QotW9: Stompin' Ground

“Citizen journalism, also known as participatory journalism, is the act of citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information” [Bowman & Willis, 2003]

If the above is how we should define Citizen Journalism, then I guess STOMP is indeed an example of it. In this website, for example, under the section “Singapore Seen”, they carry a slogan that goes, “You generate the contents, you write the reports, you take the photos, you shoot the videos”. This is indeed what Citizen Journalism is about. The public does the jobs of the journalists. The emphasis on “you”, referring to the public, being the ones providing the news, is a tell-tale characteristic.

“The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others.” [Citizen Journalism, 2007] This seems to be the key in Citizen Journalism: it comes from the general public or laymen who are not trained professionals. Most of the submissions of updates, news and podcasts available on STOMP are indeed submitted by this very category of people.

“What will happen when 10 average citizens aim their phones at the stars and zap the images they take to their friends or to websites? Still images are only the beginning; video cameras will be par of our phones soon enough. The paparazzi have better cameras and are better picture-takers, but the swarms of amateur paparazzi will satisfy most of the public’s insatiable hunger for news about their favourite celebrities. And for the people who live in the public eye, that eye will never blink when they’re outside of their homes.” [Gillmor, 2004]

Under the section “Stompcast” audio tracks of interviews or podcasts mainly concerning celebrities and popular figures can be found. A lot of latest news about celebrities is uploaded here and pretty much all of them are submissions made by the public, just like the above-mentioned scenario. We are now living in a “society of voyeurs and exhibitionists” and that “the mass is now the paparazzi”. [Gillmor, 2004]

Apart from being an example of how Citizen Journalism functions, STOMP seems to offer a little more than that. The website also provides a platform for an online community to be formed. Forums are set up and are categorized accordingly. Students can participate in the “campus chit-chat”, females can check out “the tai tai room”, health practitioners can share tips at “the gym”, NS men and regulars can share about their army experiences in “wake up your idea”, gourmets and food lovers can make recommendations in “foodie groupie”, music lovers can gather at “backstage”, and the list goes on. Hence, users are able to interact with people of similar interests, and in a lot of ways it can also work like a gift economy when ideas and tips are shared and helps are rendered to one another.

As to how STOMP can be improved, personally I think that maybe the contents can be further broadened. The way I see it, STOMP currently focuses on a lot of daily stuffs as well as entertainment related things. Other than that, what we get to see on STOMP is mostly sensational news. Perhaps more serious contents (i.e. grounds that newspapers would cover, such as sports news, politics, etc) can be added in, that way participation by the community may be maximized as well, although I think it would not be that easy as Singapore is pretty much notorious when it comes to censorship. With the reason move taken by the government anonymously looking into people’s blogs, freedom of speech is not very much left either. However, in order for one to participate in Citizen Journalism, it does not mean that we have to post radical or controversial contents. Hence, it would still be good for people to contribute more.


References:

Bowman, S., Willis, C. (2003) We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information. The Media Center at the American Press Institute. Retrieved March 30, 2007 from: http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/weblog.php

Gillmor, D. (July, 2004). We The Media: Grassroots Journalism by The People, for the People. Retrieved March 30, 2007 from: http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tipe=text/html

Citizen Journalism. (2007). Citizen Journalism. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved March 30, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism

Absence of The Sacred interviews and reviews

The latest interview with Focal Pro is up now! Click on the banner above to view it. We're also on the front cover of the latest issue of Aging Youth webzine. Click on the picture below to view it.

An album review has also been uploaded on Metal Archives website. More updates would be posted soon.

Beauty in Darkness...

I'm not that big a fan of Gackt. This guy's got one hell of a killer voice but material wise I'm not very much into his stuff. When it comes to Japanese music I have lots of other preferences, but there's just something that I have to give it to Gackt: his stage presence is heavenly (yes, I actually used that word. Not something that comes out of me very often, and that says a lot!). Watch it yourself, you'll know what I'm talking about.

QotW7: Twitter - Online Community?

What makes up a community? It mostly refers to a sociological group in a large place or collection of people (or other organisms) sharing an environment. [Community, 2007] Judging from such an explanation or definition, does Twitter fit into these criteria? Seems like it does. In Twitter, people are linked to one another sharing an environment, in this case, the networking site itself. Most of the time people are linked to one another based on a similar interest, or any other things that they have in common. In my case, for instance, the people under my Twitter friend list are all BAC students of UB-SIM. That is our similarity.

How Twitter functions is also similar to what we know as Reputation Management, which is the “process of tracking an entity’s actions and other entities’ opinions about those actions; reporting on those actions and opinions; and reacting to that report creating a feedback loop”. [Reputation Management, 2007] What we do in Twitter is basically telling others what we are doing, and others would express their opinions and react to these messages as well, and then we might react to their reactions, hence, forming a cycle.

Fernback and Thompson mentioned in their article that “the structural process that is associated with community is communication. Without communication there can be no action to organize social relations. The intimate nature of this relationship is best illustrated in the words community and communications”. [Frenback & Thompson, 1995] In other words, communication is the key, which is basically what Twitter is all about. Twitter fits in this very description almost literally, as all that we do up there is to tell others what we are doing, describing it in WORDS. And then people respond accordingly: COMMUNICATION. Although Twitter may not have functions as elaborate as compared to Friendster or MySpace, it does serve a very similar purpose when it comes to social interaction and virtual interpersonal relationships. It is pretty much an online community in its own right.

There is a general understanding that in an ideal community, people are supposed to be getting along well with one another, and even help one another whenever needed. Here is a case-study of how people have actually helped one another through Twitter: A guy had lost his wallet and then made a Twitter post about his wallet being missing. The person who found his wallet happened to see his Twitter post about it and because of that, he was able to return the missing wallet to its rightful owner. [Mike, 2007] This may not be a common case that happens everyday, but it does prove a point; that Twitter functions just like a normal community, to the point that someone’s lost item can actually be found through it instead of having to rely on the authorities who would probably take much longer to solve the matter without any guarantee that the item can be found intact as it is.

Now that we have looked at Twitter using the above-mentioned descriptions and definitions, as well as the case study of the anecdotal experience by some users, we can very well sum up that Twitter is indeed an online community.




References:

Fernback J., Thompson B. (May 1995). Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure? retrieved March 15, 2007 from http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.html

Reputation Management. (2007). Reputation Management. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved March 15, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_management

Community. (2007). Community. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved March 15, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community

Mike (March 12, 2007). Release - Lost and Found. Retrieved March 15, 2007, from http://perpetualbeta.com/release/archives/2007/03/12/lost-and-found/

QotW6 Bonus Mission #1: RJC revisited

"Someday a stranger will read your e-mail, rummage through your instant messages without your permission or scan the Web sites you’ve visited — maybe even find out that you read this story...You might be spied in a lingerie store by a secret camera or traced using a computer chip in your car, your clothes or your skin...Perhaps someone will casually glance through your credit card purchases or cell phone bills, or a political consultant might select you for special attention based on personal data purchased from a vendor...In fact, it’s likely some of these things have already happened to you...Who would watch you without your permission? It might be a spouse, a girlfriend, a marketing company, a boss, a cop or a criminal. Whoever it is, they will see you in a way you never intended to be seen — the 21st century equivalent of being caught naked." [Sullivan, 2006]

A lot of you would have seen this video, or at least heard of the incident that happened back in 2003. A student of Raffles Junior College from PRC was scolded in front of everyone in class, and the tutor made snide remarks at him, went on ticking him off while tearing off his assignment piece by piece. A fellow student "could not take it lying down" (that was what he was quoted to have said in the newspaper, sorry this is an old news and I was unable to find the article itself. Apparently this new got so big it was on the front cover of Home section of The Straits Times) and recorded this footage using his camera phone, and then he posted the video online. Within days, it was circulated all over the country, all students of other JCs know about it, and then the higher-ups of RJC finally got their hands on it as well. This student was later expelled from the college, while the tutor was sent for counseling and made to attend stress-management sessions (if I am not mistaken, do correct me if I'm wrong).

This marks the start of this whole topic of privacy invasion and unethical use of electronic gadgets in Singapore. The government grew concerned about it so much so that such gadgets are banned in all Army premises, and that anyone caught with it would be severly dealt with. In schools and colleges, this issue has since become a hot topic of discussion and examination questions for 'A' Levels General Papers are actually set to this as well. There is basically two sides to this: the first group of people would feel that this is unjustifiable and that voyeurism of such nature should be eliminated. One the other side, a lot of people agree that there is a lot of things in this society that people are turning a blind eye at, and that the best way to create more public awareness of all these problems and to get them eliminated is by taking footages of things like these (e.g. undesirable behaviors in public, or abuse of authority, etc etc. Remember the video made by a guy about the traffic warden parking their bikes on the double yellow line?). All big problems start small after all.

Personally, I feel that Sousveillance is fine as long as it is being exercised with restraint. One must know where to draw the line. Your friends may have done silly things that are funny and then get them recorded in the video, and they may like the footage themselves. But the joke can turn really sour when they see it up online. Things that are meant to remain within the cirlce, should remain in the circle. The best way to do this is to seek permission from the involved party whenever possible. Otherwise, be as tactful and discreet as possible.

Being discreet when in public will definitely help one defend against violation of privacy. Be careful with important things, do things swiftly, be protective but be natural about it. The human nature is one such that people get attracted or become curious about something that is different from themselves. I am not asking everyone to be clones, by all means be yourself. But that is the whole point: be yourself, nothing more, nothing less. It disgusts me when I see people who purposely dress up and then throw glares to others who look at them in any particular manner. If you want to be different, you should have expected this kind of attention coming from others and that it should not bother you. In the first place, the very fact that you dress in a particular way that is different from others means you are making a statement and you want people to notice it. People who are "self-expressive" and still complain about the attention they are getting are either putting on an act, or they are just seeking for MORE attention. Ironic? haha! More coming your way!

Man cannot destroy what he did not create. Privacy is something that we all can create, and hence, destroy. Everyday a new gadget is being invented, new better models are being manufactured. Phones with sharper pixels and video functions with higher resolutions are constantly being released into the market. Sizes of these gadgets are shrinking significantly as well, and are much easier to hide; very convenient for the "eagles" who can now scout for preys better. And guess what? Chances are that very same bunch of people who made so much ruckus and whine the loudest about issues concerning violation of privacy would be the first one to rush down the IT stores to get these latest gadgets before anyone else does, and after having done so they would go around flaunting it, and then continue whining again when something happens. That said, all these talks about violation of privacy is actually nothing but a self-inflicted cause-and-effect cycle, and who is to blame for this? I think the answer is more than just obvious.

Referemces:

Sullivan, B. (October 17, 2006). "Privacy Lost: Does Anyone Care?". Retrieved on March 10, 2007 from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/print/1/displaymode/1098/

QotW5: of heroes, villains, and wannabes...

Back in the old days, people are known as who and what they are. Probably only comic superheroes have alter-egos and double identities. Apparently that whole DC comic revolution has taken over the whole world. Today, everyone is Clarke Kent, Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker when they’re offline.

The Internet has far affected the way humans live today, to the extent of letting people become what they otherwise would not be able to. Hiding behind their monitors and keyboards, online identity is created, constructed, and altered by the users whichever way they want it. Once an online identity is forged, it becomes unique to its own in the sense that people recognize that particular identity like how we would recognize individuals in real world. Adoption of pseudonyms for emails, IM and forums will always have to go through authorization to avoid different people using the same “name”. Thus, user IDs became their names, email addresses became their home addresses, and their identity, something they want the world to know them as.

Identity plays a key role in virtual communities. In communication, which is the primary activity, knowing the identity of those with whom you communicate is essential for understanding and evaluating an interaction. Yet in the disembodied world of the virtual community, identity is also ambiguous. Many of the basic cues about personality and social role we are accustomed to in the physical world are absent. [Donath, 1999] This makes it hard for people to tell if that person we are interacting with is really who and what he/she claims to be. While not everyone treats the internet as a form of escapism and see no point in lying about oneself, tons of others do just that. In the physical world there is an inherent unity to the self, for the body provides a compelling and convenient definition of identity… Though the self may be complex and mutable over time and circumstance, the body provides a stabilizing anchor. [Donath, 1999] With every identity comes a certain reputation, and in cases whereby physical manifestation does not exist, it is easy to create one. For example, apart from old folks who are totally foreign towards technology (and much less about the blogosphere), who else in Singapore does not know Xia Xue? In cyberspace, reputations can be easily made due to the high transfer of information. [Online Reputation, 2007] People who are actively involved in blogging and posting on forums will be recognized by other viewers for certain reasons, and they are often associated to the things they talk about. The more they talk about something, the more people associate them with that particular topic, and hence, reputation formed. As popularity increases, reputation tends to go up with it as there is tendency that recommendations towards that particular online entity would be made among viewers.

The very term "identity theft" is an oxymoron. Identity is not a possession that can be acquired or lost; it's not a thing at all. Someone's identity is the one thing about a person that cannot be stolen. The real crime here is fraud; more specifically, impersonation leading to fraud. [Schneier, 2005] The fact that online identity is so easy to assume poses a lot of problems for users. The fact that users with reputations be it in blogs, Friendster or MySpace will inevitably leak out very detailed personal information just do not help the situation. It is already very common today in social networking websites for people who are not so good-looking (no offence meant to anyone) themselves go around stealing other people’s pictures and putting them up on their own profiles, after which they will alter their personal particulars accordingly as well. When people who know the victims in person see this other profile with their photos on them, that is when the cat is out of the bag. In prevention to this problem, a lot of blog sites as well as social networking sites have stepped up security in attempt to protect their users. People can limit viewership by changing their account settings, i.e. to make it only viewable to selective individuals. But even this is not entirely secure as a lot of trust need to be placed upon the selective individuals, and trust is something that can be easily misused. Moreover, stealing of identity does not necessarily mean having to create a fake account. People who are capable enough can simply hack into the original accounts and make it their own. Just recently there have been people going around MySpace taking over people’s accounts, after which they forward vulgar messages to all the people in that account’s friends list. The administrator himself, Tom, has no other solutions for users but to try changing passwords from time to time.[Tom, 2006] Hence, as we can see, not only that the danger still exists, it is still pretty much a big issue to be dealt with.

Online identity has since empowered humans in many ways, but in the same manner it has handicapped us for the fact that it is very vulnerable. Moderation in how we use it is hence still the best possible solution in order for it to work for us, and not against us.



References:

Donath, J. M. (1996, Nov 12). Identity and deception in the virtual community. Retrieved February 22, 2007, from Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community Web site: http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html

Online Reputation. (2007). Online Reputation. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved February 22, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_reputation

Schneier, Bruce (2005, April 15). Schneier on Security. Retrieved February 22, 2007, from Schneier on Security: Mitigating Identity Theft Web site: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/04/mitigating_iden.html

Tom (2006, October 19). Bulletins that you didn't post?. Retrieved February 22, 2007, from MySpace blog: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=6221&MyToken=67b4335a-c8ba-435d-bb7d-e9969592d7c4ML

QotW4: The Gift of Giving

It is amazing how, in this utterly selfish dog-eat-dog world of endless war, we can still find selfless individuals who are more than willing to share not only what they have, but also help you find what you want. That was exactly what ran through my mind the first time I started using Kerrazy Torrents.


Kerrazy Torrents does not work like any other Bit Torrent websites. Firstly, it operates as a forum in which trackers can put up the link to their torrents, and then the forum can be used to discuss anything related to the torrent itself, as well as other topics to be discussed, for example, requesting of other torrent files of similar nature. People can also post comments about what they think of the posted materials, whether they like it or not, or even do a short review for people to see. Secondly, unlike in other websites whereby torrent files are posted by people who downloaded them from others, the files posted on Kerrazy Torrents are often first hand. Trackers actually go out and BUY the music legally, rip them and share it to people requested for them on the forums at absolutely no cost at all! All these trackers ask for is for people to show their appreciation by saying “thank you” after each download in the forum itself. That was all that they ask for. Of course they would be more than happy if anyone out there can help them find what they could not, and wanted to have. Otherwise, it is alright for them as they do this out of their own willingness, and they do not expect anything in return at all. On top of it all, most of these trackers not only upload music on CD format which is very easy, they also convert Cassette Tapes as well as Vinyls into mp3 format. Very often these releases are extremely rare stuff that are no longer available in the market, and has since become collector’s items that could very well amount to hundreds and even thousands of dollars should they be auctioned on eBay or Yahoo! Auction. Downloaders know this fact very well, and this in turn triggers reciprocity. They want to contribute what they can to this community as well. For those who have what others are looking for, they try to upload those stuffs for these people. Most of them give priority to trackers who have been uploading a lot of stuff as a form of paying back their kindness. As for others who do not really have anything to offer, they simply leave their torrents active for as long as they can. Some would even leave their computers on for 24 hours and reseed all the torrents to other downloaders when trackers are no longer able to do so. To add on to how "Kerrazy" these providers and trackers can get, they do not only post their torrent files on Kerrazy Torrents alone! They also share it with users at other torrent websites, Rockbox being the most affiliated one. It is absolutely remarkable to me, going to such lengths just to help everyone out.


Sounds very much like a gift economy? It IS definitely one. Characteristically, providers of services here do not expect anything in return, or rather, have no guarantee that their service would be reciprocated. This is in line with the definition of a gift economy, which is an economic system in which the prevalent mode of exchange is for goods and services to be given without explicit agreement upon a quid pro quo. [Wikipedia, 2007] As mentioned by Lewis Hyde in his book, whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away not kept. Or, if it is kept, something of similar value should move in its stead… The gift may be given back to its original donor, but this is not essential… The only essential is this: the gift must always move. [Hyde, 1983] This is basically what happens in most filesharing system, the downloaded files are always on the move, distributed from one to another. Apart from reciprocity, this is also one of the motivations behind seeders at Kerrazy Torrents for seeding the torrent files: to keep it moving.


The relative or absolute anonymity of the recipient makes it all the more remarkable that individuals volunteer valuable information – one cannot realistically count on the reciprocity of the recipient in the future to balance the gift that has occurred. While a balanced reciprocity with a particular individual may not be possible, there is a sense in which a balance might occur within a group as a whole. [Kollock, 1999] This is also what runs behind Kerrazy Torrents. Other users who were initially just receiving passively soon realized what they have been taking for granted, and this in turn creates a sense of guilt for not reciprocating the favour in them. They then feel the urge to contribute something back to the community and become trackers themselves as well or at least act as seeders for other people. As more people are doing this, the give-and-take flow soon becomes a cycle, where almost everyone is contributing in some way or another. Of course not everyone will do this, there will always be those bunch of freeloaders who will just take everything and not give back anything in return. As Peter Kollock himself has put it, this system of sharing is both more generous and riskier than traditional gift exchange. It is more generous because an individual provides a benefit without the expectation of immediate reciprocation, but this is also the source of risk. There is the temptation is to gather valuable information and advice without contributing anything back. [Kollock, 1999]


Thus, in conclusion, as suggested by the different sources used as well as my own analysis, I am sure many will agree with me that Kerrazy Torrents is definitely an ideal example of a gift economy and how it functions as one.






References

Gift Economy. (2007, February 4). Gift Economy. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved February 10, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy#_note-mustmove

Hyde L. (1983) The Gift. Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. New York: Random House; 1983.

Kollock, P. (1999). The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace. Retreived on February 10, 2007 from http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm