I’ve spent allot of time thinking about issues relating to civil and technological liberties as well as the future implication of where we go from here.  One excellent discover this week has been BrainPrivacy’s collection of delicious stacks (lifestream 29.10.11, #2), which has produced much food for thought.  I’ve also been examining social networks in general and how they relate to this subject.  Facebook’s new Timeline feature (lifestream 29.10.11, #3) looks like a great way to share information, but still suffers from the same problems of data ownership and poor privacy inherent to the platform (lifestream 01.11.11, #3).  A telling example of this problem is the policy change put in place by the Ning network some years ago.  At its inception, Ning offered a free social networking service which could be branded and tailored as the user saw fit.  This popular service was the platform of choice for many small online groups however Ning changed its policy to include an ownership charge, thereby locking out many users  (including my local MargaretStreetMassive group (lifestream 01.11.11, #2)) and thus preventing them from being able to retrieve their data.

The rest of the week was devoted collating literature for the ethnographic study as well as commenting on other students work.  There have been some really interesting studies across a wide range of subjects, offering much to think about.  In short, a great week!

We’ve been discussing two films this week over twitter and in a synchtube session based loosely on the subject of digital culture.  But interestingly it seems that the dominant theme has been the idea of a digital space being a kind of alternate reality or other place that we go to.  The same is true of the many tweeted film nominations being suggested.  So do people think of digital culture as somehow unreal, or perhaps even escapist?  I think there is definitely an element of other-worldliness to the way in which we interact digitally, but for me at least, it’s not about the decorations in the room, but the people at the party and what they are saying to one another.  This motivated me to nominate a sample of the The Visions of Students Today project for our film festival (lifestream: 23.09.2011 #2).  Anything that Mike Wesch and his students produce is always fascinating, but VOST2011 seems like it will be particularly appropriate to this course, given the medium of sharing and the collaboration that is taking place.  From my personal perspective, a culture is nothing if it is not shared; indeed it can not even exist without some forms of interaction.  Experiencing something virtual on ones own is not a cultural event, but the sharing of that experience,  synchronously or asynchronously, in real time or after the fact is what makes it important.