CCT300

Labs

Lab 2 - = Why is the definition of genre controversial and not so applicable to the formation of digital genres? =

The definition of genre is controversial and not so applicable to the formation of digital genres because of convergence. Genre originated from French descent word for class or kind. Genres have specific texts or features that make groups of similar media objects and tools. There are rules attached to genres which form expectations for each genre. To classify something into a genre is difficult because there is many features and groups that have merging similarities. Convergence makes the definition of genre controversial and not applicable to digital genres because now new technology is grouping multiple media tools together in to one unit that can do multiple things. Most wireless phones for example, can take pictures, videos, tell the time, go on the internet, text, have built in answering machines, and the use of a phone as well which you can carry around with you. Most companies are now trying to incorporate converging technology into their products to compete with other companies and the leading products. This makes the definition of genre controversial and much harder to put one genre to technology.

Lab 3 -

= Do you agree or disagree with McLuhan when he defines comics as an extension of photographic media? =

I agree with McLuhan when he defines comics as an extension of photographic media. Comics are media that consist of multiple pictures much like photographic media but in the same token, they tell a story. Comics are pictures drawn by artists that come together to make a story. The artists must take a lot of time to pick certain views that they wish to describe their story and show their perspective and how they see it to multiple viewers/readers that may not understand/see the perspective that the artist is trying to portray. Comic artists must also use gutters and different effects in their stories to have the comic make sense, this allows the viewer/reader to use their own imagination to create an image of what happened in between the point that the murderer swung his axe back and the following scene of a scream and a picture of the city. Photographic media is the same as this minus the written aspect of it. Majority of photographic media will have a title or a few words but the picture(s) will have much more meaning than the simple text involved in the photograph. Another point that I agree with McLuhan is when he describes "hot" and "cool" media; "hot" media is defined as a media that will enhance a person's sense and allow this person to not put much effort in understanding what is going on, an example of this was movies. "Cool" media is defined as media that requires the viewer/reader to pay close attention to in order to obtain a full understanding of what is going on. An example of this was comics. Both Photographic media and comics are cool media and require the viewer/reader to pay close attention in order to get the full understanding, except comics are an extension in the sense that they are explaining more through multiple sequences of pictures.

Lab 4

=What is an Internet meme?=

An internet meme is a "cultural phenomenon that spreads from one person to another online". The point is to get an idea across to as many people as possible whether it be online or offline. Basically you promote something or create a huge buzz about something culturally that is online. An example of this is My New Haircut or How Can She Slap. Twitter, facebook and all online social networking are ways that memes travel across the web, someone posts something or a link and eventually someone watches, and word spreads. These social networks are the promoters of these memes, people see something is online and being mentioned by many people or commented on and immediately they are interested in what it is. From this point they tell their friends and their friends tell their friends and eventually everyone knows about this "meme". This is something like what happens in real life socially except online its not personal, anyone can see it so its a lot faster than anyone could verbally promote it because its promoting itself world wide 24/7, no one has to be there all the time to tell the story.

Lab 5

= What is the difference between advertising methods used in the real world and the virtual world. Please explain. =

There are many differences between real world and virtual world advertising methods. There is a difference in how it's done, materials used, expenses and the actual effect of the advertising. In real world advertising, there is only a limited amount of things that you can do, billboards, magazines, posters, flyers, newspapers, and yellow pages. The problem with real world advertising is that people actually have to come across these ads, billboards are not mobile and are expensive to have, given the advertiser is on a budget a billboard may not be the best way to advertise something, magazines are difficult cause not everyone buys the same magazine, posters use a lot of paper and ink, especially if it is in colour, and are time consuming to put up around the city. Flyers have the same issue as posters except they are smaller, but it costs money to pay people to distribute them and lots of time, newspapers are expensive to put ads in and so are the yellow pages. Though the expense in real world advertising is expensive most of the time it is something that people can hold on to. Virtual world advertising is more effective because of our time, majority of people have at least one TV in their house, one computer and maybe a smartphone. TV, computer and smartphones all have advertising constantly in use, (given that everyone is connected to the internet, has cable and a smartphone). TV uses commercials, computer's use e-mails, pop-ups and sidebar ads, smartphones will have the same thing and sometimes texts that are sent from other companies or the data supplier of the phone to inform the customer of new promotions etc. virtual world advertising is much more in your face advertising and more effective because it is much easier to get the point across world wide, there is no standing outside handing things out, no printing and cutting and so on everything is virtual and distributed virtually making it easier to show everyone the advertisement, though, people get annoyed by the amount of advertising and begin to ignore it which is essentially the downfall for virtual advertising, it is not as trusted.

Lab 6

=Web 3.0 - Web 4.0=

The new currency of Web 3.0 by Rob Dickens talks about Web 2.0 and its success that it has had. Rob Dickens believes that Web 2.0 may be the foundation for Web 3.0. Web 2.0 is user friendly and socially interactive Dickens believes that social media is the way of the future. Calculating the amount of social networks a individual is part of will give them the estimate of individual's influence from the social web. The most used online profiles are twitter and facebook, Dickens believes that your online influence will be an actual currency, because company's use these online tools to see what they can use to make an economic change. I do not believe that Web 3.0 will influence will equate to currency, though it will form the use of Web 3.0 influence will not be equal to currency. if a person's influence was equal to currency, then currency what would our actual currency be useful for? Third world countries would just have to have lots of web influence and they would generate more currency? or would their currency be less because their country's dollar is worth less? Social networking does and will continue to generate more money. Networking services are tools of marketing, marketing yourself, your company or which ever, they are used to help a person network, though the actual use does not make their income, it is their business that is being networked that does so. Users expand their contacts, make announcements, and post information which all helps them expand their business or personal interests.

Lab 7

=Response=

The internet is a very vast area that allows people to be many places at once and allows people to use the multi-media tools that it has to offer. Nenshi used the internet as his multi-media tool and gathered many votes through social networking. He started late in the race for mayor of Calgary, but with his strong presence Blogging, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter it allowed him to prevail as the mayor being in multiple places over the web at once. He had his own website as well which really put him ahead of himself, he looked more professional and legit than he actually seemed, which works for a mass amount people. Nenshi used social networking the same way that Obama used social networking to get elected, and who would have thought…Nenshi got elected. People like things that they can relate to, given that so many people are connected on social networking websites, if someone creates a meme on the site it will get watched by many people and many people will comment and talk about it. given that Nenshi is also socially active with these people, people are interested and take more time to involve themselves to be part of what Nenshi has made. This is essentially what Nenshi needed to get elected and it worked. Now there are at least 100 cct300 students also reading of his success and blogging about it, which builds his reputation more so.

Lab 8

=Cultural Jamming=

Culture jamming is a harmless yet powerful tool which uses the original medium of main stream aspects in pop culture to deliver negative observations on itself. Recently on an episode of // The Simpsons // something changed. Though it had the classic opening couch gag sequence which usually has a small humour effect to it, there was a incident of culture jamming in this new episode. This episode had the issues of sweatshops and worker abuse rather than the usual gag, showing many workers drawing all different parts of the characters, such as feet, a boy carrying a drawing to dip in toxic waste, a panda being whipped and many other things along the lines of these examples. The message is hidden in a form of humour, but the sequence would definitely touch every viewer’s mind in a significant way. Typically, the authors want their viewers to feel that way in order to get them thinking about a change in society. This clip was very effective, the incident is posted on many websites in the form of articles, commentaries and uploads of the actual clip. Culture jamming has shown to be a powerful technique to make a change, with the amount of publicity that this has gotten from a minor incident it has become bigger than it was meant to be.

Lab 9

=Truthiness=

The word truthiness is the word that Stephen Colbert was looking for, it is a word considered to be related to truthy, or true. Truthiness is a the silly, idiotic word that Colbert needed for Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report”. The article discusses how Stephen Colbert presented the word truthiness on an episode of the “Colbert Report” which had a viral effect. The word truthiness became selected as the 2005 Word of the Year, for a word that was considered to be something that would upset Webster’s dictionary workers and English enthusiasts, that’s a pretty big accomplishment. The article explains that he actually put a considerately large amount of thought into the word, since the word had to be as “idiotic” and silly as his character was, as well as feel weird in the mouth to others when said. We all know the difficulty of creating or naming something new. The harder thing is creating something as big as word of the year, there is a lot more than just creating a word and making it “word of the year”. In order to get word of the year it had to be catchy, sticky and lots of people would have to start using it, many people would have to actually have heard it and thought it was a word that had to be used, especially for it to be put in the dictionary.