Reflect on your own use of messaging, facebook, and twitter concerns or fears you may have and economic opportunities you might recognise.

This was a very interesting week of learning for me and a topic that I find a lot of relevance in, not just in the way I use these social media networks in my personal life, but also how I am beginning to use them in my professional life.

The reason why I originally created my facebook profile was to see if I could connect with people I had met overseas, and amazingly I could (and still do). I am a notoriously bad emailer, so Facebook & Twitter is perfect for me to stay in touch with my friends regardless of the difference between us. This has led to (I believe) a greater sense of friendship between us all, and a more concerted effort to catch up with each other in ‘real life’, something that would not have happened on such a large scale if we had not had this easy (free) way of still virtually being in each others lives.

I completely agree with the idea that Facebook users are creating their preferred online persona, carefully cultivating an uber self, a self that just a little funnier, a little wittier and a little cooler than they are in real life. I agree with this because I understand that I do this. I carefully weigh up the options I have for my status updates, I critically review various links for the funniest, coolest, or most irony-filled ones I can find and I cultivate the image of myself that I wish to present to the online world.

Professionally, I am beginning to understand the power Twitter and Facebook can have for small businesses (if used correctly).I work in a small graphic design, website development company and we are beginning to offer social media marketing plans for our clients. The clients that wish to partake notice an increase in their brand awareness very quickly. The role of a company is changing, and we now need to see the more human side of business, and the most cost-effective way of doing this is by joining in the conversation with our clients. It is a huge economic and marketing opportunity.

A brief discussion on how Twitter has changed through user input, this talk presents several facts that I had no knowledge of, namely how much user input has influenced twitter.

What began as simply a program that allowed users to connect easily and quickly with friends and family through brief status updates despite time and space distance has now evolved into a major information and communication network source.

During real time events Twitter is where people turn to in order to get real-time information about the events happening around them and world wide. Evan Williams’ example of this was the L.A. fires, however in the last few months alone Twitter has been a massive source of information and communication for people during the QLD floods and the Japan Tsunami/Earthquake. Last week, Twitter was the place I turned to for real-time information about the Westpac Bank blackout and was pleasantly surprised to see a representative of Westpac tweeting updates to individual customers.

What was unknown to me was the fact that the method of replying to other twitter users (@username format) was completely invented by twitter users – this was not a builtin functionality. When this became a popular method of replying to people the developers at Twitter decided to just make it a little easier to do this. The hashtag prefixing a term (used when performing a search and also used to signify a trending topic) is another user invented function. These are two major ways in which Twitter is used, and this demonstrates just how much users have shaped this system.

E.J. Westlake introduces the idea of self performance within a social media context in this article. After a general overview of the timeline of Facebook, Westlake outlines the fact that with the introduction of the News Feed feature in Facebook, users became aware that every move they made in Facebook was now broadcast to each of their friends in their own news feed. This has now lead to users ‘performing’ online – creating and cultivating their identities through their profiles on social media sites. Westlake also determines that with the differences within MySpace and Facebook allow users to cultivate different profiles (therefore different performance identities) and then link each profile to the other.

The issue of online surveillance goes hand in hand with the trend today of broadcasting ones life happening in such intimate details. Westlake displays the surprise felt by the general public about the level of personal information young people will publish on the web today stating “Generation Y-ers behave and perform in ways that seem to baffle their elders” (2008:13). Young people are ready to passively co-exist with surveillance of any kind. This is evident in the simplest way, again using the example of the Facebook News Feed – users understand that they are being watched by other facebook users through this feed, and still continue the broadcast their information.

I certainly agree with both Westlakes points in this article. Based on my experience alone I am completely aware that my facebook profile is public and seen, and this influences all of my decisions – what I am going to post, what photos I’ll display, what links I’ll connect to. I am completely ‘performing’ my online identity, and attempting to create a certain online persona that I find pleasing.

One interesting point is that the content within Wikipedia is held under a completely free license, meaning anyone can take take as much of the content up on the site and do anything like they with it, which is almost unheard of in this day of stern take-down notices and cease-and-desist letters on digital content.

Wikipedia is also funded by donations from the public – not that Wikipedia is an expensive operation to run, at the time of this talk there was one actual employee. The bulk of the work in Wikipedia is done by volunteers.

The thing that has always confused me about Wikipedia was how they kept their pages (for the most part) free from vandalism and stupidity, and apparently, Jimmy Wales states, that it is all about having a social policy in place about having a neutral point of view (NPOV). And also a few volunteers on round the clock for the real-time peer-review of edits, new additions and deletion requests.

It seems as though Wikipedia is putting into practice a social methodology of self-regulation, neutrality, and respect, and for this comparatively small (600-1000) community, it does appear to be working.

Compare the form and content of the on-line news sites you visit with traditional newspapers.

There is a great deal of variety in online news sites, from internet offshoots of traditionally print publications to completely opinion based collection of articles. In each of these though, the form and content differs from the print newspaper.

You’ll see that in the online sites, images and catchy headlines for each featured article for that day is included on the home page. Not a great deal of text. This closely mimics the structure of the newspaper but for one vital difference – the amount of them. Newspapers can really only fit 2 or 3 major stories on their front page, whereas online there is almost no limit, and with the ease of clicking a button to get to the story, the extended stories are more accessible – rather than flicking through how many pages to get to the story of interest. As Harper (2003) calls it, this is a form of “layering” -  getting the hook on the first page and then building the story over the pages the reader clicks upon.

The writing differs from traditional print media as well. Online, the writing appears to be sharper, more to the point. And with links available to direct the reader to any background knowledge or related text/photo/video, it is alot easier to present an article that will capture the readers interest.

Although I do enjoy spending a relaxing Saturday slowly making my way through the massive edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, when it comes to getting a quick news update and being able to easily filter my way through the stories available, I would choose online news sites like http://www.crikey.com.au/ or http://news.com.au over a newspaper for the most part.

C. Harper (2003). Journalism in a digital age. In H. Jenkins  & D. Thorburn (Eds), Democracy and New Media (pp. 271-280). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Christopher Harper (2003). Journalism in a digital age. In H. Jenkins  & D. Thorburn (Eds), Democracy and New Media (pp. 271-280). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

This article focuses on the changing face of journalism within online media. Harper begins with outlining various ‘defining moments’ of media past and present and determines that the internet and web based media’s defining moment was the Drudge Report revealing the affair between Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton.

Harper continues on to state that online news media is not able to set an agenda by themselves – maintaining the agenda setting is still controlled by the newspapers/broadcast media/brands/companies that own these sites. However, online news sites allow much more power into the hands of the viewers, through the ability to easily fact check journalists stories, research them, find alternative opiniun and to also make themselves heard (in the form of comments at the end of a news post). This challenges the traditional role of the gatekeeper of news and information – the person traditionally responsible for determining what is news, highlighting particular stories, restricting the flow of information etc.

Harper goes on to question whether there is room for the role of gatekeeper in the digital age, or whether this will all be done by the audience themselves.

Harper finishes by emphasizing the need for online journalists to embrace traditional news values, but to use them in a digital medium. Journalists must learn how to write to fit the online medium, to write in what’s known as the ‘non-linear storytelling’ mode that the internet (with the advent of linking to any other site/page/photo/video online the web) adopts today.

I do agree with the majority of what is being said in this article however, even in 2003, I believe Harper was quick to determine the defining moment of the online news media. I also believe that with the ever-increasing popularity of blogs and non-traditional news sites (ones that are not owned by a traditional media outlet) the role of citizen journalism and grassroots publishing is growing ever more powerful.

I will present my remediation project in the form of a movie trailer, which will be distributed via the online video sharing site VIMEO.

The technological tools I will use will be:

• iSkysoft DVD ripper – to rip the clips from the tv show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• iMovie – to edit the trailer
• Powerpoint – to create the various titles I will require
• GarageBand & iTunes – to edit the track I will use as background music
• Access to the internet – to upload and share my remediation project.

My proposed audience is other fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who are open to the alterations I have made to the canon of Buffy.

Ornebring, H. (2007). Alternate Reality Gaming and convergence culture: The case of Alias. International Journal of Cultural Studies 10(4), 445-462.

Ornebring delivers a case study on the TV show Alias and the relating Alternative Reality Games (ARG’s), investigating claims that ARG’s represent a shift in convergence culture toward abolishing the traditional commercial marketing strategies and moving towards a more participatory venture.

An ARG is defines as being

“an interactive drama played out in online and real spaces, taking place over several weeks or months, in which dozens, hundreds, or thousands of players come together online, form collaborative social networks, and work together to solve a mystery or a problem” (Ornebring, 2007:3).

ARG’s are used primarily to market media (TV shows, movies etc), produced by commercial industries, however there are also grassroots ARG’s being produced by fan communities, used to market nothing.

Ornebring describes Henry Jenkins as being too enthusiastic about the role ARG’s are playing in the development of convergence culture and believes Jenkins overestimates the power audience members have while interacting with ARG’s.

Ornebring argues that although they are a positive step in the emerging participatory culture, that they are still produced primarily as a marketing tool and therefore the audience is still being viewed as the consumer by the commercial industry – not the producer.

As Ornebring states, ARG’s should still be viewed for what they are, which is an economic marketing instrument that builds a brand and creates a loyal customer base (Ornebring, 2007). However, the case study’s presented in this article provide examples of both ‘corporate convergence’ and ‘grassroots convergence’.

Ornebring goes on to outline the differences between industry-produced ARG’s and fan-produced ARG’s. The major differences being the narrative structure and how closely the ARG’s follow the TV show. We discover that in the industry-produced ARG’s, the narrative structure of the TV show is adhered to quite closely, with little extra information being presented to the fans. However in the fan-produced ARG’s, much backstory is provided, with the narrative structure differing from the plot presented on television – a necessary factor when the characters and plot of the ARG are protected by intellectual copyright..

Ornebring brings to light that although ARG’s are a positive development in convergence culture and brings an interactive and participatory element to what was once a traditional media, they are still a marketing tool used by a commercial industry in order to create consumers for their products.

Sarah Colman and Nick Dyer-Witheford (2007). Playing on the digital commons: collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture.  Media, Culture and Society 29 (6), 934-953.

Colman and Dyer-Witheford present an article examining the participatory culture of video/interactive games in the context of digital commons versus digital commodities and how these issues affect the nature of the gaming industry. By investigating three areas (hacker games, pirate play and MMOGS) they come to the conclusion that the “relations between commons and commodities remains fluid, fertile & unresolved” (Colman & Dyer-Witheford, 2007:16).

Games were not invented, they were hacked, and the hacker culture has permeated the games industry ever since. Games began circulating as freeware, most often already installed in the operating system of choice. Once the games industry became a profitable industry, the hacker culture persevered – only this time it was varying degrees of piracy, and now illegal.

As Colman & Dyer-Witheford states “comercialisation criminalized the ‘unofficial’ copying & circulation intrinsic to hacker culture” (2007:5).

With the advent of major gaming industry also came an emergence of the new forms of production that the videogame culture is generating – that of Modding (game modifying) and Machinima (films created from the games).

Modding happens when a fan/developer creates an add on for the game in question – it could be new skins/avatars, new missions to complete, or more challenging monsters to fight. Many companies were releasing software with the games that would enable players to create these mods and then share them via the internet – creating a almost infinite array of new elements for the game. Rather than be counter-productive or disruptive to the industry at all, these mods are very often true to the spirit of the original game, created by long term fans – it is “digital fan culture rather than the politicized culture jamming” (Colman and Dyer-Witheford, 2007:10).

Machinima is also similar in that the content is completely open to being prosecuted for breach of copyright – however most companies realise that these machinima is adding the the cultural cachet of the games, and are more than happy to accommodate and profit from these creations.

MMOGS (massive multi-player online games) provide an example of commodities and commons found in digital worlds. While the game itself is looked at as commons (there are many many people that use the game yet none of them own it), the fact that it is own by corporations outline the digital commodity the game is. They go on to demonstrate this further with the examples of virtual trading throughout World of Warcraft and Second Life – where imaginary in-game goods are traded for actual real-life money.

Colman and Dyer-Witheford have demonstrated quite clearly in this article that commodities and commons are still very intertwined in the digital realm.

What I have been thinking of however is creating a movie trailer of Buffy (so mashing together clips from the series) for a feature film that features Buffy as Evil Buffy. Therefore creating an entirely new meaning from this text where Buffy has always stood for goodness and righteousness in a truly horrifying and evil world, to a media text in which Buffy is the evil in this sense. A trailer would create interest and change the format again. Finally it would be an online video, therefore completely changing the original media format.

I must admit however, I have been slightly addicted to Plants V Zombies ever since I had to download it for the class!