100th post

Wow, this thing is still here. Groovy.

Hope we're all well and happy. Have wonderful holidays full of learning and growth. Good luck with keeping your new year's resolutions!

(Nobody will ever read this, will they...)

Take care.

The End of the Course as we know it...

Okay, the major essays are all marked and can be collected from me in room G.07. I'll be in my office most of next week (Nov 15th - 19th), so please do come and pick your essays up.

Also, can I take this opportunity to thank you all: firstly, for your reflective posts which will be very useful in evaluating the course (and thanks for the kinds words about your tutor, too!); and, secondly, and most importantly, can I thank you all for your participation in the many facets of Self.Net. It has been a real pleasure running this course and being your tutor and participating in some fascinating conversations about all things digital which, I'm sure, will continue long after the course has faded in your memories!

I hope your increased critical awareness of digital culture serves you all well in the future, and with any luck I'll see a number of you in other courses, or doing Honours (since so many of you are writing at a level which would see you do very well in an honours program).

Byebye.

all's well that ends well

yes. i am a cyborg. Or if u like a computer nerdette. I love my computer and technology. It makes life easier and definitely lazier for me (no more walking to the mailbox with email in my room!). Cant seem to remember the time where fun was riding a bicycle or going to the park. Now fun equals computer games..even movies can be watched on my computer. I loved the portion of the course on culture jamming though. It was a new term to me and definitely expanded my horizon on media and self.

Initially i thought that the blog would not be helpful...then i discovered that it's sweet because it's something in black and white and can be accessed any time in the day. Ahh the conveniences of technology. However, the blog needs to be edited maybe more frequently (the layout/format of some of the posts need to be corrected.) I'm on 56k at home and it takes forever for the blog to load..sometimes the right hand nav bar appears at the bottom. Otherwise, i thought it was an extremely effective way of learning about the course and definitely the more interesting of the english units. Tama is an incredible tutor. Thank you Tama.

Compulsive blogging... :P

Hey everyone.

I thought my posting in here was getting a bit excessive, so I tried to lay off for a little while, but now I've come across some cool stuff and I can't help but share it with you! Heh.

Alright. So, first and most recently-come-across, we have the ultimate manifestation of online identity construction: the bot. See SexyGrrl16, created and controlled by Triffid_Hunter, for an example. (Bots per se aren't new to me, but this link to share with you is.) Notoriously found in chatrooms, bots are little programs designed to appear like fellow online users. Bots serve various functions; for example, to moderate real (whatever "real" means) users' behaviour in a chat room, to log and statistically analyze chat room content (example here), or to "interact" with, or at least respond to, other chatters -- this last function is usually primarily for the bot creator's amusement, and is exemplified in the case of SexyGrrl16.

And here we have a blog about female gamers, or women in gaming at least.

I thought there was something else I had stumbled across and wanted to show you but I can't find it now. Nevermind. :)

Hope we're all having a very enjoyable study break.

Ciao!

Greetings, fellow cyborgs.

A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of this essay, which I thought would be good for us all to read.

It starts off by suggesting to the reader that all creations are laden with the values of their creator(s), and that this is not always immediately apparent to the creator(s) but becomes so when excluded populations are discovered. From here the discussion develops into one of gender (female) representation in computer games.

I particularly like the way the author discusses real examples very closely and doesn't stray into an abstract argument based on opinions and potentialities. If you ask me for any negative criticisms I have about this essay, I'll need a while to think.

If you can't be bothered reading the essay itself, I think it's worthwhile reading the comments at the bottom of the page.

Cheers.

Matthew Soar's 'The First Things First Manifesto and the politics of culture jamming'

Main points of Soar’s article
1. Commercialism and advertising have taken graphic design to a slave/subordinate status level. The oppression of graphic design by advertising.

2. This oppression has effected the compromising or loss of values and purposes in the graphic design industry. Graphic design being used to promote consumer-capitalism, a means/tool used to push the “eyeballs” (audience) (p. 224 of reader, 577 of article) into buying non-essential products: social (ir)responsibility.

3. Graphic designers are largely unhappy with this social function; they do not identify with persuading people into consumerism (p. 224 of reader, 577 of article) – such persuasion is referred to as “sinning” (p. 223 of reader, 576 of article and 226 of reader, 579 of article). Designers are calling for a renewal of design’s values – a reintroduction of the First Things First Manifesto, seeking an ethical revolution.

4. Somewhere in the middle of the discussion Soar downplays the enemy status of advertising by voicing its side of the story: he interviews Richard Wilde, an “ad man” who mentions that advertising pays for many public service announcements (p. 226 of reader, 579 of article). Soar also points out that advertising is powered by societal values to begin with, and this is a running theme throughout the article. It is touched on that “Helfand thought that ‘intrinsically there’s nothing wrong with advertising’ – although she did feel that ‘marketing might be [the enemy]’.” e.g. “market research, focus groups and brand-building.” (p. 227 of reader, 580 of article). Soar also suggests that while graphic designers are uneasy about the ethics of their commercial work, this commercial work does provide for non-commercial and personal/expressive work.

5. This last point turns around into graphic designers having some degree of power in influencing/changing these societal values that can be used to 'clean out the cycle' and allow for graphic design to be put to 'better' use, e.g. “‘Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resource of design’.” (p. 219 of reader, 572 of article). Ideal instances of where this could take place are nominated in the Manifesto, "Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design projects" (p. 239 of reader, 592 of article).

6. Education as an arena for manifestation/experimentation of the implications of the Manifesto (p. 229 of reader, 582 of article).

What was missing from Soar’s article
1. More voices from advertising’s side of the argument. Many “ad men” are also all about community benefits, charitable causes, the greater good, and so on; although, I suppose they’re not of the commercial variety, which is Soar’s and the Manifesto’s/designers’ target.

2. The choice designers have re: who they work for. Statistics perhaps. How and why has design gained this alleged synonymity with advertising? It takes two to tango. e.g. the Manifesto (p. 239 of reader, 592 of article) reads, “Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many new graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do.” – how did it come to be this way?

3. Not only do “ad men” provide charitable ads but also, for example, Ronald McDonald House, Channel 9 Appealathon, Channel 7 Telethon, etc. Commercial advertising can be promoting charities too. Soar does not address this.

Tutorial questions from unit guide (answered with reference to Soar's article)
Is there space to resist the top-down domination of cultural capital?
Not really, but graphic designers will make room to do so.

If people are going to be reduced, in part, to a logo, they should have some agency in (re)designing those images.
Yes – this is implicit in designers’ attempts to renew standards: the Manifesto is their logo.

Does culture jamming succeed as a voice/platform of resistance?
Yes. e.g. “When power and control are foremost, moral purpose is reduced to whatever is popular . . . rather than to what is right.” (p. 219 in reader/572 in article) – culture jamming is aimed at realigning graphic design/advertising with what is right rather than (and so resisting against) what is popular. (Relates to Socratic philosophy.) Also, “graphic design ‘is a true guerilla art form’” (p. 227 of reader, 580 of article).

What does the controversy around the revival of the First Things First Manifesto say about the advertising and graphic design industry?
Industry or industries? This revival indicates that there are different and conflicting ideologies/sets of values in play. The advertising industry is allegedly socially irresponsible (although perhaps the finger should be pointed at marketing, not advertising per se).

Is there a relationship between digital activism such as culture jamming and face to face activism such as crowds protesting?
Naturally. The latter can be thought of as inspiring the former: face to face activism includes writing, signing and reviving the manifesto; digital activism includes the Adbusters’ 46ft billboard, insistence on putting graphic design to non-commercial use. Also “the promotion of activities such as Buy Nothing Day and TV TurnOff Week” (p. 219 of reader, 572 of article) .

Does the fact that culture jamming relies on the news media as a source mean that these forms will always be reactionary, never proactive?
That’s a chicken/egg question: Which came first? They’re both reactionary – to each other.

Other key quotes:
“Personal and non-commercial projects, often indirectly funded by income from business clients, appear to provide a more reliable means to creative fulfillment.” (p. 218 of reader, 571 of article)

“the manifesto proper and Adbusters’ framing of both First Things First and culture jamming . . . identify designers in particular as potent agents of positive social change.” (p. 219 of reader, 572 of article)

“‘[graphic design] is not an industry in which you need to purify the practice, but there might be some basic understandings, some general context in which we can define the values we bring to our work’.” (p. 222 of reader, 575 of article)

“‘there is an area of ambiguity about what is harmful, what is not, and so on’.” (p. 223 of reader, 576 of article)

“Bierut praised Adbusters in particular for ‘see[ing] design as an active tool in creating social change’.” (p. 224 of reader, 577 of article)

“it is through this kind of realization [of their role as mediators] that designers can come to a more grounded epiphany about the potential harm – or good – they can effect through their work practices.” (p. 225 of reader, 578 of article)

“[Kevin Lyons’] work is ‘informed by culture and politics’.” (p. 227 of reader, 580 of article)

“if graphics, ads and commercials are often so abundant in ideological cant, why not pay attention to the activities and beliefs of the highly skilled group that created them – the cultural intermediaries – with the ultimate aim of training and using such talent more responsibly . . . ?” (p. 233 of reader, 586 of article)

“cultural economy . . . holds the premise of opening up a critical space in which to further develop our understanding of the intermediaries and, by extension, contemporary culture.” (p. 233 of reader, 586 of article)

Related links:
1. Adbusters, http://adbusters.org/home/

2. Culture Jamming, http://www.levity.com/markdery/culturjam.html

The internet as a means for exploring the facets of humanity

Hey everybody.

I'm sorry if I didn't make much sense when I talked about "the documentary on SBS some time in the last week" in our tute today. I looked it up and found that the doco was broadcast at 10pm on Friday night. I haven't yet found an especially informative webpage about it to share with you, but I did find this short blurb about it:

10:00 pm DOCUMENTARY - THE CLITORIS - FORBIDDEN PLEASURE
Topics about female sexuality are growing in popularity. Magazines and talk shows all discuss it. Yet a fair percentage of women are said to suffer from female sexual dysfunction. While male sexual problems have traditionally received the most publicity, only recently has research begun into the problems that plague female sexuality. This film looks at the medical, cultural, psychological and relational reasons for women's dysfunction and explores female arousal and its anatomical basis. (From France, English subtitles) MA (S,N,A,) (Rpt)

The doco addressed the issue of sexuality, women's sexuality in particular, and argued that, in this day and age, there's not much point in trying to suppress or deny women's sexuality, as all humans are sexual creatures (although this conflicts with another doco aired on ABC that proposed some people's brains are more wired for religion than sex, but that's a whole other kettle of fish -- I wish I could find a more informative page than this). Women's sexuality, like so many other facets of humanity, does exist, and suppressing or denying that isn't doing us any favours.

Point being, as far as ethics on the internet are concerned, perhaps the internet is an ideal medium for exploring, revisiting, and expanding our ideas, including those ideas that aren't traditionally socially acceptable. For me, the real controversy lies not in the content of online material, but in the ramifications this content may have offline, and this raises the question of morality. For example, graphic images of a brutal murder online may be perfectly ethical, particularly if these images are completely synthesised; what is non-ethical, however (in my mind, at least) is a person's enactment of the murder scenario in the physical world.

This is what I was getting at when I said that the ethical soundness of the effects of online material come down to individuals' morality -- it's a matter of what the individual chooses to do with the ideas presented to them. Personally, I think it's important to not suppress or deny any facet of our humanity; to acknowledge, accept and deal with every facet in whichever way we see moral, and I think the internet is a suitable medium to explore these facets (as long as otherwise 'unethical' things do not find themselves in the physical world).

I hope this makes a bit more sense than my incoherent babble in the tute.

Peace out.

Diary of a Webdiarist - Margo Kingston

In a refreshingly personal piece, Kingston talks about the ethics, politics and decisions that frame her webdiary. In spaces such as this, the internet serves as an effective medium for the reader and the mass media to communicate. It is an open space with "no censorship, no boundaries" where people can openly air their views and comment on other people's opinions. Yet, as raised by the article, several issues come into consideration precisely because of the anonymity, boundary-free zones of internet and the ethics involved in publishing it into existence.

Being used to internet chatting software, i must admit that i found no problem with anonymity and using a nickname for all posting purposes. It was my 'online identity' However, in the case of more serious discussions, that may pose a problem. Nobody can take an individual with a nickname such as 'rainman' seriously. Yet, as Kingston brings to our attention, "journalists quote anonymous sources all the time". Whether it is to protect the identity of the individual or to warp our perception of events, the media makes the executive decision on the editorial of the article. It is definitely not ethical to present an article whose original meaning is different from the old, but does it cross the boundary when the sources contributing to the article are anonymous? In the article, it is mentioned that "Knowing how to use power responsibly is the essence of ethics" I thought that it was probably the most well written line in the whole article. The editor has a responsibility to present at least an unbiased factual account of events for the reader to make up his mind, not make up the mind of the reader for him. Web-ethics therefore actually refers to the professional ethics of the editor/ moderator. A slight transgression of this can be found in which the moderators of the site allows similar discussions on the leaders and politics of Australia with people using pseudonyms.(kingston,166) With this kind of anonymity, i would think that the public would be more inclined to 'let loose' with their posting.(Kingston,162)

Another aspect of the internet as a bridging medium is the 'doorless' feature where everything is accessible to anyone with the correct URL, and anyone can do and say anything they want. And the best part is that the individual can choose to metaphorically run back into his home and slam the door whenever he want by disconnecting from the internet and never responding to the same nickname again. Ethics here therefore not only lie on the onus of the moderator, but it takes two to clap. As Kingston repeatedly mentions, trust is feature of her website. Ethics is about fair play. Can the media then be considered ethical on that grounds considering that they shy away from making a channel of communication between the reader and themselves, which leaves the reader feeling powerless?(kingston,163)Do they have something to hide? Kingston further enforces the notion of a borderless community when she says that she says that she is not worried about the requirement of the code of ethics on the offensive material as "it is a deliberate choice [for the user] to log on". The user can choose not to log on, and when he/she does, that choice becomes their responsibility.

Kingston appears to have done a fairly good job with the ethical issue of keeping a webdiary. Coupled with David Davis, she has not only drafted a list of obligations to her readers, but also a list of ethics that she expects her readers to follow. This is more than the average journalist's effort to engage in fair play.

Technology + politics = blog

Hey all.

Some of us may or may not be interested in reading this "Cyborg democracy" blog. I found this entry particularly interesting. It introduced me to transhumanism, and if you're like me and aren't really aware of what that daunting word means, and would like to find out, you can read about it here.

Have a good one.