This week we learnt about the concept of visualization. This is a process whereby an invisible practice is made visible through visual creations. A simple example of this would be taking a set of data, such as the current fertility rate among Australians; and making this into a visual graph to represent the data.
This concept can be rather hard to comprehend at times, as it is difficult to know what types of data can be effectively communicated through visualizations. Can anything invisible be represented through graphs or other visual forms? Or are the choices quite limited?
One reading from this week which I found helpful was the website about 'information aesthetics' which can be found here http://infosthetics.com/. This gave me an idea of the types of 'invisible' concepts which can be converted into something visual, such as into any type of graph. Examples of data include depictions of the London underground, the history of poverty, or the impact of nuclear radiation. This gave me a clearer idea of the way in which almost anything can be transformed into data, as long as a suitable type of graph is used to represent it.
Limits of the visualization project may be that much more complicated data may be too difficult to represent through something as simple as a graph. An example of this might be the way in which Facebook has overtaken Myspace. This data may need to represent the amount of users for each site, the decrease in popularity of Myspace over a number of years, the present purpose of Myspace etc; and this may be difficult to represent through a graph as it includes several pieces of data within the one idea.
Our visualization group of assessments will give us a better idea of how successful these graphs can be in representing data. We will have to wait and see...
References:
Unknown. (2010). information aesthetics. Available: http://infosthetics.com/?limit=20&offset=20. Last accessed 21 April 2010
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Friday, 15 April 2011
Week 7: Wikileaks
This week my team was given the task of debating the argument that Wikileaks is acting responsibly through their work. I had do to much background research on the topic, as I didn't now much about Wikileaks at all. When issues surrounding Wikileaks came onto the news I tended to ignore them, because I did not see what all the fuss was all about.
After some research, I realised the large impact which Wikileaks was having on society. I now think that the question of whether they are acting responsibly or not is way too hard to conclude, as their are both positive and negative aspects about what they are doing.
Wikileaks is all about freedom, speech, and equality; which reflects the values among many societies. They strive to achieve this by informing citizens about news which Governments intend to wrongly hide from them. Wikileaks holds the power of exposure on governments, corporations and individuals. This forces these players to abide by established rules, follow guidelines, and act in a proper manner.
So, ultimately, Wikileaks enforces responsible governing and decision making, reflecting the responsible nature of the site itself. Bradley Manning, a US soldier who was arrested for leaking information to Wikileaks correctly stated that "without information you cannot make informed decisions as a public".
Though in saying this, I think that it all comes down to trust. The fact of is, if the work of Governments and corporations can not be kept secret and therefore kept safe, then how do citizens of the Government expect to be kept safe? In an article written by public relations worker Paul Seaman, he states that "at the end of the day, society has more right to keep its secrets secret, than does Wikileaks have a right to wreak havoc, and keep its sources hidden while doing so".
So, the question still stands... is Wikileaks acting responsibly?
References
After some research, I realised the large impact which Wikileaks was having on society. I now think that the question of whether they are acting responsibly or not is way too hard to conclude, as their are both positive and negative aspects about what they are doing.
Wikileaks is all about freedom, speech, and equality; which reflects the values among many societies. They strive to achieve this by informing citizens about news which Governments intend to wrongly hide from them. Wikileaks holds the power of exposure on governments, corporations and individuals. This forces these players to abide by established rules, follow guidelines, and act in a proper manner.
So, ultimately, Wikileaks enforces responsible governing and decision making, reflecting the responsible nature of the site itself. Bradley Manning, a US soldier who was arrested for leaking information to Wikileaks correctly stated that "without information you cannot make informed decisions as a public".
Though in saying this, I think that it all comes down to trust. The fact of is, if the work of Governments and corporations can not be kept secret and therefore kept safe, then how do citizens of the Government expect to be kept safe? In an article written by public relations worker Paul Seaman, he states that "at the end of the day, society has more right to keep its secrets secret, than does Wikileaks have a right to wreak havoc, and keep its sources hidden while doing so".
So, the question still stands... is Wikileaks acting responsibly?
References
- P.Seaman. 2010. 21st Century PR Issues. [ONLINE] Available at: http://paulseaman.eu/2010/12/why-wikileaks-is-bad-news/. [Accessed 13 April 11].
- B.Ackerman. 2010. CIF America . [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/11/bradley-manning-julian-assange. [Accessed 13 April 11].
Sunday, 10 April 2011
Week 6: Attention
In my view, attention relates to interacting an engaging with almost anything; Whether it be a person, a book, a television show, and so on. One thing that holds a huge amount of attention is the internet. One of the readings for this week was an article by Michael H.Goldhaber, titled "Attention Shoppers!" This explores what Michael explains as the "flowing" of attention through cyberspace.
This article explains the concept of information technology, where people use their 'scarce' resources and trade among each other. Michael believes that this definition can no longer state, as a result of the internet. This is because the internet has endless information within it, which can no longer be described as scarce. This overload of information has resulted in the economy of attention becoming "the natural economy of cyberspace", as stated by Michael.
An interesting point Michael makes is that "attention has its own behavior, its own dynamics, its own consequences". This is due to the fact that it has created its own economy, separate from the others among society. Attention is something which can only be created in the mind, rather than through mediums such as "electronic devices".
This economy of attention is important because it achieves many purposes among humans. Something as simple as reading a map to find your way to a place is an example of attention, which achieves an aim. It can help us in our daily lives. Attention can also refer to the kind which is aimed towards oneself, such as an individual who is praised with attention after achieving something impressive, like winning an award.
This article made me aware of the vast concept of attention, and how it it can is a huge part of our lives, even if we don't always realise that we are applying attention. This so called economy on the internet is one which dominates many others, such as the food economy, for the amount of information brought to our attention is never scarce.
Thanks for reading!
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