Week 3, 7th August 2012.

1) Which of Stephen Stockwell's books are in the Griffith library?

- Stockwell, S., 1954 2005, Political campaign strategy: doing democracy in the 21st century,Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne.

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

- Morrey, D. 2005, Jean-Luc Godard, Manchester University Press, Manchester. (Available at Nathan Campus.

-MacCabe, C. & Godard, J.L., 1930 1980, Godard; images, sounds, politics, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. (Available at South Bank and Nathan Campus.)

-Brody, R., 1958 2008, Everything is cinema: the working life of Jean-Luc Godard, Metropolitan Books, New York. (Available at Nathan and South Bank Campus

3) What is a book that will assist you to find out about possible research methods to explore social media?

-Media research methods; measuring audiences, reactions and impact.
-Gunter, B. & Sage Publications, i. 2000, Media research methods: measuring audiences, reactions and impact, SAGE, London.

4) Stephen Stockwell writes about politics and the media, particularly in Australia. What database would you use to find his first academic article about Brisbane in a national journal? What year?

Database; InformitArticle Reference; Stockwell, S. 2007, "Alternative Media in Brisbane: 1965-1985", Queensland Review, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 75-87.

5) What is the latest medical thinking about internet addiction? What data base did you use?

6) What are IT engineers thinking about surveillance cameras? Identify a theme you could write an say about and cite three papers that would be useful?

(Task 2)

BRB (be right back) Friendster?

Like many social networking communities that have been wiped off the charts with the popularity and the rise of new social media trends, Friendster, once popular in 2002 (predominantly) in Asia has crumpled in recent times just like Myspace. Friendster at its peak had 1.5 million users, which at the time was a great number for people in the early millenia and was mainly used for communication and social networking purposes. Although it is argued that Friendster (MOL) is a survivor of the dot.com boom (Sarah Mishkin 2012), it has become even more unfrequently used as the years have passed and social media communities such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have surpassed the once popular networking site. However bleak it may look for the social networking organisation the CEO and co-founder of MOL (Friendster) referred to in Mishkin’s article as Mr Banagh laments confidently that  'Yeah, but it's still strong in Asia' (Mishkin, 2012.)

Although there is still hope for the social networking site with its rival Facebook interested in buying shares in the privately owned company, it is very likely that, the once front runner and pioneer of social networking which existed before Myspace and Facebook, is unknown to younger internet users (Kate Askew 2011.) Is Friendster another victim of Web 2.0? Stay tuned.

I personally have not used Friendster and have never had a Friendster account. However, it is easy to join parallels and see similarities between the demise of Friendster and other once popular networking sites such as Myspace. I was once a Myspace user before I had Facebook and used Myspace at the height of its popularity. I personally can not predict what will be cool after Facebook has suffered the churn of technology, maybe I will leave that up to Web 3.0 to decide?

Askew, K. 2011, Pushing the boundaries of dotcom valuations, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia, Sydney, N.S.W.

Mishkin, S. 2012, "How Malaysians online are staying best Friendsters for ever", FT.com, , pp. n/
(Task 3)

Revision of Required Weekly Readings/Tutorial Discussion;
Sue Halpern; Mind Control and The Internet.

This week’s tutorial and weekly article shed some light on an interesting view of how individuals can and are being controlled and manipulated by the internet. As a result of this reading, these questions were raised as debate and discussion;

How might the internet be controlling our minds?

As discussed in Halpern’s article, there are many techniques used by organisations that are implemented to collect user’s personal information (one technique which is referred to in the article as ‘data mining’.) A lot of companies (such as Google) rely on this collected information for internet advertising purposes. The article further discusses that companies can profile their desired audience on the internet by categorising users via what the user/s search on the internet, companies are doing this in the quest to find their ideal consumers to purchase their products, utilising key words that the user has typed previously to target demographics. Furthermore, Halpern argues that Google use similar invasive data mining techniques to profile it’s users to accommodate the users pre-existing views and ideologies. This is concerning as described by Halpern, as it leaves little room for debate, innovation and a lack of challenging and thought provoking ideas when it comes to individual users using the internet. It can be argued that by feeding the masses with same thought ideologies and not leaving room for education on new topics and ideas, that the masses are being kept docile and controlled as there is no thought provocation processes available to them. By the internet controlling and not presenting a possible two sided argument, it leaves little room for users to be well educated on topics and therefore they cannot make informed decisions and opinions. (Halpern, 2011, pg2,3.)

Is commercialisation destroying the web or is the web improving the way we do business?

In the ever evolving world of technology many businesses would be doing themselves disfavour to not be accessible to their markets in the online world. Most businesses of today can be found on online platforms with many businesses to date being solely operated online, for example many online clothing stores. It is practically essential in the competitive business market of today to at the very least have a website, email and Facebook for your company. With more people connected to the internet constantly and the power distance relationship gap being lessened (overseas purchasing online etc.), it is quite possible for individuals if they pleased to, to conduct their lives and live online permanently. However it does create a complex and a lack in social interactivity. Soon enough we will be dealing with computers more than dealing with humans face to face. Examples of these are becoming increasingly present all throughout the society of today, a key example would be the ‘self check-outs’ that you can find at leading super markets.

Does internet advertising really influence us?

I guess in many ways internet advertising does affect individuals to some degree, I think it just depends on whether individuals are active or latent towards it. Although a majority of the time there is a negative stigma that goes along with internet advertising and products purchased on the internet, because you can’t see what you are purchasing and you can’t determine whether if it is an adequate product or even a real product. However, with the boom of online shopping and online trading, purchasing and the advertisement of products on the internet has become more of the norm practice and has become more reliable in the past five years. I think as more people are using the internet it is easier and cheaper for companies to access them through online advertisement and spam as opposed to expensive billboards and television commercials.

Article Reference;

Halpern, Sue (2011) "Mind Control & the Internet", New York Review of Books June 23.