Week 9 - Tutorial Task

What is Barak Obama up to today (21/09/2011)?
"President Obama Meets with World Leaders on Day Two at the U.N General Assembly" (Miller 2011)
-- Miller, L 2011, 'President Obama Meets with World Leaders on Day Two at the U.N General Assembly', The White House Blog viewed 21st September 2011 <http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog>

What are the Australian Government's plans to censor the internet (the so-called "Clean Feed")?

Announced in late 2009, the ‘Clean Feed’ project is an internet filter system to be deployed by internet service providers (ISPs). It purportedly censors content such as “child sex abuse content, bestiality and sexual violence, as well as crime and drug use information” (Page 2010, p. 7).

 -- Page, R 2010, Choice, "'Clean-feed' filter to go ahead: a proposed web protection scheme may create more problems than it solves."  viewed 21st September 2011 via Expanded Academic ASAP. 

  

Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are.

Local - Susie Douglas

State - Peter Lawlor

Federal - Steven Ciobo
-- Council's Role in Government, viewed September 21st 2011, <http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/t_standard2.aspx?pid=4351>


Look up the Queensland or Australian hansard to find the last time your local member spoke in parliament.
Could not find Susie Douglas, but Peter Lawler last spoke on November 24th 2010 (Lawlor, P 2010)
-- Lawlor, P 2010, Commercial Agents Bill, viewed 21st September 2011,
<http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/Speeches/spk2010/Peter%20Lawlor%20spk%20Southport%202010_11_24_93.pdf#xml=http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/internetsearch/isysquery/c1256a92-df01-4070-b7c0-41af6ba12087/1/hilite/>

Short Essay Plan

Does the extensive use of computer/video games have an adverse impact on the health of young people. What are the most recent papers? Clarify what both sides of the argument claim and only then offer your reasoned opinion based on facts?

My position will be no, with arguments, of course, for and against the extensive use. Will conclude that although there a myriad of cases of adverse impacts, especially in relation to mental health, it is not the video games themselves that harm users. It is the users and the extent of parental control.

Key elements:

-- Introduction: Break down of the topic into components IE what is considered an adverse impact? Description of the various 'effects' of gaming such as aggressive behaviour, mental disorders, lack of exercise and perhaps an increased consumption of products such as energy drinks. Will state briefly two sides of this argument, and my main premise.

-- Psychotic/behavioural problems: will present case studies where this is allegedly applicable, but then counter with studies that have concluded that despite excessive gaming in young children, there were already latent problems occurring in the children beforehand and these were merely exacerbated by their use. So to prevent horrific cases such as these it is up to the parent to decide whether their children should be allowed. And also counter with the largely small percentage of violent cases caused by video games compared to non-gaming cases.

--Health: perhaps statistics (if i can find them) on whether there is an increased consumption of unhealthy foods by young people who are 'addicted' to video games. Counter this with an overall statistic of health which (hopefully) proves it is no different to everyday health of non-gamers.

--Obesity/Overweight: Whilst obviously extensive video gaming doesn't promote exercise, it isn't the direct cause, as it is up to the gamer on whether to exercise or not, they could easily be inside playing with toys instead which isn't active. And also the parental encouragement either way would be pivotal to young health.

-- Conclusion: Ultimately we cannot blame the actions and health problems of the young completely on this external factor. While in come cases it seems to be directly related, and stated by some children to be the case, it always comes down to free will, and decision-making. If a child is warned against the dangers, and steered away from these problems, it is less likely that these adverse impacts will occur. Whereas poor parenting and latent mental disorders could lead to negative examples.

Week 9 - Response to Content

eDemocracy's potential and limitations

eDemocracy is the theory of utilising current communication technologies to enhance politcal processes (Damodaran 2005, p.10). Over the decades citizen interest in the political realm has declined  as representative democracy receded almost completely from its participatory roots, and has left us, the demos ('common people'), to simply vote and hope for the best.

A concern brought up by many political theorists is the idea of democratic elitism whereby representative government is controlled by a select, elite, few which does not properly represent the wants and needs of electorates (Goodwin 2010, p. 394). This theoretical framework assumes the majority of people as "passive consumers, incapable of exercising power or judgement, and totally apathetic" (Goodwin 2010, p.395). So to move towards a more deliberative democracy via eDemocracy, we can begin to increase inclusion and interest of 'the masses' in the public sphere of politics. Deliberative forms of democracy focus more on the quality of debate rather than the procedure of participation; so if we could have voters utilising new forms of technology - like watching a debate over policy changes and then voting online afterwards - it may overcome politicians' lack of responsiveness to the electorate (Goodwin 2010, p.315).

The main problem with frameworks such as eDemocracy and eGovernment in general is linking everyone up. The practical obstacles seem endless, and expensive. Other barriers include the "digital divide, lack of education and awareness of the potential of IT among many in the public" (Damodoran 2005, p.10). These seem to be the most obvious, and gaping, holes in this alternate system of democracy. But if they can be overcome at all, we may begin to see a shift from pure representative democracy to a democracy not quite as direct as the Athenian's would have liked, but somewhere in between the two.

Reference List

Damodoran, L 2005, 'Edemocracy: challenges for social inclusion', ITNow, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 10-11, viewed 23rd September 2011 via Oxford Journals.

Goodwin, B 2007, Using Political Ideas, 5th edn, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester.

Heywood, A 2000, Key Concepts in Politics, Palgrave, Houndmills. 

Week 8 - Tutorial Task

Video Update

This week we finally began filming! Renae was kind enough to be our actor, and she, unsurprisingly, was brilliant. We managed to do all the scenes in one room, which was the very same room our tutorial was in - very convenient. Sound was very hard to get as the microphone was an internal one on my camera, so long shots couldn't pick up Renae's dialogue. Christina said she could fix that in editing by laying over new audio.


Before all this though we had such a hassle with trying to get the video footage I found on e-waste in Creative Commons to work on Christina's laptop. So the only option was to download realplayer AGAIN and try and download the video AGAIN. After over an hour of fiddling around (oh technology, the bane of my existence at times) we hurrah!ed in triumph when we finally got it working. Turned out redownloading it on Christina's laptop worked like a charm, albeit a very slow, horrifically boring charm. The format was incompatible with iMovie, so when we downloaded it again we converted the file to a MPEG4 format, which was compatible! We weren't the only one's struggling - Renae was having a tedious time trying to locate exactly how to cite the photos she had grabbed off Creative Commons. It was a mentally exhausting lesson, but everything afterwards was highly enjoyable.


We will begin to embed the video once editing is completed, so I will discuss how in the next blog. I am also struggling on how to cite this video on e-waste, there is nothing in Creative Commons that is easily accessible to the producer. Worst case scenario I cite the URL, the username of the person who posted it, and their youtube channel's URL.


Question: do you own this production?
While this audio visual piece was created by us, it is not completely ours. We have at the beginning footage and audio from a Creative Commons licensed work. It allowed us to remix (i.e. we could cut out snippets that were relevant to us) and reuse as is. But everything else from then on is video and titling all created by us. 

Final Cut:
It's rough and hilarious but it's done! Only issue is the technology "attacking" Jen isn't clear cut so I guess we're going for something different - government cover up conspiracy?

Created by Christina Earnshaw, Renae Bressi and Lisa Townley.

Reference List
"E-waste movie - short version - who's dying for your iPad - the truth of ewaste" provided by Joetube97217 
URL link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnqvfNstr_4
Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/joetube97217

Week 8 - Response to Content

Creative Commons - political movement and practical tool

Creative Commons is said to be a reactionary movement stemming from the fact that copyright (at least in the U.S) is so widespread as to stifle the progress of science and the arts, rather than promoting it (Forsythe & Kemp 2009, p.346). Over the past 40 years the law has changed so dramatically as to render the 'rip, mix, burn' phenomenon illegal, which began with incidences such as the court ruling in 1971 which stated Bobby London & Danny O'Neill's critical view of Mickey Mouse in Air Pirates, is illegal (Lessig 2004, p.3-4). This highlights one of the biggest problems - the difficulty today in obtaining a license to legally use a small component of someone else's work, such as a composer who wishes to use a small segment of a musical composition in an original piece (Forsythe & Kemp 2009, p.347).

Technology has created the "digital consumer" ( Lessig 2004, p.2), who is an active programmer, compared to the analog consumer, who is "passive, programmed and broadcast to" (Lessig 2004, p.2).

As a result CC provides an alternative mode of copyright which isn't as restrictive as the current model, whereby the creator/author of the content decides what is to be done with it, and spreads their creativity around, rather than receiving it via broadcasts from a select few. But before we get caught up in this romanticised spiel, what could possibly be a disadvantage? Well considering most users are not well-versed in the law, it may not be as simple as CC desires Furthermore there's the issue of once the contributor has picked a license and later on sees her particular piece in a way she did not intend, is it possible to change the license or even retract it from the database? (Forsythe & Kemp 2009, p.362). Either way, I'm sure as Creative Commons develops these issues will be resolved and  more clarity in the expression of license agreements will be adopted.

Reference List:

Lessig, L 2004, 'The creative commons: for the common good?', Montana Law Review, vol. 65, no. 1, pp.1-14, viewed 17th September 2011 via HeinOnline

Forsythe, L and Kemp, D 2009, 'Creative Commons', University of La Verne Law Review, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 346-369, viewed 17th September 2011 via HeinOnline.

Week 7 - Tutorial Task

Video Update

This week we - Renae, Christina and I - collaborated with what we had so far. I found some links that I believed to be copyright free, though I was still trying to find way to search whilst excluding copyrighted images/videos, because it was unclear to me still. Found out during this class that our tutor Lauren was also finding the best way to search for video in Creative Commons. We'll have to get back to that later.

Our plan was to shoot some footage during that class and after, but we had a turn in the narrative, changing some key plot elements. We were no longer to make a cheesy horror move trailer, but more of a thriller type trailer about a university student who is about to finish her Journalism Degree and wants a topic she can sink her teeth into, something controversial. E-waste is a massive issue, in where Western nations are exporting and dumping their electronic waste in third world countries such as India and parts of Africa. This was to be the issue our protagonist was to grapple.

We thought some snippets of her video blog entries would be a good way to start the trailer, with images of articles on e-waste on the first shot. To avoid copyright we are going to make these ourselves, making the titles the largest and using a gibberish mix in tiny text so as to seem like a full article. At the moment I am typing up scripts for Renae (playing our character) to read for the blogs, which we will film on Christina's internal iMac camera in an iMovie tool. The plan is to have two blogs, two weeks apart. The second one is when Jen gets an anonymous email saying to meet 'them' in a computer lab in Griffith to discuss the suspicious disappearance of an environmental activist.

Cut to scary snippets of action. Electronic doors slamming by themselves and an article about the missing activist is used as a 'warning' to Jen. Hopefully we can get most of this done in class next week so we can begin editing, because that's where we need a lot of time! 

Week 7 - Response to Content

Wikipedia, revolutionary or unreliable?

There is a lot of contention around the reliability of Wikipedia, and in an educational setting teachers warn their students off it as if it has the ability to corrupt and skew our views. In a way, I can see why. The concept of produsage, as coined by Axel Bruns, is the idea of the consumer becoming the producer and user of a product. So in a participatory, collaborative community such as Wikipedia, a lot of people think 'anything goes' as there is no hierarchical, authoritative structure to ensure there are no discrepancies and trivial content. In line with this argument is Internet critic Andrew Keen (as cited in Niederer & Dijick 2010, p. 1371), who praised Sanger's (Larry Sanger split from Wikipedia to create 'Citizendum') realisation of the "debased value of amateur contributions in favour of expert professionals."

But there's many Wikipedia fans who have praised its democratising elements and its ethos of participation and collaborative community; creating a source of knowledge open for everyone to read and write (Benkler, & Jenkins as cited in Niederer & Dijick 2010, p.1371). There's also Fallis in his article 'Toward a epistemology of Wikipedia" who argues that the epistemic consequences of Wikipedia are quite good. He explains that epistemologists evaluate an institution on whether people are more or less likely to gain knowledge from its existence or not. This means in terms of Wikipedia, the advantages of its existence far outweigh some reliability arguments, as empirical studies show that it compares favourably to that of traditional encyclopaedias, and even more so compared to sources people would use if it didn't exist (p. 1662-3).

Although Wikipedia is in constant battles within itself, such as the deletionist/inclusionist dichtomy (Kostakis 2010), it appears that it can be viewed as a positive addition to knowledge resources, as long as people remain wary of its present flaws and use it as a start point for further research. 

Reference List:

Fallis, D 2008, 'Toward an Epistemology of Wikipedia', Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol. 59, no. 10, pp. 1662 - 1674 , viewed 10th September 2011 via CAUL Wiley, DOI: 10.1002/asi.20870

Kostakis, V 2010, 'Identifying and understanding the problems of Wikipedia's peer governence: The case of inclusionists versus deletionists', First Monday, vol. 15, no.3, 1st March 2010, viewed 10th September 2011 via firstmonday.org

< http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2613/2479>

Niederer, S and van Dijck, J 2010, 'Wisdom of the crowd of technicity of content? Wikipedia as a sociotechnical system', New media and Society, vol. 12, no. 8, pp. 1367-1387, viewed 12th September 2011, DOI: 10.1177/1461444810365297

Week 6 - Tutorial Task

Video Update

I'm excited about this task, and finding it slightly daunting. You really have to put a leash on your mind, because when ideas run rampant it is hard to stay focused and realistic. At first we were talking about online dating, and how we could follow people through their experiences of chatting to potential partners online and eventually meeting them in person. This would free us to explore the dangers and also the benefits that could stem from these interactions. Our other idea was a cheesy horror clip about new communication technology attacking their users. Once we finished describing our two ideas to Lauren, she helped narrow our focus down, saying it was impossible to squeeze in everything we wanted into 3 minutes, and the second idea was more achievable. So in the end we decided to make a cheesy horror film trailer about new communication technology attacking their users.

Warned against the dangers of defamation and copyright infringement, we set about brainstorming the best way to go about things. We delegated tasks to everyone to search through Creative Commons for pictures, video and anything usable for our idea. Christina has access to iMovie on her MacBook so she was to play around with some ideas on there. It was then just a matter of getting some frameworks to work with, no matter how scattered it seemed. Ideas for scenes, use of sounds and black screens, a computer generated text to speech function so the computer seems like it's talking. We have a lot to work with, let's see how we go next week.

Week 6 - Response to Content

Hollywood Killer
Are downloads killing Hollywood? First answer - no, they are still making millions. Just not as many millions, which is why they're up in arms about it. An article I found states "the internet has brought a potent threat: pirates are plundering films and carrying off booty that rightfully belongs to the studios." (2008, p.86). This is true; it is theft. But if they took advantage of this distribution method, they would be cashing in on a market where they have no control. People would be more willing to download a legitimate copy from the comfort of their home for, say, $5? It doesn't seem like much, but it's gaining market share rather than losing profits to pirates. "Protected for years from digital piracy by huge file sizes, it [Hollywood] was not forced to develop an online retail model, as the music business was," but it's all coming a head and something needs to be done.

It's tough to devise a system online that works. In 2010 the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), a consortium of 6 studios, created one that allowed the consumer to purchase a film once and be able to use it on various devices. The issue though is: "Set the price for online films too low, and the studios will revolt against a threat to DVDs. Set it too high, and people will probably go on renting, or downloading films illegally." (2010, p.64) With the internet shoving DVD purchasing out of the way, a drop from 12 billion to 8.7 billion between 2008-9 (2010, p.64), I can see why they're worried and scrambling for a way to keep up. If profits continue to fall then I believe the result will be less investment in smaller, alternate films and more reliance on blockbusters they know will draw crowds.

Reference List

The Economist 2010, ' Business: Coming Soon: Hollywood and the internet', Jan 9th, p.64, viewed 8th September 2011 via ProQuest Central

The Economist 2008, ' Coming Soon; Hollywood and the internet', Feb 23rd, p.86, viewed 8th September 2011 via ProQuest Central.