Task 9 - New Interactive Environments

Put out a post summarising your understanding of activity theory and its potential for describing activity systems.

The concept of activity theory is in my opinion very wide and complicated. As one of my fellow students put it, explaining activity theory is like explaining nature. Activity theory, rooted from the work of a Russian psychologist Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky, who studied cultural-historical psychology, then developed by his colleague Alexei Nikolaevich Leont'ev has been developed in many fields of studies.

Leont'ev pointed out that people engage in "actions" that do not in themselves satisfy a need, but contribute towards the eventual satisfaction of a need. Often, these actions only make sense in a social context of a shared work activity. This lead him to a distinction between activities, which satisfy a need, and the actions that constitute the activities.(Wikipedia)

Activity theory has made a great impact on the studies of human-computer interaction as well as in the field of interactive design. I guess these are the fields which would fit in the concept of this course - New Interactive Environments.

Kari Kuuti illustrated the process of activity theory like this:

There is an activity, which leads to the primary goal. In the first case it is building a house. The primary goal is then to have a house. But in order to do the activity, there are different actions involved. In this case fixing the roofing, transport of bricks etc. In order to do the actions, one needs to operate in a ceratin way - hammering etc. The same goes for every activity. Therefore Leont'evs suggestion fits here - people do certain actions which do not achieve a goal, but

contribute towards the actual satisfaction of the need or goal.

Uden, Valderas and Pastor concluded their article by saying "Activity Theory constitutes a valuable tool for analysing software requirements. Furthermore, the use of a task-based Activity Theory model provides Web application developers with a model that allows them to properly specify navigational and organizational requirements." Activity theory helps to understand the human behaviour and therefore helps the software developers, designers and HCI specialists to understand, which operations and actions do people do in order to reach their goal. Activity can be broken down into actions, which are further subdivided into operations. In a design context, using these categories can provide the designer with an understanding of the steps necessary for a user to carry out a task (Nardi, Bonnie A. (1996)).

There have also been some criticism towards this theory. According to Engeström, Aaro Toomela (2000) brought out five main faults in activity theory:

1. It relies on unidirectional instead of a dialectical view of cultureindividual
relationships.
2. It focuses on analyses of activities without taking into account the
individual involved in the activity at the same time.
3. It underestimates the role of signs and the importance of focusing on
sign meaning.
4. It approaches mind fragmentally, without understanding the holistic
nature of mind.
5. It is fundamentally adevelopmental and therefore not appropriate
for understanding emerging phenomena, including mind.

Relying on these faults Toomela also said that activity theory is a dead end for cultural-historical psychology. Engeström overruled his statement and proved him to be wrong, as since the year 2000, the researchers interest in cultural-historical activity theory has risen. Ten years later we are also studying the concept of activity theory, therefore Engeström should be right about that.

New Interactive Environments - Task 8

Lüders, M. (2008). Concpeptualising personal media. New Media and Society, 10(5), 683-702.

In her article Conceptualizing personal media, Lüders tries to find distinct differences between mass media and personal media. As she studies previous theories which define mass media, she discovers that there are many similarities between personal and mass media. For example while personal blogs are an example of personal media, they could be read by a large audience - does that make it mass media?

The thoughts which came into my mind were that there are not only personal media and mass media, but also collective media as such. In the chapter Users as Producers, Lüders states that the mass media is being more and more created by the audience. Therefore she categorizes collectively generated media as mass media. In a sense it can be generalized as mass media, but in the other hand, it is a part which is constantly growing to maybe some day be one of the largest of media forms.

While to read from Lüders's image of axes, personal media is more symmetrical and de-centralized and not controlled, mass media is more one way communication and centralized, then where do for example Wikipedia or YouTube or any other collective sharing environment fit?

Collective media is generally co-controlled and not one- or two- way, but multi-way communicated. It does not have a centrum so to say other than the specific environment created online. Users can share their personal thoughts, ideas and works as well as promote businesses, products or even do politics. Popular sharing environments can not be categorized specifically as mass or personal media.

Media today is being constantly collectively created and changed. Mass media can no longer be a one-way great-leader-and-teacher, because people have ability to choose the content of media. There is not only mass media and personal media in my opinion, therefore it is difficult to find the differences between the two. This was also concluded by Lüders, when she said that

"Whereas the point of departure for this article has been a crude distinction between personal media and mass media, the reality is certainly more complex, especially considering the emergence of social and collaborative media situated between

these endpoints."

Generative Content Creation - Post 1

POST_1 - Students must read the articles (Weeks 44 and 45), posting a critical review (750 words) of one or several of these essays in this online forum. This post will be later used in the first part of the final essay.

Critical review of "The Language of New Media" Chapter I - "What is New Media?" by Lev Manovich

Manovich says that the popular definition of new media identifies it with the use of a computer for distribution and exhibition, rather than with production. He thinks that it is too limiting to consider texts and photographs distributed with the use of computer as new media, and the same texts and pictures distributed in books as not. He thinks that computer either used for distribution or production, influences (or does not influence) the culture the same way.

The computer revolution we are experiencing today is nothing ever seen before. If the emergence of printing machines influenced the distribution of texts and the invention of photography influenced the production of still images, then computers affects all types of media - texts, still images, moving images, sounds, etc.

Manovich brings out an interesting idea that today, all of our culture is being shifted into computer mediated form. Everything from books, movies, photos can be produced, distributed and communicated through computers. He looks at the two parallel paths which both lead to the development of a computer as we know it today. The first path is the convergence of computing and development of calculators, the other is the convergence of media technologies. It is interesting to realize, that everything we experience while using computers are actually numbers and mathematics. Every piece of information has its numerical representation which could be understood by the computers in order for them to create content.

In the chapter of "How Media Became New" he goes through the historical inventions and developments which are all a prerequisites to developing computers. Here he describes the trajectories of computing and media technologies. He said that For a long time the two trajectories ran in parallel without ever crossing paths. When finally in just less than 70 years ago the two paths meet, Manovich says that the media becomes new media. Basically it can be said that new media was born by merging computing technologies with media technologies. Calculators with cameras or printing machines.

Manovich describes the principles of new media, which can not be used for characterizing old media. These are:

1. Numerical representation
2. Modularity
3. Automation
4. Variability
5. Transcoding

Numerical representation means that all new media objects, whether they are created from scratch on computers or converted from analog media sources, are composed of digital code; they are numerical representations.

Modularity suggests that every media element consists of smaller parts like pixels, polygons, voxels, characters or scripts. The small particles form together a media element such as a still image, music, text etc. These media elements could be used together to make a film clip for example, which is again another media form. While modulating all these media elements and changing their purposes, the all the elements still stay the same and their identity remains.

The principles of numerical representation and modularity together allow another principle to emerge - automation. Many operations of media creation, manipulation and access could be done without human help. The texts and pictures could be automatically corrected by the software. Automation is used in creating 3D effects in movies and computer games, also in creating new virtual objects from scratch. All this knowledge is programmed into computers by numerical representation and modularity. Computers logically assume how every element fits into the larger picture.

Variability of new media is also derived from principles 1 and 2, but is also closely connected to principle 3 - Automation. While old media involved the industrial development of identical copies of books for example, then new media can be characterized by variability and have many different versions.

Manovich says that new media can be seen as consisting of two layers - cultural layer and computer layer. It means that in one way the content of new media can be seen by humans as a collection of images, which could be interpreted as some kind of a narrative or comprehensive content, in the other hand the computer "sees" the same content as numbers. It is again interesting to see how computers and numerical representation can form the media into something which could be easily understandable for humans.

Manovich's views on new media and its principles give a logical and intriguing overview of the essence of computerization and new media. His theories although from almost ten years ago still illustrate the ways media and computer technologies are developing to this day. As he stated, the principles 1 and 2 are the prerequisites for principles 3-5. Therefore it could be that ten years from now, some more principles will emerge to characterize new media or even produce a newer media.

Ethics and Law in New Media - Week 8

Study the Anglo-American and Continental European school of IP. Write a short comparative analysis to your blog (if you have clear preference for one over another, explain that, too).

While going through different studies and materials about Anglo-American and Continental European school of IP, I found one research which caught my attention. It was a paper written by Andrew F. Christie who studied the paradox of civil and common law approaches on private copying.

Continental Europe juristiction is called civil law, which means that laws are written in collection and not determined by judges (Wikipedia). These jurisdictions put great emphasis on moral rights and allow judges to interpret laws according to the specific case. Anglo-American jurisdiction is common law, which is strictly legislated and allow no room for interpretations of the laws.

Christie finds the paradox in these two jurisdictions in the approach to handling intellectual property and private copying. He says that statutory licence and levy schemes for private copying have been readily accepted in continental European countries for many decades. By contrast, such schemes have only recently begun to emerge in common law countries. Christie says that this situation is paradoxical - the statutory licence and levy scheme is common in those jurisdictions which place significant emphasis on author's moral rights and yet is rare in those countries that give primacy to the utilitarian rationale for copyright.

As a conclusion he finds that common law countries are beginning to develop their statutory licences and levy schemes of their own and it is becoming more and more common. He thinks that these are the only ways to protect intellectual property.

In my opinion it seems like the continental European approach is more controllable and clear in a sense that it allows more protection for the authors and their rights. Therefore I would probably prefer this school for IP.

Task 7 - New Interactive Environments

What is interactivity?

Jensen (1998) describes interactivity as a buzzword or media studies blind spot, that does not have a certain definition. Many media scientists have tried to define the meaning of the term but none have actually found the most accurate definition. Therefore I can not say that I will provide my own definition for the term but I will try to describe interactivity as I perceive it based on my short period of IMKE studies.

One reason why interactivity can not be very easily defined can be that the technology is developing so rapidly and the characteristics that once could describe interactivity change daily. With the development of user interfaces and innovations in the ways users interact with the technology, there is no possibility to come up with a solid definition of interactivity, which would be feasible through time. Therefore I would agree with Jensen that interactivity is a continuum which changes and develops through time.

As I said in one of my earlier posts I am fascinated by the statement that face-to-face communication is the ideal way of interaction (Jensen, 1998). This type of communication demands full attention and usage of all the senses from both participants. The communication is natural and at the same time a big part of communication goes on through body language, tone of voice or usage of words. This kind of natural interactivity and user interface is in my opinion what every technology, software and users are reaching for.

While trying to reach for the ideal interactivity, the path getting there is quite interesting. Technology and software developers try to think of new ways of human-computer interactions to make the communication between humans and machines more natural and easy. At the same time the ways and for what people use computers are different. The ways of communication are affected by the cultural and social environments of the users. People perceive things differently, therefore it is hard to develop a coherent user interface for everyone.

This again proves that interactivity can not be solidly defined, but rather is a continuum, developing, improving and changing every day.

Ethics and Law in New Media - Week 7

Task:
Read Chapter 3 "Against Intellectual Property" of the Brian Martin's book. Write a blog review (especially, comment on his strategies for change).

In his article "Against Intellectual Property" Brian Martin discusses the arguments against the laws, which are meant to protect intellectual property. He criticizes the concepts of patents and copyrights and finds them retarding innovation. Martin brought out an example, that companies tend to collect or buy patents on ideas connected to their fields to prevent competitors from applying their ideas. Therefore it means that when they don't develop the idea no one can. In Estonian there is a saying "Ise ei taha, teistele ka ei anna" (Doesn't want it and don't want others to have it either). Ok, maybe they do want it but are actually not as competent to get the best out of the idea or maybe it could be done better collectively.

Martin brings out some means to fight against the intellectual property. He suggests the next strategies for change:

Change thinking - intellectual property becomes undermined
Expose the costs - show how much do the companies dealing with intellectual property really own compared to the original authors
Reproduce protected works - piracy, actually similar to stealing therefore not so recommended
Openly refuse to cooperate with intellectual property - boycotting using of protected intellectual property, which in conclusion loses its value
Promote non-owned information - use and promote freeware
Develop principles to deal with credit for intellectual work - find a way to give credit to the authors of intellectual work.

I believe that there is a human characteristic, which is one of the reasons why people tend to keep their intellectual property to themselves so that only they can get credit for it. That is envy. They are not willing to let someone else take credit from their ideas and are generally suspicious. The copyright or patent gives them a kind of security, that it is something that they have come up with and if someone tries t steal it, they get punished or have to pay. Martin's last strategy of change would improve this situation. People want to be granted credit for their ideas.

Reproducing protected works and exposing costs is a kind of blind revenge, which is probably not a good solution. Boycotting protected works to some extent could be a solution but in general it seems kind of childish. I believe in motivation and positive feedback rather than punishment.

Therefore I would say that the most influential solutions are motivating authors with credit and promoting non-protected works. If people feel that they are socially more accepted if they share their ideas with others and create collectively new value for their ideas, they do not feel the need to protect their works so much. This is of course an ideal world which assumes that everyone is good, honest and smart enough not to let take an advantage of themselves.

Introduction and Theoretical Foundations of New Media homework - Final Concept Map

This is a complete overview of the topics covered in the course Introduction and Theoretical Foundations of New Media. The connections are made relying on my own priorities, interests and understandings about the topics.