Module 3 summary
In this module, we have discussed about considered the deliberate construction of identity online via blogs, forum post, SNS and emails. Also the digital shadow, the trails of personal data created by the online presences that are less intentional. Photograph of me uploaded by someone else, a mention of your name on a blog or forum, a document about myself that have been published online, these all contribute to my online ‘reputations’.
The online presences is hard to avoided these days, as in some way if you are have access to the Internet, and the WWW you ended up creating your profile to get access to most of the sites. The netiquette and profile that I have online has became quite important because, the Internet has became one of the tools that we use to communicate.
One of the question we have been asked on out discussion board was ‘Do you agree that social media is a fundamental shift in how we communicate?’. I don’t think the social media have fundamentally shifted how we communicate, for me it has given us another tool to communicate. We still need audience (listeners) and medium that pass the information to them. The social media have changed how people convey themselves to mass audiences, and to be linked with them.
After reading ’personal home page’ (Döring), I have felt the technologies have changed and some argument were not apply any more. The SNS sties have changed the Internet users to create the webpage which have replaced purpose of the personal homepages.
But in Döring’s argument “No other medium seems more exactly suited than the personal home page to fulfilling the present-day demands of identity work on the charged field of differentiation on the one hand and construction of coherence and meaning on the other [...] Personal home page construction promotes the systematic answering of the identity-critical “Who am I?” question and supports the internalization of the individual answers.”, in my opinion, this argument has helped to create the Web 2.0 SNS sites that it made it so easy for everyone to create the webpage. Also these new Web 2.0 sits gave users the options to personalize the many display features, that making people to be expressive and creative - making the site more personal and to be able to represent who there are.
The Web 2.0 SNS have made many users to setup their webpage so easy, the popularity have grew over the years now it is hard to avoid to be part of. Reading on chapter two of the ‘Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet by Daniel Solove, he addressed that the importance of reputation in our social world. Now days, directly or indirectly, it is hard not to participate on the SNS, as we of us use the sites as to communicate with friends (Face book or MySpace), to obtain and update information (Wikipedia) or to express themselves on the subject matters (Bloggers or Word press) or to share the photos or other medias (YouTube or Flicker).
As Boyd mentioned ‘Face book gives the ‘gift’ of infinite social information, but this can feel too much like the One Ring – precious upfront, but destructive long-term.’(Boyd, 2008). Like everything in this world if you use it as right tool and with right control, it is a ‘gift’. The SNS is a wonderful tool for many people who like to keep in touch and have the ‘link’ between your closed friends without any barrier of time or location or to express their opinion to discuss or to share the information.
The destructive part of would be, because people are putting such a private information, the protection of personal information will be need to be considered. The Internet is public domain, once information is out there, it can be found and shared. Also people have different point of view on life, and perspective because of that it is so easy to misinterpret any comments or writing on the SNS, which would create false sense of friendship or damage other people’s reputations.
On the discussion board, been ask to talk about the Solove’s argue “In the past, oral gossip could tarnish a reputation, but it would fade from memories over time. People could move elsewhere and start anew.” However, these days the internet “makes gossip a permanent reputational stain, one that never fades.” (Solove, 2007). For example of the’ Star wars kid’ it shows how reputation can be setup in the Internet and circle around then it have created a somewhat cult like followers. Some people use this to gain 10mins of fame, but what if the unknowingly the reputation has been damaged by others?
The internet as public place, the information is there to be shared and available for users who has access to it, but in social term, the Internet form links to share and connected to create a network (Social network) as Solove stated on his writing ‘A social network is a web of connections, such as a group of people who associate together.’(Solove, 2007). But this nature of social network promoting people to create a ‘link’ to other users, the network is growing and expanding, sometimes you don’t really know who’s on your linked group list or which network I am part of.
The Web 2.0 have made us to use the Internet more dynamic and responsive way. It has gave users a tool to create and express themselves easier then pre-web 2.0 which has helped many people to be connected, and sharing their information. Now days, it is easy to find and share the information on the Internet, also we can communicate to the network of people by posting the blogs or sharing video or photos.
But, it raise me a question, how much we can share and how can we protect information which we don’t wish to be shared? There are no easy way we can control the information that on the Internet. The Internet is public place, also the SNS tools provides rather indistinct when it comes to protecting the personal information. It is depend on us, the users to be careful and take caution to protect personal information. Simply by acknowledge and understand that the information on the Internet will be there and can be found directly or indirectly. Also aware of the ‘reputation’ which can be manage by advocating constructive and clear attitude towards information we share on the Internet.
References
Boyd, D. (2008). “Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck: Exposure, Invasion, and Social Convergence.” Convergence, 14 (1)
Retrieve February 17, 2010 : http://www.danah.org/papers/FacebookPrivacyTrainwreck.pdf
Döring, N. (2002). Personal home pages on the Web: A review of research. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 7.
Retrieve February 17, 2010 : http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol7/issue3/doering.html
Solove, D., (2007). How the Free Flow of Information Liberates and Constrains Us, in The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet.
Retrieve February 17, 2010 : http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/dsolove/Future-of-Reputation/text/futureofreputation-ch2.pdf
The Future of Internet Communication
Activity
Semantic web – I have read the micofomats and RDFa from the web before, and from the websites, http://microformats.org/about. Personally I don’t think this is a ‘new web’ but certainly the improvement from the current website search. It stated on the website ‘Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards’ – so computer undertands what I am looking for and does all the work for me… by setup and enbed the tags on to the markup XHTML in ways that give the content some meaning. Tantek talks (http://ifindkarma.typepad.com/relax/2004/12/microformats.html) with enthusiasm about the philosophy of microformats:
- Keep the formats simple. It’s worth repeating because this is the whole point of microformats: they must be easy to learn and use. As Kragen noted, using an XHTML dialect offers escaping and presentation control, making it easy to embed such formats in web pages with minimal effort.
- Pave the cowpaths. Only create a new format to serve an existing application.
- Get rough consensus and running code. Implementation in scripting languages such as PHP, Python, and Perl is paramount to adoption.
- Get adoption by “real people”. Only then will semantic X(HT)ML move beyond theoretical discussions.
Watching google wave - all this different blogpages, SNS sites, IM, Emails, and content sharing site, have consolidated in to one browser page. I think its a great idea. I am sure the Web brower will be replacing the standard desktop application in the future.
Module 2 summary
In module 2, for topic about the blog, after reading Rebecca Blood, I really liked her quote, ‘I strongly believe in the power of weblogs to transform both writers and readers from “audience” to “public” and from “consumer” to “creator.” ;. (Blood, 2000). There are many blog pages in WWW, using the web 2.0 technology it is rather easy to created. But the main I see many blog pages are used as personal journal or just like old days - as their personal websites. I can’t really say there are rules on you can have or not to have the blog pages, but to me the choice of subject matters the most. Also the theme on the blog pages, and the article the writers are writing – they all have to be relate to the theme and purpose of their blog page.
Rettberg talks about blogs facilitating ‘distributed conversations’ and even ‘distributed communities’ – in my point of view any bloggers can read blogs and they can comment on it and even suggested or promote their thought on their blogs. Blogs are there to be read and to be comment on for all kind of communities.
In blackboard discussion board, we have been ask to think the differences/similarity between blogs and wikis.
My understanding on this is, blog site is more self claimed and more of a self journal, created by the blog owners – writing about personal experiences or personal thoughts on subject matters which allows people to view and comment on it – but not allow to change its content by others. For wiki, it has similar concepts with blogs, but the content is not belongs to a creator. It allow other users to edit and take part on the subject matters – more of group work.
Also we have learn about wiki sites. I support the concept behind the Wiki - the collaboration of many users of the site editing the content of the subject matters for better explanation and descriptions. Watching YouTube video of the London bombing page in the Wikipedia site on the course content show us wiki content is changing constantly by wiki users. It raise me a question - does wiki pages can be used as a reference?
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/wikipedia-hoax-fools-newspapers/story-e6frfku0-1225710441165 - After I read this article, I can see how many people (even the news papers) do take the Wikipedia content as legitimate. But the page can be edited by anyone without any validation . The Mr. Fitzgerald told the newspaper he picked Wikipedia because it was something a lot of journalists look at and it can be edited by anyone. This also shows the danger of use the wiki as a source that can be used as statement - unless it’s been confirm by the proven sources.
In the article by Danah M. Boyd and Nicole B. Ellison, they stated that “SNSs is akin to “social grooming.” (boyd & Ellison, 2007). I didn’t really agree on his argument as SNSs can never replicate the real offline relationship and interaction between people. My understanding of SNS is, individual people’s online page (e.g. Face book profile page) been connected and linked with other users page and together created a network. It has to have the associated ’links’ such as offline friends, work friends, same club and school. people keep finding this ‘links’ and create this massive complex social network.
References
Blood, R. (2000). “Weblogs: a history and perspective”
Retrieve February 1, 2010 : http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html
boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11.
Retrieve February 1, 2010: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html
Module 1 summary
In this module I have learnt about history of how the Internet has been created and the WWW. Its is so common that people can not differentiate the difference between the Internet and WWW, they think it’s the same thing. But through this module I have learned that the Internet is the actual hardware, physical part. The Internet can be simply described as giant global network. The WWW is an information sharing system that is built on the Internet. It has formed by a collection of hypertext and hyper-media pages (webpages) that allow users to search, share and navigate information via web browser.
In week1, we have gone through some of the technical side of the Internet. watching the ‘Warriors of the .Net’ was quite interesting because it showed how the data files are sent from destination to the other through the internet, and how information travel through the networks.
During week2, we have covered the WWW experiences in the discussion board.
Thinking back the pre-Web2.0 website seems very different (life-less) then now. It
In the discussion board, few activity has been discussed, most of them would be covered later on as we progress to this course.
Social Me(dia) Rivers
Activities
On my Twitter accout the one of the top topic was ‘#nowplaying’ - peole were posting what they are listeing right now and talking about album etc. One of the top 10 was about ‘shaun white’ as he won a gold medal in winter olympic.
From the friendfeed, I can gather information about what I am searching or what is my interest right now.
Ross Mayfield (2007) ‘Twitter Tips the Tuna’ he mentioned on his article about the the Twitter – ‘Twitter is Continuous Partial Presence, mostly made up of mundane messages in answer to the question, “what are you doing?” A never-ending steam of presence messages prompts you to update your own. Messages are more ephemeral than IM presence — and posting is of a lower threshold, both because of ease and accessibility, and the informality of the medium.’The Twitter show is the quick snap preview of what is current topic among the people. I don’t agree that the users from Twitter represent all the population but I can see its following the trend and current interest.
I don’t follow any topics on the Twitters but checking the top 10 list of the Twitter, I can see Winter Olympic topic was in top 10. Seeing this global trend didn’t really affect on #net11 group.But I can see some of my followers were talking about Shaun White.
The microblogging is next level up from the long blogs where people read article and write down there though or arguments on the blog page. The microblogging allow users to brifully comments on their though in short terms. It enables the communication to flow fast and easy for the users. Also users are using the mobile phone to also update the microblog, which has helped the microblogging to grow as we can see many people text to communicate their status rather then ring them.
Your Digital Shadow
Digital Shadow. I am very aware of this and I really don’t like it. It is somthing that out of my control also it can be miss used. Before the age of the Internet, people talk about the gossips and poloride pictures that could make contrivercy but now we got, YouTube, Facebook, photo sharing site and blog pages. The problem is even I am very careful, my friend or family can make a mistake and my information or photo can be shared around the web.
After reading chapter two of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet by Daniel Solove, he addressed that the importance of reputation in our social world. On the disscussion board, been ask to talk about the Solove’s argue “In the past, oral gossip could tarnish a reputation, but it would fade from memories over time. People could move elsewhere and start anew.” However, these days the internet “makes gossip a permanent reputational stain, one that never fades.”
For example of ‘start wars kid’ it is very scary to think how reputation can cirlcle around the internet for a while. Some people use this to gain 10mins of fame, but what if the unknowingly my reputation has been damaged by others? Even I have tired to avoid to create my web presences, its hard not to…the SNS has the agrassive apporacoch to ‘invite’ your friends, and some time they do make it easier to communicate with your close ones, also during this course I again gain 4 more web presences. So the best way to protect and have a good online reputation would be maintaning my web presences as we do in offline with others.
I see the internet as public place, the information is there to be shared and avaliable for users who has access to it, I entiry agree with the term he used as the internet as a ‘global village’ becuase I see the internet as a tool to share information. But in social term, as its form links to share and connected to create a network (Social network) as he stated on his writing ‘A social network is a web of connections, such as a gorup of people who associate together.’ – but this nature of social network promoting people to creat a ‘link’ to other users, the network is growing and expanding, sometimes you don’t really know whos on your linked group list or which network I am part of.
Danah boyd’s article which talks about the the ‘news feed’ feature the Facebook have implaced. I didn’t had any issue myself with this as I never updated anything on my facebook, but I found it quite annoying reading all the updates and changes that my friends have made. Its like giving us the soruce to gossip about. Example, one of the person’s relationship have updated from ‘In a relationship’ to ‘It’s complicated’ - after that update I could see people are start posting and poking her asking whether she had argument with her boyfriend or she is now single, what happened to her etc…. I think its a methos of the Facebook bordcasting the friend’s ‘personal’ side of life to get people to use the site more. Also I have found out one of my sister’s friend have added me as her friend so I also add her in to my friends list, I assume she was a new facebook user as she was sending me ‘a lot’ of questionairs and add on invites… like I normally do - I igonored it. Then few weeks back, my sister told me that her friend thinks that I don’t like her and she is bit upset that I don’t respond to her requests on the facebook. Well…..
Also, I rememeber one of my freind also was worrying about adding his girlfriend into his facebook friends list… He had all sort of people on his list including his ex-girlfreind (who he remain as close friend). He was worried that by adding his new girlfreind in to the list, getting updates and all and might loose or offend certain people. I don’t think this constant update actually make friends on the list more closer, may be to fill in the ‘lastest gossips’…. the danger is this constant update can be interperate as false close friend ship. I like this comment “In his work on social upkeep, evolutionary biologist Robin Dunbar found that humans gossip (as in they share personal information) for the same reason monkeys groom – to keep tabs on the social world around them (Dunbar, 1996). There is a maximum number of monkeys that other monkeys can groom and there is a maximum number of people that humans can actively keep tabs on (Dunbar, 1992). “ - Ha ha ha
And the Boyd mentioned ‘Facebook gives the ‘gift’ of infinite social information, but this can feel too much like the One Ring – precious upfront, but destructive long-term.’ Like everyhing in this world if you use it as right tool and with right control, its is a ‘gift; facebook is a wonderful tool for many people who like to keep in touch and have the ‘link’ between your closed friends with out any barrier of time or location. Also its a great tool, if you want to communicate same information to them at once, rather then sending email or calling them.
The destructive part of facebook would be, because people are putting such a private information, the protection of personal information will be need to be considered. The Internet is public domain, once information is out there, it can be found and shared. Also people have different point of view on life, and perspective becuase of that it is so easy to mis-interperate any comments or wrirting on the facebook, which would create false sence of friendship.
Your Internet Footprint
Netiquette? - Staring from my ICQ chat era, I have seen that netiquette is quite important. If you are rude or not friendly, you get kicked out from the group. Also, I see some people at work writing on CAPs on, it seems they are yelling at you. I guess because we can’t see them we judge people by how we write and respond to the topics. I don’t really use the SNS so, I don’t really put much stuff on it also i only shared with people close to me. However, for this course I have created my blog page, and I have used my own face as avatar, because its relate to my study and I guess theres nothing to hide and want to look little bit professional and by putting my picture, it represent – its my work.
I am not so big on SNS, as its annoying and I don’t really want to broadcast my status to other people (because nothing much happening??). People have urge to be connected but I am not so keen on it. I use my other name (Gina or gigi) in blog or content sharing sites as I like to keep my footprint small as possible. For this course, this is 1st time I guess I have used my name - also in the school discussion board, I do think about how people would think of me. I do agree in some way our presentation of the identity has became technologies, for example, this course I am taking… its all online. Other students and lectures will know me through my presence in the web. But still (in my life currently) my identity is still very much tangible.
I don’t think the social media have fundamentally changed how we communicate, for me its has given us another tool to communicate. If one thing have changed it would be, it has helped people to be connected all around the world. Also sites like you tube people have gained 5mins fame, also like many blog pages, you can share your personal though ‘out there’ . But still its all about how you use it. I don’t personally go through social media sites or check for an updates. But when I do I always check there other work or any other related pages.
On discussion board, we been asked about the ’personal home page’article. I didn’t agree with most of the Döring point, as it seems don’t really apply any more - the Web 2.0 and technologies has changed since, and now days fewer people have their own stand-alone home pages. The Blogs, Facebook or MySpace have replaced that need of wanting their own webpages. Also in addition, those site also promotes people to invite and so easy and user don’t really need to know how to build cool looking website without any web programming knowledges. I have done a search and found some webring sites and web directories sites still around and found most of them are online shops or link to a blog sites. Its hard to find personal homepages, except its for some famous persons or someone is selling some products. Personally this article is little bit out dated because the blog pages seems like take over the most of the personal homepages…but has few key points that what represents personal homepages - The ‘true’ personal homepages (not an shop or fan sites) show the creative expressions of the creator and it is one user’s creations. I guess the argument Döring’s had –> “No other medium seems more exactly suited than the personal home page to fulfilling the present-day demands of identity work on the charged field of differentiation on the one hand and construction of coherence and meaning on the other [...] Personal home page construction promotes the systematic answering of the identity-critical “Who am I?” question and supports the internalization of the individual answers.” - has helped to create the Web 2.0 SNS sites that it made it so easy for everyone to create the webpage. Also these new Web 2.0 sits gave users the options to personalise the many display features, that making people to be expressive and creative - making the site more personal and to be able to represent who there are. I personally don’t have my own homepages, I guess i don’t really have need for it, for my useful links, I now use delicious sites also since this study I am thinking creating my blog page (other than this one) as I find it more ’less hassle’ then face book to replace the ‘personal home page’.
Talking about blog pages I do agree on the finding that bloggers feel most anonymous when the target audience is not one that the blogger knows offline, because they don’t know who is the blogger is… for example, my husband, at work people know him as hard-working quite guy. Now, he is part of one of the game forum site (in know this is not the blog page but) - in that site, he is very active and some time quite vicious person. He does feel anonymous on that site because he knows them (forum users) via online only.
and about, ’self-disclosure’ – personally I like to know who is behind the blog page. It gave more credibility and also audiences can connect to the blogger more. For examples, I do love reading food or cooking blogs. I can’t believe so many people has passion for food! I do come across some blog sites that has no details or picture of blogger, or the food they have made…. well I don’t find it inetersing!! But I do see some people use the blog page as their ‘public’ journals… I wonder why people are so worry about their families and work people might read it. My parents once told me to watch out what I say – because it’s like spilling the water, one to spill the water its hard to gather it back in. so regards of what people want to say in the blogs, self-disclosure or not, people should be using the blog as publication tool that some people will read it some point…
Content Sharing
Activity – Playing Around
I really had fun with this lol, I used the picture of my husband who cooked macho meal.
Social Networking.
Activity – Introducing Twitter
yay my Twitter account - another digital foot print has been added!!!!
User name: Gleefulvoice
Social Networks annoys hell out of me.
I have face book account and as number of my friends gets larger - it became more of a hassle. I mean it’s not all that bad, guess I post my photos of trip I went to, dinner i made, party pictures can be all shared with my mates, also rather than texting everyone, i just update my status saying ‘Im doing fine…’ – it keeps me in a loop even tho I am physically not there with them (I recently moved from NZ). But all why? well 1st, the constant questionnaire stuff they keep posting I mean how many a day I am getting this updates and invitation … Do I really have to do all this to be keep in contact? Don’t think so. Also all this ‘personal information’ - such as their hobbies, fave movies what they wants… it’s all in a fine print, they can sell my information to marketing companies which will be use for data mining.
In the ‘Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship’ article, it says – “SNSs is akin to “social grooming.” Well I do agree in someway but SNSs can never replicate the real offline relationship and interaction between people. My understanding of SNS is, individual people’s online page (e.g. Facebook profile page) been connected and linked with other users page and together created a network. It has to have the associated ’links’ such as offline friends, work friends, same club and school. people keep finding this ‘links’ and creat this massive complex annoying social network.
Sharing my personal information with people I actually know for real is all ok by me. But this privacy policies do worries me. I can see Facebook changes its policies quite often, which allows they can have bit more of control and ownership on my personal data. My thought on this is, as long as they are open and clear about what is public,what is not and stick to it, I am happy to oblige. I seems so many cases in Facebook people get in to trouble after invite their manager or boss to their friend list and make offensive comment on it. I mean come on… common sence here please. See another evidence contradicts to ‘SNSs is akin to “social grooming’…
Related news articles
http://www.news.com.au/technology/facebook-fugitive-craig-lynch-caught/story-e6frfro0-1225819037378
http://www.news.com.au/facebook-violates-privacy-law/story-0-1225751233335
Wikis
Activity One – Mucking about with Wikitext
It’s quite confusing - I have created the account for now….
Activity Two – Knowledge Sharing
omg my 1st entry – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auckland I added – “ One Tree Hill - the volcanic peak located in Auckland, summit provides views across the Auckland area, and allows visitors to see both of Auckland’s harbours.”
In blackboard discussion board,
been ask to think the differences/similarity between blogs and wikis.
My understanding on this is, blog site is more self claimed and more of a self journal, created by the blog owners – writing about personal experiences or personal thoughts on subject matters which allows people to view and comment on it – but not allow to change its content by others. For wiki, it has similar concepts with blogs, but the content is not belongs to a creator. It allow other users to edit and take part on the subject matters – more of group work.
I use Wikipedia a lot, to find information about – unusual fruits that I saw in the market, bird I saw in the zoo… etc. I really like the ideas of Wikipedia - collaboration of many users of the site editing the content of the subject matters for better explanation and descriptions - also seeing the London bombing changes you tube video got me thinking… the content is changing constantly – its was so interesting to see the content is getting updated by wiki users as the bombing incident been investigated.
** reading this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/wikipedia-hoax-fools-newspapers/story-e6frfku0-1225710441165 - After I read this article, I can see how many people (even the news papers) do take the Wikipedia content as legitimate. But the page can be edited by any one without any validation –> ”Mr Fitzgerald told the newspaper he picked Wikipedia because it was something a lot of journalists look at and it can be edited by anyone”. This also shows the danger of use the wiki as a source that can be used as statement - unless its been confirm by the proven sources.
Other wiki related articles…
