Flickr Blog

           Our Flickr story was called The Attack of the Purple Dragon.  The first scene depicted a peaceful evening on campus as the group is dropping a friend off at the grill.  On the way back, the peaceful evening is changed as the second scene revealed a tipped over bicycle, followed with a dragon shadow against the moon.  This leads to a panic of our group, which is depicted by the scared expressions on their faces when confronted by the beast.  Unfortunately, in the next scene the first of the three deaths are shown.  Luckily for Lawrence University, a courageous student fights off the dragon. The student then makes the front page of the Lawrentian the following day.   

            While preparing for the project we brainstormed ideas eventually deciding on a dragon attack.  We thought that it would be interesting and would provide some cool action shots.  From here we met and began to write out a template of how the story would go and what type of shots would be included for each frame.  We found Flickr to be a really easy tool to use and had the photos uploaded, described, and tagged in less than 15 minutes.  The tags we chose to use were usually a word that described the scene or what was in the scene.  We used these tags so that if people searched for those keywords our photoshoot would show up.

             I could see where Flickr could be a great tool to get ideas and images across the web for other people to see. Photos are randomly cycled through each time the page is refreshed, and by searching for a phrase allowing users to find tagged images.   Since it is a free website people can easily upload images, arrange them in any order, and then share them via Facebook, email, or Twitter. The tool allows for people to set shots, and get the right feeling or emotions for what they would like to convey to the audience.  It also allows for many shots to be uploaded from more than one user, the uploaders can pick and choose which shot worked best. For instance our group could have separated into two teams and taken shots at different locations, the same can be done with any two people, anywhere, who share the same account. Flickr offers a way of self-expression, collaborative photography, and even practice for aspiring photographers. Like Youtube, Flickr provides people a way to go from a no name to a professional photographer. Overall Flickr was an effective, fun, and easy to use for our project.

Everyone is a Media Outlet: Twitter's impact on news

            The readings of Clay Shirky’s Everyone’s a Media Outlet, was a very interesting topic.  Shirky states that, “control over the media is less completely in the hands of the professionals.”  Shirky sees that the mass movement of news online through social media such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook on the  “web created a new ecosystem.”  Shirky argues that due to the information on the web that; “news can break into public consciousness without the traditional press weighing in. Indeed, the news media can end up covering the story because something has broken into public consciousness via other means.” 

            Shirky provides us with the example of Trent Lott, who received negative press coverage following comments regarding hiss support of Strom Thurmond.  While this may not seem unusual the fact was that the story was first spread online, if not for this the corporate media may have never picked the story up.  This clearly shows the impact of amateur journalists in creating and spreading news.  In fact, not only do they spread news, but sometimes web users can capture images of news stories before the press.  Social media outlets provide anyone who witnesses an event with a smartphone to capture images and tweet, upload to facebook, or blog about them. 

            Such is the case of the Hudson River crash in 2009. This happened when the plane struck a flock of geese, lost power in both engines, and was forced to make a crash landing in the Hudson River. This became known as the Miracle on the Hudson, and thrust Captain Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger into the national spotlight for his safe landing.  When the plane crashed within four minutes someone had tweeted about how they had witnessed the crash.  This was done fifteen minutes before the mainstream media had even heard of the story.  This upholds Shiry’s argument showing that everyone has the possibility to become a news outlet even beating the traditional press to the story.  Although it doesn’t stop with just breaking the story, soon after the first tweet many photos were uploaded to twitter showing the miraculous landing.  These images were circulated through blogs and played on national news media that used both photos and videos of the crash when covering the story. This upholds Shirky's ideas of mainstream media covering topics that have originated in other places than traditional media.  Shirky claim of the web creating a new ecosystem is also proven in this example.  The ability to quickly capture events as they unfold has placed more power in the hands of the amateurs and also has allowed for a new way for stories to be brought to the attention of the world. 

Noble Amateur revised edition

In the reading of the Cult of the Amateur, by Andrew Keen, he makes the argument against what he calls the “noble amateur.”  Keen argues that the noble amateur posses the threat of “killing our culture” by increasing democratic participation of hobbyists with no formal education on the subject they are covering. Keen argues that this would lead to a decline in beneficial information.  Keen is concerned that amateurs undermine the professionals and the institutions that educate them. 

            Keen provides many examples to elaborate on his argument such as the problems with citizen journalism and Wikipedia.  While Keen sees any form of amateurism as being detrimental to the culture, that is not always the case.  The Ushahidi application is a great example of how amateurism can benefit the culture.  The application originally was started as a blog of citizen journalism, and evolved into a system that greatly enriched the culture.  The application was originally a blog called the Kenyan Pundit, which was crafted by Ory Okolloh, a citizen journalist, to provide information on the violence occurring in Kenya during political unrest that had shut down the printed press. 

            The Ushahidi system is a mapping application that allows fellow amateurs to upload points on a map where civil unrest is taking place.  Two programmers who read Okolloh’s blog and wanted to help developed the mapping technology.  This shows that Keen’s ideas on amateurs being a threat to undermining the culture, when in reality these amateurs are providing the culture with a new and influential program.  This citizen journalism in this situation doesn’t pose a threat to professional institutions but instead developed a now worldwide system of mapping crisis.  In fact, Ushahidi actually works together with professionals such as media organization and international humanitarian bodies. By providing the areas of violence, news organizations can get there faster and report on the story.  This program wasn’t just confounded to Kenya and instead provides areas throughout the world with crisis information and locations on google maps, for instance places with severe droughts use Ushahidi to coordinate relief efforts.  This goes against Keen’s concern on amateur’s posting false or poor information, in reality amateurs actually seem to enjoy benefiting the community, rather than attempting to harm it. 

Convergence Culture

During this weeks reading of the Worship at the Altar of Convergence, by Henry Jenkins, he describes the idea of a rising convergence culture.  Jenkins proposes that the forms of media are not only flowing across multiple platforms through collaborative efforts between consumers and producers.  However, Jenkins argues that not only is entertainment being converged through multiple media technologies, but “Our lives, relationships, memories, fantasies, desires also flow across media channels.” 

            He states that convergence is a change in the way media is both produced and consumed.  The pull and tug from the consumer and producers forces companies to innovate in how they produce advertisement to the consumers. He argues that companies are developing ways to accelerate the flow of media content across channels to expand revenue and broaden markets.  As the users begin to become more involved in the new media technologies companies are forced to rethink old assumptions and create news ways to collect and retain consumers. 

            One such way companies are adapting to the evolving convergence culture is through collaboration with the social network giant Facebook.  The article, (http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/29/technology/facebook_ticker_privacy/index.htm) I have chosen shows how Facebook is now using multiple platforms of media that the user “likes” to advertise for other companies.  This idea relates to Jenkin’s argument because the media companies have found a way to advertise through a person’s likes a dislikes thereby broadening their brand through the user.   It also furthers his point because users are actively participating, and as a result are becoming personal billboards. For instance some apps downloaded on a smartphone require the user to log into Facebook in order to use it. Whatever that user does on the app, such as listening to a song on Spotify, will be displayed on Facebook.  People on Facebook can comment on why they liked the game, movie, or song as a result further fueling interests for their friends who are considering using the content.  The flow of our personal information across the social media landscape is allowing companies to create cheap ways of advertising their products, which exemplifies Jenkin’s argument.

AIM Blog

I thought that the readings of the last two weeks have been very interesting.  In particular the article Introduction: Identity in the Age of the Internet, Sherry Turkle was thought provoking.  One of her main points is that due to the anonymity of the   MUDs gives “people the chance to express multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self, to play with their identity and try out new ones.” I believe that this point translates well into our AIM project.  The extent to which someone creates an alternate persona online is influenced by anonymity and the creativity of their own self. 

During the week I have had the chance to talk with two classmates made up personas.  Both classmates were acting as elderly men.  One was a Special Forces mentor who was called back into the forces to train the cadets, and the other was a depressing, earless, cat fearing old man.  These personas were both filled with fun quirks or views on the world that may or may not be the same as the author.  The change from real life to the Internet allowed the authors to act as someone completely different or as close to their true self as they wanted. 

I believe that Turkle’s point is upheld in the AIM project because the authors had the ability to use and include as much or as little of their normal personality as they had wanted.  The project also allowed the authors to explore a different life, one that may have more authoritative perspective or a very different view of the world, that the authors might not have shared without the anonymity of the Internet.  I also think that her argument shows that people who make up a different persona on the Internet have the ability to think from a different perspective to stay in character.  These multiple aspects of the self can be taken to whatever extent of creativity that the authors chose to use.  This idea further reflects the implication of playing with the identity.  Overall I thought of this project as an interesting mini case study of how easily people can develop a false identity in the virtual realm.