Digital Cultures!

[mdxjm1975]

Note!

Before reading the blog, please start at the very bottom of the page, as it is the correct order. Thank you!

P.S This blog was made during my studies at MDX as a Digital Media Student.

[mdxjm1975]

Image references!

Finally! Here are the links i have used to get the images. Please note that this blog is for educational purposes only! I do not own the images in here (apart from the very first one). Thank you for reading my blog!

Danah Boyd:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQCyXrIyYvCk1U56lS4t5GCmOiZOkk2Pp9cAHDlR_dGBpVzPb-r

Cyberculture:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Artur_Krukowski/publication/301645795/figure/fig2/AS:469270963462145@1488894324058/Stelarc-implanted-a-third-ear.png

Marshall Mcluhan:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj-87HEz77hAhWBx4UKHXVOC1sQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMarshall_McLuhan&psig=AOvVaw3vyWlTRrmi19Kl577xdEf4&ust=1554748470184421

Stuart Hall:

https://www.mediaed.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/StuartHall_SeminalThinker.jpg

Marc Prensky:

https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-today-s-students-are-no-longer-the-people-our-educational-system-was-designed-to-teach-marc-prensky-80-56-83.jpg

Daniel Rowles:

https://www.targetinternet.com/wp-content/uploads/Daniel-Rowles-Digital-Marketing-Trainer.jpg

Brands:

https://investor-square.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/brands.png

Facebook:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiJ2q6E3r7hAhURQhoKHVvtDHIQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.designweek.co.uk%2Fissues%2F4-10-december-2017%2Ffirst-look-facebooks-new-london-office%2F&psig=AOvVaw16-nkb3iAPV-SYUmlj40f3&ust=1554752360158703

[mdxjm1975]

One of this year’s highlight was the visit on Facebook located in oxford circus. The journey helped me (personally) experience what it was like to be in the industry, as well us understand the cultures they represent - keeping people connected with each other... Great Trip!

[mdxjm1975]

Here is an Image of the author “Digital Branding” - Daniel Rowle!

[mdxjm1975]

“Digital Branding is the sum of our experiences” - Daniel Rowles

Branding has come a long way. Before hand, we need to understand a little bit about the branding’s origin. The Term “Brandr” is actually a Nordic term, an act of burning (or to burn). The term was used by the Germans and was done physically through the use of branding iron. 

In today’s generation. Branding is more than just a logo and visual identity. It is more about the emotional connections. Being emotionally attached to the brand not just by the way it looks but with the story behind it. This can be easily portrayed through advertisement. A product can be something without a brand. But a brand cannot be something without a product or a meaning. 

Other terminologies were also learnt throughout the session. We learnt the difference between the Brand community itself and online brand community. A brand community are consumers that consciously join groups similar to them in terms of preference to interact around the brand. Online brand community is similarly identical but takes place in the web. Groups of people come together to communicate with the brand. Examples of this would be feedback from online stores such as Amazon and Ebay!

[mdxjm1975]

[mdxjm1975]

The Visual above is the sum of Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives. The session’s focused was on both old media, new media and the users.

Marc Prensky the author of Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives stated that “Digital natives are youngsters born raised among video games, music players, personal computers, cellular phones, and so on”. He argues that today’s teenage attitudes and habits in our society are mainly influence by digital technologies. Teenagers process more or less like a tireless computer, being able to multi task is something we are “default to”. Young people familiarize themselves and adapt on the new technologies quicker than some of the older generation.

Another way of understanding Digital natives is through cultural values. American youngsters for example learn at early age to call the sport where you kick the ball to one side of the goal as “soccer” it is an american upbringing. Travelling from America and living a life in the UK may be a different scenario, as here in the UK, we recognize “soccer” as “football”. Again a different sport in america. This will make the new settler a digital immigrant. They are not familiar with the names we call our sports and cannot adapt as quick as the people who were born in the UK.

Going back to the terminologies. Digital Immigrant, was identified by Prensky through elder people and their habit. For example, people who rely on mass media as primary sources may be considered as digital immigrant as they do not find information on the internet resourceful. Or they just can’t access the internet as they don’t know how to. Another way of recognizing digital immigrants is if they read manuals rather than learning how to actually learn from a software itself - emails are also relevant examples; they may prefer hearing it from someone who knows more about emailing rather than clicking and finding the email themselves.

[mdxjm1975]

An In depth video on Stuart Hall’s Encoding and Decoding. I have written an essay about this topic and based my answer from readings. Here are the links for them:

Staurt Hall’s Encoding and Decoding:

https://mdx.mrooms.net/pluginfile.php/1423176/mod_resource/content/1/Stuart%20Hall%20EncodingDecoding%20.pdf

Marshal Mcluhann’s Medium is the Message:

https://mdx.mrooms.net/pluginfile.php/1423177/mod_resource/content/1/Marshall%20McLuhan%20Medium%20is%20the%20Message.pdf

[mdxjm1975]

Here is a video that helped me understand Marshal Mcluhan’s The Medium is the message!

[mdxjm1975]

Stuart Hall’s Encoding and Decoding & Marshal Mcluhan’s Medium is the Message was one of the topics that caught my interest. 

Stuart Hall is a Cultural theorist and a sociologist that came up with the model for Encoding and Decoding in 1973. There are overall five theory model of getting from encoding to decoding. Primarily, the media sends the encoded message with the creator’s hegemonic intent, the message the content has is passed on to the encoding process; from here to the next stage of “text”, then finally decoded by the audience. This is where audience decode the message. break it down and understand what they perceived. The audience might understand the intent meaning from the producers, but some might perceive the information differently.

Marshal Mcluhan’s Medium us the message looks at how the audience break down the message. He believes that it can be broken down into three ways: Dominant - meaning that the message has been decoded according to the medium’s plan, Negotiated - If the audience is on the middle; in short cannot agree nor disagree, and Opposition - where the audience completely reject the idea behind media.  

Otherwise, the audience are active. It contrasts with the Hypodermic needle syringe theory and gravitate towards Danah Boyd’s topic from week 1.

[mdxjm1975]

The Third week in Digital Cultures was focused on Cyberculture. 

Identifying what a Cyborg is helped us understand what they really are and how they might play a role in our future. Cyborgs can be determined as robotic humans that are capable of things that are more complex a human can do. It is fictional. However, Stelarc prove the theory wrong, he created this amazing ear structure and had it surgically planted into his arm - the operation was successful and he had managed to get the artificial ear implant working by planting microphone and transmitter, but was later on removed due to complications.

In this session, we have discussed some fascinating work made by other people to control not only a human body but also  mammalian creatures such as a mouse. Aside the experimentation, new terminology was also learnt during the session. Terms such as Techno feminism - the notion that gender and technology run together during the process of production as well as women “using products for various means”.

Donna Harraway was also one of the highlights in this session, she explained how the “nature and culture are reworked” conveying that social relation can be redefined by cyborgs as they are highly intelligent.

Details about Stelarc:

http://stelarc.org/?catID=20242

[mdxjm1975]

The first week’s session on Digital Cultures was focused on “Living in Public: Danah Boyd on Social Networks”

The session has covered what networked publics are, how audiences are created by media and are no longer passive, explored new media and traditional media - Finally, how the media flow overtime had changed.

First and foremost, I learnt that Networked Publics is constructed through network technologies, emerged community due to intersection of people and technologies and It supports many of the practices. Her readings spoke about the four properties and the three Dynamics: “persistence, search ability, replicability, and scalability.

Danah Boyd’s statement of, “Audiences are created by media and are no longer passive” conveyed that as the technology evolves, and so does the audience.

The session also mentioned how the media flows differently in today’s society. People around are more connected with each other and have the power to discuss their opinions on social network.

We become more active and interact more through the use of our mobile devices and interactive buttons on remote control for example. The statement is valid, but argues with the Hypodermic needle theory - a theory that believes the audience are passive - the mass is easily indoctrinated by the media they perceive.

More readings about Danah Body: http://www.danah.org/papers/TakenOutOfContext.html

[mdxjm1975]

My name is Jerry and I am a student at MDX. This blog is dedicated to my reflection on my second year course Digital Cultures, what i learnt throughout and the top 5 topics i have engaged well with!