Moral Panics and Concerns with Online Technology

Some of the moral concerns with the continually developing digital world are things such as what is classed as real, and what is classed as not. For example, in the MMORPG Second Life there are areas where you can engage in inappropriate activities such as having sex with children. The problem is that Second Life isnt real, so should this be treated as a crime, or just a game? If it is treated as inappropriate there is the further question of how far you have to go for the police to get involved. I believe that these issues will be solved as this technology progresses and gets more complex.

What is the Future for Online Technology?

Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/dec/03/mondaymediasection.internet 1. Who is Chris De Wolfe and what does he say is the future for social networking? What impact will portable hardware have on this area of technology?

• Chris De Wolfe is one of the co-founders and CEOs of the massive continually expanding social networking site that is myspace.com.
• He believes that social networking will become ever more personal and ever more portable, stating that half the future social network traffic will come from non-PC users.
• He also thinks that social netowkring sites are driving the web forward, and helping other industries as the sites become more and more collaborative with industrys such as music and advertisement.
• Wolfe says that "Social activity is happening everywhere and we expect applications and features to be more fluid" meaning that as more and more people join these social networks, the networks themselves will have to cater for each individuals needs by making more applications and features available to the user.
• This will require more collaboration from other internet sites and communitys such as thw widget community and online flash games. For example, Youtube has collaborated with the social network sites Bebo and now the user can choose a video from youtube to feature on their personal profile.
• "Supporting a more collaborative web creates a more global and participatory internet experience for everyone."

2. Who is Chad Hurley and what does he say is his company's goal? Is he a positive or negative technological determinist?

• Chad Hurley is the a CEO and co-founder of the video broadcasting site Youtube which lets users upload their own videos.
• Chad says that within 5 years video broadcasting will be the most accessible form of communication, you will be able to access it on any screen "in your living room or in your pocket" and it will bring together all aspects of diverse media, with videos from music to cooking, to videos of your familys and friends.
• He also states that the tools available for video recording will continue to get smaller, cheaper and easier to use, increasing the range of users who will be able to record and upload videos to Youtube.
• Youtubes goal is to make uploading videos to Youtube as easy as making a simple phonecall, and in the next 5 years the world wil become a smaller place.

3. What does Maurice Levy say is the challenge for advertisers and what is 'liquid media' compared to 'linear media'?

• Online advertising will still depend on what has always been at the heart of impactful advertising, in both analogue and digital forms; creativity.
• Maurice says that the challenge for advertisers is that peple are no longer willing to put up with interuptions during their entertainment experience, and do not want to see commercial breaks, so the advertising companies have to continue to come up with more imaginative and creative ways to advertise their products.
• "This implies a brave new world of engagement and involvement between marketers and consumers and will also mean co-production between marketers and media owners."

4. What parallels does Norvig draw between Edison inventing electricity and the development of online technology in terms of searching for information?

Norvig is suggesting that electricity is an extremely important thing in modern life, and that almost everything we do depends on some sort of electronic item that we are aided by, and in the same way the internet will one day evolve far enough for us to depend on it in everything we do, and it will be able to aid us to do pretty much anything we need.

5. What are the issues for the developing world? How is this evidence of a 'digital divide'?

Fears are that as we continue to develop and thrive in the new digital world, rural areas in places such as Africa will not be able to get the same digital equipment due to poor infrastructure and not having enough money. As we are likely to continue creating new online communities and digital aids, that these rural areas will be left behind in these developments and become alienated and divided from the rest of the world.

The key issues for Audiences and Institutions

Digitality: A new way of encoding information using binary, meaning that a huge amount of information can be stored and dealt with using a tiny code. Interactility: New ways of streaming compressed information, that means mulitple strand of information can be compressed and sent through the air, ISDN cables, telephone cables and cable sattelite systems. This feed is interact, meaning you can interact with it and respond to it, meanign we can upload and download. Hypertextuality: To do with the organisation in text, no longer linear, so you can jump around the text instead of having to go through it all to get where you want, for example with a dvd you can now skip scenes instead of having to fast forward through it all. Dispersal: How the information can be shared and communicated, to do with the market share and who is using the market, and how the producers target the users of their markets. Virtuality: To do with how real something is, what is representational and what is real, for example second life is mimicing real life but it is not real. Convergence: New media technologies are merging with each other, for example phones now containing music players, browsers, and cameras. This is constantly changing, but where will it go next?