Enter World: exploring mediated cultures

Social media and emergencies

2010-08-15T14:37:53Z

The Red Cross released results from an online survey about social media use in emergencies and disasters (PDF report from August 5, 2010). In addition to social media as a top source for emergency information, 74% expected that if they posted a call for help to Twitter or Facebook emergency responders would arrive within an hour.

Social media as a news source is a natural progression from getting relevant news from family and friends, word of mouth. It comes in behind tv, radio and online news—which are actually still sources for the links to news stories shared via social media. In addition, participants were likely to post first-hand information on disasters such as floods, crimes, accidents, and people in need of help. Another area is the ability to directly connect with organizations and sign up for specific alerts from news services, getting their updates integrated with other posts. One of the most useful features I’ve found is weather alerts. When I’m not tuned in to a broadcast medium I am still alerted to things like tornado warnings through text messages. Very useful.

But will help come if you post to social media? If Red Cross is studying the medium and sharing these results, it may be a growing area. With over $5,000,000 raised for Haiti through text messages, it only makes sense to use the connection for mutual benefit. An Emergency Social Data Summit this month brought together relevant groups to explore how to respond to digital requests for help.

If Comcast can monitor social media and provide better service to those who tweet about outages, why wouldn’t emergency services? If Foursquare can use GPS locations in mobile devices to show friends where you are, why not use that to direct emergency responses or track disaster updates? If power is down and phone lines are bombarded following a disaster, why not tap SMS to send out information about resources, shelter,medical services, evacuation routes, road closures, and where gas is available? Half of the survey respondents said they would sign up for these alerts.

But the big question right now is: How often do agencies check their Facebook pages or their email for updates? 69% of survey participants said response agencies should regularly monitor their websites and social media and respond promptly. (That expectation jumps to 74% for those aged 18-34.) Will Facebook and Twitter need to be constantly scanned by dispatch? With 35% of respondents saying they would post a request for help to an agency’s Facebook page, I’m expecting to start seeing the doctor’s office message in print on many Facebook walls. “If this is a true medical emergency, call 911.”

Will this then transfer to non-emergency services as well? I have long hoped for a way to text message or even email local police with non-emergency information. There are things, like abandoned cars, that I think they might want to know about but that are constantly put off when I think of being put on hold.

The summit has an ongoing blog and a wiki containing all of the information from the summit.

What do you think about this? Would you expect help to arrive if you posted to Facebook or Twitter—direct messages or public posts?

In with the new

2009-12-08T20:55:53Z

Photo by Mary Beth Miller Photography

But when I saw the announcement in my email for a new media psychology program at the University of Michigan, I wanted to share it. The press release is below. I love seeing new opportunities and expanding programs in the field.

University of Michigan
Department of Communication Studies PhD Program
MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY SPECIALTY

The media psychology concentration of the PhD Program in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Michigan blends theory and research in communication studies and social, cognitive, and developmental psychology. Our goal is to train students to understand and investigate how media affect individuals? thinking, emotions, and behaviors and how these in turn shape the experiences that individuals have with the mass media.
Faculty research interests are wide-ranging with regards to media (we study TV, movies, videogames, social networking, “new” media, print, and more) and variables of interest, including aggression, health behavior, self and identity (including race, gender, sexuality), and well-being. A list of the core faculty in the sub program is below.

In addition to courses in the Department of Communication Studies, students will have the opportunity to take relevant graduate courses in other departments, including Michigan’s Psychology Department and School of Public Health. The faculty also have close ties to the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research (ISR), where graduate students can contribute to research being conducted in, for example, the Aggression Research and Health and Media Research groups.

Course of Study

The PhD program in Communication Studies at Michigan is designed to take 5 years to complete, and students are generally provided with 5 years of financial support including support for the summer between their first and second years. Required courses are minimized and are completed in the first two years of graduate school in order to allow students to focus on individualized research programs as early as possible. Students generally pass their preliminary exams and reach candidacy at the end of their second year and focus on research and elective courses in their remaining years.

A typical program of study for the first 2 years for a student majoring in Media Psychology might be:

Year 1 FALL TERM
Comm 781(3hr)- Research Methods: Qualitative Emphasis
Comm 775(3hr)- Media Theory in the Humanities Tradition
Comm 698(2hr)- Planning for First Year Research Project
Psych 613(4hr)- Statistics 1
Communication Studies Weekly Colloquium (no credit)

Year 1 WINTER TERM
Comm 783(4hr)- Research Methods: Quantitative Emphasis
Comm 776(3hr)- Media Theory in the Social Science Tradition
Comm 699(2hr)- First Year Research Project Work
Comm 993(1hr)- Pedagogy Seminar (if appointed as GSI)
Communication Studies Weekly Colloquium (no credit)

Year 1 SPRING-SUMMER TER
First Year Project Research

Year 2 FALL TERM
Comm 810(3hr)- Media Psychology
Psych 682(3hr)- Advanced Social Psychology
Comm 8xx(3hr)- Special topics in communication studies
Comm 990 (2hr)- Directed pre-dissertation research
Communication Studies Weekly Colloquium (no credit)

Year 2 WINTER TERM
Comm 8xx(3hr)- Special topics in media psychology
Elective (3hr)- Special topics in comm studies or outside course
Psych 614(4hr)- Advanced Statistics II
Comm 990(2hr)- Directed research
Communication Studies Weekly Colloquium (no credit)

Questions regarding the Media Psychology program may be directed to the department’s graduate coordinator, or to any of the faculty listed below.

Faculty
Brad Bushman, Professor of Communication Studies and Psychology and Research Professor in ISR; bbushman@umich.edu, http://www.sitemaker.umich.edu/brad.bushman/home
Sonya Dal Cin, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology, and Faculty Associate in ISR, sdalcin@umich.edu, http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sdalcin/
Dara Greenwood, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology, and Faculty Associate in ISR, dgreenwd@umich.edu, http://sitemaker.umich.edu/dgreenwood
Rowell Huesmann, Professor of Communication Studies and Psychology, and Research Professor in ISR, huesmann@umich.edu, http://www.rcgd.isr.umich.edu/aggr/personnelprofiles/huesmann.html
Russell Neuman, Professor of Communication Studies, Adjunct Professor of Sociology, and Research Professor in ISR, rneuman@umich.edu, http://www.wrneuman.com/

Facial Recognition at the DMV

2009-10-14T18:18:55Z

The explanation I recall was something along the lines of running facial recognition on my photograph to make sure I didn’t have any other IDs out there in other states, or under other names in this state. It looks like the technology is going even further, with the FBI using DMV photos to scan for fugitives.

This is all good and beneficial, so long as we can call upon the Coke-Zero Facial Profiler application to point out our “digital doubles” if we are falsely identified—right?

Ruin Porn, Art vs. Journalism, and Braddock

2009-10-05T12:40:42Z

Ruin porn also seems to include sounds bites, or repetitive-becoming-stereotypical concepts, associated with towns. But I’m at odds with the overarching concept that there is an innate conflict between art and journalism or that art can better inform people about places than journalism. I’m a fan of both when they are strong, and I’d argue that both are needed and can even work together.

Braddock’s most popularly photographed (for news articles) houses awaiting demolition.

It seems like the post covers media more than art, although it decries media as the problem. What art is making people think differently about these towns? A provided link out to an article about an artist in Buffalo is certainly interesting. It’s worth noting that it’s a news article we’re reading about art, we’re not seeing the actual art. The work sounds like an interpretive documentary of space, I’d love to see it and hear the oral history of one of the former workers. But where is the difference in cropping of place between this artist who came to live in Buffalo with her mother and daughter while she worked on the project and heavily integrated her ideas of motherhood and mortality into the work based on her experience? Is that really so different from a journalist’s portrayal of a community based on limited and personal experience? Russel argues that journalists don’t accurately portray communities and it’s not possible for photojournalists to fully capture a community. The difference may be that the artist in Buffalo was commissioned for a three week residency to work on her project. Could more long-term, investigative journalism compete? (That begs a whole slew of new questions about not only the future of journalism but reader interest, attention spans, agenda setting ...)

And then the clip from a journalist that Russel even describes as creating a very powerful image is likened to art rather than allowing it to be (perhaps for a change) good journalism. I have no qualms about criticizing journalism, but I also think art -like journalism- depends on the creator. There are good and bad in both. I’m also not sure how a journalist going to the location a popular photograph was taken, noticing the surroundings, and reporting on it is "unintentional art" rather than reporting. This journalist uncovered ruin porn at its finest, pointing out how others overlooked the environment around them to concentrate on shooting the expected view and leaving it at that.

Russel’s concluding paragraph really sets my mind spinning: "Art can challenge these assumptions and allow us to see the world in a new way. As for journalists, all the positive or fair stories in the world won’t do much to change our perspective. The onus is on the reader. Passive consumption of media is the problem, not the cropping of pictures."

Maybe it’s my background in media, maybe it’s my belief that people are not all as helpless and ignorant as stereotypes supporting censorship and labeling want us to believe ... but I don’t think I’m the only one who questions media portrayals. In fact, I think a lot more about the background and implications of media that I read/see/hear than I do about (most) art if only because it is so overwhelmingly present in daily life.

I know the purpose of artists in many cases is to challenge assumptions—but the art alone does not always do that. In a museum you have information cards explaining things, headsets with additional information, and a curator who set up a display of pieces that work together to feed into a concept. Is that the art Russel is talking about? We need museum exhibits about small, struggling towns to provide broad interpretations of community so that we can better understand the wholeness of the towns? Or are these insightful artists more like the ones Mayor Fetterman, also critiqued in the post, is supporting throughout Braddock while they work on public and private art projects? Does every artist have the ability to communicate their opinions to those viewing the art? Is that even the point of art, or is it more about the variety of interpretations possible? And then what about the Obscurae show ... in a way it was intentional concentration on ruin porn, abstracted pieces of Braddock highlighting the overlooked details without attempting to explore or explain the entire community. Does the intention of showing a different side of a stereotyped community through the eyes of many artists put that in the category of art or journalistic ruin porn?

As for the question of whether Fetterman, as a white Harvard grad, is a legitimate spokesperson for Braddock ... at least he lives here. He’s been here since 2001, that’s a lot longer than a three week art project. Fetterman may have his flaws and he may not be the stereotypical poster boy of the Braddock community, but shouldn’t building community be about involving everyone in a community rather than creating divisions by age, race, socioeconomic status, length of residence, or education? Speaking out for Braddock is certainly not one of Fetterman’s flaws. He insists he didn’t go looking for the press coverage that has come swarming down upon him, and he’s doing what he can from within the town rather than from an outside perspective. He’s sharing his reality and trying to include the interests and perspectives of multiple facets of community. I think that’s fair.

Crowdsourcing Funding for Art

2009-09-21T21:39:21Z

Similar to spot.us and sellaband, comes Kickstarter. Rather than limiting projects to a niche, however, Kickstarter lets members imagine any project they can and propose it to the world. Everything from writing books or clearing out storage space to starting a wedding chapel have been successfully funded through their platform. Browsing through the open projects you’ll see lots of novels, collaborative projects, and music recordings.

My own passions tend to lean toward photography, and there are plenty of those to flip through as well. Right now there is even a Pittsburgh photographer raising funds to develop an unmanned aerial vehicle able to capture photos of some local historic abandoned sites from above.

Long story short, I am a big fan of the crowdsource funding movement and even more excited that a friend of mine is trying it out as a way to support his already planned, 3-month photographic journey around Thailand and Southeast Asia.

He’s an amazing photographer exploring the interaction of sacred places with modern urban settings. Kickstarter offers a way to support his work and benefit by receiving prints of his photographs.

It’s also fun to browse through all of the other unique and creative ideas out there that are finding a voice through Kickstarter.

Be carfeul what you tweet

2009-08-31T16:32:25Z

Using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count text analysis and the Regressive Imagery Dictionary Dan Zarrella designed TweetPsych to do just that. His blog post introducing the concept, and the beta site itself, explain that users who participate in Twitter conversationally rather than using it for content distribution will receive more insightful results. Despite my account being somewhat information oriented and in the 500-tweet range (1,000 or more tweets also return better results), I ran the posts through to see what I’d get.

The summary showed my highest score in Cognitive Content / Time followed by Primordial, Conceptual and Emotional Content / Temporal References and Abstract thought. My tweets also highlight the past tense and cognitive processes like learning, thinking, knowing, etc.

Furthering the applicability of TweetPsych, Zarrella’s post today introduces characteristic rankings showing a list of the top 20 users in categories including anxiety, oral fixation, and social processes.

Despite the disclaimer that it’s for entertainment purposes only, there is something about this concept that feels off to me. I can’t tell yet if it has more to do with sectioning off aspects of identity when using different social media tools (as in revealing a different component of yourself to Twitter than, say, to MySapce, and different still from Flickr) ... or if it’s because the analysis was approached from a social media marketing standpoint.

The Project: Collective vision revealing hidden beauty in rustbelt town supports community projects

2009-08-26T18:24:15Z

Setting up Obscurae 2008: Photographer Mary Beth Miller, curator jodi morrison, and Braddock local Dana Bishop-Root adjust a photo before the exhibition opens.

Braddock, Pennsylvania, has a haunting beauty that draws in photographers. From those who live in nearby Pittsburgh to travelers from around the world, something about this town grabs their attention and reveals itself in their visions.

Within these photographs there is a bridge between how the small town appears to daily commuters and what lies beneath. Beneath the abandoned buildings we find brilliant colors seeping into rough, rusted metal. Green vines, weeds, and moss overtake broken remnants of what was left behind.

This divide between the view of Braddock from a distance and the beautiful details captured by photographers sparked inspiration for me and two friends: We decided to bring the enthusiasm full circle by displaying the photographs of 28 artists featuring obscure, intriguing details of Braddock in a fundraising photo lottery to support community and artistic projects in the town that has inspired so much creative vision.

Transformations: Bringing this blog out of hibernation

2009-08-26T18:10:51Z

So I’m going back to my roots on this blog and figuring out where that takes me. Interviews and social media will probably spring up more often.

I’ve been exploring community, not as in place or neighborhood but in regard to interpersonal bonds that form around interaction in groups leading to shared experiences and drives. There’s an academic side to it all that I’ve been burying my head in as I suss out my dissertation—but there’s also a practical side that involves some of the most vivid people I’ve ever met. It’s those people and those groups that I want to refocus on.

Why do I have that silly photo of Emilita Bambina in this entry? Because I want to look like that when I’m updating this site ... she’s my inspiration.

The Greatest Cookbook of Them All

2009-08-24T17:48:30Z

So I began my search for pudding recipes as I do all my cooking experiments: online. Pulling up about 20 different versions and getting a feel for ingredients and method.

Cookbooks are great. In fact I love flipping through cookbooks. But they all suffer the same crucial flaw: only one recipe per dish. (Maybe not all, I did recently see a cookbook that promised 50 grilled cheese recipes. But then it suffers having only one dish.)

When I’m searching for online recipes I’m looking for something I can make now with ingredients (and kitchen equipment) already in my cupboards. Combining the local and the universal creates the option of immediacy. I don’t need to go shopping for ingredients, because there are always substitutions to be found. Another benefit to having the world at my fingertips: malleability of ingredients.

This convergence of local and universal access hits home weekly when I dig into my CSA (community supported agriculture) box. This year I am fairly familiar with the local produce, but last year there were some surprises in there. For instance, I had no idea what to do with kohlrabi. After researching what it is and how it can be eaten, I discovered that I like it. Now I grow it in my garden.

The 2009 Digital Future Project report showed that 80% of Americans are now online, and of those 15% participate in online communities. The most popular communities are related to hobbies and social causes. I have yet to join a cooking community, maybe because it’s not one of my more active or social hobbies, but I definitely benefit from the social networking of others who enjoy cooking. From blog posts detailing cooking successes and failures to comments and ratings below recipes with suggestions to improve the dishes, my seat as a lurker is panning out well.

Pay on the go

2009-07-25T13:51:54Z

http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/ / CC BY 2.0

While Afric Xpress, and other similar services throughout Africa, offers seemingly limitless ability to pay bills, shop, send funds to individuals, and more ... The emerging option here is still centered on having a bank account. Exciting no less…

PayPal opening its platform up to developers is a big step in this development. Twitpay, formerly powered by Amazon Payments, has moved to using PayPal Adaptive Payments. Twitpay lets you buy or sell items through the simplicity of text messaging. At the Twitpay site you can text funds directly to someone, but at RT2buy the options expand from personal payments to include delivering content, promotions, and fund raising.

What does this mean?

It means small-scale transactions are now more mobile ... no pun intended, though it’s fitting.

Selling something on Etsy, but have a large following on Twitter? Sell directly on Twitter too, skipping that required step of moving to another site.

The beauty of Twitter has always been its malleability of form. While you may be sitting at your computer updating your status, I can be out and about with my mobile phone and still receive your messages, respond to them, forward them ... and now buy the media content you’ve posted, the tickets to your event, or support your cause. All from my phone. Or vice versa, it can happen in any combination. Maybe while I’m out I find a great wave of inspiration to promote Obscurae tickets and run a special on them using Twitter—I can post that with my mobile and you can respond from the web, an application, or your mobile.

It’s a great computer-optional social connection that now allows for commerce connections within the social network and beyond.

Social aggregation tools improving even with speed bumps

2009-07-10T13:36:23Z

It’s curious that the Power.com logo still has a Facebook petal (or fan blade?) even though it is notably missing from the login options.

Could be a sign that they are hopeful to regain access, useful to their case, or just an oversight.

All that aside, it seems like Power.com is yet another improvement in applications to network the networks. From one page you can read messages, updates, profiles, and look at albums plus access all of your contacts from across social networks.

They’ve also added chat and a radio. I’m a huge fan of online radio. When I’m working is about the only time I sit and listen for an extended time and being exposed to Pandora‘s selection has introduced me to some great musicians over the years. I also love being able to listen to KXLL in Juneau for all their great shows. It’s an alluring concept to integrate an international radio show with a social network hub. It could lead to longer time spent logged into the network hub on top of providing background music while catching up on social news.

The main limitation I see in Power.com right now is the concentration on specific big name sites. You can only integrate Twitter, LinkedIn, Orkut, MySpace, Hi5, Flogão and VoteMe. Of these options I have two accounts and regularly use one, so there isn’t much incentive to consolidate at this point. While it’s understandable that integrating each network requires coding (that can apparently cause lawsuits), my ideal social aggregator would function more like NetNewsWire does for information feeds.

Community Supported Investigative Blogging

2009-04-22T17:22:10Z

The phenomenal initial success collecting individual donations, with a goal of reaching $150,000 to fund three full time positions, is being spread through Tweets. The amount raised went up over $200 in the few minutes since I started writing this post.

Last year I wrote about Spot.us starting a community funded reporting site that is now active. The difference between a site devoted to funding journalism and an online news site asking for funding for an existing investigative reporter is that the people donating to Spot.us will be motivated by funding reporting and may want to spread around the funds they can donate, while the Firedoglake readers are already familiar with the reporter and have been benefiting from free reporting up to this call for help.

Compare over $19,000 in one day of donations at Firedoglake to most articles having a few hundred raised on Spot.us. There is also a huge difference in the amount being asked for—on Spot.us the total needed seems to range from a couple hundred to a couple thousand and is not meant to support three full-time positions. The goals are different, the environments are different—but the reader support is a binding thread and something that holds promise for the future of media.

The Migration Away From Computers

2009-03-18T13:34:50Z

Social Networks

Online social networks are offering ways to connect with contacts outside of their websites. Google’s Gmail and Yahoo! Messenger both have features allowing chat messages to be sent to cell phones. There are also a number of free Facebook applications allowing users within Facebook to send messages out to cell phones. There is also an application aptly named Chat To Text that offers a paid service connecting a range of social networks with cell phone text messaging.

The technology isn’t new, there have been free web services sending text messages to cell phones for years. What is different is the ability to connect a larger group that may not have otherwise shared personal contact information such as a phone number, allowing social networking connections to move beyond the computer.

Information Access

Another area that is expanding through text messaging is access to information. Google is a prime example here. By sending a text to 466453 (Google) you can ask for information found in their features including directions, definitions, and even conversions offered in the calculator. I’ve been taken to the wrong location by my GPS (I just love when it tells me to turn into someone’s driveway as if it’s a street) and turned to text message directions to get back on the road, headed in the right direction.

Photo Sharing

Along with text messaging and calling, cell phones have all sorts of bells and whistles. Photos are one, with many phones now able to take decent digital photos. Unfortunately some phones don’t offer easy access to the stored files. Services like Pikchur.com come in here, offering a personalized email address to send photos to through MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) as opposed to SMS (Short Message Service). Not only does this enable moving the photos off of the phone, but these sites also form networks of people sharing content and provide the option to simultaneously post to multiple networks.

Overall, we’re moving away from the need for a computer and Internet access to connect to networks that were originally formed online. Other countries may be far ahead of the States in cell phone features, but we’re getting there.

Breaking Tweets

2009-03-15T14:50:05Z

I’ve been fascinated with Twitter because of the user control it offers, but the amount of micro blog entries can be overwhelming. There is so much potential ... but how to weed through all of the information?

Today I discovered Breaking Tweets. I like the format: an introduction at the top of the pieces summarizing the topic followed by a list of related tweets. The tweets link to the posters’ twitter pages, allowing you to follow up in more detail, but also provide an easy to follow overview of personal perspectives.

It won’t replace TweetDeck‘s ability to follow specific topics of interest nor will it replace local news tweets ... but it does provide a new angle to international news that you might not otherwise stumble across in Twitter.

The Blame Game

2009-03-07T16:45:27Z

According to Recession Psychology 101* in today’s Dallas News, psychology blames the media: bad news = feeling bad = spending less.

The media defends itself ("Thing is, Friday’s job report number really was awful. We’re not trying to ruin your weekend") and blames the Internet ("It’s the Internet – not necessarily journalists – that’s allowed bad economic news to ricochet around the world faster than ever before, Steele said.")

This seems pretty standard to me. Back in December the Pew Research Center released the Psychology Of Bad Times survey report suggesting just this psychological cycle of worry leading to cutbacks leading to further economic troubles. The effects tradition in the social sciences has concentrated on what media does to people, and new media is afraid of old media. Nothing new here.

The article concludes with a psychologist who suggests turning off the evening news so we don’t need to worry about what doesn’t affect our daily lives. But in this cycle of economic woes (I’m going with the flow here) won’t that lead advertisers to stop buying spots on the evening news to cut costs because no one is watching any more, thus leading to less funding for news shows and causing the collapse of news media?

As oddly amusing as all of this circling is, we can’t blame (only) the media for the culture of fear we all participate in and create. Our society looks at faults and problems. The media looks at faults and problems. It goes far deeper than than the media, but then how could things change if something that was “really awful” was not the most important fact to tell the world?

*The headline has been edited to: Barrage of bad news can get in your head, affect judgment