Week 10 - The generosity of new media: science technology and innovation

It is evident that there is an ongoing social re-organisation evident within society, due to it's reaction to new media technologies that restructure and assist in creating meaning for innovations that arise over time. Particularly, this can be witnessed in regards to transversality, which I discussed earlier on, although most importantly that it can connect things in unlimited directions because it has no hierarchical order. Rather, transversality moves across potentials to construct meaning and connect different nodes, and through effects the construction of reality. Due to the creation of these new media technologies, we are able to interact with new science and innovations that are steadily being created assist the way in which we interact but also to support for data management, development of infrastructure, resources for curation of data (Pisani 2011) Although how can this new accessibility these innovations change us as a society and the ways in which they can affect the way we organise ourselves?

A crucial part of these new media technologies is creating something which can capture the actual and translates it into the virtual, as it has been changed and adapted to certain mediums and technologies. Although, can we really capture the real and transcend it into something different? Realism tries to capture how the world looks, although by classifying it and labelling it as something, perhaps that already takes away it's meaning and as a result would not remain true to what it really is? It is a difficult process to define, although it is seen that there are increasingly more innovations that are available through new technologies that assist in creating a more efficient and easier to manage world, that would inevitably affect our social organisation within the world.

Most importantly, this is evident in defining media as communication techniques. That is, their role is not only to process and administer information to a variety of different sources and nodes throughout the world, but to be an enabler of content and not just the messenger. They are an application of ideas and knowledge through an infrastructure, a process of invention and adaptation (Murphie 2011) Particularly this is seen in the area of climate change that has been visualised and perfected throughout the years to communicate a more visual message to society, one which has definitely called for a social reorganisation of the priority of climate change within society. This emphasises the power of social media in not only creating an accessible platform for sharing and accessing information, but also it's influential nature in affecting the structure of society through the use of it's technologies.

References

Murphie, A. (2011) Advanced Media Issues Lecture. 9 May.

Pisani, E., Medical science will benefit from the research of crowd, The Guardian. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/11/medical-research-data-sharing. [Accessed 9 May 2011].

Week 9 - Social Organisation = Micropolitics, Networks, Designing for and Living in New Communities

What are the ways in which we organise society? There has to be a willingness to be open to new thoughts and ideas in regards to connecting people over a large space. One of these methods has proved extremely popular throughout the years - the use of social networking to remain closely in contact with familliar and unfamilliar faces around the world. We are rapidly becoming a community that is designing and living in new ways through the construction of spaces, more importantly learning to construct our own communities to sustain our networks. Although how is this really achieved and what different ways are there of keeping ourselves connected within a larger organisation?

The introduction of new media, particularly through the use of micropolitics as the creation of techniques for collaboration, involve experimentation and an openness to be experimental (Jellis 2009) This emphasises the idea that social media can be used to change the way that society organises itself and how it can be reworked to lead to a dynamic restructure of the possible oppourtunities that are available to due these new technologies. This is evident, particularly in relation to computer devices and how organisations such as Simpli could restructure searches and bring about alternative answers due to their user generated content.

This move onto online culture has become a way to not only rework society and create more personalised networks amongst ourselves, but also allowing us to reform the idea of what the social is, through how we organise ourselves. Through this innovation, it has lead to a dynamic social organisation, one that emphasises changes to open education and power and authority to the commons, amongst other changes. It has had a significant affect on how informal media and the idea how mixed ways of operating can significantly have an affect on the way data is administered within a community, but also how we organise ourselves around this.

References

Jellis, Thomas. (2009). Disorientation and micropolitics: a response.Available: http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/montreal/disorientation-and-micropolitics-a-response/. Last accessed 2nd May 2011.