Digital Presence of Mormon Messages

After our discussion of General Conference, I feel especially grateful to be a part of a living church that embraces the technological resources the Lord has blessed us with. 

Mormon Messages are a perfect example of digital culture moving forward, touching hearts with inspiring messages. I have witnessed the presentation of Mormon Messages in classrooms, Relief Society, elderly homes, baptisms, Facebook, and many other significant places. These videos provide wholesome looks at simple truths we believe and are appealing and effective to all audiences.

This newer Mormon Message is great because they talk about the need for face-to-face interaction, but you also see a video camera being used at the beginning of the video on the dock. We have so many resources to share and experience special moments with our families - what really matters most.

Enjoy.

Midterm 1 (Part 2)

Prewriting Ideas

 

My Idea's Main Take-Away's:

• Persona of Ishmael is revealed and developed through Melville's structure of Moby Dick.
• Ishmael's persona embodies digital culture
• Imitates various mediums available online

I'd love constructive feedback and/or ideas!

Midterm 1 (Part 1)

My posts thus far:

• A Loving Intro - My introductory post aka my first blog post ever.
• The Christianity Crisis - This post probes the question of Christianity's unconventional role/purpose within Moby Dick.
• The New (A Response to Moby Dick: A Novel?)  - Relating Moby Dick's "new" form to the uncharted territory of the digital world and its new impacts on the world.
• Show us -  Exploring online identity and how we represent ourselves.
• #Structure - Relating Melville's diversified structure of Moby Dick to the various mediums available in the digital world.
• Exploration  - Relating the ways digital exploration has paved the way for my personal exploration of the real world.
• The Long Musical Tail - My way of trying to understand the long tail in the music industry through Spotify.
• Seeing Video Games Differently - My small bit of research uncovering some benefits of video games to help me cope with the fact that they're not all evil and potently addictive.
• Moby Dick's Physiognomy - Easily my favorite post. This was my amateur launch into what I understand of academic blogging. I really would like to take the topic further for more focused blog posts.
• Knowledge in Progress - After Dr. Burton's lecture on how to effectively search the web for social resources, I followed the process and did some research of my own in the posted step-by-step process.

 Reflecting on my encounters with digital culture from this course, I have found myself thinking about the connection between exploration on- and offline. Just this past weekend, my family was discussing the wonder of the "DIY" movement sweeping the web. My sister-in-law exclaimed, "You can learn anything online!" I think there's an ever-plunging depth to that concept.

This class has given me a sense of wonder as to the vastness of a literal digital "world." There's so much out there to learn and it's a collaborative world. I would venture to claim that the digital world only exists via connections. Its purpose is to facilitate varying degrees of informative communication.

My first English class at BYU started by Zina Peterson's analogy of the literary conversation being like a coffeehouse discussion. What I'm understanding now is that the whole web is a HUGE coffeehouse that involves everyone and discusses everything. It is fueled by the demand to learn and to contribute. It's about sharing and it wouldn't exist without its ability to connect others socially, emotionally, intellectually, even physically to some extent (Skype, video conferencing, etc).

One of my greatest weaknesses is my tendency to naturally avoid a digital two-way conversation but I'm learning to correct myself and try to facilitate conversation and interaction with others. I relate to Greg's post about having to push past the insecurities surrounding your opinions and contributions and establishing an appropriate identity in which connecting is relevant and possible.

I love to explore and, as an amateur, I hope to connect with people who can help me navigate the digital world in a way that inspires myself and others - because I can't do it on my own, the nature of the digital won't let me.

How is our digital experience dependent on interactions or contributions between users?

Midterm 1 (pt 1)

Index of all prior posts:

• Introductions and Other Noteworthy Stuff: This is where I initially introduced myself as a prospective writer and hopeful for this class.
• Queequeg -- Perfectly Content to Make You Uncomfortable: I talked about how Queequeg could be read as a representation of what is now the internet. How he broke culture norms and made people (particularly males) feel uncomfortable.
• Moby Dick: A Novel?: This is where I naively tried to force Moby Dick into being a novel the way I understood it. I have come to realize since then the complexity of the issue, and how much more I needed to learn before giving a complete judgment.
• Fandoms: I am a part of several fandoms and I talked about whether or not being a fanatic is a good or bad thing. I talk about fanfiction and ways that it can grow awry.
• Entertainment: Here I talk about why I found Moby Dick to read and whether or not Melville could have used a good editor. I discuss briefly what we consider entertaining now a days and try, once again, to categorize Moby Dick.
• Continuing With Outsourcing: Here I discuss some of the benefits of outsourcing. Unfortunately for me, a comment on the blog given by Dr. Burton points out that I may have confused the terms outsourcing with crowdsourcing. I discuss how interesting I find that large companies are turning to people to do tasks rather than experts, especially since so often I have found that people in large groups aren't as smart as individuals.
• Hipsters And Long Tails: Here I talk about Dr. Burton's post about long tails and how that correlates with the new cultural trend of hipsters. I discuss why the long tail is both beneficial for those who like to find new and obscure things, and detrimental since that means others can find them as well.
• Make Something: This is where I discuss the AMAZING presentation by the employee of blizzard. I talk about how he inspired me to go out and do something with my life, to make something to make the world a better place and use the talents I have. It is an incredible opportunity to live in the digital Age where obsessed maniacs can congregate and do amazing things never before thought possible!
• Moby Dick -- A Story To Remember: This is where I finally start making some intelligent arguments about the categorizing of Moby Dick and what it means. I find myself really appreciating the story and what it does for us. I also discuss a scholarly article about Ahab and how I agree with it and disagree with its assessment of the book.
• Post On Conference: Here I talk about how conference has influenced me to remember the good things and try to avoid bashing people or things on the internet. Edward Dube's talk influenced the way I see behavior online and how I need to push forward instead of looking back.

As I have looked through the many posts I have completed as well as my classmates posts and topics I find myself continually drawn to the idea of entertainment online. Many of the bloogers on Team Stubb talked about how they see video games differently since we discussed it in class and have done further research into how video games (and other forms of online entertainment such as music, fandoms (well, I talked about that) and social media) affect society. I have become increasingly more interested in the way people in the digital age entertain themselves and whether that is as bad a thing as my mother and other members of the "older generation" (or, generation before ours) seem to think it is.

Dr. Burton gave an excellent lecture in class about the benefits of video games. He talked about video games that I have been prejudiced against and haven't wanted around me, giving examples of how immersive they are and how they can display a whole new kind of scholarly study. He also has been a constant pusher for social media (such as google+ and blogger, which we use constantly for this class) and how that can help us not only get our names out into the world but also help us with our scholarly studies and make it possible to find information that we never would have come across before. I'm already in the process of writing a paper for another class using the tools he taught us.

So how do people entertain themselves online? Is it affecting the way we live our lives in a negative or positive way? Or both? What benefits can we gain from finding new entertainment versus the negative consequences that are also present?

Midterm 1 (pt 2)

In my previous post I talked about how I have become incredibly interested in Entertainment in the digital age. I want to know how it affects people and whether it is a good or bad thing. Connecting this to Moby Dick shouldn't be hard at all. This book is a perfect example of the digital age's sometimes incredibly short attention span.

I talked to a lot of people about the book. Before I even picked it up for the very first time, my brother would tell me about how difficult it was to get through. He, of course, was saying this in an admiring way. He thought the book was amazing, but didn't think I would ever be able to read it. Victoria always read fantasy books that were easy to read with big print. She'd never read something as sophisticated as Moby Dick.

Ha. The joke's on him.

But, he did succeed in destroying any and all desire I had in reading the book. When I saw it on the booklist, I was extremely depressed and disheartened.

I read to be entertained. It's like my tv, I'd rather read than watch almost any TV show (with the possible exception of Supernatural, but that's a story for another time.) A lot of kids in my high school complained about how they hated reading. My sister-in-law says that she hates reading with pride in her voice. My mother in law simply states that she doesn't have enough time for something like that (but she has plenty of time for scrapbooking, explain that.) Books aren't entertaining for them. They don't care about them.

That would make Moby dick -20 on a scale of 1 to 10 in entertainment.

But pure entertainment isn't the only interesting thing about Moby Dick (or the potential lack thereof). I have said this many times, but Moby Dick reminds me of a pre-internet Wikipedia. A lot of the information I find extremely fascinating, if I wasn't reading it in novel format. I actually did look up whales on Wikipedia while reading the book because I wanted to know more about the sperm whale. Wikipedia is one of the largest websites in the world, so there must be some entertainment to reading mindless facts about things.

This might seem like a ridiculous ramble, with no inherent value to helping me write my paper. But actually this is helping me a ton. Moby Dick IS entertaining, but it likes to hide it. Just like all of the references it has in its pages, just like all of the hidden meaning we've been exploring throughout this semester, it's entertainment value has been hiding as well. It goes back to that idea of where we should categorize Moby Dick. I was very foolish at the beginning of this class, thinking that it would be easy to just stick Moby Dick in the novel category and be done with it. I didn't believe Professor Wickman when he said that it wasn't that simple. When we read Moby Dick a just a novel, it is boring. There is hardly a plot, it doesn't get exciting until the very end. But if we read Moby Dick as a Wiki, then we would find tons of information about whaling and the way whalers thought about themselves. If we read it as an allegory, we can find immense amounts of symbols that reflect our own life, even in just thinking that Queequeg represents the internet.

I could probably go on and on in this rambling manner about constitutes as entertainment within Moby Dick. I could go into fandoms, maybe find out whether there is a fandom for Moby Dick. There must be, considering how many things Dr. Burton was able to find through the Long Tail. I think that Moby Dick is difficult for the average reader to understand and appreciate, simply because it is something so different than anything they (or I) have ever come across before. I want to explore the idea of where Moby Dick should be categorized, how it can be made more accessible to people who don't think they'd be able to find it entertaining. I think that writing this paper will help me discover different things about the book that I didn't notice before, different ways that it entertained me or informed me when I didn't even realize I was doing it. I'm excited to get started.

Topics I want to tackle:

1. Moby Dick's success and failing as a novel
2. Moby Dick's association with Wikipedia
3. Reading Moby Dick as an Allegory
4. The Fandom of Moby dick
5. Why do people keep reading it?
6. Why does the average reader of Moby Dick say about the book? (Non academics)
7. Scholars fascination with Moby Dick
8. Being a classic doesn't make it boring.
9. Why the beginning is so engaging, and why that tricks the reader into thinking the book will be something that it's not.

I'll probably need to cut out some of those, but I think I can tie the majority of them together. This is going to be a lot more fun than I originally thought.

Midterm 2

This post is going to be a variety of thoughts and research collaborated in efforts to eventually produce something more refined. I've been struggling a little bit in tying Moby Dick into my topic without stretching it too much and while still having enough to write about, so please share any thoughts or suggestions if you have any. 

Ok so the question that I proposed in my first question was: 
How do gatekeepers determine what is and is not permissible for the digital world, and are these decisions biased or intended to improve the quality of life for the public as a whole?

So I'm going to be focusing on the "how", the "why", and the "what" of gatekeeping.... What the consequences of gatekeeping are. Eli Pariser made an argument in a TED Talk where he argues that the gatekeepers are hindering the growth and learning of the public by how they filter the internet. I did more research and there are quite a few people that support his argument as well. I was planning on furthering the support, but found that I couldn't maintain a strong enough argument. I just disagree with it. I talked with my team members about it today and they really helped in making me feel confident in my decision to change my side and be against it. 

This article interviews Steve Wozniak and quotes him saying how the internet has gone from being a very free open space to do anything you wanted, to being much more restricted and confined to social norms and personal interests. 


The TED talk by Eli Pariser argues that the filtering done by the internet gatekeepers is more detrimental than beneficial to us individually and as a democracy. He also discusses how gatekeepers have gone from being human, to algorithms.

I'll include more research in here as well, but I'll be sure to not make it a research paper.

My team helped me to start thinking about how gatekeeping doesn't restrict, but it opens doors. Brittany made a great point in how I can look at Ahab's relationship with Pip and show how that's an example of gatekeeping opening up opportunities that were unexpected and unrealistic had it not been there. I also love Victoria's comment below at looking at the production of Moby Dick instead of solely its content in regards to gatekeeping.


Moby Dick
- The vast ocean is the digital world/internet
- Ahab is the gatekeeper. He decides what is acceptable or not on the voyage and what the crew are allowed to do.
- As a sidenote, I feel he is also a person who negatively and unhealthily uses the digital media in an excessive way. The obsessive hunt for Moby Dick has become his only reality. 
- Ahab's desires are biased, self-serving, selfish. 
- Whaling used to be an experience with a larger common goal and objective. Whaling with Captain Ahab however, is more restricted and confined to HIS goal and objective. 



Digital Culture:
- Wikipedia article on gatekeeping communication
- Net Neutrality is what Steve Wozniak referenced 

Midterm 1

Here is the index of my blog posts thus far:

• Introduction! (A brief introduction of myself)

• Digital Culture Follow-Up (Some thoughts on quantity versus quality with information on the internet)

• The Other (Morals and judgements passed on social media)

• Children and Social Media (Prompted from one of my Google+ posts discussing how young is too young for children using social media)

• The White Whale (Moby Dick representing God, but not an evil God)

• Ahab and Machinery (Ahab represents the person who excessively uses digital culture and becomes obsessive and unhealthy)

• Conference (Praising the Church's use of technology)


I reread my past blogs and saw a reoccurring theme in several of them that focuses on who determines what and how do we know what is permissible. How do we know if what we post online is acceptable? I reviewed all of my class notes and I loved the long tail discussion we had with Dr. Burton and how gatekeeping is at the point of production. In addition to this article, I was reminded of different tensions within digital culture and how some of the core ones include authority and control.

My question for research is two-fold:
How do gatekeepers determine what is and is not permissible for the digital world, and are these decisions biased or intended to improve the quality of life for the public as a whole?

Conference

This weekend has been fantastic and so fulfilling!

Click here for posts on Conference

The LDS General Conference has given me a great opportunity of self-reflection in how I can improve in my life. I have loved so many talks, as they strike personal chords as I am about to form my own family now in less than a week. I wanted to blog about how much of a blessing digital culture and technology have been in my efforts to view this Conference.

Yesterday was great. This morning was... stressful. 10 minutes before the morning session was supposed to begin, the TV wasn't working. So we whipped out our laptops to watch the live feed... only to find that the landlord's internet router was turned off, for some reason, and we had no access to it. After desperately trying to call her, we gave up and then proceeded to watch the morning session on my little iPhone screen. I think I sucked up a lot of cellular data, but it was worth it. I began to think of what a great blessing it was that we even HAD all of these many options in viewing it. I know this isn't as extreme as maybe back in our parents' childhood years, but I remember being a child and sitting on the couch and only being able to listen to the conference feed from the computer, with no visual. Now, there are so many different avenues we can take in order to watch and listen to the words of the prophet, apostles, and other church leaders.

On my mission last year, Elder Oaks and President Rasband came to visit and address us. In that zone conference, Elder Oaks shared that President Packer had convinced the quorum of the twelve apostles and they should all be more involved in social media, because it was a great way to stay in touch with their families and it would also become a great way to preach and share gospel principles and values. We were then encouraged to spend a significant amount of time that week on the computer to familiarize ourselves with http://mormon.org.

Even my cousin, who is in the engineering program at BYU has shared how advanced the teleprompter in the Conference Center is and that its technology is marveled by other organizations within the nation.

Today Elder Cook made a comment in his talk about not letting ourselves become addicted to things such as social media, where it obstructs our agency. The Church sets a wonderful example in using digital culture in a healthy way.

I am so grateful for the messages I have been blessed to hear this weekend, thanks to the technology created. I am equally excited to see what strides the Church will make in implementing technology and social media more and more in the future.