New technologies has always brought with them fear, mainly to authorities who passes it on to the people. Church, government and others who has something to gain on having control, has in all times feared new technology. Not because technology is bad, but it with the information people can spread with it. Information can be very, very dangerous for someone who has a subjective standpoint, which, more or less everyone has. “Wrong” information can be passed on to others more effectively and people could be fooled to be believed in false statements. What authorities often seem to forget though is that technology can be used to spread “true” information as well. It all comes down to which side you are on.
I would like to argue that new technologies encourage democracy and that Web 2.0 is a splendid example of it. Powerful media personas worries about the so called “citizen journalism”, people without journalistic education who blogs, broadcasts and publish information about events, political issues or other news. What they seem to forget is the fact that the media is the most powerful tool to control information and that with all “citizen journalists” we have a much wider variety, perspectives and views of things which, in my opinion, must lead to a more reliable truth than when listen to a few voices, how professional and educated this people might be.
The new possibilities of distributing information are therefore a key to let us see more than one side of a story and to prevent censoring and manipulation of important information. Having this in mind, it is interesting how we slowly are letting this opportunity out of our hands. Multinational companies, such as Google who buys up the rights to control our information. Censoring, selectiveness with information is already practised by them such as happens on Google China.
News like the one I mentioned earlier in the blog, about Wikipedia creating a search engine brings hopes. Wikipedia already is one of the few sources online that could be seen as non-profit, democratic and objective (collective views should, as mentioned before, provide the most trustworthy information) and a search engine created on the same criteria’s is exactly what we need now.
Howard Rheingold writes in Smart Mobs about how new technologies provide people new tools too more efficiently spread information as well as becoming an extension of themselves, when mobilizing for a political cause. The causes, or the fact of people demonstrating or revolting against something, are old as man and do not come with the technology. But the collectiveness of information, the difficulties of controlling it and the larger amounts (as more and more people get the technology) does. As I mentioned before, the “bad” side could as well do it, but if they can, the “good” side can as well. The harder it is for the authorities to control a technology, the more democratic it is, because that simple means it is easier for people to speak their mind, to get access to information and to have more sides of the story. Yes, our authorities today are just as afraid today of new ways of spreading information as church was in the 15th century. Our new technologies, mobile phones, internet and so on are no more dangerous to man than the book print. Only that hopefully, authorities will not be able to control this new technology as they could control books and that is what I would say is the true essence of technological progress.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Speaking about Wikipedia...
Today DN wrote about Wikipedia's founder Jimbo Wales new project; a search engine wiki-style. You can find the article here (in Swedish).
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Wikipedia vs. Traditional Encyclopaedias
Wikipedia and Columbia Encyclopaedia are similar in the sense of both being encyclopaedias but they differs in the way and the purpose of how they are used. When I started to browse for articles to compare between Wikipedia and Columbia Encyclopaedia I soon established the fact that neither more recent phenomena nor things regarding popular culture, was likely to be found in the Columbia Encyclopaedia. In Wikipedia on the other hand I could found all of the subjects I browsed for, even lesser known things were to be find, things that were in Columbia Encyclopaedia.
The first thing to notice while comparing the articles is the language. Columbia Encyclopaedia uses an academic tone with short and concise sentences while Wikipedia uses a less formal style. The layout of the articles also differs widely; Columbia Encyclopaedia looks exactly as I imagine it looks in the printed version, in a rather small, space saving font and without paragraphs. Wikipedia divides its articles into sections and has a typical website approach, user friendly and easy to read even when there us large amounts of text.
To compare the content I decided to use articles about the city Uppsala. Although the main points are mentioned in both, the focus on what is to be more important differs. Columbia Encyclopaedia focuses mainly on economical aspects such as manufacturers and important institutions as well as important historical events. Wikipedia on the other hand has its main focus on history, geography and sites of interest, while leaving economy only a few lines.
Wikipedias way of linking to sites within Wikipedia as well as outside it, if the user wants to know more about something, is giving the user an unique opportunity of getting a wider perspective on the subject and also to introduce s/he to related subjects. Being collaboratively written, open for anyone to create and to edit, Wikipedia is an endless source of knowledge compared to a traditional encyclopaedias that, despite being created by scholars, never can compete with the collective knowledge of thousands and yet thousand of writers. Surely, Wkipedia always has the possibility of being incorrect, at least for a while before anyone notices and edits it but that is only human. Mistakes happen and even though the guidelines in Wikipedia try to ensure correctness everything has always two sides. All sources should be cross-referenced and so should definitely Wikipedia be. Wikipedia might not be what we, at least not yet, see as appropriate as a reference in an academic enviroment but when you want to know something without looking it up in a stiff encyclopaedia who might only state static facts, Wikipedia is just right. In the same way as you might turn to your friend to ask something you are thinking about, you can turn to Wikipedia. Only that the risk of someone using Wikipedia not knowing it is much smaller than that your friend does not.
Wikipedia do not only work as a source of information, it is also a place for those who edit articles to discuss, argue and learn new things about their topic of concern. It is a social experience where people share and educate each other on a much less hierarchal way than compared to offline life, where age, sex and education is only a few of many things that matters when commenting on a subject, rather than how much you actually know about it. Wikipedia supports and rely on a belief in people, in their knowledge and trustworthiness. It is a system that does not favour the solely individual, but the community.
Wikipedia vs. traditional encyclopaedias also brings up the question about volunteer based work versions commercial work. Instead of being created for, they are created by and some might argue that without economical interest, people would not feel forced to state accurate facts but I do not agree, I think that derives from a lack of trust in people. There are, of course, plenty of mistakes made in Wikipedia, people might sometimes be too lazy to double-check their information and there will always be people who sabotage. But traditional encyclopaedias are not always 100% accurate despite being written by professionals and they lack the fast editing possibilities as Wikipedia has, if something new would come up regarding a topic. The traditional encyclopaedias are on the other hand acknowledged as a trustworthy source and of course, edited by professionals. None of them are perfect but both fills important functions; what is important is to be aware of the reason of why we use them and how we do it.
About the quote Encyclopaedia Britannica’s entry on encyclopedia:
"A great encyclopedia is inevitably a sign of national maturity and, as such, will pay tribute to the ideals of its country and its times"
Applying that to Wikipediais easily done; exchange encyclopaedia with “wiki’s”, put “world” instead of country and “international” instead of “national” and you will have a sentence that neatly describes how our view of knowledge and information is changing in these times. Collaborative work is gaining respect and how what previous was national matters becomes global. Technology takes down boundaries and the world is today as near (or far) us as the nation used to be.
"A great Wiki is inevitably a sign of international maturity and, as such, will pay tribute to the ideals of the world and its times"
The first thing to notice while comparing the articles is the language. Columbia Encyclopaedia uses an academic tone with short and concise sentences while Wikipedia uses a less formal style. The layout of the articles also differs widely; Columbia Encyclopaedia looks exactly as I imagine it looks in the printed version, in a rather small, space saving font and without paragraphs. Wikipedia divides its articles into sections and has a typical website approach, user friendly and easy to read even when there us large amounts of text.
To compare the content I decided to use articles about the city Uppsala. Although the main points are mentioned in both, the focus on what is to be more important differs. Columbia Encyclopaedia focuses mainly on economical aspects such as manufacturers and important institutions as well as important historical events. Wikipedia on the other hand has its main focus on history, geography and sites of interest, while leaving economy only a few lines.
Wikipedias way of linking to sites within Wikipedia as well as outside it, if the user wants to know more about something, is giving the user an unique opportunity of getting a wider perspective on the subject and also to introduce s/he to related subjects. Being collaboratively written, open for anyone to create and to edit, Wikipedia is an endless source of knowledge compared to a traditional encyclopaedias that, despite being created by scholars, never can compete with the collective knowledge of thousands and yet thousand of writers. Surely, Wkipedia always has the possibility of being incorrect, at least for a while before anyone notices and edits it but that is only human. Mistakes happen and even though the guidelines in Wikipedia try to ensure correctness everything has always two sides. All sources should be cross-referenced and so should definitely Wikipedia be. Wikipedia might not be what we, at least not yet, see as appropriate as a reference in an academic enviroment but when you want to know something without looking it up in a stiff encyclopaedia who might only state static facts, Wikipedia is just right. In the same way as you might turn to your friend to ask something you are thinking about, you can turn to Wikipedia. Only that the risk of someone using Wikipedia not knowing it is much smaller than that your friend does not.
Wikipedia do not only work as a source of information, it is also a place for those who edit articles to discuss, argue and learn new things about their topic of concern. It is a social experience where people share and educate each other on a much less hierarchal way than compared to offline life, where age, sex and education is only a few of many things that matters when commenting on a subject, rather than how much you actually know about it. Wikipedia supports and rely on a belief in people, in their knowledge and trustworthiness. It is a system that does not favour the solely individual, but the community.
Wikipedia vs. traditional encyclopaedias also brings up the question about volunteer based work versions commercial work. Instead of being created for, they are created by and some might argue that without economical interest, people would not feel forced to state accurate facts but I do not agree, I think that derives from a lack of trust in people. There are, of course, plenty of mistakes made in Wikipedia, people might sometimes be too lazy to double-check their information and there will always be people who sabotage. But traditional encyclopaedias are not always 100% accurate despite being written by professionals and they lack the fast editing possibilities as Wikipedia has, if something new would come up regarding a topic. The traditional encyclopaedias are on the other hand acknowledged as a trustworthy source and of course, edited by professionals. None of them are perfect but both fills important functions; what is important is to be aware of the reason of why we use them and how we do it.
About the quote Encyclopaedia Britannica’s entry on encyclopedia:
"A great encyclopedia is inevitably a sign of national maturity and, as such, will pay tribute to the ideals of its country and its times"
Applying that to Wikipediais easily done; exchange encyclopaedia with “wiki’s”, put “world” instead of country and “international” instead of “national” and you will have a sentence that neatly describes how our view of knowledge and information is changing in these times. Collaborative work is gaining respect and how what previous was national matters becomes global. Technology takes down boundaries and the world is today as near (or far) us as the nation used to be.
"A great Wiki is inevitably a sign of international maturity and, as such, will pay tribute to the ideals of the world and its times"
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
With blinding criticism
With tears in their eyes,
a blinding smile
and a cool fairy tale
Cynics serve his country.
American Idol-haters mockery
Tragic heroic coverup
Cncredible criticism for a 17-year-old.
week after week you demonstrate.
cute american teenage race, your power is blinding us.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Digital Art and Literature
Artport Withney supports, according to their "about" information, net art and digital arts. They encourage innovativeness and originality. In comparison, Rhizome.org supports more traditional art but that is using new technologies. The support preservation of contemporary art that is using new technologies rather than encouraging new ideas as Artport Whitney does. The artwork at Artport Whitnay appeals more to me, they are exploring and stretching boundaries of traditional arts while the works on Rhizome seem more static and held back. I do not argue that the cultural quality of the works on either site would be better, only that the works at Artport Whotney makes me start thinking and makes me more involved in what is taking place.
Artport Withnay stated that they support “net art and digital arts”. Netart is according to Wikipedia defined as art that “uses the internet as its primary medium”, while they define Digital Art as “art created on a computer in digital form”. Rhizome is more interested in new technologies and New Media, which Wikipedia describes as “media that can only be created or used with the aid of modern computer processing”. Rhimzome seems to focus on remediation, repeating old forms of media, traditional ways of art, but with a new medium. Artport Whitney on the other hand might end up remediating things but do not have that as goal, rather they are trying to create something as unique as possible.
Ilovebees is an alternate reality game where players participate in story. The story takes place in real time and is affected in how the players respond to it. The story is basically a mystery that needs to be solved, in the Ilovebees case, the players tries to find out what happened to the ilovebees.com website.
Implementation is a collaborative novel. Every piece was printed on a sticker and handed out to different persons that was instructed to place the sticker somewhere in a public space. I would describe that work as collaborative literature, but simultaneously art, like street art but also in a sense new media art since the stickers directed the user the homepage where the project was explained further.
What you can see in Digital art, net art, New Media, ARGs and in novels like the one above, is the importance of collaboration. All of these things have some element of collaboration involved, some more than others, like the novel. Maybe we have reached a new era where cultural works are not anymore mainly to be seen as a one man creation, but rather as a participatory, collaborative group process.
Artport Withnay stated that they support “net art and digital arts”. Netart is according to Wikipedia defined as art that “uses the internet as its primary medium”, while they define Digital Art as “art created on a computer in digital form”. Rhizome is more interested in new technologies and New Media, which Wikipedia describes as “media that can only be created or used with the aid of modern computer processing”. Rhimzome seems to focus on remediation, repeating old forms of media, traditional ways of art, but with a new medium. Artport Whitney on the other hand might end up remediating things but do not have that as goal, rather they are trying to create something as unique as possible.
Ilovebees is an alternate reality game where players participate in story. The story takes place in real time and is affected in how the players respond to it. The story is basically a mystery that needs to be solved, in the Ilovebees case, the players tries to find out what happened to the ilovebees.com website.
Implementation is a collaborative novel. Every piece was printed on a sticker and handed out to different persons that was instructed to place the sticker somewhere in a public space. I would describe that work as collaborative literature, but simultaneously art, like street art but also in a sense new media art since the stickers directed the user the homepage where the project was explained further.
What you can see in Digital art, net art, New Media, ARGs and in novels like the one above, is the importance of collaboration. All of these things have some element of collaboration involved, some more than others, like the novel. Maybe we have reached a new era where cultural works are not anymore mainly to be seen as a one man creation, but rather as a participatory, collaborative group process.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
SL in the news
Recently about SL in the news:
Barncancerfonden holds the first Swedish benefitconcert in Second Life.
About Media in Second Life. www.sr.se chose SR1, show "Medierna"
Barncancerfonden holds the first Swedish benefitconcert in Second Life.
About Media in Second Life. www.sr.se chose SR1, show "Medierna"
Friday, April 13, 2007
Another world
I found this quote in flair mondadori. It's about life in Seoul but I think it could be applicable to anywhere in the western world.
"there's another world, parallel and extraordinary - high tech. It's part of us, it's in our DNA. It's as if everything were digitally connected to everything else. We don't even question it any more, we just take it for granted. [The city] is both real and virtual.[...]We live on the streets in the same way we live in the blogs."
"there's another world, parallel and extraordinary - high tech. It's part of us, it's in our DNA. It's as if everything were digitally connected to everything else. We don't even question it any more, we just take it for granted. [The city] is both real and virtual.[...]We live on the streets in the same way we live in the blogs."
Yi Hyun, Kang. "Io, Seoul e il blog” flair mondadori. March 2007: 130-131.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Simulated Worlds
Why do we seem to need virtual spaces to socialize in? No matter if it is a networking community, a chat room or a virtual world, a place to meet others outside our bodies seem to be fulfilling an increasing need. But what kind of need is that? Humans are social creatures by nature and has a need of interacting with others, but why online? Why in worlds that our not our own and in bodies that are not physical? The reason why we wishes to be in another world could be very simple; fulfilments of fantasies and escaping reality - experiencing something else than your everyday life. Maybe that is an unfairly plain explanation of it but let us say that is why we need another environment for our socialization. The body then, Taylor states in Living Digitally: Embodiment in Virtual Worlds that to root oneself in a digital space the user needs a digital body. Not only to display oneself to others but to confirm the user that s/he is in fact in that space (Taylor, 42). The way of using and altering the digital body as a material to state and carry out identities brings ones thoughts to cyborgs. The digital bodies are created, electronic material but at the same time the user, it is a part of the users (online) identity and in the virtual world an actual body, constructed material but controlled and with the mind of a user. The boundaries between what is human and what is machine get blurred and the relationships between gender, body and identity get challenged. The choice of digital bodies is a choices of how to display your identity to others, not much different than in real life where you appearance is highly readable to others to convey information of who you are. But stepping into a simulated world means being given the opportunity of conveying other information than you do in real life. Some physical attributes such as skin colour are in real life not changeable and brings with it a certain meaning. In your online world the users can choose what kind of information their bodies should display, the body tell the other users of who you are in a way that might even be more real than the users physical appearance would. Maybe the biggest reason to use digital bodies when socializing in an online space is because one wants to be seen and takes pleasure in the esurience of seeing that other is seeing oneself.
Discussing online worlds is not about questioning however it is a “real” world or not, it is a part of our reality and of our world and therefore it is real. But what about my digital body? My avatar is a character based on myself but at the same time she is me, my online me. When I walk into a coffee shop in Second Life it is not me who is doing it but me who decides it. When my avatar meets other avatar, it is she who meets them but me who decide if she will interact with them. When my avatar is having a business meeting it is my avatar who is speaking and gesticulating, but it is the offline me who is performing in real life what was discussed at that meeting.
Maybe spending time in a virtual world is merely an escape from our not so perfect real world. By entering Second Life I enter I world free of gender assumptions and prejudices, a world where the possibilities are endless and every user has the same conditions as others and where no multinational companies can achieve their power only because of their size. Or maybe our “real” world is to much connected to the virtual for letting the virtual spaces be as perfect as they have the capacity to be. Where there are humans there will be the effect of human behaviours on the places in which they are in. Second Life for example, by letting the users create the space, provides endless opportunities for creating whatever you wish but people rarely wish what is perfect. Kathleen Ann Gonan writes in More than You’ll Know: Down the Rabbit Hole of the Matrix that Neo “creates reality” (110) and that is exactly what users are doing in simulated worlds.
References
Goonan, Kathleen Ann. More than You’ll Know: Down the Rabbit Hole of the Matrix.
Taylor, T.L. Living Digitally: Embodiment in Virtual Worlds.
Discussing online worlds is not about questioning however it is a “real” world or not, it is a part of our reality and of our world and therefore it is real. But what about my digital body? My avatar is a character based on myself but at the same time she is me, my online me. When I walk into a coffee shop in Second Life it is not me who is doing it but me who decides it. When my avatar meets other avatar, it is she who meets them but me who decide if she will interact with them. When my avatar is having a business meeting it is my avatar who is speaking and gesticulating, but it is the offline me who is performing in real life what was discussed at that meeting.
Maybe spending time in a virtual world is merely an escape from our not so perfect real world. By entering Second Life I enter I world free of gender assumptions and prejudices, a world where the possibilities are endless and every user has the same conditions as others and where no multinational companies can achieve their power only because of their size. Or maybe our “real” world is to much connected to the virtual for letting the virtual spaces be as perfect as they have the capacity to be. Where there are humans there will be the effect of human behaviours on the places in which they are in. Second Life for example, by letting the users create the space, provides endless opportunities for creating whatever you wish but people rarely wish what is perfect. Kathleen Ann Gonan writes in More than You’ll Know: Down the Rabbit Hole of the Matrix that Neo “creates reality” (110) and that is exactly what users are doing in simulated worlds.
References
Goonan, Kathleen Ann. More than You’ll Know: Down the Rabbit Hole of the Matrix.
Taylor, T.L. Living Digitally: Embodiment in Virtual Worlds.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Social Networking Websites
With help of new technology, the world that we live in today is constantly growing and expanding at the same time as it is reducing distances within it. We get closer to the world in general but at the same time there is a common fear that we also get more and more isolated from our friends and family and from people in general. I would like to argue that it is there within that the need for social softwares is to be find.
Social networking sites such as Friendster, Classmates.com, WAYNE and iWiW are only a few out of hundreds of similar sites all with the main purpose to help people to sustain their exsisting networks and to create new networks.The user connects via the site to people they already know (for nourishing their relationships) and for regaining friendship with people they might have lost contact to. The ways of doing this vary slightly between the different sites but the idea remains the same, find your friends, find old friends and maybe also find new ones via for example a common interest.
The group of people to whom the site is targeting varies of course between the different theme connected to the otherwise quite similar sites. WAYNE (WhereAreYouNow?) have a travel focus and therefore target people who have the possibility to travel. Classmates.com targets of course adults who has graduated (and after that lost contact to their classmates). Friendster is more general and seems at first to be open to everyone but functions such as searching old friends via former school or company are only avaible for a few countries and is therefore mostly geared towards citizens of these countries. Surely, people that do not live in those country can still enjoy using Friendster but it will probably never get as successful and widespread in the countries where many of the functions are not avaible.
It seems to be quite even gender divided on all of the sites but all of them except iWiW and Classmates.com seem to have a majority of members born in the 70’s and 80’s.
The main common interest for people using these sites is networking but within several of these sites, discussion groups are also formed around common interests. WAYNE features a function that display where people have or will travel and connect people in that way.
There are three main categories of groups to be found within social networking sites. The first group is friends who already have a good contact in real life and only want to sustain their network by an easier or alternative mode of communication. The second group consists of people rebuilding old relationship, trying to get in contact with old friends (rebuilding a broken chain in a network). The third group is people networking and creating relationships with people they do not know from the beginning. This third group is more common within other type of social sites and not as much at this friend-finding sites but they exist there to some extent as well. My Space for example, is one that probably has a rather equal share of group one and group three.
In some of the sites, popularity of a person is shown in one way or another and some users might find the site turning into a contest to achieve as many friends or clicks on their name as possible, leaving those with only a couple to feel outside and not as successful user, hence the original meaning of the site might get lost.
The most revolutionary aspect of this type of social networking sites are those where one can find old friends with an easy click, friends you would never have been able to find again without the help of online resources. When the social networking sites works like that it completely changes the rules that we were used to play by before online networking became part of our lives.
Networking is the key to our society, this is how we evolve and develop as person and our society in general. Social networking is as important in business-, tolerance-, community- as it is in a personal aspect. Today are social networks differs widely from how they looked 20 years ago, they spread across the world and between people who might never had met. At the same time, we seem to have a growing need of keeping online address books, RSS blogs, join different communities that one get invited to, all to sustain the relationships we already have. When did it get this hard to uphold our networks? We have been fine sustaining our social networks long time before the social sites and internet came into use, so why this need? Maybe it is internet itself that created this need, in a time of constant information overload we might get afraid to loose our contacts within the constant information flood we receive every day. Suddenly it is easier to meet or neighbours online than at your doorstep and when the need to physically move between places decreases (and with that also the person to person interaction possibility of it) the need to stay in contact online increases.
Social networking sites such as Friendster, Classmates.com, WAYNE and iWiW are only a few out of hundreds of similar sites all with the main purpose to help people to sustain their exsisting networks and to create new networks.The user connects via the site to people they already know (for nourishing their relationships) and for regaining friendship with people they might have lost contact to. The ways of doing this vary slightly between the different sites but the idea remains the same, find your friends, find old friends and maybe also find new ones via for example a common interest.
The group of people to whom the site is targeting varies of course between the different theme connected to the otherwise quite similar sites. WAYNE (WhereAreYouNow?) have a travel focus and therefore target people who have the possibility to travel. Classmates.com targets of course adults who has graduated (and after that lost contact to their classmates). Friendster is more general and seems at first to be open to everyone but functions such as searching old friends via former school or company are only avaible for a few countries and is therefore mostly geared towards citizens of these countries. Surely, people that do not live in those country can still enjoy using Friendster but it will probably never get as successful and widespread in the countries where many of the functions are not avaible.
It seems to be quite even gender divided on all of the sites but all of them except iWiW and Classmates.com seem to have a majority of members born in the 70’s and 80’s.
The main common interest for people using these sites is networking but within several of these sites, discussion groups are also formed around common interests. WAYNE features a function that display where people have or will travel and connect people in that way.
There are three main categories of groups to be found within social networking sites. The first group is friends who already have a good contact in real life and only want to sustain their network by an easier or alternative mode of communication. The second group consists of people rebuilding old relationship, trying to get in contact with old friends (rebuilding a broken chain in a network). The third group is people networking and creating relationships with people they do not know from the beginning. This third group is more common within other type of social sites and not as much at this friend-finding sites but they exist there to some extent as well. My Space for example, is one that probably has a rather equal share of group one and group three.
In some of the sites, popularity of a person is shown in one way or another and some users might find the site turning into a contest to achieve as many friends or clicks on their name as possible, leaving those with only a couple to feel outside and not as successful user, hence the original meaning of the site might get lost.
The most revolutionary aspect of this type of social networking sites are those where one can find old friends with an easy click, friends you would never have been able to find again without the help of online resources. When the social networking sites works like that it completely changes the rules that we were used to play by before online networking became part of our lives.
Networking is the key to our society, this is how we evolve and develop as person and our society in general. Social networking is as important in business-, tolerance-, community- as it is in a personal aspect. Today are social networks differs widely from how they looked 20 years ago, they spread across the world and between people who might never had met. At the same time, we seem to have a growing need of keeping online address books, RSS blogs, join different communities that one get invited to, all to sustain the relationships we already have. When did it get this hard to uphold our networks? We have been fine sustaining our social networks long time before the social sites and internet came into use, so why this need? Maybe it is internet itself that created this need, in a time of constant information overload we might get afraid to loose our contacts within the constant information flood we receive every day. Suddenly it is easier to meet or neighbours online than at your doorstep and when the need to physically move between places decreases (and with that also the person to person interaction possibility of it) the need to stay in contact online increases.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Blogs
In my opinion, a blog can be defined by two criteria; type of author and type of content.
If we start with the first one, the author, you will find three different kinds of blogs:
- The anonymous one characterized by not revealing significant personal information about the author. The blog do generally not display names of the people the author writes about and no personal images are added to the blog.
- The semi-anonymous one The author reveals some amount of information but not last name. At the same time the author is not too afraid of publishing information that might make it possible to identify her/him. Personal photos are used but if so, mostly of objects and or of themselves but with out showing their face.
- The public oneThe author states who s/he is, that this is his/her blog and do not mind publishing information about him/herself. Photos are regularly used and his/her picture is often displayed at the top of the page.
The second criteria, the content of the blog, can be divided as follow:
- Personal Diary like, own thoughts and stories from the authors’ life.
The personal blog can also be divided in two groups, those who writes mainly for strangers (those blogs are written by the anonymous author) or those who writes mainly for friends (the semi-anonymous or sometimes public, author).
- Interest The blog features posts about mainly one topic; fashion, cars, a music genre, a game, politics, travel etc. These blogs can sometimes be to some extent combined with a personal blog. Are usually semi-anonymous or public.
- Professional The content of the blog is written by someone who is (in many cases) paid for doing that or for promoting him/herself. This could be a journalist, politician, artist or sometimes a "normal" blogger, usually writing about a specific interest that has been so successful so s/he actually starts doing it as a job.
There is also the ver public self creating blogs, that becomes more homepages than blogs. For example tjuvlyssnat.se, konsumbloggen.se or overheardinny.com where the readers becomes the authors by contributing with their own material
With an increased number of readers, a blog often transfer from one genre to another, a semi-anonymous personal/interest blog might change to a public blog only focusing on the interest and might in the end become a professional blog when the amount of readers are very high.
The communities that exist around blogs are mostly to be find among the personal and interest blogs, specifically among the anonymous or semi-anonymous ones. These communities are as active and alive as those that are to be find on spaces that only exist for networking purposes. To blog is not only to write and to be read, it is to read others blogs, to comment, to receive comment and to answer them.
If we start with the first one, the author, you will find three different kinds of blogs:
- The anonymous one characterized by not revealing significant personal information about the author. The blog do generally not display names of the people the author writes about and no personal images are added to the blog.
- The semi-anonymous one The author reveals some amount of information but not last name. At the same time the author is not too afraid of publishing information that might make it possible to identify her/him. Personal photos are used but if so, mostly of objects and or of themselves but with out showing their face.
- The public oneThe author states who s/he is, that this is his/her blog and do not mind publishing information about him/herself. Photos are regularly used and his/her picture is often displayed at the top of the page.
The second criteria, the content of the blog, can be divided as follow:
- Personal Diary like, own thoughts and stories from the authors’ life.
The personal blog can also be divided in two groups, those who writes mainly for strangers (those blogs are written by the anonymous author) or those who writes mainly for friends (the semi-anonymous or sometimes public, author).
- Interest The blog features posts about mainly one topic; fashion, cars, a music genre, a game, politics, travel etc. These blogs can sometimes be to some extent combined with a personal blog. Are usually semi-anonymous or public.
- Professional The content of the blog is written by someone who is (in many cases) paid for doing that or for promoting him/herself. This could be a journalist, politician, artist or sometimes a "normal" blogger, usually writing about a specific interest that has been so successful so s/he actually starts doing it as a job.
There is also the ver public self creating blogs, that becomes more homepages than blogs. For example tjuvlyssnat.se, konsumbloggen.se or overheardinny.com where the readers becomes the authors by contributing with their own material
With an increased number of readers, a blog often transfer from one genre to another, a semi-anonymous personal/interest blog might change to a public blog only focusing on the interest and might in the end become a professional blog when the amount of readers are very high.
The communities that exist around blogs are mostly to be find among the personal and interest blogs, specifically among the anonymous or semi-anonymous ones. These communities are as active and alive as those that are to be find on spaces that only exist for networking purposes. To blog is not only to write and to be read, it is to read others blogs, to comment, to receive comment and to answer them.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Swedish comedian performs in Second Life
While strolling around in Second Sweden yesterday I got to hear some interesting rumours; Swedish stand-up comedian Magnus Betnér are going to make an appearance in Second Life (actually in Second Sweden). No one knew anything exact but in today’s DN you can read everything about it. Apparently the date is set to 29 of April at 9.00 pm.
This is the second time in a few weeks that DN writes about Second Life. All of a sudden, Second Life is not anymore a place where bored computers nerds with no real life social skills could meet people, but an accepted phenomenon worth acknowledging.
This is the second time in a few weeks that DN writes about Second Life. All of a sudden, Second Life is not anymore a place where bored computers nerds with no real life social skills could meet people, but an accepted phenomenon worth acknowledging.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
What is Digital Culture (to me)?
To be able to define what digital culture is, we first have to establish what culture is. Collins English Dictionary (p. 181) states following:
Culture
1. the ideas, customs and art of a particular society
2. a particular civilization at a particular period
3. a developed understanding of the arts
So if we start out from that digital culture is culture, only digitalized, the definition should not be that difficult; all three definition above are applicable to digital culture. But with the complex and global world that the digital world is, it is not as simple anymore.
If we start with the arts, digital arts is more or less similar to traditional arts, methods have change but as soon as people start to consider something as art, it is art. As long as the conception “art” has existed, people have disputed what is and not is to be considered as art and in this sense, digital art should therefore be no different to traditional even if it itself is a part of digital culture.
But what about digital culture in the meaning of societies or civilizations? There is no doubt there are thousands societies and communities deriving from different digital phenomena. They have all their own ideas, customs and some of them are already in the past. Still, I would argue, there is not such a thing as one digital culture. Assuming all digital cultural occurrences are the same is like assuming all cultures over the world are the same. The behaviours of a digital community or practice, differs according to what it is and what it does, the users interest, the users cultural and national belonging and the history of how it arised. Therefore, we can not speak of one uniform digital culture, instead we can speak about different cultures sprung out of digital phenomena. They might have more or less things in common but every group is unique in some sense. The “ideas, customs and art” in Second Life for example is not comparable to communities founded around blogs or on a forum. Even within Second Life there are plenty of different societies and groups of people who’s behaviours and views of the world differs according to their cultural view. The wide conception “digital culture” consist of an enormous amount of things; everything from sending an email, logging on to MSN, making a blog entry, posting a message somewhere, entering SecondLife or joining a game. What they do have in common is that it is digitalized, communities that in some sense demand interaction between its members, a creation of selves and identities and something that seem to want to be parallel to, but instead becomes a part of, the physical world we live in.
In the same way as digital culture is a word collecting billions of cultures underneath it, it is also a part of our “real” culture of the 21st century. We are constantly affected of it and a part of it. It changes the way I handle my relations to people and it creates relations to people I have never, nor will ever, meet. It affects my life in such a fundamental way I do not even question it anymore. My daily routines and tasks are as much digital as lived and much of my life, personal and professional, are not taking place in a physical space.
Where there are people there is culture and digital culture is no exception
-it is only in a digital environment.
"Culture." 181. Collins English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Bath: CPI, 2003
Culture
1. the ideas, customs and art of a particular society
2. a particular civilization at a particular period
3. a developed understanding of the arts
So if we start out from that digital culture is culture, only digitalized, the definition should not be that difficult; all three definition above are applicable to digital culture. But with the complex and global world that the digital world is, it is not as simple anymore.
If we start with the arts, digital arts is more or less similar to traditional arts, methods have change but as soon as people start to consider something as art, it is art. As long as the conception “art” has existed, people have disputed what is and not is to be considered as art and in this sense, digital art should therefore be no different to traditional even if it itself is a part of digital culture.
But what about digital culture in the meaning of societies or civilizations? There is no doubt there are thousands societies and communities deriving from different digital phenomena. They have all their own ideas, customs and some of them are already in the past. Still, I would argue, there is not such a thing as one digital culture. Assuming all digital cultural occurrences are the same is like assuming all cultures over the world are the same. The behaviours of a digital community or practice, differs according to what it is and what it does, the users interest, the users cultural and national belonging and the history of how it arised. Therefore, we can not speak of one uniform digital culture, instead we can speak about different cultures sprung out of digital phenomena. They might have more or less things in common but every group is unique in some sense. The “ideas, customs and art” in Second Life for example is not comparable to communities founded around blogs or on a forum. Even within Second Life there are plenty of different societies and groups of people who’s behaviours and views of the world differs according to their cultural view. The wide conception “digital culture” consist of an enormous amount of things; everything from sending an email, logging on to MSN, making a blog entry, posting a message somewhere, entering SecondLife or joining a game. What they do have in common is that it is digitalized, communities that in some sense demand interaction between its members, a creation of selves and identities and something that seem to want to be parallel to, but instead becomes a part of, the physical world we live in.
In the same way as digital culture is a word collecting billions of cultures underneath it, it is also a part of our “real” culture of the 21st century. We are constantly affected of it and a part of it. It changes the way I handle my relations to people and it creates relations to people I have never, nor will ever, meet. It affects my life in such a fundamental way I do not even question it anymore. My daily routines and tasks are as much digital as lived and much of my life, personal and professional, are not taking place in a physical space.
Where there are people there is culture and digital culture is no exception
-it is only in a digital environment.
"Culture." 181. Collins English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Bath: CPI, 2003
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