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Big Data = Big Deal

This week in KCB206, we explored new media, big data and telemetrics.  My initial impression of the topic was, ‘Oh, that sounds boring’, then after Darryl Woodford’s presentation and the related videos, my feeling towards the topic quickly turned to fear.

I always thought it was a bit unnerving that the Maps app on my iPhone knows ‘the direction to home’. Now, I know how it knows, and it is scary.

Every action made online, whether it’s a post, a search, a tag, a purchase, a new account, or anything you click, every bit is a piece of digital information that is documented and sent off into the infinite realm of big data. This data is then put in the hands of researchers, who compile this information for commercial companies and governments to gain knowledge of you, the user, in order to alter and personalise the online experience to suit your interests.

Yeah, scary.

But Eric Siegel assures us in his reading that ‘data embodies a priceless collection of experience from which to learn’ (2013, 3), so despite its scariness, it is a valuable source of digital information and can also lead to potential opportunities for improved technologies, especially predictive technology. To which Siegel further highlights, ‘the process of machines learning from data unleashes the power of this exploding resource. It uncovers what drives people and the actions they take-what makes us tick and how the world works. With the new knowledge gained, prediction is possible’ (2013, 4). The ability to predict human response and behaviours towards certain circumstances would be beneficial for these companies and for everyday people alike.

However, at the same time Siegel acknowledges that prediction is not and never will provide definite answers. He states, ‘the future is unknown, and uncertainty is the only thing about which we're certain’ (2013, 10). But that’s okay, apparently, as predictions do not need to be completely accurate in order to produce valuable information.

Siegel’s reading changed my feelings towards big data to be hopeful for the opportunities that it may produce. But that was quickly changed after I did a quick search of the Internet and found that big data is a subject heavily studied by numerous researchers from an array of academic fields. A particular video took me back to the fearful and nervous disposition. Alessandro Acquisti addressed the serious privacy issues that are at the centre of the big data studies. He asserts, ‘we do reveal so much more information about ourselves online than ever before, and so much information about us is being collected by organizations. Now there is much to gain and benefit from this massive analysis of personal information, or big data, but there are also complex trade offs that come from giving away our privacy.’ (2013)

The full video:

  These and many more videos posted online disclose the potential benefits and limitations of big data research. Overall though, I’m still a bit anxious. The data that is being collected about me may be for good reason, and may even be beneficial to me. Yet, the idea that all of my online activity is documented and tracked and saved for reasons that are unknown to me, needless to say, makes me a little uneasy.

  References

Siegel, Eric. 2013. “Introduction – The Prediction Effect.” In Predictive Analytics, 1-16. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons Inc.  

Woodford, Darryl. 2014. KCB206 Lecture: New Media, Big Data and Telemetrics. Accessed May 11, 2014. http://www.dpwoodford.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/KCB206-Big-Data-Lecture_Small.pdf

Woodford, Darryl, Katie Prowd and Axel Bruns. (forthcoming). “Telemetrics: Towards Measuring Social Media Engagement with Television.”

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#Computer Mediated Communication LOL

This week we explored new media communication. Theresa presented the idea as computer mediated communication (CMC), where tools or technologies are used to communicate and record information across time and space (Sauter, 2014). In David Crystal’s reading, he also explored the idea of CMC as ‘written speech…writing the way people talk’ and ‘writing that very often reads as if it were being spoken…as if the sender were writing talking’ (Crystal 2006, 27). The evolution of CMC has created a dispute as to whether online language and communication is in fact impoverishing of enhancing overall communication.

  In another reading, initial expectations of this new communication are explored and find that relationships are predicted to become ‘increasingly shallow, untrustworthy and inadequate’ (Baym 2010, 51). Also evident fear of anti-social behaviour as a result of CMC, due to the ‘reclusiveness’ (Baron 2008, 10) of the technology, causing antagonising, aggressive behaviour and interactions (Baym 2010, 57). Further, it was concluded that ‘face to face communication provides a kind of social connection that cannot be attained with mediation’ (Baym 2010, 57). Due to shared perceptions of CMC, found it to be lean, impeding people’s ability to handle interpersonal dimensions of interaction. As a result, CMC is considered inherently inferior, as it ineffectually conveys personal identities and feelings (Baym 2010, 54).

  This was the point that was of most interest to me, this idea that CMC is not a personal way to converse with others, due to the absence of presence, feeling and understanding that is attained through face-to-face communication. In Baym’s reading, she describes this as ‘social presence’, attributed to the nonverbal cues disabled by CMC (Baym 2010, 52). Examples of social cues are: facial expression, direction of gaze, posture, dress and physical appearance, proximity, and bodily orientation (Baym 2010, 52). All of which are of vital importance to the communication process to create meaning and understanding to conversation, which cannot be demonstrated online. Baym further addresses the underlying implicit social norms that regulate communication (2010, 55), and that the ‘lack of social cues would result in contexts without social norms to guide behaviour’ (2010, 55). This is the point that sparked my interest. Although Baym goes on to describe the way we can emit some nonverbal cues online, I believe that there are many more.

  Through language alterations, such as informal and casual expression, deliberate character usage (capitalisation, spelling, punctuation) and deliberate grammatical structure (abbreviations and fragmented sentences), we personalise conversation and create meaning, understanding and evoke an emotional response. Also more recently, the appropriation of other media has come into prominent use. With popular culture being a huge presence and influence within our digital generation, references to media and its culture saturate our conversation. One of my personal ways of communicating online is to use other mediums as forms of nonverbal social cues. All of the mediums have their own respective meanings and contexts but are repurposed into personal conversation to create new meaning and association to contexts. These include videos (famous movie scenes, character reactions, music video clips), music (lyrics, iconic songs) and images (stills, screen caps, stock photos) and of course, memes and my favourite, GIFs.

  In this way, we are able to personalise CMC and use language and other mediums as nonverbal cues as well as to evoke emotional response and create meaning to conversation. CMC is not something we can avoid, we cannot go back, it is a new eminent form of communication that is only going to get better.

References

Baron, Naomi, (2008). Chapter 1 : Email to Your Brain : Language in an Online and Mobile World. In Baron, Naomi, Always on : language in an online and mobile world, (pp.3 - 10). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Baym, Nancy K, (2010). Chapter 3 : Communication in Digital Spaces. In Baym, Nancy K, Personal connections in the digital age, (pp.50 - 71). Cambridge: Polity Press.

  Crystal, David. (2006). Chapter 2 : The Medium of Netspeak. In Crystal, David, Language and the internet, (pp.26 - 65). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

  Sauter, Theresa. (2014). “New Media Communication”. Powerpoint Presentation. Accessed April 7, 2014.

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The Power of Fandoms

This week, Theresa discussed the way the entertainment industry has changed from traditional to modern practices as a result of new media. She identified a significant paradigm shift, due to a reconceptualisation of the way in which entertainment is consumed, produced, accessed and disseminated (Sauter, 2014). Again, the audience and their new-found power were the prevailing cause of this paradigm shift. This has resulted in fairly recent new modes of transmission, including almost all content being accessible online, and readily available on mobile. Firms are recognising the need for personalisation of content for individual interest, and additionally, having content available on demand at anytime for the user. Consequently, new models of entertainment making have evolved such as interaction, co-production, participation, democratisation and convergence (Sauter, 2014).

Theresa also introduced the ten propositions of new media entertainment. I found the first five items most interesting.

Convergence

Inclusionary Vibe

Forming Alliances with Audiences

Participatory Fandom

Symbolic and Economic Capital

(Sauter, 2014)

All these points revolve around audience participation and the significance of fan-based culture. This idea is further explored in Elana Shefrin’s reading, where she examines the producer-consumer relationships and practices through comparison of filmmakers, George Lucas and Peter Jackson. The reading suggests that Lucas’ aim was to “use his prestige and power to retain control of his dominant position” (Shefrin, 2004: 6) and that he was primarily concerned with the commercialisation of his productions. Conversely, Jackson’s relationship with participatory fandom had resulted in his “consistently gaining prestige with critics and fans” (Shefrin, 2004:3) and that his “innovative strategies with online fans have been advantageous to [his] career” (2004: 3).

  Shefrin then analyses their practices with Bourdieu’s theory of cultural production, and highlighting the importance of including both symbolic capital, (identified as charisma, achieved through recognition, prestige and honour) and economic capital in order to produce both critically and commercially successful films (Shefrin, 2004: 6). She goes on to identify that it came down to Jackson’s use of the Internet to include fans in his production, creating a solid participating audience and receive acclaim, and additional financial success.

  The inclusion of fans is an important factor for all major productions today, because without fans, the entertainment industry would not be a viable practice. New media has not only allowed the expansion and improvement this producer-consumer relationship but also create a field for fans to share with each other and procure diverse discussion. This practice of audience involvement has become an imperative factor in independent film and television production, as the audience hold a great deal of power in supporting and promoting local films, through means of sharing content.

  Local Brisbane film project, Break the Rock, is coincidentally employing the same ideals demonstrated by Peter Jackson. Break the Rock has taken advantage of social media and supplied viewers with extensive behind the scenes footage, stills and commentary, as well as continual updates of project progress. It also responds to follower’s queries, and encourages viewer feedback. This allows the audience to feel present on set and feel involved and invested in the production.

    REFERENCES

Sauter, Theresa. 2014. “New Media: The Entertainment Industry. Week 5 Lecture”. PowerPoint Presentation. Accessed March 31, 2014.

Shefrin, Elana. 2004. “Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and participatory fandom: mapping new congruencies between the internet and media entertainment culture” Critical Studies in Media Communication, 21:3, 261-281.

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Week 3 Blog: New Media and Self-Formation

The first readings for KCB206 have proved to be interesting and really opened up my mind to media and its practices. The deconstruction of New Media as a concept apprised that it is not only concerned with technology, but rather an infrastructure, comprised of these technologies (artefacts), the users and uses of new media (practices) and their associated contexts. (Flew, 2014: 7; derived from Lievrouw and Livingstone 2005) A concept, previously taken for granted, is far more complex than it looks. This goes hand in hand with Mark Deuze’s (2011) idea of “invisible media” and that we as a community have become blind to what shapes us most (137). He goes on to explore the idea of a mediapolis, where media effectively control the experiences and expressions of everyday life (137). This concept resonated with me personally, as someone who consumes a variety of media daily, the Internet being central to the majority of my own media usage.

Flew identifies the importance of the Internet and regards it as “the rise of new media” (2014: 6). It allowed people to fulfil a natural human desire of connection through global networking and widespread distribution of information. It wasn’t until the introduction of ‘Web 2.0’ (13) that made the Internet and its functions more accessible to the general public. My generation are those who have grown up in the world of the web, which makes us guilty of letting media becoming ‘invisible’ and not fully appreciating or understanding its influence on our individual self.

New media has changed the way people are constructed and represented. It puts a blur on the line between public and private as more personal information is being shared online. This in turn creates controversy as social media enables people to connect with several audiences online that are neither conventionally public nor entirely private (Papacharissi and Gibson, 2011: 75). Danah Boyd (2011) refers these audiences as ‘networked publics’, a term to define the broad concept of an unknown audience that extends globally, expansively shared across all time. These networked publics can be identified by its; persistence or permanent online presence, searchability of people and things, replicability or the ease of reproduction of content and information being taken out of context, the invisible audience or the unknown viewers, scalability or the ability for information to reach all people, and lastly and most importantly shareability, the networking of said information and content (Boyd, 2011; Sauter, 2014: Slide 21).  So, this idea of an anonymous public viewership further exemplifies the importance of self-formation online.

  Learning about this concept given me a greater understanding of the significance of posting and publishing online. People and businesses alike rely so heavily on creating a good online presence to present themselves to this enormous invisible public that we have never had to do before. This causes a bit of what Thompson (1995: 214) calls mediated dependency, where the process of self-formation is enriched by mediated symbolic forms, the more the self becomes dependent on media systems which lie beyond its control. This is both an enlightening and terrifying idea that we humans can no longer discern our sense of self with out new media, or the Internet.

  The Internet is a very important tool for everyone in an endless number of ways. It very easily gets misused, but can also enhance vanity in the individual, when it can be used for more important things.

  Ethan Zuckerman explores this idea in his fascinating TED talk, Listening to Global Voices.

REFERENCES:

Baym, Nancy K, (2010) Chapter 2 : Making New Media Make Sense. In Baym, Nancy K, Personal connections in the digital age, (pp.22 - 45). Cambridge: Polity Press.

Boyd, Danah, (2011) Chapter 2 : Social Network Sites as Networked Publics – Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications. In Papacharissi, Zizi, A networked self – identity, community, and culture on social network sites, (pp.39 - 58). New York: Routledge.

Deuze, Mark (2011) Media Life., Media, Culture & Society 33 (1) pp.137-148.

Flew, Terry, (2014) Chapter 1 : Introduction to New Media. In Flew, Terry, New media, (pp.1 - 17). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Papacharissi, Zizi and Gibson, Paige L, (2011) Chapter 7 : Fifteen Minutes of Privacy : Privacy, Sociality, and Publicity on Social Network Sites. In Trepte, Sabine and Reinecke, Leonard, Privacy online : perspectives on privacy and self-disclosure in the social web, (pp.75 - 89). Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Sauter, Theresa. (2014) Week 2: New Media and Society, New Media and Identity. Powerpoint Presentation, QUT, Brisbane.

Thompson, John B. (1995) The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. Stanford University Press.