BCM 112

Digital Artefact Pitch

My DA for BCM112 will be a vlog following my bike riding journeys. I have been riding since I was 4 years old and have loved it ever since. Cycling offers great exercise for people of all ages.  I came up with this idea from my passion for riding around Wollongong. Riding bikes are very convenient especially since there are many public bike facilities such as special bike tracks with toilets and cafes conveniently found along most cycle tracks as well as being fitted with bike racks so riders can safely store their bikes near these facilities. 
 The aim of my videos is to let people know more cycling areas in Wollongong. 
 Cycling is a great way to minimise a person’s environmental impact because many people rely on driving cars nowadays. As well as the positive environmental impact, cycling also offers many experiences to see beautiful scenic views.

Week 3
The Internet Paradigm

“The media is the message” is the main topic of our Week 3 lecture by Marshall McLuhan as found in his book ‘Understanding Media’ in 1964.

The direct definition of this topic from McLuhan is, “The personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.” This excerpt directs us to think about further questions, such as:
1. What constitutes an extension of ourselves?
2. Messages are not about the platform, instead it is about how messages change us
3. The change of Medium will be the same as the change of messages

We also learnt about different cases of writing media, for example the papyrus scrolls which only permits to sequential access, the codex which just like a book permits random access and the web that permits hyper – access.

Week 4
The Logic of Digital Production and the Network Economy

“The human world is made of stories, not people. The people the stories use to tell themselves are not to be blamed” is a quote from David Mitchell’s 1999 book ‘Ghostwritten’ and is very good quote to discuss the topic what is media.
 
In this week’s lecture, I learnt more on the topic of media is the message and the logic of Digital Production and the Network Economy. There is a good quote from Kevin Kelly’s 2008 book ‘Better than Free’ where he stated, “The internet is a copy machine. At its most foundational level, it copies every action, character, thought we make while we ride upon it. In order to send a message from one corner of the internet to another… The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free.” This excerpt describes in depth about the differences we try to make between the legacy paradigm, industrial paradigm, emergent paradigm and the internet paradigm. These are the copies of the same thing. The most interesting part of the lecture was the last part where a man in Berlin used 99 second-hand smartphones and attaches them to a trolley which created a traffic jam on Google maps as a bad traffic jam. I think that’s a very interesting experiment.

Week 5
Networked Participation and Collective Intelligence

In this weeks lecture, we talked about monologic media and dialogic media. In monologic media, we learnt about the patterns of crowd silence. I think a good example of patterns of crowd silence could be seen if a group of people are listening to music on a bus and no one is talking. It was also discussed that if we want to speak, we need approval from a gatekeeper. This made me think about when we are in high school, in a classroom setting where you  have to raise your hand before speaking and then receive permission from the teacher to talk.

I am interested in the last part of the lecture which raised the issue of fake news. After Ted showed us a few examples, I found it really amusing as to how creative people can be, for example, “The White Helmets” where a news team staged an incident where a group of people saved a man by pulling him out of some rubble In my opinion, I think the news media should report and share the truth about real world events because there are many negative results from spreading misinformation especially through the aid of modern social media platforms which distribute information globally and immediately I also can see the real world effects of fake news in the current Coronavirus pandemic where there is misinformation and panic stories shared online and then many people act upon this misinformation and create more fear in already panicked and scared communities. I have personally seen many posts on social media platforms like Facebook that have many different statistics relating to the virus, different peoples stories and also potential cures and treatments. I usually check the source of the news to test its reliability because I am aware of the large amounts of fake news stories. As a member of the global Asian community I have also been aware of fake news and disinformation that is being intentionally spread by people in bad faith to create a villain in the media for a particular group being the cause of the rise of the Coronavirus, this is especially prevalent in US society from right wing news sources such as FOX and even statements made by US President Donald Trump. To me this highlights that fake news can occur on all levels of society.

Week 6
Distributed media and Meme Warfare

In this week’s lecture, Ted talked about the structure of information events, the coherence of the structure is first aspect, followed by frame and then the story, this is also how the news appears. Firstly, there will always be an event to recall, this event has to be perceived and in order to achieve this it must have a frame. After being framed, it will become a story. The event and frame stages are closed to the public and accessible only to authority, and the public is given a coherent story packaged as a product to be consumed.


In my understanding, the event will be something that has happened around the world or in the country. The news media will then go to the scene where the event occurred and do a report. After this, the editor will complete editing processes, making it more interesting to attract greater audiences to buy and read, which is framing the information. Once people buy the news sources from bookstores and read the information from it, it will become a story which tells people information and is spread further around the world.


We then discussed meme culture and according to Dawkins Richard’s The Selfish Gene, “memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which in the broad sense which can be called imitation”. Memes are also a self-replicating unit of culture, information packets and ideas. Memes in distributed media can act as a propaganda exchange creating a meme warfare. I love the example that Ted gave us about Hillary Clinton which makes me fully understand what a meme warfare is.

Beta

Original thoughts
·      The aim of my videos is to let people know more cycling areas in Wollongong. 
·      Cycling is a great way to minimise a person’s environmental impact because many people rely on driving cars nowadays. 
·      As well as the positive environmental impact, cycling also offers many experiences to see beautiful scenic views.
 
Things to improve:
·     1.  Forgot to mention
o   Wear helmet 
o   Head lights
  2. Google map
o   To make it more interesting for viewer, I should trim down some part of the google map
o   For example, I don’t have to talk about every step of the rout 
 
 
Things doing Good:
·1. GoPro
o   I planned to use a helmet strap mount
o   But I did some research people said recording from helmet 
  o   Good thing about helmet strap mount can give viewer the first-person perspective 
o   but will make viewer feel dizzy, coz rider have to turn their head very often
·     o    I changed to use a handlebar mount 
o   set on the handlebar of the bike 
·     2.  experiment more different camera angle when riding the bike
o   someone film me 

Week 7

Framing and the Construction of Perception
 
In this week’s lecture, we talked more about ‘Frame’ from the structure of information events. We also talked about schema which is another important topic in this week’s lecture. Schema is a concept developed by Jean Piaget and Frederic Bartlett which accounts for when the previous experiences and knowledge are stored in memory. 
 
Schema begins in early childhood for everyone when external stimuli is stored in an individual’s memory as patterns of experiences. Overtime, repeating patterns stabilise in memory as association chains. These association chains are derived from schema. Ted also gave us a very simple and understandable analogy to illustrate this chain, by thinking about Winter which is a cold season in many places around the World and in many cultures a fire will be lit during this time and may become a symbol during festive times such as Christmas. When you talk about fire, you can be reminded of childhood experiences involving this symbol which repeated exposure to over time becomes a pattern which is stabilised in an individual’s memory as an association chain, and you will know fire is hot and will burn yourself from your childhood experiences.  
 
When we encounter external stimuli, we map them to our existing schema, using the fireplace example, even when there is no actual wood and fire but instead there is a gas stove made to look like a fireplace, this can be associated with the existing schema of fireplace. Also, existing schema can be changed by altering the association chains that from it, using the burning book set on a chair as an example as a fire place, the book is supposed to be read not burnt and the chair is supposed to be sat on by a human not to hold a burning book. But when these images are put together, we will think of the existing schema and think of the fireplace.

Week 8
Spectacle, Simulation & Hyperreality

This week was the fourth lecture on internet paradigms, and the topic was ‘Spectacle, simulation and Hyperreality
  
The term spectacle, first coined by Guy Deboard (1931-1994), a French philosopher in his book, ‘The Society of the Spectacle’ (1967) which he was renowned for. The Society of the Spectacle’s premises are that the modern reality is mediated by images, the industrial society purposefully generates a synthetic form of life, consumerism which is utterly devoid of meaning. And that consumerism is driven by advertisement and mass media. Ted showed us lots of different quotes from the book to outline the meaning of society of the spectacle. 
  
After talking about spectacle, we focused on the next topic, simulation and Hyperreality. The word hyperreality is from another French philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007). The premises of simulacra and simulation are the modern reality mediated by images, the real is perceived by audiences as a string of images. There are four phases of a sign of simulacra and simulation, these are reflection, mask, illusion and simulacrum. This can be thought of in colloquial terms as copy, as reflection is just like a copy, mask will be a perverted copy, illusion is pretending to be a copy and the simulacrum is simulating a basic of real. 
 

Week 9

This is the first lecture on Algorithmic control where we talked about intellectual property and the content control industry and one of the main topics we talked about is copyright. 
 
At the beginning of the lecture, we talked about some background information and historical context that occurred before the concept of copyright was coined and acknowledged in legal practices. Before copyright, the notion of property related only to scarce resources, for example land ownership. People were able to freely copy from others, modify another person’s work and steal content created by others without any penalties occurring. Content creators had no property claims on their intellectual work. For example if you wrote and published a book, someone else could copy your ideas and claim this work as their own which could result in sales.
 
The first appearance of copyright is featured in the Statute of Queen Anne (1710) where she grants owners monopoly for 14 years after publication. It also is an act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Book in the Authors or Purchasers (which is publishers) of such copies during the time therein mentioned.
 
What we can do to adhere to copyright laws and policies is act ethically inside the public domain and ensure fair use of others works. Anything not under copyright is in the public domain and those are the one can be copied and remixed freely. Fair use is not a right, but is a defence against litigation, fair use applies only purposes defined by purpose and character of the use, the nature of work being used, the amount of work used and the effect of the use on the value of the original. For what you works that you cannot do is under control of the DRM (Digital Rights Management). DRM have control over the access to content and all the factors that contribute to this; when, where and how. It also has control over licensing, encryption, spyware, invasive software, authentication and take down notices and litigation. The aim of the DRM is to restrict and control how you sue your content. DRM also extends control over all primary and derivative content.

Week 10

This is the second lecture on algorithmic control, where we discussed different hardware platforms, access permission and ideologies of control.
 
We began the lecture by talking about the mobile cell phone industry. In 2001, the first 3G network appear in Japan and South Korea. And in 2007, the first iPhone was invented. The first Android phone was invented in 2008. the key dynamic in that period of time is there are ubiquitous connectivity and the smartphones as an interface to the internet. But nowadays, the internet is part of our body and our body is now part of the internet. We are in the medium because the medium is the message and the mobile supersedes legacy infrastructure. There is a versus of locked appliances and generative platforms. 
 
The advantages that locked appliances have is a total control over IOS, app market and developers. But it can only apply to Apple developers and can only wok on OS and is a one hardware. The generative platforms will let android apps be available for free, multiple independent app markets and Android are an open source. There are millions of independent and also OS developers which creates a cutthroat hardware manufacture competition. 
 
Ted also talked about two different types of culture, permission culture and open culture. Permission culture creates a locking between people’s options because they know better so they believe they will have the choice for you. But the open culture is where people can have free choices but in doing so have to take the responsibility for their decision making.
 
Ted used a quote from Henry Jenkins to finish the lecture, “imagine a world where there are 2 kinds of media power: one comes through media concentration, where a message gains authority simply by being broadcast on the network television; the other comes though collective intelligence, where a message gains visibility only if it is deemed relevant to a loose network of diverse publics.”

Week 11

This is the third lecture on algorithmic control, were the primary focus was on privacy, surveillance and the price of content.
 
In the lecture, Ted talked about the value of traces which he separated into 3 takes. The first take of the value of traces is that the data is not monolithic; the second value is about people want to share some data. Although people want to share their data, sometimes people still want to retain a bit of their personal space.
 
The second main focus point was about different data, such as service data, disclosed data, entrusted data, incidental data, behavioural data and argument. Service data is the data given to a social networking site in order to use it, including an individual’s name, age and credit card number. Disclosed data is about what the person post of their own post, for example information included in blog entries, photographs, messages and comments. Entrusted data is about what a person post on other people’s pages which is similar to disclosed data but the only thing is you don’t get the control of the data once you do the comments because it is another persons post and the owner of the post can delete your comment. The incidental data is the data that other people post about you, which is also similar to disclosed data, but the only difference is you didn’t create it in the first place, someone else created for you. Behavioural data is what the social media companies like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram are doing, where they record about your usage habits and who you interact with.
 
Although these types of data enable people to know more about their friends, there are some occasions when people want their data to be secure and consent should be collected for the use of incidental and behavioural data and control over disclosed and entrusted data. People have the right to control this data because they are the ones to create the data, which is a privacy issue.