QotW9: You mean it’s not that percussion dance troupe?

I have a confession to make. Before today, I’ve never read STOMP. Seriously. I mean, I barely have to time to cover the Straits’ Times and the New Paper’s football coverage, and then I usually read Newsweek at my desk when I’m pretending to study. Plus there never seems to be anything really, really noteworthy or worth checking out. Thus, this is quite a new thing for me.

What is STOMP? For starters, the acronym stands for Straits Times Online Mobile Print. Utilising those three elements (online, mobile and print), STOMP is able to interact with readers and contributors, and engender discussion of current affairs in Singapore. (STOMP, n.d.) It should be noted that STOMP actually set out to be more of a forum, more of an online community, as opposed to a focal point for citizen journalism. On their About Us page it says

“The Straits Times Editor Han Fook Kwang explained, "In the new media environment, newspapers have to be more than just passive providers of news. They have to engage their readers in areas which appeal to them. We have to provide readers with new avenues to express themselves, to enable them to interact with us, and among themselves."

"STOMP will enable us to do this. We want STOMP to become a forum of lively discussions - whether the topics are weighty national issues or where to get the best bak chor mee."Through this interaction, The Straits Times aims to strengthen its relationship with readers and reach out to non-readers.”


What is citizen journalism? It’s essentially user-generated content, but with the added element of having been collected, reported, analysed and disseminated by aforementioned users. (Citizen Journalism, n.d.) In other words, the public doing what the newspapers do, often (but not always) online.

With that in mind, let’s take another quick look at STOMP. The citizen journalism part mainly appears to be Singapore Seen, which seems to consist almost entirely of news stories sent in by civilian contributors, who they call STOMPers. The other sections like Talkback and EPL Stomping Ground are more along the lines of online communities, and others like StarBlog and STOMPCast are pretty self-explanatory.

So with Singapore Seen, viewers and contributors send in SMS or MMS of interesting things they’ve seen around Singapore. Be it a car wrapped around a tree from the impact of a crash, secondary school bands driving residents crazy, or some guy who should really invest in pants with a higher waistband, the content is as wild and varied as the contributors themselves.

However, as Mr. Lim noted in class, the content can be somewhat ‘low-brow’. A quick look at Singapore Seen’s main page tells you that the three most discussed topics are an inconsiderate secondary school band, noisy (and blissfully unaware of irony) students in a library telling others to shut it, and the chap who needs higher pants. Contrast this with what happened in September 2002, when members of Slashdot initiated an investigation into one of Microsoft’s ad campaigns, which featured a woman who’d supposedly switched from a Mac to a PC and was completely satisfied. (Yes, go ahead and smirk, Mac users.) Slashdot members were the first to notice irregularities in Microsoft’s ad, and because of their collection, analysis and subsequent publication of such information, the truth eventually emerged. (Gillmor, 2004) Another example would be the Killian documents controversy, where bloggers and Netizens effectively dismantled an attempt to discredit President George W. Bush’s military record. (Killian Documents, n.d.)

So where does that leave us? As a form of citizen journalism, yes, STOMP is fairly suitable. It has the benefit of being affiliated with an established and internationally recognized newspaper, and an active and enthusiastic community to draw upon. But I would say that the level of journalism is still in its infant stages, and STOMP has the potential for a greater level of reporting than what it currently exhibits. Not to take anything away from the current contributors, who are to be commended for their sharp eyes and excellent sense for what’s close to the hearts of the man on the street. But it could be so much more. Since STOMP’s quality is inextricably tied to the stories, and thus the contributors, I think that STOMP could raise citizen journalism in Singapore to a new level by encouraging its contributors to search out and analyse deeper issues, and by attracting a wider audience e.g. Singaporeans living overseas could talk about issues which affect them or experts who can dissect current affairs brought to light by contributors.

I personally would like to see STOMP be the one that sheds light on situations similar to the ones a couple of paragraphs up, and I believe that one day it will happen. Rock on, STOMPers.




___________________________________________________________


References:

STOMP, n.d. In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:20, March 29th, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOMP_%28online_portal%29

Citizen Journalism, n.d. In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:20, March 29th, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism

Gillmor, Dan (2004). Truth Squad. In We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People (The Gates Come Down) Retrieved 23:20, March 28th, 2007, from http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tipe=text/html#chap3

Killian Documents, n.d. In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:20, March 30th, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

QotW7: Much ado about Twittering

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”


- John Donne

So speaketh John Donne, the English poet. Community is an essential part of everyday life for most people (Fernback and Thompson, 1995), and as the great poet notes above, no one man can survive by himself.

Twitter, a relatively new online social networking service, is the topic for this week’s assignment. Specifically, is it an online community? Indeed, what is an online community in the first place?

Simply put, an online community is a group of people who interact over the internet. Note, however, that they may or may not actually hang out offline, and they may or may not have started hanging out online, too. (Virtual Community, n.d.) Online communities can spring up from almost anything, and indeed, everything. Be it people talking about Singapore’s national hobby (bargain.com.sg), people talking about Singapore’s other national hobby (Makansutra forums), or gamers swapping hints (GameFAQs.com), topics and contributors are practically unlimited.

Most online communities conform to the concept of Gemeinschaft, characterized by an organic sense of community, fellowship, family, and custom, as well as a bounding together by understanding, consensus, and language. (Fernback and Thompson, 1995) This also ties into the notion of the gift economy, which was discussed in class about a month ago.

So is Twitter an online community or not?

Not really, no. In and of itself, Twitter is a little like randomly sticking Post-it notes whenever and wherever the mood strikes you. It’s not a community, in the traditional sense of the word. So, I hear you ask, what’s a community in the traditional sense of the word, then? Well, a good example would be the humble forum. In a forum, users tend to be more regular, and thus a feeling of belonging in a community often arises. (Internet forum, n.d.) Technically speaking, Twitter could still go on even if no one was actually talking to each other, just randomly thinking out loud, but a forum would just fade out and die.

So what is Twitter, then? I’d say that it’s really just another tool. It’s a tool that allows people to congregate and talk, but again, in and of itself it’s not a community. Twitter fosters communication among people, even more so than SMS or the telephone, for the simple reason that Twitter allows you to broadcast your thoughts to all your friends at once (and possibly the entire Internet as well, should you choose to do so), as opposed to SMSing them one by one, or calling each one to tell them what’s happening. Of course, nowadays you can send many SMSes at one shot and there is this thing called a conference call, but those are quite troublesome compared to just tapping that 140 characters into Twitter’s dialogue box.

Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

As with all things, be it tech, superpowers or duct tape, Twitter does have its own Dark Side. Well, not Dark Side per se, but sort of like a downside. While roaming the internet today, I happened across this article…

Basically, people using Twitter have actually had to delete friends because they were getting swamped by messages on Twitter. And on their cellphones, because users in the U.S. have the option of getting Twitter updates as text messages (albeit for a price). At one point, a Mr. Eric Meyer was receiving 30 to 40 messages a day from this one person musing about dinner and what was on TV. I guess the moral of the story really is moderation in all things.

So in conclusion, no, Twitter is not a community in and of itself; Rather, it is a tool around which other communities can be formed. And with pretty much anything else in this world, it has its pros and cons, though with careful moderation, the pros can far, far outweigh the cons.

___________________________________________________________


References:

Fernback, Jan & Thompson, Brad (1995). “Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure?" Retrieved March 15th, 2007 from http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.html

Virtual Communities, n.d. In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:20, March 15th, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_community

Internet Forum, n.d. In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:20, March 15th, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum

Sell your Xbox360 and buy a PS3...

...Because PS3s help research a cure for Alzheimer's while you're not playing.

Qotw6 Bonus mission: If you're too stupid to park, DON'T DRIVE.

Above is a picture of a Mercedes parked near my block at Ang Mo Kio Ave 4, taken on Christmas eve last year. As you can see it is quite, quite illegally parked. For starters, it's parked in what is very obviously a No Parking zone, and on top of that, is parked on a slope. A slope.

There is actually a blog that collects and documents photos of people parking stupidly, and can be found at http://parkingidiots.blogspot.com. This, of course, is also a form of citizen journalism and/or sousveillance of a sort. What parkingidiots does is put these pictures, which are contributed by the general public, on the internet, and at one point actually printed flyers that looked something like this

for you to stick on should you come across such a parking idiot. This is an example of personal sousveillance, as mentioned on wikipedia. (Inverse surveillance as a branch of the more general study of sousveillance, Sousveillance, n.d.) These photos are taken by people who could be waiting for a parking lot, only to encounter people who park like, well, idiots.

I actually submitted the above photo to parkingidiots, but have yet to receive a reply or see my photo on it at press time.

_____________________________________________
References:

Sousveillance, n.d. Retrieved from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at 15:45, Mar 10th 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance

QotW6: How much of you is online?

Privacy, it would seem, is a shining example of double standards nowadays. Introduce, for example, scanning machines at an airport that might help catch a terrorist with weapons on his person, and people immediately get up in arms over a perceived invasion of privacy. On the other hand, we have people who take pictures of themselves everyday for 6 years, then post the results on YouTube.

With the advent of YouTube, especially, people have completely redrawn the lines as far as privacy is concerned. And with reality TV, it’s been shown that people will do – and show – anything to get their 15 minutes of fame. It seems, nowadays, that practically anything is fair game for public consumption. Be it dancing in the “privacy” of your bedroom, a collage of photos of yourself from the last 6 pages, it’s all on YouTube. And the public at large is encouraging this.

Why? As Jeffrey Rosen mentioned in the Naked Crowd, people are trying to establish street cred among their peers by revealing more and more about themselves online. (The Naked Crowd, 2004) In other words, it’s a way of establishing one’s reputation as a ‘real’, genuine person. Also, Rosen himself quotes one Eric Fromm (The Naked Crowd, 2004) as stating that if someone fails to market himself properly, he feels he is a failure, and he is only a success if he can market himself properly. Ergo, self-validation. Alternatively, they could be really just be seeking their 15 minutes of fame.

YouTube has become a springboard for many such “internet celebrities” (YouTube, n.d.). One such celebrity is geriatric1927, an 80-year-old Englishman named Peter Oakley. Mr. Oakley made his YouTube debut in August 2006, and as of Jan 17th 2007, has been viewed over 2 million times. He also rose to the hallowed position of most subscribed user in just over a week, displacing many incumbents who had occupied the list since YouTube’s launch. As of Nov 25th 2006, Mr. Oakley has over 30,000 subscribers, and currently occupies the 7th spot on the most subscribed list. (geriatric1927, n.d.)

How has this come about?

Basically, all Mr. Oakley has done is put his life stories on YouTube, as narrated by him. Even the title of his videos, Telling It All, is an indication of his desire to, well, tell all. It’s also interesting that in this day and age of people doing extremely stupid things for fame or people simply hoping to be the Next Big Thing, Mr. Oakley has achieved the fame that he has. Why? After all, it’s just some old dude telling stories. Comments on his videos are for the most part positive, and in fact, negative or rude comments are actually frowned upon by the YouTube community at large (Response from the public, geriatric1927, n.d.) Part of Mr. Oakley’s popularity stems from his unusual (for his age) level of tech-savvy, and in fact he has been called the ‘coolest old dude alive’ because of the aforementioned tech-savvy, and the fact that he uses videocasting, something considered to be for the young. He has also been lauded for his warm, ‘grandpa-like’ style of story telling. All this ties into what Rosen was talking about with regards to sincerity and authenticity (From sincerity to authenticity, The Naked Crowd, 2004), i.e. he is consistently honest in portraying his image of an old man sharing stories with the young. He is himself.

Interestingly enough, Mr. Oakley has actually spurned media attention, preferring to talk only to the YouTube community through his videos, in his own informal and personal way, steadily rejecting offers from TV and radio stations to interview him, giving in only to the BBC (geriatric1927, n.d.). Thus, he is unique in that he is not out for his 15 minutes of fame, simply for the sake of telling stories. Again, simply being himself.

In conclusion, perhaps sacrificing some of your personal privacy, putting your life story on the internet may or may not be such a bad thing. Similar to blogs, such an act may be one of catharsis, and it may also gain the world a true gem in a kindly old grandfather amongst a web full of poseurs.


___________________________________________________________


References:

Rosen, Jeffrey (1999). “The Naked Crowd" Retrieved March 9th, 2007 from http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm

Geriatric1927, n.d. In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:20, March 9th, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geriatric1927

YouTube, n.d. In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:20, March 9th, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube