Sociology of Twitter

 

The article about Twitter and social activism. I am not particularly interested at the moment in this topic as such (well, I agree with the author of the article, that it is just a tool that potentially can help social activists but twittering as such is not social activism).

http://gigaom.com/2010/10/19/memo-to-malcolm-gladwell-nice-hair-but-you-are-wrong/

I was more interested in the concept of  ’weak ties’  as opposed to ‘strong ties ’ and a reference to Mark Granovetter’s work “The Strength of Weak Ties”, American Journal of Sociology , 1973, 78 (6).  I haven’t read his work yet, but it just seem to be a proper term to describe relationships which constitute a large part of social networking…class mates you never been really close to, some acquaintances,  random followers, friends of the friends…

Agenda II

Writing circles and identity

The purpose of research: knowledge vs skills

Agenda

1. Knowledge management and organizational communications – where do they overlap?

2. Introverts and their ways of adaptation to the corporate world.

3. Introvert’s dilemma: saving energy preference  vs need for self-expression

4. Discussion, argument, premises – theoretical basis. (Rhetoric, formal logic)

Creative writing and logical thinking

There is something missing between the process of thinking and the process of writing. Academics say these two processes actually support each other. Writing helps to clarify thoughts, careful thinking is a major step to clear writing. Not in my case apparently.
After reading a couple of books in psychology, I think that the problem is maybe in the connection between thinking and putting the thoughts in words. A thought can be experienced differently, not necessarily by shaping them into words, but for example in images or feelings. In my case it is often thermodynamic shapes which I struggle to translate into words.

it’s time to return

Yeah, I am writing my thesis about online media after all, about interactivity and participation.

I think I should keep being involved.

As my project focuses on The Daily Telegraph website (Sydney newspaper), I posted there some comments yesterday, it was fun. All of them have been published. Well, have to continue my experiment to see what are the limitations of their online editors.

Transient spaces

Well, the course is over and  first what I want to say that for me it was a very good insight into the world of new technologies and users’ activities.

The work on documentary was challenging, mostly, because I had problems with technological side of it.
My pictures  surprisingly disappeared from Dream weaver, tables didn’t want to fit the page boarders etc. However, I began to notice that when I look at some web-pages I think: hm, I know how they did it, I could do it as well☺)

So, I think it was very useful course for me, it made it much easier for me to approach different functions and spaces of the Web.

Postmodernists and Internet II

In our course reader I’ve come across on the article which is focused exactly on the relationships of postmodernists’ philosophy and virtuality.

‘The condition of virtuality’ by N. Katherine Hayles. She, actually, tries to distinguish postmodern discourse and virtuality, although she notes that they are related.

This is the case when it is useful to remember at least anything about what epistemology is.

The only thinf I’ve understood for sure is that virtuality, according to the article, is more advanced form of framing reality.

I liked the notion of deconstruction of Chaos - it is an interesting point to think about

Online reading

Reading lots of discussions on online vs. printed media, I’ve realised that I just hate reading from the screen. Long texts especially. I always print out the longest of them.

Well, I know, online reading lovers would say that it is just the matter of habit and  that young poeple and future generations would …

but here I am, 26, and I just don’t stand it.

Creativity

I’ve never been thinking about the connections between creativity and technology. But dealing with Dream weaver to create my documentary I was struggling to express some things because it was difficult for me to operate this program properly.

Well, obviously, it is always the case. To play a guitar nicely you have to learn first how to elicit sounds from this instrument. Just for some reason I’ve never associated computer programs with creativity.

Interactivity and content

While doing readings for this course and also News theory course, I’ve seen so much inspiration about the fact that the Internet enabled high level of people’s interactivity and provided them with excellent opportunity to produce their own content. Lots of articles imply that all the people armed with these two features will act actively and creatively on the Internet. They will express themselves freely, hold highly interesting discussions, create highly innovative content. Well, it happens, to some extent. I only wonder who eventually will write about the fact that lots and lots of people spend their time on the Internet just browsing quite aimless (especially during boring office hours), staring at the monitor and clicking to different links just to kill time. Many people behave themselves on the Internet pretty much the same as with TV – passively watching/ reading/browsing, and creating, actually, nothing.

There was a good article, called ‘From coach potatoes to cybernauts?’ written by Siri, L., which claimed that there is a general tendency to overestimate average level of creativity and interactivity of online audience. But this is a kind of exception.