week 8 five different academic articles dealing with the notion of young people's facility with the new world of converged media

Brereton, P. (2007) “The Consumption and use of DVDs And Their Add-Ons” “Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies” Vol. 13 (issue 2) pg 115-117

Alexander. J (2008) “Media Convergence” “Computers and Composition,” Vol. 25 (issue 1) pg 1-8,

Griffiths, M. and Light, B. “Social networking and Digital Gaming Media Concergence: consequences for Appropriation in Habbo Hotel” (2009) “Perspectives On The Gamer”, University of Bedford

Johanson, B. et al. (2008) “Debate: Will Web and television Converge?” University of Stanford

Theunert, H. and Wagner, U. “Childhood and Youth: How Adolescents Deal with Convergent Media” JFF- Institute for Media Research and Media Education, München, Germany

week 8 absract 1

Commercialization remains a key subject matter in the media, which in which cooperation’s make money on products has been a fascination of scholars and academics alike. This article focuses on the way cooperation’s are capitalizing on new technologies in this instance DVD’s. DVD’s can be seen as a remediation of the video cassette. The convergence of film and documentary means full length documentaries of how a movie was made, extended features and other added features are all merged into this format. Convergence of DVD and cinema means that the two mediums are no longer two separate distinct media in the sense that the viewer can obtain the same product at the cinema as well as at home. Is this new merge creating a positive or negative effect? This question is answered by looking at the use of such materials outside the home and in public spheres such as schools.

week 8 abstarct 2

The article deals with the convergence of the computer and television, the factors that make them individually separate and add on’s which could merge them into one alternating medium. As with all products cost is a key factor, the author poses questions as to whether this venture will be commercially viable a) for the manufacturers and b) for the customer. He analyses the steps to which this combined product would have to go through to be made outlining the feasibility of this converged product. Positive elements of this are outlined throughout the article and the author notes that in some sectors such as business such convergence is already in place but on a small scale the argument could go either way with the negatives adding up to just as much as the positives.

week 8 abstract 3

Convergence can be seen by most academics as a positive implement in society but in this article we see that this is not always the case. The authors use a big phenomenon within the circles of young adults which is social networking and digital gaming and identify the pit falls of combing these two forms together as seen in the Playstation. Does it provide an all rounded product or provide a more lacking product? A key point which is noted is that this could affect how such media are classified and given meaning as well as the problem of future generations not being able to distinguish the separate media embedded within the one technology. In this study they use the case study of the Hablo hotel which as invented in 2000 and outlines the positive and negative aspects of the site. The article paints a pessimistic picture of a converged but lacking society.

week 8 abstract 4

The subject of convergence is very much an age related topic with the younger digital natives most associated with it. Technological forms that were once available in one format such as television, have spread to more formats than ever before and with the study focusing on the niche 6-19 market the authors aim to seek out the beneficial facets of convergence. This study uses both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Analysis of various factors such as a age, gender, social and cultural backgrounds to obtain results from the children, by using different survey topics they broke down the research task into different sections to give a more accurate conclusion despite the study still being in progress.

week 8 abstract 5

Media convergence has been incorporated into everyday life for young people both for the educational and entertainment purposes. This article seeks to find out what methods are used and in what way, if they are effective and how they seek to replace the traditional with a new media way of thinking . new media is beneficial to those “Students fluent with digital and new media communication technologies...(whom are capable of) mixing and matching media to produce complex, multimodal, multimedia texts.” The key question still remains, what kind of literacy skills are students developing with the aid of convergence?

week 8 5 web pages dealing with dital immigration and digital natives

http://www.macinstruct.com/node/146

http://www.which.magazine.co.uk/easy_use_pc_guide.php?jchk=1&nolog=1&CMP=KNC-GOOGLE&HBX_PK=Jellyfish&HBX_OU=50&jtid=21003026&source_code=Y08EEJ

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-automatically-run-programs-when-windows-vista-starts.html

https://www.blogger.com/start

http://store.nike.com/index.jsp?cp=EUNS_KW_NS08_UK_Google_B&ref=http://www.google.co.uk&country=GB&lang_locale=en_GB#l=shop,nikeid

week 8 what is digital immigration prt 1

Digital immigration is a term used to describe people who have spent the majority of their childhood and teen years without digital technology such as computers and therefore are fairly new to the internet.
Within digital immigration there are a few terms that have been coined to describe different people within that community such as digital natives these are the opposite of digital immigrants. Our generation is to be one of the first generations of digital natives. Digital natives are those people that were born immersed in digital technology. These digital natives are thought of not needing instruction manuals to learn new programs instead they rely on technology to teach them how to use the program.
New terms are being coined within digital immigration such as “digital immigrant accept” this is the way in which a digital immigrant speaks online or for example the way they write or behave in front of computers which exposes their lack of ICT skills.

week 8 what is digital immigration? prt 2

This term was coined by Marc Prensky in his book “Digital Game based Learning”
“The digital immigrant accent includes going slowly, going step by step, and using outlines for organization, reading manuals, and going to the internet second rather than first. Digital natives find this accent and approach very hard to deal with”
Digital immigration is mostly focused on those of the older generation for whom technology is a new conquest, and those of whom obtaining technology difficult in obtaining such as those in less developed parts of the world. Thee people are usually looked down upon (or slightly ridiculed) by digital natives because of their lack of experience.

week 8 Article review part 1

Article 1
despite DVD’s taking over in the developed world, in less developed parts of the world VHS still pretty much the way to view movies after they have gone out of the cinema, the convergence of documentary and film is not yet observed in these parts of the world because the majority will still have the now considered primitive technology.

Article 2
In this article the author looks at the problems that the users would face with a converged product, this is a key problem that authors seem to make. They assume the reactions of the audience rather than conducting a study or presenting an argument that could go either way. In this article he poses the problems that the users would face from financial, mental and habitual difficulties however he doesn’t note the fact that we now live in a technologically advanced world and the majority of the population own a TV and a computer in their homes and the convergence both technologies would not (in my opinion) comes a major technological shock. New technologies are generally welcomed into society by younger generations such as seen by the launch of the I-Phone, which is a good example of how society is ready to accept two separate technologies and merge them to use as a single product.

Article 3
In this pessimistic article the author’s main concern is that with the convergence of technology future generations will not be able to distinguish different technologies as separate. This implies the dumbing down of the future generations, just as much as people can learn about new technology so can they about old. This can be seen with the first new media task that we were set of finding out about old computer programs. Another concern was that of fraud online. Such problems are being solved by websites introducing fraud control facilities onto the majority of social networking sites as well as warnings about the risks of online purchases.

week 8 Article review part 2

Article 4
My main concern with this article is that the study is only focused on 6-19 year olds; this puts limits in the study. People this age are still very much under the support and control of parents/guardians they regulate which and how much technology is allowed in the household and this is not universal amongst families and therefore the effects of this will vary since this is a relatively small study this will provide scattered results for the quantitative study.

Article 5
This article is concerned with the educational uses of converged media, especially how it teaches literacy skills, although it is not pessimistic it has a lot of questions of how the converged media will work and replace traditional methods of learning. Although we are heading into a technological future this does not mean that traditional educational implements will be abandoned, they very much work together. Books are being converged with other technologies such as sounds to make the learning experience better, and so we have evidence of convergence in practice already

week 8 Digital Divide Qs 3 part 1

1. This site is very up to date because it provides traditional teaching materials such as screen dumps on the site to show the user how to use the technology but also have other technologically advanced features such as podcasts and videos to further help the user to understand how to use certain features. These additional features are really good because the visual can give the user better step by step guide. The whole site is specifically designed to be simple for the user to use with out the use of digital jargon, the web page has a simple layout without which will make it easier for the user to use without the need of further help from experienced users ;)the content on the site is graded according to difficulty/usability so that the users know which features that they need or feel comfortable using which goes to really cater for digital immigrants. The site is always under constant review there is a new feature which includes a guide section where by more educational material will be featured, the issue of commercialization which will be spoken about in future posts still is there with additional upgrades to the existing material on the site.

2. this site deals with some of the major concerns of most digital immigrants, it offers online help as well as traditional paper based guide books again the layout of the site is basic with limited images which decreases the chance of the user getting lost on the site, the site not only deals with issues of digital immigration but other factors that might interest the user and urge them to practice and further develop their skills. However this site unlike the first one only features limited text informing the user of what products are available and what benefit they will give the user but in order for one to use them they have to subscribe to the site before viewing the material. The material seems to be limited to text and screen dumps unlike the first site which incorporated various media forms, another downfall for the site is that you cannot contact anyone if you have any questions or problems it seems to flow in a one directional way.

3. this site focuses on a range of topics but this particular pages deals with more complex questions that the digital immigrant might have it uses more native language however it is not too technical and the slightly experienced immigrant will be able to comprehend as to what is being discussed. The site up to date because it incorporates videos within the site as well as links to export the page to other sites as well as email the page to friends. At the bottom of the page there is facility to leave comments about what the user feels/ thinks about the site