1.2 THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE? WHEN THE MEDIA CONVERGE

LEARNING PORTFOLIO
For the learning portfolio and upcoming assignments and remediation project, a blog has been chosen as the format for communication. The blog can be located for viewing at www.debroberts.blogspot.com, although as at 25 June 2010 it still is a work in progress.
The underlying principle for choosing to produce the learning portfolio in blog format is that it will give me the ability to flexibly record and communicate notes from my readings as well as being a tool that can be used for my remediation project and assignments.
In undertaking the remediation project in using blog format I am anticipating that it will give me the ability to add a number of features such as www.youtube.com videos, as well as www.flikr.com and www.twitter.com newsfeeds etc, that will relate to the target information for the project.

FAVOURITE MEDIA TEXT
As a enthusiastic SciFi fan of the original 1994 Stargate movie, as well as the Stargate franchise of Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis (SGA), and recently Stargate Universe (SGU) I am intrigued by the level of interest this genre creates by SciFi enthusiasts, fan fiction writers, artists, photographers and video producers.
For my final assignment and remediation I am hoping to explore in further depth how, from 1994 to the present, Stargate fandom has gone from old media such as newspapers, comic books, novels and specialist magazines, to the new media of mashups on youtube and Vimeo video, social networking such as Facebook and Twitter, fanfiction, and websites devoted to all things Stargate. I am anticipating that this will be remediated into a blog style format although I will finalise the direction of this project in the coming weeks.
After an analysis of my favourite media texts relating to Stargate, I have identified the Stargate Atlantis television episode “Sunday” (Gateworld.net. 2007) as my preferred text for this project. This episode offers an ever-changing richness of stories and messages relating to themes and characters of the series.
As this episode is only PG rated I do not believe that the content has the ability to exclude or offend viewers and does not content that is potentially “MA” rated etc.

SUMMARIES FROM THE READINGS
My first reading for this module was “Four Puzzles from Cyberspace” by Lessig. Whilst I do believe that there are many rich interactions, relationships and communities built in cyberspace such as the example noted by Lessig of “massively multiplayer online game” (“MMOG”), there are also a number of internet users that do not understand this sense of online relationships and community as shown in MMOG’s. These users see the internet as “black and white” in that the internet is just a tool with which to find information and as Lessig writes these users see “the Internet simply as a kind of Yellow-Pages-on-steroids” (Lessig, L. 2006).

Nancy Baym writes that “those who argue online groups cannot be communities often consider common geography a necessary condition of community” (Baym, N. K. 2010). Four puzzles from Cyberspace explores how the internet breaks down the geographical boundaries and barriers of thinking that we can find ourselves constrained to in the off-line world.

Lessig explores the examples of how a user can be successful producing and authoring stories online of a violent and explicit nature that would in real life be unacceptable and as Lessig writes the internet lets “characters do things in the virtual world that they would never do in the real world” (Lessig, L. 2006).

Lessig also comments that the way some users see the internet is “generational” and writes that "for most of us over the age of 40, there is no “cyberspace,” even if there is an Internet". This statement I do not feel is true and believe that this article has boxed any person of this age as web redundant. I have also noted in the previous weeks learning log there is evidence that as noted by Cole “in specific areas, there is often little difference in use of online technology between older users and some of the youngest users” (www.debaird.net. 2008).

As I noted in my discussion board post, using Facebook as an example, 38.5% of their 400 million+ users (150million pax) are in the 35+ age group (Gen X & Boomers etc) with the 55+ age group achieving a 922.7% growth rate in 12 months to 1/4/10. (see www.istrategylabs.com/2010/01/facebook-demographics-and-statistics-report-2010-145-growth-in-1-year/). Certainly these statistics can produce a good defence that the over 40’s are a substantial proportion of internet users and I would hazard a guess many of these users are web savvy and can navigate their way around cyberspace.

CLASS DISCUSSION:

Due to the diverse and interesting nature of the MED104 class number of interesting points of view on topics such as privacy, and in particular privacy on Facebook, were discussed and concerns expressed by the group.

Facebook has, over the past few years, regularly changed its privacy settings potentially exposing its users to reveal personal information over the internet. Whilst I am in agreeance that the issues of privacy control on Facebook are at times unacceptable I acknowledge using Facebook is all about choice and education. If users are not happy with the privacy controls they should educate themselves how to lock down their privacy settings therefore protecting their personal information from the exposure to anyone searching the internet.

Unfortunately with 400 million active Facebook users worldwide (Facebook Statistics. 2010), there are always going to be many users who are not educated enough to lock down their privacy settings away from prying eyes.