Blog entry 5 on 21/3/17 LM111

In this weeks lecture and seminar the topic was Privacy in the networked society, and whether or not we have “the right to be alone” (Warren and Brandeis, Harvard Law Review, USA, 1890). Privacy is, according to Gavison “a measure of the access others have to you through information, attention and physical proximity” (Gavison, 1980 in boyd, 2014, p. 59). In this lecture, the overall impression I got was the fact that there is no more privacy in the networked society. This theory doesn’t give me reason to worry as I do not have anything to hide, and nothing as of yet has endangered me.

Maria let us listen to a brief segment of a BBC radio broadcast where an interviewer asked a woman at random if she was on Facebook, the woman replied “Yes”. She then asked the woman if she could have all of the contacts on her phone for £5. The woman replied “No.” When asked why she wouldn’t give them over she said “because they’re private”. This, shows the difference in privacy nowadays. On Facebook she would surely post images and posts including her friends, family and associates however wouldn’t give away their actual names or numbers.

We then went on to talk about how privacy is the default  setting on all of us. Not so long ago you needed to be of high status or rich to have little privacy – but now we feel like that dynamic may have changed. I feel like anyone can become less private, or famous easily now because of social networking sites. “all web-accessible platforms, offer services, mostly social, in exchange for personal information. This simple step, taken by many, transforms our personal information into currency, and our privacy into a commodity” (Papacharissi, 2010).

Blog entry 4 on 13/3/18 LM111

In this weeks lecture Maria discussed with us the difference between community and virtual community. Community is in reality, but virtual means ‘not tied directly to physical reality’ (Van Dijk, 1999, p. 250). In class we watched a YouTube video of Scholar Howard Rheingold (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icvJrjWCz_o) explaining the first virtual community ever created (supposedly) online in the 1980’s. The community was called ‘the WELL’ –  a space online where middle class, privileged, technology literate people could talk about information, daily life and schedule meet ups. “In reality The Well attracted a certain group of people: baby boomers… smart and left leaning without being self-conscientiously PC, mostly male, many with postgraduate degrees” (Hafner, 2007, Wired). According to Rheingold, “the internet can radically transform social interactions, culture and politics” (Rheingold, 1994). This is a statement I concur with – I do believe despite the Internets faults e.g causes isolation (allegedly), cyber-bullying etc; it can be used to express the views and stories of some people who without wouldn’t of been heard at all. This, can change culture and politics hopefully for the better – nevertheless, change it.

In the seminar the whole class spent the whole time debating about what does constitute a virtual community for them? One classmate said “Just because I follow every French Bulldog on Instagram, comment and like every image, doesn’t mean I’m in it’s community, because it doesn’t write back”. Which I don’t agree with, I don’t believe the community is with the French Bulldog’s itself, but with the rest of their followers.

Blog entry 3 on the 6/3/18 LM111

This weeks focus was on the concept of time linked to the media in a networked society. Manuel describes this theory as ‘..new concepts and new theoretical perspectives to understand the trends that characterise the structures and dynamics of our societies in the world of the twenty-first century’ (Castells, 2010, The Rise of the Network Society p. 19) We were shown a video explaining an equation to easily explain this concept of “networked society”. This equation is

People

Things 

Interactivity 

Big Ideas + 

___________

= Networked Society 

Maria explained how media in a networked society nowadays, with digitisation for example, means that media isn’t as effected by time like it once was. Back in the early 1900’s people would send hand-written letters to communicate (this would take a few days minimum to reach the recipient) – however in present-day people can have real time conversations with each other from opposite sides of the planet.  “In the network society, the emphasis on sequencing is reversed. The relationship to time is defined by the use of information and communication technologies in a relentless effort to annihilate time by negating sequencing” (Castells, 2009, p. 36, in Educationmuseum, 2013) 

We also spent a majority of the lecture and seminar debating the perk given to female employers by Facebook and Apple, offering to freeze their eggs in order for them to delay having children/not missing the opportunity to have children. My group said it was a good idea, and people who wish to do so can, but those who do not want to wait do not have to. The fact people can do this shows just how far modern society has come when it comes to controlling time.