May 3, 2011
May 2, 2011
Convergence culture just around the corner...
As we read in Henry Jenkin's book, convergence culture involves shifting the way content consumers interact with content producers. We see the effects of convergence culture all of the time, nowadays. For instance, Jennie described in her report how Justin Bieber's stardom began as a video on YouTube. His clip caught people's attention, and eventually brought him across a table from Usher. This chain of events was not possible in the world of old media, and exemplifies how culture is changing. Jenkins also referred to blogs and their impact on the changing landscape of media. One of my good friends follows a gamer's blog called Kotaku. As an electrical engineering student, he is working on a senior design project with a couple of other group members. I was chatting with him recently and I found out that his group's project was featured on the Kotaku site. It's a short article, so I've gone ahead and included it here:
After congratulating my buddy, I asked him a few questions about the article. It turns out he has no clue how Kotaku got wind of their project. He thinks it may have been through the YouTube videos his group uploaded of their demos. The writer cites this page, but it's not clear what their sources are either.
Furthermore, the article has quotes from their group, but my friend isn't sure who they spoke to. He suspects it was one of his group members, but he's been too busy to seek it out.
I think this exposes some of the pros and cons of convergence culture. Information can travel quickly, and unprecedented interactions can take place. For example, one person comments, "Very impressive especially if it really is just a usb camera, my first call would be to Sony..." Another Kotaku reader points out that "[t]hey had motion tracking with just a usb camera and software, effectively killing the main selling point of Kinect" and he suggests "if they had business smarts, they should be shopping this software around to different companies." On the flip side, there's a reliability issue (as Jenkins mentions is his discussion of collective intelligence). My friend, who was one of the two programmers for this project, has no idea where Kotaku obtained their information. This calls into question the validity of Kotaku's other blog posts, and blog posts in general. How do we maintain reliability within convergence culture?
Here’s How You Handle Looking and Turning in a Motion-Control FPS
Owen Good — Head- and eye-tracking will be the next big breakthrough in motion-controlled gaming. Forza Motorsport 4 will deliver it via Kinect. But for first-person shooters, we're still stuck controlling our look with our arms, an act as unnatural as it is inconvenient. Some University of Texas students have whipped up a solution for that.
This concept placed third at UT's electrical and computer engineering senior design competition. Using a webcam, some custom software for the head-tracking, and a motorized pico-projector, you get this - a video gaming perspective that changes as you change yours.
The design team (two software engineers, one power systems engineer) demonstrated their creation with a flight sim and a military FPS. "In the FPS, your head was the in-game player's head. When you look right, the in-game player looks right, and the projector pan/tilts to where you're looking," they write. "It's almost like you're in the game!"
That sounds fantastic, but I'm not so sure about this part: "In the flight sim, you used your head as essentially a joystick to control pitch and roll angles." While intriguing, and certainly a proof of concept, that seems to me to be the inverse of the current head-look problem in motion control shooters.
"Ideally, we would have more money (we are students, after all) to get more powerful motors, a dome-like projection screen, and the best possible pico projector for the best resolution," they say. I think some developer or console manufacturer should get in touch with these guys. After they build that, maybe they'll discover something about delivering this on a consumer scale.
After congratulating my buddy, I asked him a few questions about the article. It turns out he has no clue how Kotaku got wind of their project. He thinks it may have been through the YouTube videos his group uploaded of their demos. The writer cites this page, but it's not clear what their sources are either.
Furthermore, the article has quotes from their group, but my friend isn't sure who they spoke to. He suspects it was one of his group members, but he's been too busy to seek it out.
I think this exposes some of the pros and cons of convergence culture. Information can travel quickly, and unprecedented interactions can take place. For example, one person comments, "Very impressive especially if it really is just a usb camera, my first call would be to Sony..." Another Kotaku reader points out that "[t]hey had motion tracking with just a usb camera and software, effectively killing the main selling point of Kinect" and he suggests "if they had business smarts, they should be shopping this software around to different companies." On the flip side, there's a reliability issue (as Jenkins mentions is his discussion of collective intelligence). My friend, who was one of the two programmers for this project, has no idea where Kotaku obtained their information. This calls into question the validity of Kotaku's other blog posts, and blog posts in general. How do we maintain reliability within convergence culture?
Apr 27, 2011
Literacy on Last.fm
Read any of my posts about Last.fm, and it doesn't take long to realize that this site is intricate and has complex features. As a member, I've encountered multiple literacies, on forums, profile pages, and other places around the site.
Profiles, wiki articles, songs, events and other pages have shoutboxes at the bottom where members can post comments or messages. There is an imposed limit of 1000 characters (pretty long for a "shout" if you ask me), but there is almost an unspoken rule that NO ONE should write so much. In fact, usually shouts are only a few quick lines. Artist and song pages often act as catch-all spaces for intense fandom or dislike (which makes sense because, like a lot of online opinion polls, involvement on these pages is voluntary and attracts polarized ideologies). For example, on the Radiohead wiki page Peppeworld writes,"I will kill someone in order to see them live." Zheinerovich clearly does not relate and replies, "Then you're one retarded motherfucker." MathIsUniversal and whiteclef1 are also less than enthusiastic about this group, chiming in with "shit band" and "shit album" (respectively).
Lengthier shouts are not as uncommon on profile pages, however. User shoutboxes are analogous to Facebook Friend walls, so that anyone can read the shouts and it's not quite as annoying if messages are longer. On FatShade's profile, for example, lamma-assassina writes a long comment amongst a series of short shouts:
My focus is on the "General Discussion" and "In The News" forums, which exhibit stark contrasts in writing convention. Forum threads still display variability in posting literacy, but the manifestations are much broader here. Literacy flip flops from thread to thread, even post to post. For instance, one long-running thread titled “chatting on forums is a good way to make friends !! ;D” harbors posts that are random, even unpredictable, and any subject is up for game. The user iamstellar offers another forum poster tips on beating alcohol and drug addiction:
For instance, a thread about India's exploding population – now at 1.21 billion, according to the 2011 census (article) – elicits a conversation about overpopulation and population control. Chab0's comment seems almost Malthusian: "This insane population boom is what's keeping the poverty stricken areas of India from developing. The more people, the less resources... Only time can cure overpopulation!" Later, sgath92 and Verslie each post diatribes of four or more paragraphs (thread). Verslie goes as far as calling Indians "uneducated, irresponsible people continuously churning out more and more children for stupid reasons," claiming "they can't be bothered with contraception, they want state benefits, they want an excuse to not work, they want to give their life some sort of meaning because their own miserable existence isn't enough for them." Verslie asserts that "[h]aving children is not a 'right'" and agrees with sgath92 that "[l]icensing is definitely the way forward." According to him/her:
Profiles, wiki articles, songs, events and other pages have shoutboxes at the bottom where members can post comments or messages. There is an imposed limit of 1000 characters (pretty long for a "shout" if you ask me), but there is almost an unspoken rule that NO ONE should write so much. In fact, usually shouts are only a few quick lines. Artist and song pages often act as catch-all spaces for intense fandom or dislike (which makes sense because, like a lot of online opinion polls, involvement on these pages is voluntary and attracts polarized ideologies). For example, on the Radiohead wiki page Peppeworld writes,"I will kill someone in order to see them live." Zheinerovich clearly does not relate and replies, "Then you're one retarded motherfucker." MathIsUniversal and whiteclef1 are also less than enthusiastic about this group, chiming in with "shit band" and "shit album" (respectively).
Lengthier shouts are not as uncommon on profile pages, however. User shoutboxes are analogous to Facebook Friend walls, so that anyone can read the shouts and it's not quite as annoying if messages are longer. On FatShade's profile, for example, lamma-assassina writes a long comment amongst a series of short shouts:
"I'm flattered, thanks! Well, I was taking a look at your library... Regina, Laura Marling, Tori Amos, Sarah Blasko, Fiona Apple... Sarah Slean is definitely missing! She's a singer-songwriter and pianist, her voice is just haunting and lyrics, pure beauty. I truly recommend this acoustic version of "Out in the park": [YouTube link] and her album "The Baroness". Oh, and she's a writer too. I haven't read her book yet, I must check it out, hm. Please let me know if you liked her! And if you have any recommendations, too, leave me a message:D I just got into Tori Amos, I'm totally loving her...how could I ignore her music for so long?"All the same, post length on profiles trends towards the curt end of the spectrum. Even Marrajjj and jamesssxD (from my last post), who are obviously good Last.fm friends, keep interchanges fairly short. The pattern alters quite a bit, though, with regard to forum participation.
My focus is on the "General Discussion" and "In The News" forums, which exhibit stark contrasts in writing convention. Forum threads still display variability in posting literacy, but the manifestations are much broader here. Literacy flip flops from thread to thread, even post to post. For instance, one long-running thread titled “chatting on forums is a good way to make friends !! ;D” harbors posts that are random, even unpredictable, and any subject is up for game. The user iamstellar offers another forum poster tips on beating alcohol and drug addiction:
"Addicts are always seeking to fill their void constantly. So they will use what they can to fill it. If it isn't drugs and alcohol, it is sex… recover on your own and on your own terms. If you don't you will only seek to ‘fill that void’ with other shit you shouldn't be doing.”In the same thread, the user annihilatethem shares dating advice and explains, “I've come to learn, ‘once a cheater, always a cheater’. Girl's have given me a HUGE reason not to trust them anymore.” Later, annihilatethem brings up totally different topic in the same thread: “So has anyone heard about the particle accelerator experiment they're working on in Switzerland… Black holes? Anti-Matter? Don't sound too good to me.” Where this thread renders subject-jumping with posts not only acceptable but also a crucial part of interesting dialogue, many of the "In The News" threads exhibit posts of long discussions, immaculate grammar, honed in debating and serious ethical/philosophical issues.
For instance, a thread about India's exploding population – now at 1.21 billion, according to the 2011 census (article) – elicits a conversation about overpopulation and population control. Chab0's comment seems almost Malthusian: "This insane population boom is what's keeping the poverty stricken areas of India from developing. The more people, the less resources... Only time can cure overpopulation!" Later, sgath92 and Verslie each post diatribes of four or more paragraphs (thread). Verslie goes as far as calling Indians "uneducated, irresponsible people continuously churning out more and more children for stupid reasons," claiming "they can't be bothered with contraception, they want state benefits, they want an excuse to not work, they want to give their life some sort of meaning because their own miserable existence isn't enough for them." Verslie asserts that "[h]aving children is not a 'right'" and agrees with sgath92 that "[l]icensing is definitely the way forward." According to him/her:
"The majority of these children born in places like India, are likely born into incredibly poor families, where their only future is to live in poverty whilst working ridiculously long hours with ridiculously low pay just so they can afford to pay for their small amount of food in order to survive. What kind of life is that? It's better not to create life in the first place."Aside from the ugly rhetoric and banter (see for yourself), this thread shows that Last.fm makes room for a spectrum of literacies. Interestingly, the context set by the forum & thread in conjunction with the tone established by users works to cue which literacy is appropriate. (Basically monkey see, monkey do.)
Apr 20, 2011
Last.fm: gender-bending (and anything else you want) welcome
In my search for gender issues on Last.fm, I came across a trend of male-identifying users with very feminine online personas (some examples: BEST_FICTION, jordi_89, Blitzsims, Ruh_St). Last class I inexplicably claimed that I would assume a male is gay if he listens to female-dominated music, i.e. Lady GaGa. I am so, SO sorry if I offended anyone; that is not what I think or even meant to say. I crassly misspoke but didn't see another opportunity in class to elaborate, and I totally misrepresented myself (and embarrassed myself while I was at it). Hopefully this post does a better job of conveying what I've discovered from my research. To provide some context, the Last.fm community is truly global in its extent (albeit seemingly limited to countries with available Internet access). With a music database to suit even the most particular tastes, this recommendation service attracts and welcomes a wide variety of people and thereby personalities. Furthermore, there are many avenues for interaction or involvement with both the site and other users. These components collide to create a diverse, tolerant, anything-goes atmosphere in which members can engage with each other. With this backdrop in mind, I focused in on conversation between two male users in an attempt to uncover some of the social dynamics at play (specifically with regard to gender-bending).
Marrajjj, a 16-year-old male from the US, and jamesssxD, an 18-year-old male living in the UK, joined Last.fm last year. Marrajjj and jamesssxD have 1,091 and 2,532 shouts (comments) respectively. After switching back and forth between both of their shoutboxes, I would venture to guess that most of those shouts are to each other. They message one other multiple times a day, and have done so almost every day since January of this year. Their online friendship began through shared music interest, as they are both avid fans of Beyonce ("Bey"), Britney Spears, Rihanna, and – most of all – Nicki Minaj, whose photo serves as an avatar for both users.
This dialogue soon evolved into a fun, joking relationship. They humorously refer to each other as "barb" – one of Nicki Minaj's catch phrases (see video at bottom). They often make candid or flirty comments to one another. For instance, Marrajjj pokes fun at jamesssxD bad habits, alleging "lmaooo barb! you is always stashin them coke cans in ya gucci bag. A MESS." JamesssxD jokingly responds saying, "cola? nigga there best be vodka in dat cola or #imdone #bye #ontothenextone." At another time, jamesssxD posts this animation declaring, "my gewdies my gewdies i know u want ma gewdies!!" Marrajjj provokingly answers him, claiming "i bet you can gimme somethin waay better than dem goodies." The two users also frequently comment on new music from their favorite artists. JamesssxD, for example, asserts that the "whole sasha feirce album bored me but this single is back to old Bey, it's so different to such an anthem!! i wanna put on some 9 inch heels n wallk down the street strutting," to which Marrajjj responds encouragingly "get you[r] grind on girl." Eventually, the pair shared photos of themselves. JamesssxD explains, "i got reddish/brown hair n freckles deaaad im a total scottish steroetype barb... [link to photo] a mess, black on the inside though." Marrajjj reciprocates with a link to his photo and writes, "omggg is scottland the same as ireland? XD lmaoo and im from massachusetts... im like from a little country farm town lmao.... :X." This comes to jamesssxD's surprise who "thot [Marrajjj would be] a black ghetto boy ," but flatteringly admits "[Marrajjj looks] real barbalicious tho xD." Marrajjj assures jamesssxD that he's "black on the inside like [him] of course" and "very barbaliciouss and ghetto!" Regardless of their sexual orientation, clearly both jamesssxD and Marrajjj are very comfortable expressing themselves on Last.fm with no reservations about cultural or social reprisal.
Last.fm, what at first appears to be a Pandora wannabe (just another music recommending service), is in reality a playground for manifesting identity. Some users employ their profiles to outright announce their individuality front and center, such as jordi_89 who initially used "The queerest of the queer" on his profile in place of a real website URL (now he lists his Facebook). This speaks volumes about the kind of community Last.fm represents. As described in my last post, people can illustrate their identities to varying degrees, and there is no agreed-upon limit for how seriously individuals get involved. They can represent themselves with only the music they like – by scrobbling their listening history or adding photos of favorite artists to their profile pages, for example – or go further and fill in details about personal identity – by including more personal information, choosing emblematic avatars, participating in forums, posting shouts around the site, connecting or friending musical neighbors and more. Whether the aforementioned accounts are true expressions of sexuality or merely playful gender-bending experiments, Last.fm is a nonetheless a uniting force for these users and many others. Many of the self-identified male users with feminine Last.fm personas that I encountered are friends with each other. Similarly, I have come across other social circles that have connected based on different traits.
Last.fm's community guidelines concretize this value of tolerance and acceptance:
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| Marrajjj |
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| jamesssxD |
This dialogue soon evolved into a fun, joking relationship. They humorously refer to each other as "barb" – one of Nicki Minaj's catch phrases (see video at bottom). They often make candid or flirty comments to one another. For instance, Marrajjj pokes fun at jamesssxD bad habits, alleging "lmaooo barb! you is always stashin them coke cans in ya gucci bag. A MESS." JamesssxD jokingly responds saying, "cola? nigga there best be vodka in dat cola or #imdone #bye #ontothenextone." At another time, jamesssxD posts this animation declaring, "my gewdies my gewdies i know u want ma gewdies!!" Marrajjj provokingly answers him, claiming "i bet you can gimme somethin waay better than dem goodies." The two users also frequently comment on new music from their favorite artists. JamesssxD, for example, asserts that the "whole sasha feirce album bored me but this single is back to old Bey, it's so different to such an anthem!! i wanna put on some 9 inch heels n wallk down the street strutting," to which Marrajjj responds encouragingly "get you[r] grind on girl." Eventually, the pair shared photos of themselves. JamesssxD explains, "i got reddish/brown hair n freckles deaaad im a total scottish steroetype barb... [link to photo] a mess, black on the inside though." Marrajjj reciprocates with a link to his photo and writes, "omggg is scottland the same as ireland? XD lmaoo and im from massachusetts... im like from a little country farm town lmao.... :X." This comes to jamesssxD's surprise who "thot [Marrajjj would be] a black ghetto boy ," but flatteringly admits "[Marrajjj looks] real barbalicious tho xD." Marrajjj assures jamesssxD that he's "black on the inside like [him] of course" and "very barbaliciouss and ghetto!" Regardless of their sexual orientation, clearly both jamesssxD and Marrajjj are very comfortable expressing themselves on Last.fm with no reservations about cultural or social reprisal.
Last.fm, what at first appears to be a Pandora wannabe (just another music recommending service), is in reality a playground for manifesting identity. Some users employ their profiles to outright announce their individuality front and center, such as jordi_89 who initially used "The queerest of the queer" on his profile in place of a real website URL (now he lists his Facebook). This speaks volumes about the kind of community Last.fm represents. As described in my last post, people can illustrate their identities to varying degrees, and there is no agreed-upon limit for how seriously individuals get involved. They can represent themselves with only the music they like – by scrobbling their listening history or adding photos of favorite artists to their profile pages, for example – or go further and fill in details about personal identity – by including more personal information, choosing emblematic avatars, participating in forums, posting shouts around the site, connecting or friending musical neighbors and more. Whether the aforementioned accounts are true expressions of sexuality or merely playful gender-bending experiments, Last.fm is a nonetheless a uniting force for these users and many others. Many of the self-identified male users with feminine Last.fm personas that I encountered are friends with each other. Similarly, I have come across other social circles that have connected based on different traits.
Last.fm's community guidelines concretize this value of tolerance and acceptance:
Be respectful to each other. Do not vent your frustrations at other members, whether through your comments or material you post on the site. There is zero tolerance for predatory behaviour, disparaging or defamatory comments, threats, harassment, illegal activities, invading privacy, propaganda, racial hatred, offensive cultural behaviour, vulgar or obscene content, or other inappropriate behaviour or the revealing of other members' personal information.Though users are not forced to encounter the "other," or people different from themselves, there is an implicit, uncontroversial expectation within the community that this will probably happen. In other words, if you're not welcoming of the "other," you're not welcome on Last.fm (at least its social networking aspects).
Nicki Minaj explains the phrase "Harajuku Barbie"
Apr 17, 2011
Constructing identity on Last.fm
Last.fm, the subject of my report, is an expansive music recommendation site with mature social networking features. Becoming involved in the community seems, at first glance, a simple task: listen to radio stations, find and chat with your Last.fm neighbors (people with similar taste), and/or post on the forums. However, the inner-workings of the site are much more complex. The atmosphere is lax and opportunities for engagement are many, so that users display varying degrees of involvement. This results in an interesting mosaic of a unique identities.
Profiles stand as the primary stage for presenting identity on Last.fm. The first clue to a user's personality is their avatar – the image displayed next to their activity all across the site – which sits at the top of the profile page. This image can be realistic (1), humorous (2), sarcastic (3), or anything else the user pleases (4).
Recently listened tracks, a preview of the person's library, top tracks and top artists lie below; a user's song taste serves as another patent, authentic indicator of sociality, given that Last.fm is inspired by music listening and discovery. The page sidebar has additional information: recent site activity, Last.fm friends, events the user is attending, and groups (not unlike Facebook Fan Pages). Groups in particular serve almost as identity badges, conveying individual opinions and personalities. There are few limits on what a group can be about, with titles such as "Classic Rock," "I Hate Hip-Hop," "I play too many damn forum games," "The Canadian Rock League," "I Still Buy CDs," "Introverted Lonely and Over-Sensitive," and "People with no social lives that listen to more music than is healthy who are slightly scared of spiders and can never seem to find a pen" to name a few.
Finally, the most personalized bit of screen real estate is the customizable portion of the sidebar near the top of the profile page. Where some users leave this blank or insert a short snippet of text, others create lengthy catalogues of photos, illustrations, animated images, dynamic infographics (i.e. top artists in the last 3 months, tag clouds), visitor counters, links to videos or other websites, lyrics, favorite bands, quotes, and more (example, another example). I think this portion of the profile directly speaks to the user's identity. This is the proverbial "blank canvas" of Last.fm, where individuals are free to express themselves. The representations of identity are incredibly diverse, so that some users put a great deal of thought into what they include. Profile embellishment does not necessarily correlate with community engagement however. The user Odessius, for instance, has only added a single button link to his profile page, but exhibits very high activity with 206 shouts and 1,323 forum posts. This provides just a glimpse of the complex nature of how users construct identity on Last.fm.
Profiles stand as the primary stage for presenting identity on Last.fm. The first clue to a user's personality is their avatar – the image displayed next to their activity all across the site – which sits at the top of the profile page. This image can be realistic (1), humorous (2), sarcastic (3), or anything else the user pleases (4).
Finally, the most personalized bit of screen real estate is the customizable portion of the sidebar near the top of the profile page. Where some users leave this blank or insert a short snippet of text, others create lengthy catalogues of photos, illustrations, animated images, dynamic infographics (i.e. top artists in the last 3 months, tag clouds), visitor counters, links to videos or other websites, lyrics, favorite bands, quotes, and more (example, another example). I think this portion of the profile directly speaks to the user's identity. This is the proverbial "blank canvas" of Last.fm, where individuals are free to express themselves. The representations of identity are incredibly diverse, so that some users put a great deal of thought into what they include. Profile embellishment does not necessarily correlate with community engagement however. The user Odessius, for instance, has only added a single button link to his profile page, but exhibits very high activity with 206 shouts and 1,323 forum posts. This provides just a glimpse of the complex nature of how users construct identity on Last.fm.
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