Publics and Publishing: Task 3

‘It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves—the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public—has stopped being a problem.’ (Clay Shirky,‘Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable’, http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/ newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/). Are digital and networked media dismantling the “publishing industry”? Is it being replaced? If so, what is replacing it? If not, what is the publishing industry becoming, and how is it doing so? Are there new difficulties and complexities or expenses involved?

Digital and networked media are dismantling the publishing industry to an extent which has been largely influenced by technological developments. The rapid technological developments in society enables anyone with access to the internet to  publish their works online as well as access other peoples work from around the world. All this can be accomplished within a few seconds and with just the click of a button.

Digital and networked media also allow the general audience to be in multiple places at once also known as ubiquity. The sole purpose of publishing is making the invisible visible and is a component which is constantly changing with society’s technological developments. Publishing has come a long way, with printing being the initial form. This procedure was invented in china in 600AD and was a lengthy and complicated process which required multiple workers. This procedure was also later adopted by Egypt. The scrolls and codex were the initial forms of publishing however both posed various problematic areas. Scrolls were physically inconvenient to carry around and relocating a previous section required re-scrolling and re-reading the entire scroll. The development of the codex was a vast improvement from scrolls as it enabled easier transportation, contained separate pages and chapters which allowed marking a section and later easily re-locating it. The codex also contained a context and index which further enabled an easier location of information.

Technological advancements are a large catalyst in publishing, which has developed from scrolls and codex to laser printing and now to the internet. Due to the rapid technological developments, publishing in contemporary society is very much developed and the access to published works is very easy. The recent development of computers, laptops, Ipads, tablets, Iphone has increased the access to reading published material whenever and wherever. The internet has also enabled boundless platforms of which data can be added. This means anyone can publish their content in multiple platforms. However, although anyone can publish their content, someone else can just as easily use someone else’s published work without providing credentials and claim it as their own. As a result the issue of copyright has become very large, and there is a need to combat copyright infringement.

The nonprofit organization ‘Creative Commons’ is an organisation which works alongside copyright. Creative commons attempts to increase the artistic, informational, and scientific content which is being made available to the public. ‘Creative Commons’ licenses are available to individuals and major companies. Creators who have registered their work under a ‘Creative Commons’ license can easily change their copyright terms from “all rights to reserved” to “some rights reserved. The ‘Creative Commons’ license not only allows people who use a creators work to be clear from copyright infringements, but it also allows other people to use works which have been licensed under the ‘Creative Commons’ license. This is a very effective strategy as it attempts to combat the issues of copyright within the commons.

The shift to the digital age means news is now received faster, presented in more dynamic formats, through television, radio and the internet. Although this is positive, there are many repercussions. Many news print media have had setbacks as they are unable to compete with the speed news is delivered online. Checking the news on the internet is also much more direct and easier, compared to waiting around for the daily or weekly publications. Advertising is also much cheaper on the internet rather than in print form and reaches a larger audience. As a result, Digital and networked media have dismantled the print media publishing industry as current news print media are unable to compete and obsolete. Fairfax media is an example of this, where 19000 staff jobs were cut as it was unable to compete with the internet. Fairfax media also began charging for content access from its two main websites. News Ltd was another company which has been affected by the shift to digitalisation, resulting in a loss of $476.7 million. As a result News Ltd issued job cuts. The newspapers ‘The Age’ and ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’ also changed their format from broadcast to tabloid in an effort to keep up with the digital age competition and to combat the shrinking revenue.

The E-readers and Ipads are technological developments which have grown in popularity over the past 3 years. The e-readers and Ipads enable multiple books to be stored on the technology. As a result, there is easier transportation of published works with little weight. Having more books also enable people with more freedom to choose what they’d like to read. The e-reader and Ipad allows the user to access as well as create print, and publish their works online. However limitations of this technology include, not being able to go back and forth to relocate a certain text. Instead you had to re-read through the whole text.

Digital and networked media have dismantled the publishing industry to an extent as many bookstores have suffered as a result of the approach to online books. 42 Angus and Robertson bookstores closed as a result of intense competition from online booksellers. From the closures, 519 people lost their jobs and one-fifth of those were full-time roles. This shows the negative effects from the digitalisation age and raises the issue whether books will be obsolete. Currently books are costly and entail more weight. E-books however are cheap, able to be downloaded and easily portable. E-books are also economic and the published material is more up to date. Users of e-books also have the secrecy to read their book without the public knowing what their reading.

The demand for books is decreasing and bookstores are facing the repercussions by not meeting demand and are closing down. However, books will always be present as there will always be people who prefer books over e –books. These reasons include you can’t book mark an e-book on an e-reader and relocate it as easily compared to a book. This idea is further expanded by Elizabeth Eisenstein who touched on the idea that “people are starved for books” and when they read, they read “intensively”. Purchasing a book rather than an e-book also entails more quality. Books are also deemed as being more collectable rather than e-books as many people prefer the physical appearance and the ability to turn ‘pages’ rather than continuously scrolling through on an e-reader.

In order to prolong the lifespan of books and combat the challenges from e-books, there should be businesses which incorporate both a bookstore and coffee shop to create social spaces. This approach will encourage customers to purchase a coffee while picking a book off the shelves and sink into a story. This will also encourage the customer to “want to” to find out what the ending or plot of the book and therefore buy it. However although this approach encourages people to buy the book, cons which are present include if people take advantage of this business model and just read the book from start to finish without purchasing it.

This digitalization age has made the publishing industry into a vast and complicated industry reflecting society’s cultures and values. The internet has provided an easier accessibility of information online and the development of e-books has challenged books with Amazon records showing that e-books outsold traditional books. This brings up the concept whether universities will start utilising academic e-books in the future as they are more economic, more convenient, cheaper and also easier to update. It will also be much faster to have an e-book available to students rather than printing out pages and pages of a textbook. Furthermore, having e-books available decreases the times students often wait for new textbooks to be created. Instead e-books would be widely available with plenty of stock. E-books also enable an accurate search function as well as having hypertexts, a dictionary function and an annotation function.

McNaught (2009) stated the potentials of universities utilising e-books will allow students to optimize their reading time such as during travelling, as well as allow students to have more access to readings, as well as “potential links to allied multimedia resources”. Simon (2002) and (Wilson 2003) also found that once students became familiar with using e-books, they were more prone to enjoy it as well as read even faster. However some cons which students have noted from using e-books included the uselessness of the constant display of navigation tools. The students also noted that e-books needed to have a simple straightforward readable format.

Although the number of e-books in universities are increasing, no matter how technologically advanced society is, the physical print-form of books will never die out. As there is always going to be someone who prefers physical- print books rather than technology based reading material. The increasing popularity of the e-books however raises the question of what libraries will be like in the future. Will the libraries be more interactive and evolve with societies rapidly evolving technologies? Further questions raised from this include, whether libraries will hold more e-books rather than traditional books and how will this affect the public, or will e-books replace all traditional books? Although the future of libraries isn’t certain, there is a strong possibility the number of e-books will increase dramatically to cater for everyone’s demand and the libraries won’t get rid of all the traditional books.

Digital and networked media are dismantling the publishing industry to an extent. The technological developments have enabled anyone with access to the internet to publish their works online, as well as accessing global works within a few seconds. Although this shift is positive, there are many negatives present. This rapid inflow of information means the issue of copyright is growing. Furthermore, news online can be accessed much faster than print news. As a result the print media industry has suffered greatly, with News Ltd and Fairfax media both issuing job cuts. The technological development of the ‘E-books’ has enabled consumers to purchase multiple e-books that is cost effective and more convenient to carry. However the development of the E-books are challenging traditional books with more people purchasing e-books. This has largely impacted the print books publishing industry as many books stores have suffered the consequences and shut down. This reinforces the view books may soon become obsolete. However there will always be a number of people who prefer reading a book rather than an E-book, and see more value in collecting books than E-books.

 

References:

Eisenstein, E. 1979, ‘Excerpts’ from Defining the initial shift: Some features of print culture’, The printing Press as an agent of change, vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 43-163

Gibbons, S. 2001 ‘E books: Some Concerns and surprises,’ Project muse,vol. 1, no.1 , pp. 71-75

Lam, L., Leung, S., Lam, J, McNaught, C. ‘Usability and usefulness of ebooks on PPCS: How student’s opinions vary over time’ Australasian Journal of educational technology, vol, 25 no. 1, pp. 30-44.

2001, What is Creative commons? Creative commons
assessed from: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/images/archive/d/da/20080222234222!Cc-general.pdf

 

(Blog Post 11) “Aggregation”

Aggregation is the gathering or collecting of information which is then added to over time. Aggregation is everywhere and comes in many different forms. The shift into the digitalization age has led to many forms of aggregation online. The popular social platform Facebook is an aggregation where data can be continuously added and is organized in a timeline. There are also many groups on Facebook which caters for an endless range of interests and tastes from music to beliefs, humor and personality. These groups are constantly aggregated to keep up and inform their ‘fans’ of new happenings. Having aggregated data, allows us to revisit items which have been previously posted and to build on it.

 

Blogs are a prime example of aggregation which, in this digitalization shift is a crucial component for many retail businesses. The reason being is the internet is the first place people go to research for a certain product regardless of how or where they saw the product being advertised. Blogs generate a viral word-of-mouth among the online community if there are negative reviews. Another prime example of aggregation is Tumblr. Tumblr is a blog which focuses more on aesthetics compared to the other blogs such as WordPress or Blogger. Tumblr hosts 90 million blogs a day and allows your aggregated data to be easily ‘reblogged’ and added into someone else’s blog.

 

We are constantly surrounded by aggregation whether it’ll be walking in the street and passing through street poles that are layered with posters of events or even newspapers such as MX which is available to people who catch the train during peak hour. Aggregation is a concept which we consume and will always build upon.

(Blog post 10) “Social Body”

Vjing is making the invisible become visible in real time by using the concept of ‘cross signal processing’ as it was mentioned in my earlier post. The festival “Vivid Sydney” is a prime example of Vjing which features light shows appealing to the social body and drawing large crowds. These light shows combine creativity drawn from various inspirations which then result in an emotional response from the social body, which is a compilation of people and events.

The lecture for this week covered the relationship between visualisations and the social and cultural influences that are associated with it. The following Image is taken from a blog which attempts to raise the awareness of hunger and to motivate people to donate money to change the lives of starving children.

(Image taken from http://internationalhealthrelief.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/world-hunger/)

I think this image is very powerful in delivering the message of poverty which is experienced in 3rd world countries. This visual puts a face to the issue of poverty and the utilizing of ‘children’ rather than poverty stricken adults, creates a larger social response. I believe this is due to the fact children are associated with innocence, and instantly we think of the clichéd phrase “no child should have to go through that”. This image powerfully delivers the message to the social body which makes you want to ‘do something’ to change those children lives. This image is especially confronting with the children’s vastly thin arms, prodding ribs, and outstretched arms as if calling for help.

In a wrap, graphic visualisation is very powerful in generating a response from the social body and being a catalyst for change.

(Blog post 9) ‘Ubiquity’

Our society is so technologically advanced that we as a whole are exposed to multiple forms of media. We are constantly bombarded with new information and could easily access this through our smart phones, e-readers, laptops, Ipads and the list is endless as new technology is constantly being developed. Technology allows an immediate accessing of information across space. An example is, you could be sitting in your living room at home and watching news from America, while Skyping a friend in Asia on your Ipad and looking at some fashion images on Instagram from France. This leads to the notion of ubiquity, which is the state of being everywhere at once.

 

Technology has become such an integral part of our life we have accustomed the ‘mobile into our daily routine’. The mobile phone which originally served the purpose of just calling and text messaging has now become a vital piece of technology in my daily activities as it allows me to connect with virtually anyone. The mobile phone is not ‘just’ utilized for calling or texting. Instead the mobile phone now informs me of news from any location, reminds me of tasks I need to complete, and enables me to play games, read books, as well as Photoshoping images and an endless list of apps which will cease my boredom. Technology plays a largely positive part in the concept of ubiquity as it has enabled more effective communication between many publics as well as the receiving of information from a variety of publics.

ARTS 2090 – ‘Feral Cats’ group Visualisation project

1. 1.       History/origins of Cats in Australia

In the last 2000 years domestic cats have been transported actively on sailing vessels to most parts of the world, either for food, their ability to control ship-borne rodents, or as pets.

Cats were brought to Australia in the late eighteenth century from European settlement. The cats then established feral populations in remote areas to Australia from European settlement. This number increased in the 1900s when there was a planned release of thousands of cats outside of settled areas. The purpose of this release was to control mice at gold digs in South Eastern and Western Australia as well as to decrease the numbers of rabbits and native rats.

 

1. 2.       Statistics on Cats

Research has revealed that 12 million feral cats exist in Australia, and specifically in our state of New South Wales populations are approximated to be 400,000+ feral cats. Comparatively, other countries like the Britain and the United States also have a growing population of feral cats, with Britain standing at 1 million feral cats and the US ranging at a huge 60 million. It is estimated that feral cats across the globe kill between 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds as well as 6.9 to 20.7 billion mammals annually. Around the world it is recorded that each feral cat kills between 5-30 animals per day. Their diet consists of small mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians and in total, there is an estimation of 75 million native animals killed on a daily by feral cats. For our presentation we specifically draw focus towards the effect of feral cats on the Australian environment. Research regarding the topic has indicated that the increasing Australian feral cat problem has driven many Australian native animal species to endangerment and extinction.     

Feral cats have also led to the extinction of animals on small islands, which include: the Burrowing Bettong (Bettongia lesueur) and the Spectacled Hare-Wallaby (Lagorchestes conspicillatus). Whilst cats do prey on rabbits, they do very little to reduce the population. Rabbits just sustain the amount of feral cats in Australia. The sub-species of the Red- fronted Parakeet on Macquarie Island, and a group of captive bred Rufous Hare-wallabies, which were released in the Tanami Desert, in the Northern Territory. Feral cats also killed all the wallabies in the area. The cats also carry a fatal disease that is harmful and fatal, particularly for the native marsupials. It is called Toxoplasmosis. It causes blindness, paralysis, respiratory disorders, and loss of young due to stillbirth and spontaneous abortion. Feral cats are also carriers of the devastating disease Rabies. As this disease is not active in Australia if it was to be introduced it could lead to a significant effects on the ecosystem. Rabies is a disease that affects not only animals, but also humans. If rabies was introduced into Australia, with the amount of feral animals, primarily the cat, there would be no hope in eradicating it.

 

1. 3.       Data we intend to make visible

The data that we intend to make visible from the visualization we have constructed, is the extent to which Feral Cats are affecting Australian wildlife populations/species. Data sourced from research also includes a comparison on various Australian wildlife species affected, we plan to make these generally unknown species public in an attempt to draw attention towards how the introduction of cats into the Australian environment has had a significant role in terms of their affect on the nations fauna.  The data that we adopted in the visualization extends to a variety of Australian species. We also gathered data from various nations other than our own, as to contrast the variations between feral cat numbers in Australia. Specifically the visualization is intended to graphically depict the number of feral cats calculated to be allocated per person on the basis of approx. human population number of each country divided by approx. feral cat population number.

 

1. 4.       How this data will be published

The information that we have sources for this project affects a variety of publics as a result it is vital that the information we have gathered and used to construct a visualisation is published in a public way so that it reaches these audiences. The data we have gathered would be published in a variety of ways including: Conservation Magazines, research documentation, Textbooks, Information Sheets, Online through Websites including blogs and Scientific research papers and journals. Through simplicity of the visualization and its construct we have the intention to direct it towards school age textbooks oriented towards children and teenagers as a way of educating younger audiences about the effect and significance of feral cats in an informative way while at the same time making it easy to understand and fun.

 

1. 5.       The difference making the data visible will result in

This visualisation is significant, as it would educate the public about the danger of feral cats. Making this data publicly available can result in the increased widespread awareness of the issue, therefore conserving native Australian wildlife. Uncovering such data regarding feral cats may also assist researchers analysing how certain species are endangered or even extinct. By making the data visible we are also able to help prevent the spread of disease – especially those carried by feral cats including rabies and toxoplasmosis.

 

1. 6.       Publics Addressed.

This visualization is targeted towards and will come into contact with a variety of publics, including:

• Animal control authorities/government departments e.g. Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.
• General Public (Predominantly those who own cats and other household pets that are more susceptible to attack).
• Researchers (Specifically those who dedicate studies towards the protection of wild life animals e.g. Group at university dedicated towards helping the feral cats on campus.)
• Wildlife Conservationists (Primary aim directed towards protecting the fauna that a prone to threat by feral cats).

 

 

Link to prezi:

http://prezi.com/-masw1bbkkh_/arts2090-visualisation-group-project/

 

 

Visualisation image:

(Blog post 8) “Real-time”

The concept covered in this lecture was Vjing. Vjing is making the invisible become visible in real time. Vjing uses the concept of ‘cross signal processing’ which involves invisible sound waves playing in real-time and being synchronized with visual images. Vjing projects a sense of “aliveness’ coming from the music and engages with not only our sense of hearing, but our sight as well. Creating visualizations of music enhances our experience of listening to sounds.

 

The above image is a picture I print screened during a real-time visualization from the link http://www.soundtravelmachine.com/abstract-sound-visualisation/. This is an example of a Visualization. Vjing is also often incorporated in concerts as it can elevate the experience of the performance.

 

Another example where vjing is often used is on music talent shows. A few examples include ‘The Voice’ , ‘the X factor’ and ‘Australia’s got talent’.  On those shows vjing is presented on a backdrop behind a contestant singing. ITunes is another great example of vjing, as it is easily accessible to most persons who have chosen to download it. From Itunes, you are able to select which type of visualization you prefer. The following is a screen shot I have taken from my Itunes visualization.

 

 

 

Vjing is very influential as the visual landscapes allow the listeners to interact with the music. This has led to an increased popularity of vjing and as a result, many raves, music festivals, clubs and DJ’s now incorporate vjing.

(Blog post 7) “Visible”

This week’s lecture was about visualization, which mainly functions to make the invisible, visible. Visualizations are aesthetically appealing and can be made to apply to a variety of different topics. Visualizations incorporate analysed information and links between the data presented. From visualizations, we are able to determine, trends, patterns blueprints as well as to compare information. Having information displayed as an visualization is more aesthetically appealing. This means more people would be interested and willing to read it rather than pages of written information which explain the same thing.  

 

 

 

(image from: http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2012/02/10/GE-Super-Bowl-Big-Data-021012.aspx#continue )

 

This visualization uses raw data from a GE advertisement and “augments the social and digital elements of its Super Bowl campaign”. From this visualization it demonstrates the impact that GE has on medical care and energy production.

 

 

 

(Image from: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_visualizing)

 

This is another visualization which shows the thousands of Wikipedia edits which were created by a single software bot. Each colour from this visualization represents a different page.

 

Both of these visualizations are appealing and inform the reader the purpose. Utilizing visualizations to depict information I believe is much more effective that reading phrases.

 

(blog post 6) “The Commons”

The commons are media and information which are not privately owned or exclusive. The general perception of “the commons” is that it is everyone’s property and can be accessible by everyone. An example of “the commons” is the internet. The internet allows the online community to share information as well as generate awareness. This can be published on sites such as Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress and blogger. However the concept of commons brings about the question, who owns what information, as well as who can view and publish public information. This also leads to the notion of whether or not information should be free, as the ones who can afford it are privileged to this information. An example is the internet. People who can afford to pay for the usage of internet has access to this information whereas people from poorer countries are unable to access this information.

 

The spread of information is a highly debatable issue, of which Facebook is a prime example. Under Facebooks ‘terms and conditions’ it states that Facebook owns all content that has been uploaded, and can sell the users information if they can make profit from it. This has led to many discussions regarding “who should own what content” on Facebook. Is it the user or does Facebook own everything? Another problem of the commons is if a user publishes their content online, other people have the ability to access this information and then redistribute or alter it to become their work. As a result of the commons allowing the spread of information, this has resulted in copyright issues.

 

‘Creative Commons’ is a non-for profit organisation which has attempted to combat the issue of copyright. Creative Commons licenses work alongside copyright and supports the sharing of copyrights material legally. This is an effective strategy to combat the issues within the commons.

(blog post 5)“Infotention”

Infotention according to Howard Rheingold, is the “psycho-social-techno skill/tools” we all need to find our way online today, a mind-machine combination of brain-powered attention skills with computer-powered information filters”.

Our society today is so technologically advanced; we are receiving more information than ever with advertisements attempting to grab our scarce attention. The internet has become a platform enabling anyone with access to it, to become their own publisher. The introduction of smart phones has also enabled anyone with a smart phone to publish online easily. This has led to an increased engagement with these mediums. As a result, this has resulted in more advertisement agencies targeting online users. When I log on to my facebook page either from my mobile phone or computer, advertisements are instantly demanding my attention. On my homepage, there are “recommended like pages”, yet they are not of any interest to me.

However Facebook itself is a distracting tool. When I’m attempting to do my assignment, I often get bored and click on Facebook, and plan to just have a browse for a couple of minutes. However I often get sidetracked and end up procrastinating as well as staying on Facebook for well over an hour. I would also pull out my phone and go on Instagram to prolong this sense of “procrastination”.

According to James temples article “All those tweets, apps, updates may drain brain”, A study was conducted which found evidence that “multitasking impedes short-term memory, especially among older adults”. It was also found that “distractions of the sort that smart phones and social networks present can hinder long-term memory and mental performance”.

As a result, society should attempt to control their navigation online and undertake “infotention” ,“to find, direct, and manage streams of relevant information by using online media knowledgeably” ( Rheingold, 2013).

(Blog post 5)- “Desire”

What first comes to mind when you think of Archives? For me personally I think of libraries, large office spaces with an overflow of files dumped on a desk – to be sorted later.  However the lecture for week 5 on archives informed me that archives are infact anything you publish and access.  They are a collection of data which can be distributed and aggregated and can be found anywhere. Archives also come in different formats and also includes the simple tasks such as renaming a file, organising your pictures or even sending a tweet.

I’ve actually never thought about achieves in depth, nor has it even crossed my mind that my actions of moving pictures around and saving them I was actually “archiving”. This lecture raised my awareness of the paramount presence of archives which I encounter daily. Archives are important because they store information which we otherwise would have forgotten and allow us to access that information later on.

Gmail , Facebook and Instagram are three common forms of archives. Gmail allows the organising of emails through different folders, the date, and sender. The popular social networking site Facebook is another prime example of an archive, where all your messages, comments, pictures and check-ins are stored. The slightly newer platform Instagram is a photo archive, where many people and myself included upload pictures of what we’re eating, new purchases, interests and friends.

I think archives are important because they also give us a sense of identity. This is more evident in the archives Facebook and Instagram than in Gmail. Facebook allows us to see who our “mutual friends are” and provides a fairly accurate assumption of what personality someone has through their uploaded photos. Instagram is the same and works as a photo diary which in addition allows us to see a person’s interests. However, all archives are hidden in a sense, you cannot immediately see it. There is a requirement for a password to access your own archive. This means the person in control of the archive has the power to either limit or publicise the information.

“Desire”