Taks 1 Week 2

d) p.12 Is there a clean break between analogue and digital media (cf. Bolter and Grusin’s concept of ‘remediation’)? Can you identify any commonalities? For example, is email based on the language of ‘letters’ and ‘the postal service’ because we have tried to fashion its communication functions in terms we are already familiar with?

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Analogue media is different to Digital media in the sense that analogue is distributed to the masses, no real involvement in the process that media takes to be delivered to the user, it is just there at your disposal. Whereas digital media creates a sense of involvement or interactivity. It can, as Lister et al. state, offer, "New textual experiences [which include] new kinds of genre, textual form, entertainment, pleasure and patterns of media consumption". In conjunction with the satement is e-mail like nthe postal service? It is clear to see that there are some commonalities between the two, some of these are that they are the written word just produced in different formats and that the receiver of the letter or e-mail can consume the information anytime they want once they have received it. However, there are differences, mainly due to the technology within the e-mail. E-mails are received almost instantly, they can contain information linked to the world wide web (available at the click of a button).

Task 1 Week 2

f) p. 21 What do you make of Lunenfield’s concept of ‘immersive interactivity’? What could we apply it to?

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Looking Lunenfield's concept of 'immersive interactivity', it is possible to see that new media has created realms of existence for its user, as Lunenfield looks at the 3D game tomb raider. This ability to control a character in a 3D world makes the user feel as if the are actually experiencing the spacial and visual effects created by this new media, immersing the user in the games surroundings and making them feel as if the they are interacting with the virtual world. This aspect of creating immersed interactivity for the user within games can also be taken into consideration for the game, 'World of Warcraft', this online game takes immersed interactivity within 3D games to another level. It does this by again allowing the user to interact with the virtual 3D world, but also because it is an online game with millions of users, you have the ability to talk and interact with others experiencing the immersed interactivity of the virtual 3D world.

Task 1 Week 2

c) p.11 Are new media a source of ‘progress’ in the sense that they enhance things we do in spheres of social activity – business, education, shopping, democracy etc? Could we say that such a proposition involves an ‘ideology of progress’?

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New Media is a realm of possibility. Where nearly anything is possible, for example, looking at ebay, there is not only the possibilty of shopping online and getting its delivered to your doorstep but there are people who make a living buying and selling on the website, people have created ebay stores becoming entrepreneurs, place of commerce, so within one website there is consumption and distribution. All possible because of the New Media.

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New media has also helped the evolution of education, Learn Direct is an organisation that provides you with courses to help educate and further your skills. You learn from home either by getting the materials sent to your door or you can do the courses over the internet. So with new media there is the ability to progress with in education.

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New media does produce an 'ideology of progress' by creating these realms of availability for the consumer, whether it be the possibilty to further your educational skills, or whether it be changing your consumption habbits by buying off the internet and even becoming a business through the internet (a realm of new media).

Task 1 Week 2

a) p. 2 With Windows Vista replacing XP and Office 2007 replacing Office 2003, (and so on), what is ‘upgrade culture’ all about? Is some new media change just consumerism thought up by big business?

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'Upgrade Culture' is a word that is used to summarise the ever changing technological realm of new media. This process of change can be said to of started in the mid 1980's when there was the emergence of early "image manipulation software". In terms of big businesses using new media to create more consumption of their products, there are two ways of looking at it; 1, is that the ability to create better technology, such as, vista compared to XP and Office 2007 to 2003, has taken time because the ability to create this technology simply wasnt there. 2, synics can look upon this and say that the big businesses already have new and better technology to distribute but what is the point of them releasing the very best when they can earn more money by releasing it slowly.

Task 2 Week 1

I have chosen to focus on the Joseph Gobbels speech as my task for this week.

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A) Gobbels states, "The old regime was content simply to fill empty offices or change the faces, without however changing the spirit and content of public life. We on the other hand intend a principled transformation in the worldview of our entire society, a revolution of the greatest possible extent that will leave nothing out, changing the life of our nation in every regard." showing that in their political agenda they were not just concerned with changing peoples lives within work and the home but by changing their social experience of living under the Nazi regime, using the radio as "Volksempfänger" which is German for the 'people's receiver'.

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B) Gobbels' views would have been seen as normal, because we in society today are always being astounded by the 'new media' that is given to our society, whether it be, ipod, iphone, HD tv, DAB radio. He was certain that radio in the 20th Century would be the printing press of the 19th Century. For example, "The radio will be for the twentieth century what the press was for the nineteenth century. With the appropriate change, one can apply Napoleon's phrase to our age, speaking of the radio as the eighth great power."

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C)The Internet has allowed social change, in the sense of interacting with others. We can have our shopping delivered to our door step, talk to our friends through e-mail and social networking sites such as facebook and work from home. So the internet has given us the ability to live our lives without leaving our houses. This was seen as a utopian state but now can be seen as a moral panic.

Reading For Week 1

Interactivity is a key word within new media. It has a cultural significance in th form of mass consumption, "Being interactive means that we are no longer the passive consumers of identical ranges of mass-produced goods, whteher intellectual or material." (Lister et al). This ability to break away from the mass produced ideological products of todays society allows differnt classes to access the lives and means of different class structures.

Reading For Week 1

'New media' has broken away from the the 'old media' and into our everyday lives, it has "captured our imaginations" and because it has become such a phenomenon, "it shows little sign of becoming redundant".

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From page 10 of New Media: A critical introduction, Lister et al suggest that 'new media' is unsettled and is in a state of constant change compared to 'the media' which is far more controlled and in a settled state of equillibrium. New media has had such a cultural and economic effect on the society that we live in today with it changing constantly, key terms such as globilisation, modernity and post-modernity are used to explain how new media has effected the economic structure and how society has changed in order to adapt to this shift. New media has also created a 'post-industrial' age (Catells, 2000), where in western socities the main commerce is now to produce "goods to service and information industries", (Castells, 2000). The post-industrial society has created jobs that require better skills and better education to cope with the shift in employment. This is because the industrial age has been passed onto eastern socities where production of goods is cheaper so that the post industrial business can invest more and gain more profit.

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Strating My Blog

This is my first blogg that i have ever had, so the idea of blogging is still ne wto me. But with the help in the workshop form Dave it has been easy to start the process of blogging.
I know that from the lectures and seminars i have to be blogging at least three times a week posting my ideas and thoughts about the reading material, 'New Media: A Critical Introduction', my first post about this will follow on from this post.
Dave went over certain principles of blogging with me and the group. One principle was the idea of using 'Rincy' on colleagues work to show that you have read it but have no comment to give at this time. We also learnt that bloggs sometimes struggle to seperate parargraphs so for this we should use five XXXXX's to break up our work.
With this stated I feel that I am equiped to tackle the aspect of blogging.

first time for everything

Hi everyone, this is my first blog, i dont know what i am doing yet!

label is 'first blog'

this is fun...fun times...

Love
Ali