Essay topic

For this assessment, I have chosen the following topic - 

"Does the extensive use of social media have a positive or negative impact on the health of young people? What are the most recent academic papers on this topic? Clarify what all sides of the argument claim and only then offer your reasoned opinion based on facts."

Information Warfare and Military Propaganda

Information Warfare and Propaganda 

The discussion on the relationship between the United States government and Hollywood in this weeks reading was intriguing - particularly the examination of post-September 11 developments.

The construction of the Jessica Lynch story was shocking. It provides a stark example of how the war in Iraq "saw the military-entertainment complex move to an even more heightened level of information war" (Muir and Stockwell, 2003). The distortion of the facts surrounding her apparent capture and subsequent 'rescue' can only be described as blatant propaganda, aimed at glorifying the American 'heroes' in Iraq and demonizing the Iraqi people. A Washington Post story, "citing US officials" stated that Lynch "shot several enemy soldiers...firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition" (Kumar 2004). In reality her weapon was, in fact, jammed, and she "did not fight back" (Kumar 2004). The so called rescue of Lynch, which was incidentally filmed by the military, was apparently unnecessary, as "the US knew that the Iraqi military had fled the hospital the day before" (Kumar 2004).

A 2003 BBC report on the issue challenged many of the claims made by the US military, although it had little impact on the American media coverage (Kumar 2004).

References

Kumar, D 2004, 'War Propaganda and the (ab)uses of women: media constructions of the Jessica Lynch story', Feminist Media Studies, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 297-313

Muir, A and Stephen Stockwell 2003,  'The Military Entertainment Complex: A New Facet of Information Warfare', Fibreculture Journal, vol. 1, no. 1.

Tutorial Questions

Has anybody responded to your questionnaire from last week?
I've had several responses to my questionnaire. 
 
What are the early indicators from your survey?
Early indicators suggest that Facebook remains the most popular social networking site. While a minority of those who replied are active on other social network sites such as Twitter, time spent on Facebook is still higher than on other sites. One of the questions I included in the survey was aimed at identifying whether time spent on social network sites has increased, decreased or remained the same over the past six months. The majority of respondents replied that their time spent on the sites has decreased minimally.
 
What do your musical choices say about your political choices? Are they related?
This is an interesting question. Does musical taste have any correlation with political leanings? While ideas such as country music fans being likely Republican voters doesn't sound overly surprising, it does seem like a stereotypical classification.

Is Wikileaks a force for good in the world?
In my opinion, organizations such as Wikileaks are good for the world. In the democratic sphere, transparency is a necessity. But in the current climate, what kind of longevity can these organizations maintain?


A few interesting articles and websites on internet censorship in Australia -

http://www.afr.com/p/technology/fears_rise_over_australian_government_m9S65GeyxBVtcIIxWpyojL

http://www.internetblackout.com.au/

https://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/cens1.html

Tutorial Activities 

Vote Compass: my results - http://www.abc.net.au/votecompass/?hash=9990f2e8406485229c8359267fd3885d364aae7015d1377752324


 National Broadband Network - according to the NBN Rollout website, the NBN will not reach my area until 2016.


Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are. Send one a message.

State representative: Jackie Trad (QLD ALP)
Federal representative: Kevin Rudd (ALP)


Obama speech on 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King speech

E-petition fro the Australian Greens website - http://greensmps.org.au/content/petition/support-our-children-boosting-number-qualified-early-childcare-teachers

Social Networking Sites

TUTORIAL TASK

I created a survey on usage of social networking sites using SurveyMonkey. My questions mainly focused on user history of social media sites, time spent online and their effects on socialising in person. Initial results indicate that those surveyed have increased online activity over the past six months and that Facebook is still their primary online social network. More detailed results will be posted next week.


READINGS

This weeks readings provided a detailed analysis of the history and nature of social networking sites. The concept of churn seems highly significant to the study of social media, with the idea that such sites do have a shelf life. It will be interesting to see if and when Facebook succumbs to the churn.

Another interesting aspect of the readings was the early history of social networking sites in the Boyd and Ellison article (2007). MySpace was the earliest social network site that I was aware of, and I was a little surprised to learn that the first site to incorporate features such as profiles, sending messages, friend lists and the ability to "surf the Friends list" (Boyd & Ellison, 2007) was SixDegrees.com back in 1997/1998.

References

Boyd, D and Nicole Ellison 2007, 'Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship', Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, vol. 13, no. 1.

Cyberspace and Cyberpunk

Here's a timeline on the history of cyberpunk that I created using Tiki Toki:

http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/151622/Cyberpunk/#vars!date=1988-02-06_20:02:34!

Cyberpunk - themes

I quite enjoyed this week's Cyberpunk theme. Blade Runner is one of my favourite films and it poses some very interesting questions about the future of technology and cybernetics. Can machines feel emotion? Can they grow beyond their programming?

William Gibson's 'Burning Chrome' was a fascinating story, although I think repeated readings would definitely be helpful in gaining a better understanding of some aspects. I wasn't actually aware of Gibson's work prior to reading this story (although I believe I may have seen an episode of the X-Files which he wrote), but I fully intend to look into more of his work.

As Steve mentioned in the lecture, dystopian themes seem to play an important role in Cyberpunk works. Paul F. Starrs, in his article 'The matric, cyberpunk literature and the apocalyptic landscapes of information technology' (1995) provides an interesting analysis of the genre -  he states that "cyberpunk science fiction is profoundly dystopian, while preserving an almost absolute faith in the ability of individuals, acting alone, to outwit and avoid any universalizing culture. Free will--to explore, flaunt, steal, pioneer--is as much a part of the conception of cyberspace and the cyberpunks as it ever was on the American frontier".


References

Starrs, P 1995, 'The matrix, cyberpunk literature and the apocalyptic landscapes of information technology',  Information Technology and Libraries, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 251-256.

Referencing and databases

Familiarise yourself with Griffith University's library catalogue.

• Which of Stephen Stockwell's books are in the Griffith library? Give full citations.

Stockwell, S 2005, Political Campaign Strategy: doing democracy in the 21st century, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne.

Scott, P & Stockwell, S 2000, All-media guide to fair and cross-cultural reporting, for journalists, program markers and media students, Australian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy, Nathan.

• Cite three academic books that might provide useful material for an essay about Jean Luc Godard's Alphaville. On which campuses do they reside?

Brody, R 2008, Everything is Cinema: The working life of Jean Luc Godard, Metropolitan Books, New York. (Nathan Campus)

Dixon, W 1997, The films of Jean Luc Godard, State University of New York Press, Albany. (Gold Coast campus)

Meehan, P 2008, Tech-noir: the fusion of science fiction and film noir, McFarland, Jefferson, N.C. (South Bank campus)

• What is a book that will assist you to find out about possible research methods to explore social media? Full citation.

Poynter, R 2010, The handbook of online and social media research: tools and techniques for market researchers, Wiley, New York.






Familiarise yourself with the databases available through Griffith University's databases and find the answers to the questions below.

• Stephen Stockwell writes about politics and the media, particularly in Australia. What database would you use to find his first academic article about Brisbane in a national journal? What year? Provide a full citation.

Stockwell, S 2007, 'Alternative media in Brisbane: 1965-1985', Queensland Review, vol 14. no. 1, pp. 75-88.

• What is the latest medical thinking about internet addiction? What database did you use? Full citation.

Kang, I, Park, C & Shin, M 2013, 'Internet addiction as a manageable resource: a focus on social network services', Online Information Review, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 28-41, viewed August 9 2013, via ABI/INFORM Global.

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Social media

Social media has been a great way for me to stay connected with friends and family. I probably began using social media when MySpace was still considered popular, mainly because of other friends using it. MSN messenger was another way that I'd communicate online on a regular basis. Nowadays, Skype and Facebook have become great ways for me to stay in contact with family and friends that I don't see on a regular basis. The immediacy of these kinds of communication has a big appeal to me, and obviously countless others.

Privacy on these sites has definitely started to concern me. I try to get around these kinds of issues by uploading as little factual information about myself as possible, but I feel that perhaps collection of personal data might become something that we just have to accept when using sites like Facebook. Recent research (O'Brien and Torres, 2012) seems to suggest that there is a growing concern and awareness of privacy issues online.


References

O'Brien, D and Ann M. Torres 2012, 'Social Networking and Online Privacy: Facebook Users' Perceptions', Irish Journal of Management, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 63-97.

Update -

An interesting article on government access to Facebook user information - http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/08/201382862037300755.html