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anonymous

Media Presence and Inner Presence: The Sense of Presence in Virtual Reality Technologie... - 1 views

cogprints.org/5965

#ThoughtVectors technology media presence sense virtual reality

shared by anonymous on 04 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Presence is widely accepted as the key concept to be considered in any research involving human interaction with Virtual Reality (VR). Since its original description, the concept of presence has developed over the past decade to be considered by many researchers as the essence of any experience in a virtual environment. The VR generating systems comprise two main parts: a technological component and a psychological experience. The different relevance given to them produced two different but coexisting visions of presence: the rationalist and the psychological/ecological points of view. The rationalist point of view considers a VR system as a collection of specific machines with the necessity of the inclusion of the concept of presence. The researchers agreeing with this approach describe the sense of presence as a function of the experience of a given medium (Media Presence). The main result of this approach is the definition of presence as the perceptual illusion of non-mediation produced by means of the disappearance of the medium from the conscious attention of the subject. At the other extreme, there is the psychological or ecological perspective (Inner Presence). Specifically, this perspective considers presence as a neuropsychological phenomenon, evolved from the interplay of our biological and cultural inheritance, whose goal is the control of the human activity. Given its key role and the rate at which new approaches to understanding and examining presence are appearing, this chapter draws together current research on presence to provide an up to date overview of the most widely accepted approaches to its understanding and measurement.
George Neff

Your Brain While Watching Orange Is the New Black - Shape Magazine - 0 views

www.shape.com/...your-brain-binge-watching-tv

#ThoughtVectors bingewatching media netflix brain

shared by George Neff on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Like a perfectly addictive drug, almost every aspect of the television viewing experience grabs and holds your brain’s attention, which explains why it’s so tough to stop watching after just one (or three) episodes of Orange is the New Black.
  • Characters run or shout or shoot accompanied by sound effects and music. No two moments are quite alike. To your brain, this kind of continuously morphing sensory stimulation is pretty much impossible to ignore, explains Robert F. Potter, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Communication Research at Indiana University.
  • “Our brains are hardwired to automatically pay attention to anything that’s new in our environment, at least for a brief period of time,” he explains. And it’s not just humans; all animals evolved this way in order to spot potential threats, food sources, or reproductive opportunities, Potter says.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • “This also explains how you can sit in front of the TV and binge for hours and hours at a time and not feel a loss of entertainment,” he says. “You brain doesn’t have much time to grow bored.”
  • 
Studies show that, by this point, most of your brain activity has shifted from the left hemisphere to the right, or from the areas involved with logical thought to those involved with emotion. There has also been a release of natural, relaxing opiates called endorphins, research indicates.
  • You’re noodle isn’t really analyzing or picking apart the data it’s receiving. It’s basically just absorbing. Potter calls this “automatic attention.” He says, “The television is just washing over you and your brain is marinating in the changes of sensory stimuli.”
  • At the same time, the content of your television show is lighting up your brain’s approach and avoid systems, Potter says. Put simply, your brain is pre-programmed for both attraction and disgust, and both grab and hold your attention in similar ways. Characters you hate keep you engaged just as much (and sometimes more) than characters you love.
  • 
Like any addictive drug, cutting off your supply triggers a sudden drop in the release of those feel-good brain chemicals, which can leave you with a sense of sadness and a lack of energy, research shows. Experiments from the 1970s found that asking people to give up TV for a month actually triggered depression and the sense that the participants had “lost a friend.”
Mirna Shaban

The Revolution Will Be Tweeted - 1 views

www.aucegypt.edu/...articledetails.aspx

socialmedia revolution internet

shared by Mirna Shaban on 06 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Much of the organization and mobilization occurred through the Internet, particularly on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. But social media also played a vital role as a democratic model. Its inclusive space indirectly taught lessons in democracy to a wide sector of Egyptian youth that was not necessarily politically inclined. When the right moment arrived, they were ready to join the revolt.
  • What happened in January 2011 in Egypt did not start in January 2011. It began at least ten years earlier, and it’s not over yet
  • The main catalyst for the January 25 revolution was the Internet, so it may be accurate to describe this as an Internet-based revolution. Not that the Internet was the only factor involved, or that Internet users were the only ones protesting. But the Internet was the tool that showed every dissident voice in Egypt that he or she is not alone, and is indeed joined by at least hundreds of thousands who seek change.
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  • Facebook did not go to Tahrir Square. The people did. Twitter did not go to Al-Qaied Ibrahim Square. The people did.
  • More than one-third of Egypt’s population of eighty million remains illiterate, and just 25 percent of Egyptians use the Internet. However, Facebook and Twitter were instrumental in organizing, motivating, and directing these crowds as to where to go and what to do. Egypt’s revolution was created as an event on Facebook eleven days in advance. People clicked “I’m attending.” Certainly, this was a people’s revolution, yet one based on and accelerated in many ways by the Internet. What happened in Tahrir and every square in Egypt was the accumulation of years and years of activism, including Internet activism. Social media prepared Egyptians for the revolution and enabled them to capitalize on an opportunity for change when the time came.
  • The Internet, by definition, is a democratic medium, at least in the sense that anyone with Internet access is a potential publisher of information.
  • The mere presence of the Internet as a source of information helps open up a freer space for public debate, and makes it much more difficult for governments to censor information.
  • Internet activism started in Egypt with the appearance of Web 2.0 technology in the country around 2003
  • Blogging was the first valuable brainchild of Web 2.0 technologies.
  • The phenomenon exploded in the Arab world, with Egyptian bloggers pioneering and leading the scene. Blogger numbers in the region approached half a million by the beginning of 2009, the great majority of them coming from Egypt.
  • Political blogging in particular became more popular, as users felt that they could remain anonymous if they so wished
  • Nevertheless, most Egyptian political bloggers choose to blog under their real names, which frequently got them in trouble with the regime. The state security crackdown on bloggers was testimony to their potential impact.
  • Undoubtedly, blogging created a space for the voiceless in Egypt.
  • It was the first time individuals felt they could make themselves heard. That in itself was important, whether or not the content was political, and whether or not anyone was reading the blogs. The phenomenon created a venting space for people who had long gone unheard.
  • Early on, Alaa Abdel Fattah and Manal Hassan were awarded the Special Award from Reporters Without Borders in the international Deutsche Welle’s 2005 Weblog Awards (Best of Blogs) contest, where their blog was cited as an instrumental information source for the country’s human rights and democratic reform movement. The husband-and-wife team had created one of Egypt’s earliest blogs, “Manal and Alaa’s Bit Bucket,” where they documented their off-line activism and posted credible information on protests and political movements, election monitoring and rigging, and police brutality.
  • Another award-winning blogger was Wael Abbas. He received several honors, including the 2007 Knight International Journalism Award of the International Center for Journalists for “raising the standards of media excellence” in his country. This was the first time that a blogger, rather than a traditional journalist, won the prestigious journalism award, a testament to the important work such bloggers were doing. In the same year, CNN named Abbas Middle East Person of the Year. He has been instrumental in bringing to light videos of police brutality in Egypt, a topic that was taboo before he and other bloggers ventured into it. As a result of these efforts, the Egyptian government at one point brought three police officers to justice on charges of police brutality for the first time in Egypt’s history; they were convicted and sentenced to three years in jail.
  • As blogging was becoming a phenomenon in Egypt, some political movements started having a strong on-line presence, and taking to the streets based on their on-line organization. The most important was probably the Kefaya movement, whose formal name is The Egyptian Movement for Change. The movement was established in 2004 by a coalition of political forces, and became better known by its Arabic slogan. The word kefaya is Arabic for ‘enough,’ and as the name implies, the movement called for an end to the decades-old Mubarak regime, and for guarantees that his son would not succeed him as president. Kefaya was instrumental in taking people to the streets, thus bridging the gap between the on-line and the off-line worlds. Many of its supporters were bloggers, and many of the street protesters started blogging. So, increasingly, reports on the demonstrations found their way into blogs and were provided media coverage even when the traditional media ignored them or were afraid to cover them. One result was that many more Egyptians gained the courage to write blogs that openly criticized the authoritarian system and crossed the ‘red line’ of challenging their president.
  • nternet applications such as the video-sharing platform YouTube, which appeared in 2005, took blogging to a higher level.
  • hey were also capable of videotaping street protests and uploading the clips on YouTube. Watching people chanting “Down with Hosni Mubarak” in the mid-2000s was a totally new, riveting experience, which led many other brave Egyptians to join these demonstrations. Internet activists and blogger stars such as Wael Abbas, Alaa Abdel Fattah, Manal Hassan, Hossam El-Hamalawy, Malek Mostafa, and others uploaded hundreds of videos of police brutality, election rigging, and different violations of human and civic rights.
  • media, the platforms that allow for wider user discussions and user-generated content such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter
  • he next important development came with the introduction of what is typically known as social
  • The structure of social media taught Egyptians that space exists that you can call your own, your space, where you can speak your mind. To many in the West, this is probably no big deal. There are countless venues where they can express their opinions relatively freely. But for people in Egypt, and in the Arab world in general, this was a new phenomenon, and one I believe to be of profound importance.
  • horizontal communication.’ Before social networks, Egyptian youth were accustomed to being talked at, rather than talked to or spoken with. Communication was mostly vertical, coming from the regime down to everyone else
  • Authoritarian patterns of communication do not allow for much horizontal interaction. But social networks do, and eventually their existence on the Internet taught Egyptian youths a few lessons in democratic communication, even if the essence of the conversations carried out was not necessarily political in nature.
  • The bulk of those that I believe were affected by these lessons in democratic expression were clusters of the population that were not previously politically oriented. These form a good sector of those who took to the streets on January 25, and were joined by millions who held their ground in Tahrir Square and in every square in Egypt until Mubarak was toppled. The majority of these millions, including myself, were people who had never participated in a demonstration before. They were not political activists before January 25, but they saw or heard the call for action, and it touched a nerve as they found safety in numbers
  • another function that social networks served: making you realize that you’re not alone.
  • Perhaps the first time Egyptians learned about the power of social networks was on April 6, 2008. Workers in the Egyptian city of Al-Mahalla Al-Kobra planned a demonstration to demand higher wages. Esraa Abdel Fattah, an activist then twenty eight years old, felt for the workers and wanted to help them. She formed a group on Facebook and called it ‘April 6 Strike’ to rally support for the workers.
  • he knew it was too much to ask people to join in the protest, so she simply asked them to participate in spirit by staying home that day, not going to work, and not engaging in any monetary transactions such as buying or selling. The group was brought to the attention of the traditional media and was featured on one of Egypt’s popular talk shows, thus getting more exposure. What ensued surpassed all expectations. To Abdel Fattah’s own surprise (and everyone else’s), the Facebook group immediately attracted some seventy three thousand members. Many of these, and others who got the message through traditional media, decided to stay home in solidarity with the workers. Others were encouraged to stay home by a bad sandstorm that swept across parts of Egypt that day, and yet others stayed home for fear of the strong police presence on the streets.
  • The overall outcome made political activists realize that social networks could be a vital tool in generating support for a political cause, and in encouraging people to join a call for action.
  • The April 6 event was meaningful because it provided a sense that people were actually willing to take an action, to do something beyond clicking a mouse
  • three months before the January 25 revolution, Malcolm Gladwell argued in a much-discussed article in The New Yorker under the title “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted” that social media can’t provide what social change has always required. He said that social media is good when you’re asking people for small-scale, low-risk action, but not for anything more. “Facebook activism succeeds,” he wrote, “not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice.” He explained that this is because high-risk activism is a “strong-tie phenomenon,” meaning that those who carry out such acts of activism have to personally know each other well and develop strong personal ties before they would risk their lives for each other or for a common cause. Since Facebook and Twitter provide mostly “weak-tie” connections, since users typically have a strong off-line social tie with only a small percentage of their ‘friends’ or ‘followers,’ these social networks were therefore not capable of motivating people for a high-risk cause. He therefore concluded that a social network “makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact.”
  • nowing that you are in the company of many who share your utter belief in the same cause. That is something that social networks delivered
  • ne of the Facebook pages that played a major role in this regard was the Khaled Said page. Khaled Said was a young Egyptian who was brutally beaten to death by police informants outside an Internet café in Alexandria in June 2010. He had an innocent face that everyone could identify with. He could be anyone, and anyone could’ve been him. The Facebook page “We Are All Khaled Said” appeared shortly thereafter. It started asking its members, whose numbers increased steadily, to go out on silent standing protests in black shirts with their back to the streets. The demonstrations started in Alexandria and soon spread to every governorate in Egypt. Numbers increased with every protest. More and more people gained a little more courage and tasted the freedom of dissent.
  • One of the main advantages of the Khaled Said page was how well organized the events were. Protesters were provided with exact times and locations, and given exact instructions on what to wear, what to do, as well as who to contact in the case of any problems with security forces.
  • t was the Khaled Said page that eventually posted the ‘event’ for a massive demonstration on January 25, Egypt’s Police Day.
  • The administrators usually polled their users, asking them to vote for their place or time of preference for the next protest. The responses would be in the thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, and the administrators would read them all, and give a breakdown, with exact numbers and percentages, of the votes.
  • The January 25 demonstration was motivated and aided by an important intervening variable, the revolt in Tunisia. When Tunisian protesters succeeded in ousting President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, Egyptians felt that toppling a dictator through demonstrations was finally possible.
  • he Khaled Said page, which by then had about six hundred thousand followers, demonstrated its strong ability to organize. They listed all the major squares in every Egyptian governorate where they expected people to gather, and again gave specific instructions on what to wear, what to take with you, and who to contact in times of trouble. They then alerted the users that the listed venues for demonstration would change at midnight on January 24 to give police forces a lesser chance of mobilizing against them the next day. On the morning of January 25, there were close to half a million people who had clicked “I’m attending” the revolution. Today, the Khaled Said page has more than 1.7 million users, by far more than any other Egyptian Facebook page.
  • nd indeed that was what happened. We witnessed another key moment illustrating the power of the interaction between social media, traditional media, and interpersonal communication. Newspapers, broadcasters, and on-line outlets had been discussing the potential ‘Facebook demonstration’ for a few days prior to January 25. As groups of demonstrators marched through the streets enroute to main squares chanting “Ya ahalina endamo lina,” (“Friends and family, come join us”), people watching from their balconies and windows heeded the calls and enabled the protests to snowball to unprecedented numbers. People were galvanized by the sight. The core activists, who attended every demonstration for years, were suddenly seeing new faces on January 25, mostly mobilized by the Internet. They came by the thousands, and then by the hundreds of thousands, numbers larger than anyone had expected.
  • Twitter played an important though slightly different role. Crucial messages relayed in short bursts of one hundred and forty characters or less made protesters ‘cut to the chase.’ Most activists tweeted events live rather than posting them on Facebook. Twitter was mainly used to let people know what was happening on the ground, and alert them to any potential danger. It usually was ahead of Facebook in such efforts. Twitter also enabled activists to keep an eye on each other. Some managed to tweet ‘arrested’ or ‘taken by police’ before their mobile phones were confiscated. Those words were incredibly important in determining what happened to them and in trying to help them. Most activists are, to this day, in the habit of tweeting their whereabouts constantly, even before they go to sleep, because they know that fellow activists worry if they disappear from the Twittersphere.
  • When the Egyptian regime belatedly realized on January 25 how dangerous social networks could be to its survival, the first thing it did was block Twitter. Internet censorship is a ridiculously ineffective strategy, though. Users were tech-savvy enough to find their way onto proxy servers within minutes, and to post on Facebook how to gain access to Twitter and how to remain on Facebook if the regime blocks it, which indeed happened later. The government felt it didn’t have any other option but to block all Internet access in the country for five days starting January 27 (as well as mobile telephone communications for one day). By then it was too late. People had already found their way to Tahrir and nearly every square in Egypt. Ironically, some were partly motivated by the Internet and communication blockage to take to the streets to find out what was happening and be part of it. And they were joined by workers’ movements in many governorates that expanded the protester numbers into the millions. The major squares of Egypt were full of people of every age, gender, religion, creed, and socio-economic status
  • Gladwell, it turned out, was wrong. These people didn’t know each other personally, but the “weak” personal ties had not proved a barrier to high-risk activism. Egyptians discovered the strong tie of belonging to the common cause of ousting a dictator
  • ocial network users were not the only ones revolting, and social networks were not the only reason or motivation for revolt. However, the role that social media have played over the years in indirectly preparing sectors of Egyptian youths for this moment, and in enabling them to capitalize on an opportunity for change when the time came, cannot be understated.  It can also be said that the role of social networks in Egypt has hardly ended. The revolution is not yet complete. 
morganaletarg

Everyday Fandom: Fan Clubs, Blogging, and the Quotidian Rhythms of the Internet | Thebe... - 1 views

cjc-online.ca/...1810

shared by morganaletarg on 24 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • fan clubs become more than simple, isolated groups of individuals with a particularly strong attachment to an individual celebrity or media text. Indeed, fan clubs as a medium serve specific, though different, functions for both fans and the music industry: they act as a conduit through which the fans' desire for contact with the artist is channelled, at the same time as they serve as a means for the promotion of tours and commercial releases. They can be used both to create a sense of identity and belonging and as a means of direct marketing.
    • morganaletarg
      morganaletarg on 24 Jun 14
       
      "desire for contact" particularly stirring word choice
  • popular culture is, by definition, "of the people," and it works against commodification (1989). In the present context, however, the fan clubs appear to operate in a more complex modality, with fan interests and industry interests feeding off of and reinforcing each other, rather than acting in opposition
    • morganaletarg
      morganaletarg on 24 Jun 14
       
      lol, not in my neck of the woods
braxtondn

7 Telltale Signs Social Media Is Killing Your Self-Esteem | Alternet - 1 views

www.alternet.org/...media-killing-your-self-esteem

media self-image

shared by braxtondn on 26 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Yet what often begins as a harmless virtual habit for some can fast-track into a damaging, narcissism-fueled habit which negatively impacts our self-worth and the way we perceive others
    • braxtondn
      braxtondn on 26 Jun 14
       
      Can this be fixed? Does it have to have such a negative impact? Is it really the media or the people on the social networks that are causing the media to have this kind of effect on people
  • Of 298 users, 50 percent said social media made their lives and their self-esteem worse.
  • According to psychotherapist Sherrie Campbell, social media can give us a false sense of belonging and connecting that is not built on real-life exchanges. This makes it increasingly easy to lose oneself to cyberspace connections and give them more weight than they deserve
    • braxtondn
      braxtondn on 26 Jun 14
       
      People go on the social medias knowing what to expect. Its up to the person to control whether or not to let the things they see, effect their lifestyle or what they thick of themselves. There are things on many social networks that allow people to edit their photos so they can loo a certain way, in order for it to be acceptable to society and the media. This is another reason how the media is becoming harmful to self-image.
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  • “When we look to social media, we end up comparing ourselves to what we see which can lower our self-esteem. On social media, everyone’s life looks perfect but you’re only seeing a snapshot of reality. We can be whoever we want to be in social media and if we take what we see literally then it’s possible that we can feel we are falling short in life,” Campbell told AlterNe
  • Women who spent longer periods of time on Facebook had a higher incidence of "appearance-focused behavior" (such as anorexia) and were more anxious and body conscience overall. What's more, 20 minutes on social media was enough to contribute to a user’s weight and shape concerns
    • braxtondn
      braxtondn on 26 Jun 14
       
      It is amazing how only 20 mins on a social network can have that effect on one's life.  People are more focused on trying to be accepted into society that they will let a social networks and media tell them how to eat, look, and live.
  • It is important to remember that what you are viewing is only a small sliver of someone’s life, which for the most part, is heavily embellished and mostly rooted in fantasy. When such images are starting to poison the way you look at your own life it may be time to step away from the screen.
    • braxtondn
      braxtondn on 26 Jun 14
       
      This is one way to fix the effects that media has over people's self image. Just because you see models looking all glamorous on the tv screens, instagram posts, Facebook, or magazine covers, doesn't mean that their life is technically better than your own.
anonymous

Carol Kuhlthau Information Search Process - 1 views

comminfo.rutgers.edu/...information_search_process.htm

education research technology inquiry process #ThoughtVectors

shared by anonymous on 30 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • People engage in an information search experience holistically, with an interplay of thoughts, feelings and actions.  Common patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting are characteristic in each phase.  These studies were among the first to investigate the affective aspects or the feelings of a person in the process of information seeking along with the cognitive and physical aspects.  Rather than a steady increase in confidence from the beginning of a search to the conclusion, as might be expected, a dip in confidence is commonly experienced once an individual has initiated a search and begins to encounter conflicting and inconsistent information.  A person “in the dip” is increasingly uncertain and confused until a focus is formed to provide a path for seeking meaning and criteria for judging relevance. Advances in information technology, that open access to a vast assortment of sources, have not helped the user’s dilemma and may have intensified the sense of confusion and uncertainty.  Information systems may intensify the problem particularly in the early stages of the ISP by overwhelming the user with “everything” all at once.
kahn_artist

Powerful Ideas Need Love Too! - 0 views

worrydream.com/...Ideas%20Need%20Love%20Too.html

ideas exchangingideas

shared by kahn_artist on 29 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Slowly, and only in a few, I watched them struggle to realize that having opposite seasons in the different hemispheres could not possibly be compatible with their "closer to the sun for summer" theory, and that the sun and the moon in the sky together could not possibly be compatible with their "Earth blocks the suns rays" theory of the phases.
  • Why more serious? Because the UCLA students and professors (and their Harvard counterparts) knew something that contradicted the very theories they were trying to articulate and not one of them could get to that contradictory knowledge to say, "Hey, wait a minute..."! In some form, they "knew" about the opposite seasons and that they had seen the sun and the moon in the sky at the same time, but they did not "know" in any operational sense of being able to pull it out of their memories when thinking about related topics. Their "knowings" were isolated instead of set up to be colliding steadily with new ideas as they were formed and considered.
  • kahn_artist on 29 Jun 14
     
    Suggested by Gardner Campbell!
morganaletarg

The Dynamics of Fandom: Exploring Fan Communities in Online Spaces | Myc Wiatrowski - A... - 3 views

www.academia.edu/...n_Communities_in_Online_Spaces

shared by morganaletarg on 24 Jun 14 - No Cached
    • morganaletarg
      morganaletarg on 24 Jun 14
       
      "not unreal" tell my mom that
  • A thoroughknowledge of the community is required to be able to understand the group, as well asunderstand the individual’s place in the whole. This knowledge allows a group to build asocially imagined concept of communal belief. It creates a method for demarcating who is and isnot an insider, and allows the group to come to terms with their shared ‘canonical’ text(s).
    • morganaletarg
      morganaletarg on 24 Jun 14
       
      e.g. "my feels"
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  • Often fans are recognized within the American cultural  zeitgeist  in just this way: fanatical, out of control, frantic and frenzied. In point of fact, fangroups are frequently ‘Othered’ by the dominant culture at large as being significantly differentfrom the mainstream norm.
    • morganaletarg
      morganaletarg on 24 Jun 14
       
      perhaps this may be WHY THEY'RE ON THE INTERNET HMMM
  • we can say that fans are a group that consumes a text (or texts) enmasse , that in turn uses that consumption as a basis for creating something new that is tailored totheir specific concerns. In short, a fandom can be defined by its consumption of a text and itssubsequent cultural productions of and about that text.
  • we must turn our attention to the productions of the insider community. That is to say we must recognize that the urtext  , if it can be so described, does notmeet the needs of the group, so new material is produced by the community to fill the void.
    • morganaletarg
      morganaletarg on 24 Jun 14
       
      ~*FANFICTION*~
  • “fans of a popular television series[and/or film] may sample dialogue, summarize episodes, debate subtexts, create original fanfiction, record their own soundtracks, make their own movies – and distribute all of thisworldwide via the internet”
  • In creating new artifacts for the group, thus theoretically fillingthe needs of the cyber-fandom as a whole, the group is further able to fashion both an ideologicaland consumable concept of Browncoat-ness and further contribute to the re-visioning and re-drawing of their community.
  • At a very base level these available narrative strains that existwithin the community function as a group rhetoric that ultimately reflects the fictional“Browncoats” of the program’s universe.
    • morganaletarg
      morganaletarg on 24 Jun 14
       
      are people fans of people like themselves, or do people make their fans want to be more like them?
  • Each party in a struggle over hegemonic power exercises their leverage from time to time, creating an almost ever present struggle in fancommunities between themselves and the producers of their canon.
  • Fans attack and criticize media producers whom they feel threaten their meta-textual interests, but producers also respond to these challenges, protecting their  privilege by defusing and marginalizing fan activism. As fans negotiate positionsof production and consumption, antagonistic corporate discourse toils to managethat discursive power, disciplining productive fandom so it can continue to becultivated as a consumer base.
  • There is a delicate balance between fans and media producers suggested by Johnson. Fansnegotiate their power in virtual spaces, both consuming and producing texts, yet corporate mediaentities struggle to both restrict fan activity, thus allowing them further opportunity to exploitthem capitalistically, while concurrently attempting to cultivate fan production to a degree so asnot to alienate the consumer base all together.
  • Building a complex, onlinecommunity constructed of both a social imaginary and an empirical reality allows the group tonot only form a space wherein they can participate but where they can assert their control over culturally significant texts.
  • n moving to online spaces fandoms remain able to function as traditional communitieswould be expected to. But the mediated interface and its ability to allow communities tocongregate in greater numbers regardless of spatial or temporal limitations, also permits cyber-fandoms to amplify their voice, giving them greater power in space as Foucault would have it.Exercising their power from self-created points in a virtual space allow the community greater    Wiatrowski control over both the texts upon which they’ve created a group and over their imagined sense of the community. In the end, the move to online spaces allows the group to exist both as it oncehad and in ways that are new and more powerful than they had perhaps previously imagined.
abdulrahmanabdo

Researchers split over NSA hacking : Nature News & Comment - 0 views

www.nature.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/...split-over-nsa-hacking-1.13911

NSAhacking

shared by abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Furthermore, the NSA has designated more than 150 colleges and universities as centres of excellence, which qualifies students and faculty members for extra support. It can also fund research indirectly through other agencies, and so the total amount of support may be much higher. A leaked budget document says that the NSA spends more than $400 million a year on research and technology — although only a fraction of this money might go to research outside the agency itself.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
      abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
       
      Shows the sort of investing the NSA goes through in order to receive its top-level of intelligence gathering that it does yearly.
  • Many US researchers, especially those towards the basic-research end of the spectrum, are comfortable with the NSA’s need for their expertise.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
      abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
       
      Shows that some are okay with what the NSA is conducting and shows the partnership the US researches have with the NSA. The researches are among many of the processes that paints the full picture of how NSA incorporates their domestic surveillance by using their PRISM program, which is the main focus of this inquiry project.
  • “I understand what’s in the newspapers,” he says, “but the NSA is funding serious long-term fundamental research and I’m happy they’re doing it.”
    • abdulrahmanabdo
      abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
       
      A new view on the NSA issue that Snowden revealed.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • also wants to maintain the relationship.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
      abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
       
      It almost seems as if they both need each other. This could be used in the article to illustrate how the NSA is partnered with US researches and need them to function. Another issue that would be covered in the inquiry paper to argue one of the many pieces that the NSA uses to accomplish its goal.
  • When it was revealed that the NSA had inserted a ‘back door’ into the NIST standards to allow snooping, some of them felt betrayed. “We certainly had no idea that they were tampering with products or standards,” says Green.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
      abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
       
      A feeling of betrayal from the NSA to a researcher at Johns Hopkins (Mr. Green), can prove to be damaging as more researchers from all over the US find out about this betrayal and start to rethink their partnership with the NSA which then hinders the NSA advancement in intelligence gathering. It would seem that the NSA is hurting itself rather than helping itself at this moment, an interesting view to point out in the inquiry paper.
  • “There was a sense of certain lines that NSA wouldn’t cross,” says Felten, “and now we’re not so sure about that.”
    • abdulrahmanabdo
      abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
       
      More proof of the annotation that was done directly above this one.
  • abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
     
    Source #2 for my Research Nugget #1.
Will Sullivan

Simulacra and Simulation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 1 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Simulacra_and_Simulation

visualculture augmentedreality escapism

shared by Will Sullivan on 27 Jun 14 - Cached
  • "Simulacra and Simulation" breaks the sign-order into 4 stages: The first stage is a faithful image/copy, where we believe, and it may even be correct, that a sign is a "reflection of a profound reality" (pg 6), this is a good appearance, in what Baudrillard called "the sacramental order". The second stage is perversion of reality, this is where we come to believe the sign to be an unfaithful copy, which "masks and denatures" reality as an "evil appearance—it is of the order of maleficence". Here, signs and images do not faithfully reveal reality to us, but can hint at the existence of an obscure reality which the sign itself is incapable of encapsulating. The third stage masks the absence of a profound reality, where the simulacrum pretends to be a faithful copy, but it is a copy with no original. Signs and images claim to represent something real, but no representation is taking place and arbitrary images are merely suggested as things which they have no relationship to. Baudrillard calls this the "order of sorcery", a regime of semantic algebra where all human meaning is conjured artificially to appear as a reference to the (increasingly) hermetic truth. The fourth stage is pure simulation, in which the simulacrum has no relationship to any reality whatsoever. Here, signs merely reflect other signs and any claim to reality on the part of images or signs is only of the order of other such claims. This is a regime of total equivalency, where cultural products need no longer even pretend to be real in a naïve sense, because the experiences of consumers' lives are so predominantly artificial that even claims to reality are expected to be phrased in artificial, "hyperreal" terms. Any naïve pretension to reality as such is perceived as bereft of critical self-awareness, and thus as oversentimental.
  • Will Sullivan on 27 Jun 14
     
    This is a short passage from a very interesting book about Symbols in modern culture.
anonymous

New Media Literacies - Learning in a Participatory Culture - 0 views

www.newmedialiteracies.org

#ThoughtVectors technology internet augmented reality virtual reality augmentedreality visualculture medialiteracy literacy education

shared by anonymous on 11 Jul 14 - Cached
  • Simulation: the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes. Being able to interpret, manipulate and create simulations can help you understand innumerable complex systems, like ecologies and computer networks – and make you better at playing video games!
  • Multitasking
  • Distributed Cognition: 
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Judgment: the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources. If you’re worried about your students using Wikipedia at inappropriate times and taking everything they read on the internet as gospel truth, you’re worried that they aren’t exercising good judgment. But judgment also includes knowing when sources are appropriate for your use: for instance, sometimes Wikipedia might be the appropriate resource to use.
  • Visualization - the ability to translate information into visual models and understand the information visual models are communicating. VIsualization has become a key way we cope with large data sets and make sense of the complexity of our environment.
anonymous

Augmented Revolution » Cyborgology - 0 views

thesocietypages.org/...augmented-revolution

augmented revolution #ThoughtVectors technology media social media visualculture augmentedreality virtual reality augmented reality internet

shared by anonymous on 11 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The Egyptian resistance used web tools as well as physical space, and most importantly, they did so by looking at the intersection of both. They used the web to inform people how to behave in physical space, e.g., what to do with tear gas containers, who should stand in front of the crowds and how the crowds should move about the city. It makes little sense to argue about whether these are social media revolutions or not. Instead, we should recognize them as augmented revolutions. Only then can we debate just how and how much of a role the digital aspect played.
  • anonymous on 11 Jul 14
     
    Thinking about how augmented reality impacts physical reality.
mcandersonaj

clothes in FFXIV - 1 views

www.dualshockers.com/...le-of-gender-equality-in-games

gaming final fantasy clothes gender

shared by mcandersonaj on 26 Jun 14 - No Cached
    • mcandersonaj
      mcandersonaj on 26 Jun 14
       
      This article is used as an example down to just an individual game. The clothes have no bearing on the story and do not take away from the game in any way. The game also added in a feature to wear any clothes you want regardless of its strength and always players the freedom and choice that the article talks about. 
  • In many titles show the most skimpy and revealing armor sets are be gender locked for ladies, or even worse, they’ll simply morph depending on the gender of the character wearing them.
    • mcandersonaj
      mcandersonaj on 26 Jun 14
       
      This fact holds true for many games in this genre where the look of your character changes as you change out your armor. The gender differences in these games can be stunning and does create this sense of sexualization of the female characters.
  • 99% of the gear sets featuring the same design when worn by both genders
    • mcandersonaj
      mcandersonaj on 26 Jun 14
       
      I don't see why developers don't do more of this where the armor looks the same for both genders. It would be easier for them to do and would not create problems for them if the clothes are found to be too revealing.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The positive example set by Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn doesn’t stop at gender equality in offering fanservice and eyecandy–it also extends to choice. You most definitely don’t need to show any skin if you don’t want to.
    • mcandersonaj
      mcandersonaj on 26 Jun 14
       
      This article helps to identify a possible solution to the problem by simply offering the players choice. By offering choices to the players you can satisfy both parties and create on overall better gaming environment.
  • They’re eyecandy gear sets, and they retain their eyecandy function regardless of the gender of the character wearing them.
    • mcandersonaj
      mcandersonaj on 26 Jun 14
       
      With more equal opportunities for both genders to wear the same armor and to have the same look regardless of gender, creates a more equal feeling in the game and helps to dissolve some of the stereotypes of gaming. 
  • mcandersonaj on 26 Jun 14
     
    This article discusses the clothing used in the mmorpg Final Fantasy XIV
  • mcandersonaj on 26 Jun 14
     
    This article discusses the clothing used in the mmorpg Final Fantasy XIV
George Neff

The Netflix effect: how binge watching is changing television | News | TechRadar - 0 views

www.techradar.com/...is-changing-television-1215808

#ThoughtVectors netflix bingewatching

shared by George Neff on 02 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The bold new era of content distribution and technological efficiency has served up entire, original award-winning series series like Netflix' House of Cards and Orange is the New Black for consumption in one sitting, if the viewer desires.
  • Quite frankly, we've never had it so good.
  • empowered the consumer.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • We spoke to television scholars and media psychologists on whether marathon viewing is really enhancing our experience, beyond the buffet. If we can have everything, does everything mean anything?
  • "Even a single episode has so many highs and lows that by the end of it you're so beaten up, you're less receptive to the emotional and intellectual ideas being put forth. Yet still we click and watch another one."
  • Netflix says it's more organic that way – it also means that if you don't do anything the episodes will just keep on coming.
  • With more traditional distribution models there is arguably more of an opportunity to let the experience sink in, find an appreciation and look forward to the next part of the journey.
  • "Breaking Bad has become the greatest example of the perfect show for binge viewing, he tells us. "Not only is it okay to binge view a series like that, but it is a better way to watch it.
  • you can understand the inner workings of these stories if you view them in more concentrated chunks
  • binge watching is the antithesis to how TV traditionally works.
  • Now, thanks to the advent of high-speed internet and the connected services they've enabled, technology has surpassed the content.
  • Ironically enough, the week-to-week format we enjoyed/endured during our last hours with Jesse and Walt proved to be an anomaly for millions who latched on to the growing buzz and raced through the previous five-and-half-seasons during the 12-month pre-climax hiatus – the binge before the episodic storm.
  • "I think Breaking Bad is probably as close as we're going to come to such a universal, cultural televisual event again," said film and television historian and associate professor at UCLA Jonathan Kuntz.
  • Breaking Bad, as it turned out, bridged the two eras perfectly, offering a stunning paradox of each distribution model's merits.
  • "The generation coming up now, all they're going to know is on demand. What pleasure they derive from anything will come from that,"
  • Another factor to consider in the great binge debate is that feeling of withdrawal when we run out of new episodes.
  • "The [binge viewing] experience is so good that you feel physically sad that it's over. That sense you had is more attached to it being a great artistic experience,"
  • The strength of our desire for gratification plays into a debate the psychologists call Connoisseur vs Addict. The former loves to be present in the moment, can savour the engagement and sees how everything ties into a beautiful package. The latter just needs a fix.
  • "An addict is working on a two-pronged schema, which is aspiration and completion. Aspiration is thedopamine-fuelled desire to recapture a feeling," he told TechRadar."When you get the completion, it's not about the rush, but ultimately about achieving the aspiration of the completion. When things are that accessible, what happens to the value of the product?"
George Neff

Will Netflix Kill TV? | PopMatters - 0 views

www.popmatters.com/...wing-and-the-end-of-television

#ThoughtVectors netflix media TV

shared by George Neff on 02 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Live and weekly DVR ratings have plummeted for most broadcast programs, as many viewers can now catch their favorite shows on demand via Hulu or illegal torrents.
  • Neither of these represent the biggest problem facing TV – that would be Netflix. More specifically, it’s the streaming giant’s foray into the original programming game that should cause all couch potatoes’ skin to crawl.
  • The service is a massive hit. Netflix currently takes up one-third of all the downstream bandwidth the web can provide. The average subscriber watches 87 minutes of programming per day. While short of the 18-24-year-old live television average of 3.5 hours per day, that latter number is split across hundreds of network and cable channels. Netflix has a captive audience.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Netflix is like an indulgent parent – offering unlimited sweets without any responsibility on the child’s behalf. Subscribers are spoiled with the model, gratifying themselves on a whim by binging new releases without regard for any psychological implications that may take place. American culture now expects instant gratification: fast food, instant messaging, instant streaming. There is virtue in patience, a virtue Netflix disregards in the name of better serving the consumer. Unfortunately, faster service does not always equal better service.
  • When network shows are stripped of commercials and sent to Netflix, the viewing experience is somewhat hollowed. Audiences have grown more used to this with TV on DVD and the restructuring of story beats on premium cable channels, but many comedies still require room to laugh and dramas room to breathe. Binging on Netflix turns distinct three-act episodes into an elongated 13th-act behemoth.
  • Conversation becomes stunted or clandestine, which eliminates much of the buzz that builds pre-season – buzz that is necessary come June when Emmy voters fill out their ballots.
  • Television executives have a right to be both frustrated with and terrified by the advent of the Netflix model.
  • Original shows ushered in using the Netflix model, like House of Cards and Hemlock Grove, have cut out the advertisers. Netflix functions as the network, and if the company decides to evolve from simply licensing original programming to actually producing, they’ll be the studio, too. Netflix is making all the money, monopolizing our attention and making poor consumers out of its subscribers. If this model becomes the norm, the producer/advertiser relationship will be pushed to the breaking point.
  • The folks at Netflix have little to fear. House of Cards executive producer Beau Willimon, in a recent Q&A for Vulture, responded to a question regarding the Netflix model and said, “Our show simply gave people the experience they had already grown accustomed to on Netflix — viewer empowerment. People like being able to decide for themselves when, where, and in what quantities they will watch their content.”
  • We’ve seen how this user-driven, consumerist approach has transformed the music industry into a shell of its former self.
  • What is the informed television devotee to do? Netflix is not inherently evil, and at only $8 a month, the access to vast libraries of programming is an invaluable asset. The answer doesn’t lie in unsubscribing from Netflix, but rather in promoting the traditional broadcast model. By watching live, conversing with friends, coworkers and strangers on Twitter, and even purchasing overpriced merchandise from beloved shows, TV buffs everywhere can help keep the industry afloat. In the hands of the responsible, Netflix is a mighty tool for good. In the hands of the ignorant, it’s a weapon that could destroy all television.
  • But what happens once Netflix reaches the point where profiting only on its own original programming makes more sense than continuing to pay licensing fees, which will skyrocket as the studios jack up prices due to diminished on-air returns? Netflix is positioning itself as its own network, assembling a lineup of programming that will survive the inevitable scripted network TV apocalypse. And once the people lose instant access to former network favorites like How I Met Your Mother and The Office, they’ll rebel by cancelling their subscriptions, the fees will also increase as competition is defeated. But by that point the damage will be irreparable – both television and Netflix will be dismantled by the impatient viewer.
braxtondn

Why Selfies Matter | TIME.com - 0 views

healthland.time.com/...why-selfies-matter

selfies media instagram

shared by braxtondn on 03 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • self-portraits are an extension of their self-absorption, while others view it as nothing more than an outlet for self-expression,
    • braxtondn
      braxtondn on 03 Jul 14
       
      Some may view the idea of a "selfie" as a form of expressing themselves, while others view it as just another trend. Either way, its an idea that has adapted to society.
  • As tweens and teens try to form their identity, selfies serve as a way to test how they look, and therefore feel, in certain outfits, make-up, poses and places. And because they live in a digital world, self-portraits provide a way of participating and affiliating with that world.
    • braxtondn
      braxtondn on 03 Jul 14
       
      By participating in posting "selfies" , it is giving people permission for others to comment and voice their opinions about the picture
  • they are simply reflections of their self-exploration and nothing more. “Self captured images allow young adults and teens to express their mood states and share important experiences,”
    • braxtondn
      braxtondn on 03 Jul 14
       
      The saying " a picture is worth a thousand words" applies to the idea of a selfie. 
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • With Facebook becoming a prominent resource in young people’s’ therapy sessions, they could provide a useful jumping off point for addressing a teen’s or young adult’s self-perceptions.
    • braxtondn
      braxtondn on 03 Jul 14
       
      The comments and interactions online can be either positive or negative. It just depends on what is being posted
  • “Psychologically speaking, there may be some benefit to participating in sharing selfies because this practice is interwoven in our social culture and is a way to interact socially with others.”
    • braxtondn
      braxtondn on 03 Jul 14
       
      This helps support my idea that posting selfies can help boost a person's self-image.
  • selfies could be a way for therapists to break the ice and start a dialogue about what the teen was feeling when the self-portrait was taken, or why he snapped the picture in the first place
  • the material that children and adolescents view online — selfies included — can be influential in molding their sense of self.
  • y the most
peppermara

Artistic Dreaming - Women, Art and Empowerment in La Perouse | Human Rights in Australi... - 0 views

rightnow.org.au/...-and-empowerment-in-la-perouse

#ThoughtVectors #tv008 ##womanempowerment

shared by peppermara on 17 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Ngala Nanga Mai
  • Since its inception, it has been an accessible and popular program within the community, bringing together mostly young women from lower-socio economic backgrounds that face issues of social isolation and disadvantage, which have previously restricted them from using these essential services.
  • Often, guest artists will attend to lead workshops that expose the women to different artistic techniques and cultural experiences.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The project is about women and children and their access to health, education, art and social interaction. Art is central: it is about the process for the individual as an integrated being
  • be removed from their circumstances by immersing in the present and learn about themselves through the process of education and expression.
  • For the women, these meeting times exist in a space that provides a momentary respite from the role of mothering, where they can focus on the project before them,
  • We discuss how art gives shape to identity, pain and discovery as it taps into the unconscious. It connects the body, mind and spirit, allowing the opportunity to create and then step back and reflect. It is this holistic process that promotes the greatest right: human dignity.
  • Overall well-being has increased, contributed to by a greater sense of purpose, social connectedness, self-confidence and belonging.
  • In the past four years, Ngala Nanga Mai has grown into a strong, unified group that continues to prosper.
  • Art will forever remain one of the most effective mediums of expression. As blank canvases are filled with colours that depict stories, identities and lives, art will continue to inspire and empower change, growth and reflection. Initiatives such as Ngala Nanga Mai reveal the potential of art as a tool for promoting human development, building community and fostering well-being. Whilst law, policy and large-scale government intervention lack the capacity to ensure holistic change on an institutional level, it is vital that more creative ventures emerge that foster artistic expression, human rights and social empowerment. With motivation they are not only possible but sustainable.
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