Males vs. Females: A Communication Showdown

Males vs. Females: A Communication Showdown

Countless studies have been devoted to finding out the differences between male’s and female’s communication strategies. While researching for this assignment I read 10 different, eloquently written (although a bit wordy), articles on gender and communication. With this research, I have reached a very simple conclusion. No one knows anything! Ok, this might be slightly harsh, since there was some consistency, yet most of the articles that I read were definitely biased in one way or the other. I tried to even out my research by splitting my research to both male and female scholars, yet sexism was almost always present. So instead of relying on other people’s research and articles, I decided to do a little study on my own.

I decided to read the blogs of other students taking this class. Since our section has only two girls, I read two other girls’ blogs in the other section. After reading a sample from 4 females’ and 4 males’ blogs, I came to yet another simple conclusion. Most of the stereotypes are correct! As I was taking notes while reading, I noticed that the female bloggers seemed to tackle the assignments in a more serious, realistic manner. The male bloggers take a more sarcastic approach. This was not always the case, but it was definitely the popular trend.

On September 26^th of this year, I was enrolled in the most intense gender communication seminar of my life. Yes, this means I got married. In my personal life research, I’ve noticed that men and women definitely communicate differently. My wife is more concerned with details, and is a more emotional communicator, while I am more to the point and less personable.

Men and women are very different communicators, and I’m not sure that anyone will ever crack the code and understand exactly how both sexes work.

A Communication Timeline

A Communication Timeline

105 – Paper invented by China.

Before the Chinese started writing on paper, humans used stone and wood to write on. Paper revolutionized communication by being mobile.

350 – First calendars used in Mayan culture.

The Mayans not only noticed the cycles of the moon and the seasons, but they actually created a calendar to document time.

1436 – Johannes Gutenberg invents movable letters for the printing press.

Hand copying works of literature was a long and arduous process .The printing press lead to mass distribution of books, letters, and the bible.

1729 – Stephen Gray discovers electrical conductivity.

Electrical conductivity might not seem too pertinent to communication, however, without this discovery, many of today’s communication tools wouldn’t be able to function.

1787 – First working telegraph.

The telegraph was a primitive version of both a telephone call, and an e-mail.

1868 – The typewriter is patented

The typewriter made writing quick and easy, and eventually lead to the keyboards that computers rely on today.

1925 – John Logie Baird demonstrates first television broadcast.

Television has become one of the most powerful tools in communication, including news broadcast, weather broadcasts, and eventually a predominant political venue.

1951 – UNIVAC 1 computer is the first to be manufactured commercially.

The UNIVAC 1 was a large computer, which only computed simple arithmetic, yet paved the way for businesses to rely on computers.

1975 – The first personal computer is introduced.

This was the first computer designed for personal use.

1989 – The world-wide-web is introduced.

The internet, in it’s current www/.com form, was introduced to the public, e-mails and personal websites were now possible.

1991 – CD-ROM is introduced.

Compact discs started being used to store information. This was more effective, and could hold more than floppy discs.

1995/1996 – The internet and instant messaging became popular via AOL.

American Online became extremely popular, along with the use of instant messaging.

2004 – Facebook was created

Facebook lead the social networking revolution by allowing people to share, pictures, comments, and videos.

2006 – Twitter was created

Twitter took the basic idea of social networking websites and made mass communication in its simplest form easy and popular.

A Communication Timeline

A Communication Timeline

105 – Paper invented by China.

Before the Chinese started writing on paper, humans used stone and wood to write on. Paper revolutionized communication by being mobile.

350 – First calendars used in Mayan culture.

The Mayans not only noticed the cycles of the moon and the seasons, but they actually created a calendar to document time.

1436 – Johannes Gutenberg invents movable letters for the printing press.

Hand copying works of literature was a long and arduous process .The printing press lead to mass distribution of books, letters, and the bible.

1729 – Stephen Gray discovers electrical conductivity.

Electrical conductivity might not seem too pertinent to communication, however, without this discovery, many of today’s communication tools wouldn’t be able to function.

1787 – First working telegraph.

The telegraph was a primitive version of both a telephone call, and an e-mail.

1868 – The typewriter is patented

The typewriter made writing quick and easy, and eventually lead to the keyboards that computers rely on today.

1925 – John Logie Baird demonstrates first television broadcast.

Television has become one of the most powerful tools in communication, including news broadcast, weather broadcasts, and eventually a predominant political venue.

1951 – UNIVAC 1 computer is the first to be manufactured commercially.

The UNIVAC 1 was a large computer, which only computed simple arithmetic, yet paved the way for businesses to rely on computers.

1975 – The first personal computer is introduced.

This was the first computer designed for personal use.

1989 – The world-wide-web is introduced.

The internet, in it’s current www/.com form, was introduced to the public, e-mails and personal websites were now possible.

1991 – CD-ROM is introduced.

Compact discs started being used to store information. This was more effective, and could hold more than floppy discs.

1995/1996 – The internet and instant messaging became popular via AOL.

American Online became extremely popular, along with the use of instant messaging.

2004 – Facebook was created

Facebook lead the social networking revolution by allowing people to share, pictures, comments, and videos.

2006 – Twitter was created

Twitter took the basic idea of social networking websites and made mass communication in its simplest form easy and popular.

Convergence Culture: A Review

Convergence Culture: A Review

Living in an increasingly technology based society, we are forced to cope with convergence. Storytellers use it to satisfy our creative desires, advertisers use it to keep our wandering minds focused, and product designers use it to make their products more practical. Henry Jenkins explores these topics along with many more in his book “Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide”. Everything in Jenkins’ book is well researched and very informative, albeit very wordy and rather dull. Jenkins’ book is broken into 6 overly lengthy chapters, along with an even more drawn out Introduction, Conclusion, and Afterward. All nine sections discuss different aspects of convergence in media, as well as convergence’s importance in general.

The first two chapters in Jenkins’ book tackle convergence in television shows. The first chapter was a discussion of an online group of Survivor fans that enjoyed “spoiling” different aspects of their favorite show, as well as their reaction to an unknown player who seemed to spoil more then anyone wanted. The second chapter was dedicated to another reality show, American Idol. Jenkins mainly discussed how the internet/television convergence affects the popularity and functionality of the show.

In the third and fourth chapters, Jenkins’ shifts his focus of convergence into storytelling, and more specifically movies. A whole chapter was devoted to the Matrix, and how its trans-media venue was accepted my moviegoers. The matrix was made up of the films, the cartoons, and the comic books. The next chapter was my personal favorite, Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars? Grassroots Creativity Meets the Media Industry. This chapter discussed how current technology helps encourage creativity and how amateurs have a greater median to share their art.

Chapter 5 discussed what media literacy is and why it is important in our day and age. In order to be media literate, one needs to be able to express their ideas in a form that is not necessarily textually based.

The final chapter is more politically driven, showing how internet/political convergence affects politics in general. This showed how political cartoons, parodies, and photoshoped photos have an affect on elections and people’s view on politicians.

Despite having the bad habit of rambling, Convergence Culture is a powerful textual collection of thoughts based on media convergence and how it affects our lives.

Media Literacy

Media Literacy

I know that I am young. Twenty-one years on this planet doesn’t quite make me an old-timer, yet sometimes I feel that I have witnessed many great changes. I remember the times when we would buy a band’s new tape, not CD. I remember playing video games where the game is an oversized plastic cartridge. I remember when we watched movies at home in a VCR player. I’ve witnessed in my twenty-one years some great changes in media formats, and with these changes I have been fortunate enough to stay literate with these new technologies. Most of these transitions occurred many years ago, yet I feel like I have to constantly stay on my toes as to not be left behind (or considered “illiterate”) in the fast paced digital age of today. In order to survive and thrive in this world, you must be media literate.

In my research of what exactly media literacy is, I came across an article solely devoted to helping people understand what Media literacy is. According to David Considine, who wrote the article, media literacy can be defined as “The Ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate information in a variety of formats including print and non-print.” The last part of this definition explains how important media literacy is to present culture. “Print and non-print,” refers to every form of media/communication possible. This simple phrase encompasses writing, audio, visual, etc. as important communication medians.

It has become an everyday requirement to work hand and hand with technology. Even if someone is far from being media literate, they are forced to cope with our fast paced technology based culture.

Works Cited:

“An Introduction to Media Literacy: the what, whym and how-tos”. By David Considine. Fall 1995 issue of Telemedium, The Journal of Media Literacy, Volume 41, Number 2.

Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York, UP. 2008.

“The Past, Present, and Future of Media Literacy Education”. By Renee Hobbs and Amy Jensen. 2009. Journal of Media Literacy Education.

GlassJaw: a Band, an Inspiration, and a Community

Since we have been exploring the impact that convergence has on all types of media, I chose to explore an online community of a music band. I decided to do this for two reasons, the first being that music is perhaps the most important part of my life (other then my wife of course…I couldn’t resist bringing that up J), and the second reason being that this aspect of converged media has been untouched by myself in this course. I am a member of many fan websites for my favorite bands, yet one of the online communities is far more interesting then the others. The band is called GlassJaw, from New York. They started playing in the late 1990’s and peaked in popularity in the underground hardcore scene around 2001 or 2002. Shortly after they released their second studio record, they disbanded in 2004. This indefinite hiatus left thousands of fans baffled and wanting more. This is about the time when I discovered GlassJaw.net.

GlassJaw.net is the unofficial fan community where fans of GlassJaw, and fans of the original members’ new side projects, can share GlassJaw related news and media. The website has designated portions for news, pictures, videos, links to GJ related auctions, and of course the forum. The forum is the most interesting part of the website. While the rest of the site has rules about uploading pictures, videos, etc… the forum is the most regulated and strict part of the website. Upon entering the forum, there are two threads with the rules. Over the years that I have been involved with this website, I’ve seen people break these rules, and I’ve seen IP addresses blocked. These rules are very simple, don’t post faulty information, don’t spam, and don’t start a new thread asking about he band’s highly anticipated third album’s release date. This last rule might seem odd for people who aren’t fans of the band. The group announced in late 2006 that they were in fact recording a new record and that it would be released “soon”. Since that day in December of 2006, the forums have blown up speculating on possible release dates and the mystery encompassing the new album. The forum’s moderators have designated a specific thread for this information, instead of allowing hundreds of these threads to pop up daily.

Like a real life community, this website has leaders (the site’s administrators), rules and guidelines, “politicians” (the people who have gained popularity and respect by posting on the forums over a long period of time), and of course the common people (everyone who visits the site leisurely). So as long as you play by the rules, GlassJaw.net is a valuable source of information, and a functioning online community.

The Digital Footprint of Paul Moran

The Digital Footprint of Paul Moran

The digital world is a massive, all encompassing frontier with limitless possibilities. My relationship with the Internet first began when I was at the ripe age of 10 years old. It was around this time that I started to hear my older sisters’ friends talk about AOL Instant messenger. This was the new cool social networking tool, which allowed people to chat over the Internet, and even create private chat rooms. Soon, friends my own age were registering for this free application of “over the web” conversing. Naturally, I HAD to get involved with this new fad. After many attempts of registering myself for this new phenomenon, I convinced my father to help me out. This application was the start of my current obsession with the Internet. I started playing online pool on yahoo.com, posting on video game forums, and even started creating my own websites (with my father’s help of course). Over the past ten years, I have accumulated a pretty extensive digital footprint.

The biggest and most lasting digital footprint was made possible by the social networking website MySpace. Between 2004 and 2006 I played in a band, which toured extensively throughout the state of Texas. Our band, like many others, created a MySpace music account, and uploaded music to the website. Over our two-year stint as a band, we gained over 12,000 friends. This means that my name, and our music reached over 12,000 people. This is a pretty impressive statistic that I am quite proud of. The power of the digital world allowed a band of teenagers from a small town in Texas to reach people across the United States of America.

Another footprint that I have left in the digital world is that of my online documents. I choose to have my banking, insurance, student loans, and utility bills be delivered and stored online. Some people might not consider this a legitimate digital footprint, yet whichever way you look at it; this is a big part of my life, which is represented solely on the world-wide-web. These banks and insurance companies have a digital record of my monthly statements, and every payment that I have made. These online accounts even store valuable and personal information such as my Social Security Number, Drivers License Number, and credit card numbers. Similarly, I register and pay for my school classes online. I have my own personalized University of Dallas at Texas e-mail address, and even participate in class assignments as well as discussions over lectures on the Internet.

I have always been, and continue to be an avid online gamer. One of the first online games that I started playing was Yahoo.com’s online pool. With the same username associated with my yahoo e-mail address, I was able to play against other yahoo users all across the world. This hobby led to an obsession with online multiplayer games. The invention of video game systems with built-in multiplayer functions using the Internet did not help with my obsession. To this day I am still an avid player of free online games, a participant in the online gaming community of the Playstation 3, and a regular online poker player. All of these game venues store personal information such as my real name and my game history.

A digital footprint can be left by many actions. Social networking sites, banking documents, online bills, school work and information, and even games can leave a pretty substantial digital footprint. Over all, my Internet presence is pretty well spread out. I tend to spend 2 to 4 hours a day expanding my footprint, and personally do not use my cell phone to access the Internet (Although I do rely heavily on text messaging as a source of communication). It is very hard for me to imagine my life without its digital-life counterpart. Being a member of over 20 websites that require a password and having 3 different e-mail addresses, my digital footprint is easily as important to my personality as my real-life footprint.

Convergence Fueled Storytelling

Convergence Fueled Storytelling

Discussing The Matrix’s excellent storytelling techniques is not quite a difficult task. This 1999 movie was ahead of its time in many ways. The visual and sound effects were groundbreaking, and the basic storytelling principles transcended the boundaries of film, comic books, and the internet. It helped that the film’s story was fairly dependent on the internet and the idea of convergence. To my knowledge The Matrix was one of the first films that didn’t stop at the end of the movie, yet continued to tell its story through different avenues. I remember being in middle school when I first saw the Matrix. I specifically remember writing short stories involving myself with the Matrix’s characters. Little 11 year-old Paul definitely wasn’t the only creative person inspired by this movie. There have been countless websites, books, comics, short films, animations, etc that have helped expand this story.

More recently, movies have used the internet and other storytelling medians to not only expand the universe of the story, but to help promote the movie as well. The biggest example that comes to my mind was the movie The Watchmen that came out earlier this year (March 2009). This movie was adapted for the screen from the groundbreaking graphic novel. Essentially, this movie already had a pretty remarkable fan base, yet the producers needed to grasp the attention of people who had not read the novel. The most obvious convergence fueled example was when the producers released a digital representation of the graphic novel. This was pretty much a series of videos of the panels of the graphic novel, with an audio track reading the book word for word. This refreshed the memory of people who had read the story, and helped the people understand the quite confusing plot who had no knowledge of the Watchmen universe.

In my opinion, these new storytelling techniques are extremely effective no matter the age of the audience. As long as a person is interested in the original story, they will usually be positively effected by its related material.

Is Mass Media Marketing Effective?

Despite whether you are looking for it or not, advertisement is everywhere. In recent years, advertisement has transcended the boundaries of text, television, and film and has definitely converged with each and every one of our personal lives. It doesn’t matter is you are listening to music, eating food, or even taking a walk in your favorite park, you will experience an advertisement of some sort. There is no denying that we live in a culture where the influence of the persuaders is unavoidable. The only question is whether or not this overbearing, converged, boundary transcending technique is effective.

I’m going to analyze the effects that a few different marketing ploys have on me. It is no secret that I am addicted to watching television shows on the internet. This used to be an illegal activity, yet most television stations now allow viewers to watch their shows online. The only catch is that in order to watch these shows, you must endure short commercial clips of one product per episode. Since one product can be assigned to a specific show, the persuaders have more control over their target audience. This technique is definitely effective. For example a set of commercials for the new R-rated comedy Extract attached to the online episodes of my favorite show South Park are more effective than if the same commercials air on a television channel during a family show such as American Idol. Since I am watching a comedy for adults, theoretically I would be interested in a movie of the same nature.

The other day I was on the popular website MySpace, listening to a band’s CD. This particular band was streaming their entire CD online before it’s release date. This chance to hear the band’s entire new record was extremely enticing for me. Unfortunately to do so, I had to sit through an annoying advertisement about a completely irrelevant product every two or three songs. I paid no attention to the advertisements, and eventually gave up listening to the unreleased CD. These advertisements weren’t related to the band I was enjoying, or even music in general, definitely not an effective marketing ploy.

According to my research, the effectiveness of mass media marketing is directly related to the relativity of the ploy to the avenue it is tagged to. For instance an advertisement for a new opera would be more effective near a traditional theatre as opposed to the same advertisement at a rodeo in Texas.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia

Both high schools and colleges assign countless writing assignments every day. Anything from short essays to in-depth, massive research papers are expected of students across the nation. For these writing assignments, it is more than common for the instructor or professor to ask the students to find a specified number of reference articles. This is usually around the time when students (I know this from personal experience) begin to groan and complain about the grueling task at hand. This result is mostly triggered by the phrase “You can NOT use Wikipedia as a credible source!” Students across the nation join together in the argument that Wikipdia can be a powerful research tool. Although Wikipedia can produce some shaky (ok, downright ridiculous) information, I am a firm believer that if used correctly, Wikipedia can definitely be a credible resource outlet.

According to the New Media Journal, Wikipedia has been quite the success story becoming one of the web’s top ten most visited web sites. Although it is obviously booming in popularity, this journal still sees its flaws. Ganaele Langlois and Greg Elmer write, “Because it relies on a collaborative process to produce knowledge rather than the credentials of experts, the Wikipedia model puts into question traditional processes for legitimizing truth claims, such as relying on expert knowledge rather than the wisdom of the crowd.” (Langlois and Elmer, 2009) This statement refers to an article by Cross, T. written in 2006. Langlois and Elmer are validating that Wikipedia takes a risk by relying on the knowledge rather than the proof of the knowledge. This risk usually pays off as a success, yet when subject to vandalism, the information can be misleading.

Wikiedia itself is aware of its lack of credibility, and is attempting to make revisions in order to establish itself as more reliable. According to CNN’s technology portion of their website, Wikipedia is initiating a new rule of editing in which an “experienced volunteer” will be assigned as an editor to an article in their particular field of expertise. This has started a heated online debate arguing whether or not this is destroying the basic ideas that the web based encyclopedia was built around. Caterina Fake, the founder of the photo-sharing website Flickr, has this to say on the change, “If you really want to participate in Wikipedia, it is open to you so long as your contributions are benefiting the community and everybody kind of collectively decides that your contributions are good.“ (Sutter, John D., CNN.com)

When I searched for a Wikipedia entry on Wikipedia, I found some interesting self-reflecting information. “Wikipedia's departure from the expert-driven style of the encyclopedia building mode and the large presence of unacademic contents have been noted several times. When Time magazine recognized You as its Person of the Year for 2006, acknowledging the accelerating success of online collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world, it cited Wikipedia as one of several examples of Web 2.0 services, along with Youtube, Myspace, and Facebook. Some noted the importance of Wikipedia not only as an encyclopedic reference but also as a frequently updated news resource because of how quickly articles about recent events appear.” (Wikipedia)

Langlois, G. and Elmer, G. “Wikipedia leeches? The Promotion of Traffic Through a Collaborative Web Format” New Media & Society

Canada: Ryerson University, 2009. 773-390

Sutter, John D. “Wikipedia: No longer the Wild West?”

CNN.com/technology Aug 26, 2009 <http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/26/wikipedia.editors/>

Sep 8, 2009

Wikipedia

Wikipedia.org

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#Cultural_significance>

Social Networking Sites in a Communist Country?!

Upon receiving this assignment, I found myself aimlessly staring at my computer screen trying to figure out what country or culture I wanted to research. I wanted to choose a country that has a large enough digital footprint, but with a different take on it then America. I also wanted to research a non English speaking country. After staring at an online map of the world, I made a decision. For some reason or another, I ended up selecting China. Perhaps it was the fact that China has a population of over 1.3 billion people, and the fact that out of this 1.3 billion, 286 million of them are internet users over the age of thirteen. Compared to the United State’s population of a little over 307.2 million people, it would be safe to say that China has a pretty powerful grasp on the internet. Although this is a lot of people regularly surfing the web, I wanted to find out how many of these Chinese internet users were involved with social networking websites.

According to a New York Times article by Paul Boutin located at (http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/chinese-use-social-networks-more-than-americans-until-the-government-shuts-them-down/) 92 percent of broadband users in China are actively involved in a user-generated social networking site. That is about 263.12 million people regularly visiting a website where they can post blogs, upload photos or video, and actively socialize via the web. These websites include Chinese counterparts to MySpace and Facebook, and more popularly Chinese websites such as RenRen, 51, and Kaixin001.

So according to my research, people in China are in fact actively involved in social networking sites. Although these sites might not be the same as the one’s famous in the United States, the Chinese population is definitely as connected via the web as Americans, if not more so.