The New York Times (2009), describes the role of New Media and the Internet in the success of Obamas 2008 election campaign. More specifically the article mentions the use of web 2.0 technology. Wikipedia (web 2.0, 2010) describes how "Examples of Web 2.0, include social-networking sites, blogs, wikis, video-sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies." and its potential to engage audiences from previously excluded groups. In particular Democrats focused on getting blacks and hispanics to register to vote and how he has managed to build a community of supporters through the internet. The election is said to have killed public campaigning as Obama, turned down public funds and decided to and managed to raise funds to support his election campaign.

"Mr. Schmidt said the speed and diversity of the news cycle had broken down the traditional way that voters received information and had given campaigns opportunities, and challenges, in trying to manage the news." (NYT, 2009) Illustrating how approaches to political campaigning continue to be revolutionised with the utilisation of new technology. The article describes how "The platforms included YouTube, which did not exist in 2004, and the cellphone text messages that the campaign was sending out to supporters on Monday to remind them to vote." (NYT, 2009)

By utilising Social Media, users are able to gain more control over public perception and representation in the media.They are able to control and manipulate their social identity to a greater degree. Politicians are no longer at the mercy of the political leanings of journalists, they are able to provide better transparency and accessibility to their public, but often they choose to do this during election time only.

During the 2010 election campaign, Twitter and facebook were actively used by both major parties and then neglected afterwards. Possibly this trend indicates how Web 2.0 tools are most effective in engaging and reaching out to audiences/potential voters on an intimate level, they are able to humanise election campaigns, providing audiences with a greater sense of familiarity. Once this meet and greet stage is over however, it's back to hard nosed policy making and debate, so whilst Social Media may offer the promise of greater transparency and communication, it's purpose outside of providing followers with warm and fuzzy reassurance, that their politicians are listening, doesn't actually get the real job of running the country done.

Because Politics is very much in the public arena, it will always use the most mainstream method of communicating its message, the shift towards internet and social media is not significant enough to facilitate constant public debate during at this point in time, although the availability of ABC's channel 24 providing online streaming overseas during the election is an indication that services are more and more readily being televised via the internet and being made available outside of our national borders.

The official election coverage, held by mainstream media providers is becoming less centralised as the cost of producing, distributing multimedia messages is becoming more affordable. There is a shift away from this type of monopolisation of information within political campaigns, as avenues of mass communication previously only available to an elite few, are now available to smaller groups and institutions previously underrepresented in the media.

The success of the Greens Party election campaign is a case in point. The Greens, not having the same resources as the main parties to conduct a media campaign via traditional means have developed a strong online presence and remained highly engaged with their followers on the internet. The trend of minor parties using social media as a means of political campaigning and the consequences of the recent election illustrate how the power dynamics of political campaigns are shifting on a much broader scale.

The significant role that the internet plays in the equal distribution of information - should the user choose to utilise such a facility. It is clear while this shift is very tangible, it is still reserved for the literate


(Wikipedia, 2010) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
(New York Times, 2009-01-19) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/us/politics/04memo.html?_r=2

TASK 1.4 (ASSIGNMENT 1):

Navigate around and discuss two of the following sites in terms of the kinds of involvement they encourage. Your initial writing for this topic should not be above 500 words, although it is fine for notes and extracts from the discussion, and further reflection, to take you over this limit:

The following two sites www.pm.gov.au and www.tonyabbott.com.au both use the most recent social media and encourage everyday people to participate in political discourse. The sites appear to aim for transparency, participation and freedom of expression in a way that attempts to best represent the spirit of democracy. Both figures encourage users to read articles and are designed for the user to explore the policies and activities of these politicians.

www.pm.gov.au

On the right hand side of the page there is a “Connect” option for users of the site to interact with the PM and Cabinet. There is backlog of media articles you can read and a Twitter, facebook and PM’s Flickr account. The site provides infomation on the Community Cabinet and notifies when the next Cabinet meeting will be announced. Check out when the sites were last used, current user ship, how accessible is it to the public. Social Media tend to be neglected after the campaign, Crikey.com

www.tonyabbott.com.au


Tony Abbots page has a search this site engine, a “Ways to get involved”, a Latest news feature, which documents all his media forays, there is an E-Newsletter, Community Survey, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Community Calender, a Photo Diary and list of Media releases and helpful links. The site is very well equiped with all the social media tools.

www.getinvolved.qld.gov.au

There is a get involved option a news feed and email option, asides from this there are no other social media tools being used on this page.au. An E-Newsletter option, blogs and media articles feature on the homepage, but does not feature its twitter account, which seems rather self defeating

www.getup.org.au

Despite having 384145 followers, the site doesn't actually provide links to the same social media applications featured on the other websites. Yet it is a clear example of a thriving online community, however upon further research I find after doing a search in the twitter search engine, that get up do have a twitter account.


Viral campaigning, blogs, youtube videos.
Has more members then any of the political parties

Show how the Internet and people's everyday lives are interconnected.
Show the similarities and differences in the way the Internet is experienced.
Present your material in a coherent and professional fashion.

Dance Floor Demon

Anthia purchased a Ginger Ale at the service station, the fridge blasted her with cold air as she retrieved the chilled can, she opened it with urgency, her, thirst overtook her, she took three large gulps, it satisfied her dry mouth and replenished her constitution. She got back in the car, Gloria was in the driving seat, they would drive four hours away from Seattle. Anthia had wanted to go to Deep Cove in Vancouver, to see her cousin Betty, who had lived there for a little over 8 months. It was a strange wooded cottage, they had been renovating it. Betty was a dance teacher from LA. She had decided to move closer to her father’s family so that she could have children and also continue teaching dance locally.  She was 32, and had retired from performing. Gloria had welcomed a change in scenery, she asked Anthia if she had ever taken dance lessons. Anthia responded that she did not enjoy being a vision or spectacle to gaze upon, her cousin however was different, Betty had seen it as a way of striving for physical and mental perfection, Anthia was more athletic in ways sports that were typically male oriented.

In a nearby town, Burnaby, Vancouver, Glenn inhaled the foul night air, the corpses had been reduced to mouldy dust and water laden sacks of flesh, about to explode, falling apart upon touching, the bodies with his shovel, becoming part of the soil. He dug around the grave, the dirt had been absorbed into the remains, rich with micro-organism’s. The stretches laid there, they needed plastic to collect the decomposing flesh up and deliver them to the local morgue, they had not been there too long, possibly only six weeks and whilst they had changed, each needed an autopsy, they hadn’t all been women, they quite possibly had been a small family. When more evidence became available, the story mulled over in Glenn’s mind, the DNA and coronary report had been completed, in his office in the police station in Downtown Vancouver, he saw her, a picture of the dead adult woman and members of her small family had been identified, in the photo, she was a plain woman who worked at night. She was now a dead woman, poor family, all dead now, her family, brutally murdered by an intruder, they did not know the identification of the murderer. He asked a question about the victim’s sexual activity and someone yelled at Glenn and told him very sternly to have some respect, it was a woman detective in his office she sounded really offended, he knew his thinking was part of the problem, he had tried not to judge the victim on her sexuality. He knew it shouldn’t matter, she was dead. He thought to himself that he would try do his job better. When Glenn left his office, there was a commotion outside, the story released to the media, the culprit was unclear. She had been a dancer at night.

Anthia and Gloria had heard the news about the murders on the radio in the car, they found it unnerving and just so happened to be travelling in that direction. Gloria reflected on the tragedy she spoke about how you could never be sure how the world worked, even supposedly sane men of good standing in the world, could sometimes commit violence to groups of people and that crimes like these were sometimes impersonal and executed methodically, for political and religious reasons. She said “My father and his friends would meet in a quiet room, I wondered what they would talk about, they would drink and talk sometimes at the bowls club. It was some kind of discussion on war game and religion. The things he told me, he was disturbingly extreme, he would warn me against the “vanities of the world”, he was Roman Catholic and would often say that fame and the life of socialites were preoccupations were for piglets, “poor piglets” he would exclaim and that they just did what their hearts content, never thinking just indulging, creating mess wherever they went. He believed that hard work cured a lot of ailments in a person’s life and constitution, he also believed that the family was important as everyone outside this was dispensable, people were equal, but less protected without their families, immunity was an illusion, your personal integrity and a belief in god was the only thing that could save you. He was Catholic, Anthia said she was too, just in a different way. Her cousin Betty was different, she wasn’t allowed to see Betty growing up, because Betty’s father, was the strange brother of his dead wife he was morally liberal and possibly repugnant, Anthias father possessed a twinge of envy, that almost sobered Betty’s father at times. Gloria asked Anthia if she had felt trapped as a child, she exclaimed that she always had to some degree, and that she admire her cousin for dancing even though she was thoroughly unacceptable to my father, she can never win in my father’s eyes, to me she wins every day, because she has freedom, well she has to a certain extent.” Gloria, was yet to meet Betty, but she liked her a lot a lot from the sounds of her even though she might be considered as a bit of a controversy to Anthias father.

Gloria and Anthia arrived and enjoyed their time in Deep Cove, they stayed there with Betty and her husband for two days, it was August, the weather was mild and warm, they lived in amongst the forests of Douglas fir and Western Red Cedar, the dappled sunlight would shine through the branches of the trees and through to the clearing where their small home was located, their block was across the road from a lake. Betty had treated Anthia and Gloria as though they were home and mostly there was talk of self-sustainable living and maybe buying a sustainable farm, perhaps they could all buy a property, where all of them could live.

Back home and something unexpectedly tragic had happened, it was only four months later on a chilly October morning, when Gloria tells her husband, Alfred, a psychiatrist, that she feels sick, defiantly, she is aware her mental health has been declining since Anthia was unexpectedly struck by a car and died.

She finds it difficult process how quick this has been. Gloria woke up in the living room, after falling asleep to the television, she was feeling dazed, she went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror to find that she looked like a beast, her eyes looked strange and she looked like she had come straight from hell, she was not believing her eyes, how come this was happening and the mystery of it all was that she knew the same things had happened to Anthia, in fact Anthia had told Gloria before she died that she had a mild case of psychosis and that because of her religion, she saw herself and others as a beast sometimes, she has a problem with “worldliness” and “materialism”, she also told Gloria that she was upset about it because she was aware that extremism might breed an intention to kill her, or anyone else who could see they looked like beasts, she had been concerned about the story behind the murders they had heard on the radio, since then there had been a few more. I missed her, she was a bit of a free spirit besides her paranoia, it was only 2 months ago that she died, Anthia at 44 was still so young, she wondered whether her husband had come across such a psychosis before she was left with an awareness of an undercurrent to events that had not been there before. Gloria had become paranoid about murder and wasn’t sure she would recover, her world view had been tainted to the backdrop to the television and radio, telling about the causalities, random or not, she had been effected.  

Mustafa and the Dancer

My name is Henrich, I am a Materials Scientist specialising in Art, Settlement and Cultural studies. I usually work for the “Museo Del Prado” in Madrid, Spain, Planet Earth. The world was very different during the spaces inception, the museum was designed in 1785 by architect Juan de Villanueva, It is now the year 3205. 

May 3. I have been sent out on an external contract by a small, select group of international delegates, to investigate the material properties on a far-off planet and migration policy, so I can report back to several universities and science institutions to inform policy there. I arrive at the London Portal on May 3 and board the ship named the Ascension, it is 1188 feet, with a capacity of 5000 people, we are bound for Planet Lyra, it is my first evening, I have put everything away in my Cabin, thank fully I have a whole room to myself. Planet Lyra, is approximately one-month journey away, population 5 billion, it is twice the size of earth, there are about 500 passengers in my quarter of the ship.  I am lucky I have been given the economical resources to travel great distances and continue to study for work Nothing is wrong at home, the intergalactic world is inhabited by peaceful beings, this has finally occurred after a period of great surveillance and experimentation.

May 15. It has been an enormous day today.  There are luminous chandeliers in the dining room, that date back to the 1920’s an era that we cannot forget, there is dancing, I sit there and I watch the commotion in front of me. All are invited to play after dinner trivia. Mustafa, a deck hand and engineer, has recognised me from the past three evenings, he introduces himself and asks me my name, he then introduces his familiar companion Mabel, I have seen her around, I couldn’t help but notice her. Mabel asks in a cautious but warm manner, if they can join me, I answer in the affirmative, she works as a dancer and activities officer, I tell her that I work for a Museum in Spain back home on Earth. She seems eager to have a conversation, I notice her dainty wrists and general grace, her long brown hair is out falling around her elbows, she is small and slightly built with a placid nature, she later interjects “My brother is an artist” she asks about the possibility of a renaissance in art, I tell her that it’s a bit like opening pandoras box, art can be dangerous. She says that her brother is interested in the ancient myths and modern technology and modernising these old understanding. Mustafa speaks about the myths as well. “Ah, yes the legends” “I must say if you have never sailed to a far distant planet, remember that seas and skies, of vast lands, ruled by moons, they are crazy. One night on this very ship, I met a friend in the kitchen making himself a late night brew, after an eerie presence in his cabin and bunk below, had disturbed him, nobody was sleeping there, so he tells me that he’s feeling a bit spooked, we go to the top deck together to look at the stars and planet through the glass wall, it can be very disorientating, as everything is fairly new and we believe a lot of different things these days, my friend was preoccupied with thoughts of ESP, anyhow he hears some song with a harp, he keeps on saying, can you hear that? he is believing that in his mind some female presence is singing with a harp, the song is telepathically transmitted into his brain, he thinks it is odd and wonders if he actually created the song, he believes that he is a tad delirious as well, so as we go down past the diner and ballroom the sound gets louder, we hear the music being played and he figures out it’s the new music program taking place in the great hall and diner. There is a lot of folklore about sailor folk and damsels, he thought he was in for a wild ride with a mermaid of the skies, he was mortified. It is funny how some of those old legends from home have translated to new present-day settings, bless him, we still have the same fears. Entertainment on ships is a growing fad, people want to travel interspace, they want to be entertained so we provide.” It’s all very radical” he explained. I start to worry where this conversation is headed.

May 20. It has struck me, I did see a woman’s beautiful face, we had spent hours together and admittedly Mabel may well be my siren. I am keeping busy, I have readings from this new settlement “Lyra”, there is mostly information about the construction of homes, plant and rock life, fertility and plant reproduction. I get distracted and think about the stories of mermaids and the sailors that have plunged to their death, my mind wanted to spend some more time on the Greek myths about star sailors, Mabel is beautiful, they might be as beautiful as Mabel. I try again to refocus, I visualise that I am marching through time toward the illumination of humanity, along with the rest of the universe. Mabel had merely told Mustafa that she respected and admired my work. I am teased, however there will be no drowning amongst the stars, objectively, there was a humanity that was observable, yet there was something sensual about it that nagged at me. I begin reading the historical accounts of migration, imperialism from Earth to contextualise all I am learning about the new planets, we have bred out meat eating and murder on planet earth, there is no death, intergalactically capital punishment and war had been outlawed in 2500, we do not reproduce through sexual intercourse, we reproduce through IVF. Men, women, intersex and all living things from all nations and worlds, have equality.

June 4. This is a strange place to be, I first boarded the ship a month ago, I have finally arrived in Lyra, I am escorted to several rooms, before I am permitted to leave the port I take a medical exam and am identified, there are no lingering thoughts of Mabel, this is the end, there is a bigger picture, I have my opportunity here in Lyra, a new planet, this new place will bring new understandings, it seems to be something that keeps me balanced. The doctors take my bloods and I dutifully report my passion for Mabel to the Doctor, I take the medicine and I am never to think of Mabel again in an amorous light, she will be informed and given a similar treatment if she report passions, Mustafa must be talked to about his conduct, people whom administer this treatment have learned to do this in the kindest possible way, with empathy, this is the protocol, for all that are affected. I meet with the delegates and the inhabitants of Lyra, there is peace again, there is love of our neighbor, for each one of them in equal measure. I understand, I smile with resignation, something within chokes up, this passion will dissipate, I feel a sense of discomfort and I cut myself off from the infection of emotion

Alice Munro, Too Much Happiness

Alice Munro

Too Much Happiness

Vintage 2009

ISBN: 9780099524298

$22.95, 303pp, paper back

I have chosen Alice Munro’s Too Much Happiness as an example of literary fiction, specifically to demonstrate something of the art of writing the short story. If you haven’t studied the foundations of short stories, a good starting point is getting to know and understand how a story has traditionally been structured and how conventions of literary forms can be subverted and reassembled, which is something that Munro has accomplished to some degree; she really has mastered a contemporary approach to story writing.  Within these exploded and revised form’s she has established something new, her writing makes sense.

Munro has been compared to the great master of short stories Chekov, she is influential in the same respect, he is known as a master of the short story and his work is seminal. Likewise Munro fundamentally changes expectations of the Short Story form, whilst stylistically resembling another great Canadian female author, Margaret Atwood in her dialogue and narrative and like Atwood, she writes about women; also the mood and pace of life within these stories are similar- set mostly in rural Canada, there is also a pace,  silence and sharp observations of human character and morality, but without judgement; not questioned, but presented as being causative of events, and shown in detail, objectively and through the narrative rather than stated explicitly. Whilst many of the settings in Too Much Happiness are in Canada, Munro does set some of her stories in Europe: London, Sweden, France and Russia.

Munroe’s stories shift in time and place. Some of them, may cover a 30-year period. Like many authors of her time, she has abandoned the three unities found in the 19^th century literary classics and established by Aristotle in Ancient Greece (350 BC) in his book Poetics. These rules were set out for plays on a Greek stage. They are: Unity of Action; A play should have one main action, with few subplots; Unity of place: the play should take place in one setting or location; Unity of Time: the play should take place over 24 hours. This convention has been subverted by major literary revolutions during World Wars I and II. Munro redefines the short story and defies all of these conventions and from this has emerged a new form with new clarity and sense of purpose.

One good example is Munros Childs Play, where subplots, different locations and time frames are explored. Child’s Play is about a girl who has an intellectual disability, her death at the hands of two other girls, and the long-term effects on their lives. The story is told over at least a thirty-year period, and the events revolve around the central tragedy. It is a story about morality and ethics, and the protagonist seems somehow detached, like an objective reporter. Similarly Wood is unfolds over many years and is a story about Marriage, Partnership and parenthood. It is also a statement on demographics, on the characters and on their relationship with a working-class female who takes on a trade in carpentry. The man she works for is from a middle-class background, university educated, but involved in traditionally working class jobs. Class mobility, seems to be a theme here, and class lines are blurred. Munro’s stories also carry with them her relatively educated, yet domesticated, ‘civilised’ world view; her characters have professions, they generally eat meals together, and although there is often a central character who does not, they do family activities. This is not a voice from the fringes, her characters are Carpenters, Doctors, Teachers, Academics, Cafeteria workers, however they mostly live in rural areas. The characters live within a middle-class milieu, regardless of their social demographic. Munro’s voice is important regardless of the heterosexual colour of her books, there are no gay characters in her stories, the people take on traditional, well-regarded social roles. She seems to be critical of her surroundings however and I believe this perspective is of value and is what makes her voice interesting, possibly important. For the most part, her lead characters are women; she subverts psychological truths of individuals, looks at truths within a domestic framework, and within schools and colleges and places of employment where women might exist and she represents women of modest to middle class accomplishments. The men are nearly almost always educated and white. Each story is different yet will share some motifs from other stories. I believe that she avoids clichés, by telling her stories with acuity and accuracy, which has helped her longevity as an author. 

Author Jasmin Sara Moret- Former BA student at the University of Sydney and Drama student of Newtown High School of Performing Arts, NSW. Also hold a Diploma of Popular Music Performance from JMC and a Certificate III in Live Production and Services from Brisbane’s College of Theatre Practice. Student of Creative Writing via Griffith University (Open University)

rupi kaur the sun and her flowers A Critical Review of Mainstream Fringe Culture

Rupi Kaur, Simon and Schuster

ISBN Number: 978-1-4711-6582-5

 Price: $24.95

Number of pages: 248

Paperback

Rupi Kaur studied rhetoric at University of Waterloo in Ontario and spent hours with her family dissecting Punjabi Folk poetry. Kaur’s origin and gender are never mentioned directly in her book of poetry and illustrations “The Sun and her Flowers”. She is from a Punjabi background and has lived in Canada with her family since she was four years of age. It seems to me that Kaur may have restrained herself from expressing her identity through her gender and her race, so as not to lose a feeling of authenticity and worldwide relevance. Despite being read differently and favourably abroad from Canada, she finds still finds a strong connection with audiences in her adopted homeland in Canada and America, There is something very big and important happening there, in fact there is a new, flourishing explosion of important, young female poets, a renaissance, strewn with voices from the margins, LGBT, Women from war torn-countries, people from migrant backgrounds and black people that seek to redefine the old antiquated parts of a largely western literary scene and gain acceptance and fame within that demographic, updating the cannon with a burgeoning new voice, within the western world. Kaur leads the trend, this is the scene especially in Canada and America and it is significant part of a new socio-political psyche.

Kaur, was discovered on Instagram and besides being a great writer, her popularity is extremely large, notably in the English-speaking world. Incredibly, according to Book Net Canada, in Canada “between 2016 and 2017 the units sold (poetry) increased by 154%” It is odd perhaps but Rupi Kaur’s work to date has been at the centre of this literary revolution, In Canada and nearby America, the statistics are incredible. She is now a huge literary celebrity in the west, yet this isn’t the complete picture.

Kaur, is an intersectional poet to the west, whom might not be as rigorous or critical as her grass roots poet peers. Kaur has been noticed and perhaps has moved into the mainstream market, she is widely accessible. I’m not sure that all artists are comfortable when this happens as poetry can be personal, political and transformative to the few that need to hear. The work of poets is important as it can hold a necessary candle out for the disenfranchised, outnumbered and marginalised, sometimes this is not fit for nor relevant, to the mass market, the musings may be vulnerable and private for the outnumbered to find solidarity that most could not relate to, this work could not become a monetised commodity. The biggest criticism that intersectional Poets face from academics is that the work is a confessional spectacle and the artist, is guilty of a kind of grotesque flogging of oneself as a product within a market place. Meanwhile the truth might be is that some of us just need to talk when it is relevant, authentic, critical and honest, and then it can be a balm to the culture, individuals and the society that contains it. Disappointingly particularly in the west, seemingly the poets become the sum total of the binaries they represent and consumable at that, there might be the tendency of artists to rely on the same bag of tricks, to contextualise everything within a socio-political framework, it’s a narrow focus and can only be remedied over through making important relevant work accessible.

I feel that “The Sun and Her Flowers” is perhaps cautious about over presenting issues of feminism, gender, race, family and culture as a study of herself and yet it is still categorised and contextualised this way to some degree. The poems are translated into 30 different languages, regardless, the nuances of her Punjabi culture are there in the way Kaur uses words, the lack of capital letters and punctuation, the syntax of which are of her native tongue yet intermingled to create something universal, As a major departure from this critical framework, it’s important to note that contexts change according to audiences. Luckily, there is an worldwide buzz extending beyond the western world, the conversation seems to transcend some of these binaries, the literary criticisms no longer make sense overseas from her new homeland Canada, Kaur travels and talks to people from her old homeland and she is available to others from Non-English speaking countries. If we follow Kaur, in her career, the academic lens is transformed via an international stage, transcending this  traditional western centric interpretation, we are forced to embrace the world if we participate in the conversation.

I enjoyed reading “The Sun and Her Flowers”, I liked the way the words were placed together, small, poignant, psychological snippets, luminous, fragile personal statements, in poetic form that can be read as a stand-alone poem or be followed as a linear emotional journey, or story. In a western context, Kaur, like some of her peers are the subject and the artist all at the same time. It is interesting that in Punjabi, Kaur comes from a different a tradition where folk poetry is verbally delivered by all, the author is always anonymous, these musings were not a commodity that could be bought, in the western world this is not so. Through Kaur, where anonymity was required within her culture of her country of birth, celebrity status has ensued, throughout the world.

Author Jasmin Sara Moret- Former BA student at the University of Sydney and Drama student of Newtown High School of Performing Arts, NSW. Also hold a Diploma of Popular Music Performance from JMC and a Certificate III in Live Production and Services from Brisbane’s College of Theatre Practice. Student of Creative Writing via Griffith University (Open University)

Virtual communities, identity and social relations: Our bodies, time and space.

Identities and social interactions are often defined within the contexts of the communities we inhabit. Dynamics such as time, bodies and space are experienced differently online as opposed to real life, altering the way we experience and engage with these elements. Whilst our experience of these are often subject to a form of disembodiment, they do contain limitations, which are set out by regulators within specific communities and general guidelines established by the WC3.

In offline world social interactions and identities are often seen as being synonymous with our physical selves. The way our bodies look and move can give clues about our cultural preferences, racial origin, our supposed personal habits, value systems and more controversially a physical type is often associated with certain personality traits, regardless of whether or not that person possesses those qualities. Slater (2007) refers to a kind of liberation from this process experienced on the net which he refers to as “disembodiment”.

The quest for authentic communication and social interaction based on the cerebral rather than the corporeal can be actualized via the internet. Physical participation in any overt sense is not needed to form friendships and develop alliances; users can choose simply not to show what they look like. The body nevertheless has a role in virtual communities; its omission in communities often gives way to the formation of virtual selves expressed in virtual physical form examples include Wow, Second Life etc. (Mayra, 2008) Furthermore, images can be altered via Photoshop, performing selves that users may not feel comfortable expressing in day to day life. Its expression can be used in a different way to real life yet it is variable depending on the context and medium the user chooses to engage with so long as they conform with the guidelines of the wider community.

There is a wide array of choices are available for users of the internet to select and develop their avatar and/or character and engage in role play and furthermore the opportunity to monetize actual or created physical attractiveness can be facilitated via self published sites. “Danielle DeVoss has argued that (these) women’s self-published porn sites can be seen as “identity projects”(2002:76). And Ruth Barcan maintains that more generally, images – particularly those of nudity – now play an important part in the way we form our identities” (Atwood, 2007) The presentation of our selves online, facilitates this ability to monetize our identity to a greater extent than what is available in offline contexts. The power to act as an individual agent is greater and not as monopolized as performance spaces and contexts are in real life.

Whilst expression on the internet lends itself to various multimedia forms, it is also subject to censorship and accessibility standards. The only uniformed approach to these regulations is provided by the WC3, which outlines in its Platform for Internet Selection Document”(Resnick, 1999) “The PICSRules specification provides a common format for expressing filtering criteria, which makes it easy for one entity to set filtering criteria which are then installed and run by someone else” The document was established out of concern that children may gain access to unsuitable materials.

Consequently, it can be clearly ascertained that forms of identity and social interactions in terms of bodies, time and space online aren’t limitless; there are very specific codes and netiquettes, specific to each community, rules and conventions on the net are usually brought into place to safeguard and make internet usage a safe experience, these codes and conventions differ community to community and some restrictions are specifically relevant to geographical locations such as China, who's access to many western applications such as facebook is limited. So whilst the notion of identity is not only recognized within a localized geographical community it can actually be viewed and accessed on an international scale with variable political and social ramifications.

So whilst “The apparent annihilation of space online pro-motes a sense of co-presence, that people can be present to each other in a way that corresponds to face to face interaction”, this description of internet best translates into a mundane and everyday experience of the internet, which involves catching up with friends and family, being involved in web community that shares you value systems and beliefs. In fact many communities thrive in an online environment, provided they comply with the regulations within that community. Furthermore, Slater (2002) asserts that “The notion of disembedding gave rise to one of the largest sets of claims about life online: that new media could sustain communities that were entirely virtual”, thus having wider implications on the way people socialize in everyday life. Whilst notions of greater accessibility for marginalized members of the community is relevant here, it also illustrates the potential significance group selection and regulation in the socialization process, should groups of people within communities, wider international community’s get along.

In Pascoe’s article Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media (2009) he identifies a process of initiation that users or members of a community have to go through in order to become accepted as potential dating material by their peers. This kind of screening of members is considered a highly important process as value and power are given to those members that meet and move beyond the standards of the group, which are often physically and textually based. In online dating scenarios people who are considered more valuable or well regarded in dating and social sites, tend to have less available time to be on these sites, they will post briefly and regularly and on the odd occasion will make a contribution that accrues merit in the eyes of their peers, such as an impressive new avatar, or information that is regarded as coveted by other members of the group.

It is interesting to note that the conceptualization of time in social interaction and formation of identity within dating sites are essentially different from online gaming communities. Hours spent on an online gaming community are honored and participants can accrue status points in this fashion, in an online dating context this could quite easily be construed as being stalkerish and creepy, there are no points of recognition of status to be gained in this fashion. (Mayra, 2008, Pascoe, 2009)


Outside of dating and sexual contexts selection of group members and formation of online communities and identities are often selected according to value systems rather than bodies. Dawson (2007) discusses how the content of online religious participation can be selected according to specific tastes. There is a smorgasbord of online religious practice available in every conceivable religion imaginable. There are some online groups which are set up by established organized religions, and there are those that are much more casual in their approach to online worship. These groups are not constrained by physical space, they do not need to be performed within a specific religious building, participants can engage in active religious worship from the comfort of their own home, nor are they inaccessible to those within different time zones etc.

Traditionally, religious groups have reaped economic benefits of millions of willing participants and worshippers. Churches, Temples, Ashrams and Mosque s have been built from the revenue obtained in this fashion. Physical space and the creation of sacred and holy spaces have been integral to the practice of religious worship for thousands of years they constitute some of the most spectacular examples of architecture and design in the world. Historically, churches and places of worship have dominated and defined the character of town centers as places of communion with god and neighbor. Religious participation online has changed and decentralized forms of worship; there are no fixed physical spaces in online communities. Money is less likely to be retained within a worshipper’s local community, but instead will go to the facilitator, or creator of the site who may or may not be affiliated with one of the traditional religions. Anyone can set up a religious cyber community.

Religious ceremony, rituals and participation can occur online, within a community regardless of location, using a cyber space rather than a physical space.
We do not have to be physically present, our bodies can be placed in the safety of our own homes, meaning that we are not in any immediate danger of religious persecution, should we choose to find a community of like minded individuals. Religion on line helps facilitate meaningful engagements with peers with the same faith, regardless of location, these are sometimes experienced as an extension of worship in a building of worship or it can form the basis of religious worship and community.

In conclusion, the understanding of the how dynamics such as our bodies, time and space interact with each other are integral to understanding the way social forms and understandings of identities will emerge. Each online community and region will often have its own set of norms and regulations, which is often integral and central to the construction of identity and socialization on a group and individual basis. The emergence of the internet as a main form of socialization in everyday contexts and its ability to sustain itself as a community completely independently re-contextualizes the way the average citizen within the 21st century will experience community, socialization and formation of identity. A comprehension of guidelines within a community and those established by the W3C are important for users of the internet to understand as they reflect wider cultural and social differences.


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Social Shaping of Technology vs Technological Determinism.

Williams, R. & Edge, R. (1997). What is the Social Shaping of Technology?. The Research Centre for Social Science.
These authors criticise the exaggeration of the inherent qualities of technology. What is SST? What is technological determinism? What does SST offer in contrast?

SST refers to the “Social shaping of technology”, which basically means how social factors have a role in shaping new technological developments, rather than studying the impact that a particular type of technology may have on society. This often involves looking at socio-economic factors that influence particular trends and identifying areas which are important in maintaining a technological community that is democratic and accessible to its citizens.

“SST is seen as playing a positive role in integrating natural and social science concerns; in offering a greater understanding of the relationship between scientific excellence, technological innovation and economic and social well-being; and in broadening the policy agenda, for example in the promotion and management of technological change (European Science Foundation/Economic and Social Research Council 1991, Newby 1992).”

It also involves how policy regarding technological development is implemented through consideration of scientific, social and economic demands rather than the neo-classical tradition which tend to have a linear a focuses such as market demand for a product. Instead it attempts to incorporate or construct frameworks which have its origins in a variety of intellectual traditions.

One of the important points raised in the article is the academic movement towards understanding what these social factors are and implementing new frameworks to shed light on older studies as well. The foundation of SST is based on the premise that technological developments occur as a series of choices made by the innovator. The concern of SST studies is the identification of these social factors that inform these choices and their social implications.

SST arose as a criticism of traditional literature which emphasised the concept of Technological determinism as being central to its analytical framework.

In the lecture Kent describes how Technological determinism works around some basic assumptions, which are now considered to be outdated such as “Class development is driven by how things are produced, Technology is apolitical, we were always going to have them. And identifies how the “moral dimension is removed from these kinds of things - the raw technology” is problematic. Asserting that “Its an inaccurate assumption because it prevents us from seeing our responsibility/ is outdated.”

"SST stands in contrast to post-Enlightenment traditions which did not
problematise technological change, but limited the scope of enquiry to
monitoring the social adjustments it saw as being required by technological
progress."

The article also identifies several shortcomings of these approaches and describes the importance of the formation of new and relevant frameworks which take these failings into consideration.

The Confession: A Novel