a second life... your way !

I decided to create an avatar to see what all the fuss was about using Voki, but for technical reasons could not make it appear on my blog, however clicking on My Avatar  will open it in another window !

In case you were wondering I don’t actually sport whiskers and cat ears in real life, I got a little carried away with the abundance of avatar options there were..

Sim-Ulacra to me is when something is created in a ‘fake’ world to represent something in the real world. I use the word ‘fake’ as I am convinced it is just that.. It is not the real thing.

Salvador Dali Painting - THE TRANSPARENT SIMULACRUM OF THE FEIGNED IMAGE  1983. www.artwallpapers.org

Jean Baudrillard describes it more succinctly  “Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality. A hyper real, It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real"

litteramedia.wordpress.com

However bizarre as the concept of Second Life seems to me, I picked apart what I saw were positives and advantages to what this concept can do especially when it comes to collaboration and learning. One thing, which I thought was advantageous, was learning a new language; on Simple Life you can learn and practice that language with other like-minded avatars while also travelling to that country within the game.

                       This is particularly good if you don’t know anyone that speaks Portuguese and you don’t momentarily have the money to travel to Brazil but are saving for a dream holiday in a few years time.. 

The use of avatars can also assist in education of all sorts; this article discusses 10 ways to use an avatar in education. I particularly like the idea of bringing historical figures back to teach their own theories i.e. Albert Einstein. 

Not only educational advantages but for entertainment purposes holograms are being created on stage during concerts and festivals around the world bringing back singers & entertainers of the past and future to perform side by side and entertain crowds.

The holograms shown in this clip are pretty amazing..

I stumbled across this post on face book which I though was quite fitting for this topic.. Hyper reality in advertising and marketing... brilliant ! Well yes it may mess with your mind but its resulted in an emotion and this is key in my area of study.

What the people being interviewed see is what they think is a simulation of real life.. (or not so real life - hyper reality)

Back to reality for me... for now

Daniela

Further reading and references.

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1994

Digital Learning Environments, Tools and Technologies for Effective Classrooms.   

http://www.guide2digitallearning.com/teaching_learning/10_ways_use_avatars_education.

Meadows,Mark Stephens. I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a second life. New Riders, December 2007.   

Wiki Leaked it...

source : forum.warthunder.com

   Julian Assange & what has become of WikiLeaks fascinate me.          I personally see him as a hactivist, someone who has used his cleverness to unveil political secrets that are wrong and unjust. Sure he has also committed an unjust action of snooping where he shouldn’t be but which action is worse, his hacking or what’s being uncovered..?

Julian Assange ultimately just wants to create a sense of transparency and he is using WikiLeaks to do this. The WikiLeaks website quotes :

“We believe that it is not only the people of one country that keep their own government honest, but also the people of other countries who are watching that government through the media” 

                       WikiLeaks Website

 As discussed in the article by Bertot.2010.

The combination of e-government, social media, Web-enabled

technologies, mobile technologies, transparency policy initiatives, and

citizen desire for open and transparent government are fomenting

a new age of opportunity that has the potential to create open, transparent,

efficient, effective, and user-centered information and communication technology-enabled services.

Transparency is the key word here.

source : venezuelanalysis.com

Social media is allowing the public to break down the barriers and play a major role in reducing government corruption.  The WikiLeaks website allows you ‘the source’ to anonymously send information via a discreet electronic drop box. This information is then assessed by the WikiLeaks journalists and re-written & published on the website for all to see.

source: crankpunk.com

Jenkins view of participatory culture relates greatly with WikiLeaks. Jenkin’s idea of participatory culture is that citizens and public should not only be consumers but to also produce and contribute also. Citizens are clearly contributing to WikiLeaks and these contributions are coming from anonymous people weather internal or public.  

Obviously the other side of this is seeing Julian Assange as a wanted man, and with numerous hackers trying to bring down the WikiLeaks organisation. He has been compared to a terrorist for his actions and was wanted killed by government organisations and charged for espionage. Although this is still being fought in a legal battle.

I would imagine the future of WikiLeaks to continue to grow stronger with more anonymous contributions and more scandals being uncovered. However from this strength the political landscape may become even less transparent due to fear of just how many people could potentially access information through WikiLeaks and social media especially if gone viral.  

I will leave you with an interesting you tube video I stumbled across which shows Assange opening singers M.I.A.’s New York Concert in November 2013. He was skyping live from hiding in the Ecuadorian Embassy and speaking to hundreds of MIA’s fans.

Now that’s a way to get your voice heard !

            Julian Assange opening M.I.A's New York City Concert

Daniela Gibbons 

References & Further Reading 

• Bekri D et all, Harnessing Social Media Tools to Fight Corruption 2011, London School of Economics and Political Science, prepared for Transparency International. 
• 
  
• Bertot C John, Jaeger T Paul, Grimes M Justin, Using ICTs to create a culture of transparency: E-government and social media as openness and anti-corruption tools for societies, Government Information Quarterly, Volume 27, Issue 3, July 2010, Pages 264-271, ISSN 0740-624X.  

• Jenkins, H 2013, What Do We Know About Participatory Cultures: An Interview with Aaron Delwiche and Jennifer Jacobs Henderson (Part Two), Confessions of an Aka-Fan, viewed 6 January 2014.

#Politics #Social Media #Yes We Can

With the number of young people on social media it would be wrong for a politician to not use social media to connect & campaign, it would be like say posting a Christmas card with out an address on the envelope, which unfortunately my dear husband did a couple weeks ago..

Although, it’s the way social media is used in politics that may sway one young voter to the next. 

Selfies anyone.. 

www.news.com.au

www.theconversation.com

I myself was amused and intrigued every time I came across a Face Book post or watched a story on tv about Kevin Rudd or Tony Abbott’s social media campaigning efforts this year.   

                                 

Selfies, family pictures, personal conversations about their animals and status updates…Did it all contribute to my final vote? Perhaps it did.

In a study found by the Pew Foundation it was found that the American parties used social media differently, where Republicans took more positions on Twitter as opposed to Democrats taking more positions on Face book. 

However overall, Twitter was the most used social media platform to convey a message as Sherri R Greenberg discusses in this study link below..   

Congress & Social Media 

www.urbanvox.net

Once again Barrack Obama had clearly dominated popularity on social media during the most recent election between himself and Romney by having more tweets, facebook posts and general engagement than his competitor. 

The article below discusses how he did it. 

How Obama Won the Social Media Political Battle.

www.mprcentre.org

Amateur social media uploads on you tube from everyday citizens can have a big impact on political candidates, especially if they go viral causing positive and negative effects on their image. The barrack roll is an example of one that worked well for Obama as it was positive and generally fun.   

On the other hand Kevin Rudd had a down fall when footage of him self swearing, ranting and showing general rudeness  (see you tube video) “ Kevin is a Happy Little Vegemite” was leaked and uploaded to you tube by an anonymous person which could have been a likely attempt at sabotage from the opposing party. 

This clip also went viral and would be one that Kevin Rudd would most likely want you to forget.

I think electioning and social media will only grow in the future, with strategies becoming more polished and campaigns trying harder to connect with people without being too scripted, and with new technologies always popping up there will forever be a new social media platform for people especially young voters to connect via.

www.ronsela.com

See you at my next blog.. Wikileaks.

Daniela

References & Further Reading 

Johnson, Dennis W, Campaigning for President 2008: Strategy and Tactics, New Voices and New Techniques. The Online Revolution, Taylor and Francis.

Sherri R. Greenberg, Lyndon B. Johnson 2012, School of Public affairs, The University of Texas at Austin, Congress and Social Media, page 12.

Shirky C, 2011, The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, The Public Sphere, and Political Change. Foreign Affairs, Published by the Council on Foreign Affairs. 

say what ? social media powered cars ?!

Mind Drive was a digital activism campaign that was designed to fight a cause in a positive way.         I was moved after watching this clip which shows troubled kids coming together to build a car & improve their ideas of being in the work force.

The car is ultimately powered by face book likes, tweets, shares and re tweets which all convert to wattage.

It raises awareness in education, fuel alternatives and what you can do when you put your mind to it.

An ABC television series, which I became completely hooked on, that really challenged my thoughts on marketing and made me question why I was studying a marketing degree was the series ‘the checkout’.

www.abc.net.au

It’s a satirical show for the everyday person covering consumer affairs by analysing products and ads on tv and then giving you the real research and results on what they ‘claim’ to do.

Now that I’ve learnt what culture jamming actually means I think this is a brilliant example of it..

Check out their clips below..

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/thecheckout/clips/

I remember the 1^st moment when I saw anything to do with Kony 2012, I was sitting in my car waiting to go into an appointment and randomly checked the ol’ facebook to kill some time. Friends had ‘liked’ the you tube Kony Video and or commented on it  - on average every 2^nd post was related which instantly made me want to watch the clip to see what all the fuss was about.

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Pow.gif

As it did many people, it moved me. What followed was a series of discussions with friends, work colleagues and family with questions relating to it such as; is this real?  Is Joseph Kony real? Who is this narrator? 

www.dailymail.co.uk

This example of digital activism had gone viral on line and soon the world was talking about.  

Looking back at the reactions I can now differentiate who the optimists, pessimists and persistent were as discussed in the paper by Svitanides and Shah.

 The optimists rejoicing in the fact that this political issue was able to be communicated to everyone and that it was making a huge difference to everyday people & the world. The pessimists on the other hand were sceptical and looked at it as another attention seeking, conspiracy that wasn’t to be trusted as it had come through a social media platform. Then there were the persistent who didn’t think too much of it but thought a good change would happen from it but did not like the fact that it was coming to us through face book. 

see you next week... Daniela 

References

• http://jamming.wordpress.com/culture-jammingwhat-is-it/
• http://www.abc.net.au/tv/thecheckout/
• Stivitanidas M & Sha V, 2011, The Era of Digital Activism, Dept of CIS & QMST McCoy College of Business page 2,3,4.