Essay

What are the uses/limits of the internet in terms of politics and/or democracy? Should we rethink the nature of the political? What happens to the nation/state in the age of networks that have the potential to span thewhole planet? What has happened to the idea of "community" in the age of networked digital media? Discuss with an example.




The internet is comprised of millions of minor networks that send and receive data at very high rates. The internet transmits information at very high speed, in large amounts and without boundary limitation. It has expanded the variety of reception; data sent via the internet can be accessed by many people provided they are connected though the internet. The internet has eased the flow of information and messages; it has increased flexibility in information transmission and access; and has eased retrieval of any information at any time people may please. (James 2002)This is because the internet is not limited by time or distance. It allows people to send and receive large amounts of data from wherever they are located.

The internet has improved sending and reception of information, how people form relations and how they participate in politics. There is no limitation or unnecessary control on the content like it happens with other media. People are no longer restricted to newspaper, radio and television which select their stories based on internal and external influence. The internet merges the audiovisual characteristics of the traditional types of mass media like television and newspapers with the interactivity and rate of telephone and mail. The internet has been utilised politically in relation to acts of politicians and to having national and international political matters on the public agenda. The internet has also brought people closer together forming a global village (Rodgers 2003).
Internet and politics

News stories are no longer a thing for media personalities only. With a computer and internet connection, any person can come up with news stories that can be availed to any other person who has the connection. This has led to a lot of unbiased news about events and occurrences in many fields. The internet has made every person to be his ‘brother’s keeper.’ This has led to enlightenment, putting governments on their toes knowing too well that it is not only the media personalities who are keeping watch. Other media are subjects to influence that can lead to biasness. This is not the case with the internet. In this case it is correct to argue that the internet has contributed to safeguarding democracy (Srader 2006). The internet has also contributed to democracy by informing citizens of their rights in so far as politics is concerned. The internet has enabled people to know and understand when things are not going the right way. It has allowed people to measure democracy in their countries in relation to others in the world and also to watch governance of other nations. The public is in a position to assess the performance of the government. In democratic countries, governments have put in pace websites that can allow free exchange of ideas, information and complains. The public is encouraged to register to these websites in order to share their ideas and air their complaints. They are in a position to discuss issues with other citizens, and to have a chance to study the political issues in order to become better citizens (James 2002).

Distinctive politics has been enhanced by the internet in two ways, directly and indirectly. Directly by isolating and weakening the local sphere which encourages sub-regional and trans-regional tribes or other groupings to come together for a general goal. Indirectly, it achieves it by counter reacting against dissolution of boundaries established by the Net as a way of re-establishing stronger boundaries. The counter-reactions are expected to control the sphere in the 21st century politics (Saco 2002).
The internet has created an avenue where the citizens can gather in objection to injustices by the use of blogs. In this case people do not have to gather physically, which in the past proved dangerous as law enforcement tried to dismiss them. The blogs have the capacity to give anyone a voice by being central hub for activist. This has enabled citizens to plot against social injustices through the internet (Miller & Slater 2000).

The internet is making its promise a reality. It has been able to provide vast amount of information on politics, political parties and political campaigns. In fact, it is increasingly becoming one of the major sources of information on political campaigns. Youths derive a lot of enjoyment in accessing the internet. This way they are able to access a lot of information on political campaigns. This has enabled them to participate in politics more than before (Weare 2002). In the present time, internet is greatly influencing the results of elections. Politicians and political parties can either gain or lose votes due to the internet. While using the internet one is in a position to seek clarification in case anything is not clear. The users are also in a position to send feedbacks on political matters. This way the internet has enabled details on political issues and also enhanced public participation. The internet influences political decisions. This is because it is interactive, has a rapid transmission speed and is not limited by political and geographical boundaries. Information about politicians and political parties flows freely and fast through the internet reaching a lot of people. People getting this kind of information have sufficient time to read and analyze the information making informed decisions (Owen & Davis 2008).

From the recent past, politicians began to use the internet in seeking donations. This has proven to be a more powerful in providing finances than other ways that were used in the past. This can be proven from the case of Howard Dean in the United States presidential campaign of 2004. Dean’s case became the most famous in generating most finances through the internet. The ability to tap the fans and funds from voters through the World Wide Web has been on the increase. The advantage of online donation is that information automatically gets transferred to the database, simplifying the process of accounting and reporting (Miller & Slater 2000).
Any information on political matters flows very fast, capturing the attention of very many people. Politicians are always afraid that negative information might spoil their campaigns through the reach of the internet. This new technology has also become an opportunity for attacking, ridiculing and criticising politicians. Such information being so spicy, politicians have been on their toes to project a good image to the public. This has also made the predominance of political campaigns by internet to change elections into repute competitions. It has led the politicians to try very much to behave positively towards the public (Gibson, Paul & Ward 2003).

The internet has enhanced public participation in politics. The citizens have gained more control due to the information at their disposal and can have their voices heard into the political arena through bulletin boards, websites and listservs. The internet has led politicians to have more reason to communicate directly with the voters. In this case it has made political campaigns more sincere and transparent. Internet has increased partisanship. People use it to assist them in establishing and joining groups that share their ideologies and political preferences. Internet has impacted on voter turnouts during elections because it has increased information about aspirants and political parties. The internet can also increased voter participation by inspiring their attention in the elections (Jain 2003)
The internet has raised awareness on different political views not only regionally but internationally. The internet opens doors to not only local but international politics. Politics is changing globally very fast but the internet has enabled majority of people to keep track with the changes. Just like many other issues affecting the society, politics is becoming global. Political issues are comparable and whatever is happening in one country affects the other. The days when countries used to operate as separate entities are long gone. In the current world political decisions in a nation are closely checked by the whole world (Gibson, Paul & Ward 2003).

As all other issues affecting the society, economy, social etc, have changed as a result of networking, there is need to adapt politics to the networked computer era. The increase in use of the internet has necessitated all the changes and politics cannot be left behind. It is apparent that changes in technology affect politics and electoral behaviour (Boldt 2001).
Transformation in the concept of ‘community’ in networked digital era
Times have changed very fast from the time when social relations were formed on geographical considerations to a time where geographical location and distance no longer matter. The traditional idea of community limited to distance and location has been affected by social networking. It has changed the physical communities to online communities of individuals who can share interests and activities regardless of physical location. In the online community people can speak with anyone regardless of the distance. Social networking has also led to coming up of new forms of social relations and interactions. Social networking has allowed people to have new friends, dates, business connections and chat buddies. It can be likened with the traditional ways of entertaining like going to a club, going for business parties, and participating in social activities (Jain 2003).

Social networking has enabled people to establish personal home pages within a particular network that can connect them with other like-minded persons It let the users to get a large circle of existing relations, particularly for sites like Facebook that allows people to use their own names. It has also enabled interactions among large subsisting groups of people. For example, such websites as meet-up.com have transformed the traditional ways of meeting to discuss certain issues (Boldt 2001).

Internet and globalization
The idea of global village has been brought up by the increase in the internet use. There has been globalization in economy, culture and business. In the current period, business can be conducted at any level without any limits. The internet has led to reduction in costs while improving the rate of transmission of “information goods”, enabling the world to move from industrial to information economy (Shane 2004). There is increased access to world wide communication infrastructure caused by the founding of new businesses and economic opportunities. The improvement in the internet use transformed the traditional framework of the factors of production that is, capital and labour being the sole determinants of economy. Nowadays the strength of economy is measured through the ability to manage and direct information (Shane 2004).
Although the technology has been global for quite some time, the economic and business matters have been cast in the viewpoint of the existing national institutions. The internet is currently challenging the existing institutions and powerful personal interests. In such countries as Germany, the United States, France, Japan, India, South Korea, Japan, and Sweden, the increase in the internet utilisation has transformed national institutions. The impact of the broad cultural transformation on the entrepreneurial objectives is clearly apparent in countries like India and Sweden (Owen & Davis 2008).
Conclusion

The world is transforming into a small community as the use of the internet increases. It is apparent that internet is a world- changing technology that has improved at a very high rate. The world is about to completely change to a digital global village in which solutions will no longer be more than a search and almost everyone in the world will be just a click away.

References:

Boldt, N, 2001, “The Internet in Everyday Life,” Melbourne Journal of Politics, Vol. 28.
Gibson, R, Paul, N, & Ward, S, 2003, Political Parties and the Internet: Net Gain? New York:
Routledge.
Jain, S.C, 2003, Toward a Global Business Confederation: A Blueprint for Globalization.
Westport, CT: Praeger.
James, J, 2002, “Information Technology, Transactions Costs and Patterns of Globalization in
Developing Countries,” Review of Social Economy, Vol. 60.
Miller, D. & Slater, D, 2000, The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach, Berg, Oxford.
Owen, D, & Davis, R, 2008, “Presidential Communication in the Internet Era,” Presidential
Studies Quarterly, Vol. 38.
Rodgers, J, 2003, Spatializing International Politics: Analysing Activism on the Internet,
New York: Routledge.
Saco, D, 2002, Cybering Democracy: Public Space and the Internet, Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
Shane, P.M, 2004, Democracy Online: The Prospects for Political Renewal through the Internet,
Routledge, New York.
Srader, D, 2006, “Democracy Online: The Prospects for Political Renewal through the Internet,
Argumentation and Advocacy,” Vol. 42.
Weare, C, 2002, “The Internet and Democracy: The Causal Links between Technology and
Politics,” International Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 25.

Task 10:

For your first media tetrad I want you to create one for an old medium of communication.   Radio, Television, Newspapers, etc.

First media tetrad is based on an old medium of communication called Television.
Television as a medium of communication enhanced the news and entertainment beyond the boundaries of radio and new paper form of news and communication. It made radio obsolesce as people prefer visual medium the just audible medium. It retrieve the way we broadcast television from old medium of radio broadcasting and signal sending. As television is pushed to its extreme, some people still prefer to listen to the radio rather than watching Television people spend more time on their handheld computer games and computer than in from of Television.

For the second tetrad I want you to choose one contemporary medium of communication.    Instead of choosing "the internet", be more specific -   a particular form of social media, the mobile phone, and so on.   
Second media tetrad is based on more contemporary form of technology called PDA phones.

This medium enhanced the way we use of mobile phones, for instance it can do much more than just calling and texting. You can use it as a personal assistant, which manages all your work and activities throughout your daily life. It has made digital diaries and personal organising digital instrument obsolete as they did not have capacity to connect through internet and many more application. However, it still retrieves a good deal of functions from older media such as cellular phones and personal organising digital instruments and digital calendars. When pushed to the extreme this type of media will become less popular as it has become much more complicated with quantity of information and functions available on PDA phones.

Lecture 10 New media ecology

Lecture 10 talks about new media ecology. It starts with defining media and ecology. We have already understood the definition of media before the new concept is Media ecology. Media ecology focuses on the concept of communication technologies as a integral part of society. Media has great deal of influence on the way we live, our culture, languages and education. Then it identifies media in different forms, it introduces unique concept of Tetrad of Media, which I wasn’t aware of. Media is defined as extension of sensorium that changes our experience of time and space. The second section of lecture focuses on the invisible environment because of its nature and lack of perceptible. It explains this with very simple example of fish, where the bowl of water is environment for fish and if we place some colour in this environment, fish sees it in a different way. Thus, it can be said that as we change the medium in environment it has significant effect on the whole environment. Then it summarises the whole series of lecture in few lines, which was very effective to understand the core subject behind the lecture.

Lecture 9 Networked creativity

Lecture 9 talks about networked creativity. Speaker told us about the useful and creative spaces on the web. He gave us information about Google maps and how they are made and he also gave us some advice on how to create our own Google maps. He showed us the website Freeware genius, which reviews free software available on internet. He talked about creating a network by setting up data that can be used in many different ways. He emphasised on the networking aspect of internet as it provides us with the essential tool to connect with each other. I loved the section on Art portals, disaster maps and visualization of net traffic speeds. In this era of commercialization it is important and great to have creative networking; in my opinion creative networking will rule the future of socialising website and marketing on internet.

Task 8:

I’ve chosen three of his creation called stunningly harmful songs; endings eventually end; and between treacherous objects.
His website seems a cluster of colour and sound everything is on your face; It is more like Japanese website where they have high quantity of colours and information on their web pages.


How does it make you feel?
It was unique experience for me, however certainly not very positive. I appreciate his work and the effort he puts in to his work but it lacks a sense of poetry and art. His website appears to be full of terminologies, which I didn’t understand.

What does it makes you think about?
I think it should be more organised and meaningful. It lacks the creativeness and artistic flair of poetry. However, it is a new concept and as we know world is full of people who appreciate alternative creativeness and art. It might be to the taste of certain people but not me. I think it is good to watch for fun but certainly not in same category as poetry.

What are the other media forms that it uses, or is similar to?
It uses flash videos, which are very easy to watch online and combination of music and different windows, which makes it an interesting experience.

If we accept that Jason's workers poetry - How do you "read" digital poetry like that?
It is more of a visual and written things not exactly poetry but it was easy to understand. There were few scary things such as doomsday countdown, which really put me off. I think it’s very easy to read and understand digital poetry through computer screen.

Lecture 8 the personal politics and copy right.

Lecture 8 talks about the personal politics and copy right. Personal politics involves the power to use policy; in today’s world government controls many aspects of person’s life such as income tax, rules and regulation etc. Everything is controlled, hackers who breach this control in cyber space are considered to be criminals. However, hackers expose the reality and what is possible to the world and themselves. They breach the regulation in order to search for reality and steal the information for their benefits. In today’s world even general public uses hacking and pirated software that helps them to illegally download movies and videos. This raises huge issue with copyright laws, which are their to encourage the legal uses of information. This conflict of interest will raise many issues in the future.

Task 7: Politics and the Internet

Sign an e-petition.
I have signed e-petition against war in Iraq on http://e-petition.org/iraq/
 Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site.
I have responded to professional blogger Tim Blair on daily telegraph website.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/history_of_warming/#commentsmore
I think global warming is a Myth, human contribution to CO2 level are very low as compared to other sources of carbon emission and it is earth’s natural cycle that temperature goes up and down after some stage. So I think increase political focus on global warming as biggest killer of the planet is a futile issue.
 What is Barak Obama up to today?
Barack Obama is pushing his health care reform legislation in US, which has received lot of criticism from experts on the topic and opposition. The President’s Democratic Party passed health reform legislation by a narrow margin. This to me appears to be very radical movement because he is taking away right of the people to control their own health. Psychological assessment of young children and taking right away form the parents to make choices about medication is against democracy of the nation.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/barack-obama-swings-healthcare-vote-his-way/story-e6frg6so-1225795552357
 Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are.
Local representative:
The Hon Arch Bevis MP for Brisbane city from Australian Labour Party
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/mi-state.asp
the list of State and Federal representative can be found on above link:

 Look up the Queensland or Australian hansard to find the last time your local member spoke in parliament.
I could not find the information about his latest speech in parliament; however, I have found some information about his first speech in parliament which was at 10/5/1990.
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/firstspeech.asp?id=ET4

lecture 7 the political possibilities

In lecture 7 the guest speaker talked about the political possibilities. Lecture starts with definition of democracy, especially democracy in internet world described as eDemocracy. This involves political campaign over internet, government use of internet to increase awareness and inform people about various issues and take their opinion. Even though democracy is prevalent in society such as Australia and US, people still does not exercise their right to vote and are influenced by media in using their democracy. It is difficult to define democracy because of its changing nature due to new conditions, social formations, technological advances and other complexities.

Then it talks about the means of improving the quality of deliberation in contemporary society, in which gaps in the mass media have foreclosed reduced the democracy. This is due to centralisation and commercialisation of the mass media, which raises question on credibility of the media to provide just opinion and view. As we progress there is a huge change in the public sphere in society. There is a conflict in democracy by means of prevention from free speech and copy right. There is an increase in number of hackers, they are everywhere due to lack of democracy around the society and manipulation by media. Media prevents information to reach to public, which increases cases of hacking as anti-social activity. Hackers refuse to accept the official story by media and explore beyond the media curtains to find their own truth. Thus hackers produce alternative spaces and routes for information to create universal democratic deliberation.

Lecture 6 The Academic Study of Video Games

Lecture 6 focuses on The Academic Study of Video Games. As games are becoming popular day by day among young children, there are large concerns about social and cultural affects of video games. Lecture focuses on various types of games such as arcade, consoles, computers and mobile games. Then it talks about theoretical aspects of study of games by means of media effects and games, the persistence of effects, games and Utopia etc. Basically it talks about the video games as new form of cultural practises where youngster and teenagers spends most of time. Traditionally children and teenagers used to play outside, which involved more social interaction and physical exercise. After introduction of video games it has changed drastically. Video games has their own rules separate from real world, the game is a self-contained system of rules. The gamers follow this rule in order to play the game and as they progresses the game becomes much more difficult. Gaming world is shaped around the virtual space. Aesthetics are crucial aspect that makes games more enjoyable and popular. In some way it relates concept of virtual reality to the video games, where designer emphasis on making games more real as possible.

Task 5:

What is different about the kinds of socialising that happens in these spaces? Does the 3D aspect make much difference? 

In my opinion, IM programs such as MSN provides socialisation, which is very convenient and easy to use, in contrast the 3D aspect of socialisation on website such as ActiveWorlds appears to be more complicated. However, I was impressed by 3D dimensions on the ActiveWorlds website, which was more entertaining experience than normal MSN or Yahoo chat rooms. Even though it appears to be very far away from reality, I was impressed by 3D world more than IM programs. IM programs appears to be good way to chat in case of communicating with friends and family but to get excitement out of socialisation with strangers it seems 3D world gets my vote. There are few problems with the graphics on the computer and slow internet connection to run this 3D world but for socialisation it provides better means than IM programs. Quality of the 3D images are bit poor but its better than no fun visual of IM programs. IM programs provide some features such as web cam, which I really loved when I talk with family and friends. 3D programs are not as famous as general IM programs due to no major support from large corporation but they will gain popularity as the technology advances in this century.

Lecture 5 the concept of virtual philosophy

Lecture 5 discusses the concept of virtual philosophy. To understand the concept it uses very popular example of “Matrix”, which presented concept of future where machines dominate humans by keeping them ignorant of reality by creating virtual world. Major critique of Virtual rationality is that it keeps human away from real feeling and imaginations, people engaged in virtual world loose their sense of reality and how the real nature and world feels like. Then it talks about evolution of virtual reality from traditional technology of telegraph to modern era. Elements of virtual language use combination of sound, music and visuals to create new way to communicate.

Virtual reality is a computer-stimulated environment that enables users to interact, move and react in this stimulated environment. It provides privilege of experiencing things, which are physically difficult to experience. To deliver this experience it requires help of various hardware such as goggles, headphones, gloves and body suite to create stimulus world, which feels like real world. It involves use of various senses such as vision, sound, touch and taste and smell to create feeling of real world which is virtual. This all seems very exciting but it has its own consequences such as physiological and psychological issues. VR still has long way to go to create real life sensation in human being.

Lecture 4 the creative free culture and society

Lecture 4 discusses the creative free culture and society by means of creative commons open source software. It talks about collaboration, community and choice. Even though, emphasis on creation of free culture and open source software, there should be acknowledgement of copy right. For instance, creative commons.org is a non profit organisation dedicated to promote reasonable copyright to balance between free culture and copyright laws.
The section of open source software talks about how the software develops by contribution from various people, it’s free for everyone to contribute and use. Open source software provides freedom to use it for any purpose, understand its operations, sharing it and freedom to improve it. However, there are some restrictions that control what we can do with free software such as GNU Public License. Other type of software involves proprietary software, in which code remains confidential. This is in contrast with open source software where codes are not confidential. Thus, open source software involves more freedom to use and contribute towards development of software for common good of everyone in the society and business world.

Session 3: Tutorial - Scavenger Hunt Questions

Part 1:

 1.    What did Alan Turing wear while riding his bicycle around Bletchley Park?
I used yahoo7 as my search engine, for the first question I typed Alan Turing Clothing Bletchley Park, I have used the first search result it gave me accurate information.

Alan Turing was untidily dressed, good quality clothes mind, but no creases in them; he used a tie to hold his trousers up.
http://www.elyrunners.co.uk/Turing/history.htm
2.    On what date did two computers first communicate with each other? Where were they?
I typed time line of computer communication in search engine and the first item in the list was from the website Webopedia gave me full timeline of the computer communication and I found Oct. 1965 was the date of first Network Experiment: Directed by Larry Roberts at MIT Lincoln Lab, two computers talked to each other using packet-switching technology.

http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/timeline.asp

3.    What is Bill Gates’ birthday and what age was he when he sold his first software?
I typed Bill Gates biography in search engine and I got and article from Microsoft website to find his birthday. He was born on 28th October 1955. For the second section I typed in Bill Gate’s first software sale in yahoo7 and found that he sold his first commercially developed software for $3.000 and royalties in 1975.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/bio.mspx
http://www.answers.com/topic/bill-gates

4.    Where was the World Wide Web invented?
This was pretty easy I just typed in whole question in search engine and the first item on the list specified that World Wide Web was invented in the European Organization for Nuclear Research. I found this information on following website.
http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/history/inventedweb.html

5.    How does the power of the computer you are working on now compare with the power of a personal computer from 30 years ago?
I typed in evolution of computer in search engine. It gave me list of history of personal computer. The computer thirty years ago were from third generation (IC) and fourth Generation (microprocessor) computers. They were big and cost too much, in contrast, personal computer now a days are very affordable, compact and easy to use.
http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/computer1.html#gp03

6.    What is the weight of the largest parsnip ever grown?
To find answer for this question I typed in record for largest parsnip and the first item on the list took me to website, which stated the weight of larger parsnip ever grown is 8 lb 6 oz according to Guinness Book of World Records.
http://www.vintageassessments.com/vd/rawf_2003.html

7.    When did Queensland become a state and why is the Tweed River in New South Wales?
I typed in Birth of Queensland on yahoo7 search engine and it came up with list of suggestions. I chose fourth item on the list and it says On 6 June, Queen Victoria signs the Letters Patent, approving Queensland be established as a separate colony from New South Wales, with its own representative government.
http://www.q150.com.au/AboutUs/Birth.aspx

8.    What was the weather like in south-east Queensland on 17 November 1954?
I typed in Queensland Cyclone in 1954in search engine Yahoo7. I chose the first item in the list, which took me to the website of Australian Government Bureau of Meterology. This website suggested that south east Queensland suffered from major east coast tropical cyclone on that day.
http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/cyclone/about/cyclones-eastern.shtml

9.    Why is is Lord Byron still remembered in Venice?
I typed in Lord Byron in Venice in search engine Yahoo7 and it came up with history of Lord Byron. He was one of the foremost English Romantic Poets. He contributed to the romantic genre through his poetry and his life. Because of his contribution to literature and time he spent in Venice he is still remembered in Venice.
http://www.wisegeek.com/who-is-lord-byron.htm

10.    What band did Sirhan Chapman play in and what is his real name?
I typed Sirhan Chapman musical band in search engine Yahoo7, it came up with the list and I chose the first item in the list. It took me to revolution rock website, which was the name of the band he played in. He was reluctant to give his real name.




part 2:
Search engine use key words that we type in the search box and rank the most relevant stuff as first on the list. There are some advantages of getting too much information and also some drawbacks. Some web pages does not contain the full details of the items typed in search engine, in contrast, some has more details. Thus the web pages with more details and relevance appeal to me. Google and Yahoo are my favourite search engine, they always provide me with relevant information. I love Google because It has various application such as books, images, scholar and maps.

Lecture 3 The new media and social media

Lecture 3. Discusses the new media and social media. In the beginning it describes the definition of technology and media. Technology is considered to be mechanical art and media uses technology for social and cultural communication. It goes on explaining the virtual community as the group of people, who publicly discusses with sufficient human feeling to form the webs of personal relationship. This makes people feel connected without physically being there. Internet has created social revolution by bringing people together irrespective of their geographic location, race, sex or colour. Ego-Centric Social networks emphasis on individual rather than groups of people with common interests. Web 2.0 brought a new era in the web’s history, which is more focused on user’s experience of the technology. the essential features of Web 2.0 includes organising knowledge by means of tags on posts to make users define the categories and user generated content such as photos, images and videos. It also involves open API, which enables open data sharing between services on the internet. This reduces the complication for average people to contribute to the internet; for instance, average people are not capable enough to write on the web site. Thus by creating a service that enables them to write on website easily will bring revolution to the internet.

The section on social media describes the advances in social communication due to internet by means of blogs, Social network services (Facebook, orkut…) and content sharing communities. This has changed the way people spend their time and brought them much closer to each other.

task 2

I chose this video because of its credibility. In this video Stephen Carter, who is Minister for Communication, technology and broadcasting of Britain talks about new communication technology and explains report on digital economy that it will change the future of Great Britain. It is important because it focuses on political perspective of new technology. He talks about technological advance from digitalization of the Britain. Government needs to maintain good deal of focus on digital technology because it is technological roads and rails of future. In order to succeed in future Great Britain needs to focus on digitalization on businesses. The content should be nurtured and develop this technology. He talks about introducing framework to securely use this new technology, how to place legal constraint on use of new technology. He talks about Participation, infrastructure, engagement, government responsibilities associated with digital technology. Because digital technology is virtual, Technology provides people great deal democracy by means of access, control, information, knowledge, roots to market that is liberating idea for people and nation like Great Britain.
How long have you been using these communication technologies?
I have been using internet as communication technology for about 10 years now, I’ve started using it when I was in school. It has advance to greater level since its introduction.
    * What influenced you to start using these particular technologies?  How did you find out about them?
The main influence was the convenience of using it. From home I can search any information or news at anytime. It provided me great deal of freedom to chat and talk with my friend at my own pace. I found out about them through various means, mostly by word of mouth from friends or teachers.

    * Is privacy an issue for you when using new technologies?  What do you think of companies like Facebook and Google who collect information about their users?   (How do you deal with issues around privacy?)
I think privacy is a great issue with these new technologies, as they collect our personal information, they can use it for their own benefits such as marketing and sending junk emails. They create their own database about the behavioural pattern and this can be breach of privacy laws. Especially, when some company such as Google or Facebook keeps record of all of their clients such as all of their emails, this puts us at risk in so many ways. There is no confidentiality that whatever we communicate is private.

I think it is better not to give phone number or personal contact details or home address over the internet. It is better to keep it limited to emails. Also, I avoid using credit card over internet.

    * Do you have friends whom you know only from the internet and have never met in person?   Is this different to people that you know in person? 
Of course it makes great deal of difference, my friends are my life. I usually don’t engage in internet conversation with people I don’t know. It is just for amusement of people, who don’t like to socialise in real life. Internet keeps us away from our real friends, with whom we can go out share our feelings and we know them in person. I would not trust someone over internet to care for me or help in tough times.


The other side of this might be that you don't use new communication technologies for such trivial things as socialising. Explain why you don't use them. Is it a very conscious choice? Under what circumstances do you think you would consider using them?
As I said before I like face to face communication rather than chatting on internet; however, when I am away from my family and friends I use web camera to chat with them over the internet. It gives me great encouragement to do my work when I am away from them. It makes me feel connected to them.