Campaign Video

YouTube states ‘Broadcast yourself’, some of the public take this too literally filming anything they want and uploading it to the internet. The free video uploading website is also known for offering the more insightful videos such as campaigns. There are thousands of campaign videos uploaded to YouTube, Chris Crocker cried into a camera for a ‘campaign’ pleading people to leave pop star Britney Spears alone.  Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ can also be found on the website. The aim of a YouTube campaign is to try and reach as many people as possible, however what is challenging is thinking of something to campaign for.

The campaign assignment required more thought than media skill, although some was required. Coming up with an idea that could be filmed locally and would not seem completely ridiculous was difficult. As a group we brainstormed the extreme such as, animal abuse, to the silly such as, bring Buffy the Vampire Slayer back. In the end it was an item we all checked regularly, everywhere and anywhere we could, an item often related to teenagers based on a general opinion, the mobile phone.

The mixture of a video about turning your iPod down when crossing and being victims of mobile distraction ourselves convinced us that being aware when using your mobile on the move was an important subject, especially to three addicts.

The footage was filmed on a normal Panasonic digital camera which gave realistic movement to the film as it was shot looking through the eyes of the person using the phone when walking and similar shots without the use of the phone. The idea was to create everyday situations that could occur when being distracted by your mobile, such as bumping into people and objects, in the end only to contrast with a car collision. For obvious safety reasons the car scene had to be filmed in a hypothetical way, blacking out the film at the point where the car would have hit.

We edited the amateur footage on iMovie as we did not need effects and editing on a professional level. We simply cut the clips of film, allowing them to flow as a film. Between the clips of the person using the phone, and without the phone we decided, for the slight shock factor, to include researched information about teenagers that have died whilst being distracted on their mobiles. The text added an element of fact to the campaign video, proving the group’s point that, although mobiles are an everyday object, being complacent when using your phone can cause problems.

We used a simple heartbeat sound effect for the shots with the mobile phone as it showed  the person using the phone was alive, differentiating with the end when a heart monitor sound, cut from the beginning of ‘The End’ by My Chemical Romance. There was an issue finding a flat line sound effect therefore decided to add a humorous end of dead to symbolise the person dying, This was also cut from a My Chemical Romance song, ‘Dead!’.

The finished product dragged out as it had to be three minutes, and would have benefitted from being shorter. Although the film finished with an amateur tinge the point we were making was put across and is now part of the YouTube catalogue for the world to view and is currently at 93 views.

Folksonomy

Folksonomy

The slideshow was presented in the style of a Pecha Kucha (Japanese for Chit-Chat). Pecha Kucha is a fast form of presentation where a very limited number of time is given per clip with the person presenting the clip having to fit all important information into the allotted time. The actual slides on the presentation should not contain masses of information in the form of text, but simple reference points and images.

The subject of our Pecha Kucha PowerPoint was Folksonomy, the result of tagging on a social level, which was coined by Thomas Vander Wal. We discussed the surge of tagging used on websites such as Flickr and YouTube.

'Folksonomy is the result of personal free tagging of information and objects (anything with a URL) for one's own retrieval. The tagging is done in a social environment (usually shared and open to others). Folksonomy is created from the act of tagging by the person consuming the information.' (Vander Wal, 2007)

An example we used was Flickr, the photo sharing website. People are free to upload their photos and add various tags; others may use the same tags creating a database of similar photos. This creates a Folksonomy.

In the presentation we also included so information on Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 including their differences and the developments the web has under gone over the years.

Collective intelligence is the sub-subject of the presentation; we briefly touched upon the phenomenon of collective intelligence in relation to Google and Amazon. Amazon stores the words you search on their site and the items you have bought as uses this information to suggest certain items that are similar. For example, if you buy a book from Amazon, they would suggest books by the same author and in the same genre, in a hope of grabbing your interest for another sale.

For more information view the PowerPoint.

Vander Wal, T (2007) Folksonomy [WWW] Available from: http://www.vanderwal.net/folksonomy.html

Folksonomy

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Mind The Generation Gap

Geritaric1927's first video which has 2,880,152 views

“Is that thing attached to you, or can you put it down?” frequently reiterated by my mum when she is referring to my mobile phone. To the ‘younger’ generations, or mainly those from the ages of 14-25 the mobile phone has almost become another limb, or an extension of our arms. I physically cannot just leave my phone lying around anywhere, as if at any moment I could be called with an emergency, which has not happened yet and I have had a mobile since I was 12 years old. My mum however is able to leave her mobile in her bedroom, the kitchen or even the car, without caring in the slightest. It makes me think of new media and how the different generations are adapting with the mass expansion of digital media in the 21^st century.

Being a new media addict I constantly text, have Twitter, Myspace and Facebook, a blog (or two) and am constantly on the internet shopping and browsing. I have been brought up into a world where these things are available, compulsory for social means and are quickly becoming second nature; however, the older generations have had to adapt to everything. Facebook and Twitter would not have been the new trends at work and they were not taught to surf the internet in school, surely then, these things considered, there should not be many adults aged 34+ using the internet on a daily basis?

The American researchers ‘Pew Internet and American life project’ conducted a study about the different generations’ use of the internet; ranging from the age of 18 to 74+ looking at emailing, social networking and health information as just some of the areas of the internet. Their studies have shown that 60-69% of people aged 34-45 also known as Gen X now use social networking, more than I would have guessed but not too shocking. What surprised me most from their findings was: “While the youngest generations are still significantly more likely to use social network sites, the fastest growth has come from internet users 74 and older: social network site usage for this oldest cohort has quadrupled since 2008, from 4% to 16%.” (Zickuhr, 2010)

Even the oldest of users are beginning to jump on the new media band wagon. Some are even branching out to produce their own media. Geriatric1927, who is obviously in the older category of user judging by his username, started a series of autobiographical videos on YouTube in 2006 and according to the article ‘What Are The Silver Surfers Up To Online?’ written by Lauren Fisher (2010), he became one of the most subscribed-to channels in a week and he still regularly up-dates his channel.

It seems from recent findings that the older generations are adapting very well to the new media. When thinking about it, it makes sense that now the medium has taken off the older generations would use it more, perhaps not for social networking and downloading but for checking their emails, bank accounts, to keep up to date with the news and to shop online. Masses of information and opportunities are available on the internet; therefore a recommended age range cannot be applied.

In the Henry Jenkins article ‘Eight traits of the New Media Landscape’, he claims that ‘young people’ use new media differently to the older people.

“Young people and adults live in fundamentally different media environments, using communications technologies in different ways and forming contradictory interpretations of their experiences.” (Jenkins, 2006)

Although young people do use the media in a different way now, I do not believe it is because we younger people live in different media environments. I put the difference down to simply being brought up in different times and the ability to adapt to what we see as ‘the norm’. Some of the older generations, as proven in the Pew Study, are signing on to the idea of the internet and using it for similar reasons to the younger generations. The 60-69% of the Gen X age range that are using social networks must be doing so for social reasons; the same as the 80-89% of Millennials (ages 18-33) who use social networking sites (Zickhur, 2010).

It has become apparent to me that the language of the internet is a rapidly becoming the mother-tongue of most countries and ages, with no hope of losing momentum. The older generations are rapidly catching up with the younger generations when it comes to new media, meaning soon it will be a level playing ground.


Zickuhr, K (2010) Generations Online in 2010 [WWW] Available from: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Generations-2010/Overview.aspx (Accessed on 29/12/10)Fisher, L (2010) What Are The Silver Surfers Up To Online? [WWW] Available from: http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/older-people-online/ (Accessed on 29/12/10)

Jenkins, H (2006) Eight Traits of the New Media Landscape [WWW] Available from: http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/11/eight_traits_of_the_new_media.html

No Attention Required...

As I sit in front of my laptop, the television is on, mobile phone next to me, Facebook and Twitter are up and essays are being written at an extremely slow pace; truly distracted and unable to concentrate on one thing let alone everything all at once. It seems as if digital media has split my mind in such a way that my attention span is now about 5 minutes at its peak. “Being exposed to both traditional media and modern digital devices adds stress to one’s life.” (Finkelmeyer, 2010) A simple statement, which when applied to my media usage could not be more accurate.

There have been many studies and articles about this topic; how being constantly ‘plugged in’ is impairing the way we learn, read and take in information.  A study conducted by David Nicholas ‘Viewing and Reading Behaviour in a Virtual Environment’ (Nicholas, 2008) showed that an average reading time for 10+ page printed academic paper took around 22-45 minutes; however the online version was being read on average in 74 seconds. This dramatically decreased time shows that the internet has affected the way in which we read. Finishing it as quickly as possible to get back to the other online distractions we have rapidly become addicted to. Nothing from this essay would be taken in in a mere 74 seconds.

Personally I do not wish to be distracted by this media, social networks and more. They have just become a compulsion of mine, I have to check my emails, Facebook notifications, new tweets and text messages every couple of minutes. A Constant headache is the only product from my online activities. Social Networks are a feature on the internet created to connect people but instead of actually communicating with others they offer applications to play, a way to spy on what your ‘friends’ are doing and look at pictures, the sociability of Social Networks is arguable. 

Some use digital media ‘purposefully’ as a distraction from the outside world, or their surrounding environment. For example many gamers will enter their virtual reality to escape frustrations of the ‘real world’. People put their iPods on to avoid strangers talking to them; many forums on the internet claiming that an important use of the Apple iPod is to block out annoying people. This has made me realise what damage the new digital media is causing to our social circumstance. Youths, and increasingly some adults, would rather relate to a machine than another human being.
In his blog, Adam Thierer, lays out the arguments of who he describes as the internet pessimists and optimists (Thierer, 2010) The optimists believe that the ‘net’ is participatory and supplies the tools to educate whereas the pessimists believe that the ‘net’ is polarizing and is ‘dumbing- down’ the public. Although I believe that to a certain extent the internet can educate and connect people, the good is often outweighed by the rubbish distracting features that the web holds.

All this considered it is not only new media that can be blamed for being a major distraction, television has been around for decades and still acts as a vice to my productivity. In ‘Inside Family Viewing: Ethnographic Research on Television Audiences’ by James Lull, he touches upon the social uses of television. One of the uses is ‘Avoidance’ (Lull, 1990: p. 38). Television is often the centre of the family living room, furniture will often be pointed towards it; although a family may sit down to watch programmes together there is a sense of wanting to escape, ‘It also becomes a resource for escape- not just from the personal problems or responsibilities of the individual viewer, but from the social environment’ (Walters and Stone, 1975) television gives the illusion of a parallel world, not having to face the realities of everyday life. In my case, television acts as an escape from work and alternatively boredom. Instead of going out or doing something productive I choose to eradicate my time in front of a screen, absorbing all of my attention but on a lazy level. There is no need to concentrate on what is on T.V, therefore are we all becoming media drones? Dumbstruck zombies with no need to think for ourselves.

New digital media and the existing media seem to be affecting our daily lives and social interaction. With visual and audio media forever being developed, the question on whether we are going too far is raised. Is the 1^st world at a point where we cannot be unplugged? This argument coming from a hypocrite, plugged in to the laptop as I type this blog. A controlled blackout and shut down of electricity would not go a miss for the sake of my melting brain

Nicholas, D et al (2008) Viewing and Reading Behaviour in a Virtual Environment [WWW] Available from:  http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=utk_infosciepubs&sei-redir=1#search="David+Nicholas+‘Viewing+and+Reading+Behaviour+in+a+Virtual+Environment’+2008" (accessed on 12/01/2011)

Nicholas, D (2008) Viewing and Reading Behaviour in a Virtual Environment  in Debate Research: The Internet is Making Us Stupid [WWW] Available from: http://www.thomascrampton.com/internet/debate-the-internet-is-making-us-stupid/ (Accessed on 13/01/2011)

Thierer, A (2010) Are You An Internet Optimist or Pessimist? The Great Debate over Technology’s Impact on Society [WWW] Available from: http://techliberation.com/2010/01/31/are-you-an-internet-optimist-or-pessimist-the-great-debate-over-technology%E2%80%99s-impact-on-society/ (Accessed on 13/01/2011)

Lull, J (1990) Inside Family Viewing: Ethnographic Research on Television’s Audiences in Lull, J (ed.) The Social Uses of Television London: Comedia/ Routledge : pp.28-48

The worthless (yet great) distractions that the internet provides the unwitting trying desperately to work

Copyright, Is It our Right To Copy?

Is It Our Right to Copy?

Before starting up my reviewing blog Life Of Live I had not considered copyright as an issue I would have to deal with. I thought that as I would be uploading the photographs I had taken myself, copyright would not cross my path; however it already has in two different ways.

Cory Doctorow said in his article ‘Why I Copyfight?’: “On the Internet, copying is automatic, massive, instantaneous, free, and constant.” (Doctorow, 2008). This statement is extremely valid with the new media which is being introduced into the digital world every day. Before the internet excelled Copyright was almost an unknown concept amongst most people. Now with Google images, Yahoo images and other image search engines allow all users of the internet to type in even the most vague search words and be presented with millions of images ready to ‘steal’, as the law would claim. This is just one example of possible copyright infringement the internet makes so easy.

To accompany my reviews I take photos of the events I attend, this was a way of preventing me having to ask permission to use images. My blog is accessible through Google, which means that people from all around the world can access it. What I was not aware of was that the images are then automatically put onto the Google images database. For example; someone in the United States could search ‘My Chemical Romance’, or ‘Gerard Way’ and an image from my blog comes up as part of the listings. It is then easy for them to right-click and save, without me even knowing. This is the first example of Copyright that I have witnessed. I discovered that people were accessing my images through search engines by looking at my Blogger’s stats, which provide the administrator of the blog the statistics of where their audience is based, and through which sites their blog is being accessed. Recently I have not uploaded any more reviews but was still getting views, out of confusion I checked the referral sites; most were Yahoo images or Google images, which meant my photographs, were ‘free-for-all’. Although I was unaware people were taking my photos, the views for my ‘My Chemical Romance’ review are going up, meaning some of the people viewing the pictures were also reading my review, which in turn is beneficial for me.

I agree with what Doctorow said in his article: “Culture's old. It's older than copyright.” Culture needs to be shared in order for personality to prevail; otherwise the world would be monotonous. With photographs of a celebrity I have, in my opinion, no right to complain when people take my images for their personal use. I do not own the celebrity, therefore what right do I have to complain about other people ‘stealing’ the image, when I have in fact not asked permission to ‘steal’ the image of the person in the first place.

The second instance of Copyright I have faced in recent months was when I had to ask permission to use the photographs of others. I was not aware for one event that we were able to take photos, therefore I had nothing to accompany my review: however one of my friends on Facebook, who also attended the event, took some photos. I simply sent her a message over Facebook asking her if I could use two of her images for my blog, she replied with yes. To show respect and appreciation I accredited her name at the bottom of the review. As she was a friend I did not come across any issues. For a bigger live event I had to contact a professional photographer, he replied by asking for an exchange. If he was able to use my review to accompany his photographs I could uses his photographs to go with my review. Unfortunately he was too late in replying so I ‘stole’ some photographs from the NIA Facebook page, but accredited their Facebook and official site at the bottom of the review in order to ‘cover my own back’. Nothing has come back about me using these images.

Being a lover of music I believe, in some cases, Music Copyright laws should be more lenient than they are, there is the opportunity for the music industry to gain masses of money through over-priced merchandise and concert tickets, not to mention CDs and legal downloads. People may steal a few tracks, but from this they may go on to buy gig tickets, and at that gig they may buy a t-shirt. Without that initial illegal act the music industry would not have profited half as much. I myself have spent excessively over £700 in a year on gig tickets and merchandise. Some of these bands I would not have listened to if it was not for the illegal downloads. I am not defending those who do this an unreasonable amount, such as those who never buy a CD in their lifetime, but for those who download a few tracks the penalty should not be as extreme.

YouTube is a website that enables people to create custom videos, cultural gems ready for the world to view. These have also been hit by the Copyright ‘police’. People who use an artists’ music to complement their video without the permission of the record company have had their videos taken down and in accordance to the YouTube 3 strike rule, 3 strikes and you are off the site. To me this is ridiculous the people who upload videos are not gaining money from what they produce but simply contributing to the culture that is YouTube. Paul Sawers in his article ‘The YouTube debate: why copyright shouldn’t kill the video star’ makes the point that that record company only bother with the most popular of videos, which just translates to petty jealousy that more people are viewing the viral sensation rather than the actual artist.

“Whether or not anyone’s actually bothered enough about your paltry 25 views to file a complaint is another matter altogether. But if you unintentionally create a monster YouTube hit that draws in the world’s curious eyes and ears, then you may be asked to remove the video.” (Sawers, 2010)

The YouTube Copyright DebateIn the eyes of the Copyright ‘police’ I am not a law abiding citizen, but who is? It creates a significant amount of stress for something that causes very little harm in the grand scheme of things. Everyone has copied an image from Google images once in their life; meaning in these circumstances Copyright cannot be stopped and for something as little as an image from Google, who cares?

Doctorow, C (2008) Why I Copyfight? [WWW] Available from: http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2008/11/cory-doctorow-why-i-copyfight.html (Accessed 29/12/2010)

Sawers, P (2010) The YouTube debate: why copyright shouldn’t kill the video star [WWW] Available from: http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/12/24/the-youtube-debate-why-copyright-shouldn%E2%80%99t-kill-the-video-star/ (Accessed 29/12/2010)

Psychogeography Project

View Trip To Leicester in a larger map

One definition of psychogeography is: “The study of the effects of geographical settings, consciously managed or not, acting directly on the mood and behavior of the individual.” As part of my psychogeography project I wandered from my normal track to university. I started the project by walking a different way around my village then, unfortunately, had to get the same train, as I did not want to get completely lost; however when I arrived in Leicester I once again went off my normal route to explore some parts of the city I did not know existed. The pictures were taken on an average digital camera and then uploaded onto Google maps, where I later mapped the offbeat route I had taken.

This project involved the notion of the dérive. As the journeys we take in our everyday life become habit, they become tedious and often unnoticed. The idea of a psychogeography project and the dérive is that you go off the beaten track, take notice of things which pass us by when in 'commuter’s mode'. The aim is to shift the primary objective of getting from one place to another to not having an objective. The pictures I have taken on my little ‘ramble’ are completely random things on my journey which caught my eye, beautiful, interesting and even some shots which bring back memories.

Some people take the dérive to different levels, some using maps of one city to navigate their way around another; their reason simply to discover what they might find. Others have used a deck of cards to steer around a city, red left and black right. In one case dice were used to direct people around Toronto.

I believe the psychogeography allows people to step back and realize how they live their lives. To me it showed that my journey to University is usually on auto pilot, driven by routine. It seems with all of the distractions we are faced with in our lives; television, iPods and the internet we are unable to notice anything in our environment. Sometimes I have my Ipod on whilst walking and there could be a fire next to me that I would not even notice, a digital bubble prevents me from seeing what I should see every day. There is another purpose to Psychogeography according to Mr McGurk; he is quoted in a Guardian article: “He sees buildings such as the Lowry museum in Manchester as examples of good psychogeographical design.

“The creators of the Lowry, he says, have made a new community with a real sense of place by mixing galleries with restaurants, theatres, shops and bars.” (Parker, 2002)

Basically, psychogeography can help with the balance of a city or area. To a certain extent I agree with this, most city centers have a healthy balance of shops, restaurants and entertainment venues, which together makes these places popular to visit; the aspects that define the place’s personality. Psychogeography enables people to see areas which are ‘in need’ of more outlets. These people can judge the ‘feel’ of a place and what would be best suited to the area by what else is around.

Psychogeorgraphy writer Will Self wrote a series of articles for the Independent surrounding his journeys to several of the world’s most known places; one being New York. His studies include, aside from extremely deep and complicated phrasing, the effects of major events on the psychogeography, mentioning 9/11’s impact on the city or even the city’s cause of these events.

“The "spectaculars" of both 9/11 in New York and 7/7 in London were thus attacks on our notion of ourselves as, above all, a mobile society, ever stimulating our ever- growing, ever-more-turgid economy with rapid movements of hand and eye.” (Self, 2007)

Self’s psychogeography experiences have made him notice that both of these tragic attacks used transport as the ‘detonators’. Suggesting that may be development of mobility is too fast, that or these cities are being punished for being modern, advanced and wealthy cities.

Self proves that psychogeography is personal to the person conducting the project/ the dérive. It cannot be told what a person should see or experience, but should just be seen and experienced then reflected upon by the person in question.

I discovered that there are vast differences between the rural village where I live and the city I commute to most days. Also there are things in Leicester which I would have never discovered if it had not have been for the project, such as street art, ironic signs and beautiful architecture.

Parker, S (2002) Power to the psychogeographers [WWW] Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2002/feb/22/urbandesign.architecture (Accessed on 05/01/2011)

Self, W (2007) PsychoGeography: Will Self and Ralph Steadman take Manhattan [WWW] Available from: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/psychogeography-will-self-and-ralph-steadman-take-manhattan-394644.html (Accessed on 05/01/2011)