Make Friends on Facebook
Posted on: June 5, 2011
Facebook is like a perfect curtain which can allow people socialize while hidding their real lives behind. They are not only able to communicate with their real-life friends, but also make friends with people who they neve met before. I know some people who deliberately disguis their facebooks to attract strangers. They put on nice photos of themselves, write on well-organised status and even hide their real-life relationship status. In this case the friends of their friends are more willing to add them. Holding such a long list of friends is also regarded as a symbol of sociable on Internet, which gains more attentions.
Facebook Log-in Page. From techpluto.com.
Friends, this definition has been expanded ever since the start of Internet, especially Facebook. In the old days, we would call others as friends only after we’ve made quite acquitances with them in real life. We know their actual ages, family backgrounds, jobs, hobbies and personalities for sure. But Facebook makes everything can be fake. One can make up everything of oneself when others only get to know them through Internet. Interestingly, Facebook users esp. the young people havn’t thought of any problems with it. And they proudly call their Facebook friends as real-life friends. Thus suddenly their social community are widely broaden up.
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. From eatocracy.cnn.com
However I believe these Facebook fans will change their minds after they realise the mess. One of my friends actually went out with one of her facebook friend. She thought he was fine and they had common hobbies such as watching Japanese dramas. But after she gets to know him, especially after meeting his friends in real life. She realised he was not the kind of person who his Facebook showed he was. He didn’t know much about Japanese dramas. And it turned out that he holded several Facebook accounts and none of them is reflecting the real him. After this lesson, my girlfriend became very cautious when she meets new friends online.
If Facebook can really be the curtain in socializing, I hope it can become the one which protects ourselves not the one which helps others to fake and set us up.
I randomly picked up this Peter Chao’s YouTube video. And it is so funny. The way he imitates Chinese accents and the attitudes, speed, fluent swears he has when he speaks are amazing. It is like what one of his fans said, it’s so terrible but its so funny at the sam time. I didn’t subscribe his channel. But I oftenly viewed his videos since they are always too popular to be forgotten by the YouTube recommendation.
Chinese Guy's Hatorade Ep 1: "Oolong better than Jasmine?" by Peter Chao. From youtube.com.
Personally, people won’t like hear swearing. But it seems that Chao’s fans have tolerated and even loved it so far. I think the reason behind it is that he gets his own attitude and personal style. Plus, the reasons of his swearings are very clear in the video. Some people like me may feel like his swearing expresses their own angers or excitement too.
Nowadays, many people have their own channels in YouTube. Some of them do commedy talkings (like Peter Chao); some of them do different kinds of tutorials (make up, cooking…); some of them simply do vlogs. And yet they all have their own styles to attract a bunch of loyal fans. People don’t care if they are make up professionals or cooking chefs. They simply want some entertainments which are not that serious or stupid. Ordinary people gain their fames out of YouTube channels. And I believe some of them may end up with doing something greater because of their popular channels.
Is BBS outdated yet?
Posted on: June 4, 2011
From ventnormerchants.com
I still remember when I was still in junior high school, I loved the school BBS (bulletin board servic) so much. I used to upload every piece of my creative works on it. And I couldn’t wait to see my school mates’ comments. Then our literature tutors would come up and rate each pieces from one star to five stars. The five stars, exciting again, would be the biggest reward and encourage for my writting. BBS seemed to be the first type of access to group communication on Web. However, nowadays people tend to facebook more, twitter more, YouTube more and blog more. BBS with its limited functions deteriorated. And only some small group or institutions would utilise it as the communicating tool. It’s out of our everyday internet routine.
But I’m still reminded of BBS’s unique power sometime, especially when I view all the Chinese internet news and celebrities scandals. I’ve notived that large number of the secret news were leaked from a popular Chinese BBS, TianYa. It’s a universally-topics BBS. And no matter what news are on heat, they must have been already discussed in the BBS. Plus, it creates news too. When somebody’s personal story has gained popularity, some viewers around BBS are always trying to dig the person out and validate the truth of the story. Some fake stories got busted and became a topic. Some stories like whose child get some horrible disease got proven and kind people would contact and help the protagonists. The popularity is extreme in the BBS. And no matter how small things you wrote about, there will be people criticising, praising, discussing as an issue and dragging them into real life. So far till now, I don’t dare to say anything in the BBS since it feels like when you say something, you expose yourself totally.
Interestingly, I didn’t notice such things in Western internet. Maybe the Chinese BBS is empowered by some Chinese personal traits. Anyway, it reveals that BBS still hold its position in Web 2.0 no matter how less advanced they are.
Less Technology, More Humane?
Posted on: June 3, 2011
Fashion comes back to retro and old trend every now and then. Vintage clothes, bags or shoes sometime beat the latest-created clothing concepts and become people’s favorites. Will media follows the same circle? Will old media ever prevail the lates techonology and new media?
Vintage Wedding Dress. From cheap-chic-weddings.com
However, for me personally, it’s not absurd to choose old media tools over the new one? And I believe this will be the same with every other new-generation’s. For instance, when we do research for our essays, don’t we find writing notes by hand is more convenient and helpful than typing it in the computer? Even scientists have found that writing can help people think more clealry and memorise better. But typing is less efficient since it costs much less brain works and hand works. Besides, as the technology hasn’t been improved to perfections, it isn’t able to totally substitute how human functions. When we take notes we hold the tangible paper and we draw random graphs, but this is hard to achieve in our laptops.
Fashion Look-- People Wear Vintage Bags. From Lookbook.nu.
Except for working, when I relax I sometime prefer TV rather than Internet Video Websites. This’s not only because of that TV’s screen is larger. It more feels like that TV is serving me while the Internet is a platform which needs me to act first. Internet is aiming to be more personalised so it requires people’s selections or searches to provide what people personally like. While TV is simply a general platform with flowing informations, people can only get what’s already prepared in TV. And this is perfect when I only need relaxing but not any specifically presonalised entertainments.
Vintage Books. From harvestbooks.com
And beside myself, generally people would like to read a paper book rather than read online or from the electronic gadgets like iPad. The reason is mainly about the Ergonomy. The light of the electronic tool is hurting eyes after a long time of reading. And as human has been reading paper books for more than thousand years, we habitually prefer the feeling of reading words from bound books. I still remember in the movie ‘Sex and the City’, Big asked Carrie why she still borrowed books from NYC library. She answered that, she liked the smell. I guess books and vintage clothes have common reason to be popular. That is they both remind us of the history, the way we dressed and read when we were young and the way our ancestors lived in thousands years ago.
When New Media Goes to Prank
Posted on: June 3, 2011
'World Uncanny Story'. From yule.sohu.com.
‘World Uncanny Story’ is a famouse Japanese TV dramas started at 1996. The series is aiming to create some fansy and even horror dramas associating with lates popular topic. Audiences all arond Japan and Asian areas found it entertaining yet profound. The latest dramas released in Sping of 2011 including a short story of prank programme online. The group is dedicated to prank people and put the videos online. Without ethic or even legal consideration, the whole crew especially the boss are targeting at the maximised popularity. However the story ends up with that the boss got pranked by his crew. And the prank didn’t stop until he fall from a skyscraper.
Prank Group in 'World Uncanny Story' directed by 河毛俊作,石川淳一.
The whole story sharply pointed out the largest concern behind such prank programmes online. That is, with no restrictions the shocking level of the programme will only be exploded by humans’ greed and curiosity. Prank videos have fulfilled people’s desire of peeping at others and taking pleasure in other’s misfortune. But for the protagonists in the video, they may find themselves offended and not respected by their beloved joke makers– usually the close friends, relatives etc. If the prank goes too far or out of control, the relationship will be inevitably influenced even though we can’t track what will happen behind the scene.
Pranker fall from a skyscraper in a prank. From 'World Uncanny Story' directed by 河毛俊作,石川淳一.
Superficially, prank programme has nothing to do with our Web 2.0. But the fact is, Web 2.0 extremely expanded the popularity of prank programme. With some convenient video sharing site like YouTube, people tend to prank more and get pranked more. While TV seems to be a much more limited-accessed media, websites give people more motivations. Basicly, they encourage people more on exposing themselves and surroundings
However, as one of the creative works, prank programmes involved not only the copyright problems but also the ethic and safety topics. Hopefully, go back to ‘World Uncanny Story’, the reallife pranker won’t end up with such tragedy out of prankees’ revenges.
Piracy Fulfills Cultural Functions
Posted on: June 2, 2011
Piracy, in cultural realm, means that large media corporations stifle local cultural production by taking over marketing and distribution channels, thus destroying the businesses of local distributors who offer more culturally diverse and more local goods (Medosch, 2008: 80). Pirates can be: commercial DVD and VCD pirates, file-sharers, downloaders etc.
Despite the commercial purpose of piracy, it has fulfilled some crucial cultural functions.
For the people who live under the legacies of colonialism or imperialism, piracy provides them the access to art movies and difficult fare which do not get official distribution (Medosch, 2008: 81). Like people in North Korea, the communist government doesn’t allow some international fare from capitalist countries to be officially brought in. While people there can only access to these fare through some illegal pirates, which are copied through some illegal ways.
And pirate becomes a connoisseur who caters to sophisticated tastes and needs in some less developed areas (Medosch, 2008: 81). In these areas, only the mainstream popular fare gets the official distribution for its huge commercial profits. Less popular fare with sophisticated tastes is hardly to get because they are not beneficial enough for the major market. For instance, the local theatres may give up introducing in international art house movies since it costs higher than the gross. While piracy costs much less so pirate may copy them in some way. Thus the interested local people can only get them from piracy market.
On the other hand, piracy is also a counter-hegemonic force to empower cheap labor and allow long-marginalized population to realize their civil rights (Medosch, 2008: 82). Since the piracy doesn’t need to pay for the copyright neither insure the pirate’s quality with some expensive equipment, it costs much less. Thus the pirate may be priced so low to be afforded by cheap labor with their low income. Thus they can bargain for a pirate since it’s cheap and they can buy it anyway. Also, since piracy has extended from software to hardware and bandwidth, some marginalized area is able to build some internet café for local people (favelas in Brazil) (Medosch, 2008: 82). Again, the only reason they can do is that piracy is cheaper. And local people get the chance to explore the Internet and enjoy new media. Such access to services and information brought by the piracy ensures their civil rights.
International Piracy Market. From Worldnews.com (article.wn.com).
In mainstream area, piracy also helps the fulfillment of the cultural function like downloading music. Firstly digital music files provide the users greater access to music, they can explore unfamiliar territory and discover new favorite music genre. “Instead of seeking out particular pieces, one initiates an intentionally general search in hope of broad and unfamiliar results” (Vatz, 2004: 166). Secondly, downloading allows flexibility to customize users’ musical experience. They don’t need to accept the whole album gadget from a CD. However, they are able to “burn” the playlists to create a personalized creation (Vatz, 2004: 166). Thirdly, downloaders can even alter the very sound of their MP3s through various free softwares online. And listeners can become amateur sound engineers or composers (Vatz, 2004: 166). Last but not least, users of the technology are connecting to one another and forming musical communities. Since the physical distance collapses in front of the possibilities of file sharing.
Music Download Website. From detoxdesign.co.uk.
Reference
Armin Medosch, ‘Paid in Full: Copyright, Piracy and the Real Currency of Cultural Production’, in Deptforth. TV Diaries II: Pirate Strategies, London: Deptforth TV, 2008.
Mark Vatz, Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music. Berkeley: US Press, 2004.
Creative Commons License
Posted on: June 2, 2011
I chose the Creative Commons license because it opens interactions between people’s creative works under the over-protected new copyright law and it protects creative works properly from copyleft.
CC poster. From creativecommons.org
Creative Commons (CC) allows openness to creative works under the extended copyright law set by bureaucracy. By the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, copyright is extended for an additional twenty years. And thus an estimated 400,000 books are prevented from entering the public domain until 2019 (Steitfeld, 2002). The Act is against the tendency of open access brought by Web 2.0. And in fact, it’s merely favoring some large media companies. By early 2000s in America, there is only six major conglomerates dominate 90% of distribution in media market (Garcelon, 2009: 1309). While Web 2.0 has freed some creative works from hidden behind the copyright law, users and small companies are able to access them without paying those companies. Thus the large companies are trying to maintain their oligopolistic control over the creative works by advocating the copyright’s extension. To against this monopoly, CC was created to give copyright holders the option of making creative works available for copying and distribution by granting various exceptions to the rights.
CC poster. From aulados.net.
By providing the options, CC has clarified the distinctions between “rivalrous” and “nonrivalrous” resources. Web 2.0 has the nonrivalrous nature which is given by the easy copy and distribution through the technologies. However CC holds the view of that some of the creative works are rivalrous. So it provides a control to ensure that those resources are produced and not overused (Garcelon, 2009: 1309). But the large media companies neglected such distinctions and assume that all the creative works online is intellectual properties. The false concept which stems from their self interests needs to be corrected by the voluntary organization such as CC.
When the distinction of rivalrous and nonrivalrous is neglected by big media companies, some copyleft organizations also falsely assume that all creative works online should be nonrivalrous. Such organizations include Free Software Foundation founded by Richard Stallman. The site provides software whose code remains accessible for manipulation by any users without restrictions (Garcelon, 2009: 1314). Free Software Foundation clearly takes the wrong concept that the software resource online is nonrivalrous and needs no control once after they are produced. This wrong concept shows no respects to the professionals who devote their whole lives to create and modify software. Plus, such openness may lead to commercial abuses. “That’s not possible or desirable,” commented by CC founder Lawrence Lessig. While under the license of CC, once some creative works are used for profit, it could revert to function legally as a standard copyright. Thus CC provides the creative works proper legal protections.
The relevance of CC is quite important. For creative works, CC developed a perspective relating non-commercial and commercial uses. And thus it allows small companies to challenge major media companies (Garcelon, 2009: 1315) For instances, small music companies can download the music pieces of large music companies and then make their own music remix. For science, CC has helped the exchange of ideas and research projects without weird licensing arrangements and intellectual property agreements. It drives the explosion of scientific knowledge in several countries (Garcelon, 2009: 1311). In conclusion, under CC license, people like me can enjoy the interactions and communications of different creative works without worrying about the copyrights.
Reference
Marc Garcelon, ‘An Information Commons? Creative Commons and Public Access to Cultural Creations’, New Media &Society 11.8(2009)
Steitfeld, David (2002) ‘The Culture Anarchist vs Hollywood Police State’, Los Angeles Times (22 Sep.)
http://www. Grailwerk.com/docs/latimes.html
Visual Metaphor in Web Design
Posted on: May 27, 2011
Web 2.0 has its limitation in many aspects. But it utilizes the visual metaphors form older media to expand its limitations.
The look of the web pages nowadays follows the contemporary electronic gadget design. It consists of a background with blocks of graphics, videos and text superimposed upon it, with no clear structure to bring it all together (Lialina, 2009: 63). MySpace, for example, has a few most-used categories on the top. And main part of the page is occupied with large blocks of newest applications, recommended MySpace celebrities and videos. Each block is basically a fancy picture followed by a few descriptive lines. And the less-interested categories are put on the bottom with smallest typeface. The more popular contents are more highlighted. With a simple click, users can access to all information related it. Any user who goes into MySpace will find it handy or transparent because they can make it work immediately. The system is designed to be light, intuitive and transparent as the cool electronic gadgets like iPods. The eager intentions of mimic come from the weaknesses of the Web 1.0. They used to look like a mess or old “desktop” metaphor because back in few decades the main web designers are amateur ones “who are tried tied to HTML-based aesthetics” (Lialina, 2009: 62). Also as the Web can be accessed universally and reproduced unlimitedly, it has been devalued. So to imitate Apple’s cool site design and its expensive plastic’s candy color in pictures can make the MySpace look more valued. Plus, “MySpace profile editor allows users to set opacity for blocks on the page from 10 to 100%” (Lialina, 2009: 63). Such expense of usability requires MySpace puts less contents on the page to look light too.
MySpace Home Page. From theothersidemag.co.uk
On the other hand, personalized homepage of Web 2.0 imitates the homepage of Web 1.0 and real-life segments to attract amateurs. iGoogle, Google Personalized Homepage, is an example. Google service invites its users to recreate the feel of homepage, offers ways to personalize their spaces. And there are six new themes announced: Seasonal Scape, Tea House, Bus Stop etc (Lialina, 2009: 61). The new themes stem from the entertaining events from real life. And the concept of homepage was created by amateur designers in Web 1.0. For the retro iGoogle, Jessica Ewing the Google Product Manager said “this feature makes the Google home page feel a little more like home.” Thus iGoogle’s purpose is revealed as to create a relaxed, fun atmosphere and appeal to young web users. iGoogle offers users the chances to travel or have a tea online even when they are working on searching. While classically, the site for searching purposes like Google has been disguising itself under the concepts of empiricism and specialism. Google has the minimal look of site which contains only the logo, searching bar, a few categories and simple white background. Google looks and contents much less entertaining for young people compared to social networking sites like MySpace. So iGoogle as an interesting even wasted function attempts to drag the young and innocent amateurs’ attentions. “And they are less likely to stand up and claim a part of the fast increasing surplus value the internet is creating (Lialina, 2009: 63).”
iGoogle Site. From googlesystem.blogspot.com
Reference:
Olia Lialina, ‘Vernacular Web 2’, in Olia Lialina and Dragan Espenschied (eds) Digital Folklore Reader, Stuttgart: Merz Akademie, 2009.
Blogs As a More Efficient Resource
Posted on: May 27, 2011
Nowadays, new media platforms like blogs are able to inform the public more efficiently.
Blogs can be written and edited independently, which gains the quality of their information. While mainstream media, such as televisions and newspapers, is inevitably controlled by either big company or the government according to the political economy media theory. So old media intends to pick up and edit news in the way they or their owners want to present. They can never stand neutral and provide neutral information to the public. However, many bloggers are willing to challenge by targeting on answering the questions raised in newspapers, commenting and critiquing mainstream coverage (Russell etc., 2008: 68). The famous example is the P2P Diebold investigations. The network reported the inadequacy and corruptibility of Diebold Election Systems voting machines (Russell etc., 2008: 68). While the elite media was busy on some campaign’s publicity, bloggers had already raised a revolution of voting machines policy. Besides this case has also proven that the collaborative resource of blogs is more accountable than the institutional resource of old media.
Blogger Home Page. From zeald.com
Blogs hold the more powerful collective resource which gains the credibility to blogs’ information but the elite media solely depends on their journalists. Besides the common resources which they share with other media, the largest resource of blogs is the public. Since blogs are universally accessible, every individual is able to view blogs and comment on it. Thus bloggers can always obtain whole-facets information from different readers’ comments or other blogs. “None of us can know everything; each of us knows something” (Jenkins, 2006: 4). So putting what each individual knows together into the collective intelligence is powerful (Jenkins, 2006: 4). One example is the Science Blog set up by National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). NIOSH Science Blog has more than 22,000 subscribers. And in a survey, sixty percent of participants plan to continue using blog in next six months as a source of working place safety information (Sublet etc., 2011: 394). The result has shown people’s satisfactions of the information NIOSH Science Blog provides. And the resource of NIOSH Science Blog includes its completed research, viewer’s comments and other similar blogs. And due to the received comments and analyses from the public, the blog is regarded by NIOSH as a mechanism to modify their new researches.
On the other hand, not all the blogs are as popular as NIOSH’s. In fact, only a few “A-list” bloggers can obtain the majority’s attentions (Russell etc., 2008: 69). This is a side effect of the freedom of choices among tons of blog . But the merit-based process strengthens the blogs’ efficiency on information providing. Since the public is hypercritical, the blogs need to be the best on every single facet to gain and keep the popularity. Even for NIOSH Science Blog, they tend to “follow the respondents’ suggestions of expanding the topics covered in the blog” (Sublet etc., 2011: 394) and “provide a more immediate feedback mechanism” (Sublet etc., 2011: 394) to broaden the community of readers.
NIOSH Science Blog. From nanotechobserver.com
Blogs are mainly text-based and text can be proliferated rapidly. And when blogging, all a blogger needs is a computer and the internet. So it can inform public quickly after the news broke. Combined with its credibility, bloggers make a more efficient informer.
Reference:
Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old &New Media Collide. New York: NYU Press, 2006.
Adrienne Russell, Mizuko Ito, Todd Richmond and Marc Tuters, ‘Culture: Media Convergence and Networked Culture’, in Kazys Varnelis (ed.) Networked Publics, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008, pp 43-76.
Sublet, V. and C. Spring and J. Howard (2011) ‘Does Social Media Improve Communication? Evaluating the NIOSH Science Blog.’ in V. Sublet (ed.) American Journal of Industrial Medicine 54: 384-394.
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