Final Lecture - Lecture 12

SOFTWARE
In this Lecture Adam Muir introduced the idea of Creative Commons to the class. This is a free alternative to the well known Copywrite. If something is protected by Creative Commons it means that the item can be used by others, just not for profit. The original user can define their terms for the object within the stricture of the Creative Commons rules.

JUST THE EXAM LEFT TO GO NOW - (IVE ALREADY DONE IT - LOL)

Lecture 11

Peer to Peer File Sharing (P2P)
The question of this lecture was asking if it is alright to download music files for free? We also watched a movie called "Steal this Film". This film was about free software, and basically using the internet for free 'stuff'. The lecture notes comment that there will be questions in the exam about this film.

Lecture 10

In the 10th lecture of the semester we watched a movie called "Blade Runner". This movie was about the recreation of Humans. The company that made these "replicas", motto was "More Human Than Human". ?????

Lecture 9

Cyberpunk
William Gibson quoted "power depends on information". the matrix was also a topic in this lecture. Frankenstein, Adam and Eve and other bible stories are all concerned about man receiving information and or power and the gods punishing them because of it.
Utopia's and Dystopia's are also apart of cyberpunk. Cyberpunk seemed to be a big mix of most other topics raised in the previous lectures.

Lecture 8

Are Games a Waste of Time
The military uses games for training purposes.
Narratology is the study of video games. It is the study of them as stories and literacy point of view. These people believe that games can be studied like texts. Ludology is also the study of video games this time this major concern is the 'game play' elements not the story. People involved in this study believe that the story is only there for decoration. Jesper Juul raised the question of 'are video games similar to other games?'.

Lecture 7

Cinema and Technology
In this lecture we watched the movie "eXistenZ". This film addressed the issue of excessive play of video games and the 'Warping' of reality as a result of this.

Lecture 6

History of the Computer and the Internet
Charles Babbage was the inventor of the first computer. Alan Turning was a major developer of the computer. He was the the man to first use the computer to break the Germans Enigma Codes. IBM was the group to first commercially produce computers in the 1950's. in the 70's XEROS developed the mouse and the Graphical User Interface. 1975 the first Personal Computer (PC) was released. Then Steve Jobs and Steve Woz started Apple, Bill Gates teamed up with IBM and Linus began which was free software that anyone could take part in and develop.
The Internet can be described as a network of networks. developed by the US Federal Networking council and RAND in 1995. This was with thoughts of the nuclear war in mind the idea being that because there was no center they would never loose all their information. The Internet works using 'packet switching' - breaking the information down to send elsewhere where it reforms. In the 1990's people began communicating through computers using the Internet. Karl Popper researched the idea of cyberspace.

Lecture 5

Wikipedia
In the week 5 lecture the main topic were concerned with the reliability of wikipedia and "Reality". It was Plato who expressed the notion of "Reality is expressed in hidden focus". Aristottle, Plato's appentice went on to continues his research in this field. Margret Weathemin claimed Humans are Bipolar - Body and Mind.
The weakness of Wikipedia was revealed through an article we were shown about the lecturer Steven Stockwell. The article in question was a complete lie, made up by on of Stockwell's previous students. This proved that it is possible to write untrue facts on Wikipedia making it an unreliable website for academic purposes.

My Notes From Lecture 4

Old Communication Technologies

Walter Benjamin - German, Peace activist, around the time of WW2, he believed mass media "dumbed down" the spirit of high art - this is what he means when he talks about aura.
Rock Art
Trading Culture of Ugarsit developmed the first Alphabet - 1500BC.
Old Tehnologies rangeing through print, telegraph, telephone, phonograph, radio, cenima, television, video. More information such as who was the inventor and when was it invented can be found on the Learning@Griffith site or send me a request.
semiotics and Pragmatics were also a topic in this lecture - briefly they are about the relation of signs.

My notes from Lecture 3

In lecture 3 we watched the movie Alphaville.
This film addresses issues of Utopian and Distopian worlds, the Utopian view of that of a computer, and the Distopian view that is realised through human understanding.
From the lecture notes on the Learning@Griffith site i found that Queensland has been the location of many Utopian Experiments. Mulga and New Brittania are two examples of these.

On a different note though these notes mentioned that it was Tim Berners-Lee who created the "WWW" for the Web, a MUD is a Multi User Domain and this is also related to Turkle from lecture 2 on cyberspace. Then the issue of 'mind downloading' was brought up... Virtual Immortality.

My notes from Lecture 2

This second lecture was on email. Firstly there was mention to the term CMC which means computer mediated communication. Then they touched on Cyber culture studies. Names mentioned in this area were Dibbell, Rheingold and Turkle. These were scholar looking for a more detailed perspective of cyber-culture. Contextualising interactions, discoursing cyberspace, online access and barriers, and digital design were all topics brought up in the lecture however there meanings would make this blog way to long and uninteresting to read. for more detailed information refer to THIS site.

My notes from Lecture 1

This lecture was more of an introduction to the course. Steven Stockwell touched on what the difference is between old and new communication technologies. When does a NCT become an OCT. There was a simple definition of communication as well as a more modern concept. The Terms intersubjectivity and intertextuality were discussed as well.

There was also a definition of technology mentioned as well. Names such as Marshall McLuhan and Stelarc were also introduced. Analogue and digital technologies were also a topic in this lecture. The last subject mentioned was convergence and how that relates to New Communication Technologies.

NB: these notes have been composed with the aid of the lecture notes on the Learning@Griffith site after following the links to THIS site.

Aggressive Video Game Effects on male Children

First of all I feel that it is necessary to explain my choice of topic somewhat. I have chosen to only comment on the effects of violent / aggressive video games on young boys as it is apparent that they are the main users of such devices, thus making them the more appropriate gender in which to research in this field. The University of Texas (Centre for Research on the Influences of Television on Children (CRITC)) surveyed children on their video game use in 2001 with results showing that young boys between the ages of 0 – 12 dominated game use in all categories excepting education and to some degree strategy. Aggressive video games were not one of the game types the survey included. I found more proof suggesting young boys play video games more than girls on a psychology web site. It indicated in the ‘findings’ section that Drs. Anderson and Gentile's research found that on average boys played video games for 13 hours per week whereas girls only used them for five hours. As there is so much alcohol related violence currently occurring in our society among males, I naturally found they would be the more interesting subject to study.

On one side of the argument Joel Cooper and Diane Mackie (1986) believe that violence in video games is not related to aggression in the children that play them after their study of 20 pairs of grade five students. The students were put through a small scale test playing both an aggressive and nonaggressive video game. “Neither video game had any significant effect on boys’ free play.” (Joel Cooper, Diane Mackie, 1986) It is the relevance of this study that is in question however. This test was performed in 1986, which is more than 20 years ago. There is considerable difference between the standard of games then, when compared to the present. A journal on a similar subject to this mentions ‘the evolution of video game violence.’ In a drawn out way it discusses how video games have developed from the simplistic Atari becoming more ‘graphic and realistic’, involving players more.

On the other side of the fence there is the belief that violent video games do increase levels of aggression. In a journal of experimental social psychology some more recent research was performed on this question in a laboratory. After the tests were performed they concluded that there was an increase in aggression, more so in the males than in the females. “The results confirmed our hypothesis that playing the violent game would result in more aggression than would playing the nonviolent game.” (Bruce D. Bartholow, Craig A. Anderson, 2000)

This next piece of evidence in support of increased aggression after playing video games, is a little open for interpretation as the targeted age group was high school students. It confirms Bartholow and Anderson’s results about aggression but goes further. "We were surprised to find that exposure to violent video games was a better predictor of the students' own violent behavior than their gender or their beliefs about violence,". This statement was made by Anderson who was also part of the above study.

The above research however only shows that aggression levels are increased for a short period of time after playing the violent video game. The question that began this research is yet to be answered though. Are there long term effects of playing violent video games on aggression?

Another question concerning video game effects on children is arousal. “Playing video games appears to be exciting for children as they manipulate the keyboard, joysticks, buttons, or levers” (Michele J. Fleming, Debra J. Rickwood, 2001). Although this may not be closely related to aggression and violence in video games it is another part of children playing video games that has been considered.

There are of course ratings for video games, the same as there are ratings for TV and movies. These ratings include adults only, mature, teen, everyone ten +, everyone and Early childhood. If these ratings are taken notice of and used when choosing games for children, then they should not be subjected to games too violent for them. That way as their mental stability develops they should be able to play more violent games without them affecting their aggression to an overlarge degree.

Despite whatever negative impact that video games may have on children, it is thought by Jeanne Funk that it is not in the child’s best interest to ban video games. She does however believe that limitations by parents should be enforced saying, “Limiting playing time and monitoring game selection according to developmental level and game content may be as important as similar parental management of television privileges.” (Funk, J, 1993) Researcher Jeanne Funk believes that it is the type of games that children play that is important.

One man who is against the belief that violence in video games has a negative effect on children is Royal Van Horn. “They’re blowing up pixels. They’re killing bitmaps. There shooting at software subroutines. They’re not a threat to public order” (Van Horn, R, 1999). There is no evidence that there is a direct link between video game violence and prolonged aggression.

In this area of research, video games are closely related to television. Drawing on my own experience, I can recall back in my youth watching a cartoon program called Dragonball Z (DBZ). This cartoon was about warriors from other planets along with fighters from Earth engaging with villains over the fate of the universe. Derived and exaggerated from Asian beliefs concerning martial arts, there was action, destruction and violence. Still I can remember after an episode finished my brothers were riled up for a bit of a wrestle, which always ended in someone getting hurt. Now I can look back and reflect on these occasions and recognise what happened for what is was. Increased aggression.

Bibliography

Academic Material

· Sandra L. Cavert, Amy B. Jordan, Rodney R. Cocking, 2002, Children in the Digital Age: Influences of Electronic Media on Development, Praeger publishers, United States of America

· Joel Cooper, Diane Mackie (1986) Video Games and Aggression in Children¹
Journal of Applied Social Psychology 16 (8) , 726–744 doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1986.tb01755.x

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1986.tb01755.x

· Douglas A. Gentile, Paul J. Lynch, Jennifer Ruh Linder, David A. Walsh, 2004, The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance, volume 27, issue 1, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WH0-4BF0D7T-1&_user=79777&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000006418&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=79777&md5=9a5688f5bdeba4174bdef4f7c16c32fb#toc5

· Bruce D. Bartholow and Craig A. Anderson, 2002, Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior: Potential Sex Differences, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, volume 38, issue 3, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WJB-45PMFD3-7&_user=79777&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000006418&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=79777&md5=c26680c70fbddd7203c23fcb1795f64b

· Michele J. Fleming, Debra J. Rickwood, 2001, Effects of Violent Versus Nonviolent Video Games on Children’s Arousal, Aggressive Mood, and Positive Mood, University of Canberra, Australia, http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2001.tb00163.x

Website links

· http://www.psychologymatters.org/videogames.html

· Craig Anderson, Douglas Gentile, Katherine Buckley, 2007, Violent Video Games And Hostile Personalities Go Together, Science Daily, http://www.usq.edu.au/library/help/ehelp/ref_guides/harvardonline.htm

· http://www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_effect.shtml

· http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/video.games.html

· http://www-personal.umich.edu/~drummame/violentvideogames.html

Week 8 Tutorial Task (Part 1)

The advanced uses of Microsoft Word; The Mail Merge. The performing of the described tasks that led up to the mail merge were all relatively easy to follow. As it was an advanced walkthrough there was no need to explain, for example, how to put a word into bold writing or the like, so unnecessary details were avoided with no harm caused. The whole close and open the document was needless and a waste of time and something that was eventually avoided. However the actual mail merge section was a little confusing. I had to 'walk on my own legs' as it were and find my own way for one part of it. This was simple in essence however and minor problems were overcome. Mail merging would mostly be useful for doing what the exercise described (sending information in a formal way to someone a distance away) as well as possible edits that you could make to an assessment on the computer (Advanced Exercise1 - track changes).

The Microsoft Excel exercises, while harder to use than the Microsoft Word ones, were relatively easy to follow. I aim the explanation of this to my use of Word being more frequent and common than that of Excel. The only part of the exercise that i was unsure of was the making of the chart. After it was produced it looked different to how I thought that it would. The information was still all readable however it simply looked different. The macros section I was told to abandon for a reason i already cannot remember. This software would be extremely useful in the running of a business. The Auto correcting formulas would be of unimaginable importance. one mistake on paper could mean columns of incorrect data whereas using Excel one correction would fix all.

Week 6 Tutorial Task - Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story Part 2

The movie Dodgeball is perhaps the greatest movie of all time (in my opinion). The countless one-liners that can be applied to real life situations are low witted but awesome all the same. The article on Wikipedia is an accurate assessment of the movie however some of the critics comments were lame to the extreme. The article covers the basic storyline ruining the ending if you haven't seen it already but also raises some interesting topics concerning the directors take on his ending being replaced etc. Links to all the actors as well as who they played was listed in a table near the top for easy access and details on the making was all listed in the article. this made it very easy to understand. This article was well written in with the guidelines of wikipedia and it was fairly balanced showing opinions from both sides on the movie along with other non-biased information. To improve this article i would say that more information could be added about maybe the making of the movie for example where it was filmed etc. Otherwise a solid reliable article.

Week 6 Tutorial Task - Ultimate

Ultimate is a sport played with even players on each team with a Frisbee. The page on Wikipedia is an informative article about Ultimate. Every point and detail that is given is truthful and accurate. It covers all the facts from every angle with an easy to understand technique. For someone interested in beginning to play Ultimate this article would most likely be the best place to start. After looking up Wikipedia's Guidelines for usefull Articles I have found that this particular article on ultimate follows these guidelines as well as the best article could. When talking about the sport in general the article does not make comparisons with other sports or the like to show that it is better. It does include people's opinions (not the editors) but that is the extent of it. I honestly believe that this is a perfectly set out web page article and do not believe that it could be improved unless the rules of the game changed or the like in which case updating would be necessary.

Week 5 Task

Walter Benjamin believes that there is a certain "aura" about the original copies of a 'work of art'. The "aura" he describes relates to the sense of awe that surrounds the original copy. He believes that the history of the history behind it, its publicized authenticity and cultural value of the object are all apart of the "aura". He further goes on to state that he believes that by reproducing these original copies in different ways it takes the "aura" of the product away. In contemporary digital media the same questions are valid. With music the original copy of the music would be seeing the band, orchestra, artist, etc playing live in concert. This in itself would contain the "aura" of the object, however, once the music has been reproduced, for example, through recordings or a spread over the internet, the music looses its aura. There is something 'special' in seeing the performance live as to buying or downloading the video clip off the internet.

Nowadays anyone with a computer can create things digitally or reproduce other peoples work. So the question to be asked is "what does that mean for art and the aura of the object?' Benjamin believes that by simply reproducing an object any way would be taking the aura away from the original copy so it seems fair to say that reproducing the item digitally would have the same effect. When it comes to creating something digitally the creation would be the first seen of it so that copy would have its own aura, however, once the object had been posted around the internet or copied to some other place or area, it would lose that aura simply because it wouldn't be unique anymore.

With photoshopping there are two possible directions that this could go. Firstly the photoshoped image could create a new aura for itself separate from the original copy. In this case it would still be a copy of the original with the common factor being same basic outline of the art. An example of this is with the Monalisa. If someone visited the museum where this famous painting was being kept and took a picture of it, put it on their home computer and photoshoped a pair of sunglasses on it with a beard to make fun of it. It would be stealing part of the originals aura as it is a kind of copy of it while creating a new aura for itself as a unique picture. The other direction this could go, using the Monalisa example again, would be that the copy would insult the original at such a cheap technique being used to recreate it and the aura would be lost to it. I believe that Benjamin's ideas would suggest supporting the latter over the former.

Benjamin believed in art having its own aura before computers and the like (digital and electronic equipment). Something created digitally is the same as something created non-digitally. The object in question would have an aura of it's own as long as it was created from scratch and not a copy of something else.

Week 4

1. Reonel Ramones, a 27-year-old bank employee was the suspected creator of the Love Bug Virus.
2. Samuel B. Fay is the man awarded the paitent for the first paper clip called the Philadelphia - Source - http://www.officemuseum.com/paper_clips.htm
3. The Ebola virus was named for a river near the place of its first outbreak (Tomlinson 1) - Source - http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/History/Africa/04/burton/burton.htm
4. Chile is the country that has experienced the largest recorded earthquake in history reaching a magnitude of 9.5 on the rector scale. - Source - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/world/10_largest_world.php
5. One terabyte is equal to 1.073742E+09 kilobytes - Source - http://www.ask.com/web?q=how+many+kilobytes+in+a+terabyte%3F+&search=search&qsrc=0&o=0&l=dir
6. Ray Tomlinson - source - http://www.livinginternet.com/e/ei.htm
7. The Storm Worm has infected somewhere between one million and ten million computers. it is bot malware infected on a network of computers that can be controlled by a single individual - source - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/24/AR2007102401513.html
8. Face to Face - source - common sense over the internet or phone or other electrical device you would never actually make it to him personally.
9. the Black Assassins - source - http://www.griffith.edu.au/school/art/staff/stockwell.htm
10. web 2.0 is about linking people and content as opposed to technology/computers - source - http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/10/web-20-compact-definition.html

Week 3 tutorial task

Well guys the times upon us for the second post in the blog (cheers). Just to let everyone know this is the first time that I have ever bestowed information to people over the internet before I meet them back in the real world. Well I figure that I probably wont meet most of the people that will read this in real life and if i wait to then ill never actually write this.(???) New communication technology has revolutionized the world we live in as far as I'm concerned. Keeping contact with people that are either half the world away or in the town across the river has never been easier or more exciting. MSN, myspace, friend finder. They're all new age communication technology's and they all help make life easier. The oldest of these dates back to the beginning of the year 2000 and the most recent still being created.
What first prompted me into using these new communications was the want of talking to my mates more often and chatting to the girls. This then developed into keeping in touch with family members that were far away and so there were no downsides.
Privacy isn't an issue at all simply because it is common knowledge that you should never give away information that you don't want intercepted, either over the internet or in real life. That and anything that i say to people or tell people is rubbish for everyone except the people who I'm conversing with.
Alrighty then all enjoy yourselves, till next time.

Welcome all to Wesley's blog for New Communications Technology. Here you will find my notes on the weekly lectures, information on yours truly and a variation of other facts. If this interests you then read on, if not, as they say, 'hang up the phone'.