Community can be related to most things surrounding popular culture. With all of this talk regarding blog themes happening amongst the kids I couldn’t help but wonder (excuse my Carrie Bradshaw moment) why we desire to project an image of ourselves online? Does a layout theme give us a sense of who a person is, or is it just that the person happens to be particularly fond of the colour scheme?

I draw on the character Jeff Winger who famously quoted, “For your information, I don’t have an ego. My Facebook photo is a landscape” to begin this blog, looking at how the internet, or more specifically social media sites provide us with the opportunity to establish an online image of ourselves, created by ourselves. Blog layouts resemble Myspace, they provide as a first impression of someone’s profile. For instance, when I decided to adopt a layout that depicted a vintage bike on a neutral coloured wall taken from a Hipstamatic lens, I wanted peeps to think I firstly, rode a bike and secondly was cultured or alternative. Pretty sure I was none of these things back in year 9 but the point is that I wanted people to think I was. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing at all, if we project an image of ourselves in everyday life then why not on Facebook and through a blog. Facebook in particular offers this ability to project an image of ourselves usually based on what we like, dislike, the friends we have and the pictures we decide to let ourselves be tagged in.

If we refer back to Jeff Winger’s quote, even those who reject egotism essentially project an image of themselves by not having a picture of themselves as their display. We seem to have established cultural groups that categorise EVERYONE. But perhaps what’s most important is how the internet offers a separate reality for individuals to find ways to express themselves.

Hugh began tute on Thursday with a brief history lesson. At first, I was baffled as to why the Industrial Revolution related to the internet and wondered where he was taking his point but he took it to great heights, giving me something to ponder that I would have indeed never done if I had not been informed.

The Industrial Revolution that occurred in Britain in the 18th century brought about the introduction of machinery, particularly the use of steam power for transport purposes. Steam power was pounced on back in the day. People got excited about it, they took it up and adopted it like Angelina Jolie to an orphaned child. Hugh’s analogy of the steam power is applicable to the internet. If people had not adopted it and become excited about its potential then it would remain in a large pile of failed technologies next to your tamagotchis and walkmans. What bolsters technology is infact ideology, and in this case the ideology surrounding the internet such as its position as a progressive technology that will ultimately enhance human life, similarly to how steam power did 300 years ago.

This notin of combining technology and ideology can be applied to the theory of technological determinism. Technological determinism asserts that “cultural and social change follow from technology” (Bimber 1990). Furthermore, technological developments in society often illustrate progressiveness towards being more civilised and modern. This is outlined by Williams and Williams (2003) who state that “people often speak of a new world, a new society, a new phase of history, being created – brought about – by this or that new technology: the steam engine, the automobile, the atomic bomb.” The argument made by Williams and Williams correlates strongly with Tuhiwai Smith (1999) who claims, “history is about development and the notion of progress.” Tuhiwai Smith (1999) suggests, “societies move forward in stages of development.” If this is applied to Williams and Williams’s argument then these stages of development are marked by the creation of new technologies. From this we can infer that technology marks societies development to becoming less primitive and more civilised and complex (Tuhiwai Smith 1999). In this sense, we can infer that the internet forms as a technology that made society more modern by changing communication methods, as demonstrated by converting manuscripts to digital.

Mondays lecture was thoroughly enjoyable. I think this is primarily because it marked the first step of my transition from Jen to Moss (to put in IT Crowd terminology). Additionally, I now possess the ability to correct those who refer to the World Wide Web as the Internet, guys, it’s actually a program. What I found most interesting about Nathaniel’s lecture was his attention to the internet as a survivable form of communication given it is distributed rather than centralized. In particular, the terms used to describe the internet correlate to that of an action hero. It is robust, non-hierarchical and digital whilst possessing survivability and flexibility. I usually don’t associate the words digital and non-hierarchical with action figures but in this case I’ll let it slide.   —————-> The internet

It’s reassuring to know that the life you establish online cannot be destroyed and is ten times more safe thanks to the cloud system that has been made possible through numerous systems such as Delicious and DropBox. Moreover, the continuous/indestructible and linked nature of the internet also correlates closely to that of hypertext. Particularly, a users ability to embark on an open-ended, never ending quest through the World Wide Web. This nonlinear form of textuality expands texts, establishes connections and attachments to other texts that prompts the user to continuously open new links, acquiring more information that is actually never ending.