New Media and Us

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Working In/With New Media

So far our discussions have produced the logical conclusion that New Media is an uprising body exerting considerable influence over our world. But New Media is made up of so much more than its grasp, its influence, or its mouldability by others – it is also a body made of millions of employees who live their lives everyday within New Media. In a report prepared on the industry,  Rosalind Gill found many workers described their jobs as cool, informal, flexible, creative, or innovative (2005). However she also found workers in the New Media industry are underpaid, work long hours, and have difficulty imagining their future careers (Gill, 2005).

  JessicaLousieHowe said in her week 4 blog that ‘we really are living a media life’. Is it possible employment within New Media is just another way in which we want media in our lives, another way in which we have been sucked into the glossy image? Dr Leong displayed a newer addition to the New Media workforce this week – a virtual assistant. (Leong, 2011) The idea that people have jobs creating technology that eliminates jobs seems ludicrous - but the latest gadgets now have a compulsive desirability attached to them.

  The New Media worker might be the coolest kid on the block, might make millions in wily free advertising, might have over 1000 friends on Facebook – but they might also be out of a job come next paycheck.

  Gill, R. (2007). Informality is the New Black. In Technobohemians or the new Cybertariat? New Media work in Amsterdam a decade after the web. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures: 24-30 & 38-43.

  Leong, S. 2011. “KCB206 New Media: Internet, Self, and Beyond Week 7 Lecture Notes” accessed 14/4/11

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This week we are considering a new topic broadcasted through New Media platforms – health. The new wave of health and lifestyle websites and apps are sweeping the New Media world and tie into our previously discussed themes of branding, user participation and social networking – also both with positive and negative considerations.

Health apps and online diagnosis sites have come a long way. Many are now administered by professional health organisations (see the NHS system here) and are extremely convenient given the rising costs of seeing a doctor, and time constraints on doing so in our busy society. It empowers those who are let down by traditional medicine, much as the internet empowers those let down by  mainstream media.

On one hand, self-diagnosis and education can be extremely beneficial. On the other, internet usage has been linked to an over-use of prescription drugs (Nielson and Barratt, 2009) which has been linked to the development of resistance to antibiotics (see WHO press release here). It has also been pointed out that online health info ‘lacks the regulatory and gatekeeping mechanisms of traditional medicine’ (Lewis, 2006). I personally believe the shift in power towards the user is a good thing, but with medicine the stakes may be too high. After all, if bloggers can range from the rich to the ridiculous, who knows who is sitting behind the advice on your screen! And lets not forget the computer won’t give you a lollypop for saying ‘ah’....

  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

Nielsen, S. and Barratt, M. J. (2009). Prescription Drug Misuse: Is Technology Friend or Foe? In Drug and Alcohol Review, volume 28: 81-86

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Connecting, Narrating, Branding Me

This week, we tie together two of our predominant themes (power and self-construction) with the concept of branding. Most media-savvy persons are aware of the many means branders (advertisers) reach us through New Media, but have you considered the extent? Deuze theorizes that media is now so much a part of our lives it is ‘invisible” (2011, p137). This is where the marketing power of New Media lies. It is so much a part of our everyday lives, most people cannot imagine functioning without it. As an example, Bell pointed out this week that 80% of Australians own a mobile phone (2006, p4). To put that in perspective, 18.9% of Australia is under 15 and 1.8% are over 85 (ABS, 2010). Which would mean EVERYONE between 15 and 85 owns a mobile! The exception of those in hospitals, institutions, with alternative lifestyles, or homeless are probably filled by the under 15’s – who hasn’t wanted to kick one blasting Justin Bieber out of their Smartphone on the bus?

  But user-driven content contains branding too. We’ve discussed how we have power to create our own identities –it’s essentially creating your own brand. But consider this - “the level of transparency the world now has won’t support having two identities for a person” (Zuckerberg, cited by Leong, 2011). Can we really not project our separate roles onto separate media platforms? We were challenged to search for a peer online, to test if we really could control our ‘other lives’ spilling out into our brand – and despite all my privacy settings and all my edited content, the first remark I got was – “You’re a bit of a hippy aren’t you?” Sigh. Perhaps it’s wise to create ourselves remembering a brand made is a brand remembered....

    Australian Bureau of Statistic, Latest ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM 21/12/2010 http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/[email protected]/mf/3201.0 , accessed March 31, 2011.

Bell, 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. 

Deuze, M. (2011). Media Life. In Media, Culture & Society, Volume 33, issue 1, pp. 137-148.

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New Media, Beliefs, Politics and Ethics.

Previous entries have focused on identities, on how on we create ourselves through New Media. But what we create by having this controllable identity is something that has not yet been discussed – power. We empower ourselves by creating our online personas, and we challenge powers higher than ourselves with user-driven content.

  The concept of power through social media is currently exploding through the world, and many organizations are attempting to harness this power of sheer numbers. Through the change of the communication model to a user to user model, New Media made possible inspiring displays of humanity that simply would not have been possible through mediums such as television, and governments and corporations around the world are struggling to keep up with the concept of having no single person or organization to hold accountable. The spotlight has been shone on this with the recent media explosion of Julian Assange, who quotes, “What does censorship reveal? It reveals fear”. Clay Shirky has good reasons for those holding onto power though censorship, giving examples of mass protest rallies being formed via text messages, Facebook and Twitter (2011).

  Recent uproar over the proposed Internet censor in Australia proves that we value our power, our voices. A voice can last much longer than a political party or a corporation, if that voice can reach the world. How does it do that? Media.

  To read more about the proposed internet filter, check out http://nocleanfeed.com/

Or check out this YouTube clip as a direct and inspiring example of how New Media has rallied Australians this week. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvOrTnvSSuo 

Assange, J. 2010. Taken from http://hubpages.com/hub/Julian-Assange-Quotes accessed march 24, 2011.

 Shirky, C. (2011). The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change in Foreign Affairs. Volume 90, Issue 1;  pg. 28, 15 pgs. Accessed March 24, 2011 https://qutvirtual2.qut.edu.au/portal/pls/portal/olt_material_search_p?p_unit_code=KCB206

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The New Media Arcade - Music, Games, and Films

So, continuing on the thread of self-construction through media. Last week we explored enpowerment through self-construction, but briefly touched on a word no-one likes to hear – narcissism. Many people use new media for nothing more than pure entertainment – but whats different about platforms of entertainment in new media than say, listening to a CD or watching TV? Social engagement. Watching TV is watching a stranger – something we are apparently less interested in. The theory that most hit me this week was that because the gaze of the world is now on us, ‘we turn our gaze onto ourselves’ (Leong, 2011) I’ve included this image as food for thought as to how many gazes exactly are on us.

                    This image was posted by a Facebook intern, ilustrating the links between Facebook friends worldwide. In Facebook Engineerings Blog on December 14, 2010.

  Who hasn’t removed tags from bad Facebook photos, edited their download list to remove embarrasing TV shows, or switched songs when someone looks at your Ipod? Because our choices represent what others see in us – our social, cultural or even political capital. (Leong, 2011) This is well illustrated by Barack Obama’s playlist – full of songs about achievement and ‘making it’. Construction to a T. But this leaves me wondering - if we are constantly constructing identies based on social conventions, how can we still turn around to our children and say, “Its ok to be yourself”. Which self? Online identities are an awesome thing. But again, a physical self is essential too. This guy forgot that – don’t you.

  Butler, Paul. 2010. “Visualizing Friendships” Facebook Engineerings Blog, December 14 2010. Accessed March 17 2011. https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/visualizing-friendships/469716398919

Leong, S. 2011. "KCB206 New Media: Internet, Self, and Beyond Week 3 Lecture Notes" Accessed March 17, 2011. www.blackboard.qut.edu.au

'S Korean dies after games session', 2005. BBC News Online, August 10. Accessed March 17, 2011. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm

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Maintaining Visibility on the Social Stage

An online self is very different to a physical self. It’s self-constructed, rather than created by outside influences. We control ourselves online, like creating an exhibition of ourselves (Hogan, 2010), editing out the undesirable. Just like dressing for an occasion, one shapes their online persona to something they believe attracts others.

  Why?

There are many theories behind the drive for an online presence, including narcissism (Leong, 2011). An interesting concept is power. Access to information indicates power (Donath and Boyd, 2004), and so two motivators for the rush to create an online self could be politics and power (Leong, 2011). Followers or friends = a network = influence. This operates on various scales, because different people want influence over different people or places.  The need to be noticed is psychologically understandable in a society simply too busy for every individual.

  But…

Always consider your focus on your online identity. In a lecture I was in today, of around 100 people challenged to abstain from the Internet, only a handful attempted it. Those who did realized their use was compulsive and caused laziness in relationships.  As Leong pointed out, you may be participating but you are physically alone (Leong, 2011).

  So if you look around and realise you have 1000 Facebook friends and no one to pick you up from the airport, or a popular blog but you haven’t left the house all week, consider the benefits to constructing a real identity – I promise you, it wont crash when you get a virus.

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

  Hogan, B. (2010). The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online. In Bulletin of Science,

Technology and Society, Volume 30, issue 6. Pp. 377-386

  Leong, S. "KCB206 New Media, Internet, Self, and Beyond: Week 2 lecture notes." Accessed March 10, 2011. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/.