Thursday 29 August 2013

New comm tech week 6

-E-Petition, Heavy vehicle fatigue management system: http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/work-of-assembly/petitions/e-petitions
-Professional blogger: My response- "obsession about body image is never healthy, i've known a few people who IMO place too high a value on body image, but not known anyone with a self inflicted eating disorder that i knew about. Happy Friday all." Blog link: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/blog/citykat

-What Obama was doing today: watching basketball.
-Message to Obama:
- The government's clean feed plans were thusly: Minister Conroy has announced that he will introduce “mandatory ISP-level filtering of Refused Classification (RC) –rated content.”
  • 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.

- What place does censorship have in a democracy? In reality censorship has a minimal place in a democracy. This is down to a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being the impossible task of censoring every harmful thing on the internet. Freedom of choice, freedom of information and freedom of speech are some of our key values in a democracy but the whole idea of censorship goes against every one of these values.
"In its 2007 election manifesto, the Australian Labor Party signalled that if elected it intended 
to introduce legislation that would require ISPs to offer a ‘clean feed’ internet service to all 
venues accessible by children, including homes, schools and libraries. The aim of the policy 
was to protect children from seeking out or inadvertently coming across content prohibited by 
the Australian Media and Communication Authority (ACMA) (that is, material that has been 
or would likely be denied classification for release in Australia). The clean feed would be 
achieved via the issuing of take-down notices to sites located on Australian servers, and the 
establishment of an ISP-level filter that would block access to a blacklist of overseas sites 
featuring, among other things, child pornography and extreme violence (Labor’s Plan for 

-When will the NBN get to my place? At this stage I don't know but this is the response the NBN website provides me with: "Area information-
The NBN is coming to your place; however construction hasn't commenced in your area as yet. By the end of the year we will have commenced construction of the NBN on over 950,000 premises."
The purported benefits of the NBN are super fast download speeds and a much more stable and fast connection to the internet. However this is only vaguely the truth as depending on the number of houses in the street, internet speed can vary greatly. Lots of houses=super slow internet, minimal houses=wicked fast internet.

-My local member: Peter Dowling.
-My state member: Campbell Newman. My message to Campbell Newman: What's your view on internet censorship Mr. Premier?
-My federal member: Kevin Rudd.

-Peter Dowling: The last time Peter Dowling spoke in parliament was on August 7th 2013 and it was not for good reasons. Sexting. Tutt tutt.

-I emailed Mr Dowling's office saying: "Dear Mr. Dowling, can you please elaborate on your future plans for parliament after your sexting debacle in the last month? Kind regards, Dan."


That's all folks, thanks for reading my psycho-babble!

-Dan.

New comm tech week 4

http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/cyberpunk-new-comm-tech-wk4


References

IMDb. 1979. Alien (1979). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1981. Heavy Metal (1981). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082509/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1982. Blade Runner (1982). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1982. TRON (1982). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084827/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1983. Videodrome (1983). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1983. WarGames (1983). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1985. The Terminator (1984). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1985. Brazil (1985). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1988. RoboCop (1987). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093870/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1990. Total Recall (1990). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100802/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1991. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1996. Twelve Monkeys (1995). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114746/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1997. Nirvana (1997). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119794/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1997. The Fifth Element (1997). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119116/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1998. Gattaca (1997). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1998. Dark City (1998). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1999. The Matrix (1999). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1999. eXistenZ (1999). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120907/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].

Week 5 survey


Below are the questions used in my survey.

Q1.) Do you have an active Facebook account?

Y/N

Q2.) Do you have an active YouTube account?
Y/N

Q3.) On average how many times per week or day do you use either of these accounts?
a)<1 per week
b)>1 per week
c)Daily
d)More than once a day
e)Constantly

Q4.) Is your account set up for complete privacy from people who aren't your friends?
Y/N

Q5.) Can you see yourself deleting either of your accounts in the foreseeable future?
Y/N

I only had 7 participants in my survey, all friends and family.
6 out of 7 respondents replied Yes to question 1.
4 out of 7 respondents replied Yes to question 2.
2 respondents replied "a" to question 3, 3 replied "c" and 2 replied with "d".
1 out of 7 respondents replied Yes to question 4.
1 out of 7 respondents replied Yes to question 5.

These findings provide a good indication that while the majority of people aren't addicted to social networking, they can't really see themselves without it in their lives. Do we need to read into this further to determine whether people use these mediums of communication because they are sad and lonely or is it just simple human nature to want to connect and we should leave it all alone. I don't know, only time will tell if using these sites is actually a bad thing or whether it's perfectly safe and acceptable.

My result is comparable to official surveys regarding internet use in that many who use these services are using them regularly, and also having approximately 85% of respondents with a Facebook account generally lines up with first world figures.

Week 3 New Comm Tech


Which of Stephen Stockwell's (my lecturer) books are in the Griffith library?

Stockwell, S 2005, Political Campaign Strategy: doing democracy in the 21st century, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne.

Scott, P & Stockwell, S 2000, All-media guide to fair and cross-cultural reporting, for journalists, program markers and media students, Australian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy, Nathan. 
Rhetoric and Democracy: Deliberative Opportunities in Current Electoral Processes.

Cite three academic books that might provide useful material for an essay about Jean Luc Godard's Alphaville. On which campuses do they reside?

Brody, R 2008, Everything is Cinema: The working life of Jean Luc Godard, Metropolitan Books, New York. (Nathan Campus)

Dixon, W 1997, The films of Jean Luc Godard, State University of New York Press, Albany. (Gold Coast campus)

Meehan, P 2008, Tech-noir: the fusion of science fiction and film noir, McFarland, Jefferson, N.C. (South Bank campus)
What is a book that will assist you to find out about possible research methods to explore social media?

Poynter, R 2010, The handbook of online and social media research: tools and techniques for market researchers, Wiley, New York.

Sources: Griffith University library catalogue (online)