Sunday, 3 April 2011

Campaign Project

The internet is becoming more and more significant for marketing and for use in issues campagins. In this part of our workshop we were asked to brainstorm a few ideas and come up with a campaign over the next few weeks.
In my group we originally decided to talk about abortuions and unwanted pregnancies and how to aoid them. Whiles planning our campaign we realised that it was going to be quite difficult aswell as being too much of a sensitive topic. We then finally decided to do our campagin on types of contraception and how to prevent unwanted pregnancies and STD's. We wanted to aim it at the age band of 15-20 those who are mainly just becoming sexually active and may not know much about sexually transmitted diseases and the dangers
Below is our presentation which includes some of the statistics and contraception information that is used in our campaign video

Tuesday, 8 February 2011

Social Capital

The other day I was at home on Facebook and received a new friend request from my primary school friend who I had not spoken to in ages. I thought I had lost contact with her and when I saw the friend request I was over the moon. I was so happy that we were able to talk again and then started to think about how smart the person who made Facebook is. The ideas of social networks seem to have expanded as many people take part in them these days. People all over the world can now get in contact with each other through social networks. Social networks become more and more advanced each day. When I think back to the first social network I ever became part of it was MSN,Bebo, Myspace, Profilepic,skype and then Facebook. When I thought facebook was the last social network invented then Twitter became more popular and I am even considering making one as well just so I can keep up with the times.
Technology is always updating and so it is getting difficult to even keep up with it. These social networks make it easier for people to get in contact with each other and reunite with old and current friends and also make new friends who share the same interests as them. The Internet has been linked both to increases and decreases in social capital. Nie (2001), for example, argued that Internet use detracts from face-to-face time with others, which might diminish an individual's social capital. Social capital is a sociological concept, which refers to connections within and between social networks. Social capital is created by interpersonal transactions that form a relationship between two parties. That relationship then creates a form of capital that is either difficult to value or difficult to exchange.
From my lectures I learnt how social capital is not really a new idea but everything about the ways we can create value as well as promoting and exchanging social capital is what is new. The idea that social capital is new is quite misleading considering it existed way before the internet and the other ways of communication. I learnt how social capital today mainly focuses on the role that the internet and online networks which show its development and amount of usage by others however this does not create social capital.
The question that I ask myself is where social capital originated from if it was around way before the internet how did it start, who was the person who invented it or is it really something to do with culture in the society.

Monday, 31 January 2011

What Is Web 2.0



This is a slideshow i made talking about web 2.0 focusing mainly on what web 2.0 is and folksonomy. I structured this slideshow in a Pecha Kucha way which made my slideshow more economical and to the point.
Pecha Kucha is a presentation methodology which is used to organize the presentation order of an event, such as in a Pecha Kucha Night. Pecha Kucha Night events consist of around a dozen presentations, each presenter having 20 slides, each shown for 20 seconds. Each presenter has just 6 minutes 40 seconds to explain their ideas before the next presenter takes the stage. This usually takes place at venues through which young designers could meet, show their work, exchange ideas, and network, the format keeps presentations concise, fast-paced and entertaining
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that take part in information sharing. The idea of Web 2.0 came about in a conference session in 2004 between O’Rielly and Media Live International. During this conference is where O’Rielly noted that the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites coming up with surprising regularity. It seemed as if the Dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web. However although Web 2.0 suggested a new version of the web it did not refer to an update to any technical specification but instead changes in the ways software developers used the web.
I found this topic very intresting as I learnt a lot about the introduction of the new web 2.0 and the benefits it had and the opinons that it got. In addition I made a powerpoint presentation in a way I have never done before which personallly made it a bit more enjoyable for me espeshially when practising at home trying to keep within the time frame so.

Wednesday, 26 January 2011

Remix Culture and Participatory Culture

I was at home the other day watching a movie with my girls and we decided to watch the movie Dance Flick which is basically a film about all different famous dance genre movies in one. When we were watching the film we saw how the movie had changed some of the scenes from the other movies to make it a bit funnier in other words remixed them.
Here is a youtube clip of one of the scenes from the movie Twighlight that has been re-acted and made fun out of in dance flick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9te22shDvs

After watching this, the reading that I had looked over a few days before came to mind as it was about remix culture. Remix culture is seen to be basically the creation of something new. The re-making of a song or something the way our culture evolves. Remix culture also talks about how culture is framed, not from the perspective of production but as something to which we should have a right to share and remix in the same way that there should be a right to freedom of speech. Remix culture also links in with copyright seeing as people have the freedom to take what they like from the internet and then change it around or also use it in their own pieces of work. That is a form of them remixing something by changing it from its original form into something else.
Participatory culture on the other hand is “a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression, strong support for creating and sharing ones creations. Participatory culture is also one where members their contributions give them some kind of connection with one another” (Jenkins et al, 2006) Within participatory culture the public produce and contribute to the culture as well as consume from it. This new culture has been described as web 2.0. The increasing access to the internet seems to be forming this participatory culture as more people are coming together to form more ideas and are working together as a whole.
From that lecture I learnt a lot about the way many things are remixed. It leads to me thinking about whether it was legal or not. Whiles thinking about that, I started thinking about all the different things that have been remixed and changed from their original formats which could have been made ages ago. This also then did get me thinking about what the future would be like especially when looking at the way things are at the way things are at the moment with remix culture.

Monday, 13 December 2010

Psychogeographical mapping/narrative project

For this project my group and i decided to look at the different ways of getting to the clock tower which is in the center of town. We pointed out the five different routes and then we decided to each take a different route and take pictures of intresting and random things. When i took my pictures i decided to take pictures of the shops and places that i use for markers that i look at when i am walking, that help me know if i am walking the right direction or if i am lost and dont know where i am. I also took pictures of the main shops that i go to in town and the banks that i use also. I reacently got a new piercing and so i took apicture of that too. As i carried on my walk i decided to jus look that the next number and walk for the rest of the road for those amount of mins. The number i saw was 22 which happens to be my favoutite number aswell so i timed myself. As i walked came across a part of town i had never seen before. I saw the haymarket bus station a job centre and a wilkinsons which shocked me becuae i thought they were all closed down. I also saw a bridge but as i was wlking towards it my tome ran out so i didnt go and explore it further.
I enjoyed my random walk as i discovered alot of new things espeshially that there are alot of subways shops in town :D

Sunday, 12 December 2010

NEW MEDIA

Over the weekend I went home and was watching TV with my dad. We saw an advert for 3D television and my dad commented on how sky + hadn’t been out for very long. It reminded me about my previous report that I had handed in on new media. I started talking about how the media is always changing and how there is always a new type of media introduced and the audiences reaction to it depends on whether it will succeed as a product or not. In my report I talked about how internet television is taking over traditional television. From that report I found out how many people would prefer to watch television online and in their own time than the set times that were on television. On the other hand I also found out how certain shows were bringing the traditional television ratings back up like X Factor for example. The majority of the population are all watching X factor at the same time and were giving their reviews on what was going on through other types of new media like blackberry messenger, Facebook, twitter and more. This is then increasing the amount of views on traditional television as everybody wants to feel part of what is going on and wants to be able to give their opinion as they talk to others about it.
From my report i did learnt about how the media is always changing and bringing new things. For example the social networks have changed over the years the first one I was introduced to was Hi5 then Bebo, Myspace,then Facebook, Profile pic, then Skype and finally for now Twitter which is most present. Through this I experienced how new media’s continued to come out and by focusing on the audience reaction then brings attention to it, introduces it to the public and makes it known as the newest media but when that is out a new media is then created straight after. Profile pic came out just after Facebook but it was not as popular and the public then moved on to twitter. Not everyone has moved to twitter yet but in due time I think it will get as popular as Facebook and Skype.
However I am still left questioning how long this will go on for? Will the introduction of new media go on forever? What if there are no more ideas? What if the new products introduced are too expensive or too advanced to use< What will happen then? Why must something always be introduced so quickly? Those are the questions that continuously run through my mind.

Tuesday, 16 November 2010

Copyright and how it affects me

I was having a conversation with a group of friends the other day and we were talking about Rhianna's new song ft Drake- What’s my name. We were all singing along to it then my friend logged onto a youtube converter page to download the song onto her mobile phone. As she did that my friend shouted "copyright" as a joke and a conversation from my previous lecture came to mind.
We started talking about how much we actually do take part in copyrighting and if we were to be caught the amount of trouble or fines we would have to pay. We made a list of all the different types of copyrighting we had done. In my list I had
• Taken music off youtube
• Used different songs that were online for my own personal music videos
• Videoed famous people singing and put it on Facebook from my phone
• Watched movies and programmes online
When we got thinking deeply about it we realised how it was so normal for us that we didn’t even realise that we were doing something wrong. Nowadays the way everything is on the internet it makes it so much easier for us to access and asking for permission does not even come to mind.
The majority of things in my list I didn’t personally do as they were there already for me to participate in. Somebody else had infringed copyright laws by uploading the song/video onto youtube/online, but because I watched it or I took the song that they uploaded and put it on my mobile phone I therefore took part in copyright and took advantage because it was online and free for my own personal usage.
From this and my lecture I learnt how copyright is against the law and is basically copying or stealing from other people by taking their work without permission. It can also affect me in a few ways for example if I made a song and people started sharing it without my permission and then made money from it when I made it originally I would not be happy. Also in education terms if people continued copying other peoples work and changing a little bit and then putting it in their own words, if I then went to copy it I may have the wrong information that I put I my work because it was copied. However the law does give some support to allow usage for education that’s why we can use some copies for our own study.
In conclusion copyright is not entirely fair on those who put all their hard work into something. Copyright affects everybody in different ways which is why it should stop. The question is though would it or can it ever stop and come to an final end or is it really that impossible.