When considering cyberspace and its relevance to contemporary society, one has to first explore exactly what cyberspace entails. The term cyberspace was first coined in the revolutionary 1984 sci-fi novel ‘Neuromancer’ by author William Gibson (William Gibson Books, n.d). Despite the term being coined in a world 25 years younger and much less technologically apt, today the definition of the word remains the same, except for one rather large contributor, the Internet. As it was when it was coined, cyberspace refers to the non-physical, limitless world that is created when computer operators communicate with each other through computer networking (Whittaker, 2004). A more contemporary definition of cyberspace is “the electronic system of interlinked networks of computers, bulletin boards, etc. that is thought of as being a boundless environment providing access to information, interactive communication, and, in science fiction, a form of virtual reality“ (Yourdictionary.com, 2005).
The introduction of the internet changed the face of cyberspace forever, it allowed people from all over the globe to communicate with each other and share thoughts, feelings, desires, information; almost anything instantly. Before the internet cyberspace was limited to time and place, I feel this is why the terms cyberspace and the internet have been mistakenly used interchangeably in our society for some time now. The fact is, the internet is not cyberspace, and cyberspace is not the internet . Cyberspace is the ‘space’ where people are given the ability, through using the internet, to communicate in an almost boundless environment (Wise Geek, 2007). It is the space where people can become their alter egos, where males can pose as females and likewise. In cyberspace people can shop without moving anything but their computer mouse, people can virtually visit other places in the world, watch movies and television shows, and communicate instantly with people across the globe, it has very much so become a virtual reality (whittaker, 2004).
In answer to the question of cyberspace and its relevance to contemporary society, I would say that cyberspace is more relevant to contemporary society today than ever before. With no sign of the world slowing down, and technology continually advancing, cyberspace today is a bigger part of everyday life than ever before. Everyday millions of people log onto the internet to access numerous different things from cyberspace. as of June 2009, 1,668,870,408 people worldwide are frequent internet users (Internet World Stats, 2009). One of the most popular things people do on the internet these days is social networking. Sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace allow people from all over the world to stay in contact with friends and regain contact with long lost friends. These sites also act as a replacement for meeting with people face to face, it has become more common for people to catch up via a social networking site than it is to call, or visit, according to Martinez, Facebook users collectively spend more than 8 billion minutes a day on the site (Gigoam, 2009). The freedom and convenience of cyberspace allows people to retain friendships in such a busy society. I know that more than five times daily I check my Facebook page, to see what friends are up to and stay up to date with what is going on in my social world. As a busy student working two jobs I don’t necessarily always have the freedom to meet with my friends, Facebook offers a fantastic alternative, and cyberspace makes this possible.
As the internet and cyberspace become a more integral part of everyday life more and more services and companies are tapping into this resource as they realise the value cyberspace has to offer. Television stations are offering online TV shows to watch, radio stations are now online, many new music artists are discovered via sites such as Myspace and Youtube. Cyberspace is taking over the world and changing the way things are done in society. More people are choosing to log into cyberspace for relaxation time and enteratinment rather than going out, more business is done online, international business is now easier than ever before.
For me and my life cyberspace is a place I spend much time, and I think it’s safe to say this is the same for millions of people around the world, proving that cyberspace is more relevant to contemporary society than ever before, and there are no signs of this slowing down in the near future.
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course review.
Ok, so we have finally come to the end of the blogging, i think?! and now it is time for me to give a course review. to start off i want to say that what i am about to write is not a reflection on the teaching staff, but of the course itself. i think the teaching staff were quite good however, i HATED the course. i felt it was so pointless. we are living in a media saturated society and use the internet and technology everyday, do we really need to ‘learn’ more about it? I found the course to be boring and a huge waste of my money, and the only reason i did it was because it was comulsory. i think the content needs to be a bit more advanced. people know about privacy issues, and free software, and virtual communities already. How much of those sunjects do we really need to know in order to survive in our daily lives? Maybe it was my servere disinterest in the content of the course that made me feel this way, i dont know. But if the general concensus turns out to be ruling in my favour, then i would say turf the course. Im sorry if i have offended anyone but i dont think i got anything from this course, most fo the tute tasks we had to do i already knew how to and so whe it came time to having to do them it was horrible because it seemed so damn pointless which made it so boring. it was sort of like being in grade 12 and having to go back to grade 8 to do their work.
This is just in my opinion. I was trying to be honest and frank.
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tute task week nine.
This week we had to find five articles or journal posts that helped us research for our essay question. considering i havent chosen my essay question this task proved to be difficult, hence me not completing it yet. I really dont know which question to choose, ive read them all but i really dont know much about any of them. i dont like this stuff that we talk about in this course so i just want to choose the easiest question and get it done. lol. i sound so slack. Im not i just work two jobs, do full time uni and competitive acrobatics so im exhausted all the time. Anyway, i guess in this post i will choose my question. no better time than the present right? lol.
I think that this will be my topic
2. The idea of the internet as cyberspace has been a part of our contemporary culture for some time, particularly in the popular medium of film. But is the concept of cyberspace still relevant to our contemporary society? Discuss with reference to your own experience of contemporary media.
Its the question i knwo the most about so hopefully i can fulfill the requirements of the task relatively easily. NOW FOR THE RESEARCH! but not toay…i will update in a later post 🙂
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lecture week nine.
This weeks lecture was by Jason Nelson, on ‘cyberUtopia’. Talked about a lot of things, i was really sick though, so my attention span was that of a flea…..however i do remember him talking about rupert murdoch buying myspace for $900 million WHICH IS NUTS!! and the site not being very popular anymore, whihc is understandable because i was a huge myspace nut a few years ago but now i hate it! like i literally could spend all day on myspace, now its facebook. lol i feel sorry for him, not like he isnt rch enough to bounce back or anything, just feel sorry. Anyway, he also spoke about the internet still be messy and chaotic, how its a space where people can do almost anything, andthen he showed us some weird sites haha that amused me. Overall apart from the sickness and short attention span was a pretty good lecture :).
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week eight tute task.
This week we have to see how many online poltitcal things we can do while still stiking out our beliefs. this week I:
Signed a petition on stoping online cencorship in china
http://www.petitiononline.com/SOH2005/petition.html
commented on an online blog about celebrites haha…..blake lively is hott!!! its still a major news site, just a celebrity news site 😛
Barak Obama was on david letterman earlier this week….:)
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26111606-2703,00.html
found out who my local state, and federal members for queensland are:
local member of State parliament is Peter Lawlor. My local member of Federal parliament is Ronald Bevis who represents Brisbane.
i really really hate this course and i’m really sick so thats all im going to do for today 😦 sorry.
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week eight lecture.
This weeks lecture spoke about democracy, edemocracy, and representative democracy.
Democracy is what we like to refer to as the governemnt we have in play right now in australia, and when we think of democracy we think of freedom of speech, and the peoples government; a government that works for the people, and in favour of the people. However, representative democracy is the true democratic government that is in play, the democratic governments have evolved however our definition of them has not. therefore, there is a big difference between what we consider to be democracy and what representative democracy actually is, and how our country is actually run. The lecture then went on to talk about how mass media as a channel for democracy, free speech and cencorship online. i get really anoyed with these issues, how can the government say that we have freedom of speech when we have to watch everything we say because people have become so sensitive. It’s kind of ridiculous. China is the worst nation for online cencorship, however they have an excuse which is their commuist governemnt, asutralia has no excuse. Although our internet is a lot freer than that of chinas, still. we should be able to say what we want and when we want without it being cencored for the people that cant handle brutal honesty.
overall, lecture was ok.
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Week seven lecture
This weeks lecture was about three concepts-Collaboration, community, and choice 🙂
It spoke about creative commons and free software, however i dont really understand everything it spoke about (obviously creative commons wont be my essay topic! haha). I get that people dont want everything copywrited so once its made you cant use it again without paying for it, and i get that people want to share with each other, their ideas, creativity and software. But isn’t it software companies right to have people pay for the work they produce? It is annoying though, for example, last weeks tute task, youtube muted my music because it was copywrited, and i wasnt trying to do anything illegal, just share it with friends…
i think maybe these concepts are a bit beyond me, we are getting into the more nitty gritty topics of computing etc now, not for me. lol.The lecture moved on to discuss free software, and free software principals. I really don’t like this course, lol, if it were optional, i wouldnt take it…BUT its not. sorry to the lecturers etc…its not you…i just have no interest in any of this.
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Week Six tute task
This weeks task was fun fun fun! I put together this slide show of my best friends and I, except the audio tracki added was muted by youtube so i had to add one of their own, pretty crappy, but Its still music so i guess it’s ok. So here it is 🙂
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Week six lecture
This weeks lecture was about video consumption and production. The concepts of incresingly personal video content and viewing were discussed. In our day to day lives we consume so much video content, we watch Tv, we watch videos, go to the movies, and now we can even watch tv episodes or movies on our phone, ipods etc. The lecture spoke about how video comsumption is becoming more and more personalised as technology develops, we have the freedom to watch what we want, when we want. I personally dont watch Tv, but i do however watch a lot of movies and i enjoy the freedom of having them on my phone, so i have them with me wherever i go…no im not amovie junkie haha, but its just convenient. The media has realised the change in consumers wants and needs and are catering very well for personal media, with podcast of tv and radio shows, app stores etc etc.
I found this lecture pretty interesting, not overly, but it was alright. 🙂
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Week five lecture.
This weeks lecture was about social media, web 2.0 etc etc etc…. 🙂 I can’t even imagine a world without social media, its become a way of life. People are contantly checking their facebooks, myspace pages, sarching youtube for cool videos. What did we do before this form of media was available? I can’t even comprehend going back to what life was life before facebook, myspace, youtube etc….or even the internet. life has become so fast paced and busy, that the main way people communicate with each other these days is through forms of social media. People would prefer to sit down in their pyjamas, with a cup of coffee and chat through the net than to get dressed up and actually meet someone face to face and make decent conversation. The lecture also spoke about who owns the content that you put up onto social media sites such as facebook etc. I guess that once you put your information up onto the internet its anyones, i mean, how can you stop someone from stealing your photos, information, or possibly even your web identity. there are measures you can take but i guess once you put that information up its like sending out the green like, its anyones game. But thats the risk we all take, some of us take a more calculated risk, and some dont even know of the dangers, or even consider the fact that people across the globe could get hold of that information. I personally don’t really care, i would if it was banking information or serious information, but in terms of facebook and myspace, its fine. I guess i say that now, but if i saw another page on myspace that was someone else pretending to be me i would be pretty freaked out and probably never use the site again haha.
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