Digital Divide

“Instead of fixating on the existence of a divide, it would be far better to focus our attention on the ‘global digital opportunity’, because that is what really confronts us today – an unprecedented opportunity to move swiftly up the path towards global digital development.”

The digital divide debate is another important factor in the new media, one of which is hard to establish what is really is, and how to solve the problems of the divide. The basic definition of the digital divide is the difference between those who have access to digital tools, such as the internet and those who don’t.

Not knowing much about the digital divide, and the solutions people have tried to come up with, I read an article by Nick Couldry. This gave me much more knowledge on the divide; and I was able to then think about situations I have encountered concerning the digital divide.

I realised there are two different types of divide; the global divide and the social divide. Global refers to how many people in the area have access to phone lines, modems etc and the total amount of internet users, whereas the social divide is how people differ in the way use and access the internet.

The social divide, I feel, is the most important factor of the divide. There are many different ways for why people use the internet, and this would need to be researched in depth to actually be able to say that what the difference and divide is. Mentioned in Couldry’s article, this matter is questioned. They say that there are two types of users of the internet; heavy and light. When measuring digital divide, these two weights are given the same weighting (as they have got some access to the internet). However, the two measures shouldn’t be the same, as the reasons for why they are using the internet are completely different, especially in rich and diverse nations. If they are trying to solve the problem, I think that they need to do much more research into this to try and come up with a solution.

“Recent research suggests that young people and adults live in fundamentally different media environments, using communications technologies in different ways.”

This helps support that there is a difference in how people are using digital tools and the internet in different ways. There are many reasons for this difference though I feel. I have grown up in a very technological culture, which has allowed me to adapt to new technologies much quicker and easier than my grandparents, as they did not grow up surrounded by technology. This causes them to struggle more to use the tools available, as they cannot comprehend the advance in equipment. Couldry’s article mentions that a gap could be due to the lack of support for technical difficulties with a computer or software, which adds to my views about age being a factor.

The digital divide, especially the social divide, I think is going to remain a constant issue for new media; as there are too many reasons for why there is the difference, and it would be very hard to stop. However, the global divide could be helped by supporting less developed countries gain access to the internet or similar.

Couldry, N. (2000) ‘The Digital Divide’ in Gauntlett, D. & Horsley, R (eds) Web. Studies (second edition), London: Arnold.

Jenkins, H. (2006) Eight Traits of the New Media Landscape [WWW] Available from: http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/11/eight_traits_of_the_new_media.html (accessed 16/10/09)

Copyright

As the internet is developing at a very quick pace, there are some issues which are occurring on a very regular basis, with many of these being negative. One of the major issues is Copyright. It is very easy to bypass copyright laws, as there are many ways to copy peoples work, or download material without being caught by anyone. The internet makes this very easy to do so, because it is very easy to set yourself as anonymous, so illegal acts can take place with little worry, if any! Breach of copyright laws includes downloading music, films or other media files without paying for them or having permission to do so. Other copyright which occurs through the internet is plagiarism, which is taking someone else’s work and putting it across as your own; without referencing it. All these acts are illegal to do, and could have serious consequences…you just have to get caught doing it (which is pretty easy to get away with!)

To try and understand copyright a little better, we produced a presentation about a certain area of copyright. There were three topics to do; which were

1. In defence of copyright – the publishers position

2. Copyright and Participatory culture

3. Solutions?

The first group’s topic was about why copyright is important and why is it necessary. They also discussed what problems the internet causes for publishers, and what breach of copyrights there were. Their presentation gave the rest of the group a more in depth understanding about copyright and how important it is to have copyright laws, but also how easy it is to get away with it.

The second groups presentation expanded on the copyright laws, and explained what problems copyright create for participatory culture. It also went on to argue and explain changes in the laws due to the problems that keep on occurring.

The group I was in discussed the solutions of copyright. This was interesting to do, because it allowed us to get an insight into how to stop the problem, and showed us that they are trying to stop people from breaking the law and breaching copyright laws. We looked into what solutions they have come up with and how successful these solutions have been.

A good and clever solution of Peer-to-Peer networks is using decoy files, which do not have the full or actual file in which they believe they are downloading/transferring. The full presentation can be found below, which has all the solutions to copyright on.

Copyright powerpoint

View more presentations from kerrybennellick.

Even though there are many solutions in place now, I do not think that it is going to rule out copyright, or even come close to doing so. The internet in advancing at a much quicker pace than the solutions are coming into effect, meaning there is always going to be another way to get around the laws and solutions put in place for copyright.

Even though looking at the solution was good and enabled us to see what is in place to try and stop people at the moment, it also allowed us to know how to get around the copyright laws too, as we now know how to avoid some of the solutions put into place!

Langford, D., (2000) Internet Ethics Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd.

Campaign Video

As the internet is growing and developing very quickly, more and more ideas and thoughts are being put across via the internet, as it is a very useful source in which many people use. A lot of people like to express themselves through different means of the Internet. There are many different methods in doing so, including blogs and social network sites, for example Twitter. Another way in which this can be done is using YouTube, which is a way of ‘broadcasting yourself.’ These allow people to express their ideas and emotions in an anonymous way if they wish to do so, which enables them to say what they want without the worry of being judged by peers.

A new way in which ideas are being expressed on the internet is to create a short campaign video, about a topic which you feel very strongly about. It is a quick and easy method to put across a deep meaningful message. These can be posted on a vast variety of websites, especially YouTube.

We decided to have a go at these ourselves, to see how easy and effective campaign videos on the internet are. Firstly, we had a look at previous videos which were already on the Internet, to get a flavour of what we had to do, and to see if there were any issues which had not been addressed.

By looking at the videos on the following website, we found that most of them were about 1-3 minutes long. Because the videos were quite short, it kept the viewers attention for the whole time. Many of the campaigns were humorous, and used props to engage with the viewers. This also helps the viewer to remember the campaign, and hopefully encourage them to do something about the issue.

We decided to make our campaign on animal testing, as we found not many had already been made. We looked on the Internet to see what companies test on animals, and were quite shocked to read some of the names; such as MaxFactor, Johnsons and Johnsons and Pantene all test their products on animals!

For our campaign video, we decided to use two soft toys; a monkey and a rabbit. We made the video quite funny, to try and attract people to watch it. We wrote the script from the perspective of the two animals, to try and capture the innocence of the animals used for testing.

Once we finished our campaign video, we uploaded it to YouTube to try and get people to watch the video, and to see if it would help anyone act on the issue.

By experiencing creating the campaign video myself, I think they are a very good idea, and can be very effective if they are pushed across enough, and the Internet is definitely a great place to be doing this. The videos were fun to create, and we also got a deeper insight into the topic from doing so.

Hopefully now the video is on YouTube, and on a blog, more people will watch it and want to help animals who are being tested on!