The readings included insight into how individuals are using the new technologies in order to extend happenings in their real world into the virtual world. I guess most people who use these new technologies simply want a way to continue interaction with others in the cases that face-to-face interaction is not possible.

Being someone who believes in the power of communication (I want to go into Public Relations), through this class I was able to discover many resources that I could use in doing research in my field. I learned how to use these technologies in the hopes that I will be able to use them one day to influence the opinions of others.

However, despite they dozens of new ways that people use to communicate, organize and explore the world around them, I can’t help but believe that society will one day once again prefer the company of a Sunday edition newspaper to that of an electronic version of the news found online.

The Internet is the conduit through which most new media functions through and it is this entity that is bombarding society with droves of information and one day…people are going to want to be alone with their thoughts–not with the thoughts of thousands of other people.

Although I believe that the Internet is a very useful resource for seeking and finding information, there is so much information that the the average person does not need to know but “knows” thanks to tools like Wikipedia, only to forget the information hours later.

Facebook, MySpace and Twitter supply its users with information about which individuals are writing on each other’s walls, who is dating who and what each individual is doing at a given moment. These small bits of information are not enough to claim to know a person and they are giving individuals an excuse not to ask the questions they want answers to: Can I count on you as a friend? Do you feel the same way I feel about you? What are you thinking about?

Yes! These are probably the hardest questions to ask a person but they are important to know the answers to if one wants to have meaningful relationships with others. New media is allowing individuals the ability to cop out of asking these questions, settling for the answers they receive via wall posts and text messages.

I believe these new forms of communication will eventually strain the relationships between individuals and people will want to go back to the days of talking on the phone and hearing an actual “I love you” as opposed to seeing it in text.

The truth is that new media is unattached to society and its users. New mediums aren’t used in ways that allow for the free flow of prose and aren’t even intended for that kind of use most of the time (Twitter). Emotions are relatively absent from the everyday text message or wall post.

Due to the fact that the Internet is a user-generated medium and its messages are controlled by the user, I do not see handwritten letters coming back into style just yet. Either the users will mak the switch or they will be forced to as corporations figure out how to harness the Internet and new media to continue reaching their audiences.

Right now, these new mediums are being discovered and formulated. Their purposes and how they functions are still being studied and their effects on all users are unknown. Once their purposes are found and developed further, the user-generated content will mix with corporate-generated content and once again, people will look for a way to escape.

So once this corporate take over occurs, what will happen to society? Will the period following the corporate be known as a reversal or a revival?

I hope it will create a Renaissance. New waves of thought, art and literature emerging from the remains of the New Media Wave will provide interesting insight as to how human society continued and thrived, not with the minds of people, but with the structure and tools provided by technology.

Hopefully, face-to-face communication will not be considered a dying art.

The main idea of the article is to focus on the music industry and examine how new media, such as peer-sharing programs, mp3s and the Internet are changing the way music is obtained and used.

I would like to argue that a change in technology does change the way, what it considered to be culture, people make culture.

Music is considered to be an art form, like paintings. There is something about the intricacies of how rhythm is formulated on a pages and how an orchestra is able to play different notes and yet come together to form a larger piece.

Musicians practice their instruments, learn music theory, and sing until they have perfected their art–their contribution to the greater culture of their nation or the world.

However, today, music has gone from art to becoming a means of making profit. Those who are considered to be “musicians” are contracted by major recording labels, advertised to no ends, and produce a record that has little artistic value, musically and/or vocally.

I understand that my take on the current state of the music industry may be just an opinion, but without the invention of a recording device, a new piece of technology that changed how the art could be distributed and used, the music industry would have never gained a corporate structure.

With the ability of artists being recorded and their records being distributed to those who could not gain access to music in person, who would pay to have that presence, money would have never come into the picture. Music would have remained a form of expression, the lyrics of songs would still have a deeper meaning, and the multiple layers of instruments would have continued to be appreciated.

The main controversy in regards to new media and the music industry is that these intellectual works, as they are called, are being reproduced without the consent of the copyright holder, being used in inappropriate ways and, essentially, taking money away from the copyright holder.

If music were still considered to be and upheld as an art form, the what Daphne says in the article would be held true by the music industry: “producing is no more critical than consuming.”

However, DJs remixing pieces of various copyrighted songs in an effort to express themselves through mixing, through their form of art, they are being punished and persecuted.

New media is giving individuals the ability to explore the music that they are exposed to. To alter the rhythms, determine where transitions can be made, to crescendo in a new sound. They are working with what they have to make something new. They want to contribute to the culture as well.

However, the music industry does not see it that way and neither does copyright law. And indeed, copyright law in regards to music is not about protecting intellectual property, it is about managing cash flow.

If music had never experienced the change that recording devices brought about, then it would not be a cash driven business. It would have remained a culture driven business, encouraging others to explore their ideas and talents.

The new technologies truly have shaped the ways culture is made and perceived.

Perhaps the only other alternative to solve the issue is to redefine what is art and what is culture.

The man who moved from California to Indiana to be with the rest of his guild, the elite guild that people had to be vetted into, and the numerous accounts of individuals meeting online and starting romantic relationships.

The author of the article indicate that although the participation of individual players in a guild are significant, guilds are a fleeting entity in WoW.

If all these individuals met in guilds online, what is the shift that occurred for them have WoW become an entity to reinforce their real-world relationships instead of having WoW become a force for simply interacting with players online?

The authors argue that although players can banter about many subjects with the members of their guilds, that the main talk is about the game and reaching a goal–not about real-world situations. And that entity is what makes guilds so delicate and vulnerable to falling apart.

So what makes all these other people stick together?

I believe they are among the handful of individuals in the authors’ study who indicate their WoW relationships are more important than their real-life ones.

These are individuals who use the real-world experience to solidify a relationship instead of the other way around–most users of WoW are in guilds with people they know in real-life .

Maybe that is what makes their relationships last. The fqact that these individuals who meet online and form strong relationships onlne, without any physical contact, have the notion that the sentimat is more real because nothing has clouded their judgement about the other person.

It may also be that because guilds are so easily dismantled, that those individuals who had a bond in the guild previous, are going to continue their relationship, regardless of the absence of the guild they both found each other in.

So, since we have not finished the movie and in light f the new information acquired about the feebleness of WoW guilds, will these relationships last? Will these individuals have nothing to talk about one they leave the context of the game? Will they continue playing together once they have met in person?

The fact is that MMOs have the ability to impact relationships, ether negatively or positively. When using them to facilitate a relationships, i believe the most important aspect would be to determine whether both individuals see the MMO as a way to better the relationship. In ft, then you both be on you way and find another person to VoI{ with.

For the sake of reducing confusion, I will assign names to the people in the story, since I don’t remember any names.

Judy, the lady who called into the radio show, had never had a Second Life account but joined in order to help her friend, Linda. Linda’s avatar was being stalked by a male avatar that wanted to date her, but Linda kept refusing him, insisting that she had a boyfriend.

So, Linda asked Judy to join Second Life and develop a male avatar that could pose as Linda’s boyfriend. Being the good friend that Judy is, she joined Second Life.

In the process, Judy become an avid user of Second Life and described in detail the amount of possibilities that are available with a Second Life account.
The radio hosts thought she was insane…and so did a few other callers who called in to make comments and called her “Avatar Lady.”
If MMOs, such as WoW and SL, have such an anthropological importance as the article suggests, why did so many people find this lady so unbelievable? It was quite possible that she was on the verge of a breakthrough regarding the motives of stalking.

People don’t have the same reaction to individuals who are constantly on Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter.

Unlike MMOs, these mediums facilitate interaction with people that the user already knows. The users of MMOs, have to “literally build the world with the construction and programming tools provided for them.” The users of MMOs have to construct relationships with people that they have never met face-to-face. MMOs are not a way of facilitating interaction—they seem to be a way of constructing initial interaction.

I guess the major problem with using MMOs to construct initial interaction with someone is that it is not face-to-face—it’s through a computer image that may or may not reflect the actual person who is controlling the image.
People can construct their avatars however they want, giving the users to become whoever they want, to fulfill fantasies and desires.
And that’s where the general public listening to the radio that day found the problem—this 3D world is a fantasy. The major critique I have heard of individuals who are constantly on MMOs is that they need to get a “real life.”

However, the article discusses how Second Life serves as a “model for our own” and “MMOs can teach us things.”

I do believe that behavior on MMOs could be used to predict behaviors in the actual world, due to the fact that people enter these worlds with a set of assumptions and models of behavior they have acquired in the real world, and must now transfer them to the computer world.  The example of the epidemic released in WoW would have been very interesting to study had someone gotten wind of it and given the event enough importance to merit a study.

However, due to the general public’s reaction of individuals who frequently use MMOs, as much as there could be to learn from them, I don’t believe that MMOs will gain the attention that they merit from academics. Until they have gone mainstream, where 1 out 3 every people has an avatar, I don’t think that there will be enough representation in the world of MMOs in order to complete a thorough study of the culture 3D, computer-generated worlds.

In order to have everyone join the phenomena of MMOs, what needs to be done? What is it about the real life that keeps people so separated from Second Life? What is it about the individuals who join MMOs that prompts them to join and keep on participating?

The name Second Life is enough to keep people from taking a leap from the real world to a world where everything is fantasy. The name communicates that there is another, first-ranking life. A simple name change may be everything that is needed to have a jump in membership and to have hundreds of people to transfer the skills they acquired in the real world to the MMO world and to have a model of the real world in the background, predicting what will happen outside our computer screens. Perhaps even leading human beings to live better, more efficient lives.

Culture jamming is a movement by the people. it is composed of individuals who are trying to fight back against the larger corporate advertising structure in order to get back what advertisers have been moving in on for years–control of their minds.

It is a movement that involves all sorts of individuals–former ad executives and university students who come from a variety of political backgrounds but all believe they are struggling for the greater good of society.

It is a movement that uses existing structures of the advertising world in order to spread their message and to fight back against the media.

It is a revolution–an attempt to overthrow the advertising and marketing structures as they currently exist in order to make a better world for everyone to live in.

Throughout the entire piece, there is reference to adbusters as “guerilla artists” who “slink around at night” in order to work on their ads.  A popular adbuster group has named itself The Billboard Liberation Front. The artists use whatever means and tools they can–magic markers, spray paints, and even pens–to combat against the well-funded advertising messages sent out by corporate America.

These adbusters are trying to raise the public’s consciousness to a point where it realizes that the media, through its various forms of advertising, is trying to gain control of their minds and buying habits. They are trying to get the public to realize the extent to which the advertising companies are going to get them to buy their products.

Exactly how successful has the war against billboards been?

Typical of other revolutionary groups, the adbusters are working as a group of  unidentified individuals, are underfunded, and are willing to recruit anyone who can join the movement.  Internal conflicts are sure to ensue (There has always been a tension between the forces of the merry prankster and the hard-core revolutionary) and the divide will level the impact of the message that these adbuster groups are trying to spread.

Corporate America has millions of dollars, uses celebrity to its advantage, and uses highly-trained professionals to develop campaigns. It seems that the odds seem to be leaning towards advertising execs in the war over mind control.

So what kinds of tactics need to be used by adbusters to win the war against consumerism? Already, the advertisers have begun a contra war where they are trying use the aspects of the adbuster counter-culture and integrating them into their campaigns (Nike and Ralph Nader) in an attempt to proft from anything they deem as a trend.

It seems that in order for the movement to truly make an impact, it will have to come out into the world that it is trying to defend . The leaders of the movement will have to emerge from being underground and join artists like Rodriguez de Gerada. In order to attract more followers to the movement, these potential recruits need to identify to the leaders and to the ideals of the adbuster, much like they need to identify to an ad before they buy the product.

The counter-culture must become part of the culture.

The question is by the time it becomes a large enough movement, will they still be fighting for the same cause?

So today, when I sent out on a mission to find mistakes, I had a hard time.

I had to go through 4 pages before I found something that I thought was worth of editing.

The first pages I went to was the page on the FMLN, a socialist party in El Salvador, who I have been learning about for my majr and because my family is from there.

Since I didn’t know much about them, I was basically looking for grammatical mistakes…and I didn’t find any!

I also visited the page on the Salvadoran Civil War, El Mozote and Rufina Amayo. No grammatical errors.

I finally visited the page of Oscar Romero, the archbishop of El Salvador who was killed during the Civil War, where I added punctuation where I found it necessary. I added a comma before a quotation and capitalized a word.

Finding mistakes on Wikipedia was much more difficult that I though it would be. But in a way, it gives me the sense that it is a much more credible source that academics think it is. As the article stated, for every 3 mistakes in Encyclopedia Britannica, there are 4 in Wikipedia. The mistakes in Wikipedia can be fixed at anytime, but those in Britannica are costly to fix and reprint.

I am a HUGE user of the website and use it as  a starting ground for the information that I am interested in. I am not going to say that I believe and find everything on the site credible, but if my grandma, who lived though the war in El Salvador, remembers everything that I read to her from the article on Wikipedia, then I have to give it’s contributors more credit than I have been giving them.

But then again, I am not an expert on the subject and have to TRUST what they are posting is the truth.

The Internet community’s presence is much stronger politics because of the fact that users have to seek out the information they want about a fellow politician they wish to support.

Communities are based on voluntary membership and when people join a group or on-line community this is especially the case because they had to go on-line and seek the group out. The had a strong desire to participate and share experiences with others that have common values and goals.When the desire to participate is strong in each member of a community and social capitol is high, each member of the community knows the common goal of the group and knows what role they have to play in order to reach that goal.

In an Internet political community, the goal would be to have the politician of choice be elected. Everyone who is a member of the community can help in having the candidate elected with only a few clicks of their mouse by sending out mass emails, posting information about the candidate on social networking sites or write in a blog about the candidate.

All these actions taking place in support of a candidate have the ability to resonate and attract others to the cause because gives the users direct interaction with the on-line community at large. One can create a group or community, post information anytime one wants, any information one finds relevant to the goal, and have others do the same. it gives the participants a greater sense of power and influence that allows them to feel that their actions are making a difference and are helping get their favorite politician.

Although their are real-life political groups, they do not provide the same experiences that an on-line community does. Groups in the real world are centered around its leaders who dictate when there are going to be meetings, information that should be discussed and how money should be raised. Members of these groups always have a voice, but they do not have as much power and influence as much as the leaders of the group do. They also cannot see the immediate progress of their acti0ns as one can see them on-line. If one donates money to a political candidate, one cannot see where the money goes. However, if one posts a blog in support of one, you can immediately see the work you have contributed to the campaign.

The Internet has given hundreds of people the ability  to participate in politics when they would not have participated off-line. the ability of the Internet to mobilize people behind a cause or person id due to the fact that one is presented with the choice of what information to seek–and when so many individuals choose to support someone, especially in an online forum, it shows an even greater sense of dedication and desire to achieve the goal of having someone be elected to office.

The article mentioned that politics have to change and in many ways, it already has, in regards to the way that it approaches its audiences. But one can only wonder, how future campaigns will take place online. Will the communities that so avidly support a candidate stop being produced by the public and be produced by PR representatives? Which online communities would have the most support–those created by the actual voters or those created by the candidates staff?

Authenticity is a significant part of the reputation of a candidate and no matter to what medium campaigns move to, this aspect will always be important and relevant to the audience. On or off-line, communities must always represent the people and the information they want, not what others think they want.

“…in cyberspace, it is possible to completely and utterly disappear people of color,” and that the elision of questions of race in cyberspace has led to its “whitinizing.” (pg 327)

In looking at these two passages from the article we had to read this week, the first thing I thought of were the times where I called a company and heard an individual with a South Asian accent on the other line who had an Anglo-sounding name like Max or David. (I get this at work all the time!)

I believe this is the perfect example to which globalization and technology have come together and have begun to “whitinize” the users of technology.

It has become necessary for operators who have been hired to help Americans with technical support, credit card information, or purchasing items through a catalogue to adopt names that American’s will find familiar and allow them to be more at ease with the person they are relying on to help them.

Instead of allowing globalization and the ability to send jobs overseas give individuals the change to learn about new cultures and places, globalization has only aided Western ideologies to spread farther into the corners of the world—including which names sound more credible to consumers.

Another example that I can think of in regards to technology and the Internet creating a monoculture is through the use of StumbleUpon. I can only remember a few times when the button brought me to a non-English web page, and even then, it involved some kind of visual as the main content.

Granted, my browser in English-based but in 2002, about 57% of the pages on the Internet where in English. German came at a distant second with about 8%.

Language is the means through which individuals gain access to information and the way that they form conceptual frameworks about the world around them.

The words in a language contain connotations and definitions that may not be present in another and therefore, a person describing a car in Hindi will project a different interpretation that someone using the same phrases to describe the same car in English.

Since the majority of the information that is being distributed on the Internet is in English, it is undoubtedly carrying with it the ideologies and connotations of the cultures that use it, creating a monoculture around the globe.

So, then the questions would be, how do other countries who use a different language to interpret their world catch up to the West? Do they need to find a way to obtain resources and post as much as they can? Or do they need to create their own system of distributing information in order to preserve their culture?

The article provides an example displaying that simply having access to the Internet, does not grant the user with online citizenship—the ability to post, access information and to participate equally in using the Internet. It seems that for those who have access in the non-Western world, have to opt for an “English Only” option are able to participate equally only if they have enough funds to go to a school that teaches English.

I heard somewhere that some languages are danger of extinction. With the help of the Internet and the spread of Western ideas, English is becoming and will be one of the surviving languages that will help the citizens of the world think, act, and talk the same.

This relationship between the virtual world and the real world is what gives some users of social networking sites the validity to begin or instigate MySpace drama.

When someone is taken down a spot or taken off all together from Top 8 on MySpace, they are more than likely to experience some feelings of confusion, loss, and betrayal. These feelings result from the fact that reciprocity was expected in regards to the positioning in the Top 8. Regardless of why reciprocity was not produced, feelings are hurt and drama will ensue.

Instead of trying to fix things over MySpace, why not actually talk to the person that one I having problems with? I feel that the one thing about MySpace that is permeating into the real world is the lack of actual communication. That is why MySpace drama starts. Individuals do not have the skills or courage to talk to each other in person, so instead, they vent their feelings in a less direct manner online.

However, as boyd noticed in reference to one of her examples, instead of sending a private message, users will post messages on public pages for all to see. Therefore, instead of keeping the problems a private matter, they are now made public, more people have the potential to get involved and matters ultimately get worse.

So my question is, why is it so much easier to project one’s problems on MySpace than to talk about them directly with the person they directly involve? The fact that lots of people are going to know one’s problems isn’t bothersome? It is to me and that’s why I stay away from MySpace.

People are now being unable to communicate in person about some of the things that make or break a relationship. They want to know if the way they feel about someone is being reciprocated. They want to know if someone is spreading rumors about them. They want to know if someone will stand up for them….and no one can talk about this in person. They have to post messages on walls asking, “Why am I not #2 on your Top 8? You are #2 on mine.” They want to know, “Are you sending messages about me to (fill in the blank) people?” They want to know, “Will you post some mean messages on so-and-so’s wall? She is sending such-and-such nasty messages about me…”

MySpace and other social networking sites are structured and meant to be used by people who are friends in reality. However, if people are now unable and less willing to work on building their relationships outside of MySpace, then the friends we have added to our networks will soon begin to be deleted from our pages and gradually, the social network will no longer exist based on the people we once considered our “real friends”—the ones we go shopping with, do homework with, and talk to one the phone. We will develop “MySpace friends”—the ones who read our blogs, comment our photos, and copy our bulletins only.

I think I need someone to tell me whether or not a dress looks good on me or not.

Norman came to the conclusion in his pieces that “added complexity and difficulty cannot be avoided when functions are added, but with clever design, they can be avoided.”

He wrote this in 1988 when the hardest thing to understand and work was a switchboard telephone. However, now we have portable phones that can take pictures, send email, and set our schedules for us. These new sources of technology (that some of us cannot live without!) have also provided several instances of frustration.

Norman identifies that the key components of design are visibility, mapping, and feedback. These three identifiers are what reduce frustration when using pieces of technology.

The fact is that technologies today have visibility, mapping, and feedback. Therefore, the frustrations that we get from them is not related to those three components, but something else. They stem from lack of immediacy.

For example, I can use a computer and I will stay on it for hours. However, once it starts to act slow and the Internet is not working I begin to get frustrated. I see that the bar at the bottom of my webpage is loading but not as fast as I’d like. I see that my cellphone is trying to dial but it cannot get a signal. I see that my IPod is syncing my music but not fast enough.

So, society has gone from being so illiterate in technology that it would just avoid dealing with it, to being completely engrossed by technology that we refuse to wait for any of it.

When my computer is slow, I don’t wait for it to open the window I want. I Crtl+Alt+Delete and start all over. More than likely, that will get the job done faster. When my cellphone won’t start up as quickly as I’d like it to, I take out the battery and turn it on again.

It seems although computers have high visibility, mapping, and feedback levels people still get frustrated due to the lack of speed of these functions.

So what is worse: Avoiding a technology or refusing to wait for it to work? Giving up or being lazy?

I guess frustrations from technologies no matter what the decade turn people into an unfavorable version of themselves.

Who says you can’t laugh about the daily frustrations technologies give you? I always say that I would like to “Office Space” several pieces of technology…so I watch the video on YouTube. But technology, although at times it can make life temporarily more difficult, in the long run, it has improved our efficiency.

So, the next time you are about to punch a hole your monitor, please read this article and learn to relax and take a break from the immediacy of the world that we now live in…or that we think we have to live in.