This blogging experience has been refreshing in terms of a project. I found it a blast being able to blog about items relating to topics of particular weeks. I was able to expand my views from the discussion board posts and from the writing activities. I believe that courses like this should offer the option to blog about course related material and integrate it with personal findings, thoughts, and revelations. It is a new take on how to approach a course project. I will not divulge too much about my blogging experience here, so that I can leave room for content in my blog evaluation paper. This was a nice change from having to write a research paper or do some project that was repetitive and mundane. I'm glad this opportunity was offered to me because I enjoy blogging.
As a bit of conclusion to my blogging experience I wanted to focus on the topic that we first learned about, which was that of Netiquette. I feel that this is an extremely important aspect of computer mediated communication and these guidelines of netiquette should be taught and practiced by everyone who communicates via technology. It is difficult sometimes to remember all of the rules: think first, be concise, know the audience, etc. (Scheuermann & Taylor, 1997), but for the most part the rules are simple and easy to follow. Netiquette can be tied into the aspect of self-presentation, online anonymity and exposure, cyber-bullying, computer mediation of interpersonal relationships, and CMC in business; you can virtually apply a rule or two many areas of CMC.
My favorite rule is that of 'think first' which could easily include 'know your audience'. This rule could be seen as the golden rule of netiquette, think before you post, think about the context in which you will be interpreted, think about how you are presenting your self to an audience that may not know you, think about your audience (will they understand what you're saying? will you offend them?), think about what this could do to your relationship(s) and your future endeavors. Some of those examples may seem extreme and oOoOOo life changing but in this day and age you've got to watch yourself and protect yourself from....yourself. It can be difficult to criticize everything thing you do online but in the end it can save you from a lot of damage that can be caused.
Scheuermann, L. & Taylor, G. (1997). Netiquette. Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, 7, 269-273.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Post 6: E-monitoring, Regulation, & Privacy
Seeing as how I accidentally thought that the RF13 was due this week, I practically read all of the material so now I can blog about it.
The coupling of privacy and technology has been a long standing issue. This seems the become more and more relevant as technology advances, especially in the workplace. Nord, McCubbins, and Nord (2006) state that, "workplace monitoring has existed for a long time...and will continue to...become increasingly sophisticated as technology advances" and this causes concern for employees everywhere due to the fact that a level of privacy is expected to provided. Of course with more and more employees conducting non-work related acts it is practically standard procedure for employers to implement monitoring and blocking software. Blocking certain content and sites from work computers seems to pose no harm but it's when we start talking about monitoring employee computers where problems start to arise. However, if you're at work then you should be following policies and procedures, and you should be doing work, not browsing around shopping, playing games, paying bills, etc.
It almost seems too simple not to follow these rules, guidelines if you will. When you're at work you can expect some privacy but you're at work so you're under the jurisdiction of your employer. I'm not saying that employers can do whatever they want and put surveillance cameras in the restrooms, but each side of the line should follow the policies and procedures set forth, and if there isn't any for any one side then action should be taken.
Nord, D. G., McCubbins, T. F., & Nord, J. H. (2006). Privacy, legislation, and surveillance software. Communications of the ACM, 49(8), 73-77.
The coupling of privacy and technology has been a long standing issue. This seems the become more and more relevant as technology advances, especially in the workplace. Nord, McCubbins, and Nord (2006) state that, "workplace monitoring has existed for a long time...and will continue to...become increasingly sophisticated as technology advances" and this causes concern for employees everywhere due to the fact that a level of privacy is expected to provided. Of course with more and more employees conducting non-work related acts it is practically standard procedure for employers to implement monitoring and blocking software. Blocking certain content and sites from work computers seems to pose no harm but it's when we start talking about monitoring employee computers where problems start to arise. However, if you're at work then you should be following policies and procedures, and you should be doing work, not browsing around shopping, playing games, paying bills, etc.
It almost seems too simple not to follow these rules, guidelines if you will. When you're at work you can expect some privacy but you're at work so you're under the jurisdiction of your employer. I'm not saying that employers can do whatever they want and put surveillance cameras in the restrooms, but each side of the line should follow the policies and procedures set forth, and if there isn't any for any one side then action should be taken.
Nord, D. G., McCubbins, T. F., & Nord, J. H. (2006). Privacy, legislation, and surveillance software. Communications of the ACM, 49(8), 73-77.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Post 5: Political & Social Activism
This week we covered a topic that I don't like to cover. Politics is a crazy thing and there are many aspects to it and it can be confusing and overwhelming. I try my best to stay as informed on issues as possible but with so much information coming from everywhere it's hard to take it all in. Not to mention how to sort out the biased information from right and left winged followers and media sources. Needless to say this writing activity was tough and it took me forever to complete my assignment because I just couldn't figure out what I wanted to say or discuss. Blah.
Thurlow, Lengel, and Tomic discuss how CMC effects offers opportunities to view current issues from different perspectives, offers organizations a chance to promote and support their ideals and beliefs, offers cyber activists new stages to offer change, offers people to connect with others in 'politically charged situations' (2004). Computer mediated communication offers a wide range of opportunities in every aspect and this weeks material helps support the theory of technological determinism. The theory of technological determinism basically states that the advent and characteristics of new technology effects the 'development and set[s] the conditions for social change' (Barnes, 2003). The advent of blogs, email, and social networking sites have changed how we all communicate and transfer information to one another and they have changed the way activists, politicians, and regular people do things now a days. Back in the day if you wanted to be a part of the civil rights movement and participate in a march you'd have to network and find out how to get involved, you'd call someone or perhaps you'd stumble upon a flyer. It seems like you'd have to put a lot of work into getting involved and taking action. Now a days you can just search for a groups with your interests online, then you can click on their link and get information on how to "take action". I believe this has changed how activists promote themselves and more than likely they are larger in numbers and more closely connected because of such advanced technology. As long as you have advances in technology that can affect how organizations form and maintain themselves, then you will always have at least one large supporter of the technological determinism theory.
Barnes, S. B. (2003). Computer-mediated communication: human-to-human communication across the internet. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Thurlow, C., Lengel, L., & Tomic, A. (2004). Computer-mediated communication: social interaction and the internet. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
Thurlow, Lengel, and Tomic discuss how CMC effects offers opportunities to view current issues from different perspectives, offers organizations a chance to promote and support their ideals and beliefs, offers cyber activists new stages to offer change, offers people to connect with others in 'politically charged situations' (2004). Computer mediated communication offers a wide range of opportunities in every aspect and this weeks material helps support the theory of technological determinism. The theory of technological determinism basically states that the advent and characteristics of new technology effects the 'development and set[s] the conditions for social change' (Barnes, 2003). The advent of blogs, email, and social networking sites have changed how we all communicate and transfer information to one another and they have changed the way activists, politicians, and regular people do things now a days. Back in the day if you wanted to be a part of the civil rights movement and participate in a march you'd have to network and find out how to get involved, you'd call someone or perhaps you'd stumble upon a flyer. It seems like you'd have to put a lot of work into getting involved and taking action. Now a days you can just search for a groups with your interests online, then you can click on their link and get information on how to "take action". I believe this has changed how activists promote themselves and more than likely they are larger in numbers and more closely connected because of such advanced technology. As long as you have advances in technology that can affect how organizations form and maintain themselves, then you will always have at least one large supporter of the technological determinism theory.
Barnes, S. B. (2003). Computer-mediated communication: human-to-human communication across the internet. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Thurlow, C., Lengel, L., & Tomic, A. (2004). Computer-mediated communication: social interaction and the internet. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Post 4: Culture & Society
The writing activity for this week was cancelled, yay, and so all we had to do was read the materials for this week. If you take a look at much of the media in today's society we find that culture and media co-exist, but which one affects the other? Barnes discusses several different theories that have surfaced in order to explain this relationship between culture and technology. I found that you have extremes on both sides, the technological determinists folks and the social determinists, and then some other groups that are not as extreme and some kind of in between. Basically it's a big ol' mess of 'isms'. Each side has persuading arguments that highly support their theories, making it difficult to come to one conclusion. I find that all of these theories can be applied to various situations and events that occur in society and technology.
I like to use the example of Twitter and how it has changed western culture and many other cultures communicate around the globe. Twitter is still growing and yet when something big happens in the real world, you better believe you can find it on twitters list of 'Trendy Topics'. I can remember the tweet coverage on the Chris Brown and Rhianna incident, when T-mobile was having nation-wide problems, and the huge coverage of the Iran election crisis. These are just a couple of examples but every minute of every hour of every day, you can always find big news in 'Trendy Topics' all coming from everyday people. It's amazing! Here is an example of a form of media created for people just for fun, but it has changed culture and society in a way that makes us the reporters. So, did society affect this technology or did technology affect society? I'd like to think it a bit of both.
Where do I stand? I believe that you have influences from both ends... you want to make browsing through your daily go to websites easier and less time consuming? Hey why not create an add-on in Firefox for that! DONE. Can you find your weekly shows online? Yup, that's right abc.com now includes recent episodes online of your favorite shows. How has that affected you? Well, now you don't have to rearrange plans so you can watch your show, you don't have to be left out if you miss the television airing. This relationship is a beautiful thing, where technology prospers and society prospers as well.
...or is this relationship going to cause problems???
Barnes, S. B. (2003). Computer-mediated communication: human-to-human communication across the internet. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
I like to use the example of Twitter and how it has changed western culture and many other cultures communicate around the globe. Twitter is still growing and yet when something big happens in the real world, you better believe you can find it on twitters list of 'Trendy Topics'. I can remember the tweet coverage on the Chris Brown and Rhianna incident, when T-mobile was having nation-wide problems, and the huge coverage of the Iran election crisis. These are just a couple of examples but every minute of every hour of every day, you can always find big news in 'Trendy Topics' all coming from everyday people. It's amazing! Here is an example of a form of media created for people just for fun, but it has changed culture and society in a way that makes us the reporters. So, did society affect this technology or did technology affect society? I'd like to think it a bit of both.
Where do I stand? I believe that you have influences from both ends... you want to make browsing through your daily go to websites easier and less time consuming? Hey why not create an add-on in Firefox for that! DONE. Can you find your weekly shows online? Yup, that's right abc.com now includes recent episodes online of your favorite shows. How has that affected you? Well, now you don't have to rearrange plans so you can watch your show, you don't have to be left out if you miss the television airing. This relationship is a beautiful thing, where technology prospers and society prospers as well.
...or is this relationship going to cause problems???
Barnes, S. B. (2003). Computer-mediated communication: human-to-human communication across the internet. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Post 3: Cyber Selves
A symbolic marker helps you present yourself to others how you want them to see you, they say something about the way you want to present yourself, and how you feel you fit in with a certain group (Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2004). They can be anything from clothing, to how you get your hair cut, to how you speak in front of others. Online these markers can be a bit more difficult to find and there are much less to be judged upon. In most cases the main component of your online symbolic markers is your words: what your tone is, what you say, how you say it, your spelling, your grammatical usage, etc. Of course there are pictures and the links to which you post to show that you're interested in certain things, but the impressions we create are formed heavily from your words and your actions through those words.
When it comes to our identities, our self-presentations, we are really representing two different forms of ourselves because "there are two of [us]" (Conlin, 2006), the warm-blooded version who interacts face-to-face with everyone and our online version, who Conlin suggests is becoming more and more difficult to control. Before I never noticed this two version self of myself, but in completing this week's readings I found it to be more evident than before. I never thought I was maintaining two versions of myself, but I am, and it is difficult to watch what I post on social networking sites, blogs, etc. I feel like I am still me no matter if it's my online self or my warm-blooded self. I would say that I do not alter my online identity and I post as if I were actually speaking to that person. I do not post things that I wouldn't say to my friends in real life...and those that know me in real life know what I would and would not say.
Thurlow et al. talk about people taking on multiple identities throughout their lives and "find[ing] new was to represent themselves to the world" and I believe that this holds true for a majority of people. We are not the same person we were at the age of 17 or 28 or 54. We consistently change and shape ourselves into who we think we should be, whether our identities are influenced by media, family, friends, our interests, goals, morals, values, etc. The more we find out about who we are and who we want to be the more we try to change our identities to become that vision. I can say that I have experienced changing my identity as I have gotten older, not by much but I have become more certain about particular aspects of my life, but at the same time I have become bogged down with questions about decisions in my life that need to be made...and to me that is also part of figuring out who I am because the answers to those questions help define who I am and what I want to do.
Conlin, M. (2006). You are what you post. Business week, 3977, 52-53.
Thurlow, C., Lengel, L., & Tomic, A. (2004). Computer-mediated communication: social interaction and the internet. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
When it comes to our identities, our self-presentations, we are really representing two different forms of ourselves because "there are two of [us]" (Conlin, 2006), the warm-blooded version who interacts face-to-face with everyone and our online version, who Conlin suggests is becoming more and more difficult to control. Before I never noticed this two version self of myself, but in completing this week's readings I found it to be more evident than before. I never thought I was maintaining two versions of myself, but I am, and it is difficult to watch what I post on social networking sites, blogs, etc. I feel like I am still me no matter if it's my online self or my warm-blooded self. I would say that I do not alter my online identity and I post as if I were actually speaking to that person. I do not post things that I wouldn't say to my friends in real life...and those that know me in real life know what I would and would not say.
Thurlow et al. talk about people taking on multiple identities throughout their lives and "find[ing] new was to represent themselves to the world" and I believe that this holds true for a majority of people. We are not the same person we were at the age of 17 or 28 or 54. We consistently change and shape ourselves into who we think we should be, whether our identities are influenced by media, family, friends, our interests, goals, morals, values, etc. The more we find out about who we are and who we want to be the more we try to change our identities to become that vision. I can say that I have experienced changing my identity as I have gotten older, not by much but I have become more certain about particular aspects of my life, but at the same time I have become bogged down with questions about decisions in my life that need to be made...and to me that is also part of figuring out who I am because the answers to those questions help define who I am and what I want to do.
Conlin, M. (2006). You are what you post. Business week, 3977, 52-53.
Thurlow, C., Lengel, L., & Tomic, A. (2004). Computer-mediated communication: social interaction and the internet. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Post 2: CMC in Business
This week's readings were interesting considering that we just completed our virtual team project. This was the first time I had ever participated in a full on virtual team and it was interesting. There were some minor difficulties in terms of communicating asynchronously via a discussion board, simply due to the fact that not everyone can consistently check and post to make sure their up to date. Barnes (2003) states that "virtual project teams can be formed, reorganized, and dissolved rapidly when the project is completed or the needs of the market change" and I found that to exceptionally true because our team got together, got the work done, and that was it. We don't talk on Skype and I will soon delete the team members from my contact list. This is just because I know I will probably never communicate with any of these people again. We formed for an assignment and worked together to turn it in and receive our respectful grades.
Another issue that arose for me was the component of trust. For some reason in every group project I participate in I am always weary of the other group members and their care and abilities to complete the assignment well and not commit the crime of social loafing. I suppose this is due to the fact that I would rather work alone and whenever I work in a group something negative always happens and that skews my view on working in teams/groups. Other issues associated with virtual teams and CMC are low individual commitment, role overload, role ambiguity, and absenteeism (Barnes, 2003).
I found it relieving to incorporate another form of communication into our group project. We mainly communicated via discussion board at first but then we moved on to another form of asynchronous communication which was email. I found emailing to be a lot easier for myself because I constantly have my email account open and can respond to a team member's email at a moments notice, where as with the group DB it was difficult to consistently check it for new postings (especially because I wasn't use to it). It was also nice to use the instant messaging and call conferencing services provided by Skype for the team meetings. Communicating using synchronous distributed communication means helped when we needed to converse about several different items for the project. It was almost a face to face interaction, where we didn't have to wait for each other to post to the DB or email back.
Barnes, S. B. (2003). Computer-mediated communication: human-to-human communication across the internet. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Another issue that arose for me was the component of trust. For some reason in every group project I participate in I am always weary of the other group members and their care and abilities to complete the assignment well and not commit the crime of social loafing. I suppose this is due to the fact that I would rather work alone and whenever I work in a group something negative always happens and that skews my view on working in teams/groups. Other issues associated with virtual teams and CMC are low individual commitment, role overload, role ambiguity, and absenteeism (Barnes, 2003).
I found it relieving to incorporate another form of communication into our group project. We mainly communicated via discussion board at first but then we moved on to another form of asynchronous communication which was email. I found emailing to be a lot easier for myself because I constantly have my email account open and can respond to a team member's email at a moments notice, where as with the group DB it was difficult to consistently check it for new postings (especially because I wasn't use to it). It was also nice to use the instant messaging and call conferencing services provided by Skype for the team meetings. Communicating using synchronous distributed communication means helped when we needed to converse about several different items for the project. It was almost a face to face interaction, where we didn't have to wait for each other to post to the DB or email back.
Barnes, S. B. (2003). Computer-mediated communication: human-to-human communication across the internet. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Post 1: Initiating and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships
I felt that this week the aspect of maintaining an interpersonal relationship was more prominent for me than initiating an interpersonal relationship. This is due to the fact that through computer mediated communication I find that I usually do not initiate any type of new relationship with some I do not know. This is due mainly to the fact, in which Donath questions, that someone's credibility online is questionable, especially if you do not know them. Donath poses the question of "how do we know whether or not to believe what we are told by someone?" (2001) and this seems like an extremely important question when meeting and creating a relationship with someone that you have never met face to face. It is a scary thought to think of who you think you might be talking to and who you are really talking to, not to be extreme but you never know if you're speaking with a hacker, rapist, creeper, etc. You are potentially placing yourself in a very dangerous position by initiating a relationship through CMC.
On the other hand computer mediated communication has proven to help maintain some of my interpersonal relationships with old friends, new friends, family members, and my significant other. Barnes suggests that "for some people, the Internet can begin to replace face-to-face encounters and the telephone as a way to stay 'in touch' with friends and family" (2003) and it seems that the more I speak with friends the more I find out that they use CMC heavily in communicating with their friends and family members, especially if they live out of town or out of state. I have a friend who lives in Alaska and she emails her grandparents, siblings, and parents often, and most of them excluding her mom have a facebook page. Another friend of mine can now communicate with both of her parents online on facebook and even on twitter. The advent and popularization of these social networking sites make it possible for friends and family to connect with each other, but sometimes I think to too much extent. Not that connecting is bad or anything but I mean with a lot of these networking sites we typically post too much information about ourselves or content that would be deemed inappropriate for the parental viewing eye. These sites are great with staying in touch and keeping up to date with friends and family but sometimes having everyone know EVERYTHING that you are doing (ie: if you update your status a lot on fb) all the time can be overwhelming and accidental. In Rosen's 2007 article it is mentioned that a couple got engaged and they both posted it on facebook, but then they broke off the engagement and every single person on each person's networks knew about it as soon as changes and updates were made to the relationship status. It's like these sites are real time live updates of your lives and people who you're not so close with, find out instantly. It's weird because in real life you wouldn't call everyone in your contact list to let them know that you received a root canal, but on these sites when you mention these things, it's like you opened up your online contact list and broke the news.
Barnes, S. B. (2003). Computer-mediated communication: human-to-human communication across the internet. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Donath, J. S. (2001). Being real. In K. Goldberg (Ed.), The robot in the garden: Telerobotics and telepistemology in the age of the internet (pp. 297-311). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Rosen, C. (2007). Virtual friendship and the new narcissism. The New Atlantis (electronic version).
On the other hand computer mediated communication has proven to help maintain some of my interpersonal relationships with old friends, new friends, family members, and my significant other. Barnes suggests that "for some people, the Internet can begin to replace face-to-face encounters and the telephone as a way to stay 'in touch' with friends and family" (2003) and it seems that the more I speak with friends the more I find out that they use CMC heavily in communicating with their friends and family members, especially if they live out of town or out of state. I have a friend who lives in Alaska and she emails her grandparents, siblings, and parents often, and most of them excluding her mom have a facebook page. Another friend of mine can now communicate with both of her parents online on facebook and even on twitter. The advent and popularization of these social networking sites make it possible for friends and family to connect with each other, but sometimes I think to too much extent. Not that connecting is bad or anything but I mean with a lot of these networking sites we typically post too much information about ourselves or content that would be deemed inappropriate for the parental viewing eye. These sites are great with staying in touch and keeping up to date with friends and family but sometimes having everyone know EVERYTHING that you are doing (ie: if you update your status a lot on fb) all the time can be overwhelming and accidental. In Rosen's 2007 article it is mentioned that a couple got engaged and they both posted it on facebook, but then they broke off the engagement and every single person on each person's networks knew about it as soon as changes and updates were made to the relationship status. It's like these sites are real time live updates of your lives and people who you're not so close with, find out instantly. It's weird because in real life you wouldn't call everyone in your contact list to let them know that you received a root canal, but on these sites when you mention these things, it's like you opened up your online contact list and broke the news.
Barnes, S. B. (2003). Computer-mediated communication: human-to-human communication across the internet. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Donath, J. S. (2001). Being real. In K. Goldberg (Ed.), The robot in the garden: Telerobotics and telepistemology in the age of the internet (pp. 297-311). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Rosen, C. (2007). Virtual friendship and the new narcissism. The New Atlantis (electronic version).
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