presentation schedule

Project Proposals
10/7 Molly
10/9 Jenn
10/14 Erica
10/16 Liz
10/21 Morehshin
10/23 Kate

Lit and Media Reviews
10/28 Jenn
10/30 Molly
11/4 Erica
11/6 Liz
11/11 Morehshin
11/13 Kate

Shop Dropping

Here is the website I was talking about in our class yesterday. This is one f my favorite art/culture movements and I'm hoping resistance like this means that there are people out there in the spectacle society who still see things and are able to critique and react:

http://shopdropping.com/

Interactivity

I was reading the article "Media Studies 2.0" today and it came to the interactivity part which we all address as one of the important characteristics of new media.

In the 2004 edition I reviewed these earlier arguments and noted that:

Most of these things are still true: you wouldn't expect old-school media studies to reinvent itself within three years. But the arrival of new media within the mainstream has had an impact, bringing vitality and creativity to the whole area, as well as whole new areas for exploration (especially around the idea of 'interactivity'). In particular, the fact that it is quite easy for media students to be reasonably slick media producers in the online environment, means that we are all more actively engaged with questions of creation, distribution and audience.

Then I remembered this other article that I read before called "Interactive Web sites draw minds, shape public perception". I think it's interesting how this article looks at different audiences with different aims and in different website with different subjects . The author tries to analyze "interactivity" concept and discuss how interactive websites have different impacts depends on the functions of the websites and characteristics of audiences.

Interactive Web sites draw minds, shape public perception

University Park, Pa. -- The interactive look and feel of a corporate website could help shape positive perceptions about the organization if the site includes a likeable design and features that engage the target audience, especially job seekers, according to media researchers.

S. Shyam Sundar, professor of film, video and media studies at Penn State, and Jamie Guillory, formerly an undergraduate student at Penn State, are trying to understand how interactivity in websites influences the public perception of an organization. In previous studies of websites of political candidates, Sundar had found that the candidates were rated more positively if their site had some interactive features, even though the sites had no new content, and the candidates held the same policy positions. But too much interactivity tends to turn off people.

"Websites with low to medium levels of interactivity create positive perceptions but for medium to high interactivity, it actually falls down," said Sundar. "In general, too much interactivity is not desirable, and may lead to information overload."

Whatever effects, positive or negative, on a site, interactivity acts as a volume knob that boosts the effect, he explained, noting, "Just through the presence of such features, people attribute meaning to the content or the nature of the site."

The Penn State researchers wanted to see if the same effect holds true even if the people viewing the website are highly engaged, or whether they form their opinions based on bells and whistles on a website only when they do not know enough about a topic.

In the current study, 116 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of seven websites representing low, medium, and high levels of interactivity. The students were specifically assigned to review the career section of these organizations because these sites require a higher level of involvement.

Features on these sites ranged from enabling a person to click on a link for job inquiries, follow a link for information on a specific job, submit an online application and view video footage of the company and its employees.

Students then answered a questionnaire on their perceptions of an organization based on their experience with its website. The study results show that there is a significant positive relationship between the level of interactivity on a career website and job seekers' perception of that organization.

"We found that college students looking for a job are more likely to apply to companies that have interactive websites with bells and whistles," said Sundar, who presented his findings today (May 25) at the 58th annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) in Montreal. "But the students use these features to make a logical connection."

The work received a Top Paper award from the association’s Public Relations division.

"We found that both liking and involvement are significant mediators such that people who saw a high interactive website liked it more, and they also got involved as a result of liking it more," he added.

The findings may have important implications for organizations. For instance, by simply tweaking the features on the website and without changing any of the content, a company could project a positive image to its targeted demographic.

In other words, the website of an organization could feature an optimal amount of interactivity specifically tailored to its target audience, and thereby control the impressions that people form of that organization.

But Sundar also cautions against being taken in by fancy websites that promise much and deliver little.

"We have uncovered a psychological phenomena here, that is the more interactive some thing is, more people -- especially college students -- are likely to buy into whatever is being advocated," said Sundar, who is also a founder of the Penn State Media Effects Research Laboratory. "We are trying to warn them against that potential danger."

Researchers say the next step is to figure out all the different meanings people are attaching when they are faced with new responsive features.

"Interactivity is multi-faceted in terms of the meanings it communicates. It is not just about interaction alone," added Sundar.

###

The Penn State Media Effects Research Laboratory is at http://www.psu.edu/dept/medialab

Article thrived from http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-05/ps-iwd052308.php

Reading for Next Class

Steven Best and Douglas Kellner Debord and the Postmodern Turn:

New Stages of the Spectacle; Guy Debord The Society of the Spectacle Ch 1; and Media Studies 2.0.

culture/power/history

Here are some questions to guide you through the reading for Thursday.

1. How and why have notions of culture recently changed?

2. How has the notion of power changed?

3. What does history have to do with it all?

4. What does it mean to say that power and resistance go hand and hand? (p 19)

5. How does Gramsci notion of hegemony understand the role of culture in society? (p 23 last graph)

6. What does this have to do with digital media? Please make a list of a few questions which could be applied to digital media and which draw on the notions the of power, culture and history described here.

Student Auctioning Virginity at Brothel

I was reading this article/news yesterday, thinking how these last 5-6 years, the internet's potentials have given people the opportunity to sell things they could never sell before trough the media . I don't know if you have heard the story of some people who tried to sell their "life" which means themselves or the story of the Australian man who put his "entire life" including all of his properties as a package to sell on ebay . Not surprisingly these stories got so much attention. more
The story I put here, is about a female student who has decided to sell her virginity online. For me,the interesting point is that how the internet and basically new media have made it possible to sell things they hardly could be sold as expensive and as publicly as this. Websites such as ebay, craigslist, etc have given the people the chance to cross the limitations of things they may want to sell. In addition, based on some feminism's theories, this could be seen as a an online prostitution. I'm interested to see what you guys think about this or how do you read this story?

***

LOS ANGELES (Sept. 11) - A 22-year-old woman in the United States is publicly auctioning her virginity to pay for her college education, sparking a heated online debate about sex and morality.

The student from San Diego, California, who is using the pseudonym Natalie Dylan for "safety reasons," said she had no moral dilemma with her decision and found it "empowering."

Splash News

But few bloggers sided with her and some suspected her intentions.

"I don't think auctioning my virginity will solve all my problems," she told celebrity television show The Insider on Wednesday. "But it will create some financial stability. I'm ready for the controversy, I know it will come along. I'm ready to do this."

"We live in a capitalist society. Why shouldn't I be allowed to capitalize on my virginity?" she added.

The woman, who has earned a bachelor degree in women's studies and now wants to start a master's degree in marriage and family therapy, is hoping the bidding will hit $1 million.

The online auction site eBay turned her down so the auction will take place at a Nevada brothel, the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, where her sister is working to pay off her college debts.

The date for the auction was not immediately available.

In a flurry of media interviews and appearances, she admitted that her mother, a fourth grade teacher, does not agree with her decision. Many on the Internet also disapprove.

"Maybe this is the conservative in me coming out, but this seems so wrong," wrote one blogger, Mike. "Isn't this prostitution?"

"I must say I feel sad for the future of our society," said Mike from Montclair State University in New Jersey.

"What disgusts me about this whole thing is the fact that she is promoting it so heavily. It seems less about having some guy pay for her virginity and more about trying to get her 15 minutes and a reality show," said a blogger called "Ent Lawyer."

She does have her supporters -- not surprisingly Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch.

"I think it's a tremendous idea. Why lose it to some guy in the backseat of a Toyota when you can pay for your education?" he told reporters.

Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Miral Fahmy

Copyright 2008, Reuters

2008-09-11 00:21:25

Course Schedule

SCHEDULE: Please come to class prepared to discuss the reading assigned for that day.

WEEK 1 | Transformations: Cultural industries and how we study them
Tues Sept 9 | Introductions, course plan and intro to networked public culture

Thurs Sept 11 | Reading: Web.studies: Introduction to the New Edition; Ito et. al. Intro; Livingston Chapter 1.

WEEK 2 | Theorizations: Critical studies, Power, and New Media
Tues Sept 16 | Reading: New Media Theory Primer, Jeffrey Bardzell; Culture, Power, History, Introduction, Nicholas B. Dirks, Geoff Eley and Sherry B. Ortner (hand out)

Thurs Sept 18 | Reading*: Barry Wellman The Network Community;
Fred Turner Where Counter Culture Met the New Economy;
Manuel Castells, Why Networks Matter;
danah boyd Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites;
Yochai Benkler Wealth of Networks Video and
Chapter 1;
Steven Best and Douglas Kellner Debord and the Postmodern Turn: New Stages of the Spectacle; Guy Debord The Society of the Spectacle Ch 1; Marshall McLuhan “The Medium is the Message” (handout); Raymond Williams “The Technology and the Society” (handout)
*This week’s reading will be divided up among groups of students. Each group will present and lead a discussion on the article they are assigned.

WEEK 3 | Explorations: Digital Media Research
Tues Sept 23 | Reading: Media Studies 2.0; Web.Studies, Nina Wakeford “Developing Methodological Frameworks for Studying the World Wide Web” (handout)

Thurs Sept 25 | Reading: Personal Portable Pedestrian and Young People and New Media
Short Book Reviews Due


WEEK 4 | Method Workshops
Tues Sept 30 | Workshop on interviewing and ethnographic investigative methods
Reading: TBA

Thurs Oct 02 | Workshop/discussion on innovative forms of media analysis
Check out:
ArtLab
Digital Ethnography of YouTube
Digital Youth Research

WEEK 5 |
Tues Oct 07 | project proposals
Thurs Oct 09 | project proposals

WEEK 6 |
Tues Oct 14 | project proposals
Thurs Oct 16 | project proposals

WEEK 7 |
Tues Oct 21 | project proposals
Thurs Oct 23 | project proposals

WEEK 8 |
Tues Oct 28 | Literature and Media Reviews
Thurs Nov 30 | Literature and Media Reviews

WEEK 9 |
Tues Nov 04 | Literature and Media Reviews
Thurs Nov 06 | Literature and Media Reviews

WEEK 10 |
Tues Nov 11 | Literature and Media Reviews
Thurs Nov 13 | Literature and Media Reviews

FINAL | Proposals Due: 1:00pm, Monday, November 17, 2008