3.1: Ego Surfing in the Digital Shadows

This week’s topic covered the idea of your digital shadow, which is the part of your web presence or online identity that you have either lost control of, or had no control over in the first place. A digital shadow is made up of little pieces of information published about you online by someone else, information that you published about yourself a long time ago and no longer want people to see, or information you published about yourself that has gone viral and has been added to by others or has been removed from its originating context appearing on a website you did not intend it for.

Ego searching is a way of checking up on your digital shadow, to see what other people can piece together about you if they look you up online. Ego searching can involve doing a Google search on your name or pseudonyms, or using other services such as blind search (which searches Google, yahoo and Bing) and Spezify which finds information about you on blog posts, social networking etc and gives a more visual representation of you.

I gave it a go and it made me realise just how much power search engines have in the portrayal of our online identities. Their systems of indexing information determine what information people see about you and in what order. My initial searches brought up nothing about me, but the Spezify search was different as it gives a visual response it was easier to pick out the information about myself (be it very small), and the results highlighted to me that twitter makes nothing private.

I discussed this with my fellow students and tutors via the blackboard. Initially my line of conversation was concerned with the digital shadow left by twitter @ mentions. When someone tweets @ you they use your name or pseudonym to send you a message. I use my real name on twitter, and Spezify found it, displaying any tweet that I had been @ mentioned in and displaying attributing it to my digital shadow. This mean that  peoples comments, opinions, and use of language were being marked as part of my online identity. This concerned me, as I am quite conservative on twitter, yet what would other people think of me when they see what others had written to me? Would it affect my reputation? 

My second reaction was to notice that no facebook results came up in the search. Facebook is a place where I cultivate my digital footprint again in my real name and I nurture relationships there so it would be fitting that it would have some kind of digital shadow but the privacy settings on Facebook prevented this information from showing in search results. Once again this was discussed with fellow students and tutors. We discussed why Facebook has such a bad reputation while twitter doesn't. A great point was made by a fellow student relating to the key factor that facebook promotes reconnecting with old friends, therefore to be anonymous on facebook would mean that you would not be found by people. This means that the network is thought to be closed off to those outside your friends list. When facebook information is found to have been made public (to anyone googling you) people are caught out, hence the bad press coverage.

In twitter thought it is fine to be anonymous, connections to others are made via topic and hash tags, not via pre-established social circles. Furthermore as pointed out again by a fellow student tweets are often lost in the mountain of nonsense, lost amongst the many other tweets, the chances of someone finding a bad tweet with your name it are slim. As boyd puts it “This is security through obscurity” (boyd 2008), but the Spezify ego search had just removed my security blanket by picking tweets with my name on it and presenting them in collage format after a search on my name.

Although there is nothing that can really be done to tone down the language or the sentiments others express to you via tweet and @ mentions, this discussion really did push forward that idea that it important to really know and understand the privacy settings on any social network / web platform that you choose to use, as this information can be searched, just like any other information found on the web. Knowing how to utilise the privacy settings on the platforms you use, in order to prevent search engine indexing is one way of preventing those skeletons from leaping out of the closet, or in my case -  being associated with the skeletons of others.

boyd, d. (2008). Facebook's Privacy Trainwreck
Exposure, Invasion, and Social Convergence. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 14(1), 13–20. Retrieved from www.danah.org/papers/FacebookPrivacyTrainwreck.pdf. doi:10.1177/1354856507084416

*Names of students and direct quotes were deliberately left out of this post in order to protect the privacy of fellow students… copies of the conversations can be found in the appendix of assignment 4

Content Sharing: Creative Commons and Public Domain resources

Flickr lets you search images by creative commons licenses
Heres how to find them

And here is a resouce that lists Sources of Legally Reusable Media

Content Sharing

This weeks activity had me create a meme using other peoples work  and distributing it to an online community via the university blackboard, all without breaking any copyright laws. The term Meme was new to me, and was described as "a cultural idea that's perpetuated" (Leaver, 2011) but once examples were given such as LOL cats, I realised I was very familiar with the concept - with  fail images, and  remixes and Mashups such as the Bert and Ernie tries gansta-rap youtube videos.

Basically a meme is a running joke that goes viral over the internet and that anyone can join in on. Memes are easy to create using "remixable elements" and are spread via social media or email etc. They perpetuate as they are passed around, new people add new images or text video or music and keep the joke running  until it runs its course and a new one starts (Leaver, 2011).

So here is my masterpiece where Ive jumped on the  “motivational poster” bandwagon 

After posting the pic on the blackboard I received a comment from a fellow student who stated that she liked that the poster was my "own creative work" which is something I found interesting as neither the image, the words, the layout or the original concept are mine.

The photo called "funny foot" was taken from flickr and belongs to Evelyn Giggles in 2009 who has licenced it under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (Generic).  Creative commons (CC) were developed in 2001/2002 (History) and are a set of copyright licences that allow owners of works stipulate what they will and wont allow other people to do with their works. As current copyright law stipulates that it is illegal to use the work of someone else without their permission, CC allows people to give permission easily and efficiently and promotes sharing of content. There are currently 6 different types of licences that vary in their degree of restrictions.

The Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 licence allows me to reproduce, remix and even use the photo "funny foot" for commercially if I wish as long as I attribute it to the original owner. Therefore I have used the image and added a reference. It was not my mind that was creative enough to produce it but I can use it.

The words are also not mine, just common vernacular which could breach copyright as they are similar but not the same as the lyrics to the song "when your smiling" After some research I found that this song was created by Cliff Bruner in 1938 and is in the public domain, meaning that it is OK for me to use it as well.

Finally the layout and the idea are not mine either. These types of inspirational poster memes have been doing social networking and email loops for quite some time, so much that the website BIGHUGELABS has created simple and easy to use software that you can create these memes in within seconds allowing for the easy perpetuation of the joke, that is easily recognisable not just by its humer but also its black and white basic layout and design.

Therefore the only originality was the combination of the elements... remixed to create something new, whilst also fitting into the common theme of the meme. 

History.  Creative Commons Retrieved from http://creativecommons.org/about/history

Leaver, D. T.(2011). Content Sharing. Web Communications 101/ 501 Retrieved from http://dbs.ilectures.curtin.edu.au/lectopia/casterframe.lasso?fid=691872&cnt=true&usr=not-indicated&name=not-indicated

Content Sharing: Copyright

What does copyright mean to you?

Do you think copyright locks creativity away from the public?

What are your thoughts on Creative Commons licences?

I believe the similarities between Avatar and Pocahontas made it through without breaching copyright because, they are similar but not the same. As stated in the YouTube video A fair(y) use tale by dangerousnerd (2007) you cannot copyright an idea – but you can copyright the form it takes. Therefore there can be a million movies made that follow a similar storyline, just as long as the visuals are different and the dialog is rewritten.

I also think there is a vast difference between piracy and remix / mashups etc. Copyright to me is a necessity, as it should protect creatives and businesses from their works being illegally copied and mass distributed for financial gain to someone who does not own it. Remix / mashups and memes etc to me are different though, as they are often produced for fun, or by fans to connect with the media texts that they connect with and have become a part of their lives. Furthermore we now have the tools, readily and easily available to use that allow us to easily remix the works of others and I believe there is a great deal of creativity that is lost if we cannot do this. Copyright laws as they stand today judge creative types that dabble in remix and those that commit mass producing piracy as the same, and I don’t think that is fair.

I agree the idea tjat Creative commons licenses are a “convenient and great way to share content with others” (Burgon, 2012) but as they are voluntary, I doubt they will inspire the likes of Disney to freely release their content for reuse while the current laws work so well in their financial favor. They are only good for those of us who like to share.

Burgon, A.(2012). Official Thread: The Right to Copy. Retrieved from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_40430_1%26url%3D

dangerousnerd.(2007). A Fair(y) Use Tale. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UycH2HvBRd4

Content Sharing: Folksonomies

What do you think of folksonomies as a way of organizing information?

 

I agree with Weinberger’s argument that folksonomies are needed today in order to give the Western tradition of essentialism a good “kick in the teeth”. As Weinberger explains “Essentialism says that of all the ways of understanding a thing, one is its real way” (Weinberger 2006), while folksonomies (created by everyone and anyone) allow for a broader understanding of meanings. Therefore both the top down models of essentialism (such as dictionary meanings or library catalogues) and the grass roots models of folksonomies (created by tagging) are needed in order to create balance in the way information is organized and categorized. As such information is made searchable and findable for the layperson and the professional alike in both online and offline environments.

Is it free of bias or only useful to those who share a similar vocabulary?

No, I don’t think any form of information categorization can be truly unbiased, and as many other people have pointed out folksonomies are only useful to those who share a vocabulary. Different languages, different cultures and even generational gaps can cause the understanding of the meanings of words, to alter from person to person, although I do not think that folksonomies should be totally written off as a way for information categorization. As Mathes states the feedback a user receives after tagging an item is “ immediate .As soon as you assign a tag to an item, you see the cluster of items carrying the same tag. If that’s not what you expected, you’re given incentive to change the tag or add another.” (Mathes 2004)Therefore although people create their own categorization tags, they have the opportunity to fine tune the tagging to match that of the broader community, allowing for some general consensus, should the participant choose to partake in this part of the process.

Mathes, A.(2004). Folksonomies - Cooperative Classification and Communication Through Shared Metadata. Computer Mediated Communication - LIS590CMC Retrieved from http://www.adammathes.com/academic/computer-mediated-communication/folksonomies.html

Weinberger, D.(2006). Folksonomy as a Symbol. Retrieved from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_40430_1%26url%3D

 

Wiki Resources, Participaroty culture and SOPA

Wikis In Plain English by Commoncraft.com

Jimmy Wales: How a ragtag band created Wikipedia.

Co-founder of Wikipedia talkes about the "Wisdom of Crowds" and how this applies to Wikipedia. Also discusses some of the limitations of Wikipedia and how it is governed

Clay Shirky: How cognitive surplus will change the world
TED talk on collaboration and participatory culture via the idea of generosity of the general public. Also covers the idea of Communal vs Civic value of the things we as volunteers put our time into contributing to.



Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea
TED talk on American Legislation, which if passed, could change the way we share information, having negative effects on social media sites such as wikipedia, twitter, facebook etc

Wikis and Blogs - Sharing Information

As stated by many others on the blackboard, there are many similarities between blogs and wikis as communication / collaborative models for sharing information. They both allow anyone with a web browser to publish content in an on line environment without knowledge of HTML, they both encourage others to contribute to the pool of information, both cover a broad range of topics - from news items to how to party with pet rocks, and both allow for the use of hyperlinking and referencing to back up information.

The differences between to two come down to (in my mind) the idea of ownership. A blog is owned by someone – whether it be a corporation or organisation or by a single person. As such the blog posts are written in a way that contains that entities knowledge and opinions. Others may comment on what is written but they may not edit the information directly.  Comments may be ignored by the originating author or taken on board or merely deleted. The owner of the blog has control over the information that is presented.

In contrast to this Wikis are harder to control and not owned by any one particular person or organisation. Wikis merely present information, and organise it. Any one can start a new topic, or add to an existing one – therefore the information presented in wikis is constantly changing, history is always updating and never set in stone.

 

Wikipedia is one of the largest wikis and states that “The ideal Wikipedia article is balanced, neutral, and encyclopedic, containing notable verifiable knowledge” but this not always the case. There is nothing that prevents people from adding biased, non-neutral, unverifiable knowledge to this on line database, but there are people with vested interests in topics that will collaborate with each other, to try and verify information and improve its quality as seen in the article Wikipedia’s Rapid Reaction to Outburst During Obama Speech. Jimmy Wales (co-founder of Wikipedia) encourages people to quality test wikipedia documents, and to fix errors (TEDGlobal 2006) in order to ultimately improve his product.

Overall I think Wikipedia changes the way we communicate, as it encourages us to be critical of the information we receive whether it be in on line or offline environments. Wikis on a whole also encourage us to work together to create and contribute to an ever growing pool of knowledge – to be active participants in learning, teaching and sharing knowledge, not just blind consumers of it.

 

 

 

 

TEDGlobal. 2006. Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia. In TED Talks. online video. TED Ideas Worth Spreading.

 

2.2: Wikis

 This afternoon I added my expert knowledge to a pool of collective intelligence and became an encyclopedic author. . .  So what did you get up to today?

In reality my expert knowledge concerned a character in a British rom/com TV show and my claims to encyclopedic authorship actually meant that I added a few words to a topic in Wikipedia. While Wikipedia is advertised as an "encyclopedia" it is also advertised as the one that "anyone can edit"  (Welcome to Wikipedia  2012) - no credentials required, no university degrees needed, no expertise - you don't even need to give your name, so hold your applause people.

In fact altering information on Wikipedia is surprisingly easy -after reading a few instructions on the Tutorial/Editing page I was ready to bestow my head full of random facts on a world wide audience. The problem I found was not in the web publishing (wikis by design are user friendly - utilising a combination of  wysiwyg software and a few basic commands known as wikitext enables budding authors like myself publish on line without knowledge of  HTML (Leaver 2011)). The problem was with finding a topic that nobody else had already written about.

So why do people volunteer their time to write wikipedia posts in the first place? (when they arent required to do so for university).

A report on The Quality of Open Source Production states that who people that contribute Wikipedia do so in different ways. Some become members and publish under their names or pseudonyms and do so in order to:

• contribute to a community,
• to gain status within the community by publishing quality information often

Others contribute anonymously, on rare occasion and do so in order to:

• part with some expert knowledge in a particular field
• fix errors
  
  (Anthony, Smith, and Williamson 2007)

Therefore the combination of experts, error fixers and "people who like to write encyclopedias for the fun" (TEDGlobal 2006) means that Wikipedia is on par with your traditionally and "expertly" authored encyclopedia such as Encyclopedia Britannica. Neither are infallible, nor 100% correct but one is not more correct than the other despite the differences in the way information is collected.  Both operate under a system of referencing sources which should be substantiated before using in an academic context such as an essay (Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia  2012).

As status within the encyclopedic writers world was not something Ive ever really dreamt about at night, and my current incarnation as a student renders me (for now) expertise-less (in the academic sense) ... my task was to search for errors or information gaps in a very niche (some would say trivial) market that I knew allot about .. TV. Study in a previous university unit had me set up a blog about television show of which I now know every detail - from plot to character development to script. Gavin and Stacey it seems, is my area of expertise.

I found a topic about one of the characters (Nessa Jenkins) that was missing a bit of information and added the following text to Romantic links part of  the biography section:

"Nigel Havers, Mohamed Al-Fayed (who tried to set her up with his son), and two of Gladys Knights Pips (whom she woke up in bed with in Vegas)^[1]"
  

Wikipedia requires that all info is verifiable and therefore should be referenced back to a "reliable source"  (Wikipedia:Verifiability  2012). This is where a little more experimentation began, as I referenced my entry back to the blog I created for the assignment (Nessa's A-Z) and wondered if it would be good enough as an encyclopedic reference.

The only thing to do now was to wait and see if any changes would be made to my entry. As Wikipedia posts can be changed by anyone it was possible that the information I had added to the wiki would deleted or altered in some way. People passionate about certain topics can add wikipedia posts to watch lists and monitor the information that's added, changing  it within seconds if they see fit. These changes can be viewed via the View History tab which I checked religiously over the course of the day with no changes made.

Four days later I revisited the page to find the information I added was still in tact and was feeling pretty smug that my little piece of trivial information was being accepted by the wikipedian Gavin and Stacey loving community. This was until I tested the link I added to the reference section, (the one that pointed back to my blog) and found it was not working. I had entered the address incorrectly. So it seems I was mistaken when I thought I had been accepted into the wikipedian authorship community and it was more the case that the info that I added has not been checked. No body picked up the broken link, therefore nobody is watching the Nessa Jenkins wikipedian entry... The cloud of smugness lifted... Lucky I didn't care about it anyway . . .

Anthony, D., S. W. Smith, and T. Williamson. 2007. The Quality of Open Source Production:

Zealots and Good Samaritans in the Case of Wikipedia. Dartmouth College. www.cs.dartmouth.edu/reports/TR2007-606.pdf (accessed 11/1/12).

 Leaver, D. T. 2011. Wikis. http://dbs.ilectures.curtin.edu.au/lectopia/casterframe.lasso?fid=691872&cnt=true&usr=not-indicated&name=not-indicated (accessed 11/1/12).

TEDGlobal. 2006. Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia. In TED Talks. online video. TED Ideas Worth Spreading.

  Welcome to Wikipedia. 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 11/1/12).

  Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia. 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia (accessed 11/1/12).

  Wikipedia:Verifiability. 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability (accessed 15/1/12).