How do teenagers use the internet?

There is much discussion on blogs about the way young adults use the internet, but I thought it might be interesting to question a few teenagers about their favorite internet sites, and how they use the virtual cultures available to them.

Amongst a group of fourteen year olds, (four boys, and two girls) it was not surprising that news and current affairs definitely did not feature. Neither did any of the group place a high value on the use of the internet as a research tool, citing boredom with the whole process of individually researching when they see school as their social arena.
The most enthusiastic response came when asked about their social networking habits. Each group member belonged to, or accessed a minimum of three social networking sites with MSN, You Tube, Be-Bo and MySpace being the most mentioned.
The group commonly agreed they spent up to five hours a night or more on-line chatting mostly to ‘friends’ on-line, who were in fact complete strangers.

One student recounted a story, where he had met a ‘friend-on-line’, who turned out to be a 40 year old man who had requested he strip on webcam. The student found it funny but certainly this type of use of virtual cultures raises issues that would be a parent’s worst nightmare.

Just hearing about this young boys experience has me questioning this underlying subject basis on the way in which people pretend to be someone they are not on the web and how a handful of users seem to develop some other persona when using this particular medium for social networking.
Whether it is in a bad way (such as pedophiles praying on 14-year-olds) or (allowing shy personality to become more assertive) the internet can be miss used as a venue for miss information and mischief.

This issue along with week 6 KCB lecture by Axel Burns and the reading by Froth Facilitating Social Networking, had me thinking about one of the flaws both these men brought up in relation to social networks.

“Social Networking systems.. proximate users focus on local interaction, which presents interesting challenges and opportunities with regard to location awareness, privacy, security, surveillance and social control” (Froth 2006)

This same topic has been discussed in lectures and throughout my workplace; one of the issues with online social networking is that you only meet and get to know the person so far as they allow you to see them. The public persona is often not the whole of an individual.

In the last week, social networking site ‘Facebook’ have committed to introducing extreme safety measures to minimize this type of internet usage (Gladstone Observer 2008). But is that really possible when a computer savvy generation have become confident in their ability to manage and control their internet relationships.
A second issues raised was the amount of bullying and harassment that is undertaken on sites such as You Tube and BeBo. The boys in the group openly admitted to using social net working sites as a means of bullying.
So is there a need for some ‘Gate-Keeping’ on this type of anti-social behavior occurring on popular social networking sites?
Unfortunately antics of new media technologies will find this type of behavior illustrative of the down side of the developing world of virtual Cultures.

Reference:

Gladstone Observer. 2008. Facebook sets new safety standard. ed(10/05/2008).

Froth, M. 2006. Social Networking in Inner-City Neighborhoods. p.44-50. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00004750/ (accessed May 12, 2008).

Burns, A. 2008. Online Communities. KCB201 Virtual Cultures, Week 6 lecture. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_29175_1. (accessed April 23,2008).

Apparently the internet is better then newspapers.

Young people’s engagement with new media has evolved over the years from simply reading newspapers, watching television, to embracing internet, mobile phones and other sources of virtual media. Since the introduction of web 1.0 and now 2.0 news and information can be received in a variety of way, resulting in a steady decrease in newspaper sale as more and more receive their news at the click or a mouse.

So why do we use the internet to collect our daily need of the news rather then picking up the local paper or watching television or listen to the radio whilst driving to work?

In fact while many consumers of virtual cultures may do both, generation C have grown to become produsers of virtual cultures and both consume and contribute to virtual media (Burns, 2007).
To add to this new form of collecting news ‘for free’ internet users are now about to interact by commenting and responding to news articles forming a two-way or more online social relationship.

An example of this was seen on May 6, 2008 at: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,26278,23652766-5016681,00.html
Where The Courier Mail published an article on Police charge for Big Brother star Corey Worthington’s ‘party kid’ mum.
With so many users wanting their say on the issue that surrounded this article, whether they agreed or disagreed the commenting page available became exhausted after 86 comments had been made by the afternoon of May 6.

This ‘being seen’ supports my view the internet and the drive for social interaction on the net is used by thousands. However the underlying purpose for internet use varies depending on the persons experience and attitude.

This leads to the discussion where the question can be raised; Does the internet provide multiple voices and points of view to the consumer?

So many great things have been said about the internet relating to its ability to provide open source journalism, especially with its ability for free speech and open point of views philosophy. However with the *‘gate keepers’ like large companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft trying there best to ATTEMPT to gate keep views and opinions on certain subjects, things do not look promising for the internets ability to provide uninhabited open points of views.

I’m not saying flat out the internet can not provide a variety of points of views as it certainly can with virtually anyone in the public sphere being able to post and voice their opinions online. I just think we need to be aware there are major companies on the internet trying to attempt the same gate keeping practices that occur in mainstream media. Now although they can not stop people posting opposing views on the internet they can guide and direct you around these using search engines so they are harder to find.
With the publics growing lack of patience expecting everything to be available on-line with a single click of a button, those harder to find views just may never be found.

References:
A. Bruns. A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond, In From Production to Produsage. http://produsage.org/files/Produsage%20-%20Introduction.pdf (accessed April 8, 2008).

News.com.au. 2008. Police charge for Big Brother star Corey Worthington’s ‘party kid’ mum. http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,26278,23652766-5016681,00.html (accessed May 7, 2008).

The power of consumers

After watching popular ABC television show, Media Watch, last night (05.05.2008) where they discussed the future of journalism – especially quality journalism in the wired world made me think about the effect the internet will put on people like myself in the journalism world in terms of the ‘power of the consumer’. This episode of Media Watch focused particularly on the platform of demand by internet consumers as distinct to print media consumers. A focus point of the discussion was the difference in demands from internet consumers with a focus on celebrity news articles light reading supported by only one or two key news braking stories. A second discussion arose over the need for internet journalism to become commercially viable and not reliant on the financial support of the print media (Media Watch, 2008).

Media Watch link: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2235826.htm

There seems to be some form of patriotic fight to keep the internet free from the onslaught of gate keepers. Multi Million dollar companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner who want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. In other words they will have the power to fasten the upload speed of some web pages while slowing/demolishing the upload of others.

The who idea of ‘net neutrality’ and keeping the internet free is probably the best interest for all of us but just how free is out internet? There saying having government pass laws on net neutrality will keep multi Billion dollar companies from deciding what we can see and what we can’t see but isn’t the government regulation already changing what we can and can’t do on the internet.

Can the internet be regulated? Do we want the government to step in? Because once they do, what is stopping them from playing gatekeepers? Are we not already asking them to play gatekeeper and keep the multi billion dollar businesses away?

Whether you are for ‘net neutrality or against it, it seems to me that gatekeepers are inevitably apart of the internets future. But one side of the argument that seems to be forgotten is the power of the internet users. If these multi million dollar companies get their way and they start/attempt to tax content providers does not mean we have to do as they say. Look for a second at the marketing industry; it can be hard to get retailers to carry a new product however by producing a demand for your product the retailer eventually has no choice but to carry your product or lose sales. With major companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Skype etc all supporting net neutrality (which is quite obvious when trying to search net neutrality using Google, as the first pages only links to pages that are for net neutrality; one again just how free is our internet? Google are obviously regulating what they want us to see and what they don’t want us to see. But then again we have the power to force Google to deliver the information we want by searching specifically for certain elements that are against net neutrality like handsoff.org) even with the take over of these multi million dollar businesses if Google and yahoo refuse to pay the tax and consumers continually demand the use of these services than eventually there has to be a compromise.

What I’m trying to say is that even at present the internet is not completely neutral it is not completely free and I’m not sure it ever will be. But as in all cases of products it is the consumers that determine it’s out come. So even in the fight for the freedom of the internet do we need to involve the government, or can the internet continually be self regulated through the demand and consumption of its users?

References:

Media Watch. 2008. The Future of Journalism. http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2235826.htm (Accessed May 6, 2008).

Are we just people hooked up to machines?

After researching more into the topic of consumerism and the internet I came upon a reading by Jon Katz Birth of a Digital Nation where he discusses the redevelopment of the digital nation. Now although he discusses the involvement of the internet in America’s politics, and its great ability to teach, as an online journalist he learned that he was rarely right, and was merely able to transmit ideas to be shaped and improved by others, who possibly knew more about certain subjects and concepts than he himself.

However I could not get past one of the questions Jon Katz asks right at the start of his piece.

“Are we a powerful new kind of community or just a mass of people hooked up to machines?” (Katz, 2007).

This question has me thinking a great deal about what it means to be a virtual community. As students we are engaged in studying a subject based on the use of virtual media and in one simple thought Katz has me questioning so many of the things we have learnt about online cultures so far.
However this is not the only question Katz raises. He also brings two other insightful and challenging questions;

“Are we living in the middle of a great revolution, or are we just members of another arrogant elite talking to ourselves?” (Katz, 1997).

“Do we share goals and ideas, or are we just another hot market ready for exploitation by America’s (Australian) ravenous corporations?” (Katz, 1997).

John Katz poses three simple questions which get to the root of a problem that faces us all in this digitel age.
It has occured to me and I am sure many of you also have thought that online communities are harshly judged by critics who think online networking is making the world anti-social and creating isolated virtual communities of people who have common interests and time to spent searching online. While useful for gathering and exchanging information the internet also has the potential to be used as a took for exploiting the masses who log on daily.

However Katz appears to underestimate the intent of consumers who make use of virtual media in all of its forms. The modern consumer is highly educated in terms of exploitation online and his ability to recognise threats is highly sophisticated and supported by online software. People from all walks of life have embraced the internet. Age and attitude is no barrier. The internet revolution is here to stay and rather than being exploited by corporations as Katz suggests I believe that 'Generation C' who consume, create, and contribute to the content of online websites by adding text, images and audio are fully in control of emerging new social software and are not being exploited or seen to be a mass of unthinking vassal's.

There is some support to Katz oppinion that the internet will be highly susceptible to consumerism and with marketing people being hired to participate in communities are we merely setting our selves up to be sold new and exciting gadgets and trends like Ipod? The potential may be present for this to happen, never the less I doubt it will scare internet users away from their favourite online networks.

Like so many other things to do with virtual communities I guess this is really just another side to yet another argument but its one until now I never really thought about and its one I believe we all need to think about.


Reference:
Katz. J. 1997. The Birth of a Digital Nation, In Wired Magazine. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.04/netizen.html (accessed may 10, 2008).

Copyright Controversy's

Copyright owners these days, are not essentially impecunious writers, artists, or philosophers chewing at their tattered overcoats (Rimmer, 2005).
Corporations own many copyrights, and trade groups are aggressive in asserting the "exclusive right" to control and profit by copyrighted works.

In the 1970s, for example, The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) tried to stop grocery stores from playing radios unless they paid fees for the songs that were aired. Twenty years later, ASCAP demanded fees from summer camps for songs the children sang around their campfires. The Walt Disney Company threatened daycare centers that had likenesses of Mickey Mouse painted on their walls. From attempts to stop the technology of "piano rolls" in 1908 to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, restricting access to copyrighted works today, media companies have pushed for stronger controls.

It is a mistake, however, to think that the monopoly control bestowed by copyright is absolute. From the beginning, copyright law was intended to balance the rights of owners against those of the public – to give just enough incentive to enhance creativity. Understandably, copyright owners are concerned when cultural sharing is multiplied from a few friends to millions around the globe (many to many). But the industry tends to lump together all copying under the nefarious heading of "PIRACY," when in fact there are substantial differences between large-scale, for-profit enterprises that sell unauthorized copies of music, software, or movies, and, for example, students' or scholars' sharing of favorite songs or news articles through a university network. Although copying on this level is generally assumed to be unlawful, it is not clear that the remedy is to make criminals of millions of people.

Modern technology has made copying vastly simpler, and achievable on a worldwide scale that was never possible before. It has also enabled media companies to exercise unprecedented control over the use of their products through systems of digital rights management, or "DRM". As a result of DRM, some CDs now come with locks to prevent them from being played or copied on computers. Some Web sites include lengthy agreements that flatly require viewers to relinquish their fair-use rights as a condition of accessing the site. The tension continues to grow between strong copyright control and the values of free expression and access to information. For those of you, who may want to know more about the copyright rules and legisation, i have attached a video that helped me, get my head around copyright and ownership laws, and was an easier way then reading millions of articles.

References:

Rimmer, M. 2005. The Grey Album: Copyright Law and Digital Sampling, In Media Internation Australia. p.40-52.

So much talk about the internet.

There is so much talk about the internet these days. Actually it feels like that is all we talk about these days; who downloaded what, what music you were listening to whilst checking the latest on your facebook, what latest video you downloaded of Youtube, we are all talking about, or at least the vast majority of people are talking about the internet.

The internet, emerged from a completely different situation and was never designed and intended for a mass medium. In the 1950’s a communication system emerged with no centre, rather a decentralized, self maintaining series of links between computers networks. In the early stages the only computers connected to the Net were US military bases or research centers, and were only available to defense elite and computer experts (Barr 2000).

Unlike today, the internet is the most significant new communication medium of our times. If I think back, I remember around about the year 1996 was the year that majority of people and households became responsive to the internet and its purpose – a communication hybrid: mostly an information system where people can search for information and seek through many search engines, but it was also a medium where people could create their own content to distribute.

Daily access to the world wide web has had a profound effect on social practises and how we spend out time and how we communicate. It is not unusual to have a dozen e-mails containing jokes, photographs and other irrelevant material, arriving at regular intervals during a work day.

These are good examples of produsage, where a member of the community engages in the sharing of information and knowledge ((A)Burns, 2008).
Sometimes the receiver is requested to add input and forward to others thus including them as creative collaborators.

While often annoying, it is difficult to resist the invitation to take part in social interaction from a distance; furthermore there exists a tolerance and acceptance of the use of social networking sites such as Face book, You Tube and Myspace in the work-force.
Note that 'TIME' nominated person of the year 'you': all of us who are active in collaborative online spaces ((B)Burns, 2007).

Interestingly it is not just generation X or Y who have embraced these virtual cultures. It is baby boomers (Grey Nomads) like my parents and their friends who travel with laptops, web cams, head sets and have not sooner parked the van, than they have the technology booted up and the first digital pictures and MSN communications flowing and the new photo album has appeared on Facebook.

The internet is always improving and with new technologies enhancing and more and more people relying on the internet for everyday use, the generations of users will continue to update their knowledge with a simply search and a click on the mouse.

Reference:
(A) Bruns. A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond, In From Production to Produsage. http://produsage.org/files/Produsage%20-%20Introduction.pdf (accessed April 8, 2008).

(B) Burns. A. 2008. The Future Is User-Led, In The Path towards Widespread Produsage. ttp://produsage.org/files/The%20Future%20Is%20User-Led%20(PerthDAC%202007).pdf (accessed April 7, 2008)