COMM214 Debate 1 & 2 – Flashcards

technology is conceptualized as an external agent that acts upon and changes society; technology is always going to win because we are extremely limited in the ability to fight the power of technology—users are passive recipients of technology; technology has characteristics that are transferred to those who use them; technology enters from the outside and impacts social life; such direct effects may be strongest when technology is new because we don't yet understand it; the more you use it the more it uses you and the more you are influenced

views technology as arising independent of social contexts and then affecting them; does not grant technology with as much causal agency; social forces influence the invention of new technology, new technology doesn't effect social forces; people shape technology, and it is a result of how people choose to make technology that influences us in the outside world; still, whatever the initial intention to develop a technology may be, other social groups, with different needs or interests, adapt, modify, or subvert to which any particular technology is put; ex: characters that are almost uniformly shaped like pornographic fantasy figures, and posit that this is related to their having been designed by people - primarily male - who are embedded in a patriarchal culture that views women as sex objects and thinks of their primary audience as men and boys

technology is creating or exacerbating problems; new media often stirs up fears of moral decline; selfies (me, me, me era), the end of courtship

technology will diminish or solve societal problems; founding and framing the new technological democracy

no longer politicians, geniuses, elites that control information, but the individual, average citizen; changing the nature of the information age; journalists once has the exclusive right of taking people to places they've never been, but now a person in Bagdhad with a video phone can let you see a road side bombing, or a patron in a nightclub can show you a racist rant by a famous comedian

Web 1.0 was companies...web 2.0 is communities, Web 1.0 was home pages...Web 2.0 is blogs (demand constant updating, editing, sharing), Web 1.0 was edited and produced...Web 2.0 is raw, not edited, not clean produced, Web 1.0 used categories (taxonomy)...in Web 2.0 we collaborate on tags (folksonomy); every time we do a search, we are forming data bonds that then of and create the algorithms that create the information on the web, all about us collaborating and sharing, not about what corporations want us to think but about what we want and create

encouraged a deeper trend towards media convergence; iconic achievement is social networking—instant messaging, social networking sites: enabled real time one to one communication, encourages users to create personal profiles, upload photos share likes and dislikes; did raise privacy concerns such as whether or not we should post highly personal information about ourselves; blogs, wiki

sites containing user generated articles in chronological, journal like form, often including reader comments and links to other sites; reshaped the way people consume and use information; provide information, analysis, or commentary that isn't presented in the more traditional news media; written by individuals who don't use established editorial practices to check their facts

informative web sites that anyone can edit or contribute to, which is constantly being updated by interested volunteers; generally a vibrant forum where information unfolds, debates happen, and where controversy over a topic can be documented

enabled users to access texts through clickable links instead of through difficult computer code; primarily a medium for computer savvy users to deliver text and graphic content; signature products were increased content access and accompanying dot.com consumerism; Mosaic, netscape, and world wide web

mostly consisted of people transferring files, accessing computer database from remote locations, and sending emails through an unwieldy interface

"Amateur Hour"; internet undermines the authority of mainstream media—there's a crisis in professional journalism, music, television, and publishing, undermine the professionalism of mainstream media and all we have left is opinions, chaos; has brought new oligarchy which is anonymous—rather than be owned by a few companies, whats happened when you go to the blogosphere you realize that it's not that different, these web users hide behind anonymity, which is dangerous because you cant check where that information came from; led to a focus on ourselves rather than focus on our culture; breeds narcissism; inaccurate, corrupt or stupid; "echo chamber" where we confirm our own views; small specialized audiences—all watching and creating stuff at different times, not on the same page, made it more difficult to be engaged in our own culture; wikified media environment—anything can be false

refers to the principle that every web site—one owned by a corporation or you—has the right to the same internet speed and access; major telephone companies and cable companies would like to dismiss net neutrality and give faster connections and greater priority to those that pay more; others favor net neutrality because their businesses depend on their millions of customers having equal access to the web

refers to the contrast between the information haves (those that can afford to pay for internet services) and the information have nots (those that cannot); America—one has occurred in the switch from dial up to the more expensive high speed broadband services, lower income houses are much more likely to have these services, fixes would be internet in public places (libraries, schools, smartphones); Other countries—governments limit or forbid the access to internet, inadequate telecommunications infrastructure means some people must wait hours or even days to get online, phone lines and computers are almost non existent—need both physical access in addition to the skills and resources

creating content, driving and fueling the media—any media whereby the audience can play an active role in collecting, analyzing, and reporting media; citizen journalism/media; moving away from a world in which some produce and many consume and moving more towards a world in which everyone has an active role in the media produced; user generated content, communication and contribution

form of media embeds itself in the message; medium influences how the message is perceived; Marshall McLuhan; voice has been replaced with image—effects who can be in power today

report the unreported; have a freedom to be critical of the way the press writes and how they write while journalists don't want to piss off the sources otherwise they wont be able to get the story in the future; blogger doesn't need traditional source of power, can take what someone else reported and give their own opinions, saying what's right and wrong; raw (uncredited) information; the citizen response is immediate; inspire criticism, satire, and slander because so quick, easy, and anonymous; however, these bloggers don't have access to the professionalism to raise important questions—hugely impacts professional journalists; traditional journalism is the outside looking looking in, citizen journalism is the inside looking out, in order to get the full story it helps to get both views;

point/counter point—community and collaboration, not since the advent of the printing press have we seen so much excitement to participate; wisdom of the crowds—we can show pictures of the world that are more accurate than what the elite has shown us up until now; dissatisfaction with mainstream media—wanted to take the reigns of media and tell our own stories, elite no longer has the exclusive rights to share and spread info; better raw information—get down to the roots of the story, tell untold stories; use media to connect in new ways

penny arcades—became popular, showing off automated phonographs, kinetoscopes and mechanical games like strength testers and sports simulations, i.e. arm wrestling robot, punching bag; modern arcades—establishments gathering multiple coin operated games together in a newer version of the penny arcade, signaled electronic gaming's potential as a social medium, because many games allowed players to compete with or against each other, side by side; consoles—home consoles, handheld video games (made the medium more available and widespread), Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft; online social gaming—game playing emerged as an online, multi player social activity, online connections are now a part of console video games; MMORPG's—these games are set in a virtual world that require users to create an avatar of their own design, fostered media convergence, what used to be a solitary gaming experience has now become social, collective intelligence (just work together to succeed

printing press era; the ability for more average citizens to print, publish, and share their own thoughts through these periodicals or pamphlets; allowed for a lot of new voices in the conversation, for the first time they had the opportunity to be heard; opened up public discourse and public conversation, which had previously been so restricted by the church and government; considered cheap, transportable, and easily accessible; all would read ideas, pass out your ideas to others, there would be a shouting match as to who was right and who was wrong

media compete for finite amount of audience resources time, money, attention; only have so much time, attention to devote to media and if you're devoting all this time to one, you wont have time for the other; rarely do we see one media form completely replace another

the new medium so affects the existing one that the two come together to meet all prior purposes; prediction would be that all other media forms die and go away

works synergistically to enhance each other; to that one media for takes away or rivals another media form; not always a story of competition; ex: cable tv sometimes offers second run for films

two competing papers keep separate news divisions while merging business and production operations for a specific number of years; seen as the best way to maintain competition between newspapers

companies that own several papers throughout the country; the power to control information conveyed through the printed word has become concentrated into fewer and fewer hands

some newspaper companies allowed only subscribing (paying) users to read a certain amount of articles or any at all; charge online readers; help to increase revenue

shrunk in most newspapers today; refers to the space left over in a newspaper after all the ads are places

it allows for mass communication; books were our first mass media form—prior to the development of literacy your family determined where you were in society (socio economic class), no social mobility; literacy, information, and knowledge spread and more and more people began to think for themselves; emergence of the middle class and the industrial revolution of the mid 18th c.; challenge traditional customs

encourages some reading for fun; will fare better in the digital age; creative reading/writing—reading in the online environment spurs online writing or the rewriting of what is read online, spreadable media that even when it comes to reading online we take those bites that are quotable and share them; modern world doesn't go in a line—reading and writing online may be more applicable to how we communicate today

internet is the enemy of reading, i.e. "empty calories"; diminished literacy—decreased skill level when it comes to reading comprehension; wrecks attention span/distracts not strengthens; destroys common culture—if we lose reading in the traditional sense then we might lose in part our common culture, reading a book is seen as a glue, i.e. books clubs; non-linear—if you're called to go other places, environment of multitasking that are constantly pulling you away and calling you to other sources; reading install blocks, affection how we write

news online which enables you to choose what you read; less expensive to read things online; advertising doesn't want to advertise in print media when its so much easier/cheaper to advertise online; threat of television news

based around small contributory systems, bodies of work in which there are incremental improvements by multiple contributors, or exposing small actions that would be insignificant in isolation, but are meaningful in the aggregate. These types of software and platforms are specifically designed for conversation and contribution. There is no final product such as a book, movie, song or album.

the form in which something appears alters the content. The form in and of itself has no true significance, it is a medium with out a message, but when added to content, or the message, it then is given meaning

those who are not actively producing content, they draw on the community without contributing back a lurker provides value to people sharing commentary or producing media content by expanding the audience and potentially motivating their work suggest that people initially learn though lurking or observing from the margins, that certain basic activities may serve as stepping stones towards greater engagement, that key individuals help to motivate others' advancement

supposedly inspired amateurs who find out what's going on in the places where they live and work, and who bring us a fuller, richer picture of the world than we get from familiar news organizations, while sparing us the pomposity and preening that journalists often display. The news is a form of collective thinking.

because gaming has become an increasingly larger part of our society with the developments of smart phones and media convergence. It no longer appeals to an occult of enthusiasts—with the advancement of technology and a broader range of games, has made gaming more appealing to a wider spectrum of players

is the ability to effectively and critically navigate, evaluate and create information using a range of digital technologies. It requires one to recognize and use that power, to manipulate and transform digital media, to distribute pervasively, and to easily adapt them to new forms.