NMSsum07 – New Media Studies Autoblog, Summer 07

Just Czeching

Jim Groom — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 03:51:54 +0000

This isn’t exactly directly related to anything discussed in class, but as it is something internet-related, I’m going to claim relevance. I was going through a long, unfruitful, and highly convoluted process to track down my ancestry (namely, which physical traits originated in which countries) involving Google Image Search and came across this site. Here’s an excerpt:
“Finding a Czech wife
Every day we meet men from various parts of the world who are looking for a wife, a women for life, in the countries of Eastern Europe. They are often tired and even disgusted by the manner the women in their home country behave. That is why they have begun to search their bride in Eastern Europe. We have many times heard quite unbelievable stories and experience of men, our customers, with women from Western Europe and the USA. Stories of how women in their countries are mostly after money, their […]

Original post by arynna

Web 2.0: mindless vaccum? I think not.

Jim Groom — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 03:25:57 +0000

I’ve been perused Newsvine. The “Leaderboard” seemed to be a good place to see what other Newsviners like to read. One particular opinional, The Revolution Will Not Be Socialized — The Homogenization of Social Media by Killfile, caught my full attention.
Some see Web 2.0 socialization as nothing but a mindless faux pas, a metropolis for the masses to win their fifteen kilobytes of fame. Killfile makes a cogent argument for the case with a powerful clinch.
In seeking to be truly democratic, these networks relegate themselves to a perpetuity of side-line status, never serious or significant enough to eclipse edited, moderated, and regimented media for more than a fleeting moment.

This is precisely the reason why it is so important to develop a new system of online communication. In its present stage, the internet nearly in anarchy. Anything is utterable. One could even get away with libel in most situations. Don’t get me wrong, though; the nature of open online socialization allows […]

Original post by humanisticmystic

Exploring Newsvine

Jim Groom — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 22:35:32 +0000

Once again, another webgem has surfaced. Newsvine is a completely user-controlled news website. It encompasses many of the characteristics of a self-efficiency that I am interested in studying, especially those of bound structure social networking. Newsvine works like a blog in that users create a profile and post an entry. In this case, entries are expected to function like news articles rather than personal logging. Right now what interests me most with regard to the class is the system used for developing reputation, which focuses on how many users “follow” one another rather than how users arbitrarily “rate” one another. Very interesting stuff.
You can follow my Newsvine activity at http://mooreblogs.newsvine.com or you can subscribe to my RSS. Alongside this, I will be exploring Urbis as well. I already own an Urbis account, but it will be interesting to study the website under a new frame of thought.

Original post by humanisticmystic

Useless Body Parts

Jim Groom — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 16:34:07 +0000

Useless Body Parts
Which body parts are useless? Go look, it’s actually pretty entertaining… well to me it is.

Original post by Amanda

Creativity

Jim Groom — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 16:07:16 +0000

“All creativity can be understood as taking in the world as a problem.”
I know we already talked this one to death, but I’m feeling the need to explore it further. We explored the nature of the statement, but not really the statement itself. We asked what was meant by “creativity”. What qualifies as creativity? What is the connotation of the word “problem” in this context? Why is it phrased as “taking in” rather than “approaching”? Is it even possible to approach these question in a way that produces answers?
I think the only way I’m going to get anywhere with this–and the only way any of us can, really–is to use whatever interpretation that is meaningful for me personally. When I create art, in whatever form it takes, am I doing it because I’m trying to address a condition that is present in my world and important to me? I […]

Original post by arynna

Grock Insight

Jim Groom — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 03:55:00 +0000

So as usual, my magnificent blogging ideas have sufficiently dimished since returning home from class because most of them have left my head already (which is sad so because I had such high hopes).

I guess the main points that stood out to me the most from class today, centralized around the concepts of insight, and grock. (My father always said I was coma happy, so do, not, mind, all, of, the comas, I use). As I mentioned in class, it absolutely astonishes me how Vannevar Bush (p.s. sweet name…hold please I am going to go google the name meaning…rarrh! I can not find a name meaning behind Vannevar which makes me even more curious than my initial curiosity…I suppose I will come back to this later) Anywayyyy back to where what I was talking about…How in this great vast world that we live on did Vannevar ( I will refer […]

Original post by Peanut!

Jim Groom — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 01:38:58 +0000

I have to admit, sitting at a computer is not my thing. But, it never hurts to step outside the box once in a while. It keeps your mind sharp!

Original post by shelly

New Media empowering the silenced

Jim Groom — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 05:06:32 +0000

A washingtonpost.com article, Giving Voice to Chinese, explains how Chinese environmentalists were able to muster people together to protest the construction of a new factory by communicating with cell phones.
It was a dramatic illustration of the potential of technology — particularly cellphones and the Internet — to challenge the rigorous censorship and political controls…

That is awesome. The Chinese government has earned itself a bad reputation for censorship. For a thorough exampe, read this excerpt from Esse est indicato in Google on the Chinese internet censorship:
Email appears to be filtered at the service provider level, not at the backbone level, and increasingly sophisticated anti-spam filtering software can also be modified for use in political filtering. Blog provides are carefully monitored through keyword filtering, and politically incorrect bloggers are typically removed quickly from the servers. Within China, when one looks for Google, one often reaches alternative search engines such […]

Original post by humanisticmystic

A Blog for all Occasions

Jim Groom — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 04:32:46 +0000

So…when it comes to blogging I am rather like my sister. I’m still pretty new to this whole “write down your thoughts for everyone to see” thing. I’ve got a myspace account which allows me to blog as well, but so far in the last 3 years that I’ve had my account I’ve written probably six blogs. Most of my writing style revolves around being sarcastic, so most of what I have to say is a running commentary of whatever annoys me enough to write.
Class was interesting last night. I was afraid for a while that the course would be lecture based, which boded poorly for me as I am known to stealth nap in such classes. Fortunately, it turned out to be very discussion based….nay, engaging discussion based, so I’m thinking that this will be a better month than I mapped it out to be.
In particular, I liked our […]

Original post by georgestreet

Social networking class divisions

Jim Groom — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 02:49:10 +0000

Two days ago, an interesting article caught my eye on BBC News. Reference is made to ethnographer Danah Boyd, PhD, who makes many observations in a non-scholarly blog essay regarding a social schism between Facebook and MySpace. Already, the blog post has received feedback from over 200 people. Essentially, Boyd argues that there is a strongly visible trend for the elite, educated, “hegemonic” teenagers to flock to Facebook while the socially ostracized teenagers swarm to MySpace.
Indeed many experienced social networkers, including myself, have commented on the apparent superiority of Facebook to MySpace. To many Facebookers, there seems to be this upper class prestige that comes with the Facebook network. This probably has to do with its history. Facebook was once restricted only to college students. Then the site gradually opened itself fully to the public, which perturbed a great deal of Facebook veterans who preferred the more intimate environment.
Still, […]

Original post by humanisticmystic