2013-11-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

A few things I have found interesting since starting this course is how diverse communication has become through the mediums of the digital age. It can be public to a worldwide audience or so private that it can be cleverly hidden in a virtual underworld. I also believe that communication has taken other forms, particularly through hacking. A well known activist group, Anonymous, are probably the most famous of these people. They are well known for targeting large corporations, like Sony a couple of years ago when they changed their user license agreement, which included not being able to install your own OS (Operating System). Anonymous responded by hacking Sony and stealing thousands of peoples bank and security details. This was a response, through hacking, to Sony's actions. There was direct communication but it seems that the strength of communication was through this method of hacking.

I have spent an amount of time involved in a forum for a videogame I play over the last several months. An often occurence here is that people are divided between an "elite" gaming community and a "casual" gaming community. This often leads to dispute between the majority of either of these communities. The aggression generally shown, would probably not take place so plainly as it does here. Most often it seems to me that it is much related to Adler's idea of the "Superiority/Inferiority Complex" You can find a brief description of what this is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_complex
There is also an interesting research here, in regards to aggressive behaviour resulting from forum users:
http://www.tojet.net/articles/v11i2/11225.pdf
It is often frustrating experiencing a forum like the one I do, as generally this division is much like any segregated society and they have always shown conflict. There are often what people call "trolls" too, who persistently attempt to antagonise others or distort the image of the product in which the product is created for. Generally these "trolls" take a passive aggressive stance in order to not get banned or put on temporary probation. There are those, like myself who try to take a neutral stance and generally is actually a minority of serial complainers/aggressors who disrupt a community who generally wants to discuss the main topic of the forums.

I did actually start another blog to this one in the summer. Initially I thought it would be helpful for others in a similar situation and on my first day I received over 50 views, mainly from the USA. The two days after the blog seemed to get no views, so I assumed that the original post had not captured my audience or it lacked coherency. I would have written a little more for this blog (to tell of my continued success), but I had my emails hacked and without a lengthy and possibly unsuccessful attempt to regain control of it, I have left it to be. http://stopsmokingforthefuture.blogspot.co.uk/

This is actually where digital communication has is at its weakest for me. Hackers are becoming more and more prominent and without greater measures for security, it seems like, unless locally and physically stored, that information can simply be deleted. And unless you have backups, it is more than plausible that the information you have on your harddrive can simply be stolen or destroyed. This lack of privacy and security can be disconcerting. It is not just the government who have the ability to zoom in and focus on a particular individual if they wish, it is anyone with the technical prowess. I lost a lot with my emails being hacked; communication with my birth father, some friends who I will never be able to trace again and also a long history of emails to Public Relations I used to deal with as an online journalist. Even the journalism I had done, has mainly been lost, with a few exceptions, mainly due to the sites popularity or relevance diminishing and the subsequential closure of the sites. It is disappointing to lose so much written word and so much communication, but this seems something that can be unavoidable in the digital age. Although this is certainly a problem I have encountered with handwritten poetry I have done; where it has been lost or destroyed through whatever means. In some respects, digital storage has its advantages but there is always the possibility of technical failuire and digital theft/disruption.

New Technology English Studies Blog

2013-09-26T04:26:00.002-07:00

This is a blog about New Technology within my degree course English Studies. It will describe an expedition of my learning experience in New Technology. Today, we learnt how to make a blog, as this blog demonstrates. We are aiming to learn how New Technology affects the written word today.