DEVIANT – “Is it time to clean out the closet?” and “Through my eyes: Being Transgender”
DEVIANT is a magazine put together by myself and some classmates. It explores the broad, weird and wonderful world of sex and sexuality. I chose to write two contributing articles about LBGTI issues as they stood out as important topics for me personally. I used InDesign to format the pages.
Magnify Melbourne – Armando
In collaboration with three other talented individuals, I produced this documentary which gives an in depth look into the life of Italian migrant and restaurant manager, Armando.
See full blog here: http://www.magnifymelbourne.com/episodes/armando-hungry-heritage/
Fitzroy’s extraVEGANza
I designed an interactive blog exploring the vegan eateries of Fitzroy’s Brunswick Street. I used a combination of video, images and other digital media components to visually show as well as engage the reader in learning about this well-known Melbourne strip.
Who would’ve thought it possible to land yourself your dream job in 140 characters or less? Say goodbye to obnoxious cover letters and tedious resumes, this is how clever social media use can get you that job you’ve been dying to score.
In today’s digitally savvy world, employers are taking to social networking sites to recruit fresh meat. This has its benefits as it cuts costs sourcing their own employees because they avoid paying for the ‘middle men’ involved in the recruitment process. This means no money is spent on job advertisements, recruiters and background checks. The employer sees it all first hand on your social profiles and it’s catching on, too. According to research conducted by Telstra, more than a quarter of Australian bosses are using social networking sites to screen job candidates.
Have a listen to this podcast about the interesting ways in which job-hunters have leveraged social media to get their dream jobs:
So, how can you get started? Well, the first and obvious point to make here is that you must be present and active on social media in order to obtain a job from it. This is particularly relevant for those interested in pursuing a career in digital media or marketing. Create posts that are pertinent to the industry you’re interested in, and do it on the regular to increase your chances of being noticed. If you’re time poor, it could be as simple as posting an article informing the reader of an industry update or a breaking story in the field:
Digital mediums give all-female Indian news publication bigger and better opportunities: https://t.co/oIaJof7wNx -Great read #ALC701
Do something to show your future potential employer that you are in the know, that you have a keen interest in their industry. This of course isn’t limited to posting updates on Twitter, I would encourage you to do this across all social channels and even write blog posts sharing your knowledge (and in turn, cross promote them on all of your digital profiles!). This is a great ongoing habit to get into, especially since 78% of higher education teachers are using at least one site in support of their professional career activities (Dabbagh and Kitsantas, 2012, pp.9). Another key take home message here is: don’t just do this for the sake of getting a job, even when you do land that marketing gig you’ve been dying to get, continue to maintain that reliable presence you’ve built on your profiles. You may not be thinking about it just yet, but you never know where that might lead you further down your career path.
It is also vital that you keep your LinkedIn up to date with all of your relevant job information complete with references. I would also suggest having this information available on Facebook (enter your career or education info):
My public education info on Facebook
And update your Twitter bio to suit (include links to your blog/website, too!):
My own Twitter bio screen shot
Hint: don’t forget a professional looking photo is the icing on the cake!
Social networks seamlessly enable existing relations and facilitate building new ones in leisure and professional domains alike (Benson et al., 2014, pp.520). They were not created to be a one-sided form of communication, it’s about the exchange. Therefore networking is a crucial element if you want to get noticed by employers. A great place to start is by joining networking groups on LinkedIn and Facebook. From there you’ll be able to interact with industry leaders and current employees of your dream company – your next role could be waiting for you within these pages!
Now your profiles are completely up to date, you’re sharing relevant articles and mingling amongst professionals. The next big step is to start creating. If you don’t have one already, a blog is a great way to communicate your knowledge and skills when 140 character limits just won’t do it. This is your chance to show off your creative flair and build an awesome portfolio to bring to the table at your next interview.
Don’t wait, start now and start your career.
References:
Benson, V., Morgan, S. and Filippaios, F., 2014. Social career management: Social media and employability skills gap. Computers in Human Behavior,30, pp.519-525.
Dabbagh, N. and Kitsantas, A., 2012. Personal Learning Environments, social media, and self-regulated learning: A natural formula for connecting formal and informal learning. The Internet and higher education, 15(1), pp.9.
Many old marketing hands will see Snapchat as a pointless fad for millennials. In a way, they are right. Sending pictures that only last up to 10 seconds, or 24 hours if you really want to show off, may seem a little useless to those who are yet to fall victim to the addictive social networking app.
Proclaimed as being “10 times faster than an MMS (multimedia messaging service)” by Evan Spiegel, the app’s co-founder, it’s no wonder that Snapchat is ranked the second most downloaded photo app in the U.S. right now, according to App Annie. It’s major rival in the top spot being Instagram:
Recently, Snapchat has reportedly surpassed Twitter in daily number of users, with 150 million people using the photo app each day – compared to Twitter’s 140 million, according to Bloomberg.
So, despite any doubts a marketer may have about the platform and it’s seemingly narcissistic ideals, it only makes sense to put this huge potential audience to good use. In creating a Snapchat account, brands are able to tap into a new batch of ‘brand fans’. These new consumers who become fans of the company’s social pages are likely to be loyal to the company, and are more open to receiving information about the brand (Bagozzi et al., 2002). Brand fans also tend to visit the store more, generate more positive word-of-mouth, and are more emotionally attached to the brand than non-brand fans (Dholakia et al. 2004).
Since Snapchat has relatively limited functionality – pictures, 10 second videos and a couple of lines of text, you have to get creative. Of course, the app offers a range of lenses, emojis, stickers and filters to help you do this. If you’re looking for some inspiration, here are my top three really clever examples:
World Wildlife Fund Denmark: #LastSelfie
This campaign really pulls on the heartstrings. We often see Snapchat as a really lighthearted fun means of communication but this really turns it around. We all know that snaps only stay on our screens for a few seconds – in that short amount of time an endangered species can be completely wiped out if we don’t take action. Examples from the campaign include a picture of a gorilla with the caption “Better take a screenshot, this could be my #LastSelfie.”
Audi X The Onion: The Superbowl
This campaign is probably one of the most famous and successful campaigns of all time – Audi and The Onion partnered up for the Superbowl, creating a series of humorous photos and captions to highlight the typical behaviours of people during the game… except they used cute pets. The campaign saw Audi’s following spike to over 5.5k, one of the biggest Snapchat has ever recorded. A reasonable theory behind this success would be that “puppies and babies” are often used to increase an ad’s attention getting capability. Animals are effective in marketing communications because they are inherently likeable and able to communicate a culturally defined meaning to the consumer (Aylesworth et al., 1999).
We’ve all seen those clever e-cards floating around the interwebs, they’re normally really sarcastic and often insulting. Well, Taco Bell took these cards on and reinvented them for a Valentine’s Day marketing campaign on Snapchat. Valentine’s is all about being cheesy – so that’s exactly what they did with the captions. Tantalising pictures of the popular chain’s food were used alongside a corny pun. For example: “Nacho average valentine” – it was an instant hit amongst millennials.
Snapchat is definitely a powerful tool for reeling in a younger audience. In order to harness its true power, you must be willing to take some creative risks and experiment with all the features this unique app has to offer.
Aylesworth, A., Chapman, K. and Dobscha, S., 1999. Animal companions and marketing: dogs are more than just a cell in the BCG matrix!. NA-Advances in Consumer Research Volume 26.
Bagozzi, Richard P. and Utpal M. Dholakia , 2002. Intentional Social Action in Virtual Communities, Journal of Interactive Marketing, 16, 2, pp.2–21.
Dholakia, Utpal M., Richard P. Bagozzi, and Lisa K. Pearo, 2004. A Social Influence Model of Consumer Participation in Network- and SmallGroup-Based Virtual Communities, International Journal of Research in Marketing, 21, 3, pp. 241–63
Before the theme of this video was conceptualised, I promised myself that I would involve my dog somehow. If merit was given on that factor alone, I would certainly win a prestigious award of sorts.
I have created a video about how relationships are formed online, specifically focusing on the dating site, You Must Love Dogs. This subject really resonated with me, because there’s no way I could be attracted to someone if they didn’t like dogs – so I endeavoured to explore the subject in-depth.
Some handy strategies I implemented in the pre-production phase were:
Story boarding: Once I had my research down and a draft script, I drew up a story board to help collect my shots ideas.
Creating a table: Video making requires you to be ultra organised. Once I had my final script written out, I put it in a two column table. On the right hand side is my script, on the left I describe the visuals.
Brainstorming: I’m not the most creative person when it comes to this stuff, so I met up with a friend who is. Together, we scoped out some fun ideas, which gave me more confidence in what I was doing knowing that someone else approved.
During production, I filmed myself saying my piece to the camera first, trimming it down and exported as a movie file. I did the same for my intro and outro clips, then brought them all into Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015 to put the final video together with overlays and other media.
Toolkit:
Movie Maker: To me, it’s good for nothing other than trimming videos. I got my script exactly how I wanted it and exported it.
ALIVE: A really great app I discovered when trying to create fun intro and outro clips. It allows 30 second videos and you can apply filters, sound, even animations to your clips and it’s all 100% free (it does leave a watermark in the corner, though). I used all three of these features in my clips.
Adobe Premiere Pro: Amazing program. Because it’s such a widely used program you can guarantee if you run into problems (which I did, a lot) there will be a YouTube tutorial ready to help you out.
Content:
I wanted to bring my boring stats to life – but I have no animation skills. So, I experimented with PowerPoint. In a matter of minutes, I had my own slideshow (which I exported as a video to easily add to Premiere Pro) of animated statistics!
To collect some extra ‘real’ content, I decided to call upon a dog-loving community on Facebook. I posted on ‘Cool Dog Group’ asking for affectionate selfies with pups and they did not disappoint. My post received over 250 replies which left me to sift through and pick out my favourites.
It feels good to make a video with much of the content created solely by me.
A very small sample of image replies to my call-out on ‘Cool Dog Group’.
Scholarly Resources:
This challenging for me, as there aren’t any scholarly resources on dog dating sites and there were very few on niche dating with relevant information. I used both Deakin and La Trobe libraries to find sources, many of which were generic online dating findings. I tried to match up strategies used by experts in the marketing biz to features found on You Must Love Dogs Dating, to give my claims credibility.
Challenges:
When it comes to video production, the challenges never stop presenting themselves. At every turn I bumped into something new to overcome, from nobody being available to film (until my stars last minute), my Adobe Premiere Pro trial suddenly expiring (never mind how I got around this), to noticing mistakes in my script long after I finished filming. This was my first time creating a proper video solo, so I had to learn to be self-sufficient. I had to convince myself that I can pull this off, that it’s possible. And I did.
Word count: 655.
My broader online activity and engagement
I’m really proud of my online engagement within this unit, particularly during a very busy period of the trimester. I created three videos just for fun as part of the Tiffit Challenges – even one in Italian! I’ve never spoken in Italian on camera before and I surprisingly found it more comfortable than speaking English.
I tweeted out some tips on video making I had learned during my journalism degree and I was stoked to see that my advice proved to be useful for some!
Tip: If filming with your phone, put it on airplane mode so there's no distractions/interruptions! 😏 #ALC203#ALC708
I also achieved the sought-after Golden Tiffit (thanks to this video) which was an amazing feeling.
References:
Conick, H. 2016. SWIPE RIGHT. Marketing News, 50, 38-45.
DeMasi, S. 2011. Shopping for love: online dating and the making of a cyber culture of romance. Introducing the New Sexuality Studies, Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 206-13.
Roth, M. E. & Gillis, J. M. 2015. “Convenience with the Click of a Mouse”: A Survey of Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder on Online Dating. Sexuality and Disability, 33, 133-150.
Sullivan, B. 2002. Online Dating: Everyone’s doing it: A dot-com business that actually makes a profit. September.
Whitty, M. T. & Carr, A. N. 2006. Cyberspace romance: The psychology of online relationships, Palgrave Macmillan.
In a blog post titled “Citizen Investigation” on March 20th, 2009, Ai Weiwei wrote:
“To remember the departed, to show concern for life, to take responsibility, and for the potential happiness of the survivors, we are initiating a citizen investigation.”
This was the start of a new social movement in which Ai Weiwei called upon volunteers to uncover the truth behind the lives lost in the devastating Sichuan earthquake of 2008.
“I spend 90 per cent of my energy blogging,” Ai said in an interview before his blog was discontinued. He also admitted to occupying over twelve hours of his day online.
Since the deletion of his blog by the Chinese government, Ai Weiwei turned to Twitter to continue his online activism and of course, continues to use his art to convey profound messages on the state of China today.
Translation: In this country, tyranny deprives not only ordinary people of their rights to life, but also their rights to express their opinions, including the right to question, the right to inquire and the right to know. All the efforts to acquire the rights have been destroyed by the authorities at all costs. People who died of tyranny had no place to be buried.
Have a listen to my podcast below, which goes into detail about Ai Weiwei’s “Citizen Investigation” campaign:
Music:
Oriental’s Dreams by Deimos
2011
(CC- BY – NC 2.0)
References:
AI, W. & AMBROZY, L. 2011. Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009, MIT Press. pp. xvii – xxvii.
CARTY, V. 2015. Social movements and new technology, Westview Press. pp. 1-16
SULLIVAN, J. 2012. A tale of two microblogs in China. Media, Culture & Society, Volume 34, pp. 773-783.
TILLY, C. 2010. Regimes and repertoires, University of Chicago Press. pp. 183-185.
The title sounds rather narcissistic, wouldn’t you say? Well, that would be due to this blog post being all about me and how I portray myself online. My digital journey began way back in 2007 when my family finally agreed to leap into the 21st century and connect to broadband Internet. I won’t bore you with my (embarrassing, cringeworthy, twelvie) tales from MSN and MySpace, but I think it’s safe to say that up until about a year ago I put very little thought into the construction of my online identity.
A horrible selfie from 2007. I rocked those braces, though.
It is argued that ‘identity’ is best described as an ‘emotionally-charged description of ourselves’ – not one ‘fixed’ persona. Identity is merely an essence of the self, which is expressed through representations recognisable by ourselves and others (Barker and Galasinski, 2001). On social media for instance, we are allowing our audience to catch a glimpse of a certain representation of ourselves; the “I” of reference is constructed and situated, and not identical with its flesh-and-blood maker (Smith and Watson, 2014). What we’re seeing is a fragment of our beliefs, attitudes, tastes and lifestyles neatly packaged to appear more attractive/professional/exciting or whatever the affordance of the platform may be.
What online social network sites allow the user to do are often called a technology’s ‘affordances’. The construction of our online identities is partly based upon the intended use of the platform or the limitations of the site’s functionality. Collectively, they are connected to a desire to produce (Burnett and Marshall, 2003), as they have simplified the process of constructing a website and ensuring that the website or profile is able to garner an audience, one of the factors which makes social media so appealing.
Of course, the site’s anticipated use can evolve over time, too. For instance, Facebook’s original purpose was to communicate amongst university peers. Facebook has captured a very large number of users, and has pervaded the culture from its origins in university life to now encompassing a comprehensive connection to all demographic groups (Marshall, 2010).
Now, I think it is very safe to say, that Facebook is the social network for “socialising” online (not to mention a multi-billion-dollar company).
There are so many facets of my online life, it’s difficult to keep up sometimes. Each social media platform I use reveals varying degrees of my virtual identity(/ies) as well as a tiny snapshot of my ‘real’ life. From my personal Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat accounts, to my professional LinkedIn and About.Me profiles, my life on social media can, at times, resemble a metaphorical rollercoaster.
I use Facebook to communicate with my friends and family who are predominantly present in my ‘real’ life. It is largely the best platform to communicate on a more personal level with those nearest and dearest to me. Although, if I want a job at the end of my degree, I should probably consider withdrawing from pointless heated debates across popular news threads.
Snapchat is probably my most used channel after Facebook. Although I’m not always active on the platform, I find myself constantly checking the latest additions to the ‘My Story’ feed to keep up to date with my friends. I also host La Trobe University’s Snapchat account and have become somewhat of a celebrity around campus with students asking me “Are you the girl from Snapchat?”
Promoting O-Week on Snapchat. Another of my online personae. Photography: T. Matliovski
Of course, there is a time to be social and a time to be professional. My LinkedIn and About.Me profiles serve this purpose—and in very different ways. LinkedIn is essentially the social network for professionals and budding professionals alike, whether you are a recruiter, job seeker or scoping out new leads. While About.Me is a springboard, which launches the viewer into my broader online world and encourages further exploration of my virtual profiles.
On LinkedIn, the aim of the game is professional networking and resume building. Since realising its potential, I reinvigorated my LinkedIn profile in 2015, which has attracted the eye of several recruiters interested in landing me a job in the digital media field. Gareth Wright, director of communication recruitment company, The Little Black Book Agency told The Drumthat it’s essential to “make sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date and informative; recruiters, both agency and client, will inevitably search for this, so it should be as pristine as your CV.”
Originally, I think I misused About.Me and adopted the “carefree Facebook” approach and wrote my bio as though I was writing to a friend. Thankfully, my media teacher advised that while this approach isn’t detrimental to your online persona, it doesn’t increase your chances of an employer connecting with you. Therefore, I felt it was necessary to re-construct my identity on About.Me and tailored my profile to suit a different audience.
In between the personal and professional, you can find me on Twitter, the micro-blogging platform demanding an insight into our thoughts succinctly expressed in 140 characters or less. The content I post here ranges from Tweets relevant to my studies or future career to my love/hate relationship with My Kitchen Rules.
The platform that easily gives me the most joy is my dog’s Instagram account. Nothing in the world has ever filled me with as much joy as her, so I decided to make a social account for her, so others could enjoy her cute antics as much as I do. We try to upload once a day and use the maximum amount of hashtags (thirty) per post to increase visibility. It’s funny how much planning and thought went into launching her Instagram when I don’t do nearly the same for my own accounts. In fact, I’ve almost completely ditched my personal Instagram account to pursue hers “full time”.
An influential factor in how I use social media is my training in its professional use. I’ve learned, as William Deresiewicz observed, “The self today is an entrepreneurial self, a self-that’s packaged to be sold.” As depressing as that sounds, it’s true for young professionals in today’s digital world. I hope to achieve a career in digital content creation and to do that I’ll need to maintain a killer online presence.
Word count: 1008
My Broader Online Activity and Engagement
I’ve really impressed myself with the level of activity and engagement I’ve participated in this trimester. I have completed other online subjects before but never felt enthused enough to bother with the ‘engagement’ criteria of the unit.
This time, engaging online was a really pleasurable experience and other students in the unit actually want to talk and interact with each other, instead of feeling like a contest (despite being gamified!).
I’ve been inspired to create this blog, documenting my studies, I’ve thought deeply about concepts of identity and I even got to talk about feminism with ALC203 tutor, Emma Whatman.
References:
BARKER, C. & GALASINSKI, D. 2001. Cultural Studies and Discourse Analysis: A Dialogue on Language and Identity, SAGE Publications. pp. 70-78
BURNETT, R. & MARSHALL, P. D. 2003. Web theory: An introduction, Psychology Press. pp. 70-78
MARSHALL, P. D. 2010. The promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as marker of presentational media. Celebrity studies, Vol. 1, pp. 35-48.
SMITH, S. & WATSON, J. 2014. Virtually me: A toolbox about online self-presentation. Identity technologies: Constructing the self online, pp. 70-95.
Ah, copyright law. I think every subject I’ve ever studied since high school has had some sort of lesson on copyright. And it’s with good reason, obviously. You don’t want to stuff up and land yourself in prison. While it can be tedious and repetitive and dry content, it’s a particularly important topic. Especially for students of digital media just starting to make their mark in the online world.
I think it should go without saying the safest (and best) way to illustrate your work and to showcase your creativity, is to create your own media content from scratch. However, we all know that’s not always going to happen, so here’s how you can legally source materials for your next project.
The only way you’ll be able to use copyrighted material is if:
You own the copyright.
Your use is covered by an exception in the Copyright Act.
The work is out of copyright or the creator has waived their rights.
The work is licensed for your requested use / you have permission.
(Bovell, A 2015, ‘Using Content in Your Assessments and Portfolios’, Deakin University)
Thought bubble with a copyright symbol above a man working on a laptop
So, the good news is, there are plenty of great websites to source copyright-free material from! You can scour the world wide web for these sites, but my two faves for sourcing pictures are Pixabay and Unsplash. For music, my go-to is Jamendo. There is also a Creative Commons search for many other media forms.
Other sites, such as Flickr Creative Commons, allow you to use their pictures, however the images have different degrees of licencing. Check out this groovy infographic I made, explaining some of the licences you might come across:
How to credit work requiring attribution:
It’s kind of like referencing in an academic essay.There are a few important things to include in your caption:
Mention the title of the work
Mention the creator
Provide the URL where the work is hosted
Indicate the type of licence it is available under and provide a link to the licence (so others can find out the licence terms)
Keep intact any copyright notice associated with the work.
There is a super simple and great example on the Creative Commons website, which explains it much better than I ever could. Give it a look-see!
Hopefully this helped to clear up any copyright questions you had, and if I’ve missed anything please let me know!
At the beginning I thought it was really cool, your own huge screen in your bedroom and a clean bathroom – what more could you need? Well, I shook that impression off quite quickly, when I suddenly felt overcome by feelings of extreme loneliness. This guy, Bing, didn’t look happy doing what he was doing. He seemed downright miserable. It was then that I had to remind myself that this was a dystopic vision of the future.
Fifteen Million Merits is set in the (not too?) distant future, in which the “everyday Joe” is forced into a life of slavery by riding exercise bikes day in day out in order to power the world’s energy.
“Merits” and their own virtual world distracts the bikers from their misery. Each person has their own avatar which they use to connect to one another virtually. By riding the bikes they earn Merits which enables them to make purchases for their avatar (e.g. new clothing and/or accessories), skip ads they are otherwise forced to watch or to buy a ticket to the talent show, Hot Shot, the means to escape your mundane life on the peddles.
I was quickly whisked back to high school literature classes in which we studied 1984 by George Orwell. I think Brooker’s Fifteen Million Merits hit home a little harder since it felt like a much nearer future… something I could relate to a lot more, while Orwell’s tale feels further away and a bit (for lack of a better word) unrealistic.
The episode has a lot to say about a number of societal issues, such as reality television shows, virtual identity and our addiction to digital media.
Watching the Hot Shot scenes absolutely terrified me, because it already seemed like the present. It was so lifeless and so meaningless, the judges were just spewing (pretty much) the same crap we’re used to hearing on reality talent shows today. When one judge said something, the audience immediately followed suit and started screaming manically in support, regardless of what was being suggested. It reminded me of the tweens of today who follow boy bands and scream their lungs out, fervently defending them from public scrutiny. The similarities were downright frightening.
Virtual identity was another striking theme as these people cared so much more about their virtual selves than their physical selves. Their physical selves were these repetitive drones, doomed to a life of slavery while their virtual selves got to enjoy the distractions of television. It terrified me how some characters were SO immersed in their digital “realities”, how important that new virtual hat was, or how hard they would have to work to be able to afford some other virtual upgrade that did nothing to improve their physical existence. Uniqueness is constructed the appearance of the avatar. What’s more daunting is that this is eerily close to our reality today.
How often have we heard of the fear of technology taking over our lives? I, for one, just ignored my mother telling me something while typing this at my laptop. Many of us are so consumed with achieving the perfect “Insta” shots, so many likes on Facebook and just to be noticed online. It’s a factor of our lives that has left a rather profound impression on our brains, the similarities to this episode had me dumbfounded. Is this the kind of world we’re really headed towards? Are the struggles of the real world so painful that we need to use our virtual identities as a distraction to constantly rely upon? The only “real” thing Bing ever claimed to felt was his short-lived attraction to Abi, until she was whisked away by Hot Shot. This was accentuated through the minimal dialogue, the first time we hear Bing speak is when he interacts with Abi for the first time.
There is; in my book, always a light at the end of the tunnel at least. What made me feel that little less miserable in this episode was the fact that Bing was still allowed to speak out about his feelings, he couldn’t suppress his emotions and he wouldn’t let these judges or their sheepish audience silence him. He had to have his voice heard, and he ended up living his life doing just that. However, I suppose it was to very little effect, as the bikers would only watch him for a distraction, not so much a re-education.
By the end of Fifteen Million Merits, I felt a huge sense of despair. Not only for our future, but for the present, too. There’s so much wrong with the world and people harnessing the power of technology for all the wrong reasons– it’s a thought I struggle to shake off. The closing scene with Bing looking out to a virtual depiction of a “view” was so depressing, it made me feel as though there is no hope. This is where society is headed, I concluded in my head, a time will come when there is no distinction between the “real” world and the virtual world, because our real lives will be redundant.
Once the episode was over and I snapped myself back into present-day reality, I realised that no matter what the innovative invention, whether it be technological or whatever, people will use it for bad as well as good. While it is very possible that much of Fifteen Million Merits is an exaggeration of the present, I’d like to think that there are enough of us “goodies” using technology for the right reasons. I don’t want to think of all of us as mindless sheep.
I suppose the warning here is to go out and live in the real world as often as you are living online… after all, you don’t want to spend the rest of your life on the peddles.
Disclaimer: No, that is not a spelling error in the title.
As mentioned in the previous post, this 2.0 approach, as Claudia Grinnell writes in her article titled ‘From Consumer to Prosumer to Produser: Who Keeps Shifting My Paradigm? (We Do!)’,
blurs the line between producer and consumer and has shifted attention from access to information toward access to people. New kinds of online resources – such as social networking sites, blogs, wikis, and virtual communities – allow people with common interests to meet, share ideas, and collaborate in innovative ways.
(Grinnell 2009, p. 597)
Produsage refers to the type of user-led content creation that takes place in a variety of online environments such as Wikipedia, open source software, and the blogosphere (Bruns, 2007). The concept blurs the boundaries between passive consumption and active production. According to Snurblog, the distinction between producers and consumers or users of content has faded, as users also play the role of producers whether they are aware of this role or not. The hybrid term produser refers to an individual who is engaged in the activity of produsage.
Isn’t that exciting?! Producing content is a real passion of mine, so I’m excited to get stuck into this part of the unit where the making aspect comes into play.
Getting practical by being active
My tutor mentioned that his cousin, a successful digital manager for a major marketing company, firmly believes that it is essential for students to be active on Twitter and LinkedIn right from the get-go.
This allows for a lot of professional networking – for instance your virtual CV would be easily discoverable online by potential employers and could open up the way for new job opportunities.
According to SEO Daily Dose, microblogging platforms (including Twitter) have the following benefits:
So for the first week of the course, we’ve outlined we’ll approach the unit from a Media Studies 2.0 perspective.
Media theorist, David Gauntlett writes in his e-book, Media Studies 2.0, and Other Battles around the Future of Media Research (2011, location 475), that Media Studies 2.0 points toward:
a world where students are making and sharing learning resources, individually and collaboratively, and responding to each other, in the way that YouTube contributors do when a community of enthusiasts create, share, and respond to each other’s contributions in a virtuous spiral of learning and development.
Learning about digital media is all about exploration. We do this through “making”, “sharing” and “learning”.
Much of learning about media is hands on and DIY. Which, to me, makes perfect sense. When I first started my LinkedIn site, sure I Googled plenty of tips and watched a few tutorials, but at the end of the day it was up to me to find out for myself. There’s no uni course that’s going to teach you the ins and outs of using LinkedIn. It’s about sitting yourself down and playing around with it until you get it.
So already, this course is really resonating with me.
When I was studying my undergraduate journalism degree, I feel that most of my tutors adopted many of the approaches derived from Media Studies 2.0. It was very independent learning and I feel that I greatly benefited from it, too.
What I love most about Media Studies 2.0 is its emphasis on audience participation, there is no longer one expert from whom the audience receives the information and is expected to digest it. In fact, “audience” is a problematic concept in Media Studies 2.0. My year 12 interactive digital media teacher always said that he felt most accomplished when one of his students taught him something new. When the student goes beyond the confines of the syllabus to expand their knowledge, I think this encapsulates the principals of Media Studies 2.0 really well.
Perhaps I’m not thinking critically enough, but I struggle to find any limitations this approach may present us with. It encourages us to push the limits and explore beyond everything we’ve been taught. Of course this is all well and good for us students and teachers of digital media– but what about everyone else who uses technology?
Well, I suppose my view is a little optimistic, because I think for the most part technology does wonders for the world. Making is connecting, creators from across the globe are able to connect with each other thanks to platforms such as YouTube and Medium, HOWEVER, this also opens up a new space for trolls and, well… stupid people.
All too often I see people using social media as a tool to spread hatred and misinformation, which is something that deeply concerns me. I find myself all too often trying to be the social justice warrior trying to rebut the arguments of these Internet tormentors, and sometimes the fight almost seems lost. I guess I just have to keep reminding myself that the good outweighs the bad in this technologically advanced society in which we live.
I hope this unit allows me to see the digital world in a new light (I’ve already discovered a new platform, About.Me), encourages me to engage more with the Twitter-sphere and keep this blog updated with all the wonderful new insights I’ll be gaining from the course material.
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