MJM23 Future Data Scenario

Posted on April 18, 2022 by Mads Lowe

Imagine a society operated by Google, where the data collected on the public is sold to the government who use is as an incentive to eradicate antisocial and unwanted behaviour. Movements, social interactions, and behaviour on and offline are watched and observed to generate a social score. The higher the score, the more privileges, such as recreational activities, quality of healthcare or schooling or even access to shops a person would be entitled to through a tiered system of access.

Below is propaganda against such a regime. Where IP addresses can be switched with the elite tip change the power balance.

The Appeal of a Creative City

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Mads Lowe

Following the election of New Labour, the government coined the term ‘The Creative Industries’ in a new priority to further the economy through the use of culture, creativity and the talents of society. These creative industries require innovative and creative people, for example scientists, designers and editors (Florida 2019), to come to cities to boost these industries. What draws these people to a location? Lifestyle.

Richard Florida (2002), an urbanist and professor, created ‘ The Creativity Index’ as a way to measure the appeal of a city, saying that cities must be cool and interesting. Out with generic malls and stadiums and in with art galleries, musicians, bistros and a wealth of outdoor activities. When looking at UNESCO’s (2007) Creative Cities Network, these ideas are what Florida was talking about. ‘Strong historic and cultural backgrounds’ with the ability to innovate, links to the arts and food. When looking at California’s website (Figure 1: Visit California, 2019), which rated number 1 on the Creativity Index, it discusses food, the arts and architecture, things which appeal to the creative class. Clearly in the case of San Francisco, it has the ingredients for a successful creative city.

Figure 2: A screenshot of Visit California's San Francisco page, highlighting the cultural attractions.

Figure 1: A screenshot of Visit California’s San Francisco page, highlighting the cultural attractions

Florida (2002), goes on to say that Creative Cities attract ‘bohemians’, ‘gays’ and different ethnicities to be desirable to the creative class as this promotes acceptance and diversity, this is because a number of the creative people have grown up as outsiders. I wonder if this is always the case and I would argue that diversity leads to a range of knowledge and experience. When looking at creative industries documents by UNESCO (2007) and the British Council(2010) words like ‘diversity’ and ‘social inclusion’ are included. A video on their website (Figure 2: Visit California, 2019) then gives off warm, diverse and welcoming vibes.

Figure 2: Visit California’s San Francisco’s video with the #AlwaysWelcome. Highlighting the diverse and friendly ethos.

While San Francisco is an obvious creative city, when one looks at the map of creative cities (figure 3, UNESCO), there are some surprising choices, for example Baghdad, which is hailed for its Literacy with its history, poetry festivals and the fact it publishes in a range of languages. Those desirables for creative minds. Furthermore, it is investing in young people and women (UNESCO 2018). This is key as McRobbie (2016) highlights, women are attracted and are suited to creativity and are craving equality in the field. However, it could be argued that the economic growth here is due to oil, rather than culture. Baghdad may also not be the most appealing of cities outside of the middle east due to the recent conflict. When you google San Francisco you have plenty of websites encouraging you to go, Baghdad is filled with facts and news stories.

UNESCO's map of Cultural Cities shows some less well known choices.

Figure 3: UNESCO’s (2019) map of Cultural Cities shows some less well known choices.

It is clear that these ingredients make a city appealing, however we must be cautious when using the Creativity Index and Florida’s work in building economic success, as Malanga (2004) says how there is no correlation with economic success, stating that some of these vibrant creative cities underperform. He shows, using a National Commission on Entrepreneurship, that Las Vegas and Detroit, which did not rank highly with Florida, have had economic success, while New York, which ranked highly with Florida, did not.

Bibligraphy

British Council, 2010. Mapping the Creative Industries: A Toolkit, [online] Available at: https://creativeconomy.britishcouncil.org/media/uploads/files/English_mapping_the_creative_industries_a_toolkit_2-2.pdf [Accessed 20/11/2019].

Florida, R. 2002. ‘The Rise of the Creative Class’, The Washington Monthly

Florida, R. 2019. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books.

Malanga, Steve. 2004. The curse of the creative class. City Journal. 36-45.

McRobbie, A. 2016. Making a Living in the New Culture Industries. Cambridge: Polity Press

UNESCO, 2007. Creative Cities Network, [online] Available at: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001560/156026e.pdf [Accessed 20/11/2019].

UNESCO 2018. Creative Cities Programme for sustainable development. Paris: UNESCO

UNESCO 2019. Search Creative Cities. [online] Available at: https://en.unesco.org/creative-cities/creative-cities-map [Accessed 23/11/2019].

Visit California, 2019. Spotlight San Francisco. [online] Available at: https://www.visitcalifornia.com/destination/spotlight-san-francisco [Accessed 23/11/2019].

Online Communities and Gender

Posted on November 9, 2019 by Mads Lowe

Communities. Traditionally, people living in proximity or a group with shared interests. As we have become more ‘online’, these interest-based communities have moved online. They are perceived as a positive force that knit people together but I would like to question whether this is the case online.

Fandoms are where fans of pop culture meet to discuss ideas (Nesbitt, 2018). Nesbitt (2018) discusses how these can harbour misogyny, specifically naming #GamerGate- an occurrence where women were abused online by “more knowledgeable” men. Massanari (2017) also highlights how online communities are often criticised for their unfriendliness towards women, as well as people of colour and the LGBTQIA community, with Nakamura (2007) mentioning the dominance of men. Women are portrayed as ‘second-tier fans’ (Nesbitt, 2018) and only really been ‘accepted’ in cosplay, only due to objectification or when hiding their feminity (Nesbitt, 2018). Though hiding femininity may stop an attack on the individual there must be other ways to address the attack on a woman. Massanari (2017), has found that in the often-misogynistic area of Reddit, through TrollX, women use humour support and empower women to fight back. #Dresslikeawoman, a humorous response to a comment by Trump is similar. Hashtags such as #MeToo (Hosterman et al, 2018) , #SlutWalk (Mendes, 2015) and #SayHerName (Brown et al, 2017) have also enabled a support network to stand up to misogyny.

It appears however, that it is not just women who suffer. The Curly Crew Facebook group (2018), has shown that women can objectify men (figure 1) and while this is not women trying to assert dominance as it is in fandoms, it is objectification. What is interesting, is how quickly dealt with by other women and by admin, rather than being allowed to continue in the way it has been in the Fandom world.

Figure 1: Examples of messages objectifying men and the responses from the groups admin.

Communities can be supportive of each other, without there being a misogynistic trigger. Cyprus Girls Can (figure 2), an initiative in Cyprus bringing women together, uses media to organise sporting activities as well as sharing female sporting achievements. This small community if full of positivity and allows women to be included in sport, an area often dominated by men. But it could be argued that the group is exclusive to men. Another example of male exclusion is Mumsnet (2019), which provides support and build communities for parents. Despite the apparent supportive ethos, Pedersen (2015) discusses how men feel the need to hide their identities on the site as they do not feel welcome, much like the women in fandoms Nesbitt (2018) discussed earlier. While the name Mumsnet (2019), suggests Mums and women, linking to the traditional connotation of women being the maternal, their aim and caption mentions parents (figure 3), suggesting any gender.

Figure 2: Natalie Christopher (2017) outlining the aim of the Cyprus Girls Can initiative which brings together women in a supportive community.

Figure 3: The Mumsnet (2019) logo, showing women. But does this make men feel excluded or inferior?

While communities can provide support, the bigger issue is the traditional roles of gender here leading to misogyny. While people can be misogynistic face to face, it appears more apparent online, possibly due to the anonymity. As women enjoy comics and gaming and are being represented more in popular culture and as men are hands on in parenting, surely these stigmas need to be broken down more.

Bibliography

Brown, M., Ray, R., Summers, E. and Fraistat, N., 2017. # SayHerName: a case study of intersectional social media activism. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40(11), pp.1831-1846.

Christopher, N. (2017) Cyprus Girls Can, [Facebook] 23 November. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/pg/CyGirlsCan/posts/?ref=page_internal [Accessed 23/11/2017]

Hosterman. A. Johnson. N. Ryan Stouffer. R. Herring. S., 2018. Twitter, Social Support Messages and the #MeToo Movement. The Journal of Social Media in Society Fall 2018, Vol. 7, No. 2, Page 69-91

Mackenzie, J. 2018. ‘Good mums don’t, apparently, wear make-up’: negotiating discourses of gendered parenthood in Mumsnet Talk. Gender and Language, 12(1), 114-135. doi:10.1558/genl.31062

Massanari, A. L. 2017 “Come for the period comics. Stay for the cultural awareness”: reclaiming the troll identity through feminist humor on Reddit’s /r/ TrollXChromosomes, Feminist Media Studies, DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2017.1414863

Mendes, K., 2015. Slutwalk: Feminism, activism and media. Springer.

Mumsnet. 2019. About Us, Available at: https://www.mumsnet.com/info/about-us [Accessed 09/11/2019]

Nakamura, Lisa. 2007. Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Nisbett, G.S. 2018 ‘Don’t Mess with My Happy Place: Understanding Misogyny in Fandom Communities’ in Vickery, J.R. and Everbach, T. (eds.). Mediating Misogyny: Gender, Technology, and Harassment, Palgrave Macmillan, pp.171-188.

Pedersen, S. 2015. ‘It took a lot to admit I am male on here’. Going where few men dare to tread: men on Mumsnet’. In Savigny, H., Alexander, J., Jackson, D. and Thorsen, E. (eds.) Media, margins and popular culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan [online], pages 249-261. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137512819_17

The Curly Crew! 2018. The Curl Crew! (Curly Girl Method Support Group for All) [Facebook] 27 January. Available from: https://www.facebook.com/groups/464249567108710/ [Accessed 23/11/2019]

Hashtagging and Activism

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Mads Lowe

The hashtag #, gives users a sense of passion and empowerment. But does it really help with activism? First, we need to define activism. Activism is fighting for change, digitally through online petitions, blogs, creating posts and images, being parts of groups online or sharing posts. The hashtag started with Twitter, used a “prefix” to link together posts on the same topic (Chang, H. 2010). By placing the hashtag before a word of phrase, Twitter was able to link it to posts with the same tag, allowing it to trend.

Figure 1: CNN decided to show penguins instead of the news of protests. A viewer’s reaction on Twitter (Cicekdagi, 2013).

In the news, TV, news websites, newspapers can control what is important. However, the internet changing this and allowing greater public control. After many were outraged by CNN Turkey showing penguins while the rest of the world saw the protests in Istanbul, tweets of the TV screens followed by hashtags such as #occupygezi went viral (figure 1), giving the public control and highlighting how news coverage is controlled. Away from the news, hashtags have led to a greater awareness of a cause, look at the #MeToo or #SayHerName movement where a huge response and wave of tagging bought light on sexual harassment (Mendes et al, 2017). Brown et al (2016) found that the #SayHerName led to greater awareness and a space for safety and security, in a space more comfortable that face to face discussion on issues. With the events in Turkey were only highlighted to the Turkish through social media and the issues around harassment gaining publicity through trending, it could be argued that shedding light on an issue is a success in itself. However, while this bought awareness on an issue, a hashtag is often forgotten over time, potentially allowing issues then re-emerge. Evolution of a hashtag can also take meaning from the original cause. #MeToo was originally awareness for sexual harassment of women of colour and was later adopted by Hollywood (Mendes et al, 2017). While some may argue trending, support and empowerment of women is great, it has forgotten the women whom it was initially intended for.

While it could be argued that they are helping to grow a trend and raise awareness, it could be questioned how much change occurs and to what degree this classifies as activism. As I outlined earlier, activism is campaigning and fighting for change. Dean, J. (2005) says that while this minimal activity is because people care and want to be involved it can actually ‘displacing’ certain issues, such as #MeToo displacing the issue surrounding black women. Furthermore, for change to occur, real action needs to occur. It may be argued that this can only happen through people actually ‘doing’ and physically supporting a cause.

While the hashtag has led to greater public awareness on an issue, it must be considered how the hashtag can develop and evolve and is this evolution taking away from those to whom it was intended. Furthermore, we should be wary in how, if we are passionate about a cause, we become activists. While raising awareness, we must also compliment simple use of sharing and using hashtags with other forms of activism, something which may be easier than some than others in differences in lifestyles.

Bibliography

Brown, M., Ray, R., Summers, E. and Fraistat, N., 2017. # SayHerName: a case study of intersectional social media activism. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40(11), pp.1831-1846.

Chang, H. 2010, A new perspective on Twitter hashtag use: Diffusion of innovation theory. Proc. Am. Soc. Info. Sci. Tech., 47: 1-4. doi:10.1002/meet.14504701295

Cicekdagi. A 2013. Asli Cicekdagi [Twitter] 02 June Available at: https://twitter.com/unbirthdaytea/status/341178884731052034?s=20 [Accessed 24/11/2019].

Dean, J. 2005. Communicative capitalism: circulation and the foreclosure of politics. Cultural Politics, pp.51-74.

Mendes. K. Ringrose. J. Keller. J. 2017. #MeToo and the promise and pitfalls of challenging rape culture through digital feminist activism. European Journal of Women’s Studies, Volume: 25 issue: 2, pp: 236-24

In a post digital society, will analogue soon become obsolete?

Posted on October 21, 2019 by Mads Lowe

Analogue and digital. Often affiliated with old and new. As Cramer, (2015, pp17-18) says, Analogue is ‘undivided’ or ‘continuous’ and digital means ‘binary’ or ‘divided’. Something non-electronic can be digital and something electronic can be analogue. Despite the word ‘post’, the term post digital does not mean after the digital revolution, but the current, ongoing state of technology (Cramer 2015). By using the term post digital, it allows us to differentiate from the ‘binary’ meaning of digital.

While Lindgren (2017) says, we have moved from having ‘digital things in our society’ to having ‘a digital society’ and as some people buy the latest iPhone with an increasingly superior cameras, some people prefer having an older camera with a film, likewise with vinyl and streaming in music. Some argue that the older ‘analogue’ technology is superior (Cramer, 2015). Figure 1, (Pors and Rao, 2005) shows a rather tongue in cheek piece of art which merges Rao’s uncle’s preference for the familiar, old technology of a typewriter with a need for connectivity in the digital. It highlights the needs or wants for an older object and the conflicting need for connectivity in a digital world. It may be that the love of ‘analogue’ may be a fleeting trend or something that links with nostalgia or familiarity for those of certain generations. Or it may be that as we become more digital, older technologies may become obsolete.

Figure 1: Pors and Rao’s (2005) Uncle Command: A piece of art where the idea is that the uncle uses his familiar typewriter to e-mail his relatives away from home.

As a teacher, I see young people craving technology, while Jenkins, (2013) says this inspires creativity in their learning. The children who I teach are digital natives. While this means that they are prepared to contribute in the world of technology, it could allow analogue skills will be lost. Examples of this are cursive handwriting being lost to typing, and telling the analogue time. In my class, the majority can tell the time digitally but their analogue time-telling skills are inferior. As it stands these skills still have importance in the curriculum (Figure 1), but in an advancing society, this may not always be the case. Furthermore, one could argue that apps such as Google Translate would make language learning obsolete. With newer generations and young people becoming more tech-savvy, the appeal and love of older, ‘analogue’ objects and skills may fade.

Figure 1: Extracts from the National Curriculum (DfE, 2013), showing how ‘analogue’ skills are still important in the curriculum.

To what degree will the digital be a part of our lives and at what costs? For me, there are some things that technology has vastly improved but there are things the digital cannot replace but as consumers have the power to shape society. SCOT (Bijker, Hughes, Pinch, 2001) outlines that we as human determine our actions, rather than technology. We influence what we, as a society, want. Strate (2012) adds to this saying that ‘technology cannot be neutral as it is a form of change’, Feenburg (2002) says that technology represents us as a society, meaning what we create and develop reflects our needs and wants as a society. This means that users collectively have the power to influence how much technology becomes part of our lives.

Bibliography

Bijker, W.E., Hughes, T.P. and Pinch, T.J. 2001. The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Cramer F. 2015. What Is ‘Post-digital’?. In: Berry D.M., Dieter M. (eds) Postdigital Aesthetics. London: Palgrave Macmillan

DfE. 2013. The National Curriculum. [online] Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/425601/PRIMARY_national_curriculum.pdf (Accessed 24/11/2019).

Feenberg, A. 2002. Transforming Technology: a Critical theory revisited. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jenkins, H. 2013. Edutopia Big Thinkers Series, Available at: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gPm-c1wRsQ> [Accessed 09/10/2019].

Lindgren, S. 2017. ’Digital Society’ in Digital media and society: theories, topics and tools, 1st edition.: Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, pp. 3-25.

Pors and Rao. 2005. Uncle Command. [online] Available at: http://www.porsandrao.com/work/?workid=20 [Accessed 24/11/2019].

Strate, L. 2012. If It’s Neutral, It’s Not Technology. Educational Technology, 52(1), 6-9. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/44429

The Digital Media Musings of Mads

Understanding Digital Media and Society

MJM23 Future Data Scenario

The Appeal of a Creative City

Online Communities and Gender

Figure 2: Natalie Christopher (2017) outlining the aim of the Cyprus Girls Can initiative which brings together women in a supportive community.

Figure 3: The Mumsnet (2019) logo, showing women. But does this make men feel excluded or inferior?

Hashtagging and Activism

In a post digital society, will analogue soon become obsolete?