Convergent Culture

Henry Jenkins says that circulation of media content must have the active participation of consumers. He explains that within a convergence culture members are able to express their opinions and concerns in a way that was not possible before. By convergence culture, he means that everything is more connected. Every source of information is connected to each other. The way I look at a convergent culture is that it gives the tools to fans and customers to communicate, and share their personal thoughts. When I look a the word “convergence” I remember my Oceanography class and the convergent plate boundaries. The convergent plates came together or against each other. Therefore, the way I see a convergent culture is a culture that is coming together as one culture. We now have the ability to communicate and share the same information. As a result, we are developing as one. Within this culture we become members of one particular culture. We have the same sources, abilities and tools as members of a convergent culture. 

Create engagement is the outcome of a convergent culture. Within a convergent culture members not only become active communicators, but they also are able to become active participants. By creating blogs, by sharing information on social media or by uploading pictures, members of a convergent culture engage in a creative way to express their opinions and to share the information that they think is relevant. In other words, a creative engagement is possible within a culture that allows access to infinite possibilities. We are able to see what others like and think at the same time. We can create our own social world online and make it the way we want other to see. Convergent culture encourages a creative environment. 

The key aspect to understand in a convergent culture is that every user can become a participant. We as users have the right and the choice to choose our level of engagement in a particular setting. We can choose not to have Facebook, but can choose to have Instagram instead. We can chose between creating a blog to express our opinions or simply express our opinions in Facebook. At the end of the day, we are active participants with a low or high level of engagement. We engage everyday we share something with others. By sharing something online we are not sharing it to friends, but to the world. Participants engage everyday by sharing information such as videos, articles, brands and personal opinions. It feels as if for the first time, we can share what we feel, like or dislike to the world. As I mentioned, we have the ability to chose the level of engagement that we want to have and how we want to be engaged.

What can we do about illegal downloading?

First, we need to understand how complex of an issue this is. The reality is that we all have been involved in some sort of illegal downloading. I have to admit that I have done it.  Although there is not a get a way reason for having done it, the main reason for us to do it is because the information is everywhere. Now a day we can share almost anything and we are exposed to others to have access to what we share. I do not think there is a sustainable way to fully stop illegal downloading, but I think that it can be regulated. For instance, last year, the “Copyright Alert System” was launched. The main function of this system was/is to send a letter from user’s ISP letting users knows that a violation has been made.  In other words, as we briefly mentioned in class, your Internet provider will let you know if a violation of privacy was occurred.  This system was first negotiated with the Center for Copyright Information, and while it might not have stopped illegal downloading hundred percent, I think it had an impact on users choices of downloading illegally.  I know for a fact a friend of mine received a letter for downloading the entire music albums with his Internet provider. Did it stop him from doing it again? Yes, at least for a while. Will he do it again? Yes. I think this is a great example of how also depends a lot on the user.  So the first thing to do about this is to ask ourselves is to what extend is too much? We don’t know, but what we know is that although we might not be likely to “get caught,” I think every user is under the risk, and by at least getting notifications from our internet providers, we might think twice about doing it.  We are surrounded by a generation that believes that downloading free music or other media for free is simply possible. Many people do not think the effect that is behind the “download” button. However, I think we also live in a society where we sometimes with simply go after the “free” stuff.

 A second option for this, although it might not seem possible, is to try and reduce the price of the music. Talking from the artist point of view, I would not want to reduce the price that might decrease my revenues. However, by decreasing the price I might also get more revenue as more people might be more likely to buy it as it will be more accessible. I think a big aspect to consider is the artist’s point of view. The government, and us as user, know several of the implications. But I think that artist should also take a stand and they could step in by reducing prices. Although it might not work, at the same time, it also might.

Third, and most obvious to me is to simply try and reduce the incentive to download illegally by making it harder. The main purpose of this is to take the widespread availability of illegal mp3’s by targeting file sharing sites. It’s an option that has actually been applied, but the main problem is that new sites often continue to crop up as long as file sharing continues to be profitable.  Although not an option anymore, I think artist have also the choice to choose what they want users to download for free. I know that websites such as Sound Cloud offer free downloads. Perhaps the most important thing as individuals is to look for ways that in which we can get access to music for free.

Privacy-Enhanced Personalization

The reading “Privacy-Enhanced Personalization,” mentions several privacy concerns that web users have said are important for them. Although I consider all of them to be relevant to how we as users deal with privacy, I personally thing three are the main important. First, I think trust is crucial between websites and its users. Is not so much about what you share and what you don’t, its about what level of trust is out there for whatever you decide to share with a particular website. Based on our level of trust we will choose to share information or not to share information. The credibility of the website is crucial when sharing information. For instance, I shop online on Amazon just because they have made me trust them with the information I have provided to them. This includes national addresses as well as international locations where I have had them deliver me something.

However, it takes time for trust to develop. A second concern that I personally take into much consideration is the presence of a privacy statement. Yes, I think is good and it adds trust to the users. Nevertheless, a lot of the privacy statements are required, legal, or as the reading notes, are “demonstrations of good will.” With this in mind, the fact that a website has a privacy statement that does not completely guarantee privacy. For me this is another concern. We have to be careful when the statements that websites have or don’t have. Lastly, I believe positive past experience play a big role in our concern with privacy. When I travel, for example, I always buy mi tickers from websites such as Orbitz and Kayak. I had never had an issue with them before. In fact, much of my information is already on there. These have been reliable sites for me and as a result my concern about privacy is not as big as if I was using a new site.

The article also talks about privacy attitudes. I would consider myself to be a privacy pragmatist, which is someone generally concerned about their privacy, but to a lesser degree than the privacy fundamentalist. Of course we have to be concern about what information who share on websites, but I also have the belief that as much as privacy as we want to be able to have, the internet will never be fully private. Perhaps this might just be me. This makes me question, do privacy statements actually guarantee privacy?

WHAT LEADS TO USER ACCEPTANCE OF DIGITAL LIBRARIES?

http://0-eds.a.ebscohost.com.wncln.wncln.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=7a31cfcc-8ef6-477f-b628-4f1bb86412fa%40sessionmgr4002&vid=3&hid=4113

Thong, J. L., Weiyin, H., & Kar Yan, T. (2004). WHAT LEADS TO USER ACCEPTANCE OF DIGITAL LIBRARIES?. Communications Of The ACM, 47(11), 79-83. 

 In class we talked about our relationship with traditional media and what relationship we have with traditional media using internet technologies. I found this article titled, “What leads to Users Acceptance of Digital Libraries?” Although it is a study made in Hong Kong, the same factor whether we make transitions to other technologies also apply for where we are. I spoke about how I personally enjoy reading books if I have a hard copy of them. This article talks about nine different factors that will lead someone to incline to use more for digital libraries. I will only mention a few and let you guys explore the rest.

First, the screen design, or the way information is presented on the screen, plays a big role in whether a person will choose to use a digital library or not. The navigation, or the ease with which users can move around the system, is another factor. The match between the system content and individual user’s information needs is known as the relevance, also another factor. In the same way, a crucial factor for a transition to digital libraries is simply how much computer experience does a person has? For me, this is a crucial factor. Perhaps there are people that do not make the transitions to other technologies simply because they do not how to use them. I wonder if there will be a complete transition to digital libraries. For instance, what will happen to our library at school in ten years? Will it still be the same as how it is now?

Network Laws

We currently live in a digital era. Information has become more accessible and more digital to the point that it moves trough online networks. If we look at what a network is we must understand that it two or more networks that are linked in order to exchange information.  For instance, we have a local network that revolves within a small area. There is also a wide are networks, which connects networks in a greater demographic area.

However, the emergence of networks has caused the emergence of network laws. There are three main laws that have tried to find the value of networks. A more traditional law is Sarnoff’s law, which says that the value of the network increases linearly with the number of people on it. In other words, this law is how traditional broadcasting works. A second law, however, known as Metcalfe’s Law says that in communication network, each member is proportional roughly to its square of the number of connected members. In other words, this law says that the more people who are connected to a network in which they can communicate with others, the more valuable the network becomes.  This leads to a third lay known as Reed’s Law. This relatively new law deals with the new immersion of social networks and says that the value of a networks increases exponentially with the size of the network. One major problem with defining the value of networks is that the term value itself is not very well defined and therefore can mean different things to different people.

From the three laws that have been mentioned, I would agree more with Metcalfe’s Laws just because when we join a network we automatically make connections with other members. Although the connection might not become very interpersonal, the network itself increases because of how many people overall is connected. In other words, the greater the number of users inside the network means a more valuable service for the members of the network of that same network.

Technology changes everyday. It is hard to imagine what will happen in five years. Every year there is a new innovation, and that affects the way we communicate, and also they way we received information. As of today, most of the people received their information trough social networks that are already installed on their phones. That is to say that we can find anything as long as we are connected trough a network, and as long as we have our phones. I do not have a doubt that ne social networks will emerge in five years, and information will travel much faster than today. For instance, I have newspaper applications on my phone and that is how I update my information each day.  I wonder how the television networks because everyone will be getting information at the same pace. The information will travel in the same speed for everyone else.

Why we Blog?

Whether we want share a story, an experience, or whether we want to talk about our day, blogging gives us that opportunity. By blogging we can reach our friends, significant others, family, and at the same time, completely strangers. Blogging give us the opportunity to express our feelings, thoughts and opinions about issues that go on in our lifes. We might blog with a political purpose. We might blog about sports. We might blog about our experiences studying abroad in a different country.

By blogging about our topics of interests, we have the opportunity to reach a global audience that might agree or disagree with our perspectives. At the same time, blogging allows individuals to express concerns and opinions that they might not be willing to express in the open public. Bloggers might not even tell their friends that they are blogging about topics that they might completely disagree with. But this is what blogging does, it gives anyone the opportunity to simply express opinions and speak up whatever we want to share. People might do it with a professional standard such as sharing health information. People might do it to express poetry work that otherwise they would find hard to share. People might even just want to share every aspect of their lives, and they can. The fact is that people blog because it is an easy way to share their thoughts and concerns. In the simplest manner, people blog because they can.

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