WHENEVER & WHEREVER

When I talk about the new readers generation I mean all these people that as I said in previous posts read electronically. There are many good reasons to read from a screen. One of them is internet, it is huge the amount of written data that we get from and through internet as a routine.  See for example e-mails, web journals or magazines, electronic books or any kind of written document really. This lately phenomena happens out of the benefits that internet leads us when it comes to getting any kind of data almost whenever and wherever we want it.  Meaning that when a nowadays student needs to get done some course work, will find the brief in the university website.  If you happened to want to read Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen when you are waiting for the bus, you can just download it from the internet and start reading it in less than five minutes.

Another of the greatest advantages of this “electronic reading” is the weight and space saving. With this I am referring to that big shelf filled with books that good readers have. This shelf isn’t a problem for settled people. But in the last 15 years the fact of moving around the world has become easier and this is generating a generation of nomads. For this nomads is way more comfortable to carry just one light and little device that can fit all their books in it. 

WHO gives the information ???

Martin Raymond has an interesting theory that repeats with the exact same words in both of his books "The Tomorrow People" and "The Trend Forecaster's Handbook", fact that I personally found quite "amusing". This theory is relevant for my research anyway. It consist on an explanation of the amount of information that is posted into networks from different individuals. Apparently 80% of the information in networks is provided by 20% of the network integrants.

Does this means that I have to find this particular integrants?? But if I do so, I won't get much variety of opinions or responses... I know of course that I need to ask a particular public that is going to be interested in my research or that will be willing to answer my questions in order to help me with my task.

ELECTRONICALY READING

Haven't you noticed lately that at least a 50% of text we read is electronic? Meaning with this that we read from many different screen-devices, cell phones, laptops, tablets, ereaders... This devices aren't going anywhere, we won't stop using them because they mean progress in our society and lives. Wouldn't be part of the progress to stop using paper books and press???

Digital Books or Paper Books?????

Ebooks Vs. Paper Books , this is a very controversial discuss with two well differenced sides. we have the romantic side, which prefer paper books, and the innovator side, pro ereaders. In this link above I found very well explained some pros and cons of both items. 

Something Else To Add To Our Bags

                                        

I am at the library trying to focus and finally get some coursework done and I suddenly realised that there is something new that goes in bag everywhere! It is my new ereader, now I take it along with my laptop, notebook and textbooks. Just wish all my textbooks were available in an electronic format so I wouldn't have to carry that much weight.

This Is What I Need To Do Next

My Chosen Topic

Going on and on about my searching for the topic that was going to suit me better I though I would research about Rock music in terms of how it affects people moods. But when I did my preview attend of research I found out that too many things have been said already about this matter, and that it wasn't going to be easy for me to find something new. That same afternoon I was taking to my boyfriend about the new Sony Readers that we bought last week and I realised that this particular subject was something that many people are taking about lately. So I finally found the topic I am going to research about! eBooks and eReaders.

What Interests Me???

In order to learn how to collect an interesting and useful research from networks we have to chose a topic to research about. To be honest I have being struggling quite a lot with this matter, because it isn't easy to find something interesting and relevant enough to get people to talk about it and that also would embrace more than one group of people. We had some help in class where Sophie (my lecturer) shared with us a list of different subject areas. The problem with this list is that those "areas" are too open to base my research on them, so even though is helpful I still had to chose a topic within that "area".

Notebook

I though it would be interesting to upload pictures of some relevant pages from my notebook. Because this is where I take notes in class and also where I write my thoughts about the project before putting them into this blog. I also make some checklists and diagrams. Instead of writing all this stuff here (in the notebook), from now on I will do my best to write as much as I can on the blog, because by the way I only have a couple of weeks left!! But lets not fall into alarmist thoughts, I know exactly what I have to do in the few days. So yeah... Lets start putting some hard work into this module! 

a KIT-KAT please!!

As you all know a Kit-Kat is a well known chocolate bar, but in Spain (the country where I was born) we    also use it as an idiom. Yes, I know, this sounds weird, when we say in Spanish "wait a Kit-Kat" is like if we were saying "wait a moment". This has a very rational and simple explanation, Spanish people is not that crazy... Back when this brand started to be sponsored in Spain they were advertised like a break snak.  That is why we use it like that. Whatever, this isn't what I really intended to write in this post. I was checking for some inspirational reading for this blog and I found "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell in our recommended reading list for this module. To be honest it was the only book that I managed to find as an epub to load into my digital book reader.

The fact is that I find some of this book's theories very interesting, so decided to share it along with all my incoming research.

"The Tipping Point is the biography of an idea, and the idea very simple. It is that the best way to understand de emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and flow of crime waves, or, for that matter, the transformation of a unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of work of mouth, or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and the messages and behaviours spread just like viruses do.

The rise of Hush Puppies and the fall of New York's crime rate are text book examples of epidemics in action. Although they may sound as if they don't have very much in commun, there share basic, underlying pattern. First of all, they are clear examples of contagious behaviour. No one took out an advertisement and told people that the traditional Hush Puppies were cool and they should start wearing them. Those kids simply wore the shoes when they went to clubs or cafes or walked the streets of downtown New York, and in so doing exposed other people to their fashion sense. They infected them with the Hush Puppies virus.[...] The second distinguishing characteristic of this two examples is that in most cases little changes had big effect.[...] Finally, both changes happend in a hurry. They didn't built steadily and slowly."

MY NETWORK DIAGRAM

This is the diagram I made of my personal connection with people. I ordered them from places I have lived. 

Weak & Strong Ties

I retained something that my lecturer mention today that I found especially interesting. This matter was weak and strong ties within a network. I looked at Raymond's Trend forecasters handbook but I wasn't completely satisfied with his explanation of the subject. So I kept researching about it a bit more and I found this clearer vision of weak and strong ties.

"In Mark Granovetter's social world, our close friends are often friends with each other as well. The network behind such a clustered society consists of small, fully connected circles of friends connected by strong ties, shown as blod lines. Weak ties, shown as thin lines, connect the members of these friendship circles to their acquaintances, who have strong ties to their own friends. Weak ties play an important role in any number of social activities, from spreading rumors to getting a job." 

(Barabasi, A.L. (2002) Linked: The New Science of Networks. Plume: Penguin Group)

I have been thinking about it and I came out with the conclusion that for my own network is going to be much better to use weak ties. Because I am interested in getting as many different opinions as posible. 

NETWORK = CONNECTIONS/LINKS

What is good about networks is that we get to know about people thoughts way more than "in real life". Lets for example look at facebook. We can see all this information about what loads of people (that allow us to see their profile) post, that otherwise we could have never knew. Things such as pictures of the summer vacations of someone that I met in a party, or maybe I could discover that someone I know is a great writer because they published their blog site. Networks give us the opportunity to get in touch with interesting matters and people very easily. That makes researching much simple.

Fine. So how can I use a network as a research tool? What kind of information can I get from it?
As I wrote in my last post, information on the internet is not always reliable. What it is reliable and extremely useful is the fact that because anyone can write, anyone can give an opinion or expres a feeling. about something.

I post therefore I am

Yes... I know I should have being posting every day so I get used to it and I do it as a habit blah blah blah...  But I was looking for the motivation to be dropped down from the sky just like doughnuts or something. It didn't. So now I find my self writing at almost 3am trying to find that motivation by my self. Lets start.




"The network is the dominant culture ideology" ok... Singers create new singles based on fan's opinions/petitions on their web sides, politicians check Tweeter for feedback from the population, designers rely some of their advertising to not necessarily profesional people that have many followers in their blogs . Apparently if nowadays our ideas aren't posted somewhere on the internet they "don't exit". Therefore if we intent to be known for our interest, work, ideas we see our selfs in the need of getting them online exposing our thoughts.

Lately anyone can write about anything and they will be published, because we can actually publish whatever we want for free! This can be extremely useful sometimes but because anyone can do it, how can we decide which of that information is reliable???

"The network is the dominant culture ideology"

(Vanelis)