CCT109 Midterm Flashcards
Folksonomy
- (Tag) for an object (photo, webpage) made by user of the service
- contrasts with “taxonomy” or the official naming of things
Immaterial Labour
(unpaid work that’s captured & capitalized by owners of the website)
- participatory media is vulnerable to the association that immaterial labour participants are co-opted by owners of websites without any meaningful control over how it is used
- participatory & creative controls)
California Ideology
- “the promise that digital technology will free us”
- In 1995 California Ideology was identified
- combining distrust for institutions with a belief in tech’s positive impact on social change
Hyper Text
- blue underlined words
- provide links to webpages
- term made by Ted Nelson in 1963 for project Xanadu
Digital Divide
- gap between people that have access to the internet and those that don’t
- term sometimes includes speed access and capabilities to use the service
Time-Binding
(Harold Innis)
- (e.g. clay or stone tablets, monuments)
- has great durability and power to carry messages across long periods of time
- super hard to move
Space-Binding
(Harold Innis)
- (e.g. paper, the telegraph)
- more momentary and easily destroyed
- can easily be moved
Harold Innis
Developed a theory of communication media being “time-binding” or “space-binding”
Network Neutrality
- principle form of transportation regulation
- company carrying goods cannot discriminate between customers who wish to transport similar goods
- can be referred to as the separation of carriage and content
- applied in pricing and regulations in management and internet
Common Carriage
- Defined by Telecommunications act
- “carriage” is a reference to early regulations of railroads
- regulations were originally applied to keep railroads from charging diff rates to diff companies giving unfair advantage
- in telephone terms, common carriage law is everyone pays a common fee/charge.
- phone companies could not discriminate on bias of what callers are saying
Granularity
- “smallest possible individual investment necessary to participate in a project”
Modularity
- according to Benkler: properties of a project determine “the extent to which it can be broken down into smaller components, or modules independently produced before assembled into a whole
Telegraph
(Moris Code)
- device developed in early 19th century
- sending Moris Code messages long distance over wires (later radio waves)
- technology formed first global network prompting one writer to call it “victorian internet”
Dot-Com Crash
- rapid devaluation of stock prices in tech companies in late 2000 and 2001 based on internet
- people attributed the decline by rationalization in the market that became inflated by outlandish expectations
SMS
(acting as computer linking network link phones together & to businesses reaching the market and sell things)
- now referred as text messaging
- initial idea for texting was for service providers to send messages to users
- users initiating and sending messages to any other user was an after thought
- phones became platforms
Mass Comm Model
(Transitional Comm Model)
- allows factors: one-way flow of messages from senders
- 2 components: capacity of new media enabling bigger participation in politics and political communication
- new media potential allows for more to become media producers, distributors, consumers
- Promotes “Do It Yourself”
New Media
- frameworks developed by Williams & McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
- cultural content was in specific forms of tech (phone, computer)
- studied how media influences what people think and how people think
- theory became unfashionable by Williams
- media tech reshape society & culture
Raymond Williams
defines technological determinism as
- new tech invented in independent sphere, create new societies, or human conditions”
the literature on the impact of the internet is rich with examples of this type of thinking
Social Network Analysis
Academic study of:
- social networks
- attention to actors
- network structure
- major influences (culture) on the formation and durability of networks
Social Capital
Attempt to describe in economic terms assets people have in the form of relationships with others
- bonding, bridging, linking
Obsolescence
outdated or no longer used
- telegraph, “brick” phones
Metcalf’s Law
- more of an observation than law of nature
- Robert Metcalfe predicted the value of network lay in the number of possible connections between members in the network
Web 2.0
Social media referes to any website that helps the evolution of the site, on the site, from the users of the site
Cell Radio System
( first boom: still mounted in cars - first cell phone)
(second boom: hand-held cell phones “the brick”)
(third boom: digital phones)
- Marconi key figure in radiotelegraphy
- small hexagonal units with radio towers at intersecting points in 3 directions
- deliberately low-powered so radio frequencies could be reused
- goal was to create phones that could listen to one tower and ignore others
Technological Determinism
- approach to tech (result of short-hand thinking) (computers are always getting faster)
- computers aren’t getting faster on their own
- in reality technology is advancing given regular and predictable progress in many forms
Social Shaping of Tech
- alternate approach to technological determinism
- seeking to explain tech change in terms of influence of key social groups
Political Economy
- examination of society regarding laws, economy, political environment as interrelated, helping establish and sustain social order
- new media studies focus on examining the regulation and ownership of media
Convergence Culture
a term popularized by Henry Jenkins describing:
- media forms and consumption crossing sites
- formats incorporating professional and amateur aspects
SMS Messaging
(TEXT MESSAGING)
- happened because of terminal device
- the telephone was a kind of special-purpose computer
- has memory, processing power, input device, and display
- texting seemed economical compared to high price voice call
Social Production
- creation of goods and services, “informational goods” in a social or collaborative fashion
- user-generated content can be included
- Wikipedia is an e.g. of social productiton
