Can being 'networked' really change the world?

If you haven't been watching Adam Curtis's excellent new series "All Watched Over by Machine's of Loving Grace" - BBC2 Mondays at 9pm - you should try to catch up on iPlayer (click on title above).  In tonight's episode he questions the thinking that underlies much of the belief that the internet will make us free and change the world for the better. If you can't cope with the whole doc, at least watch the last 20 mins of episode 2 where he looks at what has happened in the post Soviet nations and like Georgia after their 'internet organised' revolutions had promised great change and democracy.

Will our virtual and real selves merge?

Click on the title above to find out more about the possibilities of Web 3.0.  What effect would the merging of our virtual and real selves have on our democratic rights?  Think Minority Report!

Journalism - the internet effect

As promised, click on the title above to read Aleks Krotoski's article on the effect of the internet on journalistic practices.  There are some really useful qoutes and pieces of evidence in here that you could use in your answer.

What motivates Facebook's modesty?

The New York Times has an interesting article about Facebook's reluctance to acknowledge its part in the popular protests in Tunisia and Egypt. It seems that fears that other regimes, like that in Syria, may curtail the service are behind their modesty. It's well worth a read as it raises interesting questions about how a business can help to promote social change. As we were reading today, Marxist critics, like Adorno and Horkeimer, wondered whether the media industry, as part of the capitalist establishment, can really promote change.

Is Social Media Fanning The Flames of Democracy In North Africa?

You may have seen in the news overnight that the popular protests in Tunisia seem to have spilled over to Egypt with an unprecedented number of people taking to the streets of Cairo to protest against the Government.  The Los Angeles Times article (click on link embedded in title of this post) mentions that 80,000 people signed up on Facebook to attend the protest.  The Egyptian government has blocked access to Twitter in an attempt to prevent further organisation and communication - a move that echoes that taken by the Iranian government previously.

Big Four Reach For The Sky

Sony have announced the latest attempt to combat illegal downloading - Music Unlimited.  The UK version launched just before Christmas and it is now being made available across Europe and later in the US.  The service allows users to access music by Sony artists, and those signed to the other big four including EMI, which is stored using Cloud technology.  This means that once you are signed up to the service - which costs a fee (the basic costing £3.99) you can access the music on a variety of devices, from PS3s to mobile phones.  It offers the user the benifits of personalisation and mobility and, what many may see as, affordability. It will be a a rival to serives like Spotify, which also streams music.  It's another example of the big music groups trying to do things in-house, allowing them to have more control over the supply chain, reduce cost and increase profits. 

Read the article from the Guardian (click on the link embedded in the title) and ask yourself how this announcement offers further examples of the synergies created by Sony Music being part of a conglomerate.

Music Industry - EMI

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/21/marketingandpr.mediabusiness

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/oct/18/emi-trial-background

1) Click on the two links above and read each of the articles. The first is from 2008, when EMI was trying the current owners of EMI had just taken over, and second is from last month.
2) Copy and paste relevant information into a word document, with the concept illustrated by the information next to it.