Web Communications 101: Web 101 – Communication and Collaboration Online.
Laura's notes
Module 3: Introduction – Your Internet Footprint.
iLecture: Internet footprints: Dr Tama Leaver
| Topic: | Internet Footprints |
| Speaker: | Dr Tama Leaver |
| Outline: | 1. Theories of 'Self'? 2. Technologised and Mediated Selves in Contemporary Popular Culture 3. Self and/as Social Media |
Dr Leaver discusses individuals such as:
Erving Goffman: The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life (1959) self can be conveyed to others as a series of performances (with keep audience in mind). Goffman's ideas are influential in digital media studies as all self is presentation.
Donna Haraway, Everyone in contemporary society is already a cyborg. Cyborg: we are deeply entwined with technology and would be fundamentally different people without it. The traditional Liberal Humanist Model of the Subject (the Western subject: Humanity /cyborg/Technology/ - Humans and technology are entwining on both material and epistemological levels.
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (1990): performativity. All Self is a performance, which is a form of construction, but this is not distance from a "real" self. Part of postmodern and post structuralist movement: saw everything as discursive and thus constructed.
17:39 minutes: Technologised and mediated selves in contemporary popular culture. (Popular culture is a very vast field. How do we think about digital media?
18:12 minutes: Alter ego by Robbie Cooper (l) Jason Rowe has major disabilities but plays a computer character on line called Rurouni Kenshin. Jason's explanation "the computer screen is my window to the world. Online it doesn't matter what you look like." The digital experience for him is a very liberating experience. The first impression that you get from his online avatar (representation of self) is a different sort of visual representation, pseudonymity in a strong character representation comparatively very different to his real world self.
Choi Seang Rak, an economics and public policy professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, South Korea has an online avatar through the game Lineage II that is female. Uroo Ahs. By the looks of him in comparison to Uroo he is a middle class professor with conservative appearance and the avatar is blonde ponytailed semi gothic armoured quite sexual in appearance. How does the representation map back on to physical identity?
Films:
Surrogates (2009) - about displaced identity into technology.
Gamer (2009) – technology implanted in prisoner's brains allowing others take control.
These films do ask a person to think deeply about the relationship we have with technology today.
http://personas.media.mit.edu/personasWeb.html
Laura: I had a small travel section followed by an even smaller fame and management section. After that particular section of the bar, I have a huge fashion then even bigger family section of the bar. Education was as small as travel, fame then management (slight disappointment). Movies were quiet impressive in size (no really!) followed by mediocre news. However, wait! My intelligence, sorry make that illegal portion was something I should worry about proportionate to the politics size. Legal matters was a nice size (cough) and the social section isn't worth even mentioning followed up by a likeable chunk of art!
Introduction Topic 3
The Internet is a medium. Consequently, any communication that utilises the Internet is mediated.
The broad and complex topic of computer-mediated communication (CMC) has long drawn the interest of academics from a variety of fields. However, in this module we are going to look specifically at how this mediation affects your communication and how to think more carefully about the way you communicate and present yourself through the Net. Beginning with some simple tips about using email, we will consider how effective communication and publication in different forms through and on the Internet needs to be embedded in a firm understanding of the medium that supports it. (Curtin, 2010)
Instructions:
Follow through the information on the page, stopping to view any videos and performing the activities and readings.
Your Internet Footprint.
The impact that you make on the Internet is commonly referred to as your 'Internet Footprint'. It is the accumulated result of all your contributions to the Internet and is found in (but not limited to):
Laura: "... Critics complain that personal home pages are often trivial or even tasteless, amateurish and superfluous products of narcissism and exhibitionism" (Döring and Rothstein, 1996)
- Blogs : mine: http://loulounilly.blogspot.com/
- Forum Posts: Blackboard for Curtin University of Technology
- Website Contributions: Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn, Wikipedia and so on.
- Social Networking profiles: Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn and so on.
In order to fully experience the shifts and changes we have seen emerging through the course of this unit you will have to contribute to and participate in the growth of the Internet. To establish an Internet presence for yourself (or, for the more business-minded, your company) you will need to consciously think about the ways in which you present yourself to the other users of the Internet. (Curtin, 2010)
Internet Communications Basics – Netiquette.
Netiquette refers to the basic social conventions that are applicable to any use of the Internet. Originally used before the introduction of the World Wide Web to refer to the appropriate use of email and usenet groups, the term has grown to encompass the 'unspoken rules' that informally govern the wide variety of expressive form that the Internet has given rise to. The most important point to remember (and one we shall return to a little further down the page) is that you cannot assume that anything you 'send via' or 'post to' the Internet will remain private. (Curtin, 2010)
Laura: all communication as far as I am concerned is public, it is important to remember that anything that is posted on the Internet is potentially public and will and can be used in any which way or form another user will see fit.
Email:
The Limitations of Text:
Although this might seem like common sense, it is surprising how many people feel the need to adorn the text of their emails in some way. The use of HTML to display email is not generally appropriate. Make sure the default setting in your email program is to create plain text emails.
Think Before Replying
The limitations of text can often lead us to misinterpret the intention of emails. Coupled with the instantaneous nature of email communication, this can often lead to un-necessary miscommunication. If you ever feel the need to type an emotive or reactive response to an email, allow yourself time to cool off.
Think Again Before Replying!
The 'reply all' button on your email client should be used with care and consideration. If you receive an email that is addressed to a large number of people, is your reply intended for all of them of just for the original sender? Make sure to familiarise yourself with the function of the CC and BCC fields in your email client. If you don't, strange things can occur! (Curtin, 2010)
All email programs allow you to quote the original email in your reply. Sometimes this is a useful way to maintain the 'flow' of a lengthy conversation by reminding the recipient of the points you are discussing. In this case, it is often a good idea to insert your own comments at the relevant point in the quoted text. However, email quoting can be abused. Think about whether you need to include the original text in your email, particularly if it already contains the quoted text from many previous emails!
As mentioned above, it is important at all times to remember that information posted to group discussions is generally not only available to members of the group, but to the entire Internet. Many web discussion groups 'feel' like a private and localised conversation but, almost invariably, they are not.
When you participate in an online discussion of any kind, you need to be aware that most will have been around before your participation. Thus, individual groups tend, over time, to develop norms and rules. On both websites and other forms of discussion group, you should avail yourself of any rules and guidelines that govern participation.(Curtin 2010)
(Curtin Blackboard and Curtin Skype have netiquette in place to deter inappropriate behaviour)
Social Networking - Presentation of the Self.
Sociologist Erving Goffman, (Laura: Erving Goffman was an American Sociologist 1922-1983, whose classic book"The presentation of self in everyday life (1959) saw social interaction as performances by individuals, which vary according to context, usually intended to please the current audience. Not merely micro level social psychology, this book suggest how identities and ideologies are reproduced on a grand scale) in his book, The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life, discussed the idea of Interaction Order to describe the way in which we selectively and deliberately reveal certain information to others in our everyday communications. It is through these interactions and the control we have over them that we establish a social status. This idea can be applied to our presentation of our online selves.
Thus, the second issue with privacy in social networks concerns the degree to which we make our information public and what that the presentation of that information conveys to others. While social networking platforms offer a convenient way to keep in touch with friends, they also constrain the user to a specific style of communication in terms of the way the site presents information to others.
The information on a Facebook page is presented in a standardised way, with few opportunities to change the look and feel of the page. Whilst the interface takes full advantage of Web 2.0 technologies in terms of how the information is arranged on the page, the graphical style is determined by the platform. For some users, this is fine, as the work of constructing a web presence is reduced to inputting data. It is important to remember that presentation of self on the Web plays an important role in defining the nature of your Web presence. (Curtin 2010)
Information – How much is too much?
When posting information to the WWW about you it is important to thing about who is going to read it. Who will be able to access and what amount of the information is available to the discerning public. Bearing in mind the content of what is being uploaded it is important to ask yourself some relevant questions
Make the Subject Informative:
Stick with Text:
Netiquette in Group DiscussionsQuoting The 'subject' field is the first indication of the topic of your email that the recipient will see. Make sure it tells them succinctly what the body of the email contains. Whilst 'Hey' might be an appropriate subject for personal emails, in a professional context it tells the reader nothing about the content and makes it difficult for the recipient to manage their in-box.
Some times as we type emails it is easy to forget that the thoughts and emotion that lie behind the message are not necessarily transferred to the text of the email. While the use of emoticons (or 'smiley's') can help, consider the context in which your email can be read and whether the content could be misinterpreted.
Even for those of us who are regular email users, the very ubiquity and increasing volume of email (both wanted and unwanted) may have led to a certain lack of attention to some of the basic ways we can best communicate with and manage our email. It is vital that email messages be read and clearly understood, especially if they're-addressed to people dealing with large numbers of email messages regularly. To achieve this result, you need to attend carefully to the way that email messages are laid out and organised.
Remember the wayback machine on the Internet Archive site from earlier in the course? Any data that you post or upload to the Web might be retained - and widely viewable - long after you have forgotten about it.You might also want to consider whether you really want your home address, email or telephone number available to others through this type of service.
Typically, most social networking sites enable you to control who has access to what information. It is good practice to make yourself aware of these tools and to tailor the access to your profile accordingly. (Curtin. 2010)
Activity - Readings
The following readings are concerned with the ways in which people present themselves online and their motivations for doing so. Depending upon your interest, pick one of these:
DiMicco, J.M. and Millen, D.R., Identity Management: Multiple Presentations of Self in Facebook. In Proc ACM Group Conference (2007).
Available: http://www.joandimicco.com/pubs/dimicco-millen-group07.pdf
ABSTRACT"As the use of social networking websites becomes increasingly common, the types of social relationships managed on these sites are becoming more numerous and diverse. This research seeks to gain an understanding of the issues related to managing different social networks through one system, in particular looking at how users of these systems present themselves when they are using one site to keep in contact with both their past social groups from school and their current social connections in the workplace. To do this, we examined online profile pages and interviewed employees at a large software development company who frequently use the website Facebook, a site primarily used by college students and young graduates transitioning into the workforce. The outcome of this initial case study is a framework for understanding how users manage self-presentation while maintaining social relationships in heterogeneous networks." (DiMicco and Millen, 2007)
Qian, H., & Scott, C. R. (2007). Anonymity and self-disclosure on weblogs. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), article 14.
Available: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/qian.html
ABSTRACT"Bloggers are typically cautious about engaging in self-disclosure because of concerns that what they post may have negative consequences. This article examines the relationship between anonymity (both visual and discursive) and self-disclosure on weblogs through an online survey. The results suggest that increased visual anonymity is not associated with greater self-disclosure, and the findings about the role of discursive anonymity are mixed. Bloggers whose target audience does not include people they know offline report a higher degree of anonymity than those whose audience does. Future studies need to explore the reasons why bloggers visually and discursively identify themselves in particular ways." (Qian and Scott, 2007)
Döring, N. (2002). Personal home pages on the Web: A review of research. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 7.
Available: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol7/issue3/doering.html
ABSTRACT
"Personal or private home pages are Web sites published and maintained by individuals or informal, small groups. The paper presents the personal home page as a new object of sociological, psychological, linguistic, and communication studies research. It shows how theories of identity, self-presentation and computer-mediated communication are being applied to personal home pages. The paper is the first systematic review of about thirty personal home page studies. In order to integrate the diverse empirical findings a communication studies framework is used: Personal home pages are regarded as media products with specific production processes, product characteristics, and reception processes. The paper ends by suggesting some possible directions for future research."(Döring, 2002)
Netiquette refers to the basic social conventions that are applicable to any use of the Internet. Originally used before the introduction of the World Wide Web to refer to the appropriate use of email and usenet groups, the term has grown to encompass the 'unspoken rules' that informally govern the wide variety of expressive form that the Internet has given rise to. The most important point to remember (and one we shall return to a little further down the page) is that you cannot assume that anything you 'send via' or 'post to' the Internet will remain private. (Curtin, 2010)
Laura: all communication as far as I am concerned is public, it is important to remember that anything that is posted on the Internet is potentially public and will and can be used in any which way or form another user will see fit.
Email:
The Limitations of Text:
Although this might seem like common sense, it is surprising how many people feel the need to adorn the text of their emails in some way. The use of HTML to display email is not generally appropriate. Make sure the default setting in your email program is to create plain text emails.
Think Before Replying
The limitations of text can often lead us to misinterpret the intention of emails. Coupled with the instantaneous nature of email communication, this can often lead to un-necessary miscommunication. If you ever feel the need to type an emotive or reactive response to an email, allow yourself time to cool off.
Think Again Before Replying!
The 'reply all' button on your email client should be used with care and consideration. If you receive an email that is addressed to a large number of people, is your reply intended for all of them of just for the original sender? Make sure to familiarise yourself with the function of the CC and BCC fields in your email client. If you don't, strange things can occur! (Curtin, 2010)
All email programs allow you to quote the original email in your reply. Sometimes this is a useful way to maintain the 'flow' of a lengthy conversation by reminding the recipient of the points you are discussing. In this case, it is often a good idea to insert your own comments at the relevant point in the quoted text. However, email quoting can be abused. Think about whether you need to include the original text in your email, particularly if it already contains the quoted text from many previous emails!
As mentioned above, it is important at all times to remember that information posted to group discussions is generally not only available to members of the group, but to the entire Internet. Many web discussion groups 'feel' like a private and localised conversation but, almost invariably, they are not.
When you participate in an online discussion of any kind, you need to be aware that most will have been around before your participation. Thus, individual groups tend, over time, to develop norms and rules. On both websites and other forms of discussion group, you should avail yourself of any rules and guidelines that govern participation.(Curtin 2010)
(Curtin Blackboard and Curtin Skype have netiquette in place to deter inappropriate behaviour)
Social Networking - Presentation of the Self.
Sociologist Erving Goffman, (Laura: Erving Goffman was an American Sociologist 1922-1983, whose classic book"The presentation of self in everyday life (1959) saw social interaction as performances by individuals, which vary according to context, usually intended to please the current audience. Not merely micro level social psychology, this book suggest how identities and ideologies are reproduced on a grand scale) in his book, The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life, discussed the idea of Interaction Order to describe the way in which we selectively and deliberately reveal certain information to others in our everyday communications. It is through these interactions and the control we have over them that we establish a social status. This idea can be applied to our presentation of our online selves.
Thus, the second issue with privacy in social networks concerns the degree to which we make our information public and what that the presentation of that information conveys to others. While social networking platforms offer a convenient way to keep in touch with friends, they also constrain the user to a specific style of communication in terms of the way the site presents information to others.
The information on a Facebook page is presented in a standardised way, with few opportunities to change the look and feel of the page. Whilst the interface takes full advantage of Web 2.0 technologies in terms of how the information is arranged on the page, the graphical style is determined by the platform. For some users, this is fine, as the work of constructing a web presence is reduced to inputting data. It is important to remember that presentation of self on the Web plays an important role in defining the nature of your Web presence. (Curtin 2010)
Information – How much is too much?
When posting information to the WWW about you it is important to thing about who is going to read it. Who will be able to access and what amount of the information is available to the discerning public. Bearing in mind the content of what is being uploaded it is important to ask yourself some relevant questions
Make the Subject Informative:
Stick with Text:
Netiquette in Group DiscussionsQuoting The 'subject' field is the first indication of the topic of your email that the recipient will see. Make sure it tells them succinctly what the body of the email contains. Whilst 'Hey' might be an appropriate subject for personal emails, in a professional context it tells the reader nothing about the content and makes it difficult for the recipient to manage their in-box.
Some times as we type emails it is easy to forget that the thoughts and emotion that lie behind the message are not necessarily transferred to the text of the email. While the use of emoticons (or 'smiley's') can help, consider the context in which your email can be read and whether the content could be misinterpreted.
Even for those of us who are regular email users, the very ubiquity and increasing volume of email (both wanted and unwanted) may have led to a certain lack of attention to some of the basic ways we can best communicate with and manage our email. It is vital that email messages be read and clearly understood, especially if they're-addressed to people dealing with large numbers of email messages regularly. To achieve this result, you need to attend carefully to the way that email messages are laid out and organised.
- What judgements and conclusions might others form with my information? (what I find funny and interesting now will reflect on my public image in future years)
- Are there some details about my life I would like to keep personal? (of course there are, no one wants to know that you have your period or your left testicle hasn't descended, or where you have a new piercing, not really necessary to post on line)
- Who might view or purchase this information about me? (Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch et al, advertising agencies, product endorsement agencies, marketing companies et al)
- Will this information reflect well on me a year from now? Five years, ten years? (yes yes yes)
- Would I want my best friend to know this? (no no no)
- Would I want my boss (or future boss) to know this about me? (Defiantly NOT!)
- Would I want my mother (family) to know this about me? (NO, NO NO...she would never let me live it down.)
Remember the wayback machine on the Internet Archive site from earlier in the course? Any data that you post or upload to the Web might be retained - and widely viewable - long after you have forgotten about it.You might also want to consider whether you really want your home address, email or telephone number available to others through this type of service.
Typically, most social networking sites enable you to control who has access to what information. It is good practice to make yourself aware of these tools and to tailor the access to your profile accordingly. (Curtin. 2010)
Activity - Readings
The following readings are concerned with the ways in which people present themselves online and their motivations for doing so. Depending upon your interest, pick one of these:
DiMicco, J.M. and Millen, D.R., Identity Management: Multiple Presentations of Self in Facebook. In Proc ACM Group Conference (2007).
Available: http://www.joandimicco.com/pubs/dimicco-millen-group07.pdf
ABSTRACT"As the use of social networking websites becomes increasingly common, the types of social relationships managed on these sites are becoming more numerous and diverse. This research seeks to gain an understanding of the issues related to managing different social networks through one system, in particular looking at how users of these systems present themselves when they are using one site to keep in contact with both their past social groups from school and their current social connections in the workplace. To do this, we examined online profile pages and interviewed employees at a large software development company who frequently use the website Facebook, a site primarily used by college students and young graduates transitioning into the workforce. The outcome of this initial case study is a framework for understanding how users manage self-presentation while maintaining social relationships in heterogeneous networks." (DiMicco and Millen, 2007)
Qian, H., & Scott, C. R. (2007). Anonymity and self-disclosure on weblogs. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), article 14.
Available: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/qian.html
ABSTRACT"Bloggers are typically cautious about engaging in self-disclosure because of concerns that what they post may have negative consequences. This article examines the relationship between anonymity (both visual and discursive) and self-disclosure on weblogs through an online survey. The results suggest that increased visual anonymity is not associated with greater self-disclosure, and the findings about the role of discursive anonymity are mixed. Bloggers whose target audience does not include people they know offline report a higher degree of anonymity than those whose audience does. Future studies need to explore the reasons why bloggers visually and discursively identify themselves in particular ways." (Qian and Scott, 2007)
Döring, N. (2002). Personal home pages on the Web: A review of research. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 7.
Available: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol7/issue3/doering.html
ABSTRACT
"Personal or private home pages are Web sites published and maintained by individuals or informal, small groups. The paper presents the personal home page as a new object of sociological, psychological, linguistic, and communication studies research. It shows how theories of identity, self-presentation and computer-mediated communication are being applied to personal home pages. The paper is the first systematic review of about thirty personal home page studies. In order to integrate the diverse empirical findings a communication studies framework is used: Personal home pages are regarded as media products with specific production processes, product characteristics, and reception processes. The paper ends by suggesting some possible directions for future research."(Döring, 2002)
Discussion board:
Once you’ve read one (or more) of these articles, post your reactions to the discussion boards. As part of that discussion, consider how much time you put into thinking about your own identity online – is this something you’ve considered before? In what settings have you considered your identity online (for example, have you considered what happens if a link to your Facebook profile turns up in Google or Bing)?
Once you’ve read one (or more) of these articles, post your reactions to the discussion boards. As part of that discussion, consider how much time you put into thinking about your own identity online – is this something you’ve considered before? In what settings have you considered your identity online (for example, have you considered what happens if a link to your Facebook profile turns up in Google or Bing)?
Laura: Before I commenced this course, I had not put a great deal of thought or consideration into what my identity on line was really all about."... Personal home page construction promotes the systematic answering of the identity-critical "Who am I?..."(Döring, 2010)
I have not actually put anything of great detrimental significance on the internet as I have a large number of family members connected to my Facebook account which means they have access to nearly everything that is on there. I probably subconsciously considered their reactions before putting anything reactionary on the Internet.
“... have you considered what happens if a link to your Facebook profile turns up in Google or Bing ? ...” (Curtin, 2010) I have just done a Google search for myself and found my MySpace page (I have not used that site for well over a year, along with my old Plaxo site). The bing search was even more worrisome as not only were my MySpace and Plaxo sites listed but also my LinkedIn, Facebook and found myself on a suspect site called 123 people.com that not only listed phone numbers but also residential addresses. Identity on the internet means that nowadays there is hardly such thing as anonymity unless you take yourself right off the grid (so to speak).
