Week 5: Archives

This week, I have considered three main questions;
What are archives?
How are they important in society?
What effects do archives have both socially and individually?

One of my favourite ways of finding something out quickly and effectively is through dictionary.com. Here I was given the definition of archive to be "any extensive record or collection of data". Pretty straight forward. A simple example of an archive which I found to be quite clever, is seen in this week's lecture. The lecturer describes a sea sponge as being an archive, in the way that it absorbs information, and releases content/expression when you squeeze it.

I soon realised, however, that archives can also be quite a complicated matter. For starters, they often hold authority in the way that they can lay the basis for rules. An instance of this is government institutional records, which hold importance in maintaining society. They are therefore important to society in the way that they create order and stability among the community. They also hold laws which can be recorded, preserved or destroyed.

Archives can exist in many different forms, for anything that holds some form of memory can be considered an archive. This includes books, websites, phones, legal documents and so on. All of these mediums can hold and distribute information or memory. It is for this reason that archives are also seen as “the basis for individual memory” (stated in this week’s lecture). To me this means that the mediums with which we as individuals store information, allows us to hold memory which we can distribute or regain at anytime. I’m not sure how precise my evaluation of this concept is, as I am still trying to understand it... but those are my thoughts for now.

Source: http://www.lindseykennedy.com/archives.asp

Source:


http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/training/mobiledevices/apple

Week 4: Actor Network Theory

For this week's topic, it took me a while to grasp the concept of the Actor Network Theory (ANT). From what I've read, I think it refers to the realtionship between things (be it anything) and the way in which things come together to serve a purpose as a whole. I found YouTube really helpful in explaining this concept further to me, so this week's blog will consist of a video on the Actor Network Theory. I thought it was clever, simple and effective in teaching people of this concept... Enjoy!

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2YYxS6D-mI

Week 3: Digital Publishing

This week I will be exploring the different modes of publishing which have been adapted in recent years, and the effect that this is having on the media; particular print media. In my tutorial last week, I found it interesting to learn about what 'publishing' actually is, and I realised that my view on the concept was very much limited and I was not thinking outside the square. Publishing, infact, can relate to all types of forms, including art, music, television, news and so on. Digital publishing has allowed for individuals to revigorate their work, and gives people more freedom in what they publish, and the manner in which they do so.

An article from this week's reading list which I thought related to this idea is "Dialing in a Plan: The Times Installs a Meter on Its Future" by David Carr. This article was published in the New York Times on Janurary 20, 2010. It talks about the different approaches that the New York Times have now taken in order of ensuring that their content is still being paid for by readers.

This issue is a result of digitial publishing, for articles can now be viewed for free on the Internet or other mediums, rather than the article being paid for when having to buy a newspaper. The article states that "it is not the job of The New York Times or any other mainstream media company to give away its content until it can no longer afford to do so", which suggests that in the future, if not already, mainstream media companies will have no choice but to allow for their work to be viewed for free.

I find this really interesting, as until now, I hadnt really explored any negative impacts of digital publishing. All I considered was the convenience, speed, globalisation, range of mediums etc that came as a result of digital publishing. I can now see, however, that companies who rely on manual publishing are now at the risk of decending in their success as a media corporation.

These are my thoughts for the week... thanks for listening!

Week 2: Getting Started

Hi all,

Welcome to my blog. My name is Caitlin and I am currently in my second year of studying a Bachelor of Media (Communication and Journalism). My first blog will be fairly basic, as I am still trying to discover what this course is all about...

I began this week by reading through the articles which were given to us. These gave me more of an idea on the concept of 'Publics and Publishing', and how it is based upon the relationship between the publishing practise and those key publics that are involved in this process. I also came to understand that this course explores the differences between the printing press and contempory printing techniques, which I am interested to learn more about.

Hence, the article "Keep the Print Guys Away From the iPad App" was one which caught my eye, probably because I am part of the generation who these new technologies are predominately targeted towards.

This article explains how the iPad has changed the way we interact with media, and the effect that this may have on 'print guys'. The author explains how print guys do not have the ability to design articles for iPads, despite believing that they do.

                                                Image 1: articles viewed on an iPad
Source: http://www.appolicious.com/articles/3145-apple-attempts-newspaper-subscription-plan-for-ipads

I agree with this point, as owning an iPhone (which is extremely similar to an iPad) I understand how articles can appear differently on the screen to what they would in a newspaper. Also, iPads allow for readers to interact with the story. For example, readers have the option to comment below many articles, and communicate with the author. Therefore, I agree that it will take more than just print guys to produce an article for an iPad. The skill of digitial developers would most certainly come in hand.

I look forward to the upcoming weeks of this course. Stay tuned for more updates.