Cyberculture Project Peer Review

Project for peer review is located here.

Literacy on Last.fm

To be a member of Last.fm, one can have any type of music taste they please.  Some profiles declare Britney Spears as goddess of the universe while others swear by independent acts such as William Fitzsimmons.  There are the hip-hop lovers and even the classic rock haters.  The reality about Last.fm is your music taste is the creator of your identity.  You can be whoever you want on the site.  Except if you decide to join a group. 

I wrote the following for my Cyberculture Project, and it gives a brief overview of the literacy expectancies of Last.fm.

Located beneath the immediate surface of Last.fm is a plethora of “groups,” or forums, built around a single interest.  These groups are comprised of Last.fm users who want to gather around similar interests.  

The majority of these groups are based around bands, genres, and musical tastes, but there are also groups based around interests other than music.  The interesting thing about these groups is Last.fm maintains a musical focus in every group, even if they are based around topics unrelated to music, by listing the collective “top artists” of the group based on the Scrobbled artists of the group members. For instance, there are over 17,000 members in a group called “For those who don’t sleep enough at night for no apparent reason,” and the most listened to artist by the group members is Weezer.  

 

In this sense, the group establishes the type of musical taste expected of members in the group.  In the “For those who don’t sleep enough at night for no apparent reason” group description, the person who started the group and moderates it says, “This is what ye all collectively listen to. Nod in agreement or cringe in shame, t'is your call,” and he then proceeds to list the top genres of the group before declaring, “and just for kicks, this is how your leader compares to his own group: His musical preference is 88.55% similar to the For those who don't sleep enough due to staying up late at night for no apparent reason group. Musically, he fits in!”  

 

To join the site, you can be whoever you want.  But underlying the governing principles set up by the Last.fm community on the group is an expectation for a particular music taste.

Cyber Bullying

I continue to be entranced with the Internet's ability to create substantial social change.  It has yet to be used to its full potential, but many people are using the online space for more than just entertainment.  I have highlighted before services online that seem to be targeted at adults with credit cards and the ability to make online donations, but I found one innovative service directed at kids and changing the childhood culture for the better in our increasingly connected world.

When I was a kid, bullying happened on the playground at recess.  Today, however, much of the bullying between kids is happening online.  The Cyberbullying Research Center reports anywhere from 10 to 40% of teens experience cyberbullying.  The anonymity of the Internet poses great problems for kids online.  Many kids verbally assault other kids online, hiding behind a nameless wall. 

Mashable recently published an article called "How Shakespeare & Social Media Are Fighting Cyber Bullying."  The article is written by Zachary Sniderman, and it highlights a new attempt to combat cyberbullying and engage students in classical literature at the same time by having students engage in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

"Much Ado About Nothing will be presented on a special page through status updates, posts, pictures and videos. The students helped create separate pages for their characters complete with pictures, in-character bios and likes. The project is meant both as an educational resource and a tool to combat cyber bullying. People have long modernized Shakespeare by dressing actors in current clothing and trying to adapt the sometimes dense, complicated language. This project marks a quantum leap in format, as well, updating not only the characters but the way in which they interact. The play will be set in modern day, with dialogue and issues that are relevant to students. The play revolves around issues of hearsay and verbal abuse, making it a perfect segue to talking about online abuse."

We have talked a great deal in this class about the dangers of anonymity online and about the crude things people say when their names aren't connected to their words.  Kids are not exempt from this, and in order for us to create a more civil forum online, we must stop the trend with the next generation.  We must educate them about the importance of civil discourse and promote healthy interactions.  Shakespeare is just the first step.

How would you stop cyberbullying? 

The End of Downtime

Recently, I read an article published by The 99% called "What Happened to Downtime? The Extinction of Deep Thinking & Sacred Space" by Scott Belsky. Essentially this article argues we are increasingly loosing our ability to disconnect from technology, causing us to forfeit deep thinking and personal reflection.

"Interruption-free space is sacred. Yet, in the digital era we live in, we are losing hold of the few sacred spaces that remain untouched by email, the internet, people, and other forms of distraction. Our cars now have mobile phone integration and a thousand satellite radio stations. When walking from one place to another, we have our devices streaming data from dozens of sources. Even at our bedside, we now have our iPads with heaps of digital apps and the world's information at our fingertips."

Our world that is selling technology to us in a packaged box wrapped in promises of an easier life and more efficient life at the cost of our ability to be alone.  The article opens with a discussion about what is called the "creative pause."

The author defines this as “the shift from being fully engaged in a creative activity to being passively engaged, or the shift to being disengaged altogether," citing the epiphanies people claim to have in the shower as results of this.

The shower may be one of the few places left where we must leave technology aside and face our own thoughts.  In these creative pauses, we are isolated and are free to think about deeper questions.

The author argues for the idea that our desire to be constantly connected existed before the emergence of digital technology, but the existence of digital technology increasingly allows us to meet that desire.


Because of new technologies, we are "depriving ourselves of every opportunity for disconnection."


The emergence of digital technology certainly has beneficial ramifications on our lives, but progress may only happen if we know when to shut those digital technologies down and think.  As Belsky says, "brilliance is so rare because it is always obstructed, often by the very stuff that keeps us so busy."

Do you take deliberate steps to take breaks from technology?  How does it increase (or decrease) your productivity and your perception of you own well-being?

Cathy Davidson "had no idea when [she] posted this it would be such a popular topic."  What she is referring to here is her blog post written about how she goes about crowdsourcing grading in her classroom.  Davidson, a professor teaching a class called "Your Brain on the Internet," feels students should have to participate in the evaluation process of their peers.  She ultimately wants to teach her students "responsibility, credibility, judgment, honesty, and how to offer good criticism to one's peers--and, in turn, how to receive it."

Many people responded to this idea of handing over grading to the students, and they responded in a variety of ways.  She even received a comment that said she is 
“a wacko holding forth on a soapbox.  If Ms. Davidson just wants to yammer and lead discussions, she should resign her position and head for a park or subway platform, and pass a hat for donations.”

Why does the idea of handing over grading power to the group of people working for a grade cause such controversy? In Davidson's own words, she answers this question by saying, "I think it is because grading, in a curious way, exemplifies our deepest convictions about excellence and authority, and specifically about the right of those with authority to define what constitutes excellence."

The Internet in itself can only work well to promote democracy if we, as members of the online community, participate in discourse and in the evaluation, civil critique, and debate of ideas.  With her grading style, Davidson is attempting to help her students do this in an offline context.

One of the responders to her post had this to say:

"I like that grades represent a normalized scale of relative accomplishment." 

In a crowdsourced grading environment, grades are still represented in this manner if the professor gives a basic structure to the grading system.  Simply telling students to grade each other without any sort of bench mark for each grade is not effective.

Professors should give basic structure to the grading system and then let students evaluate each other based on those standards.

Do you think this type of evaluation would work in a professional environment?  What if managers didn't ultimately evaluate performance and coworkers in the same level of power evaluated each other? 

Internet Relief

With the horrific destruction that rocked Japan about a month ago when it an earthquake shook the country and killed thousands of people, the global community needed a way to provide financial resources to bring relief to Japanese citizens in need of aid.  The internet has proven to be an essential resource in reacting to natural disasters with an unprecedented amount of publicity and a massive ability to raise funds.

The digitization, commercialization, and increased connectivity invading our world often is criticized and pegged as the movement that will eventually destroy our ability as humans to interact with one another and socialize with one another.  These arguments all hold merit, but it is important to note that the Internet offers an unprecedented amount of positive implications on the way we can provide relief to natural disasters that happen across the world. In this regard, for example, people were able to use their cell phones to donate to relief efforts through text message and on Twitter.

I was reading on Mashable recently about a website that popped up after the earthquake that provided a resource and venue for people who wanted to offer their home as a makeshift shelter.  The website is called Sparkrelief, and great numbers of people have offered their homes up to people who were displaced by the tsunami.  This website uses the power of inter-connectivity to provide relief in a way that could never have been available before the birth of the internet and mapping technology.

As we continue to explore and push for progress on the Internet, it is important for us to always be pushing for innovation in the sectors that can bring positive social impact on our world.  Investing millions of dollars into social media is worthwhile if the social media we are pursuing also provides social benefit to people in need.

Do you know of any other ways the internet is being used in innovative and revolutionary ways to care for the world's hurting or to solve social problems?

Ai Weiwei

A Chinese artist named Ai Weiwei has been detained by the Chinese government for his anti-government views and his oppositional viewpoints.  The interesting thing about this man is he is an avid user of Twitter and Facebook as means for his social commentary, and many are saying that it is because of his use of these mediums that the Chinese government decided to take him into custody.  An interview with Radio Australia (located here: http://bit.ly/hM4YWE) shows how some experts believe Weiwei's abduction is in some ways caused by his presence on social media.

The Executive Secretary of China Human Rights Lawyers' Concern Group had this to say:

"Instead of just criticizing the government, he would try to make use of the internet as a tool, to call for people to do something funny - to ridicule the government and also to help the people to find the arrested or detained human rights defenders, in very creative ways. So I think he attracted so many people to follow him on his Twitter, so many people want to be his friend on his Facebook, so I think that's why the public security becomes so anxious about his influence."

The interesting thing about this excerpt is the notion that Weiwei's activism was not considered much of a threat until he took it to Twitter and Facebook.  Weiwei has been an activist for many years now.  The 53-year-old artist has had many things to say about the wrongdoings of the government, but it wasn't until he took to the web and had a platform that spanned nations and cultural divisions that he became a threat.

The internet offers us a great deal of potential for the furthering of democracy, but with that comes the increased scrutiny and censorship from oppressive governments.

"[Weiwei] would make use of very courageous ways to make other people think about the issues. So he became a very influential figure on the internet."

What kind of potential opportunities are presented by social media platforms to individuals in speech-restricted areas?

S/R Paper 3: eXistenZ

eXistenZ is a film directed by David Cronenberg that shows a world in which humanity has access to games that allow us to fully engage as active citizens in a virtually real world through the use of “game-pods” that connect into our body through “bio-ports” in our spine.  Allegra Gellar is introduced as the “world’s greatest game designer,” and the film opens with her leading a test group of consumers through a trial of her newest game called eXistenZ. After an attempted assassination on Allegra’s life, marketing trainee Ted Pikul evacuates the area with Allegra.  Fearing that the game may be corrupted, she believes she can only fix it by bringing “someone friendly” into the game with her.  A man at a gas station who is bent on killing Allegra injects Ted with a bio-port despite him having a “phobia about having his body penetrated surgically” so that he can go into the game with her, but the bio-port ends up being faulty and damages Allegra’s game-pod.  When the game-pod is repaired and Ted receives a new bio-port, both Allegra and Ted enter the game. Involved in a new virtual world, Ted finds it difficult to distinguish between real and virtual. “What about our new identities?” Ted asks.  “They’ll take care of themselves,” Allegra responds. Ted finds himself doing things that Allegra says are his character and not him, offering the viewer the question of whether or not virtual reality can go too far and blur the lines between what is reality and what is virtual. Feeling compelled to act uncontrollably, Ted builds a gun from his food at a Chinese restaurant and kills the waiter thinking he was an enemy.  Ted eventually finds out that the waiter was actually their contact and that a man named Nourish is a double agent. Allegra almost bleeds to death after an infected pod is cut from her body, but she survives and stabs Nourish in the back. Allegra and Ted wake up in the ski lodge where they started, but a game character comes in the room showing them that they are not yet back in reality.  Allegra kills Ted after she believes he is conspiring against her, and they both wake up to find themselves in a room hooked up to a virtual reality game called tranCendenZ.  Ted and Allegra eventually kill the designer of tranCendenz, but the viewer is left uninformed about whether this occurred in real space or in the virtual space.

eXistenZ continually projects a world saturated in technological innovation and virtual realities where the line between virtual and reality is blurred to the point of confusion.  Ted is faced with multiple situations throughout the film where he has anxiety about the nature of the virtual space and is compelled to say and do things he doesn’t want or intend to say or do. “I find this disgusting but I can’t help myself,” Ted says as he eats a meal of obscure and unappetizing creatures. Cronenberg communicates a world that allows us to be someone we are not, and proposes that there are instances in the virtual space where we are compelled to be something we are not.  In the virtual world, Ted proposes that there “is an element of psychosis.”  The world according to eXistenZ is a world that occurs in the virtual space.  A feeling of psychosis, according to Allegra, is a sign that “the body is fully engaging with the gaming architecture.”  Fully engaging in the virtual world means loosening the grasp on what is real and what is imagined or programmed.  At one point, Ted pauses his virtual life in eXistenZ to return to his “real life.”  When he gets there, however, he says that his life feels “completely unreal.” eXistenZ explores the world according to technology and ultimately argues that technology is shaping our reality.  The viewer is intentionally unsure of what is reality and what is the virtual world, exploring the ramifications of a reality unified with technologically created spaces.  In this world, eXistenZ argues, we are no longer unsure of what is real around us, we are unsure of what is real within us as well.  Identity takes on a more fluid form, bending and transforming with the external environment.  At the end of the film when the group is in the appearance of reality, the game designer says, “we’re back but I have a feeling some of our crew doesn’t realize it yet.”