James Coleman

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Week 6: New Media, Health & Well-Being

Lewis discusses individual diseases; Diabetes (pp. 252), Hepatitis C (pp. 535) and Breast Cancer (pp. 526), as well as on a whole (pp. 521 - 539). She attempts to reach a conclusion, which iterated throughout the section, it’s either good to self diagnose via the internet, or bad. It should either work, or it shouldn’t. It will be the future, or it won’t. It’s an unwise attempt to conclude with certainty when two options are in play. It’s my opinion that it will be easier, and indeed recommended for some patients to self diagnose on the internet, and it will be severely warned for others not to.

This can be linked back to our media life week, where separation between media and persons was hard to define, and harder to construct within individuals. Kate said “our escape (from media) is impossible” on her blog. This is also inevitable for medicinal websites, and self diagnosing via this media. There will be no escape from it, it’s here to stay as long as the internet is.

“More than any other media form, the internet offers the possibility of accessing highly specific, personalized and often specialized knowledge about health issues” (Lewis, pp 536).

While it’s true, the internet is vast and specific, a doctors consultation is a media form, true. Comparing the internet to a private consultation with a GP in terms of “highly specific, personalized (sic) and often specialized (sic) knowledge” is incorrect. Consolations with doctors is the most personal and professional response to sickness  compared to any medium, and as Knope discusses, it’s often the best solution:

Reference: Lewis, T. (2006). Seeking health information on the internet: lifestyle choice or bad attack of cyberchondria? Media, Culture & Society, volume 28, issue 4: 521-539.

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Week 5: Connecting/Narrating/Branding Me

It’s estimated that under 13% of people had personal computers in 2004 (NationMaster, 2003-2011). Granted an old statistic, most third world inhabitants are unlikely to experience electricity, let alone computers. Yet, throughout his entire report, Deuze (2011) constantly references “us” and commentates on “our” state of mind and play, without defining which people this body includes (assumptions lead to “computer users” but yet he infers the general public). Division of Personal Computers per Capita (not lack of third world countries) Granted, media is not the internet or even a computer in specific, it includes older medium, paper and books, however Deuze pushes patterns in media reports and teachings, what will be talked about, and what won’t, rendering this void (pp. 138 - 140). Branding individuals or small groups is easy, even analyzing their effect on masses is not hard (Genevieve's Tumblr is a good example), because the mass is in their medium (like the discussion of Rebecca Black in the lecture, video below). What’s harder is branding the portion of computer users in media, for being computer users.

This is what i think Deauze misses, purposely or not, recognition of computer users living their life in media (not through) because the technology is just a detachment, like clothing or attitude. Deauze offers two options, in or with media, i’d like to propose living by media. Educated by media, paid by media, engaged by media, broken by media, lied by media and living by media.

Deuze, M. (2011). Media Life. In Media, Culture & Society, Volume 33, issue 1, pp. 137-148. Dell, G. (2006). The Age of the Thumb: a Cultural Reading of Mobile Technologies from Asia. Knowledge, Technology, & Policy, Summer 2006, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 41-57. Personal Computers (most recent) by country, 2003-2011, statistical analysis, NationMaster (RapidContent, Sydney, Australia), viewed 3 April 2011 <http://www.nationmaster.com/red/pie/med_per_com-media-personal-computers>.

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Week 4: New Media, Beliefs, Politics & Ethics

While it is true that Hamelink discusses the internet as a medium upon lying, he makes foundation claims on the internet as a thing: “Actually, the Internet itself is part and parcel of a common and popular pattern of lies and deceit about the benefits of advanced information and communication technologies.” Hamelink is correct on the inclusion of the internet, however he’s using it as a base, rather than a method of communication. The internet is transmissible in nearly every sense, along with all other communication mediums. The internet is a large place, but there’s still purposeful classification. Hamelink asks multiple questions on page 5: “Can one gossip, lie, or deceive in the virtual world?” What worries me is the lack of discretion. It depends in what manor and what position one lies in. A lie on a forum about what car you drive is different to a lie on the Presidents website. Hamelink gestures at these statements with morality in question but no morality in foundation. loudwisper1, even though not qualified, discusses ‘free’ marketed items on the internet. He, makes the statement “stop lying, cause that’s going to make me not even trust you (sic)” at 1.02:

Like many others (Mia Keeting blogged about profiling within music), loudwisper has created a profile of this company, and they now represent one person (whom is lying). It’s not the lie to begin with here, it’s the lie which is then reflected on this profile, something Hamelink doesn’t mention. In my opinion, it’s how people form ideals about others from information they gather, and how they interpret this information (specifically hard over the internet). Hamelink, C. (2006). The Ethics of the Internet: Can we cope with Lies and Deceit on the Net? In Ideologies of the Internet, K. Sarikakis & Daya Thussu, pp. 115-130. New Jersey: Hampton Press.  Available on CMD via QUT Library. LYING INTERNET MARKETER’S, 2010, online video, accessed 27 march 2011, < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDtB2pryW_w>.

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Week 3: The New Media Amusement Arcade: Music, Games & Films

On page 24 of The Perfect Thing, Levy iterated Crowley saying “it’s getting harder to find any music at all that’s hard to find.” One cannot assume that since they were an elitist collector of vinyl (Levy 2006, pg. 24) this status, and indeed methodology would transition exactly to the digital age, specifically within the internet. Levy tries to advance his opinion with lengthy discussion of “wold heavyweights”, mostly leaders like Bush and Blair. But like nearly all aspects of the Prime Minister/President, the private lives do not reflect a countries opinion, and in most cases iPod discussion was forced in its infancy with the two leaders. This profound attachment to personal taste continues for some time (Levy 2006, pg. 38 - 41), in light of nothing further being explored but the detailed character behind playlists. Not the character being explored itself, but the connection between two. Which is not exactly fulfilling a proposed statement “Playlist is character.” (Levy 2006, pg. 23). A critical link is missing. Although mentioned (“the internet”) no claims are explored; like the crucial iTunes-iPod-iPhone-Social-Networking link, Last.fm. This failure to mention (when, in 2006, the site was gaining popularity and this paper was published) makes me dismiss parts, combined with the constant name dropping of hopeful “indie bands” makes me think this is nothing more than a personal exploration of independent taste.

Levy, S. (2006). The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness, New York: Simon & Schuster, pp. 21-41.

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Week 2: Performing Me: Maintaining Visibility on the Social Stage

In Public Displays of Connection, a link is made between dating sites and networking sites purely for comparison of social honesty and privilege. What the paper failed to take into account was that more dating sites request some form of money, when nearly all explicit social networking sites are free (due to competition). It’s noted the absence of friend nodes in dating sites to be responsible for the misrepresentation of individuals (Donath & Boyd 2004, p. 74), but there’s no basis on how it remains a network, so why compare an established network to a broken chain website on the grounds of networking troubles and misconception? What this paper also failed to investigate was the willingness of online identities accepting other identities in their network purely for status or vague interest. Whats more-so interesting is that (insert names) suggest ideas to better networking for trust and truth (Donath & Boyd 2004, p. 78), but fail to take the cost (both economical and traffic) to large websites such as Facebook, after all, they are a business and friend networking is their advertising. Pearson investigated the ties between online social behavior and more in depth mental reactions. I found it interesting the way he referred WEB 2.0 justifying peoples reactions (Pearson, 2009), where I think peoples reactions justify WEB 2.0.

Donath, J. and Boyd, d. (2004). Public displays of connection.   BT Technology Journal , volume 22 (4): 71-82.   

Pearson, E. (2009).     All the World Wide Web's a stage: the Performance of Identity in Online Social Networks . First Monday, volume 14, Number 3.