The Blog - Essay Example

PEER REVIEW By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Part One - Mini-Essay McKenzie Wark’s “a Hacker Manifesto” challenges the latest property relations regime with all the revolutionary gusto, conceptual innovation, and epigrammatic vivacity of the great manifestos. The main opposition of the hacker in developing a globe where there is free information is denoted by Wark as the vectoralist class. Known for controlling various networks as well as pathways through which information flows, Wark (2004) asserts that the vectoralist class are the contemporary dotcom commercial giants owning the production means and, therefore, have monopolized abstractions. Their control is maintained by pursuing a rigorous struggle with the intention of dispossessing the hackers of their intellectual property, applied through a series of copyright as well as patent laws to disconnect the hacker class from their achievements. Without a doubt, Wark is voicing what he had seen previously, something that perhaps had not been noticed as crucial by many. Wark concern is evidenced by the current struggles over copyright and piracy, hacktivism as well as spying, which have exploded into certainty. Basically, piracy and copyright are not inconsequential debates or struggles seeming at the commodification system periphery, the modern capitalism. The meaning of label ‘hacker’ has been greatly extended by Wark and enables one to clearly comprehend this modern electronic abstraction development in the form of commodity. Mentioning vectoralists and hackers as classes was believably rhetorically worthwhile since it dramatizes their implication in the contemporary world system. However, there are a number of points outlined by Wark that are not convincing; for instance, the separation between hackers and industrial workers is made profligately, as between vectorialists and capitalists; this undervalues the permanency of the expropriation history. According to Wark (2011), the civilization is based on unsustainable social structures that are contrary to human nature. In view of this, Wark wonders why people have to speak the hideous language of their century. Unlike the years of control and command, people are living in a doubled world of images where they have learnt to control themselves not as the spectacle victims but as its inner émigrés. Without a doubt, contemporaries are the inventors and creators of spectacles that were not dreamt of even by the capitalists themselves. Part Two: Peer Review The blog demonstrates awareness and understanding of globalisation and the media as evidenced by the blog post, Global Networks. According to Eleanor Powell, global networking provides the ability for society to communicate across the globe. As observed by Lerche (2012), advancements in technology have facilitated the increase of communication, which in consequence has made the global networking a dominant feature in the contemporary society. The blog awareness and understanding of globalisation is not satisfactory because it does not indicate how the large-scale transfer of symbolic forms as well as meaning systems has made the world become not just in economic and political terms, but also in terms of cultural construction. Still, under the Media Mutations article the blog post has exhibited how the media were and are still playing a crucial role in facilitating culture exchange, enhancing globalization and improving different flows of information between countries. According to the blog post, the mainstream media before the 1990’s in many countries across the globe were comparatively national in scope, but afterwards most media developed into global scale, outspreading their reach further than the nation-state so as to conquer audiences all over the world. Through the blog, one can understand that the global flows of information have largely been helped through the development of new technologies, global capitalism as well as the increasing media commercialization. The blog points out that the present information society is attempting to make information accessible globally, but still, the information freedom is turning into the information commercialization. Therefore, the arguments presented in the blog demonstrate awareness as well as the understanding of globalisation and the media. The main arguments being used in the blog include the fundamentals of sharing data in the ‘global content’ article, where the writer analyses Cory Doctorow article, ‘Free data sharing is here to stay’. In this case, the bog post argues that it is imperative to know that when it comes to information sharing on the internet, most users are expected to buy the needed content. Another argument is presented in the ‘global networks’ article; where it has been argued that global networking offers the society an ability to communicate anywhere and anytime. Citing a number of studies, it has been argued in the blog post that global networking has negative effects, but still it is a crucial aspect of helping the world to function cohesively. Based on the article ‘Our Global Village’, it is argued that the world has become one due to new media expansion. According to the blog post, although the current media modalities have transformed the manner through which society functions, it has offered benefits; for instance, it has made information more accessible and has improved the process of communication. Concerning the ‘Media Mutations’ it has been argued that technology offers people the capability of tracking movements of other; for instance, the hash tag phenomena is a contemporary way of tracking cultures. Logically, an argument should be a series of statements utilised to convince someone about something, but most arguments presented in the blog lack supportive claims from other pieces of literature. To be able to create a rapport with the audience, the blog posts should have had a literature review considering that it helps the author generate a sense of rapport with the readers or audience. Besides that, the literature review could have offered a comprehensive overview as well as the summary on discussed topic from both the present and past; thus, offering the reader a sense of focus. The facts and theories presented in the blog come across as reliable because they have been cited, but the sources provided are inadequate. Besides that, the blog's credibility is undermined by a number of grammatical errors on the blog; such as “Contrasting Varnelis view on global networking is Geert Lovink,” “The consequences of being caught downloading, results in a huge monetary fine that is best avoidable,” and “As the global digital culture expands, there is no doubt that news ways of monitoring society’s activities will be created,”. When writing blog content, it is without a doubt that particular writing styles are inclined to break some rules of writing.  Still, there are some grammatical rules that are hard to ignore since they can destroy the blog credibility. Generating own content is an academic process that a writer must do, and to make the content credible and reliable the writer must comprehend the common grammatical errors. Evidently, the blog has used a number of sources that contributes to its credibility. For instance, in Media Mutations one source has been used; Global Networks has three sources, Global Content has one source, Our Global Village has two sources. Of all this sources, only one source as cited in ‘Our Global Village’ is scholarly while the other sources are online websites and books. There is only one visible image in the blog, Eleanor Powel picture that hardly catches the attention of the reader. As observed by Geddes et al. (2015, p.390), blog posts having images get almost 94 per cent more total views as compared to those without. Therefore, including a video or photo in blog can increase views by almost 40 per cent considering that readers are more inclined to read or consider a blog post when an image crops up in the results of a local search. Undoubtedly, many readers especially those from high context culture find blogs with images to be more attractive and so would prefer reading articles from such blogs that those without images. Therefore, pertinent, interesting as well as well-positioned visuals may guide the readers to take action such as reading another blog post, visit the homepage or read the past blog posts. The blog's content focused on and was relevant to the topics being explored; for instance, in the blog post ‘Our Global Village’ the post indicates that the marketing is one characteristic in the current global village. The blog post is relevant because it shows how the mobile phones, television, as well as the internet in contemporary society enable the marketers to collect information and facilitate the advertisement of the products. With regard to the ‘Global Networks’ blog posts the post focuses on the global networking, which is a remarkable creation that has enabled the society to develop in a culture where people are offered various opportunities that could not be accessed in the past. Imperatively, the blog offers a fastest, easiest, as well as a direct way of interacting with the readers. Besides that, the writer should consider her blog as an initiative where she decides on what to post so as to build social interactions. The content of the blog offers a platform for frank and fair opinions and discussion from the community and readers who are interested in the content posted. References Geddes, B. et al., 2015. Introduction to Online Marketing: Simple marketing ways to attract and engage the digital generation. Atlantic City, New Jersey: eLight Marketing LLC. Lerche, C.O., 2012. The Conflicts Of Globalization. [Online] Available at: http://www.gmu.edu/programs/icar/ijps/vol3_1/learch.htm [Accessed 13 September 2015]. Wark, M., 2004. A Hacker Manifesto. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wark, M., 2011. McKenzie Wark at The Center for Design and Geopolitics. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e0F9AX23JI [Accessed 13 September 2015]. Read More