Tuesday 8 January 2008

Moral Panics and Concerns with Online Technology

There are various social concerns that arise with digital technology evolution and that the threat of a divide between people who have regular access to these technologies and people who are not able to. An article i found that expressed its concerns over the threat of class divide. Not only in less developed countries but within the the poorer part of the developed countries who don't have access to the Internet or a computer. it also explains the fact that it can be conceived as an invasion of privacy and that the sites can give away important information and the fact the military has banned myspace because it can put them in danger. and also the threat that military information can be leaked.
Another more common concern is the threat to younger people who are more vulnerable to other threats. This article that i found explains some key points for concern with the ever growing threat to younger people who are a large audience for the social networking industry.
It explains why teenagers in particular are drawn to these websites and the various threats posted to them because they are going public. The primary threats are unsafe disclosure of personal information, risky sexual behaviour, 'cyber bullying', involvement with dangerous communities and groups, and posting 'cyber threats'. One of the most famous cases is of course the 'MySpace killer'.
On the basis that the world wide web is so massive that it is impossible to monitor everything that everyone is doing. The threat is becoming a problem on a worldwide scale. Certain aspects are very difficult to monitor and even though most aspects can, the possibility of hacking and ways to get around the moderaters and sensories and is commonly known now were days.

Podcast

The teacher spoke of various media terms and describes there definitions. She also describes how they will affect the audiences lives. Here are the key terms that i took in.
digitality- Is a relatively new way of encoding, it consists of two stages(1 or 0, on or off)
interactivity- New technological abilities that can be worked with
convergions- How some companies merge and work together to make new technology.

The teacher also discusses issues related to audience, control and regulation, and ownership.
Here are some short questions that she mentioned could affect the audience.
Do new technologies change the audience?
Have audience demanded these changes?
Who doesn't have access?

The Guardian Article and Questions

1. Who is Chris De Wolfe and what does he say is the future for social networking? What impact will portable hardware have on this area of technology?
Chris DeWolfe (born 1966) is one of the creators of MySpace (along with Tom Anderson). He is the current CEO of MySpace. He beleives that the industry is becoming closer and people are becoming more likely to form relationships. The network is continuing to grow and more and more friendships will be formed along with more and more networks being created. He also beleives that because more than ever more people are logging onto social networking sites it is affecting other industries.

2. Who is Chad Hurley and what does he say is his company's goal? Is he a positive or negative technological determinist?
Chad Meredith Hurley (born 1977) is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the popular San Bruno, California-based video sharing website YouTube, one of the biggest providers of videos on the Internet. In October 2006 he sold YouTube for $1.65 billion to Google. He aims to provide a simple way in which people can share and is most certainly a postive technological determinist because he is happy with his company and is always looking to improve it for the benefit of its fans and members.

3. What does Maurice Levy say is the challenge for advertisers and what is 'liquid media' compared to 'linear media'?
He compares digital and analogue media and claims that digital media has a much wider range of possiblities. He defines the old way of advertising with no interactivity as 'linear media'. the new age of advertising which he describes as 'seamless' which involves interacting, changing settings, chaning and skipping parts of playlists and various other options.

4. What parallels does Norvig draw between Edison inventing electricity and the development of online technology in terms of searching for information?
He compares Edisons invention of electricity as a similar start to the development of online technology, metaphorically speaking they both opened the 'flood-gates' to a new range of ideas and possibilities.

5. What are the issues for the developing world? How is this evidence of a 'digital divide'? (socio-economic divide due to access to technology)
The economic divide between 1st world and 3rd world countries means that poorer countries are less technogical advanced as the richer countries. Whilst technology continues to move forward in the developed world the threat that developed countries will fall further behing is a very real possibilty.
The developing world will not have technological assess that the developed world has got.