Silverpaladin123's Blog

The World Community of Gaming

silverpaladin123 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:49:54 +0000

The most thorough form of global social community is found in online gaming. In any online game, a large variety of players from all over the world come together to enjoy gaming with each other in a unique social platform. For many, their retreat to ‘third places’ has changed from physical locations to the virtual worlds of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) in order to escape from the stress of work or life (Steinkuehler sec. 3). Smed, in his article, mentions that it is necessary for games to have social communities. Game companies are now expected to create and maintain online social websites and online gaming platforms (Smed). The seemingly most complete form of social interactions online is seen through the medium of the MMORPG. The creators of these worlds attempt to make a world in which a diverse group of people may all be comfortable.

In these games, and any other online game, a structure of social hierarchy is created by the players within the virtual world (Steinkuehler sec. 3). Steinkuehler goes about analyzing the social ‘third places’ aspect of online worlds using an eight characteristic rule that was first devised by Oldenburg in The Great Good Place. Smed, on the other hand, writes about online social networks within games being more about what the individual player wants out of the game and its contents. Neither are incorrect, because there are aspects of both when players become part of a community. When people come together into a social group, there are those who are only there for personal enjoyment, and there are those who participate to enjoy social interaction with other people to benefit the enjoyment for everyone.

Works Cited and Referenced

Montola, Markus. “The Invisible Rules of Role-Playing: The Social Framework of Role-Playing Process”. International Journal of Role-Playing. Issue 1 2008. . 17 Nov. 2009.

Op’tLand, Ray. “Another Endless November: AOL, WoW, and the Corporatization of a Niche Market” Journal of Virtual Worlds Research. Vol. 2, No. 3, 12 Oct 2009. . 17 Nov. 2009.

Smed, Jouni. “Networking for Computer Games”. International Journal of Computer Games Technology. Vol. 2008 (2008), Article ID 928712. . 17 Nov. 2009.

Steinkuehler, C., and D. Williams. (2006). “Where everybody knows your (screen) name: Online games as ‘third places.’” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(4), article 1. . 17 Nov. 2009.

Van Looy, J. “Games and Self-Imagining, a Comparative Media Perspective”. Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture. Vol. 3, No. 1 (2009). . 17 Nov. 2009.

Gender Writing Differences: Are There Any?

silverpaladin123 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:20:50 +0000

A large amount of research exists on the differences in gender writing and communication. Some of the results are the stereotypical explanations that can be found in any self-help book on the matter. However, once the self-help books are out of the way, some of the serious, more meaningful studies appear.

The journal article, “In Whose Words” (Link 1), takes a feminist stance on the issue of the language of knowledge, stating that, although either gender can mimic the others’ use of words, language itself is full of “phallocentrism.” The author exudes a feeling of alienation both to herself and other women as speakers and writers.

On pages 130 and 131 of the book, “Gender and Communication and Work” (Link 2), the authors mention multiple research results that offer the stereotypical women seek relational conversations and men use “survival” talk. However, they mention other research that contradicts the stereotype. They focus on the idea that gender differences in communication are socially constructed, and that social interdependence may be the more fundamental style of communication.

An article by Dianna Booher (Link 3) concentrates on the difference between male and female communication in the work place. She contends that men are direct and confrontational, while women are indirect and manipulative. Booher writes that a woman might ask in question form if an employee would have some project done by Friday. The male employee would answer affirmative, and the woman would think she just gave a directive that, when the project is not finished by Friday, was ignored. The employee on the other hand only heard the question as a question, not an order.

The three of these exhibit very different takes on the whole gender communication topic. They may all be wrong, or they may all be right, depending on the circumstances in which they find themselves. Whatever is the case, it is apparent that it is a topic upon which much speculation is made and not enough hard evidence.

Link 1: http://www.jstor.org.library.ccccd.edu/stable/622312

Link 2: http://books.google.com/books?id=mrG7W5PsfpAC&lpg=PA130&ots=hokq0y4ncZ&dq=gender%20and%20communication%20styles%20research&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=gender%20and%20communication%20styles%20research&f=false

Link 3: http://www.negotiations.com/articles/gender-bender/

Cell Phone Advancements and Mishaps

silverpaladin123 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:39:53 +0000

The first cell phone was the Motorola DynaTAC in 1985. It only made calls, and the battery only lasted 35 minutes.

Four years later, the Motorola StarTAC flip phone was introduced. The flap had the microphone at the end which improved voice quality, and the flap covered the numeric pad preventing accidental calls.

The first text message was sent in 1992 by Logica CMG.

In 1997, the BlackBerry appeared, allowing for mobile email.

Three years later, the cell phone mobile internet appeared, and cell phones became more streamlined.

Smart phones become prevalent on the market at this time.

High speed data transfer via 3G networks appears in 2001.

Today, cell phones can access any web site. Social websites, like twitter, are updated continually by cell phone. Hardly anyone is isolated.

The cell phone is important because it is now one of the most used technological devices that people own. With the cell phone, people are only a click of a few buttons, or taps on a glass screen, away from communication from almost anyone in the world. People are also able to communicate from wherever they are. Through text messaging, people are now able to communicate to people in situations where they would otherwise not be able to call and talk.

However, this texting and tweeting gives rise to a few problems. One is that this text messaging is degrading the language and grammar of those who text. Another is that, in conferences, the audience is now, for the majority, no longer looking like they are listening to the speaker, but now they are all looking down at their mobile phones because they are all texting or posting on twitter. This creates uneasiness in the speakers because they have a feeling that no one is listening. Also, when people text or tweet, they have to limit the number of words in which they wish to say something; limited now to 140 characters.

We are going to end up either reducing still the length needed to communicate, or the communication on mobile phones will become easier and the amount of information transferred will again increase. One way is not changing what is happening, and the other is to revert and progress into new forms of communication.

Frozen Convergence

silverpaladin123 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:50:52 +0000

Henry Jenkins creates a book that is effective to many extents, but there are times when he mentions a topic that he never ends up writing about, and he often starts writing in circles, saying the same thing multiple times in a row. When Jenkins does these things, they detract from some very important and well thought out ideas that he also talks about. When Jenkins writes in circles, what he does is effectively reduce the amount of writing space to talk about a greater variety of topics. His chapters begin to be long-winded and drawn out. He could have reduced his reiterations and talked more about where Internet culture and convergence is going. This is a topic that he mentions multiple times throughout many chapters, so naturally the reader would expect Jenkins to write a chapter about the future progression of the Internet permeability into people’s lives. However, Jenkins’ “Convergence Culture” creates many thought-provoking questions and presents many analytical arguments that make his points very clear. Jenkins has created a volume that is almost complete in its approach to the Internet culture and how it is affecting lives, but, again, he mentions where it is going, but never goes into detail on where that destination might be.

There are many directions that Internet culture and converging media can go, but I think the current method of convergence is not going to be successful in the long run. The current method involves many forms of media that are not connected, but are all used to advance a certain story. The problem with this is that none of the different pieces are aware of the others. Most likely what is going to happen with the idea of convergence will be a refining of using different media to create a world in which multiple stories take place. Each medium will contain its own story that is isolated from the other media, but takes place in the same world either at the same time as other stories or at another point in that world’s timeline.

The Mediated Literate

silverpaladin123 — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:07:29 +0000

The literacy in today’s world is much more than just reading and writing. One must now also be literate with the different media forms that are continuously changing. The indoctrinations that can result from so many media sources can be devastating, especially to children. Children must both be taught how to be literate with the forms of media and how to filter what they learn, see, and hear to keep them from being influenced (Singer 164). However, despite all efforts, different forms of media are have detrimental effects on children who have learned how to be literate with the media forms, but who have not learned how to filter what they see (Kline 142). It is also very important that the traditional forms of media converge with the new media of film and computers. It is also important to include this convergence in the classroom. In that way students are able to formulate their methods to filter and analyze what they have seen (Krueger 20).

People living in today’s world must be literate with both words and computers if they are ever going to be able to keep up with the changing media. Newspapers are an example of a shift over to computer mediation with their information being more readily viewed on the computer. Because of this change in focus of literacy, people must understand the convergence the different media forms are making. The world is changing from physical information available to only a few people to digital knowledge that anyone can access instantaneously from anywhere in the world.

Bibliography:

Kline, Stephen, Kym Stewart, and David Murphy. “Media Literacy in the Risk Society: Toward a Risk Reduction Strategy.” Canadian Journal of Education Vol. 29 No. 1 (2006): 131-153.

Krueger, Ellen. “Media Literacy Does Work, Trust Me.” The English Journal Vol. 87 No. 1 (Jan. 1998): 17-20.

Singer, Dorothy and Jerome Singer. “Developing Critical Viewing Skills and Media Literacy in Children.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Vol. 557 (May 1998): 164-179.

Falling Darkly

silverpaladin123 — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:57:53 +0000

I followed the forums and fansites of the MMORPG Darkfall Online when it was about half a year from release. The only rule other than the normal internet etiquette policies was the unspoken rule of “Don’t Feed the Trolls.” A large part of the posts on the forum were about what each individual wanted to do while playing the game when it came out or questions people had that they posted for help. Most of the time, the other forum goers were polite and answered questions, but sometimes a troll got there first and made fun of the question. When a troll gets a hold of a thread, it always becomes volatile and spreads across pages. On the fansites, some fans created comics making fun of standard MMORPGs. One of these comics called, Dimfall, is a spoof of World of Warcraft in all but name. Dimfall follows characters on insane and inane quests. All these sites and forums were promoted on the developer website, so they were all regulated to be sure they did not infringe upon copyright laws.

I believe that all the user generated content in the forums and fansites of Darkfall bolstered the spread of fandom for the game. The company knew how useful it was and allowed it to spread almost unhindered. However, there are many fans of other shows, movies, and books that take their obsession too far and create things that are contrary to law or Internet etiquette of the standard PG rating. For many, the way they get their information about these things are through fansites, but just with anything else, it is usually been passed down some number of listeners and probably is not completely true.

Bibliography:

Muffins. “Dimfall: Just another Darkfall fan webcomic.” Dimfall. 21 Aug. 2009. Dimfall. 29 Sept. 2009. .

Matrices

silverpaladin123 — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:09:41 +0000

The Matrix took advantage of a marketing scheme that may have done more to hurt the series than to help it. The first movie was created so that it was able to stand alone, but the other two movies required not only the content of the movie trilogy, but also the content from animated shorts and videogames. While the movies met a huge audience, the audience for the Animatrix and the game, ‘Enter the Matrix,’ was a fraction of the whole. Most viewers were just that, viewers. In many cases, they did not even know that to get the full story they had to watch animated shorts that looked like cartoons for kids and play video games that most people do not even look into. The effort required to learn the entire story of the matrix proved to much for those who just wanted to be entertained.

The producers of the Matrix attempted to create their own sub-matrix of convergence, but in their struggle to assimilate everyone from each section of their convergence they ended up alienating almost everyone. Jenkins writes in a post at Technology Review, “While the technological infrastructure is ready…the media industries haven’t done a very good job of collaborating to produce compelling transmedia experiences.” He continues to say that the current media structure is full of hierarchy that interferes with successful convergence. Jenkins says that a new model needs to be created to cross media instead of adapting the current method. Other cross media content includes the Tomb Raider series that was extremely limited in its ability to continue a story in a movie form and the new Batman movies began with the release of comic books that gave background for the movies. In all of these attempts to create converged content, the series were all disjointed. Many series have convergence content that has been successful, yet almost all of these to date have all been able to stand alone on their own without needing all parts to be seen and done by the viewer.

Bibliography:

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/13052/page1/

Marketing Frenzy

silverpaladin123 — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:02:57 +0000

Marketing Frenzy

The world of marketing has become a giant industry that knows no bounds. There is advertising everywhere; it is on the streets, on the Internet, in the movies, on the television, and even on the items that you purchase. There is no possibility of escaping advertising in our time and place. When companies have no choice but to spend millions of dollars in marketing budgets, the spiral just keeps getting bigger. One of the reasons this spiral is happening is because companies are no longer only local, but they have now become international with the use of the internet. Anyone can have a company, but only those have can spend money on advertising is going to be able to let the masses know that their company exists. One example of a spiraling advertising strategy is that between Pepsi and Coca-Cola. These two companies are always going back and forth attempting to gain a larger market share than the other. At times Pepsi sells more and at times Coca-Cola does. Will it ever end? It may not ever end until there is only one cola to choose from.

This frenzy of advertising the other company out of the game has so numbed the masses that they do not even flinch when they come across blatant advertising and object-placement in a movie, see an ad in an elevator, or hear commercials on the radio. What this means to the companies is that they continually have to be changing their tactics of marketing. The companies have to start weeding their way into the minds and feeling of people in order to get them to buy their product. Many would wish to free themselves from the constant battle of persuading people to become consumers, but that freedom does not seem to be even within sight.

silverpaladin123 — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:34:01 +0000

The Incredibility of Wikipedia

The collective intelligence of Wikipedia has a staggering amount of information, but the question of its credibility is always hanging over its head. Academics from around the world have decided that the Wikipedia is a source that cannot be included in academic writings by either students or otherwise. The reason for Wikipedia’s non-credibility is that it is not moderated and matched with known facts and other academic editing or review. The whole point of the Wikipedia is that the publishing of articles can be accomplished without the formal components of the editing or reviewing processes.

The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales believes that the open, scarcely moderated format of Wikipedia will transform it into a more complete Encyclopedia Britannica (Denning, 152). The main question still hangs: Is it credible, reliable information? Many of the contributions are made for self-promoting reasons, and most comprehensive information is about current events instead of historical knowledge. (Denning, 152).

One example of the unreliability of Wikipedia can be found in the “whitewashing,” the use of softer words instead of harsh words (Brown), of an entry about Wal-Mart. The first entry posted on Wikipedia contains some simple facts about Wal-Mart’s employee wages, but the new paragraph that Wal-Mart replaced the old one with contains the same facts twisted in a way that distorts the truth and removes some observations and comparisons with other retail stores (Brown).

Wikipedia is a social experiment in collective intelligence and knowledge that succeeds in many areas, but the overlying fact that the information on Wikipedia is only about ninety percent credible and is not reviewed to be reliable destroys any chance of Wikipedia gaining any chance to become a true and respected encyclopedia (Brown).

Brown, Jim. “Wikipedia Whitewashing and Ethics.” Jim Brown’s blog. 31 Oct. 2007. University of Texas. 7 Sep. 2009 .

Denning, Peter, et al. “Wikipedia Risks.” Communications of the ACM 48.12 (Dec. 2005): 152-152. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. 7 Sep. 2009 .

China’s Changing Internet Culture

silverpaladin123 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:24:07 +0000

Chinese Internet culture is booming right now with a doubling of internet access in just the last three years according to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122118468103726299.html. Because of this jump in the ability to access, the country’s ruling authorities are preparing and working to crack down and start managing, “censoring,” more strictly the internet in China. This is an example of internet culture spreading with great speed in a country that previously had very limited access to all things cyberspace.

Chinese internet culture takes most of its quirks from the Japanese cyberspace which is different than American internet culture. One of the main originalities of Chinses cyberspace is that it is largely self-contained like the Japanese internet culture. This containment occurs because the majority of Chinese internet access is limited to networks only found within the country itself. Only the few are able to bring information from international networks onto the Chinese networks, so what this causes is a very internal universe that is not influenced much from the outside networks. It is also a network that the government is able to control because all the information is in their network, so they are not crossing international boundaries to control their cyberspace.

Even though many posts and comments in Chinese cyberspace either never make it onto the internet, some blog hosting services in China delete posts after they are already on the internet. As is implied on: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/03/03/chinas-complicated-internet-culture/ the censoring in China has gotten to the point that posters and bloggers are now coming up with new ways of reporting or giving comments on topics or phrases that have been censored by the growing Chinese government internet control. It is possible that the rebelling against the censor norm is going to change the internet culture of China.