A New Position & New Beginnings …
So, I’m a bit behind on announcing my new position, but for those who don’t already know, I’ve accepted a lectureship in the Internet Studies department at Curtin University of Technology. The move was motivated by a couple of things, but one the main factors, to be honest, was job security; with an almost-four-month old at home, escaping from rolling one-year contracts suddenly seemed very important! That said, Internet Studies has a lot to offer: I’m working with some fantastic colleagues, am teaching in areas closer to my own research interests than ever before, and this year Curtin is in the midst of reworking its curriculum for a new course structure in 2010 which means I’ll get lots of opportunities to redesign existing offerings and plan out a new stream around the notion of digital presence! I’m pleased that my broader interests in digital culture, as are often evident in this blog, will be at the fore of my teaching now rather than a just a fragment as has been the case in past years.
Leaving UWA has been an odd experience, almost like leaving home, in a way. I started out there as a very unsure undergraduate in 1995 majoring in History; along the way my interest shifted to popular culture and media studies and, after a fairly abrupt track change, I ended up with my BA(Hons) in English, Communication and Cultural Studies. Not content with five years tertiary study, I continued straight into a doctoral programme which eventually led to a PhD looking at what I termed Artificial Culture. Along the way I tutored, guest lectured and had the privilege of writing and running several units in English and Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies and the newly independent Communication Studies. In 2006, with PhD in hand, I accepted a position at UWA as a Higher Education developer in 2006 and 2007 and while I enjoyed teaching postgraduates and new academic staff about tertiary teaching, I was definitely happiest last year when I returned to Communication Studies and had the pleasure of teaching an outstanding cohort of undergraduates from first-years to honours students. From the Student News Projects and Digital Media Projects in Comm2203, to the Remix Video Projects by the students in my iGeneration honours unit, I was consistently impressed by what tomorrow’s media creators were achieving as students today! My colleagues in Communication Studies were all fantastic, too, and I’m looking forward to knowing them primarily as friends in the coming years.
This coming semester I’m looking forward getting to know my new colleagues in Internet Studies better, and to being impressed by my Curtin students. It’ll be a different style of teaching, as Internet Studies offers on-campus, external and Open University versions of most units, so there will be a lot more online teaching which will hold new challenges, but no doubt new exciting opportunities, too. In the coming months I’m teaching one unit on Virtual Communities and another called Network Culture and the Virtual Society, so I should be right at home there. Learning a new university, new systems, new rules and new procedures will take a while, especially when the UWA systems really are like second nature to me by now, but it’s a new beginning for me and I’m looking forward to making the most of Internet Studies both in teaching terms and to kick-start a few of the more web-based research projects I’ve been planning. More details on those as they start to reach a more robust form …
(Oh, and the reason blogging has slowed isn’t just due to the move to a new university; my home computer has been running slower and slower under Windows Vista for the past few months until it became unmanageable about a week ago … I’m now in the process of transferring to a new OS, but it’s a gradual process so I’m using an older laptop at home which, being generous, is good for email and word processing at most. Blogging shall resume in full in the coming weeks!)
Annotated Digital Culture Links: February 2nd 2009
Links for February 2nd 2009:
- Researcher: No Link Between Violent Games & School Shootings [GamePolitics] – “A researcher at Texas A&M International University has concluded that there is “no significant relationship” between school shootings and playing violent video games. Writing for the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, Prof. Christopher Ferguson criticizes the methodology used in earlier research linking games to violence and aggression. He also points out that no evidence of violent game play was found in recent high-profile incidents such as the Virginia Tech massacre, the Utah Trolley Stop mall shooting and the February, 2008 shooting on the campus of Northern Illinois University.”
- Internet users worldwide surpass 1 billion | Digital Media [CNET News] – “Global Internet usage reached more than 1 billion unique visitors in December, with 41.3 percent in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a report released Friday by ComScore. The study looked at Internet users over the age of 15 who accessed the Net from their home or work computers. Europe grabbed the next largest slice of the global Internet audience, with 28 percent, followed by the United States, with an 18.4 percent slice. But Latin America, while comprising just 7.4 percent of the global Internet audience, is the region to watch, noted Jamie Gavin, a ComScore senior analyst. “
- YouTube – 2009 Oscars Interactive Photo Hunt! – “A new genre? YouTube user Copyrighthater has created a game using YouTube’s in-video links and annotation tools. In each video (a.k.a. game level) you’re presented with two images from an Oscar movie and you have to find the difference and click it. If you’re right, you get to the next level.” (Thanks, Jill!)
- The Pope on YouTube [Official Google Blog] – “Today we’re delighted to announce that the Vatican has launched a dedicated YouTube channel. To find out more about why the Pope has taken the decision to interact with YouTube on a regular basis, here is a short introduction from Father Federico Lombardi, S.I., Director of Vatican Radio, the Vatican Television Centre and the Holy See Press Office.”
- Video games thrash movies and DVDs [WA Today] – “The video games industry is now double the size of the box office and more than 40 per cent larger than the movie disc industry in Australia, thanks to explosive growth in social games that allow the whole family to play. The Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) today released figures showing games industry revenue was $1.96 billion in calendar year 2008, an increase of 47 per cent from the previous year. Box office takings for the same period were up 6 per cent to $946 million, the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia said. Total revenue for movies sold on disc grew 5 per cent to $1.4 billion, the Australian Visual Software Distributors Association (AVSDA) said.”
Obama: The Future of Government and Participatory Culture
Like so many people both in the United States and around the globe, I was heartened by Barack Obama’s inauguration address which was filled with hope, but tempered by reiteration of the work ahead but more than anything Obama’s eloquence and oratory skill reminded us all that the disastrous and embarrassing era of George W Bush is finally over.
In terms of digital culture, Obama’s inauguration was a truly online event, from live-streaming from news services and even inside Facebook, to the active engagement and discussion by the people formerly know as the audience on a multitude of many platforms, with micro-blogging sites like Twitter seeing more than five times their normal load.
Obama’s government had already shown commitment to open access and a meaningful engagement with the public across the internet, something highlighted with Obama’s transitional Change.gov using a Creative Commons license.
So, it was incredibly heartening to see these early signs impressively built upon in the first day of Obama’s government. As the official website Whitehouse.gov shifted to the new administration, the first blog post promised a new era of participation and transparency, built on three simple principles:
Communication — Americans are eager for information about the state of the economy, national security and a host of other issues. This site will feature timely and in-depth content meant to keep everyone up-to-date and educated. Check out the briefing room, keep tabs on the blog (RSS feed) and take a moment to sign up for e-mail updates from the President and his administration so you can be sure to know about major announcements and decisions.
Transparency — President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history, and WhiteHouse.gov will play a major role in delivering on that promise. The President’s executive orders and proclamations will be published for everyone to review, and that’s just the beginning of our efforts to provide a window for all Americans into the business of the government. You can also learn about some of the senior leadership in the new administration and about the President’s policy priorities.
Participation — President Obama started his career as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, where he saw firsthand what people can do when they come together for a common cause. Citizen participation will be a priority for the Administration, and the internet will play an important role in that. One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.
At the same time, the new WhiteHouse.gov copyright statement reinforces these ideas, affirming the law which sees Federal government material placed here automatically in the public domain (not a new law, I should add), while third-party material (such as people’s comments, etc) will adhere to a Creative Commons Attribution license:
Pursuant to federal law, government-produced materials appearing on this site are not copyright protected. The United States Government may receive and hold copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.
Except where otherwise noted, third-party content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Visitors to this website agree to grant a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license to the rest of the world for their submissions to Whitehouse.gov under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
This symbolic gesture has been celebrated by the Creative Commons team and Creative Commons CEo Joi Ito alike.
Indeed, as Jason Kottke observes, even the robot.txt file on Whitehouse.gov (the file which tells search engine what they can, and what they can’t index) has gone from over 2400 restrictions under the Bush administration to only one restriction under Obama.
On a more grassroots level, Nancy Baym over at Online Fandom notes “One thing I love about my new President is that he inspires his followers to create in ways that erase the boundaries between politics and fandom”. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say, borrowing from Larry Lessig, Obama may very well be the Remix President. (If you want an easy way to join in, and don’t mind being a little tacky, you can always create your own pictures and photos in the style of Obama’s Hope Poster over at Obamicon.) Given all these positive changes, it seems only fitting to end this post with the Obama remix video, Fire it Up 2.0 from RX:
While there is a lot to do and huge expectations to live up to, I have very high hopes for Obama and his administration. On the digital front, I hope that the early promise of participation lasts the length of Obama’s presidency and beyond, something Australia’s initially internet-savvy Rudd government has largely failed to do. Change: it’s a message that really does work when it includes everybody for the long haul.
Annotated Digital Culture Links: January 20th 2009
Links for January 19th 2009 through January 20th 2009:
- “Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics” by danah boyd (Phd Thesis, 2.1Mb PDF) – “Abstract: As social network sites like MySpace and Facebook emerged, American teenagers began adopting them as spaces to mark identity and socialize with peers. Teens leveraged these sites for a wide array of everyday social practices – gossiping, flirting, joking around, sharing information, and simply hanging out. While social network sites were predominantly used by teens as a peer-based social outlet, the unchartered nature of these sites generated fear among adults. This dissertation documents my 2.5-year ethnographic study of American teens’ engagement with social network sites and the ways in which their participation supported and complicated three practices – self-presentation, peer sociality, and negotiating adult society.”
- Facebook irked by ‘burger for friends’ campaign [The Age] – “Burger King said Friday that pressure from Facebook has caused it to yank an application that gave members of the hot social networking website a Whopper for every 10 friends they dumped. Before the Whopper Sacrifice Campaign was halted, 233,906 friends were “sacrificed” by Facebook users more interested in relationships with the global fast-food chain’s specialty hamburgers, according to Burger King. … Changes sought by Facebook reportedly included ditching an application feature that sent deleted friends messages informing them that an online pal preferred a hamburger over them.”
- The Boxxy Story – From the 4chan meme factory, the story of Boxxy, whose hyperactive YouTube antics caused a hormone-driven civil war, taking her from a micro-meme to the Queen /b/
Annotated Digital Culture Links: January 18th 2009
Links for January 16th 2009 through January 18th 2009:
- At First, Funny Videos. Now, a Reference Tool [NYTimes.com] – YouTube as #2 search engine? Googlopoly clearly progressing according to plan: “The explosion of all types of video content on YouTube and other sites is quickly transforming online video from a medium strictly for entertainment and news into one that is also a reference tool. As a result, video search, on YouTube and across other sites, is rapidly morphing into a new entry point into the Web, one that could rival mainstream search for many types of queries. … And now YouTube, conceived as a video hosting and sharing site, has become a bona fide search tool. Searches on it in the United States recently edged out those on Yahoo, which had long been the No. 2 search engine, behind Google. (Google, incidentally, owns YouTube.) In November, Americans conducted nearly 2.8 billion searches on YouTube, about 200 million more than on Yahoo, according to comScore.”
- Hudson River plane crash [Kottke] – Detailed wrapu-up of the citizen journalist (and some mainstream media) responses to teh Hudson River plan crash. Twitter and Flickr excel. [Via BBoing]
- U.S. Airways Crash Rescue Picture: Citizen Journalism, Twitter At Work [Slicon Valley Insider] – Twitter as a citizen journalism platform: “Janis Krums from Sarasota, Florida posts the first photo of U.S. Airways flight 1549 on Twitter from his iPhone. Thirty-four minutes after Janis posted his photo, MSNBC interviewed him live on TV as a witness …”
Selling Cinderella on YouTube
Sure, it’s a jacket, not a glass slipper, and this time the one that got away is a guy, but “Heidi’s” Cinderella story is clocking up hits rapidly on YouTube:
It’s a romantic tale, of one girl looking for the guy whole stole her heart after a brief exchange in a cafe … he left his jacket behind, but stole her heart. Now, using YouTube, she’s reaching out to try and find him. As stories go, it’s got pretty much everything, but it’s just a little too cute. Indeed, “Heidi” has already managed to cobble together a website to promote her quest and it’s a bit too professional; these photos are more about showing off Heidi and the jacket than about trying to genuinely connect with someone. In the post-LonelgGirl15 era, people that tend to be too good to be true tend to raise an eyebrow, and The Daily Telegraph seems to have found the likely viral marketing engine under the hood of this tale:
The Sydney protagonist is 24-year-old Elizabeth Bay shop assistant Heidi, who is adamant the incident was absolutely real and says she is desperate to find her mystery man with the laptop. With the help of a graphic-designer friend, she recorded a video for YouTube titled: "Are you my man in the jacket?” Within four days, more than 60,000 people had watched the pretty blonde put her heart on the line and plead for the handsome stranger to come forward. … The problem with this story is that the label on the jacket is linked to a mainstream fashion house. And it’s a label that doesn’t exist. At least not yet. The Sunday Telegraph has learned that the Australian company is on the verge of launching its first menswear line. Heidi swears she is not involved in a guerrilla marketing campaign. "I just picked up the jacket,” she insisted.
Could a new line of jackets called Heidi but about to hit the market? 😛
Update: It’s been confirmed that this was indeed a viral marketing video.
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