‘In recent years it has become commonplace to discuss the Internet as a community – as a virtual place where people meet, chat, conduct business and develop a sense of togetherness.’(Trend, 2001). Almost every person you talk to has a different view of role of the internet and the web in our lives. This is shown in the two readings ‘The emerging online life of a digital native’ by Marc Prensky (2004) and ‘A new world’ by Weinberger (2002). Although, these two views are truthful descriptions of the web, they have slight differences in how positive they believe the uptake of the Web in house holds is. Both are positive views on the web entering our daily lives, although as Weinberger (2002) shows a wary view of the internet saying ‘A new world is opening up, a world that we create as we explore it. Some are inventing it, some are abusing it, and every person browsing and posting is setting bytes in flight that shape this new world.’ Don Tapscott (1998, p.8) has a more positive outlook regarding this, ‘Time on the Net is not passive time, it’s active time. It’s reading time. It’s investigation time. It’s skills development and problem-solving time. It’s time analyzing, evaluating. It’s composing your thoughts time. It’s writing time.’ This argument has some truths for helping the development of our children but it is also truthful for adults. It allows us to keep thinking outside of our squares. If you have a job like landscaping for example, you will have little to do with the computer on a daily basis, however, looking for information about plants or legislation in certain areas on the net is keeping your thought processes active. Just like if it was a child researching a school assignment.
There are many ways to be involved with the net, from email and chat rooms to blogging and creating your own homepage. People also search for products to buy and sell as well as finding information from how to write an essay to finding information to settle a bar quiz disagreement. The web is used by most people in the developed world and many in developing countries. But for different reasons people used the web in different ways. In this essay I have outlined some of the basic uses for the internet that I or my friends use in daily life. These include email, chat rooms, blogging, peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing, as well as buying and selling.
‘Students are not just using technology differently today, but are approaching their life and their daily activities differently because of the technology,’ Prensky (2004). I believe this is not just students but adults as well. Nearly every person I know has an email account but it goes further than that, adults who have moved countries and are keeping in contact with relatives via email, instant messaging as well as through ‘social networking’ sites like facebook or through Web blogs. ‘The technology of the age both expands the variety of human relationships and modifies the form of the older ones. When relationships move from the face-to-face to the electronic mode, they are often altered. Relationshsips that were confined to specific situations like offices or living rooms have become “unglued.” They are no longer geographically confined but can take place anywhere.’ (Ermann et al. 1998, p. 140). Email makes it so easy to keep in touch with people all over the world, a thing that use to be so hard to do, due to cost and time restrictions, I personally find it so much easier with friends living and working all over the world. Prensky (2004) calls email an ‘asynchronous’ form of communication. This is because only one of the communicating parties has to be present, the writer can write the email and send it in their own time and the reader can open it, read it and reply to it in their own time. Of there is another form of communication that Prensky defines which is ‘Synchronous’ this is communication in real time, i.e. the phone is a form of this communication. More and more people are turning to instant messaging on the web, as it is usually cheaper than a long distance phone call. It allows people to write short sentences and send and receive them instantly. So you can in fact have a conversation while on the net. You can even team this with a webcams and you can see each other while you are chatting. It gives you the feeling you are next too each other in stead of far apart. “Whist most people use this technology to keep in touch many young people to use it instead of the talking on the phone, from the privacy of prying parental ears.’ (Prensky, 2004).
Blogs are becoming more common practice with young people and adults alike choosing to add a journal of their lives or interests to the web. Instead of keeping a journal private, you can now create a blog and upload stories, photos and videos, for all to see. This idea of showcasing artwork, music and thoughts is not only for the general public, but for professors and news writers as well. Many of these professional people publish regular blogs which are regularly read by many. Blogs are particularly useful for people that study the Web, as things move so quickly rather than waiting to have their papers published when they will most probably be out of date, they post parts of their work on the blog as to platform the work that they are doing and find other people with the same view. ‘Discussions concerning the results of studies suggesting that people adopt new technology to facilitate and maintain relationships are often framed in a positive light. However, problems may surface from the practice of essentially broadcasting content that has been traditionally defined as personal or private, analogous to content found in a personal diary.’ (Stefanone et al. 2007). Although, at the same time you can create a whole life on your blog and it doesn’t even have to be the real you, Robbins (2000), states that ‘The new technology promises to deliver its user form the constraints and defeats of physical reality and the physical body.’ Starting with a screen name you can create avatar and write your blog around the screen profile. Weinberger (2002) states that ‘it is not unusual on the Web for someone to “try on” a personality and to switch personalities from chat room to chat room; behaviour that would cause your family to plot an intervention off the Web is the norm on the Web.’ I have never encountered this as I don’t often use chat rooms and the only blogs I read belong to my friends. But I can see how easy this is to do, if you never meet the person at the other end of the blog or chat then who’s to say they are who they say they are.
‘YouTube has become a popular form of social networking.’ (Lange 2007).People are not only uploading snippets from their favourite songs or TV shows, but also videos of themselves living life, everything from somebody’s wedding dance to clips from road trips. ‘YouTube participants can broaden or limit physical access to their videos and thus create larger or smaller media circuits by using technical features such as limited "friends-only" viewing or strategic tagging. Viewers may locate videos using keywords or "tags" that video makers designate for their videos or write into the video's title or description.’ (Lange, 2007). This allows uploaders to keep their videos private for friends and family or open for all YouTube visitors to see. This idea of exchanging data is quite strong on the Web, ‘young people increasingly see things available to them online as “free” of ownership and cost. Although legislation and some widely publicised prosecutions have slowed this sharing down some what in the United, I predict this is just temporary,’ Prensky (2004). Most data shows a continual increase of P2P activity. P2P applications are still the most downloaded on the Internet. ‘Young people exchange music and other data as an expression of who they are’ Prensky (2004). Because regular copyright does not allow the download and the use of material, the creative commons was introduced. ‘If a person chooses to license their work under a CC attribution license, for example, they retain there copyright but allows others to use there work without permission and without payment, as long as they credit them for the original creation.’ (Kim, 2007). According to Kim (2007), the use of creative commons is growing in popularity, because as they observed that contemporary copyright law has become so restrictive that it risks impeding future innovation and creativity. Although I had never uploaded anything to YouTube or needed to use creative commons, I think these are a great way to support the creative commons.
‘Search is now the second the biggest use of the Internet, after email’ (Prensky, 2004). Many people use the internet to search for holidays, addresses, phone numbers, or just information for a subject they are interested in. People that use the net frequently will use many different search engines and be looking for more in depth information. However, those that are tentative about what they are searching for will tend to use Google, Msn search or yahoo the most famous and user friendly search engines. This is due to the Information processing and decision theory that Wirth (2007) suggests that, ‘in complex decision situations such as information retrieval on the Web, people tend to favor simplified decision strategies.’ Any search engine can be pulling together a listings page for me based on my interest in e.g. “a cruise holiday,” while at the same time building pages for thousands of others who have other, unpredictable interests, this is because as Weinberger (2002) states the geography of the web is as transient as human interest.
People are also buying and selling products on the web. Sites like amazon.com and eBay are making it easier to easier to find certain products you are looking for. “Real-world time is a series of ticks to which schedules are tied. My time with eBay was different auctions, placed a bid, and checked back every few hours to see if I had been out bid, I felt as if I was returning to a story that was in progress, waiting for me whenever I wanted” (Weinberger, 2002). Amazon and eBay work with the same concept as a search engine, except they only search for information of things for sale on their site rather than the entire Web, but searching for the items you wish to purchase is just as easy as searching for anything else on the net.
‘The Web is woven of hundreds of millions of threads. And, in every case, we get to determine when and how long we will participate, based solely on what suits us. Time like that can spoil you in the real world’ (Weinberger, 2002). Email has become a major part of peoples lives allowing them to keep in contact with people all over the world with relative ease. Many people are also taking up social networking as well as creating web blogs, in order to inform others of their ideas and interests. Blogs are also a great way for scholars to upload abstracts of their papers and study concepts, so they can get feed back and added information from other academics researching the same topics, as well as encouraging people to be creative and innovative. Searching for information and buying and selling items has allowed people to conduct business and shop with added ease, allowing you to get things done quickly so you have more time to spend with friends and family. All of these factors show that the Web is becoming a large part of our lives in a positive way.
Bibliography
- Ermann, M.D., Williams, M.B., Shauf, M.S. (1997). Computers, Ethics and Society, 3rd Edn, Oxford University Press, New York.
- Kim, M. (2007). The Creative Commons and Copyright Protection in the Digital era: Use of Creative Commons licenses. [Downloaded from Journal of Computer-Mediated communication, 13(1), article 10. http://jcmj.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/kin.html - Last Accessed: 06/12/2007]
- Lange, P.G. (2007). Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube. [Downloaded from Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 18. http://jcmc.indiana.edu./vol13/issue1/lange.html - Last Accessed: 06/12/2007]
- Prensky, M. (2004). The Emerging Online Life of the Digital Native. [Downloaded from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/ - Last Accessed: 30/11/2007]
- Robbins, K. (2000). Cyberspace and the world We Live In. Bell, David & Kennedy, Barbara M (ed.). The Cybercultures Reader (pp. 77-96), Routledge, London.
- Stefanone, M.A, & Jang, C.Y. (2007). Writing for friends and family: The Interpersonal Nature of Blogs. [Downloaded from Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 7. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/stefanone.html - Last Accessed: 06/12/2007]
- Tapscott, D. (1998). Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation, McGraw-Hill, New York.
- Trend, D. (2001). Welcome to CyberSchool: Education at the Crossroads in the Information Age, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc, Maryland.
- Weinberger, D. (2002). ‘A New World’ IN Small Pieces Loosely Joined: a Unified Theory of the Web. [Downloaded from: http://www.smallpieces.com/content/chapter1.html - Last accessed: 30/11/2007]
- Wirth, W., Böcking, T., Karnowski, V., and Von Pape, T., (2007). Heuristic and Systematic use of Search Engines. [Downloaded from Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 2. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue3/wirth/html - Last Accessed: 06/12/2007]
Friday, December 7, 2007
Friday, November 30, 2007
Course Evaluation
Well as its the last day of the course, our blog task is simple to evaluate the course.
To be honest I found the course really interesting, as I thought it would be that's why I took this course. I learned about things like Photoshop that I find interesting and other creative mediums. All in all I thought the course was really informative and allowed for class interaction in lectures which is good when you are trying to understand topics and it makes it easier if you can ask questions and hear other peoples views on topics.
I think the way that the lectures where structured where good as well, focusing on certain areas every day and sub topics within that area. And also watching videos and things during the lecture about what we were talking about also gave another view point so it was really good. I found it very easy to learn because the topic was just so interesting.
Well that's it, I know its not much but the course was really good and made me think about things like creative commons and free software and I will definitely think about these things in the future when dealing with the internet.
Thanks Adam.....
To be honest I found the course really interesting, as I thought it would be that's why I took this course. I learned about things like Photoshop that I find interesting and other creative mediums. All in all I thought the course was really informative and allowed for class interaction in lectures which is good when you are trying to understand topics and it makes it easier if you can ask questions and hear other peoples views on topics.
I think the way that the lectures where structured where good as well, focusing on certain areas every day and sub topics within that area. And also watching videos and things during the lecture about what we were talking about also gave another view point so it was really good. I found it very easy to learn because the topic was just so interesting.
Well that's it, I know its not much but the course was really good and made me think about things like creative commons and free software and I will definitely think about these things in the future when dealing with the internet.
Thanks Adam.....
Day 10
Well Today was the last day of our little summer course. If this was in a regular semester we would have had an overview of the course, however since the course is only going for 2 weeks we just chatted about the essay and sources of references.
Usually in a proper semester there would be an end of semester exam, however our lecturer thought that it would be a bit intense for a 2 week course. So we just had a quick look at a few of the questions that would've been asked. We had a look at some of the questions and talked about the answers. I think we all did pretty well.
So today was a pretty chilled atmosphere and a good round up of the course and a time to ask questions about anything in the course we would like to know more about.
So that was the last day of the course. Now I just have an essay to write, Its been 2 years and the last essay I wrote was a scientific report so hope it goes well. :/
Usually in a proper semester there would be an end of semester exam, however our lecturer thought that it would be a bit intense for a 2 week course. So we just had a quick look at a few of the questions that would've been asked. We had a look at some of the questions and talked about the answers. I think we all did pretty well.
So today was a pretty chilled atmosphere and a good round up of the course and a time to ask questions about anything in the course we would like to know more about.
So that was the last day of the course. Now I just have an essay to write, Its been 2 years and the last essay I wrote was a scientific report so hope it goes well. :/
Thursday, November 29, 2007
The Future of the Internet community...
Todays task is to contemplate what a realistic future on the culture of the internet over the next 10 years would be....
I don't think much will change in the next 10 years. Although censorship will try to get stronger and laws will eventually be made when the government get up to date. I think there are always going to be people doing things on the net they shouldn't be doing. I think in the future there will be more sights like You Tube, where people can add there own content to the web will be available. I also believe in the future more people will be involved in actions like the EFF, creative commons, and free software, but of course this will all come down to education on these sources.
I hope that these laws do not become too totalitarian, I do believe we need laws to make sure that people accessing certain sights can be legally prosecuted for it. But at the same time it shouldn't hinder people that are on the net in accordance with the law shouldn't be hindered in what they can do on the net. People should be free to add content to the web as long as it is not interfering with anyone else's freedom.
Education is an important issue for the future, there are a lot of developing nations that will have more and more ability to become on line free software will aid this with cheaper computers. Hopefully this will help with all levels of education in these countries and the people of these countries the ability to interact with the rest of us. Although at the same time, the younger generations are losing their ability to read and write properly, they use computers so often that when they write they do not write words correctly and use the correct grammar. In the future I am hoping that schools also focus on reading and writing skills as much as computer skills.
In the next ten years you can only imagine what developments will be made in the forms of mobile devices, I mean how far have they come in the previous 10 years. I can not think of what would happen in the world of social forums, I cannot see sites like second life becoming a major source for social forums, I think people want to see what their friends are up too and see photos of holidays and things like that, they don't want their friends to create an avatar that is nothing like them.
The next ten years is pretty hard to think about, when I think about the developments in systems that have happened in the last 5 years. I can only hope the internet is still a place of democracy where people can upload and download content without being handed fines every time they log in. I also hope there are more sites for people to create their own content . I also hope more people embrace the creative commons, in order to encourage creativity of the future users of the net.
I don't think much will change in the next 10 years. Although censorship will try to get stronger and laws will eventually be made when the government get up to date. I think there are always going to be people doing things on the net they shouldn't be doing. I think in the future there will be more sights like You Tube, where people can add there own content to the web will be available. I also believe in the future more people will be involved in actions like the EFF, creative commons, and free software, but of course this will all come down to education on these sources.
I hope that these laws do not become too totalitarian, I do believe we need laws to make sure that people accessing certain sights can be legally prosecuted for it. But at the same time it shouldn't hinder people that are on the net in accordance with the law shouldn't be hindered in what they can do on the net. People should be free to add content to the web as long as it is not interfering with anyone else's freedom.
Education is an important issue for the future, there are a lot of developing nations that will have more and more ability to become on line free software will aid this with cheaper computers. Hopefully this will help with all levels of education in these countries and the people of these countries the ability to interact with the rest of us. Although at the same time, the younger generations are losing their ability to read and write properly, they use computers so often that when they write they do not write words correctly and use the correct grammar. In the future I am hoping that schools also focus on reading and writing skills as much as computer skills.
In the next ten years you can only imagine what developments will be made in the forms of mobile devices, I mean how far have they come in the previous 10 years. I can not think of what would happen in the world of social forums, I cannot see sites like second life becoming a major source for social forums, I think people want to see what their friends are up too and see photos of holidays and things like that, they don't want their friends to create an avatar that is nothing like them.
The next ten years is pretty hard to think about, when I think about the developments in systems that have happened in the last 5 years. I can only hope the internet is still a place of democracy where people can upload and download content without being handed fines every time they log in. I also hope there are more sites for people to create their own content . I also hope more people embrace the creative commons, in order to encourage creativity of the future users of the net.
Day 9
Todays Lecture was about the idea of Cyber Utopia and Dystopia. Is the internet going to be this amazing, perfect place where people and technology are in harmony. Or is it going to fall to a kind of anarchic, place of disorder and fallen dreams.
There is a quote by Heim that says: " When we speak of a global village, we should keep in mind that every village makes villains, and when civilisation reaches a certain degree of density, the barbaric tribes return, from within. tribes shun their independent thinkers and punish individuality. A global international village, fed by accelerated competition and driven by information, may be lost to an unprecedented barbarism."
This idea that that the hazards of the life will be screened out of the internet. Can technology and the internet provide us with something that is happier and nicer than the real world. Some call it a "disneyised" approach to the internet. But as was mentioned about in the first movie The Matrix, the first matrix that the machines created was too perfect and the humans couldn't react to it. This is truly the case, humans need a sense of chaos and that is why there will never be a Uptopia of the internet. In Utopian societies the peace is disrupted by people who seek to exercise to their own free will.
But when someone acting on their free will encroaches on someone else's ability to act in their free will this will no longer be a Utopia. People will always try and go against the grain. Not to the degree that every law must be broken and no one will be safe, it'll never be a Dystopia. It will sit someone in between these two extremes.
There is a quote by Heim that says: " When we speak of a global village, we should keep in mind that every village makes villains, and when civilisation reaches a certain degree of density, the barbaric tribes return, from within. tribes shun their independent thinkers and punish individuality. A global international village, fed by accelerated competition and driven by information, may be lost to an unprecedented barbarism."
This idea that that the hazards of the life will be screened out of the internet. Can technology and the internet provide us with something that is happier and nicer than the real world. Some call it a "disneyised" approach to the internet. But as was mentioned about in the first movie The Matrix, the first matrix that the machines created was too perfect and the humans couldn't react to it. This is truly the case, humans need a sense of chaos and that is why there will never be a Uptopia of the internet. In Utopian societies the peace is disrupted by people who seek to exercise to their own free will.
But when someone acting on their free will encroaches on someone else's ability to act in their free will this will no longer be a Utopia. People will always try and go against the grain. Not to the degree that every law must be broken and no one will be safe, it'll never be a Dystopia. It will sit someone in between these two extremes.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Getting the News to the world
Todays tutorial task is to consider the following questions:
Given the conventional wisdom that traditional media are still the dominant form for getting "news" out to the world, do you think the internet will effect the audience for those old media?Check out the local IndyMedia website. What kind of news is there, and do you think a website like that has a place in your life?Do you think the internet is (was?) an effective tool for politicians to reach out to their intended audience?What do you think about blogs as a way for people to get information out? What about their role as political commentary?
In regards to New media and Old media, I don't think these two forms of news formats really make a difference to how people will source the news. For those people who don't readily have access to the net, papers and television are easier for them to get the news. It all comes back to access those people that can log onto the net with great ease will probably go to look at news on the web. There is also the fact that many people can't read long stories straight off the web, so it is easier for them to get a paper and look to the internet for more information on a topic they are interested in.
On the Sydney IndyMedia website: http://www.sydney.indymedia.org.au/, I found it be a lot of alternate news articles that maybe mainstream news would devote less time too. The sense of being able to write your own articles and comment freely on them, is something you can not do with the mainstream. This is concept is good for those who want to be involved in local projects and have an opportunity to do this. This probably has no place for me, as I like to just get a small amount of news then go out and look up any news articles I would like to learn about.
As for the politicians, it comes down to whether or not people want to know more about what the politicians are up to. During the campaign for the election, I mainly got my information about what the political parties were up too from the news and the papers. But if there was a certain topic I wanted to know about I then went onto the net and looked it up like a parties policy on health for instance. A lot of my friends did the same thing. As we don't really have time to sit there looking on the net for hours cross checking each political argument. Although I can see why using Facebook and YouTube would be a good way to try and reach out to the younger generation, rather than ready the information you can just watch what each spokesman had to say.
I think blogs are a good way for people to talk about their views. Its a way in which you can talk about whatever you want (to a degree of what is socially excepted content) and you have show your interests and your views. It is a good form of political commentary in the way that you can see each persons views and read people comments, it can be used like in a debate format. Although, it can be used in the wrong context and that is always something that has to be acknowledged when reading peoples blogs.
Given the conventional wisdom that traditional media are still the dominant form for getting "news" out to the world, do you think the internet will effect the audience for those old media?Check out the local IndyMedia website. What kind of news is there, and do you think a website like that has a place in your life?Do you think the internet is (was?) an effective tool for politicians to reach out to their intended audience?What do you think about blogs as a way for people to get information out? What about their role as political commentary?
In regards to New media and Old media, I don't think these two forms of news formats really make a difference to how people will source the news. For those people who don't readily have access to the net, papers and television are easier for them to get the news. It all comes back to access those people that can log onto the net with great ease will probably go to look at news on the web. There is also the fact that many people can't read long stories straight off the web, so it is easier for them to get a paper and look to the internet for more information on a topic they are interested in.
On the Sydney IndyMedia website: http://www.sydney.indymedia.org.au/, I found it be a lot of alternate news articles that maybe mainstream news would devote less time too. The sense of being able to write your own articles and comment freely on them, is something you can not do with the mainstream. This is concept is good for those who want to be involved in local projects and have an opportunity to do this. This probably has no place for me, as I like to just get a small amount of news then go out and look up any news articles I would like to learn about.
As for the politicians, it comes down to whether or not people want to know more about what the politicians are up to. During the campaign for the election, I mainly got my information about what the political parties were up too from the news and the papers. But if there was a certain topic I wanted to know about I then went onto the net and looked it up like a parties policy on health for instance. A lot of my friends did the same thing. As we don't really have time to sit there looking on the net for hours cross checking each political argument. Although I can see why using Facebook and YouTube would be a good way to try and reach out to the younger generation, rather than ready the information you can just watch what each spokesman had to say.
I think blogs are a good way for people to talk about their views. Its a way in which you can talk about whatever you want (to a degree of what is socially excepted content) and you have show your interests and your views. It is a good form of political commentary in the way that you can see each persons views and read people comments, it can be used like in a debate format. Although, it can be used in the wrong context and that is always something that has to be acknowledged when reading peoples blogs.
Day 8
Todays lecture again got a little bit side tracked and a bit intense with the thought of democracy of the internet.
The thought of democracy in a democratic country is something that will always get people talking, because at the end of the day that's what democracy is. Its freedom of speech and the ability to be able to vote for who your leaders are and more importantly not to vote for anyone that is going to take away your liberty. But what if this democracy is taken away? What if the internet becomes governed and you are suddenly told what you can and cannot look at and research on the net.
At the beginning of the lecture notes there were some simple words to think about in regards to the internet and democracy, I thought this may help summarize our lecture.
Access, when it comes to information who has access to it, and at the end of the day this is a matter of education. Many people can simply not afford a computer and the internet, so these people have to rely on books, newspapers and television. So are they not getting the same information as the rest of us. I hope they are and just because the internet seems an easier way of finding the information, I hope that doesn't mean there's a difference in the relativity of the news.
Encryption, do we have the power to encrypt the information we are sending and receiving on the web, are we sending any information that needs to be encrypted. Most of the traffic on the web is not encrypted so it is easy for encrypted things to stand out and be checked, and this is a good thing if the encrypted information has something to do with terrorism, or child pornography. This stuff should be found deleted and the people involved should be looked up. So if everyone is encrypting everything they send it would make it harder for these criminals to be found and caught.
Commodification, is information a commodity more than just a service. This idea that information can be bought and sold, more importantly can information on the internet be bought and sold. Will we one day have to pay for everything we download by the page.
Intellectual property, is the legal rights of the people that create content. It covers copyright, patent, trademark, industrial design right and trade secret. On the internet this can be difficult to police. However, as we have seen on many occasions the music industry 'not liking' people downloading music. This is why we have spoken so much in the course about Creative Commons, this idea you can add content to the net, and people can add to it and make changes yet still giving you the credit for the original process. Is intellectual property still relevant when it comes to the internet.
The public sphere, is in the old sense when you had the right and ability to group together in public and talk about issues relevant to the time, i.e, sitting in a coffee shop chatting about the upcoming election. In the modern sense this is the ability to still talk about it in public but also take that public forum to the web, you can go to forum chat rooms and right up your beliefs on a web blog and have other people read it and make comment on it.
Decentralisation, is taking the source of information away from one major source and making global, there is no one source of the internet there are millions of different networks and if your shut down one network the whole system will not collapse. This sense of it truly being global in the sense that there are no boarder boundaries for the web a person in Australia can quite easily exchange information with someone in Iceland at the click of a button. You can quite easily get news from any source around the world and not rely on what your news provider wishes to tell you what happened, you can take it onto yourself to go out and find news yourself.
Anarchy, in its form that there is no one governing body of the internet. It is a complete opposite of democracy as is it not governed. This idea of no governance, no rules, no laws. It obviously doesn't exist we can see that in copyright laws being exercised on the web. there is a sense of anarchy with people tyring to stand up to the 'man' so to speak with using the ideas of the eff, creative commons, and open source software. ........
So talking about all these things, we contemplated the idea that the internet was the equalising agent and boarders are non existent. If that is true then the internet is anarchy, and is open to the down falls of anarchy. The idea of uncontrollable data though is quite scary, I don't like the idea of terrorists having open range to material that is a danger to society, as much as I don't like anything that happens on the net that will inhibit my life in the real world.
At the end of the lecture we watched a video of Cory Doctorow, speaking at the authors@google convention. Although he is an ex employee of EFF, and was talking about topics that the EFF are. The idea that we should not be told what we are allowed to do with the software we have on our computers, and also what we can do with the cd's and dvd's we have purchased. We should be allowed to be as creative with it as we like. You can check it out at:
The thought of democracy in a democratic country is something that will always get people talking, because at the end of the day that's what democracy is. Its freedom of speech and the ability to be able to vote for who your leaders are and more importantly not to vote for anyone that is going to take away your liberty. But what if this democracy is taken away? What if the internet becomes governed and you are suddenly told what you can and cannot look at and research on the net.
At the beginning of the lecture notes there were some simple words to think about in regards to the internet and democracy, I thought this may help summarize our lecture.
Access, when it comes to information who has access to it, and at the end of the day this is a matter of education. Many people can simply not afford a computer and the internet, so these people have to rely on books, newspapers and television. So are they not getting the same information as the rest of us. I hope they are and just because the internet seems an easier way of finding the information, I hope that doesn't mean there's a difference in the relativity of the news.
Encryption, do we have the power to encrypt the information we are sending and receiving on the web, are we sending any information that needs to be encrypted. Most of the traffic on the web is not encrypted so it is easy for encrypted things to stand out and be checked, and this is a good thing if the encrypted information has something to do with terrorism, or child pornography. This stuff should be found deleted and the people involved should be looked up. So if everyone is encrypting everything they send it would make it harder for these criminals to be found and caught.
Commodification, is information a commodity more than just a service. This idea that information can be bought and sold, more importantly can information on the internet be bought and sold. Will we one day have to pay for everything we download by the page.
Intellectual property, is the legal rights of the people that create content. It covers copyright, patent, trademark, industrial design right and trade secret. On the internet this can be difficult to police. However, as we have seen on many occasions the music industry 'not liking' people downloading music. This is why we have spoken so much in the course about Creative Commons, this idea you can add content to the net, and people can add to it and make changes yet still giving you the credit for the original process. Is intellectual property still relevant when it comes to the internet.
The public sphere, is in the old sense when you had the right and ability to group together in public and talk about issues relevant to the time, i.e, sitting in a coffee shop chatting about the upcoming election. In the modern sense this is the ability to still talk about it in public but also take that public forum to the web, you can go to forum chat rooms and right up your beliefs on a web blog and have other people read it and make comment on it.
Decentralisation, is taking the source of information away from one major source and making global, there is no one source of the internet there are millions of different networks and if your shut down one network the whole system will not collapse. This sense of it truly being global in the sense that there are no boarder boundaries for the web a person in Australia can quite easily exchange information with someone in Iceland at the click of a button. You can quite easily get news from any source around the world and not rely on what your news provider wishes to tell you what happened, you can take it onto yourself to go out and find news yourself.
Anarchy, in its form that there is no one governing body of the internet. It is a complete opposite of democracy as is it not governed. This idea of no governance, no rules, no laws. It obviously doesn't exist we can see that in copyright laws being exercised on the web. there is a sense of anarchy with people tyring to stand up to the 'man' so to speak with using the ideas of the eff, creative commons, and open source software. ........
So talking about all these things, we contemplated the idea that the internet was the equalising agent and boarders are non existent. If that is true then the internet is anarchy, and is open to the down falls of anarchy. The idea of uncontrollable data though is quite scary, I don't like the idea of terrorists having open range to material that is a danger to society, as much as I don't like anything that happens on the net that will inhibit my life in the real world.
At the end of the lecture we watched a video of Cory Doctorow, speaking at the authors@google convention. Although he is an ex employee of EFF, and was talking about topics that the EFF are. The idea that we should not be told what we are allowed to do with the software we have on our computers, and also what we can do with the cd's and dvd's we have purchased. We should be allowed to be as creative with it as we like. You can check it out at:
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