Prompt 1

An emergent form of cultural network with high social implications would be dating apps. Meeting people and establishing friendships has never been so easily facilitated in terms of communication than with social media apps. With the increase in online presence, specifically in the form of social media, it makes sense how this has even evolved to target dating and intimate relationships, not just friends and community. They have apps for homosexual preferences, such as Grindr. Apps for heterosexual preferences, such as Bumble and Tinder. They have also branched out into subscription match making sites, such as Match.com and eharmony. It’s becoming socially acceptable as a form of meeting and courting. I know older women who married men they found on Match and know many college students who use Tinder. It’s breaking down the values of courting in my opinion, and desensitizing us from seeing special qualities within another. Compare these instant photos of people to the thousands of ads we see everyday. We instantly judge for characteristics we like and either move on or linger for a bit. But ultimately this impersonal digital connection can be argued for both positive (as seen with marriages off Match) and negative (as seen in many Tinder idiots) social implications.

 

Prompt 2

I think the screen self portrait allowed for an increase awareness of the self in a digital and data era by instructing us to really take a look at the seen and unseen factors at play. In Rettbergs chapters, he spoke to the behind the scenes data and also touched upon ideas such as tracking and quantifiable data. By simply owning technology we open ourselves to an invisible world that takes bits and pieces of our everyday interactions with tech and shapes the way we experience it as a user. All the apps we buy spend time to listen to user feedback and fix bugs. This project was really fun and helped me to visually organize a story of my self and my digital experience. I got to visually create my take on certain unseen forces at play in tech but also express my personality (humor, interests, criticisms, etc) on my page and the digital freedom with Wix was hands down my favorite project of the semester. It’s important to think outside of the box — you can break down commonly held beliefs and form your own opinions, your own take on technology and how your self fits into all this. You don’t want to end up like this guy.. he couldn’t think outside the box:

My Digital World

http://alpa3993.wix.com/portrait

Digital Portrait Snapshot

In these snapshots you can see the quantitative aspect of my tracked activities — each iPhone is equipped with a Health app that monitors your physical movement, from steps to inclines.

 

I use the app Sworkit to lead my workouts on a weekly basis. This information is quantitative and also objective — I choose to use it and don’t publish it anywhere but it’s digitally stored to an account I can look back at.

 

This snapshot is of a highly hidden feature in your iPhone that tracks the physical locations you visit and adds them to frequently visited places. It even names places like Home and Work that are created through where you spend the most time.

 

Lastly, this snapshot shows how I share and track my use of Spotify — I choose to make it public and allow myself and others to see what I am listening to.

Exercise 3 – Forever Young

The conventional construction of youth and fear of death created a disconnection from the collective good and experience. The society depicted in this novel became fascinated and consumed with technological mediated forms of conversation and communication. History was only maintained through technology and therefore the cultural understanding of structure became highly integrated with a digital and visual culture. Eunice speaks to this phenomenon herself when talking to Lenny about their differences. See below:

Social media networks mediated through technology has been a large theme throughout the novel. We see this with the RateMe apps and GlobalTeen accounts. The physical world has been transformed into identities and experiences online that are completely virtual representations of what appears before you in life. These virtual representations, ratings, and accounts become more relevant to society than what you want to create and display for the world. We see this with Lenny and his super low ratings, his Fuckability and Personality always scored low until Eunice began to dress him and conform him to the beauty and aesthetic representations of popular culture. Even being romantically involved with someone so young and beautiful brought his ratings up. This obsession with aesthetics of youth, beauty, and image come to light with the swaying views and ratings of Lenny with Eunice in and out of the picture.

The last case of identity through technological mediated experiences would be the case of Eunice sending messages to her friends, family, and lovers post-rupture. All communication networks had been cut and messages weren’t sending. There was a spectrum of ways people handled the loss of communication devices and networks. Some committed suicide, while others (mostly Lenny) felt comfortable and even helped out his building of old people. Eunice struggled with this loss and even with being so close to someone who is old-fashioned, such as Lenny, she was still very influenced and brain washed by technology. She often sat idly staring at the last page open in her apparat, pretended to buy clothes online, or sent messages out to her family and friends. She openly acknowledged in her messages that they weren’t going to make it out to her recipient and the messages quickly became more for her to self reflect than for the person to actually read. Her understanding of self and even thought processing has been so long facilitated by technology that unline Lenny who can write in his diary, she can only use technology, in this case in the form of messages, to facilitate her reflection of her self and emotions during this post-rupture period.

Reflection — Wiki Post

The biggest theme I have taken away from this assignment is the idea behind creating an online conversation. Wikia is a platform to hold educated discourse on any topic of your choosing. It creates space for accessibility, interactivity, and scope. It’s pretty different than writing an essay because it’s all digital and it’s open to constant change. The audience can control the conversation in a lot of ways and really embodies aspects of dialogue during this digital era. The process of composing follows that of writing an essay, finding sources, gaining ideas, and writing those ideas. But the major difference between conventional writing and digital is the multi dimensional examples one can integrate into their page. From adding photos, GIFs, videos, or embedding external links, the audience can see exactly how you achieved your thoughts instead of dozing off mid third paragraph.

This platform in its own way is a form of participatory culture. An individual or a collective can join in on the conversation and topic. If they have interest not much is stopping them from contributing. It sort of is a parallel to technology and communication in general. Technology is constantly changing to fit our needs as an audience, and Wikia is sort of the same. Pages change as our needs in a conversation change, as our understanding of the topic changes, and as the culture forms as a whole evolve.

This constant and current discussion capabilities enhances communication in my opinion. It leaves the door open to the introduction of new ideas, concepts, and examples. It allows for innovation for both the reader and the writer. One must always keep in mind the open discourse fact and leave room for contribution. I don’t feel Wikia is the same as wikipedia where information of static unless it calls to light new forms. At least our networked culture pages, they speak to merging culture forms, one’s that are evolving from existing forms, and leaves the discussion wide open to other participants. By being an author and an editor, I get to feel that control over the conversation and my ideas are added instantly. I get to spread my word instantly and without much effort outside of simply collecting and writing my ideas.

Overall, I enjoyed this project. Getting familiar with blogging platforms is important in understanding how communication is changing and how emerging platforms such Wikia allow reader, writer, or editor all to play a special role in communication and the sharing of information.

Wikia Edits

Link: http://networked-culture.wikia.com/wiki/Participatory_Culture;_Music?action=edit&section=1&veaction=edit

For my edits I decided to go for a more technical take. I assisted by making the page more interactive: I added a hyperlink to Youtube and also links on the text to the music videos the Wiki was speaking to. I decided to do this to practice a more interactive take on editing and creating Wiki pages. It’s a little difficult for me to provide a new take on their forms seeing as I really honed in on my topic specifically in regards to research and sources but I figured creating links and interactivity would better the page and also contribute positive edits.

For some reason, the page was having a hard time loading the saved changes so as proof that I really did it I have put a screenshot of the page that I was stuck on for at least 10 minutes that was attempting to save my changes. It created dimensionality to their Wiki, something I will definitely try to incorporate into my Wiki.

The Digital World of Music

I read Chapter. 7. Jenkins brings up the ideas of online worlds and the concepts of being the “insider” and the “outsider.” Still maintaining the idea of music and its anywhere capability to be streamed and heard through apps such as Spotify and Soundcloud — I would argue that these mediums allow for one to immerse themselves in an “online world.” You are detaching yourself from the present world and allowing your sense of hearing to be immersed in whatever theme, word, or emotion affected by the music you are listening to. You become an insider of your and the artist’s world, while everything else in the real world becomes an outsider. You can mouth the words to a song or start dancing or moving your hands affected through the emotion and action behind the music you are listening to. Only you will know the feeling unless you allow someone else to tune in. An example I can speak to that I have seen become “viral” is the recent idea of “The Silent Disco.” At events, ranging from Beer Festivals or music festivals, people have launched a “silent Disco” where one puts on headphones and people all dance around each other to their own tune literally. This allows a moment of those outsiders to partake in your insider experience. They even have Silent Hooping sessions in Boulder (on Pearl) where one can be hooping to music in their headphones that no one can hear, but an outsider can watch the person experience it.

Topics for Analysis

Platform: Instagram

Analysis: Commodification of self and using social media platforms, specifically Instagram, to form an identity, gain a following, and use that following or online presence to manipulate audience to achieve one’s own personal gain (money, fame, assurance of self).

Soures: Video — (Virtual) Ideas of shaping self to fit market. Using social media as a platform for business/services. Exploitation of creative collaboration.

Rettberg — Idea of filtered realities. Using cultural, technological, and cognitive filters to shape identity on the web, shape other’s identities by associating your ideas and self with ideas they can relate to in new ways. Using technology to evolve a simple object or idea to make it new, more exciting, or appealing to a larger audience. Using cultural filters to appeal to certain demographics with access to a global scale.

Wandel & Beavers — Playing with one’s identity and life as play in order to appeal to a mass population. Figures, such as Kylie Jenner, plays around with her identity and image to gain a following and basically commodify  her image to make a profit. From her own make-up line inspired by her Instagram posts or an app for smart phones called “Kylie” that portrays her life in a way that she can exploit creative collaboration in order to increase following and manipulate audience to achieve personal gain.

Snapchat — Analytical Approach

As an avid Snapchat user, I have definitely fallen into the culture of instant glimpses into people lives and my own. The concept around Snapchat is sending visual clips or pictures of a moments in your life that you either want to share personally to a friend, add to your story viewable by all the people following you, or to the world categorized under your geographic location. There is one catch: if sent personally you can only view it once. If it is posted to a story you can view it multiple times, but screenshotting is always known. This instills a confidentiality aspect into the app. If I sent a personal Snap or posted a story, I am instantly notified when another user screenshots and attempts to save my picture. That can be taken in a way where you may feel inclined to call them out or flattered that your picture was cool enough to be saved. This adds to the concept of real-time interactivity. We can see who has opened, replayed, or saved our snaps. Allowing us to use the app in multiple ways. I have friends who Snap me if I don’t respond to their text and use it to see if I am on my phone and just ignoring them. That sort of plays into the idea of Rettberg’s idea of friends serving as checks and balances. If you are not being reliable they can use Snapchat to see if you are being a good friend or not by responding to them. Surely if you have time to Snapchat, you have time to text, or so that’s how some people think.

Aside from the communication aspects of Snapchat, the application has a variety of ways one can filter or add effects to the Snap. On a very simple level, one can add captions, adding a textual effect. These captions can consist of a simple standard size text in a bar across the Snap. The text can be manipulated to be big or small, rotated all around the screen, or even moved around to have a specific placement for the user. This adds a creative feature where one can play around with their image and representation of their self in that Snap. Rettberg also speaks to this idea and how one can self-represent themselves in a variety of ways on social media platforms. By swiping left and right on your finalized image or video clip, you can add three different color filters, setting a visual tone for the image. It can make one look more tan, black/white mysterious, or a filter that brightens the blues and reds in the image setting a more vintage or aqua vibe. This adds a technological filter. The apps technology sets a time limit for your message, it filters ways one can express the image via captions and emojis, and also allows one to filter the image and change the color and tone for the recipient. You can use location services to add you to a digital grid where states to universities to towns or even events are open to the public for “storytelling.” If you want to make it to the story you must cater that image or video to something highlighting the area, culture, or event. This in a sense creates a cultural filter, where Snapchat decides what to show and post on the public forum, altering the way an outside gets an inside view. It influences the pathos of the audience, directly manipulating the way in which we view and should view certain areas, cultures, and life experiences. This also speaks to the concept of globalization of communication. Sitting in my bed at home, I can see the lives of people in Dubais or even Barcelona, or if I was too broke to attend Coachella that year I can tune into the live updates of all the fun going on without having to spend a cent.

In terms of communication, I feel this edited, manipulated, and idealized form of communication affects the population who uses it in a way similar to media and advertisements. We choose to post happy, funny, exciting moments in our lives that further promote and speak to the lifestyles and ways to achieve them portrayed in popular media and culture. To be happy, fit, embracing the small things in life, that are often associated to material objects. It’s influencing in a lot less conscious way but arguably it could be seen as a form of conformity and a platform for a way of life to be idealized and promoted through a subconscious form of communication. We are shaping it but also being shaped by it.