Presentation Development

Here are a few resources for presenting in the digital age. :)

1) find a ted talk or two-watch them and see how they do what they do

2) Use the speech outline to help you construct your presentation notes (in Canvas)

And most important-
...keep it simple-remember you are communicating with an audience about your research
...get rest and a little bit of exercise before your presentation
...breathe
...adapt if things do not go as planned
...you are human and the audience members who understand that are your target audience :)

In relation to the Harold piece on pranks and parody, and marketing and advertising, I came across this site..and these videos too.

See what you you think!

First there's this, I also shared it on my facebook....

A company making fun of advertising...to advertise. 



rigggghhht. Don't get me wrong, the poking fun at cliches is clever and does a great job making a point, just wish it wasn't advertising low fat yogurt.


Next up...The Illusionists, a short documentary "about the body as the “finest consumer object” and the pursuit of ideal beauty around the world. Or: how corporations are getting richer by making us feeling insecure about the way we look." (taken from the website.) 

THE ILLUSIONISTS documentary – teaser from Illusionists Documentary on Vimeo.

Why not Hate the Player?

Okay, after reading this...there are several things that (if I have read and understood them correctly) have blown.my.mind.

1) That these "Gold farmers" that are paid to "play online all day, every day, gathering artificial gold coins and other virtual loot that, 'as it turns out, can be transformed into real cash." really exist!! (133) IS THIS FOR REALZ?! ....mind blown.

this first one, which leads into my next case of mind being blown is making my insides cringe and shudder...and my ethic and moral little person on my shoulder want to scream and shout and jump up and down and sit down and have a talk with every player in WoW that has anything to do with the machinima ---->(which, "allows users to extend its [the games] representational or narrative space.." (135))....back to my mini rant...I want to sit down with any players that support or created that "Ni Hao" video! Mind if I continue my rant on this one a little? Well..I'm going to, forgive me for getting sidetracked, BUT. I feel like the players in WoW that feel the need to discriminate, torment, kill-off or whatever else they may do to these "farmers" or Chinese players are only doing this out of fear...fear of the Chinese players who are playing as leisure players, that I hope to goodness are kicking some ignorant naive WoW players butt. The players that head hunt the farmers only go for the farmers because they are an easy target, they know (okay, maybe they don't, I'm honestly not that familiar with the game, but from a non-gamers point of view..)they cant spot out a Chinese player, and even if they could, they know better than to mess with them..if they are playing within the same server. Well...okay that was basically the 2) that I was going to get to..but I kind of got a little worked up as I was typing..So to make it clear:

2) That there are players in this virtual world that want to (and somehow manage to) bring an aspect of our reality that our society has been trying to be rid of for decades. Why I ask?! WHY?

Okay, sorry for my rant..and I apologize if some of the things I said were incorrect concerning the game..just my understanding from the reading, and my opinions. The Asian culture is beautiful, serene and DESIRABLE, to think that so long as these "'farmers are figured as unwanted guest workers within the culture of MMOs," that this beautiful culture is seen as a threat to the beauty and desirability of the virtual space is absurd. What's threatening is that racism is being dragged into virtual spaces.

Cyber-Warfare..Oh boy

Okay, I'm going to be brutally honest..and I hope no one takes offense to this, but this was one of THE driest (most boring) pieces we have yet read. I'm sorry, this just killed me, like yes it's pretty important and has quite an impact on the field we are in..and the world in general, but I just couldn't do it..I mean I read it (okay, more honesty-about 83% of it..ok 73%!!)

Now, from what I read there are several big terms (that I hope we go over in class/not really) but it discussed terms such as belligerent humanitarianism, warhawk hysteria, traumatized nationalism and realpolitik...now can't say I went and looked these terms up, but the gist of all of this is that the US and China have both been relying on forms of rhetoric to influence how their citizens and our global society perceives them. Also, the main point of this article was this whole concept of China either cyber-spying on US and Google, or cyber-intrusions, whatever they finally decided to term it...they claim it was happening, happening so that China could begin forming their own Silicon Valley by stealing Google's algorithms...another concept I picked up on was that (and I may be confused) but that there was argumentation over whether this whole situation was Google pulling away from China..or China pulling away from the world (aka Google). And an overall concept being international rights and free speech- but as I said, I gotta continue to be honest..I was not into this reading at all...

one quote I did like, when it was talking about Hilary Clinton's speech concerning belligerent humanitarianism, was how she began, "the spread of information networks is forming a new nervous system for our planet." and that the US "stand[s] for a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas." (417) Oh! and another one from the same page, "the new iconic infrastructure of our age is the Internet. Instead of division, it stands for connection." (which was after she made a reference to the Berlin Wall.

Anyways..on to the next readings...sorry for the delay, Charlie Kang has been stealing all of my attention.

Harold

This essay gives many instances of "pranks" that have occurred in the media world as a form of activism. Commercial "pranksters" rhetorically challenge brands and corporations, in hopes of making them better and not turning into a monopoly. These pranksters, however, are taking the idea too far, and becoming more comedians than social activists.

I don't necessarily agree with the idea of pranking because the pranksters are not only attacking a certain product that they might not agree with, but the brand as a whole. I suppose it becomes a question of whether they are doing that intentionally or not, but I think that maybe sometimes they ruin the reputation of a brand a lot faster than they do a product.

Do parodies have a lot to do with the same idea of pranking? I thought about the Harlem Shake right now, and how it is a form of a parody and how people seem to think it is funny. This takes away from the original Harlem Shake, as many pranks that were mentioned in this article take away from the original brand. Imagine if those pranks on brands went so far that we forgot what logos like the Nike Swoosh are.

Nakamura

Racism in a video game... This isn't that much of a surprise to me, to be completely honest. This is just the first time I've heard of anyone calling attention to it. Actually, come to think of it, almost every video game that I have seen is racist in some way or another. Just think of games like Grand Theft Auto - one of the most popular and best-selling video games there has been on the market; extremely racist against African Americans. It is even more odd to me that this appears in World of Warcraft against Asians, when the majority of MMO games originating in Asia.

I thought it was interesting how Nakamura thinks that it is good for the video game industry if cheating occurs. Cheating keeps users from getting "stuck" in a certain part of the game and bored with it. I can remember a lot of games that I had played when I was younger and got really bored with because there was no way to get passed a certain point (also, I was way too stubborn to ask my older brother for help).

There is no way in the game to know if a player is Asian or not, so how is it bad that the farmers in the game are a racist remark? Asians who play World of Warcraft can choose to be any other player of the game can't they? Not only are the farmers in the game made to look and sound exactly like those of Asian heritage,  they are made to be one of the most hated players in the game, making users who play the game who may not be very familiar with the ethnicity biased.

My real blog posts are coming up soon...

This article just totally distracted me....check it out ladies. Gotta getchya' rep up!

Your Reputation Will Be The Currency Of The Future