You are currently browsing the archives for January, 2012.
The thing about Summer Semesters are the fact that we have half the usual amount of time to complete everything. Sure, we have only half the number of courses, but the pressure is still greater than usual. Not only do deadlines just loom closer than ever but matching schedules with teammates becomes an even more daunting task. Suddenly, having to delay things by a day is equivalent to delaying things by two in a normal semester, and this merely compounds more and more. Five hours of time needs to produce ten hours of result. I’ve lost my tempter numerous times this semester, and I probably haven’t been too easy to be around, but to all my teammates; thank you.
Time to give the ‘About Me’ Page some content!
I have shorter hair now but isn't this a nice and friendly picture?
So that’s the picture I intend to use. Simple details include:
Name
Country of Residence
Profession (Student)
Skills
Accomplishments
All this should be presented in text form as opposed to an overly formal point form.
So today, I learnt about the importance of saving a draft. I had originally written a rather long post, based on a random idea that came to mind, but when I selected the option to Publish the post, I got redirected to the login screen and lost the post I made. I guess that’s a lesson I should take with me.
My current plan for the website would be a simulated conversation, with preplanned user response options, and I will describe how it realtes to user generated content on the internet, placed there with no idea of when they will be used, but meant to function to allow for responsive and dynamic communication. Eventually this will link users to the main website where the webpages will be linked to one another in a more standard website style, with a table of contents on one side.
I’ve had posts have had long and fancy references on top that you may or may not actually check, posts titled with fancy and big words and posts where I write in whole sentences, and up until this point, I’d hazard that the reader probably took my words with a lot more faith than they would have if I had presented them in abbreviated words and simpler sentences. All I had to do was follow rules of communication and suddenly, my content became far more credible. In that sense, communication will always have an element of being defined by presentation, though Walker and Mortensen do make note of that. Even the title of this post, is something that only a select group of people will understand. Thus, in conclusion, whilst I believe in many possibilities with social media, I feel people need to remember not to get ahead of themselves.
Links to other posts:
Annotated Bibliography 1 : Introduction to Social Media
Annotated Bibliography 2 : On the Authors
Annotated Bibliography 3: Summary of Reading
Annotated Bibliography 4: Notes on our Method
Annotated Bibliography 5: Blogging Software
Annotated Bibliography 6: Integrity of the Blog
Annotated Bibliography 7: Commercial and Political Value of Blogging
Annotated Bibliography 8: Social Exclusiveness
Annotated Bibliography 9: Symbiosis
Annotated Bibliography 10: </essay>
With reference to: The people formerly known as the audience; Social media. 2011. The Economist, 400(8741), pp. 9
The article from the Economist was particularly interesting because it highlighted a symbiotic relationship between traditional news mediums and online news mediums, such as blogging, tweeting, etc. I defer to a previous post, where I weighed the validity of a comment made in Walker and Mortensen’s writing. This article would probably be one of the stronger supportive writings they could use but I’m still inclined to have a certain level of skepticism regarding blogs as a wholly valid source of information due to the level of misinformation that occurs online. Online, one can ‘dress’ a website to look professional, and ‘dress’ his or her text to carry authority but, in the end, it can all be fabricated. I feel that whilst there is a good ground to say that social media will change communication by ‘adding more’ to how we communicate, I feel it is pretentious to believe that social media will revolutionize communication.
With reference to: Coming full circle; The end of mass media. 2011. The Economist, 400(8741), pp. 16
The article in the Economist (which is written by an anonymous or uncredited writer) highlights a common generalization made of social media; that it promotes social activity and the formation of open and inclusive communities. However, whilst not directly stated, Walker and Mortensen’s writing, with particular reference to the section; Academics and Audiences, shows the rules and practices that exist within cultures in terms of how they communicate. This also manifests in the forms of syntax, polite language, etiquette, and a variety of other ways that we use to consciously or unconsciously target an audience. Thus, communication through social media, including blogging, becomes an activity of exclusion rather than inclusion. Online communities mean people have the luxury of being more exclusive about who exists within their network because the pool of people they can choose to network with are from a global scale rather than limited by geographical location.
- Originally just displayed as folders and files in said folders.Navigation was difficult
- Development of the User Interface
- The Cursor
- The Scroll
- Tags, which are used to link ‘related’ content
- Critics of tagging feel that tagging results in less diversity in taste since consumers are streamlined towards certain products.
- Intuitive Interaction: Based on standard interaction ‘Don’t make me think’
- Tablets use elements of other navigational tools
- Non-intuitive Interaction: Makes user put effort into using the media and thus feel rewarded upon success
Reference: “Blogs: Hype or Public Affairs Opportunity?”, 2004, PR News, vol. 60, no. 18, pp. 1-1
With reference to the reading by Mark Reilly, and my previous blog post, where I talked about the integrity of blogs’ ‘honest’ opinions, this reading gives some details regarding the power of blogs to reach audiences better than many other platforms. What is important to note, is that Reilly goes on to explain the best way to sell yourself to a blog:
“The first and easiest way is to simply join the Blog and make a comment supporting your
issue. Remember, do not try to be someone else or use an anonymous name. If that is not
possible, ask your client or spokesperson to comment on the Blog. If the Blog does not
accept comments directly, send the Blogger a tip. Again, it might be most appropriate to have
your client, a credible third party, or the spokesperson of the campaign contact the Blogger
(with your assistance, of course). Bloggers need to maintain credibility and want to know that
they are dealing with true believers not a paid hand.
Another tactic would be to purchase ads on Blogs that you think attract your audience.
BLOGADS and Goggle’s Ad Sense are the two best Blog advertising networks for political
sites at this point. It stands to reason (although Blog owners will deny it) that if you purchase
an ad on a Blog and then contact the Blog about your issue it may be more receptive to your
request. Just a hunch.
If your goal is to build a list of supporters and to get concerned citizens to send
communications to their elected officials in support of your campaign’s issue, Blogs can help.
Building your own Blog may sound ambitious, but if you have a spokesperson or some
committed followers it might make sense as the best way to raise awareness and recruit
around your campaign’s issue. The technology is relatively inexpensive, but the strategy,
upkeep and maintenance are labor intensive.
The key items to be concerned about are making sure that you have fresh content and
ensuring that you ultimately control the basic tune and content on your Blog.”
Thus, Reilly’s article confirms the strength of blogging as a tool to build up your support base with actual returns, and that in turn gives it a market value. Once it is given a market value, the human desire for profit becomes a major factor in bringing about the death of the blog’s integrity.
II put the most recent 5 blog posts into Wordle to generate meta-data.
This is the result:
I attempted to copy the HTML coding they gave me directly, which was:
<a href="http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/4710720/Wordle_Meta"
title="Wordle: Wordle Meta"><img
src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/4710720/Wordle_Meta"
alt="Wordle: Wordle Meta"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd"></a>
However, when put into the HTML coder on Wordpress, it ended up pretty garbled. Had to try closing some of the coding using ‘<’ and ‘>’ to fix it.
