I just installed StumbleUpon toolbar on my Mozilla browser, which finds you great and foremost intersting websites you probably wouldn't find so quickly.
Among them was special collections in web archive Wayback Machine with a collection of websites that began the Internet revolution that corresponds with the history of internet discussion we are about to have this week. Take a look how did it all look like about 10 yrs ago.
sreda, 12. december 2007
nedelja, 9. december 2007
Internet studies - two approaches
Comparing two introduction articles on the same topic (at first sight) reveals quite different approach to the subject of internet studies. David Gauntlett in Web.Studies presents internet media as any other popular media stressing its’ usability potential with putting people in the centre of it: “New media would be nothing if it wasn’t meaningful to people,….” Gauntlett includes in the book several important issues from participatory media like blogs, wikis which returns media to its “authentic, community roots”, to the attention “the scarce resource, which everybody on the web is struggling for.” He points to the main issues in web studies which are gathered around individual – possibility of expressing oneself, building the community and expressions of identity. The author basically encompasses major areas of everyday life that influences the web and vice versa. They are presented from the very basic, user’s standpoint of view and remains on the surface of the individual field of discussion. The problem is that web studies are influenced by so many other disciplines, that it can not be studied as a whole in one package. With that approach we can only get crumbs of it.
On the other side is David Silver with more theoretical approach, trying to define the status of the Internet studies as a discipline, seeing it as an interdiscipline, where “traditional disciplinary approaches can help inform our understanding of new sites of study”. Silver stresses the importance of all forms of networked media and culture that surrounds us today with critical cyberculture studies locating its object of study within various overlapping context.
Cyberculture studies still lack theories but considering interdisciplinary approach there is sufficient theoretical base at the moment. Without doubt new theories will emerge as the discipline ripens and the boundaries are set. But with only two decades of research of the field it can be hardly expected to have them by now.
On the other side is David Silver with more theoretical approach, trying to define the status of the Internet studies as a discipline, seeing it as an interdiscipline, where “traditional disciplinary approaches can help inform our understanding of new sites of study”. Silver stresses the importance of all forms of networked media and culture that surrounds us today with critical cyberculture studies locating its object of study within various overlapping context.
Cyberculture studies still lack theories but considering interdisciplinary approach there is sufficient theoretical base at the moment. Without doubt new theories will emerge as the discipline ripens and the boundaries are set. But with only two decades of research of the field it can be hardly expected to have them by now.
Interactivity in the spotlight
Rob Cover in the article Audience inter/active: Interactive media, narrative control and reconceiving audience history (2006) examines the author-text-audience relationship, suggesting there is audience's desire for control over the text, placing that desire in the centre of interactivity. What I see problematic to a certain point is the negative notion of interactivity with being nothing more than a tension to alter a copy and to violate copyright.
There are (true) many opportunities to violate the content on the web and many measures have been taken to prevent it with different copyright regulations. But it should not be seen as the key generator of interactive participation highly encouraged by web 2.0. Today’s users are becoming ‘prodUsers’ in the Web world or (according to McMillan (Cover, 2006)) empowered audience who is to replace the traditional concept of audiencehood. ProdUsers do both, they consume content and produce it as well, but not only by altering existing content, but also by producing unique, authentic content, helping to generate knowledge.
If the interactivity is not the technologically driven concept as Rafaeli and Sudweeks (Cover, 2006) put it, but rather culturally constituted desire for communication, according to Raymond Williams (Cover, 2006) (with whom I strongly agree), there must be more to the ever increasing number of participants in interactive web activities. To mention (concentrating on media industry) just the media-audience distinction, which becomes blurred with active user participation. Interactivity or two-way interaction conflicts with a traditional view of the traditional media industry as producers on one side and users as consumers on the other and threatens the social status of journalists (Matheson, 2004), as also Cover (2007) points out in the case of CNN’s advertisement over independent internet media. The public service mission has been abandoned by the commercial press in favour of expanding profit margins. Keeping that in mind the internet and interactivity holds the great potential to change the way information is produced and consumed.
The monopoly of public knowledge, held by elite media is destabilized, which adds to the empowerment of individuals. With unlimited supply of information every citizen can become a gatekeeper and low production costs (blogs) have inspired millions to self-publish and millions more to read alternative content outside the mainstream (Scott, 2005).
There are (true) many opportunities to violate the content on the web and many measures have been taken to prevent it with different copyright regulations. But it should not be seen as the key generator of interactive participation highly encouraged by web 2.0. Today’s users are becoming ‘prodUsers’ in the Web world or (according to McMillan (Cover, 2006)) empowered audience who is to replace the traditional concept of audiencehood. ProdUsers do both, they consume content and produce it as well, but not only by altering existing content, but also by producing unique, authentic content, helping to generate knowledge.
If the interactivity is not the technologically driven concept as Rafaeli and Sudweeks (Cover, 2006) put it, but rather culturally constituted desire for communication, according to Raymond Williams (Cover, 2006) (with whom I strongly agree), there must be more to the ever increasing number of participants in interactive web activities. To mention (concentrating on media industry) just the media-audience distinction, which becomes blurred with active user participation. Interactivity or two-way interaction conflicts with a traditional view of the traditional media industry as producers on one side and users as consumers on the other and threatens the social status of journalists (Matheson, 2004), as also Cover (2007) points out in the case of CNN’s advertisement over independent internet media. The public service mission has been abandoned by the commercial press in favour of expanding profit margins. Keeping that in mind the internet and interactivity holds the great potential to change the way information is produced and consumed.
The monopoly of public knowledge, held by elite media is destabilized, which adds to the empowerment of individuals. With unlimited supply of information every citizen can become a gatekeeper and low production costs (blogs) have inspired millions to self-publish and millions more to read alternative content outside the mainstream (Scott, 2005).
- Cover, Rob (2006): Audience inter/active: Interactive media, narrative control and reconceiving audience history, New Media & Society, 8(1), 139-158.
- Matheson, Donald (2004): Weblogs and the Epistemology of the News: Some Trends in online Journalism. New Media & Society, 6(4), 443–468.
- Scott, Ben (2005): A Contemporary History of Digital Journalism. Television and New Media, 6(1), 89–126.
nedelja, 2. december 2007
Brainland map and much more on data visualization
A propos our first meeting on e-Science theme, where we talked about core features of it and data visualization among them, I must share with you one of the best web sites I encountered lately. Information Aesthetics is a must see for those interested in numerous possibilities of data visualization - as it says "form follows data".
Just for a taste an iconographic music video... much more on Infosthetics...
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