Browsed by
Category: Week 8

Pinned to Cyber Culture on Pinterest

Pinned to Cyber Culture on Pinterest

Just Pinned to Cyber Culture: Big Data Revolution http://ift.tt/2mUampbhttp://ift.tt/2nbwmYw
This podcast was extremely entertaining whilst doing my weekly chores. It was enlightening to ‘listen’ to a conversation about data and algorithms rather than trying to concentrate on text whilst being stationary. I’m an active person and find it difficult for my brain to concentrate if my body is screaming for me to ‘move’. The episode left me a little overwhelmed by the extent of how data is used but fascinated at how we have evolved as a species. Machines and computer science has allowed us to overcome and create opportunity for many despite the fear that it can be used for the wrong reasons. Lister (2009) speaks of technology as invisible in an era of ‘technologically mediated self expression’. The customer is valuable and ‘we’ the people will deliver the content. Organisations and companies are creating operations that make even people with no technical skills or ability expand and publish information.
References:
Lister, M. … [et al.], (2009) “Chapter 3. Networks, users and economics” from Martin Lister … [et al.], New media: a critical introduction pp.163-236, London: Routledge
Bookmarked: Algorithmic culture. “Culture now has two audiences: people and machines”

Bookmarked: Algorithmic culture. “Culture now has two audiences: people and machines”

I bookmarked “Algorithmic culture. “Culture now has two audiences: people and machines”” on @Medium http://ift.tt/2nbftNG
This reading combined cyber, community and algorithmic cultures for me in a way that was not only intriguing but easy to digest. I began to process the use of Twitter, Facebook and many other social media and academic platforms. We are always influenced by our environment but it goes further than the physical and into the virtual.
Culture is not just machines, it’s exposure to almost everything.

Culture is not just machines, it’s exposure to almost everything.

The Ugly Truth of Children's Books

If you have a daughter, you need to see this.

Posted by Rebel Girls on Monday, 6 March 2017

Although not directly associated with digital science algorithms, this video has connection to algorithms in the children books that are available to date and highlights the importance of positive influences in Early Years. Now, if this is happening in books it is most probably influencing media and technology.

 

When our Skype chats come to fruition

When our Skype chats come to fruition

I love that we are not only coming together weekly to discuss course content and provide support through Skype but our chats help influence our activity. Twitter remains the easiest form of communication. Twitter conversations can be seen by the rest of the #mscedc cohort but an underground community is formed by my frequent use of Whats App, Twitter direct messaging, iMessenger  and Instagram. We are an extremely sociable bunch.

 

Liked on YouTube: Global Digital Culture: Cultural Differences and the Internet

Liked on YouTube: Global Digital Culture: Cultural Differences and the Internet

Liked on YouTube: Global Digital Culture: Cultural Differences and the Internet https://youtu.be/UNwnQkGpKPE
We were sent course details at the beginning of the course and given instructions to set up our personal blogs. This video was used as an example for the IFTTT feeds. I watched the video during the preparation week and it went  over my head as I couldn’t put it into context. It has since popped up in other blogs during the community cultures block and again through algorithms it has popped up in my YouTube video recommendations. This time the viewing was not only digestible but engaging, maybe I’m making progress after all!
6 TED Talks on the influence of algorithms

6 TED Talks on the influence of algorithms

These TED talks helped put the use of algorithms into perspective and helped challenge my thinking of how they can influence individuals, communities, work environments and education.What interests me was the connection to how we understand and perceive something and our understanding of knowledge. The MOOC ‘The Brain and Space’ from my mini-ethnography last block covered how our senses and motor systems construct space using vision, hearing, touch, body position, movement and balance. We can see that algorithms take form in a multitude of ways but the experience and understanding of the data is what makes it accurate. Sometimes people are poor at making decisions and we fall back on algorithms to make choices for us. People will turn to the algorithm to decide outcomes, make designs, who to marry, what to study or even use google search engine to find out facts. However, there are flaws in the algorithm. Andreas Eskram speaks of us taking multiple facts from google then using our critical thought to debate and make our own understanding of the information which will in turn transfer to our knowledge of a subject. Fei-Fei Li takes us through the process of discussing how teaching computers to understanding pictures is in some ways similar to teaching a toddler to process images. Like the ‘Brain and Space’ MOOC she insists ‘Vision begins with the eyes but truly takes place in the brain’. No one teaches a child to see, they learn through experience. Therefore her approach is training the machine by experiencing both quality and quantity images. However, the machine can not appreciate the extra qualities associated to an image or the chemistry that an algorithm may miss on a dating site. Amy talks about dating using an algorithm to support her eventful experience.  What is apparent is the human connection that happens over time in incremental steps, experiencing facts, images or each other either through a virtual environment or face to face, no matter the pace.

Title

Title

Super conversation around your work here Renée! I actually thought the sound quality was deliberate, to represent a phone call between the two people – perhaps a comment on old media / ‘new media’?

Nevertheless, using a dialogue to discuss a lack of dialogue (in the MOOC) was really clever, and allowed you to cover lots of insights and conclusions in a really creative way.

As has been commented above by Stuart and others, the limitations of the software is a really strong conclusion here about the potential for ‘community’ to emerge in this space. I hadn’t realised that the platform in question is so difficult to navigate, specifically in terms of finding people and conversations.

In that sense, I thought the (phone) conversation was a nice way to illustrate the need to take connections ‘elsewhere’ as Linzi commented.

So, despite the lack of micro-soldering skills, your micro-ethnographic skills are certainly on show, nice work!

from Comments for Renée’s EDC blog http://ift.tt/2me3FuI
via IFTTT