Project presentation1

1. Project presentation1 Group 4

2. Introduction • The medium is the message is a phrase created by Marshall McLuhan • He was a Canadian born in 1911. • Medium is the message means that the form of a medium embeds itself in a message. This creates a relationship that influences how the message is perceived. • So medium is the 'tool' used to convey something..... (an example being that when watching TV most of the time we don't really listen to what is being said but rather we concentrate on what we are seeing i.e. body language, how they are dressed etc). Or in the case of Facebook you are not reading all the information but rather concentrating on the layout, new objects etc.

3. Layout • The setup is simple with the basic blue-colour of the website taking internet users’ attention all over the world. Facebook is a insight into peoples lives. Facebook connects people and allow them to communicate, share pictures, videos ect. • The setup is blue and white. • It is straight to the point, one display picture, pictures of your friends and status updates hence the name Facebook. Face being the focal point and where communication comes from. Book which holds all the information so that people can voice their opinion about anything and others will comment and agree like a small fan base. It is in essence a biography of your life. The layout is used as a extension of communication to the masses. With Facebook you can be a writer, musician photographer and so much more.

4. Layout • Home page • Otherwise known as news feeds • News Feed highlights what's happening in your social circles on Facebook. It updates a personalized list of news stories throughout the day. • Facebook has found that everyone wants something different from their complex news feed, therefore they have made it adjustable to fit the users object of desire.

5. News feeds • On 6 September 2006 Facebook announced a new home page feature called News Feed. Originally, when users logged into Facebook, they were presented with their own profile. The new layout, created an alternative home page in which users saw a constantly updated list of their friends' Facebook activity. • News Feed highlights information that includes profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays, among other updates. • Many users complained that the News Feed was too cluttered and full of undesired information. • Others were concerned that the News Feed made it too easy for other people to track activities events and conversations with other users. This tracking is often casually referred to as "Facebook-Stalking.” • In response this layout Facebook issued an apology for the site's failure to include appropriate privacy features. • The more you log in, the less productive you are in your life. You might become addicted to knowing the recent updates of your friends, and who put comments on your wall post, which means, neglecting everyday responsibility.

6. Layout- Networking effect • Due to layout it makes communication simple however this can be harmful. Facebook is basically a constant stream of information overload. Facebook is genius in successfully duping people to sign up to what is effectively spam and this in term leads to downloading software to combat this same problem. • Facebook creates this demand for it by using a method called networking effect. • Networking effect was created by Theodore Vail. It is the more people use social networking sites like Facebook, the more valuable it is to the user. • Everyday Facebook achieves this by having a recommended ‘people you may know’ section to the home page.

7. Layout •Profiles are based on "all you need to know" information, and this is what you end up reducing people to... a simple profile on your screen. • Your whole life is outlined on one page, your profile, with your interests, likes and dislikes, pictures, friends all organized neatly in categories in that all-too-familiar white and blue template layout. You are in control of your own page, a master of your own Facebook destiny. •Being tagged like an object. •Seems like what you put on Facebook is more important or more true to finding out who you are or what are your plans in life. Something that is so superficial affecting the life of many.

9. Identity on Facebook Marshall McLuhan was concerned with the observation that we tend to focus on the obvious. In doing so, we largely miss the structural changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly, or over long periods of time. Whenever we create a new innovation - be it an invention or a new idea - many of its properties are fairly obvious to us. We generally know what it will nominally do, or at least what it is intended to do, and what it might replace. We often know what its advantages and disadvantages might be. But it is also often the case that, after a long period of time and experience with the new innovation, we look backward and realize that there were some effects of which we were entirely unaware at the outset. We sometimes call these effects "unintended consequences, “although "unanticipated consequences" might be a more accurate description.

10. Facebook has a huge impact on our identity. It can change you from being a true social person into an addicted user. We spend so much time on Facebook without having an exact purpose. The only activities that we have are upload photos, add friends, comment on people`s photos and write status. People don`t realize how these things simple in appearance are so dangerous in essence. Marshall tells us that the “medium” is an extension of ourselves. Themedium of language extends our thoughts from within our mind out to others. Facebook is in such close connection with us because it appeals to our primitive needs. A McLuhan message always tells us to look beyond the obvious and seek the nonobvious changes or effects that are enabled. McLuhan tells us that a "message" is, "the change of scale or pace or pattern" that a new invention or innovation "introduces into human affairs.“ (McLuhan 8) Note that it is not the content or use of the innovation, but the change in inter-personal dynamics that the innovation brings withit.

11. The most extreme thing that Facebook can do with your identity is dividing it into other personalities like the Dissociative identity disorder. On Facebook you can develop as many personalities as you want because of the easily way to discuss with people. In every conversation, you have the possibily to change your thoughts and principles and most of us do that in order to satisfy a virtual interlocutor. As McLuhan reminds us, "Control over change would seem to consist in moving not with it but ahead of it. Anticipation gives the power to deflect and control force.“ (p.199).

12. Internet Identity

13. 2010 Social Demographics • Facebook • In 2010 there were 500 million users • 54% women • 46% men • 41% users logged in everyday. Twitter In 2010 there were 106 million users 52% women 48% men 27% users logged in everyday http://gercek.typepad.com/random/2011/01/facebook-vs-twitter-2010-social-demographics.html sourced online [17Jan2011]

14. 2010 Social Demographics cont…

15. Facebook Relationships • In the 1960s Marshal Mcluhan announced the existence of a Global Village and predicted the intensification of the world community to its present expression. • The growth of social media namely facebook proves that this prediction is becoming a reality. It is now easy to make new friends and communicate with people world wide, people we have never met and are not likely to ever meet. • Facebook has been cleverly constructed in such a way that we cannot resist the urge to make new ‘friends’. By adding links that allow us to track friends via email addresses, suggesting friends we may know and also allowing us to view friends of friends and encouraging the growth of fake relationships. • According to Marshal McLuhan new technology has amputations and extensions, this is evident with facebook in that it has extended the ability to make new friends and communicate with people all over the world in a matter of seconds but has however amputatedthe ability to have a genuine friendship and has removed the warmth and intimacy of relationships. We no longer value relationships rather we are using these fake friends to gain popularity and feed our egos. Unfortunately we are too focused on the extensions that we fail to recognize the amputations i.e. the dangers of exposing our lives to strangers

16. Marshal Mcluhan – Medium is the message • Medium being facebook itself and not the content it carries • Marshal Mcluhan stated that “People focus on the obvious which is the content of the medium to provide valuable information but in this process we miss the changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly over long periods of time.” • Facebook can transform your relationships that you may have with people through how you know each other to how you communicate to how you make friends a lot of people who are on facebook may have hundreds of friends but just exactly how many to you actually know? • We have 3 tiers (rankings/ classes) of personal social relationships on facebook • 1 being relatives and close friends boyfriends and girlfriends • 2nd being intermediate class mates co workers and colleagues • 3rd being remote virtual friends people who you meet in cyber space • These 3 tiers map out geographically • Tier 1 same neighbourhood and house hold • Tier 2 same country town • Tier 3 across the world

17. Facebook and these three tiers can change who we want to be on facebook for example. • Tier 1 you the way you speak to your family and close friends will be different to how you may talk to your colleagues and old class mates and for tier 3 you can talk them anyway because they do not know you they have never met you before so this enables people to create fantasies and different characters. • Facebook is more popular than Twitter due to it being use full to find people for business purposes you can use it as a blog up load pictures onto your page which enables you to create your own media you. • Twitter only lets you make status updates but doesn’t enable others to comment on your status facebook has a home page where you can keep track of all your other friends status’s which is just one click away facebook is so simply to use you can access it on your phone and keep track of what everyone else is up to. Twitter is about the here and now you can still comment on old status’s created on facebook days, weeks, months later and probably still get a reply due to the notifications that facebook gives you. • Facebook enables us to react different in different situations example when I’m talking to my family members I may talk to them in Patoi but to old school friends and colleagues I will address them more formally we behave differently in different situations on facebook because we are able to face to face now in person it will be different. facebook has no consequences but then creates different personalities which we all have but become more apparent on facebook through status’s comments and updates we may make.

18. Comparison What do Facebook, MySpace and Twitter all have in common? They are all social network sites, that are operated by user- generated content. These sites provide their users with the option to share videos, photos, thoughts/opinions and/or just general networking. Social networks leave their users find it hard to resist how other people are living their lives, what thoughts they are thinking and what is being said about them.

19. Social Network: Similarities Facebook, Myspace and Twitter are very similar especially when it comes to general networking. With referral to the three tiers of personal social relationships mentioned earlier. • Close: Family, Partners, Very close friends • Intermediate: Close mates, Co-workers, ex-colleagues, acquaintances • Remote: Genuinely ‘virtual’ friends met in cyberspace. The unknown They all make it easier to communicate to friends family and associates through these online communities. However Blogs on the other hand are also social networking sites but are only considered to professional. Designed for remote relationships and intermediate. Language also changes with the different sites.