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The online social craze of Facebook indulges people to inject themselves into an infinite amount of networks within the virtual world. Times are changing, and the improvement of our technological abilities has given us the opportunity to be connected, more so than watching the news. It is an unforgiving trend that has made outdated services and products leaning towards the downward spiral of redundancy. It is particularly intriguing how easily users are connected to the rest of the world, and the ease of staying connected to real life and exclusive stories through Facebook.
In this weeks lecture slides, I began to understand the term ‘genre’
in the context of networks and power. The ideology that our networks affect our
most favoured genre, ultimately giving different forms of power to different people
or groups depending on the specific genre. It’s fascinating that power can be
in the hands of different people depending on the social or working situation. Genres
actively generate and shape our knowledge of the world (Frow, Slide 6, 2013). Why are we so attracted to the idea of logging onto an online social
network at any given opportunity? Tuan’s readings for week 3 really covered the
aspects of space and place in regards to networks and helps understand the context in which the question is asked. As we adapt to new technology we begin to understand the new norms and social boundaries.
Personally, I believe Facebook is somewhat a welcoming
social media website. It really depends where the individual feels they best
fit into, different genres come naturally for all types of people. Sharing a
common interest is vital in the process of finding a genre that best describes
you as a person. That can be a real struggle for some who feel that they do not
belong in one specific genre group. Blogger will give you the freedom you may not think you have with Facebook.
References
Tuan, Y. (1977). Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. London, Great Britain: Edward Arnold.
Frow, J. (2015) BA1002: Our Space: Networks, Narratives, and the Making of Place, Lecture 3: Space and Identity: Genre and Transformation. PowerPoint Slides. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au
I am also very interested in the capabilities of genre in regards to networks and power. Your comparison between genre and Facebook is enlightening as I have been thinking about power that relates to self-narrative. Emerging from Humanism and rational thought (Van Luyn, 2015), self-narrative has the ability to construct identity in online spaces, such as Facebook and blogs. However, as users of online spaces, we should all be aware of the software that plays a role in mediating the text and the ownership of data (Van Luyn, 2015).
ReplyDeleteWhat I also find intriguing is that blogging, as a genre, is a product of culture and society. McNeill argues that the blog had the potential to become a new kind of genre. Yet, it is an adaption of the diary form. So, culture and society maintained the genre of diary through evolving it into an online version. It is fascinating that genres can last for hundreds of years and adapt to new technological developments.
References:
Van Luyn, A. (2015). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, week 3 notes [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au
McNeill, L. Language and New Media: Linguistic, cultural, and technological evolutions. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au