ETHNOGRAPHY: PHONE OBSERVATION

Ethnography project from twinklez

FILE SHARING/ PRIVACY. SHOULD WE DO IT? IS IT FAIR?

File sharing and privacy has been a debate that I have agreed to disagree about constantly. By law file sharing is illegal the only exceptions are if you want to use someone else’s work to criticism, cite, remix, or comment.

In the context of music because the issue of file sharing music is very much an issue I am trying to battle because morally and ethically file sharing is not fair on an aspiring artist who wants to claim money on music that belongs to them, but some user decide to either download music or in the case of some films use uTorrent websites like pirate bay that cause some cash loss to the film makers.

On the other hand here are two scenarios:

A.     If the new Beyonce album came out on ITunes instead of purchasing the album I decide to just simply go on a website were I can download the songs for free

B.     If I have purchased and listened to the new Beyonce album and I know my friend likes beyonce but before purchasing she/he would like to listen to a sample of some of the songs. Thus I send the music to the friend to sample and she eventually purchases the album

Both of the scenarios are illegal as scenario A is showing an illegal act of downloading from a website for free without purchasing the album. Similarly scenario B is also showing an Illegal act as although it is some type of direct marketing which could evidently help gain revenue for the album it is still seen as file sharing which is again illegal.

In the cases of films people that use uTorrent websites they do create cash loss but that is probably like a small fraction compared to how much profit they make. For example, Game Of Thrones spent about 60 million on the first series and they made a vast amount more.

 However it is not ethically right to then try and earn money off websites that people use to download music/ films for free. Websites such as, Pirate Bay have earned millions for file sharing which is not right and for that reason that is why there is a law about sharing.

In hindsight not everyone earns money from it and quite a lot of people share files, even though the law is in place many people do not feel scared against the consequences of a virus or the law because out of the millions that do it that who really gets punished?

CAMPAIGN BASED ON STUDENT FEES AND THE ROLE OF THE INTERNET

CAMPAIGN BASED ON STUDENT FEES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HXak0zKJp4

In this YouTube video Nick Clegg apologizes for his betrayal especially towards students who are now left having to pay £9,000 a year to study at university. Before the general election the liberal democrats had declared that they would not follow the positions that the other political party had taken to raise student tuition fees. However, why would we believe the liberal democrats would have our best interest and take a stance against the rise in fees? But they did not!

Most people in general are disappointed with Nick Clegg; he’s broken a promise that he should have never made. Even his party issued a response:

‘We shouldn’t have committed to a leader who was so costly to our image when there was so much goodwill around. There’s no easy way to say this: we put forward a leader who fooled many of us too – and for that we are sorry.’  (Huffington Post, UK. By Andrea Mann. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/21/nick-clegg-liberal-democrats-apology-spoof-news_n_1902633.html) (Accessed on 13/03/2014)

Even though I do not believe In Political parties because in my opinion they lie and cheat just to make it to the top. And to be quite frank Nick Clegg has done that and added caution to the fan with his video because his party felt that they chose the wrong leader who could not keep their word.

Really what did Nick Clegg think was going to happen after he gave his apology?

Well I can tell you… by time the video came out there were many videos posted on YouTube after his apology mocking Nick Clegg. Many people had made rebuttals on how they had felt and composed songs that caused laugher for days.

This why I love the Internet, and the freedoms we have to post and say how we feel on videos and blogs. The creation of the Internet has come so far because now there are different mediums and platforms of media that allow us to express our feelings and thoughts and find information. Nick Clegg’s apology received almost 70,000 views on YouTube.

In our campaign, we decided to create awareness of our views about student fees. Looking at some research many others, students as well as teachers campaigning for the reduction of student fees have shown the importance of unity with many people coming together for one cause nonetheless they have received brutal force from the police in many places. Most of theses videos have been shown on YouTube recorded on people phones and cameras showing how normal people have become reporters and the creation of user-generated content has spread.

With all the uses of technology it has really shown how important the campaign for student fees is. The harsh reality is Nick Clegg made an “unrealistic” promise to us, some may say that those who believed (not including myself) were foolish to an extent to believe. But as much as I do not want to believe it in the economy we are living in it was inevitable, that student fees would go up.

STUDENT FEES CAMPAIGN

ISSUES BASED ON SURVEILLANCE- OUR PRIVACY/ OUR RIGHTS

I see someone looking through my personal information on my laptop and through some personal information I have left near my computer but I do not say anything.

In reality I would, probably slap that person or want to kill them because they have no right to look through my information.

BUT

Everyday we are being watched, everyday we go on social networking sites and sites that we love purchasing clothes or books from and give up our information freely without knowing the true harm that is involved.

The question that is so hard to answer is how important is surveillance and has it gone to far.

In a group we as a group made a Pecha Kucha based on surveillance that takes place on social networking as well as looking at mass surveillance in general. Firstly, focusing on social networking sites , being a person that uses Twitter and occasionally Facebook the information I found out as a fellow user made me feel very uneasy. Because, I am aware that the information that I display about myself can be viewed by the general public; however knowing that my information could be sold to corporate leaders through the owners of social networking sites should be classified as a invasion of privacy.

Is this age that we live in today the selling of information  is not classified as stealing?

Conversely some companies and social networking sites could argue that the reason they take our information is because of collective intelligence.  Which is quite helpful for us as consumers who for example want to buy products on Amazon or eBay the information collected by these companies help our search, But that the only good that can come from it.

When companies collect our information on social networks not recognizing or should I say not caring that Online social networking sites are meant to be out of individual desire or pleasure additionally allowing the users new ways of constructing identity, meeting friends and colleagues. Not only is this disrupting our privacy but moral right to have freedom that is being taken away from users everyday.

Correspondingly surveillance may have to bypass our moral rights to provide safety for us. For example, when we are at the airport there are numerous amounts of checks just for the safety of the country and general public. So without these checks and the enhanced technology used to provide security and safety to people, security risks such as, the 9/11 and other terrorist attacks may put us in danger. 

It could be said that we as users of the Internet spy on each other day (users of what). We are virtual peeping Toms who love to see what is happening in other people’s lives.  Michel Foucault discusses the idea of the panopticon in the context of the surveillance in prisons, in the case of the 21^st century that we live today. It could be construed that we live in a digital panopticon. The ideas of David Lyons and Zygmunt Bauman stated that we live in “liquid society”. Both these theorists convey that the panopticon is no longer just a CCTV camera or doisers files but the modern society of surveillance is consumed in gathering information through social networking and loyalty cards etc. Nonetheless, we are dissolved into different forms of surveillance with RFIDS, mobile phones, biometric scanners and fingerprint and face recognitions to access of phones.

Some people do not notice the CCTV cameras or what they do or present on the Internet about themselves. Others do and are offended but in my opinion surveillance is a required technology in the country but has outstretched its boundaries in many different circumstances.

PECHA KUCHA PRESENTATION

MY PECHA KUCHA PRESENTATION IS BASED ON MASS SURVEILLANCE AND ON TRACKING AND SURVEILLANCE ON SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

PYSCHOGEOGRAPHY PROJECT REVIEW

In the beginning the idea of this pyschogeography sounded quite bizarre especially as some other people took this project to different heights, such as rolling dice and picking what country to go to based upon the actions of a stranger. Especially as I like to know where I am going, which is why when my group and I did this project I was intrigued as to whether this pyschogeography project could really take me on a journey to areas that I have not previously explored.

 Because to be honest coming from a place like London to a small city such as Leicester I believed that there was nothing more that I could have seen. That may sound very closed minded but my daily routine was made up of going from university to my house and the city center and occasionally the big Tesco on Braunstone Road and that’s as far as I go.

 To start our journey we used rock/paper/ scissors to find which way to go either it be left, right or straight. Then the next step was to then start using fortune-tellers, by asking some people questions according to their memories and their likes and dislikes etc.

 For example: “Where is the best place to get dessert”? The person said “ Nandos”

 And that is where we went. At first I just felt like I had gone to some places that I have seen but on this journey I actually started to notice the graffiti in some places, I learnt different routes to take to get to some of the places I had originally known. Also being new to Leicester it helped me learn some of the names of the roads. Best of all it gave me a different perspective on Leicester and Leicester locals. It showed how Leicester is not as small as I thought. Also I noticed that it is great to have a small town because it builds a great community, which, Leicester has.