112 MC: Convergent Media

My final Reflection!

As a whole i would to say that this module has gone very well for me. I can quite safely say that i have learnt things that i never knew a lot about prior to starting the module. For example i had a limited knowledge around ‘mash-up’ media and the semantic web (Web 3.0), but know i feel like i know more than enough base knowledge around both of these subjects and all that others which we have talked about in lectures. Also this module has opened my eyes some what to all that convergent media websites that are out there, from know on i am going to upload all of my photography work up to Flickr, and i know that whenever i need to do a presentation with facts and figures i can rely upon using applications like Manyeyes and Wordle. As well as these applicable things this module has shown me how to access information more, in terms of my RRS feeds and having constant incoming information.

Finally i would have to say i have throughly enjoyed this module and i cant wait to find out what i mark i shall receive for all of my work!

Assignment 3: Google Maps!

My Google Map will show my journey from home to university, a journey that i make almost everyday. When i started this assignment i began to start appreciating that journey, which i until this point had never really taken much notice of. Once i started taking notice of it, i began to realize how nice a journey it is and how beautiful parts of it are.

View Larger Map

The Process

The start of my process in creating my map was quiet easy due to the fact of that  as soon as we were told about the task i knew what i wanted to do straight away! Once i knew this i began coming up with ideas as to where i wanted to position my images and my videos. I tried to choose the ‘interesting’ parts of my journey, especially for the video sections of my journey. Once i knew these i began to take my photos and videos and started to upload them to flickr and youtube. As for problems, this was my first, when uploading my videos, i came across errors, all i did for this was to keep trying to upload them as different file types and eventually they worked, so at least now i know as to what file types are excepted by youtube and the ones that are not.

Once all my images and video files were uploaded to flickr and youtube, i then started to add all my place marks on my map; starting at home, carrying on through my journey, placing camera markers for my photos and video camera markers for my videos. After this i began to apply all the rich text and html codes to the place mark editor boxes. During this my map really started to take shape.

After this i then embedded the html coding for my map into my blog, via the html code page.

The results of my work can be seen above.

Reflection

In reflection of this project, i would have to say that i have liked this assignment the most. I feel that this task have been the most representative of true convergence, not only are we having to apply my own journey, but for that journey we are also having to add pictures and videos to this. I also feel that i have kept to the guidelines of the brief. Also when i heard about this criteria for this task i began to think that i would be able to show my creative side with filming, and not just photography.

Assignment 2: Media Survey!

The Process

When i started to undertake this assignment i began by thinking about what i wanted to find out about people and their media usage. I worked out that i wanted to know about how much media people are consuming each day and week, also as to what sort of convergent media people are using. Once i knew this i then started to create my questions and really bulk out my research. The questions that i finalised on are below, they are also accompanied with the answers which i received. As for how gained my results i conducted my survey on one of the main convergent and user-generated websites going, Facebook. I did this by sending my questions out as an email to all my ‘friends’ on Facebook and then i waited for the results to roll in. This didn’t happen as quickly and as much as i had liked, this is the reason as for the lacking in results. I had originally hoped for more results, but if i had to this another time then i would conduct my survey through a survey website.

All results for my survey

Questions and subjects answer:

1. On average how many hours per week would you say you spend consumer different types of media?

Subject 1: 42 at least

Subject 2: 40 or so

Subject 3: 55

Subject 4: 60 hours

Subject 5: 60ish

2. More specifically what types of media are they and how long do spend on each?

Subject 1: Games – 3, TV – 1, Internet – 2 per day

Subject 2: games – 3:30, tv – 30 mins, internet – 2

Subject 3: Internet- facebook mostly, 3 hours/day, TV- 1/2 hours

Subject 4: Internet 3 hours daily, Games 2 hours daily, Music 2 hours daily, TV 2 hours a week, Radio 4 hours a day

Subject 5: Podcasts 6 hours, TV 7 hours, Internet 12 hours

3. When using the internet what types of sites are you using?

Subject 1: Networking, Forums, Information, Education

Subject 2: PORN, Youtube, Facebook

Subject 3: Facebook, myExeter (uni stuff), games rarely

Subject 4: Wrestling news, Regular news, online games

Subject 5: Search engines, social networking, video sites like YouTube, sometimes tutorials

4. When learning about daily news, where do you gain this news from?

Subject 1: Forums, Youtube

Subject 2: newspapers – work has them in the staff respite

Subject 3: TV, newspaper, BBC news website

Subject 4: The Sun, BBC, Guardian

Subject 5: BBC or Guardian. Sometimes Google

5. If you use creative content sites, do you add content yourself?

Subject 1: Rarely

Subject 2: not usually

Subject 3: Don’t use it

Subject 4: Sometimes, mostly for the course e.g. youtube vids of documentary

Subject 5: Yeah and have done for years

6. How often do you do this?

Subject 1: Rarely

Subject 2: rarely

Subject 3: N/A

Subject 4: 1 a week

Subject 5: Every few weeks

7. When using your mobile phone how many phone calls and texts do you make?

Subject 1: per day 3 – 4 on average

Subject 2: calls more than texts, about 10 mins daily
2 -3 texts daily, unless dawn / my sister starts texting then it tends to be up to 15

Subject 3: Texts- 5, Phonecalls 2/3

Subject 4: about 10 calls a week, 50 texts a week

Subject 5: 50 to 60 texts a week and about 2 hours of calling

8. On average how many different magazines do you read/ use?

Subject 1: 1 front

Subject 2: not many, 1 – 2

Subject 3: 1 newspaper

Subject 4: 3, all monthly

Subject 5: 2 a month, Mens Health and Total Guitar

9. Do you use gaming technology? If so do you use social networking features given by these technologies?

Subject 1: Yes. Headsets and stuff yes (it improves the game). Facebook on xbox live type stuff no, its easier to access on my computer

Subject 2: yes, yes

Subject 3: Nope

Subject 4: PS3, only use the network when i can be arsed to plug in the ethernet, about once a week

Subject 5: Yeah, Playstation Network

10. When consuming music, film and tv do you access these through the internet? Do you use torrents or steaming?

Subject 1: Yes. Both

Subject 2: yes, neither torrents or streaming.

Subject 3: Old fashioned way- DVDs and CDs.

Subject 4: use streaming, bbc iplayer, but not much else

Subject 5: Usually the internet and yes I do use streaming.

Once i had gained my results i then signed for a Manyeyes account, wordle and began using the Google.docs part of my Google account. I used the Google.docs app to create my data sets for use when i was creating my Manyeyes and Excel visualizations.

Here are some of the different visualizations that i create as a result of my research!

Magazines read by the subjects in my survey!

Types of sites that came up in my survey!

To view the rest of my findings watch this slide show.

My Media Survey slide show!

Reflection

For this assignment i feel that i have adhered to the brief and also that i have delivered results and visuals that truly show what i wanted them to. As for problems that i encountered, the only one that i feel i could have really changed myself would be the amount of results that i received. I would have possibly tried to get more people to submit results so that i could i have got a more well-rounded set of results. As well as this i would have also changed the wording of some of my questions so that the results which i got back wouldn’t have been worded in certain ways, thus making it hard to create visuals with them.

As a whole i feel that the assignment has gone really well and i also feel that with the more task being assigned, the greater my knowledge of convergent media and my practice of convergent media is getting.

Assignment 1: Visualizing Statistics about my Life!

For assignment 1 i plan to shoot 10 images that truly show what sort i Media i use, how i use it and what it means to me. My images will consist different forms of Media like Gaming, TV, Movies and the Internet. I hope that the statistics will represent the true me in Media form.

My Media life slide show!

As for process of this assignment i was pretty simple really because the brief was to have images and text about my media usage in them. So all i did for this task was use all my knowledge of CS4 Photoshop to help create my images.

I feel that this assignment has gone very well and has also allowed me to show my creative side, photographically, as well as showing my knowledge of Photoshop. As for changing the final images of this task i would have liked to have created some images that spoke about my media usage, as well possible revising some of the image that i already have, for example changing the text formats or giving the text more of glow, or even applying a filter to the backgrounds.

Lev Manovich: Social Media!

The first that spoke to me in Manovich article is that of the question that he poses (Is art after web 2.0 still possible?) and to this i say yes, of course it is still possible. Manovich later on goes on to speak about why it is possible, but as soon as i read the question i knew my answer. All you have to think about with a question like this that, if all the art, whether it be still or moving image, is on the internet, then where will the critics their followers and the ‘art lovers’ stock up on their wine and cheese intake? I know that this probably seems like i am telling a joke but i am actually being quite serious. As long as people like this still exist then i believe that art still have a non-internet ‘life’.

But what i do think will happen is that the ‘art’ carry on, but just like the  internet the face of the creator might become more unaware to the viewer, so in plain i mean that with Web 2.0 in existence i think that the non-internet ‘art’ will create more  ‘artists’ like Banksy, the faceless artist.