TASK:

Blog 1 (post and comment) Friday 12 August, 3pm (10%)

Make your first blog post (250-300 words) to your Tutorial Group’s Blog. (Sign up instructions on LeanJCU). Contribute your first comment to another student’s blog (about 150 words). Remember to make connections in your discussion with relevant ideas from lectures, tutorials, and set readings. Ideas drawn from lectures and set readings must be acknowledged with in-text referencing in the APA style (instructions below).

(Blog 1 instructions can also be found in the Subject Outline).

Your Blog must address the week 3 Lecture on ‘Maps’ and the subject key concept ‘power’.

For your blog post this week you may like to use the questions below to help you reflect on your virtual network. Remember to address the week’s lecture topic ‘Maps’ and focus on the subject key concept of ‘power’. (It is not compulsory to use these questions, nor is it compulsory to attempt to respond to all of them; they are just ideas to help you get started).

You might also find it helpful to have another look at Prouty’s ‘Turtle on a Leash’ set reading as an example of good critical blog post.

Blog Focus Questions

* Describe the new virtual network you joined (last week). * Explain your persona for your new network – have you kept your own identity or changed it? Why? * Analyse your experience of ‘travelling’ in your virtual network. Do you experience more or less freedom than when travelling in physical space? * Does your experience of your virtual space empower or disempower you, or both? (See week 2 set readings and Barnes’ reading for week 3 on the voyeur and the panopticon).

In-text Referencing
When you cite (acknowledge) references in the text of your blog you should include the surname(s) of the author or authors; year of publication; and page numbers if appropriate. Include page numbers when you quote word-for-word from the source, or when you paraphrase or summarise from a particular page or group of pages.
Examples:
* This argument has been developed elsewhere (Woods, 2006, p.2) * Woods (2000) develops this argument

Reference List
Your Blog should include a reference list at the bottom of your post. The list consists of materials referred to in text, which may include readings as well as links to other blogs or websites. eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/blog
Follow the APA referencing guidelines on the BA1002 LibGuide. http://libguides.jcu.edu.au/ba1002

A social network is described as “a website where one connects with those sharing personal or professional interests.” (dictionary.com, 2011). the new social network i chose to join was a popular site called twitter. Like other social networks it allows people from all arould the world to interact in ways different to real life situations, thus proving that space is not empty but a matrix of networks. I found it extremely easy to find my way around the network and its viral space due to the instructions that were provided and eaisily followed. Twitter encourages people to join geners of interest wich links you to people with those exact common interests. These common interest give people power, wich is central to our topic. An example of this form of power could be shown in the latest lecture about maps. This is because maps serve a pourpose, because we percive them to be representations of reality. Maps have been around for centuries and have been a very powerfull tool in understanding the interconnected world around us. Nowadays we use sites such as twitter to gain an understanding of the outside world and to connect to people around the globe. This power comes in the form of connecting to people with common intersts more efficently than a person could do in real life. However, as all social networks it has a panoptic feeling. “The Panopticon ("all-seeing") functioned as a round-the-clock surveillance machine.” (Alan Sheridan, (NY: Vintage Books 1995) pp. 195-228). This is because on the internet it is easy to have a big brother system in place where personal infomation is no longer personal. However, for my profile i have kept my same identity. This is because it will be easier to connect to people that i am already aquainted with and in turn connecting with possible mutual friends. Traveling in a viral network definatley allows me to experience more freedom than in phisical space by giving me the power to do so. For this reason using a viral network to connect to new people causes a sensation of empowerment.

References
-Dictionary.com, definition of a social network, last uppdated 2011, viewed 8/8/2011.

-Kuttainen, V. (2011). BA1002: Our Space, Networks, Narratives, and the Making of Place, week 1 notes. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au

-Theory of survailence: the panopticon, Alan Sheridan, (NY: Vintage Books 1995) pp. 195-228, Viewed 6/8/2011.