So it’s Friday the first of June 2007 and I have completed my first ever subject at University

The Blogs… 

Although it was a prerequisite subject, it turned out to be my favorite. I really enjoyed doing the blogs every week as I’m the type of person never to start something new and innovative like that purely because I don’t know how to – even though the whole process is relatively easy. This is probably due to the fact that the tutorials had a carefree ambiance with one on one tutoring which I think is essential to improving technological skills. Blogs are also so important to Journalists as it is a way to practice your writing and publish it to the world in an easy carefree way. I think I might even start my own personal blog to post thoughts about life or maybe even see if I can write things that will attract an audience. 

I think what would have been a good idea in relation to these blogs would have been to investigate the popularity of certain subjects. Like in addition to the tutorials, have another section where we talk about celebrities, love, sport or politics and see if more people post  comments or view the blog. I think this would be a fascinating reflection of the common interests of people in society. It would also be really applicable to Journalism as Journalism is essentially writing for people to read and thus it’s important to appeal to the masses.  

The lectures…

Well a two hour lecture is never going to be the most fascinating however I think New Communication Technology had a pretty good go of it. I found the theories a little dull just because I couldn’t really see the point of some of them but I guess at the time  of their creation, they would have been innovative. Conversely there were times when I was intrigued by the theoretical aspects of the course. One being the exploration of the Enigma code. Maybe it was because it wasn’t just a theory but rather something that was applied to real life … in this case, WWII. Perhaps that could be a way to improve the subject in the future, that being to apply these theories to everyday life.   Additionally I really enjoyed the movies we watched each week. I found them all to be thoroughly enjoyable, especially as they are not my first choice at a movie store and hence I was introduced to a whole new film genre. The first few movies were a little full on though (La Jetee and Aphaville) and perhaps it would have been better to leave them to the end of the course. I have to admit I didn’t like watching these two films but after they had finished I realized that they were meaningful and intriguing. Maybe a short segment at the end of each viewing would have been good so that the students understood everything that had happened in the movie or understood the objective of watching it. 

Conclusion…

Well that’s my brief summary of the course; I don’t think there’s much else to touch upon. So I guess its all over. I’ve done the test and I admit I found it to be a bit ambiguous. Some questions had clear specific answers and I think a few were rather vague (but I guess that’s to be expected in a multiple choice exam). My biggest failure is that I didn’t learn enough about the certain theories and who proposed the ideas. Just want to say thanks to the tutor Jules for answering my rather obvious questions in class.

I believe there is a digital divide when it come to this topic and there are major issues surrounding it like whether people have access to the internet. Furthermore i don’t think online democracy can be achieved. This is because governments can read every stroke we write on the internet if they want to…so where are the elements of democracy in this case???

one of the interesting things i thought the lecture incorporated was surrounding the issue of censorship and that… 

 The Net interprets censorship as

    damage and routes around it.

John Gilmore

I suppose i can relate to this quote to an extent if they mean that by cutting out certain parts of material, we are making the whole subject, less democratic. 

But everything seems to be censored these days. Every thing is regulated and controlled. And thus I can’t really see how they could stop censorship. And if they did…wouldnt we have more offensive material on the internet??? Don’t we already have enough of these materials without warranting the existence of more???

So i guess in reality, although I can see where this quote is coming from, I do not agree with it entirely.

Anyway, continueing on…

again we were brought back to the idea of time travel, and important aspect of new communication technologies as time travel seems  to be a metaphor with our relationship between us and new communication technologies. It also link in with our weeks topic of learning on politics as time travel really does bring up political issues.  if we travel, what would be the reality of the world we travel into?

The practicalities of time travel lead me to think about the grandfather paradox. E.g What if we went back and killed our grandfather before the time when we had been conceived. Then he wouldnt exist and thus we would never have been conceived and in turn, we wouldnt have been able to go back through time and kill our grandfather, so he’d still be alive – hence a paradox.

Furthermore the metaphor between travelling through time and new communications is evident as theres a period between the invention of a new communication technology and the regulation and control.  This is a period when technologies are available for alternative uses before regulation and control.

e.g radio…before it was popularised people could listen to foreign countries radio stations.

on an alternative note…:

WE discussed hacking and the fact that the citizen hacker is doing global democracy, opening up opportunities. That hackers are not necessarily bad like the connotations of the word suggest.

But when you think about it, arent we all hackers? Every time we approach a computer, we are using our hacking skills, especially when doing something new.

To highlight hackers in a context that relates to modern society, we watched ‘primer’ an independant American movie. i won’t say much about it in this blog as i will have a more clear idea and overview of the tilm next week when we  have watched it more.

cheerrio world

  

Technology and war have always played a large part in human history dating back to ancient times. Furthermore “the nature of the modern world has been brought into sharper focus as a result of the First World War and over developments in the next two decades” (Ward. K 1989 p133). An analysis of the Enigma code, the ‘space age’ and the origins of the internet will highlight this intrinsic relationship between the growing military-industrial complex and new technologies to exemplify that war creates new technologies

Just as world war one created the new-fangled technologies of machine guns, artillery, gas grenades, transportation, communications, planes and naval units, world war two inspired the building for the first computer. This aligns with the argument put forward by Hirst and Harrison that “The dialect of war unleashes both terrible destruction and enormous investment in new technologies by combatant nations” (Hirst. M, Harrison. J 2007, p202). To overcome the trepidations of wartime communications the Germans invented an ingenious appliance, an Enigma machine which was a mechanical device used to encrypt clandestine combat messages by the German military. Its technological mechanisms were extremely complex and pioneering, deeming impossible to crack. According to Dr. A. Ray Miller, “additional refinements to the machine during the war increased its complexity to 65 592 937 459 144 468 297 405 473 480 371 753 615 896 841 298 988 710 328 553 805 190 043 271 168 000 000 different possibilities (Dr. A. Ray Miller. 2006 p1). Subsequently the opposition was forced to create a machine to combat the complexities of the enigma where the most advanced and creative forms of mathematical and technological knowledge were combined. This was ultimately achieved by Alan Turing who created a gigantic machine called the Colossus which helped decipher complex intercepted Enigma messages which checked five thousand characters per second as they eventually realized that every message included an eight character prefix and they determined how it worked to create a key (Essortment 2002 p1). Although ‘Colossus’ was not like a modern computer, the key idea of storing programs and instructions in memory was Turing’s (Copeland, Proudfoot 2004 p1) thus proving that the general purpose of a computer was possible and simple. In 1945, Turing released a revolutionary design for an electronically stored computer program. It was the start of a new era that would change mankind’s lives forever as the computer is one of the most used technologies in the 21^st century. Therefore this clearly illustrates that war has created new technologies with the first computer being formulated to combat the enigma machine, a machine that has also impacted on many security and coding machines in the modern world. Even once the Second World War had passed, its shadow continued to generate new technologies.

.In the cold war after WWII, the United States felt threatened by the ominous technological superiority of the USSR where their subsequent rivalry and fear of attack caused numerous new technologies to be invented. During WWII the creation of a few distinct technologies led directly to the advent of the space age. Radar technology developed in Great Britain was an essential piece as it allowed the tracking and telemetry capability needed to launch and track a rocket. Arguably the most important of these technologies was the V-2 rocket in Germany which was a terroristic weapon of war that could fly to the edge of space hence providing the scientific knowledge necessary to launch the ‘space race’ (Hirst. M,Harrison. J 2007, p203). Additionally “this missile was the basis for the design of all other missiles after the war” (John F. Graham, 1995 p1). History changed on October 4, 1957, when theSoviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite. On November 3 the Soviets struck again when Sputnik II was launched with its cargo including a dog (Garber 2007 p1). America felt threatened where according to the BBC on that day “There have already been calls for an immediate review of US defences, given the implications of the technological leap ahead by a political enemy” (BBC news 1957 p1) as theoretically, the USSR could launch bombs into space and drop them down anywhere on earth. Subsequently immediately after the launch of Sputnik, the U.S. Defense department responded to the political rivalry by funding another U.S. satellite project launching ‘explorer 1’. This clearly exemplifies that while the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the US’s need for technological superiority which was fundamentally achieved when the United States landed on the moon in 1969, one of the most incredible triumphs of mankind and in technology. Although they had been victorious in the ‘space race’ the US were wary of countries with technological superiority and thus created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) which led to the construction of the internet.

The internet traces its origins back to the Defense Department with the aim of the project to enhance wartime digital communications. “The US military was particularly concerned about the effects of a nuclear attack on their communications infrastructure, because if they couldn’t communicate, they wouldn’t be able to regroup or respond, thereby making the threat of a first strike by the Soviet Union more likely” (DARPA over the Years 1997 p1). An evaluation of the telephone system was exemplified to possess major problems in its design due to its dependence on switching stations that could be targeted during an attack” (An Internet Encyclopedia unknown p1). To reach their aims, the ARPA established an Information Processing Techniques Office with authorization to build a survivable computer network to interconnect main computers around America (DARPA over the Years 1997 p1). This initiative led to the development of the ARPANET then to the NSFNET and to the Internet we know today which has exploded in popularity in recent years. The internet has become a vast wealth of knowledge and information where its users are virtually unlimited in this multi billion dollar industry. In this notional space, one can press a few computer keys and surf the internet delving into a stratosphere of seemingly infinite knowledge. This is clearly justified by Watson who states “From a sitting position we can talk to, and interact with, the world” (Watson. J 2003 p231). Its a source of news, facts, a communication tool; a way to bank, shop and an entertainment medium that is boundless (NetSafeKids 2003 p1). This highlights that the internet is one of the most phenomenally important and illimitable technologies in the modern world and was originally built to facilitate wartime needs hence aligning with the hypothesis that war creates new technologies. 

It has been established that many essential and new technologies arise from war. The Enigma code, an advanced piece of technology in its own right influencing modern forms of security inspired Turing whose work was fundamental in the theoretical foundations of computer science. During the cold war in Russia, America felt threatened by
USSR’s technological upper hand, forcing their country to invest in technology resulting in the major achievement of landing on the moon. Additionally the most widespread, popular and groundbreaking technology used in the modern world, the internet, was created due to wartime requirements. In conclusion these points undoubtedly coalesce to confirm that war creates new technologies and that the rise of the modern world has been through a lens of warfare.

Bibliography

Websites

NetSafeKids –National Academy of Sciences (2003) The internet today. http://www.nap.edu/netsafekids/internet.html (Accessed 20^th April)

 An Internet Encyclopedia (unknown) Internet History. http://www.freesoft.org/CIE/Topics/57.htm. (Accessed 20^th April) 

DARPA Over the years (1997) DARPA / ARPA –Defense / Advanced Research Project Agency. http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_darpa.htm (Accessed 20^th April) 

Garber. S (2007) NASA History Web Curator. http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/ (accessed 4th April)

Dr. Miler.A (2006)The Cryptographic Mathematics of Enigma http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00004.cfm (accessed 4th April 2007)

Essortment (2002) The enigma code machine http://ilil.essortment.com/secretenigmaco_rqzc.htm (accessed 4th April)

Graham. J (1995) CHAPTER 9: POST WAR FEATS AND FIGHTS http://www.space.edu/projects/book/chapter9.html (accessed 4th April) 

Reference articles/Journals/books

Copeland. J, Proudfoot. D (2004) Alan Turing, Codebreaker and Computer Pioneer. http://www.alanturing.net/turing_archive/pages/Reference%20Articles/codebreaker.html (accessed 20th April)

BBC News (1957) On this day http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/4/newsid_2685000/2685115.stm (Accessed may 1st)

Watson. J (2003) Media Communication. An Introduction to Theory and Process. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN: Hampshire

Ward. K (1989) Mass Communications and the Modern World. MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD: Hampshire

Davies, Edward J. (2006) The United States in World History. Taylor & Francis Ltd:Hoboken

Hirst. M, Harrison. J (2007) Communication and New media from Broadcast to Narrowcast.Oxford University Press.Oxford

To be honest after my first few attempts at getting into ‘Active worlds’ – the game, I totally gave up. I found the idea quite stupid really. I mean why use one of these programs when you can use something as simple as msn or even myspace. In msn you know who you are talking to and the features are as easy as the ‘abc’ – or maybe that’s just because I spend so much time on it.

And if you do want to meet strangers, you can always add people to your myspace.

Perhaps I’ll give this whole thing another go in a few years time. For now though I’m just not ready for it. I spend way too much time on my computer already without adding internet fieldtrips to my list of daily necessities.

Maybe its something for the next generation…

In the second part of the lecture, we began watching the movie that didn’t work in last week’s lecture theatre. It was called ‘ExistenZ and is a science fiction horror film that is a highly interesting exploration into the games industry and the possibilities for the future. Although we didn’t get to see much of the film, it was obviously another futuristic film revolving around technology. Like most of these films, this one was again connoting the idea that technology is not a very good thing as it can change the lives of people in a negative way. The thing I found weird about the film was that although it was obviously futuristic and advanced, it seemed really normal in terms of the cars, what the people were wearing, how they talked and what they were doing with their lives. I found this to oppose parts of the film as in one section they are driving along a common road in a country lane in a fairly oldish car, then Jude Law’s phone rings and it is some weird and wonderful piece of technology with tracking devices and the like.

However despite these obvious mishaps, I found the beginning of the film highly engaging and hope that we will watch more of it in future weeks. It was certainly appropriate to our learning of games and the concept of it as a second reality, or just an extension of the real world as the film made us think that there was no difference between reality and game.

To find a good overall review of this movie visit    -

 http://www.amazon.ca/eXistenZ-Widescreen-David-Cronenberg/dp/product-description/B00000K31V