eng202swalk

I feel like a hit a minor road block in my writing process, because it feels like my topic is to broad, but I dont know exactly how to narrow it down with narrowing down so much that it limits my research possibilities. Its like I dont want to be too broad, but I also want to hit on every subtopic fully. I could just be freaking out.. I’m going to go to the library and look up source’s and let that be my determining factor.

Through out this weekend I spent time gathering data for my research paper. One of the things I did was sit in the Communications Lab in the Library and observe the activities taking place around me. One guy I seen in there was like my ideal case study. What initially made me start paying attention to him was the fact that he was on facebook writing on someones wall, and communicating on his sidekick at the same time. I eventually ended up blowing my cover because he noticed me all in his mouth when his phone rang. I feel that I was successful in my observation for I feel that I gained information that I may be able to use in my paper.

One of the main area’s I may have trouble finding research for is technologies effect on human behavior, and human interaction. I could do my own primary research of this by doing observations of people in a public spaces, using various forms of communication. The perfect place I could carry on such an0 observation is a place like a computer lab or a common area such as the Hub, where I could observe how people interact with each other while talking on the phone, emailing, texting, ect…

Another topic that may yield the perfect chance for me to do my own research is the role human emotion plays on the decision to use each medium. I could conduct a survey, asking what moods or feelings the sender exhibits each time they send a message.

Intro

With technology improving daily, it is effecting the world and how we communicate with eachother. Long gone are the days of writing a letter, and even placing a simple phone call, now a person is faced with many options to choose from when relaying a message. You can choose email, sms text messaging, AOL Instant messenger, or place a phone call. So would I would like to know is the social rules or practices that ones would use to determain what means of communication is appropriate for the message they wish to relay.

Outline

intro: tech. effect on communication

types of comm. sync. vs. async.

types of sync. communication
types of async. communication

Communicating in a Proff. enviroment
School/ Work

Technologies role in the house hold

Field studies

Recap

Conclusion

Bibliography

Bruno, Laura. “EBSCOhost.” 25 July 2007 .

Carty, Sharon Carty. “Student Research Center - powered by EBSCOhost.” 25 July 2007 .

Comparison of synchronous and asynchronous signalling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 25 July 2007 .

EBSCOhost. 25 July 2007 .
Goldberg, Murray. “WebCT.com Library: Synchronous vs. Asynchronous: Some Thoughts.” 25 July 2007 .
OMG: IM Slang is Invading Everyday Life. 25 July 2007 .

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Communication. 25 July 2007 .

Zotero - Quick Start Guide. 5 October 2006 .

1.Theme:
INTERNET CULTURE AND SOCIAL EFFECTS

2.Broad topic:
Digital Life and its effects on family life, the use and misuse of social networking sites.

3.Concept Streams:
FaceBook
MySpace
AOL Instant messenger
SMS Text Messaging
YouTube
File Cabi.net

4.Relevant Conversations/sources
Insights into the Social and Psychological Effects of SMS Textmessaging- by Donna and Fraser Reid www.plymouth.ac.uk

on the mobile- the effects of mobile telephones on social and individual life- by Dr. Sadie Plant

How Facebook broke its Culture (BLOG)-http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2006/09/how-facebook-broke-its-culture.html

Facebook’s “Privacy Trainwreck”: Exposure, Invasion, and Drama (BLOG) http://www.danah.org/papers/FacebookAndPrivacy.html

5a.Working research questions

Why do people preffer to send textmessages verses a phone call?

How does Facebook invade your privacy?

Why is mobile aim so popular?

5b.Focussed Research Question

What social practice entails the use of synchronus communication vs. asynchronus, when relaying a messege?

I still need to work it down to a researchable question, but I’m very interested in doing my research on how the use of telecommunications are taking away from direct human contact. I would also like to research how it may even be preferred by most. The thing that sparked this intrest is how what was once considered a horror story of how a relationship was end via text or email, propably is more common than than a face to face breakup nowadays. there are thousands of instances I’m sure were people could recall a time were they have recieved bad news via one of these mediums, when direct contact was available as an option. These non direct forms of contact, only carries the messege and not the emotion. I feel that this can become emotionally damaging to a persons developement.

After reading “tyranny of Copyright”, I must say that I even surprisd myself when I found myself agreeing with Diebold rguarding the matter with the Swarthmore students. Because those emails were not addressed to those students, therefore they had no write to disclosed any of the information that the documents contained. If those emails had arrived to them as letters and they opened them, that would be a federal offense. So how much different is it since its an email. Both the senders and the recipients were the same.

Another thing that I found interesting is the ever change law of how many years it should be before media becomes public domain. It shocked me that the author didnt mention Mickey Mouse, For that little guy minds well be the sole cause of why this law keeps changing. Everytime Mickey is at risk of becoming public domain Disney fies to have the law revised.

Text messages help 150,000 survive early morning flood www.chinanews.cn 2007-07-11 10:18:29

I chose to use direct quotes from this article, i felt it would be hard to summerize a summary.

“The worst flood on record hit Qujiang at 3 a.m. on July 7, submerging two thirds of the town’s streets and flooding the first floor of many houses.”

“The flood was so sudden I would have drowned if I had not received the messages,” said Zhang Xue’an, a resident of Qujiang in Quxian in Sichuan Province. He began to receive messages on his mobile phone on July 3, and was told by local flood control authorities that a flood was only a few days away”

“More than 150,000 people in southwest China survived an early morning flood thanks to timely government warnings delivered by mobile phone text messages, loudspeakers and door-to-door visits”

While reading Gilmores article a common theme seemed to stick in my head, that being “Its a black and white world”. this stuck in my head because his article to illustrates the death of that saying in a way, because things are shifting from the days of Black and white to different shades of gray. The line is fading between Journalist and reader, Producer and consumer, News maker and news watcher. People are now able to recieve the news more directly some times directly from the news maker. When Gilmore started to talk about media consolidation his arguement was’nt really persuasive as it was informative about how easily it is for News Giants to be more focussed on profits rather than the qualitiy, and sometimes validity of the news they produce. Good journalist are hard to find and expensive to keep, so Gilmore mentioned that alot of thier jobs are now going to regular people.

When Gilmore mentioned the incident at the conference, I felt that was a great way to show the time of the feedback loop. which was almost instant. I mean Gilmores typing on his blogg that day would have easily been the equivalent of him standing up and yelling that information aloud at the top of his lungs, except he yelled it to the whole world. Just think if these were the days before internet the conference wouldve went off without a hitch.

After reading the article entitled mirror mirror, I definately feel that the thirst for celebrity is growing among today’s youth, noy just on a national level, but with any social community. Everyone wants to aquire fame in some sort of reguard. they even if its 15 minutes. when I was in High school there was this girl who wasnt even popular, and started tellin guys that sge was bisexual just to get their attention. I feel its this same need kinda that drives people to create those wack videos that are on all of the youtube’esk websites. And this social recognition of such videos has created a whole new type of celebrity. Now we have A, B, C,and D list stars and on and on it goes.