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Interesting and relevant video Kristy posted about the way in which the internet is bringing together something as broad as a Symphony Orchestra. I remember seeing this on a TV show not long ago and thinking about how interesting it was, and noticing just how appreciative some of the people from smaller or less fortunate countries were able to participate in something as large and forward thinking as this. Many thanks to Kristy for reminding me of it.
Online Doctor?
Let's face it. If you don't know the answer to something- Google it. Right? If you don't know a recipe to make choc chip cookies- Google it. If you need to find a new car- Google it. If you are sick and want to know exactly what is wrong with you- Google it ??
Unfortunately, this is the way of today, tomorrow and the future. The internet gives false hope that it has the answer for EVERYTHING. But how accurate is the internet and how much should you rely on it for illness and general health?
“The internet offers the possibility of accessing highly specific, personalized and often specialized knowledge about health issues. This mode of accessing information seems particularly attuned to models of DIY health, although, as I’ve noted, it is used by individuals not just for self-management but also for managing the health of relatives and friends.” (Lewis T. 2006)
Like we have always been told- we need to be careful about what we read online. A simple cold does not mean you have swine flu! Websites such as: http://www.doctor-on-line.com.au/ Need to be used carefully and we must not jump to conclusions until we have spoken to a professional.
Lewis. T (2006) Seeking health information on the internet: lifestyle choice or bad attack of cyberchondria? Media, Culture and Society, 28 (4), 521-539.
Week 7: Working In/With New Media
‘It’s not what you know; it’s who you know…’ This old cliché is ‘on the money’ when it comes to finding work in new media. Clay Thompson exemplifies some of the true benefits of working in new media as a “Technopreneur” - however mentions the rarity of landing that billion-dollar idea. So for most people working in new media is about finding a job where your skills are desired – but it’s hard to know what skills are more important – your qualifications or your ass-kissing ability?
Gill (2007, 25) suggests, “Informal connections are the lifeblood of new media work. Friends, teachers, students, colleagues, clients – these are the conduits for finding work…” With this been said, questions have been raised whether it’s fair that a person can land a job for merely knowing the ‘right’ people rather than based on individual merit (Gill 2007, 25). However this is an inevitable part of working in new media, and many other industries for that matter. With this in mind, Leong (2011) suggests some of the most important skills to possess as a New Media graduate are versatility, up-to-date technical skills, business and marketing skills and the ability to connect and network yourself.
References:
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.
Forbes.com, “Technologies Young Billionaires” Accessed April 27, 2011. http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/09/microsoft-google-facebook-technology-business-intelligence-billionaires-2010-young_slide_2.html
Leong, S. 2011. KCB206 New Media: Internet, Self and Beyond: Week 7 lecture notes. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/ (accessed April 20, 2010).
Thompson, Clay. 2011. “You Got The Job,” I'm..., April 17. Accessed April 20, 2011. http://wordoftheclay.tumblr.com/post/4708331581/you-got-the-job
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
Week 6 Readings
As much as the scepticism against the trend of online diagnoses is relavent, I find the availability and practicality of the internets role in our health is somewhat overlooked. There is indeed the risk of everyday people taking the role of the internet a little too far and replacing it for our general practitioner, but I'd like to believe this is an extraordinarily small percentage of people that could fall pray to this. In all likelihood, and looking at this practically, the internet is used because it is quick, easy, straightforward and incredibly accessible, which unlike the doctors is not always.
As much as our society has progressed in our health services this has done nothing to change the fact that people still get embarrassed about illnesses. Regardless of how common, there is still an apprehension to seek medical advice for the more private illnesses. Seeking out information may not always deny our fears, although that does happen, but it also may show people that they are not alone and going to the doctor will not amount in shock from their side.
People also experience common occurences within themselves that maybe without the internet could play on their minds and work even worse in the 'hypochondriac' dilemna, than if they did a quick search and realised that small bump is most probably just a pimple. This shift towards personal responsibility for our own health, as Lewis wrote about, does not always mean we are becoming irrational and hysterical, but simply being aware.
References
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
narrating and branding online
I would like to start this week with a point that Chloe Hume made in her blog New Media: Internet, Self and Beyond,
“We are presented with so many different and easier ways to live our lives through the use of new media that we are so quick to accept this way of life, this reality, and don’t truly consider the amount of privacy we are sharing online and who has access to this information.”(2011)
This point could not be truer. Today in new media, the line between “real” and “virtual” life is becoming almost invisible as they converge together to form one world. The online game Second Life is a fantastic example of this convergence of realities.
The game allows players to form an identity for themselves and live a “second life” in the game. People become so involved in the game that they forget what is real and what is online, and with so many people creating themselves online it has become hard to decipher whether a person is who they say they are or who they want you to think they are. Mark Deuze was correct when he said, “media cannot be conceived of as separate to us, to the extent that we live in media, rather than with media.”(2011)
A Man and his Second Life character
References
Deuze, M. 2011. “Media Life”. In Media, Culture & Society, Volume 33, issue 1, pp. 137-148
Hume, Chloe. 2011. New Media: Internet, Self and Beyond. Accessed April 8, 2011. http://chume206.tumblr.com/
http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/secondlife1.jpg
http://blog.bioethics.net/second%20life.jpg
New Media, Health & Well Being
Tania Lewis (2006, 523) discussed in her article ‘seeking health information on the Internet’ that ‘more than any other medium, the internet can be seen to speak to the user as an individualized, DIY subject.’ The Internet seems to be the perfect medium for citizens looking to gain more knowledge on health related topics. It is important that users understand that, as with much of information on the Web 2.0, it cannot always be considered reliable or factual and while there are many positive aspects, there are also negative ones to be aware of.
The concern of many practitioners is that ‘lay’ users will be influenced by unreliable medical advice however Lewis’s (2006, 530) study showed that users tended to be critical users of the internet and usually saw seeking health information online as complimentary information and not to supplement advice of health care professionals. Furthermore Leong (2011) discussed the convergence of health information online as a means for health care professionals can recreate scenes in order to further understand illness. For example, recreating war scenes to understand posttraumatic stress disorder in soldiers.
While there are negative aspects, to an educated and critical user of the internet, seeking health information seems beneficial and convenient. As Tahlia Gregori (2011) states in her blog it ‘allows individuals to have complete access to health information, professional opinions and support when dealing with personal and secondary issues.’
References
Lewis, T. (2006). Seeking health information on the internet: lifestyle choice or bad attack of cyberchondria? Media, Culture and Society, 28 (4), 521-539.
Adventis Health. 2010. “Social Media and Health Care”. YouTube video posted September 10, 2010. Accessed April 7, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2lxPnCU30c&feature=related
Leong, S. 2011. KCB206: New Media: Internet, Self and Beyond.
Week 6 Lecture notes. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/ (accessed April 7, 2011)
Gregori, T. 2011. “New Media and the Health Scene” Tahlia Gregori’s Blog. April 11th, 2011. tahlia-g.tumblr.com (Accessed April 11, 2011)
New Media, Medicine & Misdiagnosis
The “shift in power” between medical professionals and patients that is enabled through new media was first discussed in this weeks lecture (Leong 2011), and it is an idea that carries a number of potential difficulties. The most obvious example of this shift is in the sheer volume of medical information that is now available to the layperson.
There is a veritable “avalanche” (Harris et al 2008, 1) of medical information that is freely accessible through the internet. Self-diagnosis is now only a few clicks away. As Keating notes, there are many people who “rely upon Google as an efficient and cheap way to answer their health questions” (2011).
The main issue that arises out of this is that the quality of the information can “range from wholly accurate and reliable to grossly misleading and even dangerous” (Gibson and Sutherland 2008, 56). Obviously the final onus is on the individual to ensure that the information they gather is reliable, but medical professionals do have a responsibility to ensure the information available online is as accurate and accessible as possible.
The charitable organization, Cancer Research UK, has recently done just that. They have vowed to “tidy up” Wikipedia and “increase (the) accuracy and clarity” of cancer-related articles on the site (BBC 2011). In January of this year, Wikipedia had “more than 3.5m page views for cancer-related content” (BBC 2011), and is clearly a very popular location for individuals to learn more about the disease.
If more medical organisations, can follow in the footsteps of the Cancer Council UK, the internet (and related media) could become an even more useful and empowering tool to promote health.
References
Gibson, Elaine and Jan Sutherland. 2008. “To Filter or Not to Filter: Legal and Ethical Aspects of Librarians’ Ude of Internet Filtering Techniques.” In Mediating Health information: The Go-Betweens in a Changing Socio-Technical Landscape, edited by Roma Harris, Nadine Wathen and Sally Wyatt, 56-77. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Accessed April 10, 2011. http://www.qut.eblib.com.au.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=435772&userid=bsEDudeaSVWLxSwo838NAg%3d%3d&tstamp=1302428426id=F4BB123DB3F1170A4EDFD3CC095A57D24037585A
Harris, Roma, Nadine Wathen and Sally Wyatt. 2008. “The Go-Betweens: Health, Technology and Info(r)mediation.” In Mediating Health information: The Go-Betweens in a Changing Socio-Technical Landscape, edited by Roma Harris, Nadine Wathen and Sally Wyatt, 1- 12. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Accessed April 10, 2011. http://www.qut.eblib.com.au.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=435772&userid=bsEDudeaSVWLxSwo838NAg%3d%3d&tstamp=1302428426id=F4BB123DB3F1170A4EDFD3CC095A57D24037585A
Keating, Mia. 2011. “Who Answered Our Questions Before Google?” Mia Keating – The New Media Blog, April 10. Accessed April 10, 2011. http://miakeating.tumblr.com/
Leong, Susan. 2011. “KCB206 New Media: Internet, Self and Beyond: Week 6 Lecture Notes.” Accessed April 10, 2011. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/.
