Specular Economy

Specular Economy, as Marshall (2010) puts it is "where we collectively becoming more conscious of how we present ourselves and how others perceive us." The way I see it, is how I imagine someone thinking of me, thinking of them while thinking of me. It's a bit confusing, I know. Hence, it's called Specular as it's a reflection of impressions to other people of how we look and vice versa.

Facebook is a very useful tool that I will use an example. It's the most addictive social networking site in the world. With over 1.15 billion active users monthly, it has become quite clear why it's the number one social media app in this day and age. I am one of those 1.15 billion users. I perceive myself as a popular celebrity in the Facebook world among my friends. Funny enough, while reading Marshall (2010), I thought he was describing me. I, too, perceive others how they think of me and the way I present myself on Facebook has got me thinking quite clearly of what I should post. My personality and my 'Facebook persona' is quite different. I always put up positive inputs and thoughts on my Facebook status updates and profile. Even though, the situation in real life may not quite the contrary but I think deep and hard of why I should not combine my reality with my virtual life.

I'm always tempted to just feel like letting it all out on my status update on Facebook whenever I feel that life is getting too hard. I believe that somehow, by typing a few words, I will get sympathies and supports from my fellow friends. But in a way, I thought to myself, it's a bit attention seeking and feels as if I am 'fishing' for likes and comments. Again, I am very careful when it comes to my public image and persona in the Facebook world. Also when it comes to comments, I make sure I delete any negative comments that might compromise my virtual public image. Some of my friends noticed, some don't. This just proves that as much as I love 'likes' and 'comments' on whenever I post a status, I only want the positive ones.

I started to think from another point of view. The way we see mirrors, is that we wanted to be perfect. We wanted to look good and desirable for other people to see and therefore interact with us. Wherever the mirror may be, it gives us this conscious and peace of mind when we know that we look glamour and flashy. Mirrors also helps us point out any weaknesses on and in our body, so we can pinpoint what it is and get rid of it as it ruins our image. The mirror then can be thought of as reconstructing us for its representation on the screen.

Hopefully that illustration and these pictures helps you to understand the specular economy and our daily lives of how we carefully perceive others and present ourselves. Especially online, people might have a lot of different ideas of how they look at us compare to reality. That is the exact reason why we choose carefully for our public image on the web. The specular economy has produced a new regime of personal presentation that we're only beginning to see its profound implications.

Photo Source (1):
http://mashable.com/2010/11/11/facebook-google-identity-column/

Photo Source (2):
http://images.smh.com.au/ftsmh/ffximage/2009/04/13/internet_wideweb__470x374,0.jpg


References:
Marshall, P. David 2010, The Specular Economy, Society, vol. 47, no. 6, pp. 498-502.

Participatory Media Culture

The Internet is known for many cultural and popularity influence to all of us, especially when it comes to social media. In this day and age, it is the source of interactivity for human behaviours towards each other. Beside its huge impact, it also has become a major part of our lives. It is our interactivity with these weapon of mass distractions that influenced us to become more connected virtually and less connected realistically.

With the combination of multimediality, virtuality, interactivity and connectivity, I chose Instagram, YouTube and Facebook to be the strongest influences of social media that has been distracting me from work and uni assignments. With the combination of over 2 billion users of these three powerful social media apps, it has become clear that they are the most powerful weapons of mass distraction in this generation.

Instagram is a social media app that allows its users to post photos and videos of nearly anything and everything that happens in our lives. It also uses a creative marketing strategy called 'hash-tags' which allow its users to type in any words that are relevant to the content we post via using the hash sign. YouTube is a social media website and app that let its users to post videos of any content that they desire, whether for entertainment or education. Other people then can view the videos and choose whether to 'like' or 'dislike' it. They can also comment their opinions based on their theory and/or experiences. Facebook is social media website and app that has overtaken the majority of human population's lives in just a few years. It grants its users to simply post any contents (photos, videos, links) to their friends and families to share with.

With the advancement of technology, users of Facebook and Instagram can now integrate their content via each social media, so if they post a photo on their Instagram account, it may also be posted onto their Facebook profile. Generally, younger people (age 18-29) from across the globe spent nearly triple the amount of time to social networking sites compare to the older age groups. This explains that younger age groups are more connected and have more interactivity with one another in comparison to their parents and/or grandparents.

From my experience, I check my accounts (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube) daily and have become addicted to each of the contents posted by my friends. To me, I mustn't miss a day to not check at least one social media app. Participatory media culture is definitely a growing trend in this day and age and with the use of social networking sites, users can interact and connect with one another without the use of gaming.

Photo Source (1):
http://mlksolutions.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/bombs2-680x274.jpg

Photo Source (2):
http://knowledge.creatingresults.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Pew-Social-Networking-Site-Use-by-Age-Feb2013.MarketingCharts.png

References:
Raessens, J. 2005, 'Computer games as participatory media culture', Handbook of Computer Game Studies, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, pp. 373-388.

Blogs and the Public Sphere.

The relationship between Blogosphere and the Public Sphere is interconnected. When we post a blog topic, it is subsequently jointed into the public community.  As a matter of fact, I believe that Public Sphere existed because of Blogosphere.

Any content we produced through our blogs, will generally and inevitably be going to the public sector of the community. It is the exact reason why most people write blogs, so they can inspire other people that reads their opinion and be intrigued and interested to see the topic from other's point of view. Although there are advantages and disadvantages of posting blogs online, I will get onto this in a later stage. My definition of the Public Sphere is that it's a network for communicating information and points of view. The ideas stored and given eventually becomes public opinion. Any issue/topic posted in any blog can be raised for a rational debate.

The advantages of posting blogs online to public community are the inspiration to other people using our words and ideas relating to the topic, the motivation and inspiration we can give to others to become more successful and/or confident through our post and it can help people understand us better by explaining our knowledge and experiences through our it. It also helps to gain our reputation through our blogs as more people enjoy their reading means more people will be follow and become more interested. Many bloggers around the world are known for their recognition by how many people reads their content and how many people commented on it.

The disadvantages of posting blogs online to public community are the concern of theft for intellectual property, plagiarism, copyright issues material and threats due to opinion differences. Although some people may not believe it, but these things actually do happen. Either they're lazy or feel intimidated, some people do steal other people's work and publish them as their own (plagiarism). In other cases, there are people that feel threatened by the blog posts as they feel the topic is too vulnerable and too attacking and therefore they retaliate in a threatening manner.

But what we have to think of is that no matter what we do, if we decide to post ANY content online of our work, it inevitably becomes public. Once it's out there, it stays there. None of us can do anything to stop it. We may remove it or report if somebody steals it, but somebody else might beat us to it. It definitely is one of the very first things to consider before we post anything online.

Photo Source (1):
http://capucinegros.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/jenny-holzer-0.jpg?w=545

Photo Source (2):
http://kalipoon.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/new-blog.png

References:
Bruns, A., Burgess, J., Highfield, T., and Nicolai, T. 2011 'Mapping the Australian Networked Public Sphere', Social Science Computer Review, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 277-287.