Week 2 Tutorial Task Responses;

Post 1.
How do I personally use new communication technologies?

- Growing up in the Myspace and MSN (Windows messenger) phenomena of the new millennia (2000-2008), I became very familiar with many and most of the aspects of these two particular communication tools. I also blame these tools (and lack self-control) for my undesirable grades in high school. As Myspace became less popular and the creation and rise of Facebook came about (2005- Present) I jumped ship to join the Facebook craze and have been stuck there since. I mostly utilise current communication and social media trends such as Facebook, Instagram and Skype to keep in contact with my friends and family, a diverse range of people who live overseas and also in my house. More recently though I have (clearly) also jumped on to join the Blogosphere for the academic requirements of my university communication degree. Although at first I had trouble and reservations about blogging, I have come to like the idea of talking to everyone yet talking to no one at the same time.

Post 2.

Response to the (Week 2) Required Readings. Compare; Some dates in the history of technologies vs. The History of Communication vs. Theory Jamming;

-The topics that were discussed in this week’s lecture were some ideas and different disciplines surrounding communication, communication theory and the cultural studies of communication as a whole. In response to the required readings for this week I compared and contrasted the two communication time lines and broke them down analytically. I found the first time line ‘Some dates in the history of cultural technologies’ was more technology based and extensive with information that featured important dates for technology revolutions. The first timeline commenced at the selling of Youtube to Google in 2005. In comparison to the second time line ‘The History of Communication’ which I found focused more on culturally and historically based achievements such as inventions etc, this timeline only details up to 1994, arguably just the beginning of new communication technology advances. With this said, I found in my readings that the first timeline as discussed was more socially relevant due to that it had more up to date and in depth dates.

- Theory jamming was an interesting article to read as it argues that the idea of ‘theory jamming’ is a solution to the misunderstandings of communication theory. The article discusses the different paradigms of communication and the different ways in which it can be used and abused from schools to the governments. What I found most endearing about the article was that it discussed that communication theorists are having trouble trying to finding truths and picking apart agendas and finding some meaning in the world of communication and hopefully keeping up with it.

References:

-McGaughey, William (2011),Some Dates in the History of Cultural Technologies.

-History of Communication, about.com

-Stockwell, Stephen (2006) Theory-Jamming: Uses of Eclectic Method in an Ontological Spiral, M/C: 
-These references were utillised as they were articles provided on L@G as apart of the required readings for this course.