Joining Forces (text post)

By now, I have hopefully established the fact that print media has something distinct to offer the media landscape.  Print media produces a certain level of legitimacy and tangible community, in a manner that the internet simply can not.  We can, therefore, conclude that, while citizen journalism and student media are based upon the same underlying tenants, the former does not threaten the existence or power of the latter.

It is undeniable, though, that the internet can play a powerful role in complimenting its print counterpart.  In my last video blog, Pelican reader Thomas Reynolds asserted, “I think there’s definitely value in Pelican having online accessibility, even though its true form is the printed.”

To conclude this series of blogs, I am going to discuss the critical position between “community space” in virtual communities and commercial exploitation. As I have highlighted online communities aiding people in the arts, it is important to discuss how the commercialisation of the Internet affects these communities.

Karnataka is one of the four southern states of India. The state has three principal geographical zones: the coastal region of Karavali, the hilly Malnad region comprising the Western Ghats and the Bayaluseeme region comprising the plains of the plateau. This episode consists of mainly four places, water falls of western ghats, highest point in Karnataka called the Mullayanagiri hills in Chikmagalur district which has an altitude of 1,929 metres (6,329 ft) ,thirdly om beach which is one of the longest and cleanest beach in asia and finally Kemmanagundi.

The Western Ghats (Sahyadri Mountains) are a mountain range in the west of peninsular India. They run north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, and separate the plateau from a narrow coastal plain along the Arabian Sea. About sixty percent of the Western Ghats are located in the state of Karnataka. In the water falls I will cover three most beautiful falls. Jog falls, magod falls and unchalli falls Jog Falls is the highest untie red waterfall in India, located in Shivamoga District of Karnataka state. Created by Sharavathi River falling from a height of 253 meters (829 ft), Jog Falls is one of the major attractions in Karnataka tourism. Magod falls and unchali falls also are unbeatable.

Text Blog Post 4: The Pros & Cons of Online Communities & the Future

There is extensive academic debate about the pros and cons of online communities and their effect on society. This blog will sum up those arguments and examine some of the social effects of virtual communities.

Text Blog Post 3: The Exclusive Nature of the Internet & the Rise of Exclusive Online Communities

As I have discussed in earlier blogs, the Internet is seen by many to be an inherently inclusive and democratic medium, by academics like Howard Rheingold, John Hartley, Amitai Etzioni and Oren Etzioni.

Despite the rapid growth in Internet users, it is failing to live up to its utopian and egalitarian intentions.

As I mentioned in my last post, the Internet offers us a liberating space in which we can create and play with new identities, or become more comfortable with our own under the blanket of anonymity. However,the opportunity it affords users is indifferent to moral concerns.This is problematic when we consider that the very freedom that allows Stewart to live out a dream life as Achilles can also allow a con artist to become a doctor. The latter, which occurred in an online community, proved to be traumatic for those counselled by the "doctor" when they discovered the truth, as they had confided in him and established a bond. This is a simple example to highlight the subversive potential of (bodily) sign-less cyberspace, as a place in which individuals can intentionally set out to mislead others or partake in anti-social behaviour.

Personal Information in Blogging

It is sometimes astounding to discover the availability of personal information on the internet. Personal data are being made available in online databases, which are accessible to search engines even without our knowledge or consent. It has become the common trend to ‘Google’ your own name to discover what about you the internet has exposed. The inevitable question to consider is whether this information should be so widely available, not just for internet surfers, but also for bloggers.

Most of the information that has become available on search engines once only existed in a public or pseudo-public format, such as phone book or court records. It has now become digitalised and readily available for any blogger wishing to ascertain information. On one hand it is easy to see the benefits in having this information more accessible, especially for media investigations that may further the public interest. Converting information into a more convenient forum seems acceptable.

Blogging and Regulation

The freedom of blogging seems to be endless, whereby internet regulation is explicitly different from the regulatable physical world. The internet defies regulation for several key reasons. Firstly, its distribution and resilience of bloggers and web site designers makes it difficult to control. Packet switching technology for instance; a communications paradigm in which packets (units of information carriage) are routed between nodes over data links shared with other traffic means that information over the web is very hard to contain the flow of information.

Another reason is the constitution of internet technology. The digital technology can be transmitted through cyberspace and stored on a recipient’s hard drive forever. “The information superhighway is about the global movement of weightless bits at the speed of light.”

This is the last post of my vlog, and I will focus on the potential benefits and controversial issues governing amateur vs. professional productions. We will also look at the future of digital fan-film making.

Potential benefits of fan culture span across a few dimensions, from cultural benefits to economic benefits. Culturally, fan participation encourages grassroots culture, enabling people to take part in expanding a narrative universe, and perhaps to also give the original authors an impression of what appeals to the masses. Through fan film making, writing fan fiction etc, media industries are able to localise the interests of the public and perhaps develop a narrative universe catered to public interests.

Holidays and travel have long been associated with time away from your life back home-an alternate universe where real life stops and new adventures begin. People are often braver and more willing to try new things because even if they fail or make fools of themselves it is amongst strangers, not people who know them.

Before the advancements in technology that we have today, it was safe to assume that what happened overseas, stayed overseas. Not anymore. These days this would be considered a risky assumption as with the World Wide Web and all its resources, nothing is secret anymore. Holiday snaps and embarrassing videos can be now uploaded onto the internet for all to see at any point of the journey, by anyone.