Hi,
So this is the 2 minute film that I have created for an assessment task for 1501HUM.
Watch if you like!
thanks,
Maddy
Wednesday 17 October 2012
Sunday 2 September 2012
Week 7: Essay Topic
The topics given for the Essay piece are the following:
- Facebook shares have been in free fall since they floated. What was the value of all Facebook shares when they floated? What is their value now? What caused this decline in value and what is the future for Facebook? (This question is not about Mark Zuckerberg, don’t mention the movie (loosely based on his life). What are Zuckerberg’s options now?
- Does the extensive use of computer/video games have an adverse impact on the health of young people. What are the most recent papers? Clarify what all sides of the argument claim and only then offer your reasoned opinion based on facts.
- What is communication? Do whales communicate? Do birds? Do atoms? Does DNA communicate? What would you suggest as the limits to communication? When does a failure of human communication occur?
- Discuss interesting findings from your survey task in week 5. How do your results compare with other data such as that available through Pew Research Center and the Australian Bureau of Statistics? What do your results reveal about the ways people use new technologies.
- Is there a conflict between notions of copyright and free speech? How is new communication technology impacting on both those ideas and what are the effects in terms of profits and costs and the quality of democratic debate.
- Cyberspace: utopian promised land or empty rhetoric? Explain this dichotomy with reference to sites, programs and on-line events. What is a consensual hallucination anyway and are they common in human society? Is there a future for the concept of cyberspace beyond this dichotomy?
- Choose a cyberpunk story or movie. Compare the economic and social world it conjures with the real world today. How close is this imagined world to our world and are we moving towards the imagined world or away from it?
- Formulate your own topic and have it approved by your tutor.
My topic that I have chosen is topic number six.
Thursday 30 August 2012
Week 6: Series of Political Action Tasks
1. Sign an e-petition:
This was this petition I signed to legalise same sex marriage: http://www.gopetition.com.au/petitions/legalise-same-sex-marriage-australia.html
2.Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site:
This was the professional blogger I responded to. It was Andrew Bolt's blog on the Herald Sun and the article was on the passing of 5 soldiers in Afghanistan. My comment needs to be processed before it is posted so it may come up within the next few days but it has not come up yet. http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/report_afghan_soldier_kills_three_of_ours/desc/P80/
3.What are the Australian Government's plans to censor the internet?
Minister Conroy has announced that he will introduce “mandatory ISP-level filtering of Refused Classification (RC) –rated content.”1
-The filter will be based on URL filtering of a blacklist of between 1,000 and 10,000 URLs.
-The list of URLs will be based on the current ACMA blacklist, and will be supplemented by lists from international organisations (probably IWF).
-RC computer games will be excluded from mandatory filtering until the completion of the R18+ review.
-Additional funding will be available to encourage ISPs to offer voluntary filtering systems.
4. What place does censorship have in a democracy?
Although the initiative is intended and marketed as a tool to help protect children from the dangers of the Internet, this paternalistic scheme raises some troubling issues that affect all Australians. As a source of daily information, the Internet increases in importance every day. Do we really want the Government of the day deciding what Australian adults can and can't see? Do we want Australia to join a censorship club in which Burma, China and North Korea are the founding members?
-The list of prohibited sites will probably be secret, so it will be hard to know what content the Government has effectively banned.
-Filtering will be compulsory in all homes, even where there are no children.
-It is unknown whether there will be any way to have content removed from the prohibited list.
-How far will the list go, now and in future? Will it filter out material on sexual health, drug use, or terrorism? Euthanasia and anorexia have been touted by Government MPs as topics worthy of filtering
5.What are the benefits of the National Broadband Network?
by 2020, the majority of Australian households, businesses and other organisations will have access to smart technology to better manage their energy use.
An NBN-empowered digital economy can improve Australia’s environmental sustainability by supporting applications that encourage more efficient use of water, energy, transport and infrastructure.
Australia’s population has grown over the past 40 years at an average annual rate of 1.4 per cent a year, taking Australia’s total population to approximately 22.4 million in 2010. Australia also has a distinctive population distribution, being one of the most mobile and spatially concentrated of any country. It is highly urbanised, with 87 per cent living in urban areas, including 64 per cent in capital cities. Current projections suggest Australia’s population will continue to grow over time, but at slower rates than in the past.
ii) When will the NBN come to my area?
June 2014
6. Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are and send them a message
My local member for Greenslopes is Ian Kaye. This was the email that I sent to him:
This was this petition I signed to legalise same sex marriage: http://www.gopetition.com.au/petitions/legalise-same-sex-marriage-australia.html
2.Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site:
This was the professional blogger I responded to. It was Andrew Bolt's blog on the Herald Sun and the article was on the passing of 5 soldiers in Afghanistan. My comment needs to be processed before it is posted so it may come up within the next few days but it has not come up yet. http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/report_afghan_soldier_kills_three_of_ours/desc/P80/
3.What are the Australian Government's plans to censor the internet?
Minister Conroy has announced that he will introduce “mandatory ISP-level filtering of Refused Classification (RC) –rated content.”1
-The filter will be based on URL filtering of a blacklist of between 1,000 and 10,000 URLs.
-The list of URLs will be based on the current ACMA blacklist, and will be supplemented by lists from international organisations (probably IWF).
-RC computer games will be excluded from mandatory filtering until the completion of the R18+ review.
-Additional funding will be available to encourage ISPs to offer voluntary filtering systems.
4. What place does censorship have in a democracy?
Although the initiative is intended and marketed as a tool to help protect children from the dangers of the Internet, this paternalistic scheme raises some troubling issues that affect all Australians. As a source of daily information, the Internet increases in importance every day. Do we really want the Government of the day deciding what Australian adults can and can't see? Do we want Australia to join a censorship club in which Burma, China and North Korea are the founding members?
-The list of prohibited sites will probably be secret, so it will be hard to know what content the Government has effectively banned.
-Filtering will be compulsory in all homes, even where there are no children.
-It is unknown whether there will be any way to have content removed from the prohibited list.
-How far will the list go, now and in future? Will it filter out material on sexual health, drug use, or terrorism? Euthanasia and anorexia have been touted by Government MPs as topics worthy of filtering
5.What are the benefits of the National Broadband Network?
by 2020, the majority of Australian households, businesses and other organisations will have access to smart technology to better manage their energy use.
An NBN-empowered digital economy can improve Australia’s environmental sustainability by supporting applications that encourage more efficient use of water, energy, transport and infrastructure.
Australia’s population has grown over the past 40 years at an average annual rate of 1.4 per cent a year, taking Australia’s total population to approximately 22.4 million in 2010. Australia also has a distinctive population distribution, being one of the most mobile and spatially concentrated of any country. It is highly urbanised, with 87 per cent living in urban areas, including 64 per cent in capital cities. Current projections suggest Australia’s population will continue to grow over time, but at slower rates than in the past.
ii) When will the NBN come to my area?
June 2014
6. Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are and send them a message
My local member for Greenslopes is Ian Kaye. This was the email that I sent to him:
Hi Mr Kaye,
My name is Madelaine Ainsworth and I am a first year student at Griffith University. Currently I am studying News and Politics and since I have started studying this subject I have begun to acknowledge the things you have done for the Greenslopes area. I just wanted to say well done. In the few months that you have been elected you have made such a difference to the area and I really appreciate the hard work you have put into making Greenslopes a better place.
Regards,
Madelaine
Week 6: How the internet has changed politics
According to WebProNews, there are eight reasons as to why the internet has changed politics forever:
1.Possibly most game changing of all has been Obama’s use of the Internet to raise money. In the 1980′s, it was Republicans who altered fundraising by successfully using computers to fine tune and manage mailing lists of donors, which was utilized to help them take over Congress for the first time in 40 years. That was no small feat. However, the Obama campaign used the Internet to help them raise over $600 million in contributions from over 3 million donors.
Barack Obama’s campaign has singlehandedly destroyed the concept of public financing of major political contests. Ironically, it was the Democrats who championed the public financing of presidential campaigns, and it is they who have killed it. The $600 million spent this election by Obama will likely be a billion dollars per candidate in four years.
2.
News enlightenment sites such as the 'Drudge Report' and 'The Huffington Post' have gained significant influence since the last election. The Drudge Report recently posted this on his front page:
"THANKS FOR MAKING OCTOBER 2008 THE BIGGEST MONTH IN DRUDGEREPORT'S 13 YEAR HISTORY! THE PAGE WAS VIEWED 798,524,935 TIMES FROM 153,563,619 VISITS FOR MONTH, NEARLY 6X SITE'S TRAFFIC IN OCTOBER '04... AND SOMEHOW IT FEELS LIKE IT'S ONLY JUST STARTING..."
The Drudge report in particular can make mainstream media pay attention to a story by simply linking to it. Major news outlets don’t want to look foolish not covering a story that they know was seen on Drudge by 30 million people.
3.The use of the Internet to attract and organize volunteers by the Obama campaign was arguably the number one reason Obama won the election. He came in with the experience that organizing a community around political action is very important, and in his campaign for President he used the power of the Internet to effectively rally and organize. It was a brilliant strategy that was not matched by McCain in this election.
According to Wired.com, myBarackObama.com chalked up some 1.5 million volunteer accounts. Combining this organizational ability with Internet fundraising has dramatically altered how campaigns will be waged in the future.
4.Mainstream news websites such as CNN.com, MSNBC.com and FOXNews.com have overtaken their television counterparts as the place people get their news. For example, CNN.com reportedly received a huge Election Day audience of 27 million unique visitors to their site. These visitors generated over 276 million page views in one day. Simply amazing.
5. Internet video clips have become mainstream, both as a way to illustrate political points and to view clips of the candidates from news and entertainment television shows. For instance, a clip of Sarah Palin’s appearance on Saturday Night Live was viewed 7,264,478 times on YouTube. A recent politically inspired clip of Barack Obamba discussing on a radio show his desire to "spread the wealth" around was viewed on YouTube 2,393,392 times. This in particular has changed political marketing forever.
Political news watched via Internet video clips clearly has become mainstream, as illustrated by the huge viewing numbers for election day on CNN.com:
6.Partisan political blogs like PowerLineBlog.com and DailyKos.com have become even more important. Yes, political blogs made CBS and Dan Rather look silly in the last election, but with this election they have become legit voices of political opinion. The 2008 election has solidified the political blogger as an authority voice in politics. Some of them, such as John H. Hinderaker of Power Line and Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, regularily appear on network and cable news shows.
7. Niche non-partisan political sites like RealClearPolitics.com and Politico.com have become mainstream. The RealClearPolitics.com poll average map in particular has been routinely source-referenced by the major television networks and news websites. This has changed how news organization report on poll data and has made people more understanding of variations in polls. Outlying poll results are not given as much credence as in the past.
8. Social media hardly existed four years ago, but during this election the candidates and their supporters used sites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace aggressively. I think this is a strategy that will continue to evolve over the next four years to possibly become one of the most powerful weapons a candidate has in their quest to organize, rally, raise funds, and ultimately win the presidency.
Reference:
The above was all quoted from:
Annotation: The reference was so good and covered all the topics that I wished to cover so I decided to use all of the article without paraprashing, just with quotes as my article. The article was relevant to the topic and was written at a high academic level.
1.Possibly most game changing of all has been Obama’s use of the Internet to raise money. In the 1980′s, it was Republicans who altered fundraising by successfully using computers to fine tune and manage mailing lists of donors, which was utilized to help them take over Congress for the first time in 40 years. That was no small feat. However, the Obama campaign used the Internet to help them raise over $600 million in contributions from over 3 million donors.
Barack Obama’s campaign has singlehandedly destroyed the concept of public financing of major political contests. Ironically, it was the Democrats who championed the public financing of presidential campaigns, and it is they who have killed it. The $600 million spent this election by Obama will likely be a billion dollars per candidate in four years.
2.
News enlightenment sites such as the 'Drudge Report' and 'The Huffington Post' have gained significant influence since the last election. The Drudge Report recently posted this on his front page:
"THANKS FOR MAKING OCTOBER 2008 THE BIGGEST MONTH IN DRUDGEREPORT'S 13 YEAR HISTORY! THE PAGE WAS VIEWED 798,524,935 TIMES FROM 153,563,619 VISITS FOR MONTH, NEARLY 6X SITE'S TRAFFIC IN OCTOBER '04... AND SOMEHOW IT FEELS LIKE IT'S ONLY JUST STARTING..."
The Drudge report in particular can make mainstream media pay attention to a story by simply linking to it. Major news outlets don’t want to look foolish not covering a story that they know was seen on Drudge by 30 million people.
3.The use of the Internet to attract and organize volunteers by the Obama campaign was arguably the number one reason Obama won the election. He came in with the experience that organizing a community around political action is very important, and in his campaign for President he used the power of the Internet to effectively rally and organize. It was a brilliant strategy that was not matched by McCain in this election.
According to Wired.com, myBarackObama.com chalked up some 1.5 million volunteer accounts. Combining this organizational ability with Internet fundraising has dramatically altered how campaigns will be waged in the future.
4.Mainstream news websites such as CNN.com, MSNBC.com and FOXNews.com have overtaken their television counterparts as the place people get their news. For example, CNN.com reportedly received a huge Election Day audience of 27 million unique visitors to their site. These visitors generated over 276 million page views in one day. Simply amazing.
5. Internet video clips have become mainstream, both as a way to illustrate political points and to view clips of the candidates from news and entertainment television shows. For instance, a clip of Sarah Palin’s appearance on Saturday Night Live was viewed 7,264,478 times on YouTube. A recent politically inspired clip of Barack Obamba discussing on a radio show his desire to "spread the wealth" around was viewed on YouTube 2,393,392 times. This in particular has changed political marketing forever.
Political news watched via Internet video clips clearly has become mainstream, as illustrated by the huge viewing numbers for election day on CNN.com:
- CNN.com Live: 4.9 million live streams
- additional 6.7 million on-demand video streams
6.Partisan political blogs like PowerLineBlog.com and DailyKos.com have become even more important. Yes, political blogs made CBS and Dan Rather look silly in the last election, but with this election they have become legit voices of political opinion. The 2008 election has solidified the political blogger as an authority voice in politics. Some of them, such as John H. Hinderaker of Power Line and Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, regularily appear on network and cable news shows.
7. Niche non-partisan political sites like RealClearPolitics.com and Politico.com have become mainstream. The RealClearPolitics.com poll average map in particular has been routinely source-referenced by the major television networks and news websites. This has changed how news organization report on poll data and has made people more understanding of variations in polls. Outlying poll results are not given as much credence as in the past.
8. Social media hardly existed four years ago, but during this election the candidates and their supporters used sites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace aggressively. I think this is a strategy that will continue to evolve over the next four years to possibly become one of the most powerful weapons a candidate has in their quest to organize, rally, raise funds, and ultimately win the presidency.
Reference:
The above was all quoted from:
Ord, Rich. "Eight Reasons the Internet Has Changed Politics Forever." WebProNews. N.p., Nov. 2008. Web. Aug. 2012. http://www.webpronews.com/eight-reasons-the-internet-has-changed-politics-forever-2008-11.
Annotation: The reference was so good and covered all the topics that I wished to cover so I decided to use all of the article without paraprashing, just with quotes as my article. The article was relevant to the topic and was written at a high academic level.
Sunday 26 August 2012
Week 5: Survey Monkey
The task for this week was to create a social media related survey. I have created mine through survey monkey, its just a series of 5 basic questions which can be found here: New communications technology 1501HUM. Please feel free to do it!
see you next week!
Madelaine
see you next week!
Madelaine
Week 5: Addiction to Social Media
An American study has concluded that 62 percent of adults in America are plugged into social media networks, and the reason why? for fear of missing out (Halverson, 2012). Human beings love to feel acknowledged, connected and to keep up with current affairs within our community (Sethi, 2012). Social media has enabled us to do so but on a global scale (Sethi, 2012). Social media has drastically transformed the way people communicate to one another so much that we have would prefer checking in before having the urge to have a cigarette (Halverson, 2012). A study by Smith (2012) says that some users feel incomplete without checking their notifications even for a few hours.
Smith (2012) continues to argue his point in saying that 40 per cent of people surveyed said that they would give up the following things before giving up their social media:
References:
Smith (2012) continues to argue his point in saying that 40 per cent of people surveyed said that they would give up the following things before giving up their social media:
- Do their taxes
- Give up an hour of sleep each night for a year
- Run a marathon
- Sit in traffic for four hours
- Get a root canal
- Spend a night in jail
- Give up their air conditioner/heater
References:
Halverson, Nic. "Social Media More Addictive than Tobacco." ABC Science. N.p., 7 Feb. 2012. Web. 26 Aug. 2012. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/02/07/3424150.htm.
Sethi, Nidhi. "Why Social Media Is a Strong Addiction." Deccan Chronicle. N.p., 9 Feb. 2012. Web. 26 Aug. 2012. http://www.deccanchronicle.com/tabloid/teens/why-social-media-strong-addiction-498.
Smith, Ned. "Social Media Addiction Based on Fear of Missing Out." Yahoo! News. N.p., 02 Aug. 2012. Web. 26 Aug. 2012. http://news.yahoo.com/social-media-addiction-based-fear-missing-143357943.html.
Annotation: All three references were incredibly useful. All three were based on academic studies so I know that the articles were well researched. The articles contained alot of information that was specific to what I wanted to know.
Annotation: All three references were incredibly useful. All three were based on academic studies so I know that the articles were well researched. The articles contained alot of information that was specific to what I wanted to know.
Monday 20 August 2012
Week 4: Timeline
The second task for week 4 was to create a timeline about the major moments in the genre Cyberpunk. If you are unfamiliar with the term I have included a brief summary in my previous post for this week which will make this post alot clearer. The task asked us to investigate pivotal moments in cyberpunk and as this theme is science fiction based many of the key moments in time took place in film, music and literature. As I am unsure as to how to embed this digital timeline into the blog I created a link here: Key films and literature in Cyberpunk.
I hope you enjoy, and until next week!
Madelaine
I hope you enjoy, and until next week!
Madelaine
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