Reflective piece

It was less than two years ago that I had absolutely no idea what a weblog was and up until the start of this semester I had never thought of creating one myself. As I have said in my profile I created this weblog as part of the assessment for a subject called Digital Media Cultures which I selected to undertake as part of my course.

Each student was given three options for this assignment- to create a weblog, a wiki or write a website analysis. As I don't have a very technical background my immediate response was to stick to the analysis as there was no way I could create my own weblog or wiki and writing essays is what I've always done during my course. Yet after much discussion on the topic both in class and with other students, the thought of creating a weblog didn't seem so daunting.

As soon as I reached the Blogger website I was able to create my first weblog almost immediately- who would have thought it would be so easy to put information up on the web. In creating this weblog, it has allowed me to further investigate all of the topics and issues discussed in class, thus providing me with a broader knowledge of everything studied this semester.

Defining the weblog

It has come to my attention that throughout all of my posts I have yet to define what exactly a weblog actually is. A weblog can be defined as a a series of regularly updated journals on a website that are displayed in a reversed chronological order. While a weblog is easy to create with templates that are ready to use such as the one being used on this very webpage and is accessible from any internet enabled computer, it is sometimes difficult to find blogs relevant to a topic that the user is looking for as there are no real categories and each blog is stored with many others including spam.

The weblog allows anybody to publish material on the web relating to any topic, other internet users can read this information and are invited to respond via a comments section as with this weblog. This does of course mean that there is always the chance of people publishing false information that some can be fooled into believing.

With the recent growth of popularity in weblogging, many specialised blog search engines are now in operation such as Technorati and Google Blog search, both are able to track a large number of weblogs. Technorati now tracks around 50,000 new weblogs every hour.

Articles relating to this topic:

Johnson, Doug. 33.6 (March 2006): 24 (2) Blogging and the media specialist. Learning and leading with technology.

American Library Association. 42.4 (July- August 2006): 15 (21) Blogs (weblogs innovations). Library Technology Reports.

McChesney, Robert W., Russell Newman and Ben Scott. 2005. The future of media resistance and reform in the twenty-first century. New York: Greenwood Press.

What's in an image?

The photograph has often been described as a representation of reality, but is this a fair description? Even in today's digital age, many still have the misconception that a photograph or the video footage they watch in a news or documentary program tell it like it is and can be used as evidence that an event actually took place, they are simply oblivious to the various forms of manipulation that can be applied to the image.

Photographic manipulation has been taking place for over forty years. In the simplest form it may involve altering the subjects in front of the lens, changing the levels of lighting or for the more technically capable- superimposing two images together during the printing stage. Although these forms of manipulation have existed for so many years, the rise of digital photography has merely made it much easier.

Unlike with traditional photography where the film itself would need to be destroyed to hide any evidence of the original image, and even then the manipulation would need to be done very precisely in order to look accurate; digital photography can be made to look seamless with easily accessible computer programs such as Photoshop. Any evidence of manipulation can simply be deleted so that there is no evidence of it ever been altered, which can make it very difficult to tell which photo is more genuine. If a digital image is fake, then how can this be proven? This also raises the question of how cameras such as those used for security purposes can be used as evidence in the court of law, especially when digital technology allows for such seamless manipulation?

Even the pictures we often see in the newspaper and trust as fact, have most likely been digitally enhanced in some way or another, often taking away their legitimacy. The Martin Bryant case is a perfect example of this. He was the man charged for the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996 where thirty-five people were killed. The photograph of him that appeared in many newspapers had been manipulated. His eyes were changed to be a lighter blue which made him look more devil like and crazy. In another example, an image of Condoleezza Rice that appeared in a United States news source made her appear demonized, which was apparently the result of ‘sharpening the photo for clarity’.

It is important to remember that every image reflects the person behind the lens in some way, be it through their culture, values or background. Photography is a form of art that is open to interpretation, almost every image reflects the ‘artist’s’ identity is one way or another, digital technology has just made manipulation a lot easier.

Articles relating to this topic:

Battye, Greg (1996) 'The death of photography revisited'. Metro, (105): 43-50.

Charles, Nick and Nora Charles. October, 2005. Shoot to kill. The thin man returns.

Hoffman, Kay (1998) ''I see, if I believe it' -- documentary and the digital'. In T. Elsaesser & K. Hoffman (eds.), Cinema futures: Can, Abel or cable? Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 159-166.

Challenging the public space

I have often referred to the internet as a public space, however there seem to be more challenges to this notion than ever before. It seems that many businesses are opting for the commercialisation of the web and turning it into a commodity based economy rather than a gift economy where people can give information selflessly to the community.

What was once free information has now become more difficult to access due to a number of factors, with pay per view information and subscriptions possibly the most prominent examples. This has assisted in turning this free and open space of the internet into an enclosed space that only a select group of people are able to access.

It seems that many believe that the internet is the place for businesses to take control rather than creating a place of commons where the public have the right to control public resources. If this continues, then will it jeopardise our chances of creating Habermas' ideal model of the public sphere?

Articles relating to this topic:

Wikipedia definition of Gift economy

Barbrook, Richard. The High-tech Gift Economy. First Monday. 1998

Bollier, David. 2002. Reclaiming the Commons. The Boston Review

Internet use

Early forms of the internet began in the 1960s when fears were raised about how the United States government would maintain communication if there were a nuclear attack during the Cold War. A US military group called the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) developed a system that would work even if parts of the system had been destroyed. This was made possible through a system of networking.

By 1969, university computers and researchers began using this system. It wasn't until 1983 however, that the system we now know as the internet was created. Since then, the internet has continued to flourish and evolve dramatically in order to become the medium as we know it today.

In 1997, market research group www.consult estimated that the number of online users in Australia in March of that year was around 800,000. By August 1998, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that 1,245,000 households in Australia (eighteen per cent) had internet access from home. In 2000, this rose to 2.7 million (thirty-seven per cent), and by the end of March 2005, this figure had surged to 5.98 million.

Older generations have generally taken longer to understand the uses and advantages of the internet, while younger generations have grown up with it and see it more as a part of everyday life. A 2005 survey by the Australian Broadcasting Authority and NetAlert Limited shows that children are beginning to use the internet from a far younger age as it has become more easily accessible. In children aged eight or nine years, one third of respondants had begun using the internet at the age of five or six, while in those aged twelve to thirteen, the majority had not started using the internet until the age of around nine or ten. Children as young as five are therefore more likely to use the internet before they are able to embrace other traditional forms of media such as print. As time passes, the younger generation of today will be leading the population into an era of digitalisation.

Articles relating to this topic:

Australian Broadcasting Authority and NetAlert Limited. Kids online @ home:Internet use in Australian homes. April 2005.

Boczkowski, Pablo J. DIgitizing the news. 2004.

Internet activity, Australia, March, 2005. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Government, Canberra. 7 February, 2006.

Smith, Lee. A brief history of the internet. Dynamic web solutions. 17 March, 2006.

Use of internet by householders, Australia, Nov. 2000. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Government, Canberra. 7 February, 2006.

The ideal public sphere?

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog called The New Public Sphere which referred to the internet. Today I wish to expand on this notion with reference to weblogs and podcasting and how they both fit into Habermas’ ideal of the public sphere.

Jurgen Habermas is a German philosopher and sociologist who wrote a great deal of theory on the concept of the public sphere. In his writings of this notion he used accounts and dialogue that took place in coffee houses and salons in eighteenth century England, however, this historical form of the public sphere represented only a bourgeois culture which was restricted by gender and socio-economic class. Habermas’ idealized notion of the public sphere was one where individuals would be able to come together in a public space and participate freely in the exchanging of their own ideas which would ultimately influence the state. It would be open to anybody regardless of rank or status and would allow for rational debates centered on any topic. Yet, with the rapid growth of blogging and podcasting that has taken place over the past few years, has Habermas’ ideal version of the public sphere already been reached?

Well almost. I would argue that weblogging has played a more vital role in this process than podcasting. Although both relatively new forms of media bypass the boundaries posited by mainstream journalism, podcasts (with exception to those made by ordinary members of the public), generally serve only as a new hub for files that may have already been broadcast (such as those that appear on radio) to be downloaded at a more convenient time and place. Blogging is a much more interactive process, whereby members of the public can create posts and others can comment and give feedback, potentially forming a discussion.

Unlike the bourgeois public sphere of the past, the new realm offered by the internet has allowed the coming together of all people; regardless of demographics, giving those who weren’t already included in mainstream media a voice that could be heard by others.

Weblogging and podcasting are open to all members of the public. Easy to use software programs such as this one that I have chosen to use in creating this blog have allowed anybody to post their ideas on the web with relative ease. Yet there have been some suggestions that these technologies are not as freely available to everybody as is often perceived.

In Andrew O’Baoill’s article, he asserts that the problem with weblogging technology is that despite being open to everyone, it is usually only used by those who are younger, wealthier and more educated. He does however assert that public computer sites provide an exception, with the existence of weblogs created by the homeless as evidence of this.

Yet as time progresses this younger generation will become the older generation and those that follow will not have the problem of not knowing how to use computers as they will have grown up with them. So it will be then; and only then that Habermas’ ideal of the public sphere will be fully reached.

I am by no means implying that everyone’s opinion will be viewed on a global scale, it is obvious that the prominent will always receive more attention. Blogging and podcasting technology have merely created a space for personal ideas and opinions to be expressed and responded to, regardless of whether or not we know who has published the material. Habermas’ ideal model of the public sphere still needs some work, but given time, it will become inevitable.

Articles relating to this topic:

Jurgen Habermas (in Wikipedia)

Habermas' public sphere (in Wikipedia)

Poor, Nathaniel. Mechanisms of an online public sphere: The website Slashdot. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. University of Michigan: Department of Communication Studies. 2005.

Gurak, Laura, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratcliff, and Jessica Reyman. eds. 2004. Into the blogosphere: rhetoric, community, and the culture of weblogs.

Baoill, Andrew O. 2004. Weblogs and the public sphere. Into the blogosphere: rhetoric, community, and the culture of weblogs.

Lampa, Graham. 2004. Imagining the blogosphere: an introduction to the imagined community of instant publishing. Into the blogosphere: rhetoric, community, and the culture of weblogs.

Raynes-Goldie, Kate. 2004. Pulling sense out of today's informational chaos: LiveJournal as a site of knowledge creation and sharing. First Monday. 9, no. 12.

Crofts, Sheri, John Dilley, Mark Fox, Andrew Retsema, and Bob Williams. 2005. Podcasting: a new technology in search of viable business models. First Monday. 10, no. 9.

The female self on the web

Although males have always outnumbered females in terms of their presence on their internet, the girls seem to be slowly catching up. However, the 'self' that is so often demonstrated by these females is rarely an equivalent of the true physical self. This can be seen predominantly through analysing personal home pages and the use of online chat forums.

In the real world, we are all limited to one true self. No matter how hard we sometimes try to hide this through creating different personas (eg. when we are work we are likely to act differently to when we are socialising with friends), the person we really are will almost always shine through (or at least glimpses of it).

Often, the photograph women choose to use on their personal home pages are glamour snaps or sexualised images, those that make them feel better about themselves. The major problem this causes is that it leaves these women open to judgement on the way they look rather than being judged on the quality of the website. Is this just another representation of reality?

The heated, sexually explicit discussions that females sometimes find themselves taking part in on the internet are unlikely to ever happen in a real life situation. Most women tend to separate their sexual identity from their personal identity when using the internet medium.

In Mary Kibby's article 'Babes on the web. Sex, identity and the home page' she uses 'Dragon Lady' to exemplify this suggestion. This account talks of a woman who spoke to a male on an internet chat forum. Over time, Dragon Lady began to express many desires and thoughts that would have never been said in a face-to-face discussion. When she was asked for a photo of herself she sent one of her tattoo, rather than expressing her true identity by showing her face. This clearly demonstrates that she was reluctant to mix what Kibby calls her 'hotchat persona' with her real persona; something reflected throughout the realm of the internet.

Articles relating to this topic:

Kibby, Marj (1997) 'Babes on the web. Sex, identity and the home page'. Media International Australia, (84), pp. 39-46.

Renov, Michael (1999, August) The end of autobiography or new beginnings?, or everything you never knew you would know about someone you will probably never meet, Unpublished paper presented at Visible Evidence VII, Los Angeles.

Stern, Susannah R (1999) 'Adolescent girls' expression on web home pages: spirited, sombre and self-conscious sites'. Convergence: the journal of research into new media technologies, 5 (4): 22-41

Post modernist approach to the self

Although there have been many arguments regarding our sense of self- from nature to nurture, biological to social; post-modernism argues that there is no innate self, rather the self is a constantly changing and fluid model. Therefore the self can be refered to as an ongoing project or development. Each person is responsible for themselves and therefore they are able to determine their own future.

It is through society and the way we are brought up that allows us to become the unique, individual people we are. Our experiences teach us right from wrong and help us to develop a distinct personality. If a person had for example, grown up in very different surroundings or experienced something very traumatic, then this may have had a major impact on their ideas of identity and perhaps change their concept of the 'self'. Furthermore, two people who have had a very similar upbringing (eg. siblings) or endured similar experiences may possess similar traits.

Articles relating to this topic:

McCall, Robert B. Nature-Nurture and the two realms of development: A proposed integration with respect to mental development. Child Development. (March 1981) 52:1, pp. 1-12.

The role of the memory

Last week I spoke about identity in terms of the internet, today however I would like to speak about identity in terms of the self. This concept of the self has often been broken down into three separate segments. The material self can be said to be one's own body, family and possessions; the social self relates to the views others hold of the individual; and the spiritual self refers to the individual's emotions and desires.

A child learns that it has a body self through understanding that their own body is one of a larger set of human bodies. The role of the mirror is often linked to this notion of understanding one's own self. It is through this that one can begin to realise that they are a different entity to anybody else.

Within this blog, I would like to pay particular attention to the role of the memory. When you think back to your earliest memories, they are usually visual memories that can be remembered only as fragments which we may try and put into some kind of logical order. It is also common for these memories to be in relation to colours. More often that not, they will be memories of fun, pain or embarrassment and will usually be in relation to another person.

When I think back to when I was a young child, all of these ideas seem to fit. Some of my earliest memories go back to when I was three years old. I remember fragments of the day I was a flower girl at a family friend's wedding. I remember watching the bride getting ready, following my mum outside in her red dress, seeing my aunty sitting at a table at the reception with her blue bridesmaid's dress that had a big blue bow on the back and playing with the streamers that had been wrapped around the bride and groom.

These are all I remember from that day, everything that occurred in between these events I will only know through looking at photos, videos or hearing first person accounts from people that were present on the day. Additionally, these secondary sources can certify that any or all these events actually took place. Although I believe that I do remember these events, it is hard to know for certain if this is really the case or if I am simply remembering what I have seen in photos or videos.

Articles relating to this topic:

Patricia J. Bauer, Leif Stennes, Jennifer C. Haight. Representation of the inner self in autobiography: Women's and men's use of internal states language in personal narratives. Taylor and Francis Group. (2003) 11:1. University of Minesota: USA. pp: 27-42.

Epstein, Seymour. The Self Concept Revisited: or a theory of a theory. American Psychologist. (1973) 28. University of Massachusetts. pp: 404-414.

Identity and the web

In a realm where a person's true identity can never be known for certain, it is hard to know who we can trust when we use the internet. The cyber world is perhaps the only place where complete anonymity can be maintained, because in this world there are no boundaries.

Unlike in the real world, you can not see the people you communicate with on the internet or hear their voices. There are no fingerprints or DNA in this world, and no way of knowing one's location or where they are really from. The internet has made it easier to create a persona than ever before, thus allowing for a distinct differentiation between human identity and cyber identity.

Although the internet is here to be embraced, users must be skeptical of what they choose to believe and learn to differentiate between fact or fiction.

Articles relating to this topic:

Nichols, Bill (1996). The work of culture in the age of cybernetic systems. In T. Druckery (ed.) Electronic culture: technology and visual representation. New York: Aperture, pp. 121-144.

Ulrich, Beck (1992). Risk society: towards a new modernity. London: Sage Publications.