Task 6: Mobile Media and Public Space

This is a creative writing post in which to write a reflection about topics discussed in week 9, or to design your own Flash or Smart Mob.

How are mobile technologies shaping modern culture?

Mobile privatisation: (Raymond Williams 1997)

What private actions do you perform in public by using mobile media?

Private mobilization: (Matt Hills 2009)

How do you use your wireless and mobile media day-to-day at home? How has wireless access changed the functionality of how we use our home?

Exploring your mobile technologies, everyday communications on campus:

As you sit in the canteen, cafe, library or elsewhere on campus, look around you and document how many people are on their phones – what do they seem to be using them for?

If you were to organise a flash or smart mob on campus at the University of Worcester what would you do and why? How would you go about organising it and what do you think the reactions might be?

This is one of your blog posts for your Online Learning Journal so it will need to be a minimum of 150 words. Check referencing, spelling and grammar. 

Deadline: Completed and added as a blog post to your blog: 3.00pm Monday 4th April 2011.

Week 9: Mobile Media and Public Space

Mobile Media

Traditionally ‘mobile’ media have been thought of in a specific way as devices which offer mobility outside of the home, rather than forming part of a domestic media set-up. Indeed in this sense, ‘mobile’ media can be said to be about taking a sense of the home(ly) out into the cultural world.

Raymond Williams (1997) coined the phrase ‘mobile privatization’ to describe a ‘shell you take with you’ (mobile device) which is centered on the home but not necessarily in the home, it takes the familiar or seemingly protective layer out into the unfamiliar public space.

It’s reverse is the ‘private mobilization’ where public spaces are brought into the home wirelessly. Matt Hills (2009)

Instant Communities of Practice

An important communicative practice observed by Castells et al. (2007) is the emergence of unplanned, largely spontaneous communities of practice in instant time. By transforming an initiative to do something together into a message that is responded to from multiple sources and by convergent wills in order to share practice and have a collective voice. An example of this is Flash Mobs and Smart Mobs.

Users as Producers

We invent new uses, and even a new language, circumvent regulations, quickly find better cheaper available pricing schemes and build networks of communication for purposes and uses that were never in the cards of technologists and business strategists. This fully replicates the experience of the internet. 

Mobile Communication and The Network Society

The mobile communication society deepens and diffuses the network society, which came into existence in the past two decades, first on the basis of networks of electronic exchange, next with the development of networks of computers, then with the Internet, powered and extended by the World Wide Web. 

Wireless communication technologies diffuse the networking logic of social organisation and social practice everywhere, to all contexts, - on the condition of being on the mobile Net. 

More notes on Week 9's topic of Mobile Media and Public Space can be found in the presentation in Blackboard.

Task 5: Identity

Post 5: Identity

Following explorations of Second Life and virtual identity in week 7 and 8, discuss the following three questions

1. What do you think it would take for a chimpanzee, a Martian or a computer to be considered a person?

2. What can you claim is intrinsic to your identity and not to somebody else's identity? Suppose you point to a child in an old class photograph and say "that is me", what is it that’s you?

3. In a virtual world we can have a number of different avatars. From your experience of creating one avatar can you claim that the avatar is you?

Please include an image of your Avatar and include a written statement about your ‘First Life’ profile and your ‘Second Life’ profile in an additional post.

This is one of your blog posts for your Online Learning Journal so it will need to be a minimum of 150 words. Check referencing, spelling and grammar. 

Deadline: Completed and added as a blog post to your blog: 5.00pm Monday 27th March 2011.

Adding Links to your Blog

To add links to your blog:

1. Go to: Design - Add a gadget - select 'Link List'

A new window should appear called 'configure link list'

2. Add a title - this is what will appear above your links, so is the title of the group / theme of links, for example 'books' or 'definitions' or 'web 2.0'

3. Copy and paste website addresses (URL's) into the box 'new site URL' for example http://twitter.com

4. Write the title of the website into the box 'new site name' for example Twitter

5. Click Add Link

6. Click Save

You can then select your gadget in your design page to add more links or set up many link lists for different groups of links. 

Week 7: Second Life

Today we explored the virtual world of Second Life.

We all created our avatars by registering here: https://join.secondlife.com/

We logged in to Second Life with our new avatar identity and began exploring Second Life, experimenting with gestures - like dancing, and changing our appearance to an individual look. We all played in the Worcester University Island where we could sit and drink hot chocolate, dance, chat, walk and fly around.

For anyone who missed today's session, you will all be emailed a list of how to set it up and what you need to do. - This includes; your avatars name, appearance, profile and setting your home to the Worcester Island. This will also be added to the Blackboard.

Before next weeks session (Tuesday 22nd March) you will need to have:
1. created an avatar (you can do this here: https://join.secondlife.com/ )
2. emailed your avatar name to me and Karen Johnson, so you can be invited to the Worcester University Island in Second Life.

For anyone who missed week 7, you must ensure you have steps 1 and 2 done before Monday 21st March 5pm.

For anyone who was able to access Second Life in Week 7's session, you must ensure you have:
3. designed your appearance
4. accepted the teleport to Worcester University Island and set it as your 'home'
5. take a 'snapshot' image of your avatar in Second Life, by clicking the snapshot button
6. write something in the 'profile' section of Second Life about you in Second Life and you in First Life
7. add the image of your avatar in to your blog by inserting an image into a new blog post, you also need to add the name of your avatar and the 'Second Life' and 'First Life' profile that you've written in your profile in Second Life.


There are lots of tips on how to use Second Life in the links added to the right hand side under the heading Second Life - please read these. Any problems or questions please email me.

Congratulations!

A massive congratulations to all of the students who presented their Online Learning Journals in class today. You all did a brilliant job of talking through your posts, your arguments, your understanding of new media and your glossary challenge, and sharing your reflective writing, images, videos and links.

The top tips for all the Online Learning Journals are:

• Check you are referencing properly - is every quote, link and image referenced using a Harvard system? For quotes it is not good enough to just put a website link, you must include who said it and when they said it, the link and what date you accessed the link.
• Split your links into categories, to be able to clearly see the theme of the links, for example use the topics you are linking to, like old vs new or online journalism or categorise by type of link, like web 2.0, discussions, glossary, books, videos...
• Add images, if you want to make your blog look more colourful or if you would find it useful to visualise what you are writing about you can include images. This isn't part of the assessment, its up to you how you want the aesthetic to be. If you include any images, you must reference where you found them from.
• In your posts; make sure you are writing, discussing and arguing in a critical way, by raising problems and questions that we have discussed in class or others that you think of. Although you are encouraged to personally reflect on the new media you use to be able to write your Online Learning Journals make sure the language you use is not too informal, remember this is a University assignment.
• Allways proof-read and spell check (using ABC button) your posts before publishing.

As a reward to the wonderful students who presented today there is no homework this week.

For those who missed today's (week 6) lecture you need to read through this mecs1008 blog to catch up on what you have missed. And all students who have missed giving a presentation will have to at a later date as it is part of the Online Learning Journal assignment.

Next 2 Weeks:
Week 7: Tuesday 15th March:  PL1002 from 2.15-5.15 : Online Identity and creating your avatar in Second Life
Week 8: Tuesday 22nd March: PL1002 from 2.15-5.15 : Online Identity and event in Second Life

Please try to not miss these sessions as they are directly related to your essay assignment and it will not be possible to repeat these sessions or to do the work in your own time.

Week 6 : Mediatised Performance Lecture

As all students are presenting their Online Learning Journals (blogs) this week it is more appropriate to present the Week 6 Lecture on Mediatised Performance on the MECS008 blog instead of through a PowerPoint presentation.

Your student Online Learning Journals and this blog are appropriate places to keep notes, lecture discussions, links and research, as the module topic is New Media, a blog is an excellent example of New Media and a digital journal means it is possible to include the YouTube videos, E-books and website links to the New Media concepts and theories we will be discussing.

Mediatised Performance is today’s topic.

• What is mediatised space / environment?
• What is mediatiesd performance?
• Case studies of Mediatised Performance

A mediatised environment is a space that is augmented with technologies.

Mediatised performance is performance that is

• augmented with digital technologies,
• performance using new technologies or
• performances in virtual and online spaces.

Human interaction with technology is an important area of study in an age of ubiquitous digital technology

It is also referred to as e-performance and digital performance and writings on this subject come from many disciplines, including; theatre, dance, net art, sound art, installation, as well as theatre studies, media studies, cultural theory, and art history.

In media studies the key questions and concerns include:

• aesthetic questions related to 'the body',
• the observer's participatory virtual experiences, and
• virtual embodiment in new media arts.

Liveness – performance in a mediatised culture

“Mediatised performance is performance that is circulated on television, as audio or video recordings, and in other forms based in technologies of reproduction. Baudrillard’s own definition is more expansive: “What is mediatised is not what comes off the daily press, out of the tube, or on the radio: it is what is reinterpreted by the sign of form, articulated into models, and administered by the code” (Baudrillard 1981:175-6). For Baudrilard, meditisation is not simply a neutral term describing products of the media. Rather, he sees the media as instrumental in a larger, socio-political process of bringing all discourses under the dominance of a single code.”

(Auslander 1999: 4-5)

Performative Realism

“In ‘Liveness – performance in a mediatised culture’ Auslander aims to prove how the alleged opposition between live and the mediatised event cannot be maintained in the context of the media society. With reference to Walter Benjamin’s consideration of the new ways of conceiving generated by mass culture, Auslander argues that the merging of live and mediatised forms in contemporary society, on a material level illustrated the untenableness of the performance ontology. Auslander points to Benjamin’s essay: “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction”, in which Benjamin describes how the emergent mass culture causes an overcoming of distance, but at the same time a banishing of aura. In that connection, Benjamin refers to:

“The desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction. Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction.” (Benjamin 1986:31-32)

Auslander’s point is that the alliance contradicted between the mass desire of proximity and reproducible objects, respectively, is directly illustrated in, for instance, the use of giant video screens at music and dance concerts and sporting events that seem to have become the norm in the event-culture of contemporary life. By virtue of the video screens, the audience gets a feeling of being closer to performers – by virtue of the reproducible object, the mediatised event, the feeling of the live event is intensified.”

(Gade and Jerslev 2005: 30 -31)

Activating Audiences

Activating Audiences is what happens in web 2.0, we the audeince are activated to participate and perform collaboratively - receiving, sharing, and producing content online and commonly performing in virtual spaces, such as social networking sites, in which we present profile pictures of ourselves and write status updates about our activities.

As new technologies and paradigms emerge, new ways of activating audiences are tested, ‘structuring radically new possibilities of feedback between spectators and the environments they could inhabit’.

(Salter 2010: 304)

In response to the common history of human-computer relationships in interactive art, Peter Salter, in his text Entangled; Technology and the Transformation of Performance, talks about interaction in physical and social space that involves a multitude of untrained performers and ultimately changes the emphasis from computer-human to inhabitant-performer-environment.

(Salter 2010: 306)

Hybrid and Convergent Space

The immersive and public space that emerges here becomes a hybrid space with new possibilities for activating audiences.

Eric Kluitenberg, a researcher in the field of the significance of new technologies for society, explains how we are living in an environment in which the public population is constantly reconfigured by a multitude of media and communication networks interwoven into the social and political functions of space to form a ‘hybrid space’.

The physical spaces that we inhabit daily - including offices, shops and cafés - are now networked, located and recorded using digital technologies. A number of our daily social routines now reside in the virtual world; from social networking websites and online chat rooms to virtual shopping malls and cafés in virtual worlds like Second Life. New mobile technologies mean we can now connect, inhabit and perform in these spaces whilst remaining on the move.

Geotagging, using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to track and locate our physical latitude and longitude coordinates, can be uploaded continuously from our mobile devices to our networks, thus updating others on our daily activities and movements. A hybrid space, then, can be understood as “a space in motion and an interaction between perceived, conceived, lived and virtual space. This space is formed not only by materiality and social and political actions, but also by digital technology.” This space, then, creates new platforms in which artists can invite participation and engagement from a new, virtually residing public.

(Kluitenberg 2006: 8)

Performing with hybrid technologies

“A mobile experience can be characterized as an intersection point in everyday life that is mediated through a device such as a PDA or a cell phone. This intersection is where real and virtual realities collide and become an experience. We make business decisions and exchange stories with friends over cellular infrastructures. Most of us are communicating in public spaces like walking through a mall or on the street. In some cases the mediated presence (talking on the cell phone) is the stand in for our real attendance. We are becoming skilled performers at weaving together the hybridization of real and virtual realities. These new conditions are changing the way we interact as humans and the design of tangible interfaces. Incorporating elements of performance as a design tool is a start to define the theoretical framework for modelling this new world.”

Vicki Moulder

http://www.interactionart.org/doc/index.html

[Accessed 5^th March 2011]

Case Studies

We will look at a number of examples of mediatised performance and discuss these as case studies. We will be going through their websites and watching videos of their mediatised performances.

Stellarc: New Media Artist

About: http://stelarc.org/?catID=20314

Case: http://stelarc.org/video/?catID=20258&type=Performance

http://stelarc.org/video/?catID=20258&type=Performance

Troika Ranch: Dance and Theatre company

About: http://www.troikaranch.org/about.html 

Case: http://www.troikaranch.org/vid-loopDiver.html

Michelle Teran: New Media Artist

About: http://www.ubermatic.org/?page_id=2

Case: http://www.ubermatic.lftk.org/blog/?p=225

Task 4: Write a critical review

Write a critical review of David Fincher’s film The Social Network and/or the social media Facebook.

http://www.thesocialnetwork-movie.com

This is a critical review, so think about the issues related to this film and/or Facebook.

This can be one of your blog posts for your ‘Online Learning Journal’ so it will need to be a minimum of 150 words and be referenced and spelt correctly.

Some of the issues and questions we discussed in the class included:

Why is Facebook so popular and how has it ‘revolutionized’ the way we interact online?

Is our use of Facebook Narcissistic?

What are the Public Privacy issues?

Hacking and violation of laws

User-generated media

Performing online and social structures: relationship status, status updates, profile pictures

Is publishing an online post/status/comment irreversible or more problematic than saying the same thing out loud?

Deadline: Completed and added as a blog post to your blog: 5.00pm Monday 7th March 2011.

Online Learning Journal Checklist

Use this checklist to make sure you have completed all of the instructions for the Online Learning Journal.

1.    The blogspot address of my Online Learning Journal is my student number. Tip

2.    I have invited or re-invited Rebecca to be a reader of my blog if I have changed the blogspot address. Tip

3.    I have the correct time-zone set up on my Online Learning Journal. Tip

4.    I have completed the blog post tasks. Details

5.    I have at least 10 links to external websites listed. Details

6.    I have included appropriate references of all quotes, images and website links throughout my blog

7.    I have checked the spelling and grammar of my posts.

8.    I have checked that all of my posts are over 150 words

You are expected to have completed this checklist by Week 6:

Monday 7^th March at 5.00pm

Online Learning Journal at Week 6

At week 6 your Online Learning Journals should include:

4 POSTS: Related to weekly discussions:

     1. Old Media vs. New Media
     2. Your Glossary term in the correct format and with Harvard Referencing
     3. What effect has the Internet had on journalism?
     4. A critical review of The Social Network film and/or Facebook as a social media.

It is essential that all students have completed the New Media Glossary Challenge and emailed me a copy in the correct format.

It is essential that at week 6 you have a minimum of 3 posts. (Most students should have 4 posts at week 6, unless they have spoken to me about missing one of the posts and I have agreed that this is acceptable.)

10 LINKS: Related to your own research and to what has been discussed:

These should include:
     1.    Your own twitter page
     2.    Your paper.li newspaper, set up from your twitter feeds using http://paper.li/
     3.    The MECS1008 blog: http://mecs1008.blogspot.com/
     3.    At least 7 other links to what we have discussed in Weeks 1 - 5

You will be presenting your Online Learning Journals on Tuesday 8th March 2011

Online Learning Journal Requirements

Your Online Learning Journal is your first assignment in the Introduction to New Media module and will be assessed at week 10. This assignment is 40% of your module.

The minimum requirements of this first assignment are: 

A) Five Written ‘Posts’:

You are required to write at least five ‘posts’ between weeks 1 – 9. These ‘posts’ will be a minimum of 150 words each and be related to the module, suggestions of what to write about will be provided by the module leader and these ‘posts’ may include;

—  reviews of key texts given as handouts in seminars,

—  reflections on practical tasks using new media platforms or exploring websites,

—  reflection on discussion or debate,

—  responses to questions set in the seminars.

By week 10 you will have completed five written ‘posts’ (150 words each), which will become 750 written words in total in your Online Learning Journal.

B) Twenty Website ‘Links’:

You are required to save ‘links’ to all new media platforms, websites and online discussions that interest you and that are discussed in the seminars; these should be added each week and become a minimum of 20 links in total by week 10.

Online Learning Journal Deadlines

Your Online Learning Journals are monitored regularly and you are expected to complete the weekly tasks given to you on time.

Each weekly task is given to you in class, added to the blackboard and to the http://mecs1008.blogspot.com blog.

The deadline for your completed weekly tasks is:

5.00pm every Monday

This is monitored each week.

Both A and B requirements of Module Assignment One will contribute to the module assessment, which is 40%.

The deadline for your completed blog is:

Monday 3^rd April at 3pm

• At this time a screen-shot image will be captured of all of your blogs to ensure any last minute changes will not be considered in the assessment
• “(5 days late grade=D) (5+ days late grade=0) Tutors are unable to alter these and cannot grant extensions.
• If you need extra time, or cannot submit an assignment, you will have to apply for mitigating circumstances with evidence.
• If you do not submit an assignment there will be no opportunity for re-assessment
• You will get your grades returned by Friday 29^th April.

Changing your blogspot address

Your blogspot address should read: http://yourstudentnumber.blogspot.com

If yours is not currently your own student number, to change your address / URL go to:

SETTINGS - PUBLISHING - type your 8 digit student number into the box - copy the characters in the 'word verification box' - click SAVE - check this has worked.

Once you have done this, you will need to re-invite me as a reader, as you have changed the address I have for your Online Learning Journal.

To read a tip on how to add a reader go to: http://mecs1008.blogspot.com/2011/02/adding-reader-to-your-blog.html