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The essential impact of Lutenberg's printing press and Twitter on journalism and how they transformed the world of publishing..

When publishing changes, so does society. Investigate and compare the impact of two publication technologies, one pre-1900 and one post-2000, on a specific aspect of society (e.g. education, politics, creative industries, science, entertainment, social relationships). 

  The process of publishing can be broadly defined as the distribution of information to any particular public, and both the publishing process and the public are subject to change and in transition with each other constantly. The publics themselves are simply assemblages of all the specific acts of publishing, such as archiving, distributing and aggregating, which grasp together as a system of enabling the continually changing assemblage of the social body through space and time. The emergence of mechanical movable type printing is widely regarded as one of the most empowering and significant events of the modern era.  It brought on some of the biggest social changes the world has ever seen, such as the Renaissance, the Reformation and the emergence of capitalism. Furthermore, it facilitated the progression of literacy and education rates around the world by providing a more accessible and organised spread of information. Five hundred and fifty years on, the rise of social networking tool Twitter provides a different platform for providing a richness of learning about subjects like history, technology, business, economics, the environment, ethics and religion. Rather than completely void the old methods and objectives of the printing press, Twitter is applying them to create a more productive, efficient and informative platform for journalism. This essay will define and contextualise these two publication technologies in an attempt to properly investigate and gauge the substantial impacts they have made on journalism and various publics.

  According to Canadian scholar McLuhan (1962), it was the Gutenberg evolution of printing that instilled the notion of the public in society. German blacksmith Johannes Gutenberg was able to transform the previously preferred Codex into a printed manifesto that allowed mass production of printed books at a cost economically viable for printers and readers. The inauguration of the printing press around the mid-fifteenth century was a significant milestone in regard to analysing how forms of mass publishing affect cognitive organisation and the consequent profound ramifications for social organisation that have been recognised. Aside from playing a key role in a string of important social revolutions and developments, Gutenberg’s publishing tool was able to lay the material basis for a knowledge-based economy and the proliferation of learning to the masses.

  In the pre-Gutenberg era, modes of publishing were not only a hindrance to the development of general knowledge, but were in fact a contribution to the miscarriage of justice and liberal democracy. The establishment of printing as a publishing technology allowed for a wider spread of information and a more efficient form of archiving. General distribution of information was a key factor in the rebirth of publics in Europe, permitting the dissemination of ideas that sparked a massive cultural movement, the Renaissance. Furthermore, the printing press was a major catalyst for the later scientific revolution, which was based on the sharing of printed papers containing data, ideas and methodology. Through a process that was extremely time-efficient in comparison to previous modes of publishing such as carving of letters, and also through the enhanced lifespan of the paper in comparison to the susceptibility of wood to ink, data journalism was able to present visual representations of data that led to some of the world’s biggest changes. The system of capitalism, which some in contemporary society may take for granted, was based on records and communications made available by printing. Even the initiation of colonialism is attributed to Gutenberg’s printing press as people were able to read of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the Americas in books.

  Further adding to the list of huge societal impacts and reforms, printing technology allowed for the flowering of vernacular literatures across Europe, from which much of contemporary speech is derived. By ensuring widespread availability of literature, the public sphere was brought together by publication both physically and spiritually.  In terms of physical locations, in the forms of coffee houses where journalism became largely present and brought politics, news, intrigue and gossip to the community. Eventually, journalism through printed press enabled what Benedict Anderson (1991) identifies as the ‘imagined communities’, where public assemblages facilitated more connections across physical and geographical boundaries. Through this increased literacy and education among different assemblages of publics brought through printing, journalism was enabled to introduce the paradigm that is the more intense and visually oriented self-consciousness.

  One of the major initial impacts the high quality and relatively low price the printing press had on journalism was a derivative of the widespread reception of data. In the Later Middle Ages, only a privileged minority were granted access to the tools of printed mass communication, meaning publics were often manipulated by slanted governments, churches and authorities of the era. The possible corruption that was brought through the use of new technologies and political uses of media, which still habituate media ecologies over five hundred years later, was a tool used to regularly misinform the public. However, the printing press, when combined with upstanding citizens, allowed for the authority of religion to be challenged. In particular, it was the cornerstone in Martin Luther’s famous 95 Theses that sparked the Reformation and consequently altered the way in which the Church was interacted with by various publics. This social revolution was a result of the impact printing had on journalism, more specifically, on the ability to mass produce and widely distribute information at a much faster rate.

  As suggested by Rusbridger (2010), it is not the primary aim of innovation in new technologies to completely abandon previous frameworks in publishing. Rather, Twitter is an evolution of Gutenberg’s printing press and is characterised by many of the established norms of the press. However, it is the drive of Twitter to more enhanced and flexible distribution and aggregation that makes it one of the most powerful tools in the emerging Web 3.0 era. The social networking development has prompted a widespread review on the processes and impacts of journalism in contemporary society through the function of the most powerful tools exploited. From the ‘splintering’ of the fourth estate, the diminution of traditional and often hierarchical “authoritative” intermediaries, and the astonishing power to aggregate and distribute more content than ever before, Twitter has allowed for a shift in the production and reception processes of journalism and consequently revolutionised social organisation.

  The establishment of a more contemporary form of news publishing is categorised largely by the enabling of communication as opposed to transmission, that is, wider engagement and interaction by users as opposed to a message delivered by a sole distributor. Ulmer (1989) argues that electronic media forms lie between orality and literacy. This essentially goes to say that contemporary social networking facilitates the immediacy, specificity and ease of responding in written text via platforms such as Twitter. More communicative frameworks and networks are formed, precipitating more data to be aggregated, (re)distributed and engaged with by the growing number of users. While the invention of radio and television were essentially an idea of communication with an authoritative figure delivering information, a more open publishing tool allows for a shift to a different media ecology where user generated content dominates. The publication of ‘journalism’ now significantly invalidates the traditional overhead of publishers, printers, distributors and physical news stands as people can now evaluate and engage with writing in an open access form.

            Many scholars are indeed wary of the weakening of authoritativeness on Twitter and the consequent impacts on journalism in modern society. While there exists a greater diversity in production, which no doubt leads to an increase in content made available, it calls into question whether there is any such distinct “journalism”, according to Rusbridger (2010). Twitter has made possible the so-called ‘journalism’, as Rusbridger hesitantly identifies it, which involves the mass production of raw data across time and space. It is the fear of various publics not being able to properly interpret this raw data, posted often out of context due to 140-character limitations on Twitter, that strikes skeptical scholars most. Once existed a time when journalism involved qualified professionals receiving, interpreting and (re)distributing the appropriate form of data to an audience that would often accept it as news. The recent wide circulation of the face of a victim subject to a brutal attack in the US, in which his face was eaten off by a stranger, is an example of Twitter users being unable to apply standards and ethics training to their distribution of data, which is a consequence of the increased social uptake in publishing on Twitter. Furthermore, the desire for instantaneous reporting of news via Twitter allows extra scope for the potential to misinform the public, as rushed data may be factually incorrect or not presented properly in context within space restrictions.

  However, Twitter provides an extraordinary search tool that enables users to aggregate content from all ends of the World Wide Web, effectively giving the global coverage that comes from a unique network of millions of foreign correspondents. Broadly speaking, content aggregation refers to the type of function where multiple syndicated web content is joined as a single transmission to increase efficiency and access to information. Through the use of hashtags, users are able to aggregate relevant content without having to endlessly scan over printed articles, or even over news websites. As you can see in the demonstrating podcast below, rather than enter a term in a search bar, Twitter harnesses the mass power of human intelligence to find new and valuable information that no news organisation could endeavour to challenge.

PODCAST - The power of hyperpersonalisation and hyperlocalising on Twitter to aggregate specific content for users.

As we can also find evident in the podcast, the simplicity of archiving on Twitter has allowed the effective organisation of information in an online database. Information is increasingly organised by location, hashtags, personal preferences and ‘lists’, reflecting a shift toward hyperpersonalisation. While some argue that Twitter is an instant, highly condensed stream of information, the use of these archiving tools can in fact increase the attention span of Twitter users by increasingly listing developments in particular subjects.

  The impact on journalism of the distribution of information via Twitter can be recognised by taking note of the following visualisation. The power of plurality on Twitter is leading towards a far more diverse spread of ideas, information and content. Journalists and news media outlets are forced to utilise, rather than challenge, the power of Twitter, as it can produce considerable amounts of information (via links) incomparably faster than traditional methods. As noted in this figure, the “mass ability to communicate with each other, without having to go through a traditional intermediary – is truly transformative” (Rusbridger 2010). Furthermore, it has been noted by Lessig that redistribution is “a practice that rests explicitly upon a respect for copyright” (2010), rather than an infringement upon creative title rights.

Source 1 – Hepburn, A – ‘Infographic: The Social Media Effect’

Publishing practices are deeply involved in the constitution of social life because of the kind of publics they bring into being (Murphy 2012). It is important to recognise that modes of publishing, such as printing and 'tweeting', facilitate participation in real social life and ‘imagined’ publics, which allow us to reassemble social engagements with other publics and modulate the intensity of our experience with these assemblages, configurations or publics. Gutenberg’s printing press was a revolutionary publishing tool that originally defined the process of mass production and changed the very nature of the social. The mutual enhancement of new media, such as Twitter, has led to the transformation of almost all the aspects of human society, and journalism specifically. (Chen, 2012). As aforementioned at the very beginning, publishing is a process of making something public. While we have experienced remarkable change over time, spanning from traditional oral publishing to cave painting, from printing to Tweeting, the process of aggregating, interpreting and (re)distributing data in the journalism ecology is subject to ongoing change in a state of meta-stability that will continually shape the public life and the way individuals engage with the information-laden world around them.

    REFERENCES:

Anderson, B 1991, Imagined Communities, Verso, London.

Chen, G 2012, ‘The Impact of New Media on Intercultural Communication in Global Context’, China Media Research, University of Rhode Island, pp. 1-10.

Hepburn, A 2010, ‘Inforgraphic: The Social Media Effect’, Digital Buzz Blog, 4 April, accessed 4 June 2012, <http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/infographic-the-social-media-effect/>.

Lessig, L 2010, ‘An Obvious Distinction’, The Huffington Post, 12 November, accessed on 4 June 2012, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-lessig/an-obvious-distinction_b_783068.html>.

McLuhan, M 1962, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man, 1st ed, University of Toronto Press.

Murphy, A 2012, Modes of Publishing, lecture notes distributed in ARTS2090 at The University of New South Wales, accessed on 2 June 2012, <http://arts2090.newsouthblogs.org/lecture-notes/>.

Murphy, A 2012, The Visual, Perception and Politics, lecture notes distributed in ARTS2090 at The University of New South Wales, accessed on 2 June 2012, <http://arts2090.newsouthblogs.org/lecture-notes/>.

Rusbridger, A 2010, ‘The Splintering of the Fourth Estate’, The Guardian, 19 November, accessed 4 June 2012, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/19/open-collaborative-future-journalism/print>.

Ulmer, G 1989, Teletheory: Grammatology in the Age of Video, Routledge, New York.

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A podcast of how Twitter is a powerful tool for aggregating data and its hyper-personalisation and hyper-location of data.

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An interesting look at the effects of posting material online.

This remains property of Adam Hepburn.The image has been used as a demonstration into the power of social media in an assessment.

Please refer to the references at the bottom of this article for complete references.

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The best forms of aggregation in publishing...

Aggregation refers to the coming together of published data, published media that have come together to form a wide mix of information. On a personal level, I am in the centre of the continuum of aggregation and distribution. I write blogs, tweet, post YouTube clips, write news reports just as much as I download music and podcasts, watch YouTube clips and read the local rags. This means that I consume as much published media as I distribute or reproduce. It is an important aspect of journalism that we continue to distribute as much information as possible so that we give the general public the best opportunity to assemble media to shape their daily life.

An activity we have been requested to do as part of our university commitments this week involves researching our favourite examples of publishing for 'Show and Tell' and then making a brief presentation in class. I struggled to narrow it down to one because of the wide variety of content that engages in the constant battle to stand out among all others at the top of the Google search tool.

One of my favourite publications has to be a YouTube series called Epic Rap Battles of History by NicePeter. It has scored hundreds of millions of aggregated clicks across its channel for the way it incorporates information about famous icons from all generations and turns it all into a humourous battle against another. Here is just one of the clips below:

From a more journalistic point of view, I really enjoy the way Mark Colvin produces all of his new and opinion content over a number of different platforms. He presents on radio, he produces his own opinion blogs and posts them via Twitter, and has made many appearances in Australian newspapers such as The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald. He incorporates a wide mix of current political events with more brain-bugging odd dilemmas, and is always ready to question or challenge the current state of events.

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CITIZEN JOURNALISM GONE TOO FAR – WHERE A MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPER LOST A PART OF ITS CREDIBILITY

It was only yesterday an article that recently caused so much hype and anger within media circles truly gained my attention. The main source of University students have an almost universal disdain for the mainstream media, Dr Peter White, has come out against claims represented in that piece, saying his “views were not accurately conveyed.”

In all honesty, I was ignorant to the rave about first-year media student Max Maddison’s article, whose mother works in a senior role at the newspaper it was published in. He wrote a piece highly critical of his belief that university students are negatively predetermined in their selection of media outlets for consumption of news. The idea that a long string of third-year media students were jealous a pompous first-year had his article published in one of Australia’s most historically prominent newspapers is quite plausible.

Taking the initiative to begin developing a professional portfolio is a characteristic that is to be applauded by all accounts. As a third-year student myself, I certainly know and appreciate the challenge and extend a big pat on the back for Max.

However, upon the first statement from Dr Peter White, who has presented an exploration of media bias with the Murdoch press as a case study, it has appeared that his words were not conveyed accurately and presented him in a light that he certainly does not stand in. And in the rare journalistic circumstance that he is the only source that is providing the story with its scoop, this is a big deal.

But that was simply one of the reasons why a major news provider in Australia has been portrayed as irresponsible in its publication of the article published April 23. There is no excuse for publishing to a such a wide audience a representation of Dr Peter White’s views that can be misconstrued and consequently allow readers to develop a misinformed predisposition toward not only Dr White, but also staff at the University of New South Wales and the selection process of those staff.

The issue is the increasingly prevalent idea of citizen journalism. Some tell-tale signs that Max was not qualified to present an analysis of such a complex idea appear far deeper than his own admission he has been studying the media for two weeks.

A basic grammatical error in the use of it’s in “not because I found it’s news any more engaging…” should have set alarm bells off at the editor’s office. The apostrophe used in it’s denotes it is a contraction for 'it is', of which its significance in journalism is stressed after a few different exercises at university. The same word is causing more trouble in further paragraphs, and the use of the numeral ‘7’ rather than the full word ‘seven’ is also worrying in that it was not picked up by editors. It’s common journalistic style to spell out numbers up to ten or eleven, anything after comes as a numeral.

One of the strongest indications of the contradicting nature and incapacity of this article to be published appears in the lack of sources used to provide support for his idea. Dr White was yesterday heckled by a student in one of his lectures who wanted a clear-cut answer on what he thought of Maddison’s article, which had received plenty of negative feedback from the communications and journalism constituent of students and alumni. He stumbled in answering, apparently trying to avoid giving the answer for fear of being caught up in something he didn’t feel was worth being involved in. He eventually conceded that he was disappointed in the way his views were represented by Maddison. Let it be known, he was using Maddison’s article as an exercise in ethics and presenting anecdotal evidence accurately as to not misrepresent a source.

As did Dr White, I must mention that this article is not for the purpose of criticising Max Maddison in any way. He will learn from this experience and has gained an invaluable addition to his portfolio and exposure to publishing. Fortunately, he still has three more testing years at university that will shape the journalist or media academic he strives to become. The primary concern is why this article was published by a newspaper with such a reputation as the Australian holds, and what this means for citizen journalists trying to get their two cents published to a mass audience.

Gus Bruno is a third-year journalism student at the University of New South Wales.

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How can we predict our futures collectively?

Technological enhancement and convergence of multiple multi-semiotic platforms only serves to prove the concept that media is constantly undergoing transformation. The fluidity of our engagement in media is resultant in a care-free, casual interaction with all of our forms of media. We hardly seem to stop and see where this is all heading. The path is far from linear and predictable, so we often cannot be bothered to look deeper into some of the implications of a care-free future. Take a look at this short clip:

I know, I know. Again with the social media. But do consider Scott's acclaimed 'Social Media Dystopia'. With no way to predict that hundreds of people would congregate outside her home, this poor singing lady continued her own daily duties. This video is important and relevant for two reasons:

Firstly, the recognition of pattern is crucial to pinning down the future of our everyday life within the media, according to Kastelle (2012). But I challenge the ease at which he suggests this can occur. The ability to be completely mobile and with access to a multitude of powerful tools (such as video streaming, text, Tweeting etc) has made our engagement with media far more unpredictable. While there are some certain phenomena that we can prepare ourselves for, such as the 7:30-10pm Twitter trending of #TheVoiceAU (God help us all), these other random events can be spurred on in an instant and attract significant loads of mobile traffic. And as Easterling (2012) suggests, having this mobility makes the idea of space as technology almost impossible to distinguish between the real world and the virtual world.

Secondly, this is reflective of a shift in the way we approach some (previously) basic assumptions about media, communications, interaction, culture and self. Technology, and portability in particular, has changed the way which we engage in these fundamental concepts. For example, we are no longer the same 'self' that we were ten years ago, because we have been shaped by the knowledge and accessibility granted to us by a more mobile and fluid culture.

Upon reflection, I don't think we can predict and determine our futures because we are so obsessed with 'self' and not the collective. By collective, I mean that it is deplorable to suggest we can co-exist in the same realities and virtual spaces because we are all influenced by a plethora of distinct factors. For example, what I see on Google is different to what you see because we have different search patterns. And these different search patterns are a result of different interests, different engagements with different products at different times on different days and so on and so forth. My point is, people shouldn't be preparing for the future. People should be preparing to be adaptable to any change that may result in a new future, which may change again at any moment.

KEYWORD: Internet of Things

REFERENCES:

Easterling, K 2011, ‘An Internet of Things’, e-flux journal, accessed 13 May, <http://www.e-flux.com/journal/an-internet-of-things/>.

Kastelle, T 2012, How to Think About the Future, Innovation Leadership Network, accessed 13 May, <http://timkastelle.org/blog/2012/02/how-to-think-about-the-future>.

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Distributing and aggregating within the social...

Broadly speaking, content aggregation refers to the type of function where multiple syndicated web contents is joined as a single transmission to increase efficiency and access to information.

In the tech-savvy, Internet-dominated public we exist in, distribution and aggregation are two very relevant concepts for users to engage with. In layman terms, they refer to the way we can be a distributor of information, or a collector and organiser of information. In contemporary society, we are constantly floundering between these two ideas, actively participating and engaging with media on various levels to contribute to the functioning of society.

This idea is reiterated by Gauntlett (2010) inMaking is Creating, in which he identifies creativity from active participants as the main actor in a floursihing modern society. He asserts it is the drive to contribute to a community, be recognised among others, and personal satisfaction and pleasure that encourages users to create.

Dodson (2009) suggests that we exists in a 'systems age' where artificial intelligence are paramount in digital spheres. He asserts that "sensing, collecting, and manipulating data in near real-time with little to no human supervision" are characteristics that set apart this era from all others.

The University of New South Wales utilises a tool called Blackboard, which is a distributor and aggregator of content. It doesn't so much enhance the social ecology of students as much as Facebook and Twitter, but it is a good example of information being brought together and distributed by a computer-generated publisher. One potentially negative aspect of this that Guillard (2010) points out as an issue is the way in which some of this information flow is limited, which relates to the way in which certain information is made only available to people enrolled in particular classes:

“In a networked world, people connect with people like themselves: consequently, it is easy not to get access to views of people who don’t think as you do".

The video below is a quick explanation of social content curation, and some of the best websites that are doing it, according to a leading digital analyst. It is appropriate to see how easy it is to gather relevant information so it is made more accessible and searchable, but notice also how narrow some sites have been made.

REFERENCES:

Gauntlett, D 2010, Making is Connecting, accessed on 13 May, <http:// www.makingisconnecting.org/>.

Guillaud, H 2010,  'What is implied by living in a world of flow?', Truthout, 6 January, accessed on 13 May, <http://www.truthout.org/what-implied-living-a-world-flow56203>.

Dodson, W 2009, Dawn of the Systems Age, accessed on 13 May, <http://scienceblogs.com/ seed/2009/12/dawn_of_the_systems_age.php#more>.

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New media is generous by nature, but is this welcome?

We can see through routine study of new media forms that science, technology and innovation are transformed by new media, which consequently goes through the process of transforming us as a whole. Science is as integral part of the relationship because it engages with new media to experiment and model new ideas that have the power to influence and shape our ecologies.

Open Science refers to an idea that is presented in Pisani (2011), that scientific data should be transparent and available to the wider public. It is implied that open data would add to a more knowledgeable and stable public. However, the power of raw data provides an ethical dilemma in that not everyone agrees on the controversial topic, and not everyone has the right interests for access to the information.

This video below, a full BBC documentary on the dilemmas of trying to create, predict, reproduce and alter various publics through science. If you have the time to watch, it offers extensive coverage of the topic, associated ethical dilemmas, and a balanced report of information and events to allow the audience to make up their own mind.

Is archiving in this current digital age not enough to provide for open science? Dobbs (2012) believes editing and distribution around the Internet are still areas that require improvement as part of Web 2.0. This idea fits in with my Final Research Project, which focuses on search engine optimisation through content aggregation and curation. This process currently allows for key words to be searched, effectively making anything and everything searchable. Surely, the only further step is to literally offer the information to others. One issue that I have much further to delve into is the extent to which scientific data is already open to reception. Seed (2011) hints at the idea that with "the internet turning traditional scientific publishing o its ear, new kinds of records and databases are possible." Complex algorithms, coding and tracking has offered a completed search engine platform that allows users to access the directories of all files uploaded to the World Wide Web.

Do we have open science? Yes. Do we need it to be more open? I think the more appropriate question is, 'Can it?'. I think not.

REFERENCES: Dobbs, David 2012, ‘Is the Open Science Revolution for Real?’ Wired, February 3, accessed 7 May 2012, <http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/is-the-open-science-revolution-for-real>.

Pisani, Elizabeth 2011, ‘Medical science will benefit from the research of crowds’, The Guardian, January 11, accessed 7 May 2012, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/11/medical-research-data-sharing>.

Seed 2011, ‘On Science Transfer’, Seed , accessed 7 May 2012, <http://seedmagazine.com/content/print/on_science_transfer>.

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Is the power of social media all it's cracked up to be?

It seems I am alone in my stand against the perception that social media (Twitter especially) operates as a world-changer. Just by reading a few of the blogs that students have produced on the topic of social media impacts, and especially their power in organising attacks on big politics, it is clear to me that everyone thinks Twitter is the omni-potent God Almighty.

There is no denying the incredible role Twitter played during the Egypt revolts against the government. Amazing power, harnessed by passionate users. Well done, I applaud you. Hirshkind addresses the way these "online activists have played a key role in transforming the conditions of political possibility in Egypt during the last decade..." (2011).

HOWEVER. And this is a pretty big one. From the recent failure of the exceptionally viral Kony 2012 arise new questions about the real powerof social media. I for one, suggest that it is anonymous power, unaccountable, empty power. At the risk of sounding like a cliche, the people of Egypt were uprising because they had something to something to lose and something to gain. Let's now compare this to Australia:

Over the weekend just passed (21/22 April 2012), over 19,000 people had signed up on the Internet, spurred by Twitter promotions, to plaster Sydney city with posters to increase awareness for the issue. Less than 30 showed up. This proves that linking to something on Facebook or Twitter is one thing - getting off the couch is another. Unfortunately, leaderless organisations seem to be restricted to some extent. Allow me to explain why.

Mason (2010) claims "people know more than they used to...people have a better understanding of power"...but do they? I am more skeptical of this. As a more classical realist, I understand that we need leaders, we need sovereignty - as soon as you lack leadership in that sense, we devolve into a state of anarchy where the nature's rule subsides and all hell breaks loose. Leadership is a framework in which our daily lives are framed within, they shape everyone of our interactions - they tell us what to do, and what we can't do. Twitter can be envisaged as a leaderless organisation in that it has no ruler, no rules. Anonymity is the root of all negativity on the platform, as people aren't bound by what content they produce. Politicians especially cop plenty of abuse via anonymous silhouettes, and is this safe and healthy? This can have such a negative bearing on our policy-makers that they spend hours obsessing over the 24-hour news cycle, which is killing our democracy (Ellis 2010). This constant craving for transparency to those who are hardly transparent and open themselves (let alone be held accountable for any misadventures they procure on social media), is what potentially affects the government, bringing reactions and policy into the light. As reflected by Lessig (2006), “The ‘naked transparency movement’, as I will call it here, is not going to inspire change. It will simply push any faith in our political systems over the cliff”.

Essentially, the public engages with social media platforms to set agendas, but it isn't Twitter that marches into the streets, it isn't Facebook that weeps after being sprayed with pepper spray - it's the people. Twitter and other forms of social media are platforms, even frameworks, that shape the way we interact with society in various ways. The only role social media plays in changing governments is through public setting of agenda.

So while Brafman and Beckstrom ascertain that social media fronted by leaderless organisationsare “knocking down traditional businesses, altering entire industries, affecting how we relate to each other, and influencing world politics." (2010), I disagree. It is those who ignite the fire that carry the responsibility. While Wikileaks has challenged the mainstream media and its publishing process, it is made up of a collaboration of leaders who make decisions in receiving, organising and eventually publishing content - and they will carry that burden as long as they exist.

REFERENCES:

Brafman, O and Beckstrom, R 2010, ‘The Power Of Leaderless Organizations: Craigslist, Wikipedia And Al Qaeda All Demonstrate How Absence Of Structure Has Become An Asset’, National Journal, accessed on April 23 2012, <http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/the-power- of-leaderless-organizations-20100911>.

Ellis, B, 2010, ‘Sleepless in Canberra’ The ABC, Drum Unleashed, accessed on April 24 2012, <http:// www.abc.net.au/unleashed/35116.html>.

Hirschkind, C 2011, ‘From the Blogosphere to the Street: The Role of Social Media in the Egyptian Uprising’, Jadaliyya, accessed on April 23 2012, <http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/599/from-the- blogosphere-to-the-street_the-role-of-social-media-in-the-egyptian-uprising>.

Lessig, L 2010, Against Transparency: The perils of openness in government,accessed on April 24 2012, <http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/against-transparency?page=0,0>.

Mason, P 2011, ‘Twenty reasons why it's kicking off everywhere’, Idle Scrawls BBC, accessed on April 23 2012, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/paulmason/2011/02/twenty_reasons_why_its_kicking.html>.

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Source: Today Tonight There are plenty of good examples of designs that change publishing and publics, including the interface on the iPad most obviously. However, one design may go unnoticed - the layout of supermarkets. You can ask yourself, 'How often am I at the supermarket?", and you may be surprised and how much you really are. They are a common necessity these days, and often our public changes to their beat. Take for example, public holidays. Doesn't your life just hit a brick wall when you get to the local supermarket and it's closed?! Or if you get there too late and all the tomatoes are gone?!

In very much the same way that the foods are categorised and published in different contexts inInfosthetics (2007) calorie publication, the video above is one that portrays visual imagery and how it can be presented to alter publics.Infostheticspresents a collection of photograps of food iteams that contain exactly 200 calories, and these images are of foods that are designed to make us think a certain way - they push a certain perception of life into our minds that some foods are more damaging to our health than others. But of course, we knew this before, right? Wrong. Wethink we know how healthy foods are, but by placing it before our most vital sense of sight, an image, and understanding, is embedded into our minds and will forever affect the way we live.The video above is synonymous withDebord's(1967) ideas that the visual has pertains to be united and divided and the same time. Outlining the complexities, he says:

"The spectacle, like modern society itself, is at once united and divided. The unity of each is based on violent divisions. But when this contradiction emerges in the spectacle, it is itself contradicted by a reversal of its meaning: the division it presents is unitary, while the unity it presents is divided."

Essentially, this is saying that something has to be united for it to be separated. And for something to be separated, it must be united at some stage. He also goes on to identify the personification of a system as a major feature of the visual, the spectacle. We can see that supermarkets provide our needs as a wider audience, and provide for our needs with a more personal feeling. The way this is done is explained throughout the video, as design is further used to visually present our needs in the most aesthetically pleasing way.

So next time you go to the supermarket, try and figure out WHY this item has been placed where it is. WHY is it next to that product? WHY is it this high in the aisle? WHY is it on special? Answering these questions can give us valuable information in regard to who needs these products most, and how their reality has been altered by its availability.

REFERENCES:Information Aesthetics 2012, 'How does 200 calories look like?', Information Aesthetics, accessed on April 21 2012, <http://infosthetics.com/archives/2007/01/how_does_200_calories_look_like.html>.

Debord, G 1967, The Society of the Spectacle, Paris, pp.54-61.

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Thinking transversally to escape framing...

It is often debated that journalism is in decline, especially that of traditional forms such as newspapers due to the impact of digital and networked media. Similar arguments are made in anomalies faced by the music industry as certain ecologies of practice are transformed through, over and into new frameworks. Within this increasingly dynamic society, unrestricted by upgrades in technology, we must address whether these industries in journalism, music, education, politics et al. are indeed 'dying', or are contrastingly transformed into new.

One of the major implications of increased networking and technology, common to the journalism and music industries, is the capacity for unqualified production. That is to say, we can compare an age of yesteryear when only qualified people had voices (or sounds) within society with that of the current era of increased user generated content facilitated by production across various mediums. There are numerous implications to these changes, both positive and some negative. At the end of the day, the transversality of ecologies within the journalism and music industries have allowed for probably the widest variety of products available tot he public, so many different ways to produce and distribute it, and also enjoy it.

One particular example of this is the way in which news has evolved from a stable format (only produced once per day) into an online environment dominated by interactivity. News websites are organising their sites to cater for a wider range of audience by compositionally formatting older, more traditional values of news into a new flash- and java-dominated environment.

Van Buskirk (2012) reiterates this idea through his description of the way D.J. Spooky "releases his music in an interactive, remixable music format", which is then translated into a mobile app that allows you to transversally create new media.

In regards to music, Paul (2012) argues that their is no risk to Apple to host music on the iTunes store that has been created outside of traditional recording studios, by everyday citizens. Contrary to that of the journalism realm, where news websites can still be accountable for information posted on their website (and are consequently monitoring material frequently), Paul's argument is that Apple has adapted to the ecologies of practice of the music industry and has developed a new way of framing the situation.

That isn't to say journalism isn't adapting to change. Far from it in fact. Rusbridger (2012) finds that major news outlets are encouraging audience participation and even social challenge to the employed journalists. My closing words are simple. At the end of the day, news is a business product. Music is a product. Every service in the entire history of human existence can be bought and sold as a product. For these corporations to continue to be financially well-placed, they must keep up with contemporary framing within their respective contexts. This is exactly why newspapers have moved online - rather than condemn the change and wither and die, they have incorporated their practices into new products that are relevant and appropriate to social changes that have occurred, and will continue to occur.

References:

Van Buskirk, E 2012, 'DJ Spooky on Apps, WiFi Music Partiew, and the 'Post-Playlist Era', Evolver FM, accessed on 15 April 2012, < http://evolver.fm/2012/02/28/dj-spooky-on-music-apps-analog-vs-digital-djing-and-the-post-playlist-era>.

Murphie, A 2012, 'Framing Transversality (Music, Journalism, Education)', ARTS3091 Advanced Media Issues, University of New South Wales, available from Blackboard, accessed 15 April 2012.

Paul 2012, 'I’m a Successful Artist. And Here’s Why Things Have Never Been Worse', accessed 15 April 2012, <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120214cracker>.

Rusbridger, A 2012, Q&A with Alan Rusbridger: The Future of Open Journalism, accessed 15 April 2012, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/25/alan-rusbridger-open-journalism>.

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Tackling the piracy issue over time

So I was lucky to stumble across two interesting things this week.

Firstly, I had a guided stumble across this old-school anti-piracy video. Apart from it's comic value, it also highlights the ongoing issue of piracy in the modern age. Although the technology has somewhat evolved, we still haven't fully evolved in terms of addressing copyright infringements.

What is important to consider, is that piracy is theft. If you are downloading files, you are taking an idea that belongs to someone else who has the right to monetise the idea. It is this common misconception, that just because the owner of the idea may not need the $2 it costs to download a song, that it is okay. With the easier facilitation of file transfers across the Internet, especially through Peer to Peer (P2P) filesharing, copyright is an international and damning crime.

The second thing I stumbled across was what has evolved from this video. While this original anti-piracy campaign was aimed at files in disk form, this era is targeting electronic transfer.

"Electronic copies of legal texts were become available but these were usually in disk form rather than available online. The challenge for industry and government is how to deal with the ever-growing pace of the development of digital technology… Former Attorney-General Robert McLelland, 15th Biennial Copyright Symposium, 2011

Here is a link to the Australian Law Review Commission inquiry that will seek a review of "whether the exceptions in the Copyright Act are adequate and appropriate in the digital environment. Currently the Copyright Act has general exceptions to the rules regarding infringement of copyright … in a fast changing, technologically driven world it is vital for us to see whether existing statute is appropriate and whether it can be improved.” (Roxon, 2012).

Although this doesn't address P2P filesharing in the inquiry, it is a step in the right direction. Copyright in the digital age is being addressed under the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which has the difficult job of addressing a transversal predicament.

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Data and Media - an unrequited love?

In such a data-driven world, is it crazy to think that a transversely advanced media issue? With further technological enhancements that facilitate communication and connectivity within the local, glocal and global, data journalism "is becoming the industry standard." (Rogers 2011)

According to Quilty-Harper, the way we manage relationships, businesses, learning, politics, advertising and international relations is being changed through advancements in data technologies. In a previous age, data was not considered journalism, but has since become one of the more staple sources of news through its reliability and usefulness.

Data essentially refers to:

"any proposition assumed or given, from which conclusions may be drawn", "any fact assumed to be a matter of direct observation."

Macquarie Dictionary , 1990:236)

And nowadays, data has the power to shape the way in which news media outlets are able to gather information, publish it, and assess the consequent news discourse. Furthermore, these outlets have reworked data into an online platform where they have the ability to be interactive and aesthetically pleasing media.

Quilty-Harper (2010) observes that "the possibilities for collaboration are endless" with data, and it is a means of enabling connections to all different kinds of sources through its accessibility. The way in which Gary Wolf (2010) describes the Nintendo Wii as "a device that allows players to stand on a platform, play physical games, measure their body weight and compare their stats"  offers an example of the way in which the world can be seen as datadriven.

The way that data can be married into media is one where a wide range of data can effectively lead to engaging dialogue between audiences in different media ecologies. And for this, is why I have no objections to them being wed....

Rogers, Simon (2011) Data journalism at the Guardian: what is it and how do we do it? [online]. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jul/28/data-journalism [Accessed 2 April 2012].

Quilty-Harper, Conrad (2010) 10 ways data is changing how we live [online]. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/7963311/10-waysdata-is-changing-how-we-live.html [Accessed 2 April 2012].

Wolf, Gary (2010), The Data-Driven Life [online]. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/magazine/02self-measurement-t.html [Accessed 2 April 2012].

[shhhimtalkingnow-blog]

Still got archive fever? Share it!

Excuse the poor quality of this clip, but it was the only clip of this exact scene that I wanted. If you have seen the film 'Baseketball', you will understand this more so as it fits in with the entire film.

Apart from the wonderful intellect supplied in this movie, it has also been widely suggested that our attention spans have been continually decreasing as a result of the technical developments in information providers. Matt Richtel sums up our ability to divert attention to whatever is on our mind (and consequently in our pocket) pretty well:

“at one time a screen meant maybe something in your living room. But now it’s something in your pocket so it goes everywhere — it can be behind the wheel, it can be at the dinner table, it can be in the bathroom. We see it everywhere today”.

If you are not convinced with that argument, and consider yourself unaffected by technology's attention-grabbing attributes, consider this: If you spend time on Google searching for specific information, and find yourself on the Internet for over an hour looking at other things (witty memes, Facebook, Mail, News etc), you are welcome on this blog. Why? Because that is human condition, you are normal. Emily Yoffe even takes it a step further in modern society:

“sometimes it feels as if the basic drives for food, sex, and sleep have been overridden by a new need for endless nuggets of electronic information”.

So, what does this mean for society? Well, Rheingold insists it is natural that we find a way to cope with copious quantities of information that is produced and consumed every single second. He uses his own terminology, "infotention" to describe:

“describe the psycho-social-techno skill/tools we all need to find our way online today, a mind-machine combination of brain-powered attention skills with computer-powered information filters”.

It is no secret that we live in a media ecology obsessed with information, in fact, thriving off its very existence in contemporary society. Consciously or unconsciously, we are constantly on the search for new information to consume and divulge across many platforms to many receivers. Just as our archive of information (our memory) increases, so does the willingness to attach related data to all that exists already within our mind. And with the attention likely to be dominated by contrasting and aligning information, our rate of 'infotention' increases naturally to adjust.

REFERENCES:

Rheingold, Howard (2009) ‘Mindful Infotention: Dashboards, Radars, Filters’, SFGate, <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/rheingold/detail?entry_id=46677>

Richtel, Matthew (2010), 'Digital Overload: Your brain on gadgets', NPR, <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129384107>

Yoffe, Emily (2009) ‘Seeking: How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting. And why that's dangerous’ Slate, <http://www.slate.com/articles/ health_and_science/science/2009/08/seeking.html>

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Do we live in reality, or what we perceive is reality?

There is a significant distinction that must be made when we use the terms 'reality' and 'real'. Although they may be interrelated and form part of a complex relationship between the two, they must not be used synonymously.

You can have 'reality' without 'real', and vice versa. 'Reality' refers to the way our own experiences work in conjunction with the changing world, which is opposed with the 'real', which is the fixed state the world is in whether we can know and engage with it or not - it remains impartial to our subjectivity.

Understanding the complexity of reality is paramount in making sense of media, cultural and social change. We can, in fact, have mixed realities, which signifies the dynamic nature of the concept - we can have actual, potential and virtual; augmented, mixed and simulated;  global, hyperlocal and glocal; locative and mobile; still and moving; eternal and dynamic; to name a few.

I found this clip of what someone has appropriately titled "Virtual Reality", and is concerned with the advancement of multimedia technology and specifically the way that our modes of perception can be accessed in different ways by technology, to fool our brains into thinking it is 'real', not simply a virtual reality. The question of how we know what isrealis one that plagues the human condition when such technological advancements allow our mind to be tricked.

Once thought impossible, even the proprioceptive receptors, concerned with one's awareness of his/her own physical movements, are triggered into action with modern technology. One article posted on ScienceDaily.com explained a study that allowed monkeys to use a virtual limb to touch, feel, move and even distinguish between different virtual objects by sending electrical impulses to the brain (Anon., 2011). The major ambition of the study to help rehabilitate "patients severely paralyzed due to a spinal cord lesion" and aim to recover mobility, sense of touch and proprioceptiveness. 

It is this sort of 'virtual reality', the "computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds" (Anon., 2010) that presents the most opportunistic 'realities' for the future. Although the development of certain simulations may be used for warfare (which is a major risk undoubtedly, with all powers trying to be the most advanced), it also has the benefit of creating surety in what products consumers buy. One such example is the way that Chris Grayson (2009) speaks about the way Lego is used to create an augmented reality to show what a kit would look like fully assembled.

On an endnote, I am excited to see what realities are created next in terms of gaming. Surely, the next best thing we can get is to be able to engage with multiple realities at once. I want to be on the pitch in a football match for Barcelona, let's make that happen.

REFERENCES:

Anon. (n.d.) 2010, ‘Virtual Reality’, Wikipedia , accessed on March 25 2012, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality> 

Anon. (2011) ‘Monkeys 'Move and Feel' Virtual Objects Using Only Their Brains ’, ScienceDaily, October 5, accessed March 25 2012, <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/ 2011/10/111005131648.htm>

Grayson, Chris (2009) 'Augmented Reality Overview', GigantiCo, accessed MArch 25 2012, <http://gigantico.squarespace.com/336554365346/2009/6/23/augmented-reality-overview.html>

[shhhimtalkingnow-blog]

Saturday Night (Archive) Fever!!

Definitions of an archive vary from one interpretation to another, which is interesting because there was once a time when the definition was far less subjective than it has become today - because we all have different experiences with archives.

Put simply, an archive is a place where information or media is created, preserved and destroyed - all at once! This could be a library, a playlist on you iPod, a shopping list even. Anywhere where you can easily store information that can be later retrieved.

I engaged with another user's blog that explained archives were a "beautiful idea [because] it represents anything we consider important or worth preserving". There is no doubt that this is partly true, archives do save some of our fondest memories through photo albums, scrapbooks, journals and diaries etc. However, I thought it was naive, in this age of booming social media especially, not to mention that in fact EVERYTHING is archived via the internet. I will come back to this, but first, allow me to explain, 'archive fever'.

This term essentially refers to the way different modes of publishing affect the world around us, from the way we function to its effects on broader society. Jacques Derrida, through his workArchive Fever: A Freudian Impression, suggests the notion of accessibility is paramount to archiving. The most successful archives can attribute significant amounts of that success to accessibility - one of the world's largest archives, the Internet, can be accessed from nearly anywhere, at anytime and by anybody - compared to an exclusive photo album of Beyonce and Jay-Z's first child in a safe inside their mansion in a hidden location somewhere.

Derrida also suggests archives are important in becoming the basis for what counts within society and even our sense of self. Essentially, archives constitute the most fundamental level of social and individual institutions and practice, laying the basis for authority. For example, religious texts such as the Bible or Koran lay out the basic level of social and individual practices for their given religious followers, while Facebook can be a basis of what is acceptable in society and what is not.

Now, back to my previous point of everything that sometimes what we don't want to be accessed can already archived. Archives have become an increasingly prominent aspect of contemporary society, whether consciously or not. They can appear in homes, schools and offices in ther forms of books, magazines, filing cabinets, trophy cabinets, folders, drawers and, of course, the internet. The expansion of social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogging etc), via the internet, allows a wider range of thoughts to be published. Matthew Ogle expresses necessary caution at this use of social media, suggesting that sometimes searchability and accessibility may not be positive characteristics of an archive tool on the internet:

"What were you thinking about on November 23rd, 2009? You probably have no idea, but Twitter might."

It's not only Twitter, but the Internet in general, that has the capacity to store all information. Personal financial transactions, public records and historical documents on encyclopedias, news articles and blogs, photos and other personal information. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo have established themselves to become the retrievers of the archived information, and very quickly at that.

The speed and ease of access to archived information is the reason as to why 'archive fever' is increasing in contemporary society, as the desire to preserve and access information grows ever so strong.

REFERENCES:

Derrida, J 1997, Archive Fever, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ogle, M 2010, ‘Archive Fever: A love letter to the post real-time web’, mattogle.com, December 16, accessed on March 25 2012, <http://mattogle.com/archivefever/>.