The third and final assignment for NetMed 2016 is complete! We have gone with a “choose your own adventure” theme through the eyes of our character of Stacey. Through videos we have created, you as the player must guide Stacey through her first few days at uni.
We used to Wix to create the story which you can play here
The reflection on our process in creating the story can be found right here
Thanks to Jeremy for a great semester!
The process of finding a community, becoming a part of it, and keeping your presence alive is not easy. The success of it lies within many different aspects such as your own social presence, the platform you choose, and keeping updated but the key aspect is within sparking conversation.
Finding a topic and a platform is easy, but if the other users don’t pick up what you’re putting down then all you end up at is a dead end. This is exactly the point in the Oatway reading, that ‘You need to be seeking new connections, new opportunities and new voices all the time. If you don’t, before long you will again drift back into obscurity and find yourself standing alone in the field.’ (2012: 100)
An online community is an exchange from user to user, on a platform where a topic is discussed, or content is shared. It creates social connections and recognition, and functions best when content is shared regularly between users rather than just solely.
But it doesn’t just end there. While it’s great to grow your community, an emphasis should be placed on quality of relationships, not quantity; ‘While you’ll want to start finding as many people to the list as possible, youll also need to realise that there is a very real limit to how many of these people you can have a relationship with.” (Oatway, 2012:106)
My exploration into an online community was through TravelFish, a website dedicated to South East Asia travel, primarily used for the forum. While at first I failed, after some time I succeeded. My community didn’t exactly flourish as I wrote a response to my responders and received nothing back… But this was a great first step. It let me understand that certain platforms aren’t very nurturing for an online community. My experience with Instagram originally failed when I tried to connect with a page I was following, but received no reply. But yet I had success with another project, and it sparked my faith back in just what technology can do for creating a community. With TravelFish, I found that it also let me access more of the users content through cross-media, as she had shared her Instagram page.
As I wrote in this blog post, sites such as Facebook and Twitter ‘encourages participants to ramify and increase the density of the link structures through cross-media. Both designers and users multiply connections among pages and sites and open up more conversation.
A core part of this was also learning how to write appropriately for my community. Using language that facilitates conversation rather than shuts people down is crucial in sustaining a community, as well as avoiding the chances of being kicked out of the community by mediators or admin groups. In this example of some community action on Instagram, I tried to approach the user with positive but professional language that encourages a sharing nature.
Overall, my experience of finding my community has been challenging but also rewarding. As it relies a lot on other people just as much as myself, becoming part of a community warrants a certain amount of trust in other users to respond, and respond positively.
References:
Bolter, Jay David. “Social Media and the Future of Political Narrative.” Travels in Intermediality. Lebanon, US: Dartmouth, 2012. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 8 February 2016. 206-226
Oatway, Jay, Apr 26, 2012, Mastering Story, Community and Influence : How to Use Social Media to Become a Socialeader Wiley, Hoboken. 97-109. ISBN: 9781119943457.
While my own attempts at creating a community in the travel blog world hasn’t exactly taken off, I wanted to share my experience so far with a little side job I have.
I recently got a job working as the social media manager for a vegetarian cafe in Elsternwick. The manager, Jenny, advertised this job as the old page was tired, no one ever posted any content on it, and as a result she was missing out on Melbourne’s young and Instagram savvy customers. You know the one’s, who spend hours on Instagram searching for Melbourne’s newest and best cafes and tagging their friends (heck, I’m one of this people). People will literally go into a cafe with the picture and say, “I want that”.
This definitely makes me think back to the Bratton reading about just how much technology is creating new worlds and social change.
I’ve only been posting on it for about a week now but already the community is growing, and the best engagements are coming from when I respond with users. An example is shown below:
As you can see, a user shared her photo using the hashtag #worldvegetariancafe, and I asked her if we could share it on our page. She responded yes, and thus, an exchange has happened and the community lives on!
The reading this week delved a little deeper into what makes a good community and how to look out for sources that facilitate one. The author, Jay Oatway, mentions mostly what we have already come to learn but nevertheless highlights some of they key points:
1. taking is just as important as giving
2. The Big 5
3. keep updated
The first point is probably the most important one; it take two to tango. As he mentions, you can ‘only ask favours once you’ve established a relationship’ (2012: 99) A community couldn’t function if there was just a one way system of users absorbing/reading/watching content and not sharing back. It needs to be an exchange. ‘You need to be seeking new connections, new opportunities and new voices all the time. If you don’t, before long you will again drift back into obscurity and find yourself standing alone in the field.’ (2012:100)
The second point is what he calls The Big 5, a set of groups found on social media that provide new ways for people to interact and connect. These are bloggers, professional groups, topic chats, aggregators, and midfluencers. Facebook is probably the place that I have experienced these groups the most, especially certain aspects such as real time conversation and admin groups.
The third point is that you need to keep updated, both through posting content and checking your connections. ‘Before embarking on your community building safari, ensure that you are already posting a stream of content or curated social currency’, as in this way, users see value. (2012:99) And while growing a community has been the focus, he also mentions that there is limits to how many people you can have a meaningful relationship with.
With these points in mind, I have had some success with my own little travel community! And I do mean very little. In my last post I mentioned that I posted on the travel forum TravelFish. Well I had a response!
But as Oatway mentioned, I had to monitor the responses as I wasn’t notified of it. I assumed there had been no comments but I logged on and saw a great and helpful response on my forum post. I noticed it had been viewed 204 times and had 4 replies…one including my own and one what I assumed to be spam/advertising. So while it was a small reaction, it was a conversation nevertheless!
I like TravelFish but I found it hard to share something other than just text. This platform isn’t set up yet to enable photo sharing, however it does let you show your other social platforms. I clicked on the user who responded to my forum post and found their instagram. I found that they own a yoga retreat place in Uluwatu so it was great to see that they really had background to the information they were sharing with me. I felt like they were knowledgable just through looking through their photos and made me want to connect with them further because they often shared content. I must admit I still find it a little daunting sharing anything other text as I think the community on TravelFish isn’t quite what that is for, so I’ll spend some time this week branching out to find more ways to share perhaps a surfing or travel photo.
Hurrah for a sharing community!
Reference:
Oatway, Jay, Apr 26, 2012, Mastering Story, Community and Influence : How to Use Social Media to Become a Socialeader Wiley, Hoboken. 97-109. ISBN: 9781119943457.
It was ever so slightly nerve wracking but I’ve done it, I’ve contributed to an online community!
I mentioned my top 5 sites a few posts back. I started my journey into an online conversation by commenting on a photo from WeLikeBali’s Instagram of one of the girls surfing. As I’m going to Bali in November sometimes the surfing can be a little bit unreliable (as I’ve learned from research from my top 5 sites, thank you communities), so I commented on a photo and asked were they recommended to try surfing during this time of the year. I never usually use Instagram to ask questions or actually talk to the poster, so this was a new experience for me!
I clicked send and looked forward to the response. My excitement levels were high to hear back from them and start a conversation.
However, my anticipation dimmed over the days as I received no reply. I felt a little bit like I had been stood up, so I began looking through more of their photos and the questions other users were asking. After scrolling through I noticed that they rarely took time to write back to anyone, and I came to the conclusion that perhaps this type of photo sharing media was not the most accomodating place for an online community.
My enthusiasm will not be beaten though, and I have tried writing a post on the Travel Fish forum. I chose this as one of my top five due the large amount of interaction and replies questions get, so fingers crossed someone engages with it.
It got me thinking about all the times I have engaged in an online community and never really taken any notice. One of the biggest ones I interact with is a ‘whinge’ page for my hometown. People constantly post rants about overseas drivers, town issues, parking problems, you name it. I try not to post on it as I don’t like to complain but I couldn’t help myself one day (shown below). It started up a huge conversation and it was really intriguing, but I wasn’t nervous to initially post. I think it was different engaging with these communities because I am talking about a topic I am trying to learn about, and there is a sense that people could write rude replies if I come across as ignorant. Week 7’s reading talked about mediation on the web, and I think it is an important system to have in place. After all, even though communities are supposed to be a welcoming place, there are always some bad eggs in there somewhere.
This week’s reading and class chit chat was based on communities online and how they are governed. As discussed in my reflection, communities are crucial to the world wide web as they open up a space for conversation, sharing, contributing and taking. They also constantly evolve, and the reading discussed what forces help to shape them in relation to politics.
During the take-off of the internet there was much anticipation for this ‘new era of creativity and social and political action, in which people could talk back to those in positions of cultural authority and economic power’ (Bolter, 2012: 206). The web has proven to be an excellent space for these conversations to happen, and for a ‘new age of democracy or at least individual participation.’ (Bolter, 2012:206) Neoliberalists everywhere rejoiced at the possibility for political conversation to happen freely and openly. And now, social media plays an important part in creating communities and platforms for these discussions. Even if most of us use social media to stalk ex’s or post memes, there’s no denying that Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and more are utilised everyday by people around the world for political conversation. Bolter highlights this by saying how these various media forms have been enlisted to give shape to the ways in which political narratives are framed for contemporary society by allowing so many connections. ‘Every site is by definition linked to all other sites…social media sites like Facebook seem to exist largely to increase the density of those link and to multiply the linking mechanisms.’ (2012:208) This encourages participants to ramify and increase the density of the link structures through cross-media. Both designers and users multiply connections among pages and sites and open up more conversation.
A key example that we looked at the current political debate between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. I almost feel like I want to disconnect myself entirely from this campaign as it floods my newsfeed everyday. A lot of my friends don’t follow it and would have no idea of the actual details of the campaign but I see them engaging in a post or video simply because Trump is such a hated man. But why is that? Because there is so much conversation and media surrounding him and people love jumping on board and sharing their two cents. Exhibit A: Donald Trump’s hair as corn. It has no political reference, no mention of his policies, but I can guarantee man people have shared it on various platforms.
After watching the video from the lecture describing his media tactics, this is exactly his mission, because at the end of the day we are all still talking about him, sharing his speeches, and getting his name out there wether good or bad. We can all laugh at his hair or fake tan as much as we like, but he is still gaining exposure and the amount of communities he has wriggled his way into on the internet is amazing.
My favourite quote from this week is one that Jeremy shared in the lecture which I think nicely sums up the importance of community.
“We can’t exchange social currency in a vacuum. We need other people” (Oatway, 2012:98)
Bolter, Jay David. “Social Media and the Future of Political Narrative.” Travels in Intermediality. Lebanon, US: Dartmouth, 2012. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 8 February 2016. 206-226
I’ve decided to cheat on my theme a little bit, and whilst it will still be adventure, it won’t so much be in Melbourne as in November I am planning a trip to Bali for the first time.
It will be my first time to Indonesia, but not my first time to South East Asia. I went travelling to this area when I was fresh out of high school, my first trip without the security of my parents, out in the big wide world. I was more excited than I was scared, spending countless hours on the internet researching where to stay, what to do, and how not to get mugged.
This time I will doing something a little similar, but instead of relying solely on TripAdvisor and articles, I will be looking to the comments and the interactions for advice. As with my trip to Europe, it didn’t take me long to realise that TripAdvisor and articles found on the web are quite often written by older people or people paid to promote a place, and hence the places to visit are often expensive and a little bit…stale.
For my travel style (which is cheap and cheerful), I want to know the places to go that are off the beaten path and are a step away from ‘touristy’. The best way to find these are through threads and comments and listening to other travellers voices.
Here are the top five sites I have found for Bali that share a sense of community:
Out of the lot, the top three are great for getting responses and connecting with the travel community. As they are a forum, although it is mediated, anyone can post on there so while the tone is mostly positive, there can be some negative responses. I remember when researching my initial trip to SEA, I came across a negative post about some girls having all there luggage stolen in Cambodia and they absolutely slammed the people there. However the community that is created from these is usually a welcoming one that encourages sharing.
The Bali Bible instagram page is also great as it often tags/features other people snaps so it opens up a chance to explore more similar pages.
(Featured photograph from welikebali.com)
This week’s discussion centred around several key concepts about technology, culture and the internet. There is no doubt that technology has a huge impact on our lives and our culture. It’s shapes how we think, how we behave, and the type of communities we create.
We looked at the areas of:
Everything from language, religion and government is shaped by technology. Technological determinism looks at the cultural affect technology has not from the content but in the way information is communicated. Netflix is a prime example of this. The properties of this website include being able to stream multiple episodes continuously, and watch them on several different platforms. The impact of this is the creation of a binge watching culture that breaks the monopoly of broadcast and cable TV.
We also looked at different perspectives such as phones on trains. There seems to be a strange misconception that before phones we all talked to one another on public transport, and that technology is evil for taking this away from us…but this was never the case! There may have been the odd conversation but you can guarantee it was from the slightly crazy man. This emphasises how technology is the agent of social change and impacts our culture.
Cultural materialism is a theory that explains aspects of culture, such as religious beliefs, as being adaptations to the physical or material conditions of life in a particular society, especially as these relate to geography, climate, and population. This theory has been applied to a wide range of social phenomena. It determines the implementation, format, and content of technologies. It is based on marxist materialistic thought that prioritises material and behavioural processes and is divided into three layers called the Marxist Three Levels of Culture Model: Infrastructure, Structure and Superstructure.This theory can be wordy and difficult to grasp. So I related this to an example, using scared cows in India as a metaphor for technology…
Although many of us see cows as a valuable food source, for the adaptive strategy of agriculture, cows are more useful for their labor in the fields. When the infrastructure changes (people adopted agriculture), the superstructure also changed (a new belief in the sacredness of cows) to facilitate practices that support the community’s economic viability.
From this example we can understand the relationship we have with technology (cows) and how we use it in relation to culture and the individual.
From this weeks reading I have furthered my knowledge of how we use technologies/internet affect culture. I particularly like this quote from the lecture, “Technologies enable the making of certain worlds, and at the same time how culture structures how those technologies will evolve, this way or that. It’s where philosophy and design intersect.” (Bratton, B. 2013) Technologies definitely evolve and change, and the worlds or communities they create change with them.
This is what makes blogging so interesting and new worlds are constantly being formed and the way we use them also changes. The impact it has on our life is so great it can be daunting at times to think what a huge shaping effect it has on our culture, but also equally exciting when we consider the possibilities.
Bratton, B. “We need to talk about TED.” The Guardian 30 Dec 2013, The Guardian, Web
The experience of blogging thus far has provided me with some deeper insight into not just what blogging is but how we can use it. Our use of the internet and how we interact with it is constantly changing and adapting, making blogging and documenting an interesting medium.
Using blogs to reflect on weekly readings and life antics has been a change from simply taking notes with pen and paper or even on a laptop, or print literacy as I have learnt. This has been due to the sense of publicness. Knowing that anyone has access to my work is both exciting and nerve racking and definitely makes me put deeper thought into my writing. It also makes me think about my own perspective on the weekly readings and class discussions as in my blog posts I want to convey my voice for my own satisfaction (but also to avoid copyright issues!).
I definitely found that having a theme gave my writings unity and purpose. Although some blogs succeed just fine based on random ramblings, in my personal experience I found that making my theme adventure actually pushed me to get out and explore more knowing I should be writing about it and gathering media for my audience, even if it was just one or two people.
Another key topic discovered from the readings is the idea of a community and knowledge network as mentioned in this blog post. The second reading by Adrian Miles highlighted the importance of network literacy and ‘contributing as much as consuming’ (2006, 204), encouraging us to go beyond the passive user to the actively engaged contributor who has an understanding of their presence online.
This is largely the purpose behind putting a ‘Community’ and ‘Blogroll’ widget on my blog as I think it encouraging for both myself and others to see who is commenting, liking, and sharing posts. For if someone comments on your blog, you are more likely to comment back and thus a sharing community is created.
Hypermedia was also an interesting topic, learning about how it is a form of storytelling. This challenges the notion that a story must be linear. I found it challenging to read through some of the hypermedia fiction online, yet engaged with the task of seeing where I could end up when clicking through different links. While I think our generation is too impatient to spend time reading hypertext fiction, I do think the possibilities it provides are exciting.
Overall, blogging thus far has been entertaining but also more challenging than I initially thought. Whilst I understand and resonate with the concept of a community and it’s important for maintaining networked literacy, I still found it hard to commit the time to commenting and engaging with other peoples blog. However, being asked to actually think about and be aware of how we use our online presence has inspired me to continue to observe, document and share for the blogging community.
References:
Miles, Adrian. Blogs in Media Education: A Beginning [online]. Screen Education, No. 43, 2006: 66-69. Availability<http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=374037672250272;res=IELAPA> ISSN: 1449-857X
In this week’s workshop I thought I would attempt to see go on a hypertext journey and see where I ended up. But first I wanted to read some of the more well known hypertext stories out there on the internet.
I came across an article on Dazed Digital about the best hypertext tracts to read. They noted that a few years back, new media writers were blown away by the complexity of not having to be grounded to their media. They would be free of the constraints of of one-page-in-front-of-the-other. However, as the article puts it, they feel that this style of writing burnt out as, “while linear time may be a construct, it’s a really handy construct to have”. Now that we know how easy the Internet can make things, it’s not so tempting to choose the path of more resistance and read it.
I most certainly found this when reading (or attempt to) the website they recommended: Luminous Airplanes by Paul La Farge. It is easy to navigate this site as the hypertexts are coloured blue like the one’s above. To make it fun, they have a little exploration bar with the percentage of the story you have read. I think I got to 5%…
Whilst it was a more well designed website and easy to see where you have been, after a short time I gave up as it probably too wordy for the time of the day but also because there was a feeling that I would never get to the end of the story and a slight concern that there would be parts I would miss out on by missing a link. Perhaps I’m too impatient like much of the millennials today.
So to try and give it another shot, I thought I would go on a ‘clicking spree’ to see where I would end up. I began my journey at blog called Van Life, as if you have read about my interests you will know that travelling in a van was one of them. On the blog they had a story about a guy who lives in his van and sells coffee, and it had a hyperlink to his site. So I clicked. It was only a short time before I was off on a tangent covering all sorts of media. From van life I went to the coffee man’s blog for a while, marvelling in their travel photos, I clicked on ‘Tips Jar’ section. They recommended a certain rucksack for travelling, which I am in the market for. That took me to a camping website which I had never heard of. So I clicked on their ‘about us’ section, which took me to some videos, where on the sidebar there was a YouTube video on glamping which was good to watch and I liked the woman’s videos so I clicked on another of her videos . This one was about eating in London at markets (because who doesn’t love food?). There was a link to an interactive guide of the Borough Market. On this site there was a similar map for New York markets, and after clicking on that it took me back to a YouTube to a video on how to hail a taxi in NYC. I clicked on the users website where there was a blog post on the best burgers in the city (back to food) where there was a hyperlink to Brooklyn and from there I was taken to a brewery virtual tour.
From vans to breweries all in under half an hour.
I also took the time to set up a Hootsuite account. Hoosuite is a social media management system. I linked my Twitter, Instagram, and WordPress site, which meant that I could control what I wrote on each one via this one platform. It is definitely handy and I have used something similar in my internship called Trello, where you can plan each posting for different social media right down to the day, the time, even the hashtags.
However I don’t engage with Twitter or this blog enough yet to need it, but if it was part of your business or your media was attracting hundreds of viewers it would be a useful time management system.
the daisy hilltops blog 