Language. The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way. Structured? Conventional? Written? In its state of constant change, the internet is no environment bounded by the terms ‘structured’ or ‘conventional’. In fact, if we have learnt anything over the weeks of our course, it is quite the opposite. Beginning with…
“How can we then say that something exists and at the same time is not real?” (Brey, 2014) Virtual enviroments are really powerful. Through them, humans can actually disconnect themselves from their ordinary lives and experience a full-immersion into the virtual reality (VR). The sense of reality of physical objects is recreated by the digital objecs in virtuality. Computer systems generate virtual objects…
“I’m taking a break from social media” – every person alive, at some point, probably… A very common phrase that is uttered nowadays. The weight of having that device in your pocket that constantly blasts you with notifications and information about everything you didn’t know you don’t care about has become overwhelming for a lot of people (myself included) and this recent…
“Playgrounds are everywhere once you start looking.” I’m sure everyone here has played (or at least heard of) Pokémon Go, the mobile game that took the world by storm ever since its release. Pokémon Go is a location-based mobile game that operates in a virtual reality, allowing users to ‘capture’ and ‘evolve’ virtual Pokémon characters that appear to exist in the same…
Have you ever cyber stalked? Who was it? Why did you do it? And, more importantly, what did you find! Cyberstalking can be considered as a clever game, and with over a billion online users active on Facebook and Instagram alone, it is not as uncommon as it once was (Statista, 2018) . According to ‘techopedia’ (2018), cyberstalking is a criminal practice where…
In my previous blog, I introduced my plan to dig into the relationship between digital media and communities based on extreme ideas. Since then, I’ve reached out to various examples of those closed, sometimes extreme communities. They haven’t been very responsive so far. I’m however still positive that somewhere in the next couple of weeks I will produce an interview-based podcast. Make…
In the world of media – particularly in the world of movies and games, developers and producers always try to create a best-selling product that would be adored by as large a share of the population as possible. Very few succeed, but the few that do seem to be more enthusiastic about creating followup versions (sequels) to that successful project they managed…
In Charles Dicken’s Bleak House, a major theme of the book is reading and the inability to read – who can and who cannot read. One of those who is illiterate is Jo, a desperately poor boy who sweeps streets, and is continually being ‘moved along’ by others. As a English Literature lecturer vividly portrayed, when Jo aimlessly wanders around nineteenth century…
Computers can do anything or almost anything. They can even read books with the help of Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Images from printed pages are converted into searchable and editable digital text. OCR has become better, that is: more accurate, over the years. Text collections like Google Books (over 25 million book titles), Project Gutenberg (57.000 free eBooks) and Delpher (in the…
As I’m sure we all know, digital media has led to a rise in hate culture that has been on all sorts of digital platforms, be it email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Don’t get me wrong, haters have been around even before the advent of the Internet. But, with digital media and the interactivity it brings about, it has led to a sharp…