CCT109 Midterm

Question 1

Folksonomy

Answer 1

• (Tag) for an object (photo, webpage) made by user of the service
• contrasts with “taxonomy” or the official naming of things

Question 2

Immaterial Labour
(unpaid work that’s captured & capitalized by owners of the website)

Answer 2

• participatory media is vulnerable to the association that immaterial labour participants are co-opted by owners of websites without any meaningful control over how it is used
• participatory & creative controls)

Question 3

California Ideology

Answer 3

• “the promise that digital technology will free us”
• In 1995 California Ideology was identified
• combining distrust for institutions with a belief in tech’s positive impact on social change

Question 4

Hyper Text

Answer 4

• blue underlined words
• provide links to webpages
• term made by Ted Nelson in 1963 for project Xanadu

Question 5

Digital Divide

Answer 5

• gap between people that have access to the internet and those that don’t
• term sometimes includes speed access and capabilities to use the service

Question 6

Time-Binding
(Harold Innis)

Answer 6

• (e.g. clay or stone tablets, monuments)
• has great durability and power to carry messages across long periods of time
• super hard to move

Question 7

Space-Binding
(Harold Innis)

Answer 7

• (e.g. paper, the telegraph)
• more momentary and easily destroyed
• can easily be moved

Question 8

Harold Innis

Answer 8

Developed a theory of communication media being “time-binding” or “space-binding”

Question 9

Network Neutrality

Answer 9

• principle form of transportation regulation
• company carrying goods cannot discriminate between customers who wish to transport similar goods
• can be referred to as the separation of carriage and content
• applied in pricing and regulations in management and internet

Question 10

Common Carriage

Answer 10

• Defined by Telecommunications act
• “carriage” is a reference to early regulations of railroads
• regulations were originally applied to keep railroads from charging diff rates to diff companies giving unfair advantage
• in telephone terms, common carriage law is everyone pays a common fee/charge.
• phone companies could not discriminate on bias of what callers are saying

Question 11

Granularity

Answer 11

• “smallest possible individual investment necessary to participate in a project”

Question 12

Modularity

Answer 12

• according to Benkler: properties of a project determine “the extent to which it can be broken down into smaller components, or modules independently produced before assembled into a whole

Question 13

Telegraph
(Moris Code)

Answer 13

• device developed in early 19th century
• sending Moris Code messages long distance over wires (later radio waves)
• technology formed first global network prompting one writer to call it “victorian internet”

Question 14

Dot-Com Crash

Answer 14

• rapid devaluation of stock prices in tech companies in late 2000 and 2001 based on internet
• people attributed the decline by rationalization in the market that became inflated by outlandish expectations

Question 15

SMS
(acting as computer linking network link phones together & to businesses reaching the market and sell things)

Answer 15

• now referred as text messaging
• initial idea for texting was for service providers to send messages to users
  
  • users initiating and sending messages to any other user was an after thought
  • phones became platforms

Question 16

Mass Comm Model
(Transitional Comm Model)

Answer 16

• allows factors: one-way flow of messages from senders
• 2 components: capacity of new media enabling bigger participation in politics and political communication
• new media potential allows for more to become media producers, distributors, consumers
• Promotes “Do It Yourself”

Question 17

New Media

Answer 17

• frameworks developed by Williams & McLuhan

Question 18

Marshall McLuhan

Answer 18

• cultural content was in specific forms of tech (phone, computer)
• studied how media influences what people think and how people think
• theory became unfashionable by Williams
• media tech reshape society & culture

Question 19

Raymond Williams

Answer 19

defines technological determinism as
- new tech invented in independent sphere, create new societies, or human conditions”

the literature on the impact of the internet is rich with examples of this type of thinking

Question 20

Social Network Analysis

Answer 20

Academic study of:
- social networks
- attention to actors
- network structure
- major influences (culture) on the formation and durability of networks

Question 21

Social Capital

Answer 21

Attempt to describe in economic terms assets people have in the form of relationships with others
- bonding, bridging, linking

Question 22

Obsolescence

Answer 22

outdated or no longer used
- telegraph, “brick” phones

Question 23

Metcalf’s Law

Answer 23

• more of an observation than law of nature
• Robert Metcalfe predicted the value of network lay in the number of possible connections between members in the network

Question 24

Web 2.0

Answer 24

Social media referes to any website that helps the evolution of the site, on the site, from the users of the site

Question 25

Cell Radio System
( first boom: still mounted in cars - first cell phone)
(second boom: hand-held cell phones “the brick”)
(third boom: digital phones)

Answer 25

• Marconi key figure in radiotelegraphy
• small hexagonal units with radio towers at intersecting points in 3 directions
• deliberately low-powered so radio frequencies could be reused
• goal was to create phones that could listen to one tower and ignore others

Question 26

Technological Determinism

Answer 26

• approach to tech (result of short-hand thinking) (computers are always getting faster)
• computers aren’t getting faster on their own
• in reality technology is advancing given regular and predictable progress in many forms

Question 27

Social Shaping of Tech

Answer 27

• alternate approach to technological determinism
• seeking to explain tech change in terms of influence of key social groups

Question 28

Political Economy

Answer 28

• examination of society regarding laws, economy, political environment as interrelated, helping establish and sustain social order
• new media studies focus on examining the regulation and ownership of media

Question 29

Convergence Culture

Answer 29

a term popularized by Henry Jenkins describing:
- media forms and consumption crossing sites
- formats incorporating professional and amateur aspects

Question 30

SMS Messaging
(TEXT MESSAGING)

Answer 30

• happened because of terminal device
• the telephone was a kind of special-purpose computer
• has memory, processing power, input device, and display
• texting seemed economical compared to high price voice call

Question 31

Social Production

Answer 31

• creation of goods and services, “informational goods” in a social or collaborative fashion
• user-generated content can be included
• Wikipedia is an e.g. of social productiton