TECH2002 Studies in Digital Technology

Lecture Week 1

Introductions 1

Andrew Clay

Studies in Digital Technology?

• Media technology in a social and technical context

• Emphasis on digital technology and culture

CD Mixtape task

Celestial jukeboxcelestial jukebox

Personalised Online Radio (POR)

‘Music Like Water’ (Kusek and Leonhard, 2005)

• ‘Music fans are completely awash with music, and digital music has become the new radio for the Internet generation. Digital technologies have been totally and unobtrusively integrated into the lifestyle of new generations of teens and young adults’ (p.6)

Audiocassette

• Developed in the mid-1960s

• Leading format in 1980s• Copy, share, playlist,

compile • cassette culture of

production• Mobility – cassette

‘Walkman’

Culture of Production

Teaching and Learning Programme• Subject area

– digital technology– new media, social media, Web 2.0, participation culture, and online video such as YouTube.

• Academic writing– Reading, research, writing, presentation

• Media communication and literacy– Individual and collaborative media tools

Subject of Study

Online media, social media, Web 2.0

Participatory media culture

Online video technology

Digital Technology

Academic Study

Darley, A. (2000) Visual Digital Culture, London, Routledge.Flew, T. (2008) New Media: An Introduction (3rd Edition), South Melbourne, Oxford University Press. Mayfield, A. (2007) What is social media? [WWW]. Available from: http://www.icrossing.co.uk/fileadmin/uploads/eBooks/ (Accessed 24/09/08).

Module Learning Environment

Assessment

• Coursework [50%] – YouTube Research Project– Component 1 (10%) Presentation

– Component 2 (15%) Research Paper– Component 3 (25%) YouTube Video

• Component 4 Exam [50%] – 2 hour unseen exam

Participatory Culture

• ‘Participatory culture is a term that is often used to talk about the apparent link between more accessible digital technologies, user-created content, and some kind of shift in the power relations between media industries and their consumers’ (Burgess and Green 2009, p.10)

New media = digital media?

• ‘New media can also be thought of as digital media. Digital media are forms of media content that combine and integrate data, text, sound, and images of all kinds; are stored in digital formats; and are increasingly distributed through networks such as those based on broadband fibre-optic cables, satellites, and microwave transmission systems’ (Flew 2008, pp.2-3)

New media (Flew 2008)• Convergence

of computing, communications and content (media) [‘three Cs’]

What is new for society about new media?

• New social practices?– Artefacts and devices that allow

communication– Communication activities and

practices– Social arrangements and

organisations formed around devices and practices

Audiences, texts, industriesproductionrepresentationconsumption model

audience

text industrya model more suitable for thinking about ‘mass communications’ (cinema, radio, television, and so on)

The Internet and WWW as New Media• ‘The concept of new media is integrally

bound up with the history of the Internet and the World Wide Web’ (Flew 2008, p.4)

Web 2.0

• ‘The concept of Web 2.0 is centrally important to understanding new media in the 21st century’ (Flew 2008, p.16)

Web 2.0 video for a viral advert competion by Leo Bridle and Leo Powell

http://www.leobridlefilms.co.uk/Pop-ups/firstpost-flash2.html

Web 2.0• an idea about a second generation of web

services and tools that emerged around 2004

Web 2.0

• Participation• Interactivity• Collaborative

learning• Social

networking• Collective

intelligence

Electronically mediated communication (telephones, mobile phones, the internet)

• don’t study media in isolation, but study the social and cultural context of which the media is a part (Moores, 2005)

• time-space relations, interactions and sociabilities, meanings, and experiences

Text messaging

• teenagers and text messaging• ‘...text messaging influences how

teenagers feel about themselves...often mediating intimate relations and becoming a repository for precious memories and gifts’ (McCarthy and Wright, 2004, p.108)

Technology as experience

• ‘We don’t just use technology; we live with it. Much more deeply than ever before, we are aware that interacting with technology involves us emotionally, intellectually and sensually’ (McCarthy and Wright, 2004, p.ix)

• Our technoid lives• The attempt to understand and evaluate how we

use technology as part of our mundane and extraordinary everyday lives is one of the most important ways that we become good technologists

• As critical technical practitioners we should think about and investigate the social significance of new technologies and explore and evaluate them by using them to make things – ‘learning by doing’ with the insight of theory and critical reflection

Blogs are social media• Blog software and tools are social media• They allow people to mediate their lives and

share this media with other people• People are connected through reading and

writing, watching and listening• Bloggers integrate convergent media into their

everyday lives and turn their everyday life into media

• Blogging is both technological experience of everyday life and media representation of our everyday lives

Social Media

• ‘What's changed is that where once tools for media creation and publishing were controlled by an elite, digital technology is increasingly putting them into our hands. We can consume, interact with, create and share media more freely than ever - and this changes the power relationship between us and the mainstream media. We are entering the age of social media’.

Anthony LilleyThe Royal Television Society Huw Wheldon Memorial

Lecture 2007

(Mayfield, 2007, p.5)

Arseblog

• ‘Arseblog does not just provide a daily outlet for its author’s obsession. His daily posts provoke lively discussion often attracting hundreds of contributions and supply a round up of the news in the online and offline editions of all the British newspapers, as well as from France and Spain where many Arsenal players come from. The site links to and often quotes from the other fifteen decent blogs about Arsenal, as well as dipping into blogs run by fans of other clubs’ (Leadbeater 2008)

Arseblog and Web 2.0

• ‘Arseblog is a perfect example of how Web 2.0 is changing how people relate to information and media. The web provides many more niches for people to start a conversation on something about which they feel passionately. The old, industrial media, newspapers and television, do not have enough room to cater for all the minority interests of their readers and listeners’ (Leadbeater, 2008)

tagging

• a tag is a keyword assigned to a piece of information

• metadata – data about data• sorting, aggregating, identifying,

describing with personal markers

folksonomy (Thomas Van Der Wal)• folks (people) + taxonomy

(classification)• personal tagging in a social

environment• tag venues (websites) allow users to

connect by providing hooks, vocabulary (tags)

Studentship: module participation• Take control of your learning• Taking part through attendance

and the fulfillment of various tasks, individual and collaborative, that while not formally contributing to overall assessment will allow you to gauge your progress and allow me to provide feedback

• ‘Participation points’

Week 1 Tasks• Research Task [3 annotated citations in a Word doc] (50)• One minute YouTube video documentary about

audiocassettes and/or mixtapes (50)• Creating a research study blog on Wordpress.com (50)• Creating a CD mixtape lasting 60 minutes with art work

and tracklist (50)• Joining Spotify (50)• Producing a Spotify playlist posted on

Sharemyplaylists.com (50)•  • Current Participation Points Total (300)

Micro-blogging: Twitter

#tech2002

(50)

BibliographyBurgess, J. and Green, J. (2009) YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture, Cambridge, Polity.Flew, T. (2008) New Media: An Introduction (3rd Edition), South Melbourne, Oxford University Press.Kusek, D. and Leonhard, G. (2005) The Future of Music, Boston, Berklee Press.Leadbeater, C. (2008) We Think [WWW] Available at http://www.charlesleadbeater.net/cms/xstandard/Rev%20Ch%20Two.pdf (Accessed 3/10/08)Lilley, A. (2007) ‘The Me in Media: Participation, Interactivity and the Rise of the People formerly known as the audience’, The Royal Television Society Huw Wheldon Memorial Lecture 2007.Mayfield, A. (2007) What is social media? [WWW] Available at http://www.icrossing.co.uk/fileadmin/uploads/eBooks/ What_is_social_media_Nov_2007.pdf (Accessed 24/09/08).Moores, S. (2005) Media/Theory: Thinking About Media and Communications, London and New York, Routledge.