ethics and user-generated content in mass media

The ever increasing use of user-generated content within Norwegian mass-media has led to a discussion of whether these contributions should be edited before they are published. However the board in the Norwegian Press Association decided to keep the previous approach to user-generated content in their recent revision of the Code of Ethics of the Norwegian Press (not yet updated according to the changes made 25th of November). Considering the sometimes overwhelming response from readers, this decision might be the only one which is practically possible (indicating the problem of believing in dialogical mass media). Still, according to the new code of ethics, editors have a responsibility for removing contributions that break with good press-ethics as soon as possible.

Touch Timo this Friday

Timo will be talking about "Personal and social use of mobile phones and RFID " here at Forskningsparken at 14.15 Friday 25th of November.

Timo’s research looks at practices around ubiquitous computing in urban space. At the moment his work focuses on the personal and social use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies, looking for potential interactions with objects and city spaces through mobile devices. Touch.

Room 202, Forskningsparken, Gaustadalleen 21. Anybody can come. Unfortunately I can't, as I'm off to the First European Communication Conference.

eight seconds

I realised that a photo alone wouldn't do justice to Menashe Kadishman's 'Shalechet' in the Jüdisches Museum in Berlin. So here's an eight-second audio-visual recording of me walking in the memory void.

art-illusion

Prada Marfa: is that a Prada store in the middle of the desert of far West Texas? I like art appearing as unthinkable reality.

Underskog

From Even's Log: Life and Times: 'For the past month or so I have been working on a social web application with Simen Skogsrud and Alexander Staubo. We're now in early alpha and the site is up on Underskog.no. Underskog is a social calendering service for cultural undergrowth in Oslo. It allows you to see what your friends and contacts are up to, recommend events to others and shamelessly promote your own happenings.'

I think it's so cool, and I believe a lot of people will think so too. When Even and Simen first told me about it, I sort of understood how it would function. Seeing how it actually works, I dare say that it has a lot of potential. I find the eloquent combination of social/cultural calender and friends-arena very attractive. Here's my underskog-profile. They have of course integrated flickr.

And then some people still claim mediated forms of communication is asocial and potentially supplanting face-to-face relations. Yeah right.

self and technology, moving targets

In 2005 people strive to be themselves online. Last millennium studies of role-playing and false identities in a detached cyberspace captured Internet life and users according to a context of reduced cues, bandwidth and number of users (and who users tended to be). Technology, users and ways of using communication technology have changed considerably. Online communication is mundane and part of ordinary everyday practices. Online self equals offline self - increased confidence and self-disclosure online does not change that. These claims are rather ordinary and the same as a number of studies, including my own, seem to indicate. As well as common sense, I guess. Role-playing and deliberately false presentations of self are still part of online life, but they are hardly dominating the scene.

I was going to criticize Rafaeli, Raban and Kalman 2005, but reading their work a little closer, I realise I'm not really going to. Initially I found it peculiar that they refer to studies of the self online that mainly concern fluid and false presentations of selves (in "Social cognition online" in Amichay-Hamburger (ed.) The social net. Human behavior in cyberspace - would you include 'cyberspace' in a book published in 2005?). This implies that their discussion of social cognition (i.e. "the sum of our perceptions of ourselves and others") online captures what probably was a pertinent description, but which is not the current state of affairs. They are however, critical to these studies, and they explicitly emphasize that the use and users of technology have changed. Hence I'm withdrawing my critique. But why are they not referring to how things have changed?

How do you research a moving target such as the constant appropriation of digital technologies? I guess my research results will be very dated a few years from now. Oh well, I'm satisfied as long as I'm able to analyse what is now.