Task 6: Interactivity, a concept explication

The current post contains a summary of an article by Spiro Kiousis around the concept of ‘interactivity’. In the article, it is stated that the emergence of new communication technologies has refined concepts in mass communication and consequently the concept of ‘interactivity’ which has been affected by technologies utilized in communication interactions, although it has been a controversy to define ‘interactivity’ either as a media or psychological variable in various context.

From the media point of view, interactivity is tightly related with internet and World Wide Web. Additionally, it has various levels across media that can be constant in time but differ significantly within individuals’ perceptions. Some authors have noted that feedback plays an important role in interaction which makes participants engage in message transactions. Some other related factors are social presence, transparency, user friendliness, speed, and timing flexibility. Furthermore, two-way communication, one-to-many and many-to-many communication experiences are considered as different ways of interactivity that give different levels of feedback.

In the article, there is a variety of ‘interactivity’ definitions form different aspects. In general, it has been classified as a relational variable. It’s declared that it can be defined as perceptions in individual level and also it can be considered in form, content, and structure of technology in relation to users in media level.

Having such controversies like interactivity as a medium or individual perceptions; differences between human and media interaction; and also content and interpersonal interactions have been created a mixture of concepts for instance, descriptions in communication and non-communication models.

Ultimately, the definition has been offered to consider both media and psychological variables contain three dimensions: Firstly medium structure; secondly features of communication settings; and thirdly the perceptions of users. However, ‘interactivity’ is still a vague and controversial issue to define and requires further experience and research.

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Task 5: ‘Interactivity’

This blog post aims to summarize an article by Jens F. Jensen, named “Tracking a New Concept in Media and Communication Studies” and points out some important notes about the concept of ‘interactivity’.

It has been tried to define the words “interactive” and “interactive media” from various aspects thus it seems that there are lots of confusion about them. The meaning which is a multidimensional concept has been tightly related to the discipline it has been applied. For instance, its functionality either in sociology or computer science can change the meaning. Additionally, it’s been claimed that “interactivity” in media communities is still vague or a “buzzword”, and still is an under-defined concept.

To investigate this concept in communication studies, it’s been declared that the advancement of communication science is affected by information societies’ models and methods; in particular, interactive communication technologies and new media. By the way, there is no definite distinguished concept of “interaction” in the field, since it highly depends on the context in which it has used.  For instance, the meaning of ‘interaction’ in media and communication studies refers to the actions of recipient related to the content of media; which the word has not been used in media technologies for a long time, instead more technically-oriented  remarks like ‘two way communication’ or ‘return channel’ systems were used. Subsequently, in the field of informatics (which is stated to be synonymous in media studies) ‘interaction’ is closer to the relationship between people and machines and does not include communication between two people (mediated by a machine).

In summary, there are three ways of describing the concept: Firstly as a prototype; secondly as criteria; and thirdly as a continuum. Among these the concept as a continuum found to be more suitable to define interactivity since it has various levels and there are different forms of interactivity as well. The different interactivity aspects can be categorized into four dimensions by means of communication models. These dimensions have been recognized as transmission (one-way user interaction by selecting information), consultation (user is able to select or request for information in a two-way media system), conversation (user can produce information in a two-way media system) and registration (media can adopt and reply to user’s request).

To sum up, the “interaction” concept is quite complex as there are a lot of uncertainty around the concept. Even with plotting various dimensions, there is no clear-cut outcome since the boundary is indistinct between user’s actions toward the information and each other or monitoring the users by systems and replying to their request sensitively. So perhaps it is still required to develop a better understanding toward the significance of ‘interactivity’ in media and communication studies.

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Hackerism

Jargon File:

I started to browse the glossary accessible in the jargon file. I never thought that there are lots of expressions and words defined by hackers which are quite large. Looking here and there, the word “filter” caught my eyes.  I was curious to learn what the difference is between my understanding and hackers’ definition of this word. Not only this word but also most of the words I browsed and had a look, were difficult and sort of technical for me to understand. Here you see the meaning of “filter” found in jargon file:

• filter: n.

[very common; orig. Unix] A program that processes an input data stream into an output data stream in some well-defined way, and does no I/O to anywhere else except possibly on error conditions; one designed to be used as a stage in a pipeline (see plumbing). Compare sponge.

If I understood correctly, filter processes the given data to provide well-defined data as a result. This meaning of filter sounds positive whereas my understanding of the word was more about removal of data which had more negative expression. Now, I am wondering whether the word carries more positive or harmful value!

Hacker ethic

Searching the word “hacker” in Wikipedia results in:

• Hacker (computer security) or cracker, who accesses a computer system by circumventing its security system

I think that the real meaning of hacker has changed nowadays. Most of the time (maybe except the real hackers) the meaning for hacker equals to cracker. It is a pity that the meaning has changed for people and they usually do not have any idea what the hacker culture and ethic are, additionally they might call hackers as nerds! Since the hacker ethic is not known for people at the present time; although, the ethic itself is still appreciated by many professionals in the field. Out of hacker ethic defined by Himanen, hacker network ethic (nethic) remarkably effects on decentralization of information by promoting the open source concept.

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SafetyNet: A location based application

SafetyNet is a locative application designed for Android. By means of following signals, the application monitors the users, then in the case of danger it can send alerts to receive help. When the user shake the device hurriedly, a panic alarm is transferred by Google Android’s “Always on Capabilities” to other users on his/her SafetyNet group.

SafetyNet has acquired several kinds of alerts which the panic alert is the most famous one, it enables to make the person family or friends aware of hard situation and call for help. Shaking the device would activate the calling option and it would call your emergency contact number. By activating “Start Location Beacon” mode, the location based device enable your group know where you are exactly by the time of alert. By “Automate Picture” feature, the device starts to take pictures of the scene and send them to the group.

This application has a feature called “Follow me” which enables the whole group be aware of your location and follow your rout. It might be very useful if somebody is waiting for you at destination, she/he would know exactly where you are and how long will take you to get there. By sending the destination address, estimated travel time and the entire trip updates would help your friends to track you.

The application has also “Medical alert” which works quite the same as “Panic alert” in addition to providing users with your medical information you have already given to your device. This kind of application can be very useful whenever you need to go to sketchy or unknown areas, or when somebody has health problem and need to be under constant care.

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Ubiquitous computing

How to reach ubicomp?

It has been discussed that digital divide is in opposition to ubiquitous computing (ubicomp). Exploring the factors how digital divide may happen leads us to the fact that social cohesiveness plays a very important role to reach ubicomp. Without equality, justice, and equal opportunities in education, economy and welfare of a society; not all of people can be a part of network society. Partly may left aside with no access to information flow, and digital divide definitely would happen.

If ubiquitous computing aims to enable people to interact with technology naturally and casually, then it should provide access to technology for everyone and everywhere (to be considered as a natural habit for every human being). For that purpose a minimum level of education and wellbeing is required for everyone to have a computer in hand, use internet and access to information society.

 

Scenarios of “Estonia 2010”

“Military Estonia” is the closest scenario to current Iran situation. The angry and disappointed society has been restricted in suffocating armed forces. Lack of freedom and openness avoid the society from improvement and also keep it away from becoming innovative however, sometimes it can be seen that boundaries make people to think about new ways of acquiring the technology and access to information. It might have helped to a group of people (like artists or journalists) to create ingenious works but I suppose the society trend is indeed downward.

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Digital divide and Internet availability

Considering the digital divide in Iran, unfortunately it is closely related to the level of censorship and education. Although lots of users try to get around the filtering and internet limitation by means of various anti-filtering software, it can decrease the accessibility and internet usage.

Level of education in the respect of familiarity with computer and English language plays an important role in digital divide between different generations. Even for elderly or middle-aged educated generation is still hard to use the computer since in general people have a lack of knowledge in English language that is the main factor in understanding how to use a computer; also it is hard for them to learn a completely new technology; While the younger generation who have access to computer and internet, are very curious and fast in learning. Lack of copyright and cheap software has been helpful for younger generation to become familiar and learn using a variety of software.

Another important factor of digital divide is that society is not dependent on computer and internet use and still lots of work is done in traditional way, thus people do not feel any need or courage to learn it.

Lack of internet availability is another factor to increase digital divide, although based on available articles, Iran has the second highest percentage of its population using internet in the Middle East, after Israel. Based on Wikipedia, 20 million people use internet but one cannot get around the fact that precise statistics are rare and just a few researches have been done around this area. According to an article on Internet use in Iran, access is not inexpensive there. Perhaps, the main internet service providers (ISPs) are located in Tehran and other big cities. So it is not hard to imagine that internet must be much faster and easier to use in urban areas. It increased problems like digital divide and level of education difference, also centering all the technology in big cities has forced people to migrate from rural to urban areas which has made lots of difficulties in respect of cultural and economical issues.

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Task 3: comparison of descriptions of creating a study plan

I selected five study plans by random: Elise, Maria, Valeria, Reimo and Gert.

All have a factor in common which depict the issues have influenced the decision making for selecting the available IMKE courses, but the level of detail is different in each. IMKE curriculum is considered as the basic factor of course selection. The study plans include from curriculum and study process to study tools and mentioning work and personal life.

Gert and Elise have used a mind mapping tool as same as mine to show the process and items although, they are not demonstrated in hierarchical order. While Reimo and Maria have used concept mapping tool to show the relation between various items. Valeria used diagram which shows kind of hierarchy and the level of process by means of Yes/No answer and also color and size of bubbles.

I liked all the approaches since each can stress a variety of points of a study plan based on features of taking various tools. The general plans seem to show characteristics of planning for this fall before starting the semester and integration to courses while the detailed ones depict more experiences like mentioning study tools and schedule. It is difficult to say what is missing since each study plan has its own character and focus points.

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Task 2: self-observation and analysis of creating a study plan

I designed a map of study plan and process for this semester using “FreeMind”  mapping software. I tried to publish the map as HTML to cover all the features provided by the application; but unfortunately couldn’t succeed! when I used the HTML mode of WordPress to transfer the HTML data, it didn’t show the result as same as the FreeMind HTML export result! So, I just upload it as JPG and PDF here:

My study plan (Fall 2010)

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Lesson 2: Social interaction

This concept map tries to define social interaction and its connection with terms like community and cultural interface. Additionally it represents how a community serves as a “cultural interface” to mediate communication with computers, by demonstrating the concept of message interpretation and feedback between its sender and receiver.

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Internet fraud in social networks!

Sometimes, I feel insecure when using social networks specially Facebook. It has happened several times that I received a message from a friend or a shared link on my friend’s wall but has not been shared or sent by that person. I suppose a social network like Facebook is attractive bait for scammers and fraudsters, since millions of users are connected and, an exploit or vulnerability can be hastily scattered over the network.

I even received a message from one of my friends living in another country some months ago, describing his miserable situation. In the message, was written that he is on a trip and lost all his money, cell phone and everything he had; so needs immediate help by asking for money transfer to his bank account! I’d say I was influenced and  believed the story at that moment but after thinking for a while, I hesitated! If it was a true story he wouldn’t ask me, but a closer friend or a family member since I haven’t had heard anything from him for a long time.

Facebook is full of games and applications, for lots of them the source is not the Facebook portal, while using them would give permission to access our account information. Many of them are phishing and malicious programs aiming for social engineering. Various fun quizzes which are widespread can be suitable for phishing by asking users about personal identity information or taking them to fake websites.

Taking a look at a scambaiting website such as Scam-O-Rama, a story about a Facebook scam shows that even when you chat through Facebook with a friend whom you know for years, you should be skeptical whether you are talking to your friend or a scammer! It has happened that a person chat with a friend who is in trouble and asks for immediate help to send money. The conversation is usually tried to be short and depict a stressful atmosphere not to let that person think or hesitate about the situation! I noticed that lots of people do not insert their Birthday in the info page because of identity theft and some provide wrong information. Many are cautious about sharing data on social networks yet still I suppose it is easy to spy and scam through social networks as of gullible majority.

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