rannsaich

Reflections on Blogging

2005-06-05T15:24:00.000-07:00

Weblogs as a communication medium
Since my introduction to weblogs in March, I have moved through the initial scepticism, then fascination, then to considering how they could be incorporated into everyday life and work.

At first I had difficulty with the concept. Despite my previous study and having been online for some time, I had not encountered blogs before. I immediately linked them to the closest idea in my mind – paper journals. Now I realise blogs and paper journals have things in common, but to think of a blog as an online journal is to seriously underestimate its purpose and potential.

I think a journal is essentially private, a place to record you thoughts. A blog is to share your thoughts. I know that sounds obvious, but its an important psychological shift for me. You see, at first the idea of blogs scared me a bit because I thought of putting my journal online and I didn't like the idea. Now I see blogs as a communication medium and I see them differently. In my journal I write things I want to think about , but not necessarily share, in a blog, I would only write things I wanted to share. I think Howard Rheingold makes a valid point in The Virtual Community when he says "there's a theatrical element to this medium - written conversation as a performing art." (1994, p.61).

Across distance, I think blogs are great, as discussed in a previous post, I have started one to let an overseas friend know the exceedingly boring events of my daily life.

I also agree with classmate Michelle Manners that blogging for this subject has been more interesting that a paper journal, which I have had to keep for other classes.

a public forum for ideas
I see potential for blogs in my workplace. Because they're on the web, anyone with Internet access can see them. I could use it to show progress on projects to all the people involved, post all the necessary documents and let people make comments.

I see potential socially as I have mentioned above. Sometimes I feel a little concerned about both surveillance and the fact that anybody can read your blog. It's a little paranoid I know, which is funny, because it's not that I'm not a publicly online person. My details are available online in the context of my work – someone could easily track me down if they wanted to. But in the context of work, that's the idea.

weblog vs traditional journal
I just think there's something mysterious about a written journal. It's a mysterious part of a person and putting it up for the world to see takes some of that mystery away. Besides, my paper journal is a beautiful Italian leather one.

Portability an issue when it comes to journalling. I know my blog is on the web and I can access it from anywhere – but really, I can't. I don't have a computer everywhere I go. Sometimes I carry my paper journal in my bag and write in it while I'm waiting for the bus. Sometimes you just want to write down your thoughts for your own benefit, not to have a permanent public record. Here's a funny thing though, I think you're more likely to re-read your own blog than your paper journal.

A big difference between paper and online for me is the picture ability. On the flip side, sometimes I put stickers or momentos in my journal – can't do that online.

Comparing blogs
As I have already mentioned in a previous post about blogs, there are some angry, angry people out there. Most of the ones I have stumbled across during this semester have been pretty banal (except the ones from this class of course :).

I can see a future in this blogging thing

2005-06-04T11:49:00.000-07:00

I think there are uses for this blogging idea, even though a lot of the blogs I have seen on blogspot are by angry, angry people. I have not come across many that seem to be long term projects - that doesn't mean they're not there of course. I came across a couple of interesting ones made by a couple of boys at an unnamed Sydney school. There seems to have been an incident at the school and tempers flared. Two boys have created blogs in response to the situation:
http://lordsaddler.blogspot.com/
http://mindlesspeons.blogspot.com/
They're a bit juvenile, but they do demonstrate the extension of real life communities into virtual life. They have effectively created a space outside the confines of their school (meaning they don't have to conform to standards, as evidenced by the language) where thay can talk about the incident and give their response. The responses they received offline have made an appearance online as well, with some unflattering comments left.

Anyway, I have started another personal blog to my friend Annie who is living on the other side of the world for a time. I think it will be a great way to connect her into everyday life here at home, the way she would be if we were close by. Although we are able to talk on the phone, it isn't as frequent as we would normally and so you forget things. It's also hard sometimes to sit and write an email about everything that's been happening for weeks, as I discovered when overseas myself. As I said, the aim of my blog is to give her a feeling of everyday life at home. It is called Dear Annie: http://www.dearannieg.blogspot.com/.

opposing views

2005-05-30T18:47:00.000-07:00

I think the clearest thing I have discovered in all my reading this semester is that there are a lot of opposing views surrounding virtual cultures and virtual communities. There are the enthusiastic Howard Rheingolds, with plenty of positive experience on the Internet and then his "opponents" like Sardar who talk about "the external racism of Western society is echoed in cyberspace as online monoculture." (p.744). Pretty strong words. Then you've got authors who are actually (I think) quite vicious towards others. Like Robins and Webster who talk about Cristina Odone spinning out political visions in her imagination like "candy floss" and "Odone says concisely what the techno-futurist Howard Rheingold can only say in a fat book, full of similar communitarian aspirations" (p.230). Come on guys, it's okay to disagree with the ideas, but your comments are a bit strong don't you think?

This is all "generation 2" cyberculture studies - the backlash against "generation 1" boosterism. I find I get a much more balanced approach from the likes of Terry Flew - a 3rd generation approach that examines both sides of the argument.

Robins, K. & Webster, F. 1999. Times of the Technoculture: From the Information Society to the Virtual Life.
Sadar, Z. 2000. Alt.Civilizations.FAQ: Cyberspace as the Darker side of the West. In The Cybercultures Reader. ed. Bell, D. & Kennedy, B. (pp. 732-752).
Flew, T. 2004. New Media: An Introduction.

My brain hurts - can I go home?

2005-05-26T23:32:00.000-07:00

"The problem with the information age, especially for students and knowledge workers who spend their time immersed in the information flow, is that there is too much information available and few effective filters for sifting the key data that are useful and interesting to us as individuals." - Howard Rheingold in The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, 1994, p.57.

I, like many others I'm sure, cannot always find the information I am looking for on the web. I find the public sphere of the web is very good at trivia. You can easily find all sorts of bits of interesting information. Academic information requires networks or communities. I need to belong to the library to access databases of journal articles. I find the work Intranet very valuable to find all sorts of information I need to do my job - this is a way of using the physical network as a tool to make work more efficient and effective.

This is how weblogs started - to categorize the mountains of information and sift the useful from the useless. Having not been on the net in the early days I missed the original blogs and came in during the time of the portal. Then web applications started having dashboards (like blogger) does. All ways of gathering useful functions and information.

Talking about information overload, a few weeks ago, there was a problem with my email at work and in resolving it all my emails came into my inbox instead of their respective folders and filters. I had over 3000 emails to sift back into their files.

I found someone to talk to!

2005-05-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

It's very exciting, I found someone to talk to in the LambdaMOO. After being intrigued by the article I read I have been wandering around the Lambda House hoping to find people to talk to. I could never find anyone even though the statistics said there were over one hundred people logged on.

After roaming the halls for days, last night when I went into the living room there was actually someone in there who smiled at me. You know, I am quite amazed that the Lambda House is so interesting and that I was excited to find someone because I don't play computer games and I am not really involved in any online communities.

The person I spoke to had been a member for over 10 years - wow. They said people didn't hang out in the living room much any more because of the abusive players and guests, which is what the article implied. My new friend said I could page them next time I am in the house.

The projection of geographical communities into cyberspace

2005-05-23T01:29:00.000-07:00

Sanderson and Fortin talk about the Internet being a new form of public space "one which is at the same time interpersonal (for example, e-mail) and mediated (web pages). It is a communication space which allows new relationships between self, physical space and others." They looking at the representation of geographic communities in cyberspace, the most obvious difference being that "a municipality can have only one geographic site but it may exhibit multiple 'personalities' when it enters into cyberspace' (p 190).

They go on to talk about how there are studies about online communities which focus on personal and cultural charatceristic such as sex, age, tastes and lifestyle, but there is not much study about connections with place and local social organisations - web sites relevant to people in a certain locality, but not necessarily to those from elsewhere (p 190).

Again in this chapter is the recurring theme I have found of "realness" online. They talk about the devices web designers employ to convey a sense of realness on web sites, including photos of places, groups or events and spaces for individuals to identify themselves. In talking about representation online, they also caution that beacuse web sites can be produced by people with relatively modest means, "A presence in cyberspace is not necessarily an indicator of geographic size or political importance (p 197).

The final interesting point I got from this reading was the opportunity for protecting languages and cultures online. Sanderson and Fortin explore how geographic space was the natural protector of languages and cultures but the opportunity to move online allow both the sharing and preservation of cultures. Miller and Slater found this in their ethnographic study of the use of the Internet in Trinidad. They talk about how the society brings elements of what it means to be "Trini" omline with them.

Because place and geographic community is one of the defining elements of identity, Sanderson and Fortin assert that the absence of this information (people in onine environments) will introduce social and comunication ambiguities (p 202). They believe "We will surely witness new structures appearing on the Web which are at the intersecton of the persistence of place-based social structures and identities, and the desire to create new relationships and identities" (p203).

D Sanderson and A Fortin (2001) Technospaces (edited by Sally R. Munt) - Chapter 12
Continuum: London and New York.

The LambdaMOO

2005-05-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

After that intriguing article from my last post, I have been into the LambdaMOO for a look around. LambdaMOO is a text-based community so there are no fancy graphics or anything like Sal Humphreys showed us from the Star Wars Galaxy. It seems a lot to me like reading a book, as you enter a room you get a description of what and who are in it. I haven't found any people yet, but plenty of things. I went for a swim in the disgusting pool which has, among other things, a corpse floating in it.

I have climbed up onto the roof and been out the front of the house where the street leads down to the shops. My favourite place so far is when you look in the mirror in the entrance hall you can slip through it into the Looking Glass Tavern Bar, It's very cool, but there's never anyone in there. Upstairs in the Tavern are rooms for rent. There is a directory where you can see who occupies them and go in and visit. I couldn't find anyone in there either.

I like the text based idea, I find it very imaginative. There are objects people have made that you can look at and they do things. You can read signs and posters and look at books and stuff. It just goes on forever. The point of it is community though, so I will be very frustrated if I can't find anyone. I think I am probably in a different timezone to a lot of the people. That is an interesting point I must put in my assignment: you may have the opportunity to interact with people around the world in real time - only it's a different time if you're on the other side of the world!

A Rape in Cyberspace

2005-05-18T22:00:00.000-07:00

Well, that's a title that gets your attention, isn't it. It certainly got mine. It's a chapter in the book Reading Digital Culture edited by David Trend. It can also be found online at Julian Dibbell's website (he's the author).

The article is about an online community called the LambdaMOO, a text-based community that meet in a place called the Lambda House. As I have decided to look the difference between online and offline communities for my assignment, this article was extremely pertinant. It talks about how the virtual representation of the crime affected the members of the community both in their virtual world and in their physical ones. For example, Dibbell writes "Months later, the woman in Seattle would confide to me that as she wrote those words posttraumatic tears were streaming down her face - a real-life fact that should suffice to prove that the words' emotional content was no mere playacting."

A member of the community. Mr Bungle, entered the living room where a number of people were chatting and used a "voodoo doll," a subprogram which can be used to attribute "actions to other characters that their users did not actually write," to force two of the female characters to perform sexual acts over which they had no control while he laughed evilly in the background. After the attack there was much discussion about a fitting punishment wich ended in My Bungle's being toaded, which means his character was erased.

Dibbell says of MUDS "what happens inside a MUDmade world is neither exactly real nor exactly make-beleive, but profoundly, compellingly, and emotionally meaningful."

Rebecca Blood in her book The Weblog Handbook repeatedly emphasises the need to exercise etiquette just as you would in real life and cautions against flaming and other bad behaviour. There are real life consequences to online behaviour which need to be considered. It demonstrates how the move to third generation Internet studies is a timely one, addressing the melding of online and offline worlds rather than viewing them as mutually exclusive entities.

Cyborgs

2005-05-14T15:08:00.000-07:00

I know we're not talking about cyborgs in this unit, but they are an interesting part of computing. I came across an article on people getting chips so they no longer have to use cards at the ATM. http://news.com.com/Chip+implant+gets+cash+under+your+skin/2100-1041_3-5111637.html

I think this is the shape cyborgs will take in the future. We will slowly start to incorporate technology into our bodies - I mean we already do - pacemakers, robotic limbs. I don't know where all this is going to lead. Maybe to Willian Gibson's cyberspace where we can "jack in" by plugging in our heads, like they showed in the Matrix. Maybe like
Johnny Mnemonic with memory implants or the other characters with lens implants over their eyes and weapon implants.

assumptions

2005-05-10T06:13:00.000-07:00

The thing that stood out to me the most in Graham Meikle's chapter Open Publishing, Open Technologies, was "The medium may not be the message, but there are messages built into each medium. Not just those messages that we think of as content, but those that are embodied in the form of the medium itself, Messages which reflect the values, assumptions or agendas of those shaping the technology." (p.103).

It goes back to what Nakamura was saying about race in cyberspace (see my earlier post). By not indicating race, you default to caucasian in the MOO. In terms of use of the web as a medium, I agree that there has been a lot of what I call putting brochures on the web. Very flat, one dimensional web sites. This is interesting because in terms of accessibilty a company may want to put PDFs of brochures on the web. However, replicating a brochure online is not the most interesting or appropriate use of the media. However, it is also not inappropriate to put it online so people can print it out if they want to.

Take for example the QUT website. For prospective students to find information on courses, they have to use studyfinder. But using studyfinder, they can't see all the courses offered by the university or even a particular faculty. They need a print brochure for that. Studyfinder is their only online option though, they have to ring, email to have a print version sent to them or come in person and pick one up. Is the University providing what the people want by forcing them to use studyfinder? They are assuming access and that this is the form people want the information in. Well, not exactly assuming, they did research what people wanted.

In a related topic, Manuel Castells also discusses how "Internet culture is the culture of the creators of the Internet." He goes on to explain the techno-meritocratic culture, the hacker culture, the virtual communitarian culture and the entrepreneurial culture. (p.36).

What assumptions do I have about the Internet? I obviously have some because I get upset when, for example: I can't find what I'm looking for, when something doesn't behave the way I expect or want it to, when things or people online assume things about me and my habits.

Graham Meikle, 2002. Future Active: Media activism and the internet.
Manuel Castells, 2001. Internet Galaxy.

Online community concept

2005-05-06T21:44:00.000-07:00

Our group has met to put together a concept for an online community. We recognise the potential for this medium however, it is a bit of a challenge as none of us are very involved in the online community scene.

Our concept, endorsed by our tutor, is an online travel community built around blogs, discussion forums and the journeys of a particular traveller whose stories will unfold as they traevl around the world. We have decided the community will be funded by the fictional travel agency proposing it, in an effort to build brand loyalty and provide value for their customers.

We envision that one of the drawcards of the site will be the world traveller and that people will return to see where they are now and what adventures they are having. The same type of people who love to watch Getaway every week. http://getaway.ninemsn.com.au/.

Community members will be able to create their own travel blogs, or blogs about travel and also participate in online discussions about topics of their choosing. The added bonus will be the ability of the travel agent to be right there to organise travel, and also to get a strong feel about places and types of holidays of interest to the market. The agency will be able to capitalise on any hot topics or hot locations and be known for having their finger on the pulse of Australian travellers.

online communities

2005-05-02T04:16:00.000-07:00

Starting to think about creating an online community – for the group presentation. The Amy Jo Kim reading has a lot of great strategies for getting started and thinking the process through. There would be a lot of companies, individuals and organisations out there looking for a way to harness the potential of online communities. The only structured online community I am involved in outside of work is Flylady.net which is a mentoring program to meet the needs of those who are domestically challenged. I know it really meets a need for its 250 000 members. Socially online, I can keep in contact with a lot of people but they do not communicate with each other – it's like a hub leading back to me, so it's not a community. Now to do some research on an ongoing, unmet need that we can build an online community that can uniquely address it.

examining Internet use

2005-05-01T20:28:00.000-07:00

Miller and Slater certainly uncovered some interesting information in their study on Trinidadian use of the Internet. I things that stood out to me as important themes to come out of their conclusions were:
:: People's experience online is not a singular activity, but makes use of a variety of Internet-enabled activities, such as email, chat, photo storage, blogs etc.
:: People take their offline selves online with them - that is, the Trinidadians still saw themselves as "Trini" online.
:: people mold new technologies to fit their purposes
:: online spaces are part of everyday life and attempting to think of the online and offline self as completely separate entities overlooks this vital fact
:: it's not so much "the" internet as "my" internet - it depends on my use and experience of it

As an aside - it's interesting the the Trinidadians were shocked about the general lack of knowledge abotu Trinidad. When travelling, I myself am sometimes shocked by people's ignorance about Australia.

Miller, D. & Slater, D. 2001. The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach.

An Atlas of Cyberspaces

2005-04-27T23:41:00.000-07:00

Martin Dodge is very busily tracking all sort sof statistics on cyberspace. It's an interesting site and could be useful in the future.
http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/atlas.html
There are some cool maps of bloggers that look like train guides: http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/geographic.html
and there is also a Geography of Cyberspace Directory: http://www.cybergeography.org/geography_of_cyberspace.html

What's really interesting about this project is the physical mapping of the virtual. The mind boggles. Anyone can be anywhere virtually - theoretically, but there are physical limitation. We touched on that in talking about the Digital Divide. The Internet is spread from one end of the globe to the other, but there are gaps in between.

Throw away your body

2005-04-24T10:06:00.000-07:00

There's a roboticist at Carnegie-Mellon University, named Hans Moravec, who is working on a device to download people's brains and then throw away the body. And so William Gibson's Neuromancer future begins to take form. There really is two polars on this isn't there. There's the people who are madly trying to preserve the body - plastic surgery, fountain of youth type stuff. Then there is a whole other group of people who are trying to get rid of the body altogether.

Now herein lies another interesting point of view that comes across a lot by supporters of everything online. They feel that that the online self, the mind I guess, is the real person and so people can be more authentic online. I think this logic is fundamentally flawed beacuse some people are not authentic in any of the spheres they operate in. They are just not authentic people. If a person is more genuine online than offline, can they be said to be a genuine person? I'm just thinking about stuff here, posing rhetorical questions.

What's so bad about the body? Part of our identity is wrapped up in our bodies, they are a big part of what makes us human. I know people think online spaces can be great because you are genderless and raceless, but isn't that treating the symptom and not the cure? Does hiding race eliminate racism? Does presenting as gender neutral eliminate gender inequality? The more pertinant question is why these things exist. Even if we were all genderless and raceless online, I think other forms of discrimination would grow because some people are just like that.

I once read a short story by Peter Carey called The Fat Man In History about a time in the future where fat people are shunned from society and sometimes eat other people. A little extreme perhaps, but you get the point.

Hayles, N. K. (1993). The Seductions of Cyberspace. In Reading Digital Culture, ed. Trend, D. (2001). pp305-321.

Who Am We?

2005-04-21T20:29:00.000-07:00

This is the tantalizing question posed by Sherry Turkle in her book chapter (first published in Wired magazine in 1996). Turkle is looking at MUDs and examining the relationship between people's online and offline selves. One player says "Part of me, a very important part of me, only exists inside PernMUD", (p.241). She goes on to explore how players use MUDs to explore and express multiple aspects of themselves and play with their identity, trying out new identities as well.

She begins talking about the effects of a person being able to drop defences or limitations they have in real life in the online community and the effect this has on them (p.242). There are a fair few articles out there focusing only on the great benefits of online communities to the global community (what has been identified as 1st generation cyberculture studies) but Turkle gives some case examples of what is at first seen as liberating becoming oppressive. For example, Stewart, a shy, withdrawn, physically limited college student with an online persona he sees as a "better version of himself." He ends up feeling worse about himself because he cannot integrate the "better" part of himself - his online self - into his real life (pp243-245).

What this indicates to me is that new technologies do not necessarily enable people to see themselves more clearly. What I mean by that is access to more information and alternative modes of expression brings neither wisdom nor understanding just by its existence. I think that's what Rebecca Blood is getting at in her views on blogging. Blogs can create an information filter, that's why people keep going back to ones they trust and enjoy because no-one can process all the information available. Access to information mean it will help you - a filter is useful. Of course not everyone playing online is looking for answers, Stewart probably wasn't either, until he didn't get them.

Turkle also gets onto the issue of Tinysex or cybersex - boy, does that come up a lot - and how different people view these relationships and encounters. In one real life couple she talked to, the woman doesn't mind her husband having cybersex, she thinks it's better than a real affair and sees it no differently than pornography. In another couple, the wife sees the online relationship as a betrayal of their intimacy.

To me, this reinforces what I believe about online communities. They may be a new medium, but the people using them are just the same. Some will use them for learning, some for fun, some to deceive others and some for power. You can't sever your online self from your offline self. I'm not sure anyone thinks you actually can, but there is a lot of talk about "my different online selves" and them having nothing to do with the person's offline life. For example, the guys having cybersex I mentioned above say they would never have an affair in real life. I guess that depends what you think real life is. For one of them, the wife is certainly just as hurt as she would be in real life and just as betrayed. As for the one who sees it as a type of pornography, I guess it depends whether you think pornography is acceptable. And so I get back to my earlier point - you bring your offline self online. I know that sounds logical but some of the stuff I'm reading indcates a separation between online and offline that I don' t think exists.

In Reading Digital Culture, ed. Trend, D. (2001).

Race in cyberspace

2005-04-18T20:13:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting book chapter today by Lisa Nakamura. It's called "Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Touriam and Racial Passing on the Internet".

Nakamura has also conducted her study in the LambdaMOO - popular place. She looks at the underlying assumptions about the real life people behind the characters and argues that in omitting race in character descriptions, players are assumed to be white. She feels that the idea about being able to describe your character any way you like is actually and illusion. For example, if you say you have blond hair and blue eyes, you are in fact giving clues about your race.

This comes back to what my group was talking about in the online chat session. We got into a rather philosphical discussion about not being free, only free to choose your prison and the concept of "Walled Gardens" . Nakamura also says that access is a bit of a give-away concerning race, with most Internet activity being from white, middle-class men. And so the topic then overlaps with the cencept of the digital divide. The more I read about cyberspace the more I come to understand the 3rd generation approach to studies because many of the concepts are so intertwined as to be meaningless when examined on their own.

Reading Digital Culture (2001), edited by David Trend, Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell.

seriously weird blogs

2005-03-25T19:18:00.000-08:00

sometimes when I go to my blog, I use the "next blog" feature up in the right hand corner, just to see what's around. There is some seriously weird stuff out there! I haven't linked to any of it, it was more an observation. Most are totally boring, some are profane and some I just can't make any sense of.

There seems quite a few teenagers with blogs, which brings me to an interesting point. I don't think they are trying to hide the fact that they are teenagers, but it's pretty easy to tell anyway. This makes me think it's not necessarily that easy to hide certain facts about yourself. There are people who can, but there are people who can't too.

Rheingold talks about the majority of MUDders being college student and so the proliferation of net sex is just an extension of their offline preoccupations.

rannsaich

2005-03-20T00:04:00.000-08:00

I have decided to name my blog rannsaich, which is a Gaelic word meaning to search, scrutinize, examine minutely. I have never blogged before so I am interested to explore this mode of expression. In my blog I plan to explore the concepts of virtual community we have discussed, research and blog about my assignment.