I know something you don’t know… I know someone you don’t know… I have my dream new media job...

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” A degree does not guarantee you a job in the new media!!!


These statements do not come as a shock when relating them to new media job searching. Observing new media workers it is obvious that they “move away from traditional notions of career to more informal, insecure and discontinuous employment.” This means that sites like Linked in, About.me, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are used to help gain employment opportunities. This also makes it easier for recommendations to be passed along. For example if someone wants to recommend you it’s as easy as sending a link. What does this really mean for us though? It means that making connections and networking with those in whichever fields we are interested in is absolutely vital if we wish to gain and maintain work in the future.

Statistics showing activities taken to enhance career and employment prospects

With all this talk about networking being the key to my dream job, I was starting to wonder what use a degree will be anyways. Gill (2007) made me breathe a little easier when stating that “new media workers are extremely highly educated, with the majority of participants in this research being qualified up to or above degree level.” Learning is obviously a common factor within new media work with Elisha, Megan and Gill’s Informality is the New Black article all mentioning it.

The recipe for success in new media is different for everyone, but two vital ingredients are networking and continuously learning new cutting edge skills to make you stand out.

Gill, R. (2007). Informality is the New Black. In Technobohemians or the new Cybertariat? New Media work in Amsterdam a decade after the web. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures: 24-30 & 38-43.

Tusing, P. 2011. Adoption of Social Media for Job Serach Soars in Australia. Accessed 2 May 2011 http://destination.com.au/blog/2011/03/24/adoption-of-social-media-for-job-search-soars-in-australia/

Search, find, diagnose…

I found out that diabetes runs in my family and was very interested to know the causes and how to live with it. So how did I get my information? Doctors? No. Family members? No. The internet, of course.

As Lewis (2006, 521) says the, “emergence of RealAge.com and other personalized health websites can be seen as part of a broader trend across the media. From television to the print media, health issues today are increasingly talked about in terms of individual rather than governmental or social responsibility.” It is true that all types of media encourage people to take their health and lifestyle issues into their own hands. As Erin mentions in her blog, the aforementioned website is even endorsed by Oprah.

But with people being able to gather their own information online, people are more likely to self-diagnose or become “cyberchondriacs,” as spoken about in the Taylor (2002) article. All the information that is uploaded on the internet is hard to moderate and therefore you need to be very careful with what you consume and always question the validity of the information. The abundance of information would not be such an issue if all patients took their information or concerns to a licensed medical practitioner. Unfortunately this is not the case.

The BBC reported on a study which stated that “only about 200 of 500 sites offered correct information, Archives of Disease in Childhood reports.” Lucy also agrees that not all sources of medical or lifestyle information are correct. With this in mind we need to ask ourselves what we are really reading when we use the internet to find medical information. Should we really put our health at risk just to save a trip to the doctors?

BBC. 2010. Internet child health advice ‘wrong.’ BBC News. April 12.

Diabetes Australia. 2011. http://www.diabetesaustralia.com.au/ (accessed April 11, 2011)

Lewis, T. (2006). Seeking health information on the internet: lifestyle choice or bad attack of cyberchondria? Media, Culture & Society, volume 28, issue 4: 521-539. Available on CMD.

Taylor, H. (2002) ‘The Harris Poll #21: Cyberchondriacs Update’, URL (consulted

September 2003): http://www.gsbc.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=299

Summers, K. 2010. Internet Health Source: Who to Trust? http://www.healthwriting.com/internet-health-sources-who-to-trust/ (accessed April 11, 2011)

Real World, Media World…One World?

Lying in bed, but my alarm went off 10 minutes ago. What am I still doing in bed? I’m on my phone checking facebook. I then get to thinking, am I really the one consuming the media, or is the media consuming my life?

As Deuze (2011, 138) says, “our life is lived in, rather than with, media – we are living a media life.” Media is everywhere in our lives and with the introduction of the smart phone; technology has made media even more accessible. Like Elisha, I use my smart phone to check applications like facebook, emails and many more. My phone always seems to be with me and it has become second nature to me to check applications, like facebook or my emails, more frequently than ever before. I, like many others, have become so involved within the media life that we no longer “recognize our media habits because they are a constitutive part of us.” (Deuze 2011, 138)

Such media platforms allow users to create an online personality and interact with each other in a virtual world. But the lines that separate reality and the virtual world seem to be disappearing. Like Hannah mentions in her blog, there is no longer a clear separation of the two worlds. I never realised how intertwined the ‘real’ world and the ‘media’ world had become, until I started to examine my own life and habits. It has now become apparent to me that my life is a media life.

Deuze, M. (2011). Media Life. In Media, Culture & Society, Volume 33, issue 1, pp. 137-148.

Facebook 2011. Accessed 14 March 2011 at www.facebook.com

It’s Official: Zuck To Introduce a Facebook Smartphone in 2011. 2010. http://tommytoy.typepad.com/tommy-toy-pbt-consultin/2010/09/its-official-zuck-to-introduce-a-facebook-smartphone-in-2011.html (accessed April 3, 2011)

CSL Cartoonstock. 2011. http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/s/smartphone.asp (accessed April 3, 2011)

Buy, Borrow or Steal…?

I’ll buy the hard copy if it’s any good… I’ll support locally produced products… I can’t afford to buy it from the shops...

“Increasingly, internet communities set their own norms and standards and define their own specific rules and duties.” (Hamelink 2006, 119) How you justify it to yourself is up to you, but either way downloading content off the internet is illegal.

We’ve all seen the ads saying you wouldn’t steal a handbag or you wouldn’t steal a TV and had a laugh at how ridiculous the comparison is. When it comes to these types of physical objects, for the most part, our moral compasses points true and we would never imagine stealing them. It seems to be a different story when it comes to downloading files online. As Hamelink (2006, 117) states, “The anonymity makes lying very easy and difficult to detect…It raises the problem of “moral distance” with extra urgency. The greater the distance to potential victims, the more readily will people inflict harm that they would refrain from in face-to-face situations.” It’s as if because you don’t have to physically take the content from a person, it is somehow acceptable.

From a young age I, like most people, was taught about morals and what it meant to be a good person within society. I was told to always be honest and that stealing was wrong. Like Elisha, I too have illegally downloaded content, so I am in no position to judge anyone who has done the same. Regardless I can’t help but ask the question why, when we all know that stealing is wrong, do we continue to illegally download content?

Hamelink, C. (2006). The Ethics of the Internet: Can we cope with Lies and Deceit on the Net? In Ideologies of the Internet, K. Sarikakis & Daya Thussu, pp. 115-130. New Jersey: Hampton Press

Al-Shagra, A. 2010. The Arabic Online Music Industry Is Learning…Slowly. The Next Web. July 1.

iTunes, iPods and iPersonalities

You are what you listen to. Classical = arrogant snob. Heavy metal = angry. Pop = simple minded. Punk = emo.

There are so many stereotypes that come part and parcel with the music you listen to, made even more apparent with sites like Top five music fan stereotypes. As Levy (2006, 25) said, “When I was in high school in the 1960s, you were labelled by whether you listened to Motown or the irreverent noises of Dylan, Hendrix, and the Lovin’ Spoonful. Since we didn’t have iPods, we tipped our tastes by clothing: the Motown crowd wore highboy collars and the folk-rock “dirties” wore T-shirts and jeans.”

Like Jacob, I have a wide variety of songs and genres in my music library. With my electronic music library consisting of over 13000 songs my collection is quite sizable. With the shuffle feature in use I can go from listening to Calvin Harris to ABBA to Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. I struggle to put myself into any one specific stereotype or single out specific personality traits that accompany the music I listen to, but I have identified with all at some stage. While I have no hesitation listening to my music alone, I always wait for the judgement or surprise that comes when people are looking through my playlist.

Levy summed it up nicely when saying, “playlist is character.” (2006, 41) The music you listen to can say many things about you. It can represent your personality, your past experiences, your culture and so many other aspects of you. There is no point being embarrassed about the music in your music library when people are able to easily access it with the browsing technology available. Your music is a part of you, even that Celine Dion. We need to allow our iPod’s to be a “rich personal narrative, navigated by click wheel.”

Levy, S. (2006). The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness, New York: Simon & Schuster, pp. 21-41

Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2007). The content and validity of music-genre stereotypes among college students. Psychology of Music , 35, 306-326

Me, Myself and Who I Want You to See...

1 new friend request!

The notification is emphasised on your Facebook main page. You have no idea who this person is though. So do you add or decline? I know I’ve been in this position before. Donath and Boyd (2004, 78) were correct in saying, “the networking sites make it much easier to form some kind of connection with other people. On many of them, a simple click on the profile of a person who intrigues you is all that it takes to launch an email to them, stating that you would like to be their ‘friend’ or ‘connection.’” We think we can see who people really are through these sites, but are we seeing the real them?

I would say no. Online you can be who ever you want to be. It is so easy for users to create profiles that are not true representations of themselves. As Pearson (2009) said, “users manipulate these communicative codes, with varying degrees of skill and dexterity, to create not only online selves, but also to create the staging and setting in which these selves exist.” Online platforms allow users a space to express themselves, comparable to a stage in a theatre. This adds to the idea that whenever we use social networking sites, we both perform for an audience, as well as becoming the audience members to the performances going on around us.

We can portray ourselves in any way we wish, effectively creating perceptions and beliefs about ourselves to seem more appealing or socially acceptable to others. While some people may simply lie about a sporting involvement, as Erin Ryan suggested, others can deceive on much larger scales. Donath and Boyd (2004, 74) reported that “there have been numerous reports of identity deception in such sites, ranging from the relatively innocuous misrepresentation of personal appearance and achievements, to more serious deceptions about marital status and intentions.”

So the next time you’re online be more aware; aware, not only of your own performance, but of the performances you’re watching. Just make sure you don’t get deceived by any over convincing actors.

Pearson, E. (2009). All the World Wide Web’s a stage: the Performance of Identity in Online Social Networks. First Monday, volume 14, Number 3.

Donath, J. and Boyd, d. (2004). Public displays of connection. BT Technology Journal, volume 22 (4): 71-82.

Facebook 2011. Accessed 14 March 2011 at www.facebook.com

Taylor, D. 2011. How to Find Your Friends On Facebook With The Facebook Friend Finder. http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_to_find_friends_facebook_facebook_friend_finder.html (accessed March 13, 2011)