Week One - Digital Technology's

 In today’s lesson we discussed key themes related to digital practice and how as a whole digital technologies were developed. Within my smaller group we talked about ‘Network Society’, a theory by Manuel Castell created in 1996, an idea how key social structures within society are organised around electronically processed information networks. This was an interesting theory as we discussed how vital the use of social networking has become in modern society and within that how often we each own used digital communication such as Instagram and Facebook, as the idea of connectivity was highly important to the theory. We also looked into the way that because of the network society, everything is connected via the hypertext enabled flow. I reflected on how vital social networking was for me and it was interesting to discuss in groups as different people held different beliefs about the importance of it.

As a class we then discussed David Gauntlets' idea around Web 2.0 and how the internet changed to become more collaborative and a shared space, rather than an individual experience. I had previously learnt about his theories on representation and identity, but hearing his take on the new uses for the internet was interesting to compare with his other theories. He goes on further to say online sites and services will only become more powerful the more they embrace the collaborative elements of the internet. This is something I find very compelling as now the more people using one website, the more successful it will be as these sites like Instagram only hold value because people contribute to them.

As a class we discussed our own relationships with the internet and then made flow charts depicting parts of our life that were made possible through online relationships. I created my flowchart around my move to uni, as when I was choosing where I would like to study I was unable to visit any in person due to the pandemic so had to choose entirely online. This is probably the biggest decision I have made based on using the Internet as it has subsequently helped me choose the field in which I want to have a career and who I’m going to live with for the foreseeable future.