Crisis Over.
After my brief panic attack in my last blog post I am pleased to say I am no longer crazy.
I am T-5 days until my case study and have filled up one focus group, almost filled up the other, and making good progress on the third.
I hve also decided that finding that research which was similar to mine will actually be a good thing as it wil add some weight and credibility to what I am saying, because it won’t just be me saying it!
Research is now under control.
So you wanna talk about problems?
In reference to an earlier blog post I wrote about feeling like I didn’t have any problems, may I just update that and say that I am now overwhelmed with so many problems I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack.
OF COURSE: the week that I go to Gippsland the ABC staff are moving to a new office and can’t talk to me
OF COURSE: the week that I got to Gippsland it is school holidays and therefore the majority of people I need to talk to are on annual leave
And for those of you who are sitting back thinking, gee…Libby really should have thought about these things before she planned her case study…I KNOW!!!
I have spent the last two days making one phone call after another trying to recruit people to take part in my focus groups and interviews. It’s not that people have been saying no, hell, they are from the country, they love to talk!! It is just the constancy of explaining who I am, what I’m doing and why they really should take part! My ear LITERALLY hurts.
To make matters worse, everyone I talk to LOVES the ABC, its making me feel like my research is so pointless because everyone listens to the ABC anyway! A fireman even told me today that his crew switch to ABC when they are fighting fires because they have better information than the CFA! I mean, COME ON!!!
And…that’s enough of a stressful vent for one day. Stay tuned, there’s plenty more in store!!
The end of Transient Spaces…
Finally, after hours and hours of trying to get my website to work, let alone look good, it is up online.
I spent quite a while with Dean ironing out the kinks in the webpage, and in the end it wasn’t perfect but I did the best I could so can’t complain.
If you want to take a look at it you can here
Sad Times….
I recieved an email on Friday notifying me that CNews has been axed. That’s right, no longer will you be witness to my fantastic talents every week on this blog. How sad.
Turns out our mate Johnno Brumby decided to cut most of his funding to Channel 31 so people have been made redundant and a couple of shows canned. No longer will young journalists be able to gain the skills necessary to even make it to regional TV, let alone commercial networks. This is a detriment to the media industry and should be stopped (or started…).
So I am going to Tasmania for the next two weeks to do some work with Southern Cross TV down there, then a week in Ballarat, and I guess after that I’ll try my hand at SYN FM a community radio station and do some news reading for them. If all else fails…perhaps I’ll just pick another degree and continue to be a uni bum!
An overview of Transient Spaces
This semester has absolutely flown by, I cannot believe we only have five months left before graduating! For the purposes of looking back and evaluating things, I thought I would write a blog about Transient Spaces.
The course has covered a number of issues surrounding new technology and the move from real space and time communication to what some might call ‘transient spaces’; online worlds where geographical location no longer matters and time differences have been reduced. This online world changes our lives, the way we communicate, the way business operates and the way we access information. No longer do we go to the library to find information, we ‘google it’. It is a significant step in the world when a brand name becomes a verb. Similar to ‘hoover it’ in the UK.
In the lectures each week we have learned about the issues and consequences surrounding networked media, and this has allowed us to become more inventive about developing innovative media in our own professional practice. The use of these blogs allow us to develop our online personality for both our professional and personal lives and also connects us all together as a class. Wha’t I have enjoyed most is recieving comments from people I haven’t even met, but may have searched for my blog or one of my tags. For example, I wrote a blog about my love hate relationship with ebay and another user wrote:
“Hi Elizabeth,
You’re exctly right about the setup of the Ebay website! So busy and frustrating! I was making a similar point about Amazon, but I’m not sure if their layout is a conscious effort to stimulate buyer-panic, or if it’s just what I think of as bad, old, American web design… I can’t understand why they don’t tidy these sites up, apart from the notion that they rake in the profits just as they are. D’you reckon you’d use the sites more (or spend more money) if they were cleaner?”
The most visited blog I have written is actually the task we did for our thesis subject on quantitative research. This was also the most searched term on my blog, showing that online users are looking for informative and thoughtful blogs as well as personal blogs from people we know. Many users use blogs as references (even though this is not widely accepted as an academic resource).
Specifically we have learnt to make a website, or rather, an online documentary. Overall more time was needed in learning the techniques and skills of all programs that we used. I have however, developed my network search skills and online literacy, as well as what makes a good website, which is vital in the predominantly online world of communications in the 21st century.
It has been great learning how to use Dreamweaver and the technical aspects that go into making all of the websites that we use to often. It is also important to understand the basics of coding, in case we ever need to fix a problem with a website.
So all in all I think Transient Spaces has been an informative course that will assist us in future careers no matter what we are trying to get in to.
C News 28 May 2008
This week’s C News update…I think I’m getting the blinking undercontrol! almost…
Sex Sells…
We had a little bit of a connection yesterday between our Communications Revolutions Class and our Transient Spaces class, which i found very interesting.
In comm rev we have gone through the ages starting with the invention of print up to the digital era we live in. This is where Transient Spaces comes in: the online world, virtual realities.
In our comm rev class we watched a video about the world of Second Life, the online world that hundreds of thousands of people live in. What interested me was the way that even on the internet, sex sells. The ideas of pornography and child sex were rife throughout Second Life and in reality there it not much they can do about it.
The founder of Second Life was interviewed and he was saying how much he didnt want to intervene or govern the world of Second Life, but they had recently made the first law which was to take off any advertisement selling child sex. In Second Life you may choose whatever ‘Avatar’ you would like to be, and this can be either sex. As an adult you can talk to children, invite them to your home, do anything with them really. So I want to know where the line is for behaviour on Second Life?
We have all seen the adds for sex predators on the internet and I believe Second Life is the perfect breeding ground for this kind of thing. According to the creators Amsterdam is one of the most popular locations to go to as an Avatar and you can go to brothels, strip clubs, do anything really. Even if you are a child.
I realise that the creators want Second Life to be sort of ‘for the people by the people’ where everyone can have an imput and everyone can have their own imagination, but I think its been proven in real life that if everyone can simply do whatever they please, its like a Pandora’s Box. Every freak and sicko will soon be on Second Life gaining their sexual pleasures from god knows what. But then again…perhaps its better than having them in real life?
Questions Questions Questions…
The predominant question my thesis seeks to answer is…
“How effective is the memorandum of agreement between the ABC and emergency services in Victoria and what can be done to improve this agreement?”
I’ll be exploring this question through a number of methods including focus groups, interviews and other data such as loss of lives, awards won etc etc.
Tomorrow I will be running a practice focus group with our class to prepare for my focus groups in Gippsland. I have prepared a running sheet and some activities to get people talking, but I still think it will be a bit hit and miss with this one as I’ve never run one before. At least this will help me see what I need to work on.
