfriend or girlfriend is.

So if we break Creative Commons down a little more, we can understand that it doesn’t counter copyright, but works along side it, making the sharing process between the author and reader, a little swifter.

Screen Shot 2016-03-15 at 4.54.43 pm

 

Screenshot image of text taken directly from: Creative Commons Australia: Licensed CC BY 4.0.

As we can comprehend from the above image, one must attribute the original owner of the work, even when they are transforming the original copy. Authors can select a Creative Commons license that either agrees or disagrees to their work being used for commercial purposes and whether or not someone can modify their work.

The Creative Commons license gives the author a lot of flexibility in terms of how their work is used once it is posted. For example, for this Media Factory blog, I added a Creative Commons license in the right sidebar of my blog, outlining that I have chosen the option of allowing my work to be shared and adapted, even for commercial purposes.

In all honesty, I am looking for people to credit my work if they are going to use or share it and this is why the Creative Commons license is important.

I think that because I now have the Creative Commons license on my blog, I feel a lot safer about the work that I do. I want to become more network literate and to be able to have an open opinion on particular topics that I like, whilst not feeling like someone is going to come along and rip me off. It also means now that I will take greater care when sharing others work, as I now understand how important copyright and licensing is to a creator.