DMS BLOG 4

Playing football with the Digital Divide

This week’s topic looks at the digital divide between civilizations and countries that are information poor and those, which are information rich. A country that is information wealthy i.e The United States finds that its citizens on majority are better educated and have access to greater resources. Whereas, a country such as Ethiopia would be regarded as information poor, because its citizens aren’t as educated and the country and its people are economically disadvantaged. Digital divide is explained as “the differential access to and use of the Internet according to gender, income, race and location.” (Brand, 2010) Or in simpler terms, it’s how adept to technology and how far along the adoption process a country and its people are. There are two different factors that could possibly cause a digital divide amongst a set of countries:

·      Global divide: where the infrastructure differs between nations and hence one of the nations is unable to cater for the demand

·      Social divide: where the population of a country do not have access to such infrastructure and therefore do not possess the skills of IT users in further developed nations

A great example of this concept of bridging the digital divide is shown in the video below. It depicts a small area of Uganda, Africa where a telecentre has been established. The establishment provides people with all sorts of different access points. With students using the centre to further their education, business owners using the Internet to buy new products and farmers to read and learn about agriculture. It has bridged the gap between under - skilled and under- educated members of the Ugandan population.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt1rdqf6mHA&feature=player_embedded

The question asked by many people in a dilemma or a crisis situation is how can I help? Well the same was asked of me. How can my planned profession as a football player possibly bridge the gap between the digital divide of differing countries?

For many years now, sport has been used as a vehicle to transfer messages. Nelson Mandela most famously used Rugby Union to integrate different races amongst a nation that was split between black and white. He ensured that the South African rugby side incorporated members of both races to make his political beliefs a reality and consequently as we see today, save the nation. Football can definitely be used exactly the same way. Many of the worlds best and most highly paid football players come from African nations, which are regarded as information poor.  The game of football has become a huge success on the continent thanks to the continued success of African players amongst some of the best teams throughout the world. For this reason, particular individuals receive copious admiration from adoring fans all throughout Africa. Therefore, I believe that if football players were able to donate towards such programs as bridging the digital divide, (http://www.bridgethedigitaldivide.com/) along with the influence particular players such as Didier Drogbra and Michael Essien have on a population, more citizens would be likely to endorse the idea of using such establishments as the telecentre.  Allowing for football to become a channel or vehicle from which the bridge of digital divide between countries can be shortened.

A second way in which the sport of football can bridge the gap between the digital divide is by promoting community development. (A Sporting City) Sport often brings people, groups, communities and nations together, a spectacular sporting event can stop a nation, unite individuals for just one moment. When people begin to watch sport, they forget about everything else that troubles them. If technology could be used in small villages and towns throughout Africa to display football, or provide commuters with information on the beautiful game, in such places like the telecentre, a bridge would definitely have been breached. Football will have once again affected the digital divide between two countries and made a population better off.

References

A Sporting City. (n.d.). Retrieved 2010 from Blacktown City: http://www.bridgethedigitaldivide.com/

Brand, J. (2010). The Digital Divide. Bond University, Digital Media and Society . Gold Coast.

DMS BLOG 3

Team Sports will Forever Live Strong

For fourteen years now I have played ‘the beautiful game’, Football, and been apart of many different teams and communities. I have attended three different schools and one university in both England and Australia.  As well as also being apart of many different social groups along with other sporting teams and educational communities. The point I am trying to make here is that no matter, what you’ve done, where you’ve done it or even if you know you have done it, you have been apart of, or you still are apart of a community.

You see traditionally a community has been described as a group of interacting people living in a common location, with organized and shared values, attitudes and beliefs.  (Community, 2010)

Two gentlemen by the name of D.W Mcmillan and D.M Chavis (1987) first adopted the idea of community and what it meant to be apart of one. They developed research into what is referred to as the ‘sense of a community’. Their research identified four elements of “sense of community”:

o   Feeling of Membership: Whereby members attend regularly, learn any special terminology, rules and behaviour norms

o   Feeling of Influence: Members gain status through regular attendance and share as well as enforce the rules

o   Fulfilment of Needs: Whereby members are offered support when needed and a place to communicate through the ups and downs in life

o   Shared Emotion: Members embody a sense of group ‘history’ & ‘spirit’

Van Vilet & Burgers (1987) (Brand, 2010)suggested that communities contain: social interaction, a shared value system and a shared symbol system in four realms:

o   Social: Encompasses social interaction and solidarity for both individual and institutional relations

o   Political: Collective formation of goals and the implementation of policy

o   Economic: Involves the production, distribution and consumptions of goods and services

o   Cultural: The shared value and symbols systems, also corresponding to the built environment

These beliefs were founded and shared amongst the global community in 1987, when the internet and similar communication devices had not yet been established. However, this traditional sense of community is no longer the only form, with geographic location (common location as referred to above) no longer being a determining factor amongst instilling a sense of community throughout social interactions. Virtual communities have taken the world by storm, throughout the past decade, with establishments such as Myspace and more recently Facebook crossing the geographical, political, economic and cultural boundaries, to connect communities in an entirely different way.

 All four of these realms are now readily accessible and available to be fulfilled online, with the game World of Warcraft being the perfect example of a virtual community. To me, that is what the word community means to my planned profession. Will it ever change you may ask? I don’t believe so. There will always be a desire for people to play team sports. For people to want to be amongst a community such as sporting team, whereby like minded individuals are out there all trying to achieve the same goals and ambitions. It is those similar goals and ambitions that I believe will continue to drive the sense of a community throughout sporting teams.

o   Social: Allows individual and group chat, as well as encouraging group formation and membership

o   Political: Allows and encourages rule development among communities as well as a certain amount of ability to enforce those rules

o   Economic: Players are encouraged to purchase and trade items with other players

o   Cultural:  The environment and classes‘ of characters played results in shared symbolic systems and understanding of things. (Brand, 2010)

Since 1987, when Van Vilet and Burgers first suggested the idea of four realms within a community, (Brand, 2010) society has evolved at a rapid pace and so the ideas of traditional communities whereby face –to- face interaction was compulsory have somewhat subsided. Being bound by location and time restraints, were major contributing factors into the depth of the community. Nowadays online communities are not bounded by time or space with asynchronous communication easily accessible.

As a professional footballer the term community is an essential part of your everyday life. You are apart of a team, and it is that team that you train with everyday, twice a day. It is those members of your team, your community, that you step out onto the playing field with, every game. In team sports, not just one person can win the game, it takes the effort of all members of that community. Each member has to be driven by the same goals and beliefs. They have to feel apart of the community as discussed by (McMillan & Chavis, 1987)and feel as though that community will be there for them, through the good and the bad.

References

Brand, J. (2010). Restructuring Community . Digital Media and Society .

Community. (2010, November 14). Retrieved November 22, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community

McMillan, D., & Chavis, D. (1987). Sense of community: A definition and theory. 16.

DMS BLOG 2

Can I make millions off Collective Intelligence?

Football is played in well over two hundred countries throughout the world, and is classified as the world game. If a player from one of these many countries is good enough, they are chosen to play for some of the biggest clubs throughout the world. This small group of players, who are only a few of the vast footballing fraternity, that is the beautiful game, are payed copious yet ridiculous amounts of money to play the game that they, along with  millions around the world, love.

Wayne Rooney has been in the media recently, with growing speculation over his future with current football club, Manchester United. Contract talks were in process, but as of late last week he signed a new contract, worth two-hundred and fifty thousand pounds ($395,000) a week, which equates to a measly figure of twelve and half million pounds ($20,540,000) a year. Is this lifestyle he has chosen, and the amount of money he gets paid pure luck, or could it possibly be the kind work of collective intelligence?

Collective Intelligence is professionally described as “the capacity of networked information communication technologies to exponentially enhance the collective pool of social knowledge by simultaneously expanding the extent of human interactions enabled by communications networks that can generate new knowledge, and the greatly enhanced capacity to codify, store, and retrieve such knowledge through collective access to networked databases”(Flew, 2008)

However Don Tapscott & Anthony Williams described collective intelligence as, “mass collaboration” and in order for this concept to transpire, four principles derived by them, must exist. (2008)

·      Openness: The sharing of ideas and intellectual property allows for greater benefit through experience and knowledge.

·      Peering: Allows for consumer modification. Gives the customer the chance to put fourth ideas and develop personalised products, along with generating further and future ideas for businesses.

·      Sharing: applies more to the producer of products in the way that companies must share some of their ideas in order to expand markets and produce products faster. Whereas, the withholding of ideas only limits opportunities.

·      Acting Globally: with worldwide communication and interaction so easily accessible these days, geographic location is no longer a boundary, and can produce new market existence. (Tapscott & Williams, 2008)

However, it is the fast-paced development of the digital media world that has allowed for this concept of collective intelligence of individuals, groups and businesses to really take off.   

New media has the capabilities to store media and retrieve information with far greater ease than ever before. Coinciding with the development of the Internet and worldwide databases, information and media, or better known as intelligence, now has the ability to be shared without difficulty. Interactive new media is the way of the future, tapping into the many wonderful aspects of the Internet allows for online participation and distinctive distribution channels for knowledge. As the following video shows, collective intelligence should not only be internally amongst groups and businesses; external intelligence sharing should also be used as it generates ideas, opens new windows and exposes untouched markets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQe8dWTbE2U

“Collective intelligence is not merely a quantitative contribution of information from all cultures, it is also qualitative.” (Flew,2008)People can put fourth their information for others to see (quantitative), but the opportunities that could be generated from that small bit of information by someone else, is priceless (qualitative).

The following video displays the uses of collective intelligence in the real world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cw6tchzm_w

There are many different ways in which this concept of collective intelligence can be interpreted. Many theorists have attempted to shape it around their particular professions and ideals, however one main concept derives around them all. The idea of communication and teamwork, the ability of individuals, groups and businesses to share knowledge amongst each other to generate new and fresh ideas.

So in what possible way, could my ambition of taking my professional career down the path of becoming an international football phenomenon, be related to this in-depth concept of collective intelligence.

All great players have to start somewhere; they have to begin their career at some stage in their life. All players are influenced by collective intelligence from the moment they step out onto the field, in football, collective intelligence is an on-going process. Knowledge is passed on from coach to coach, player to player, player to coach, coach to player, parent to player and sometimes even parent to coach, doesn’t matter how, collective intelligence is taking place. New tactics, skills, playing methods, medical treatments and accessory enhancements i.e knowledge or collective intelligence are developed daily by people all around the world and passed on to others. In football, an original set of tactics were developed, then gradually expanded upon until the set of tactics and ideas that teams embrace today. Tomorrow, a new idea will be generated on how to play the game in a different and potentially more successful way. Without the sharing of these ideas amongst individuals, groups and even football clubs, the game that is loved by so many worldwide, could never have developed or expanded into the enormity it is today. As for our example earlier, collective intelligence has made Wayne Rooney twelve and a half million pounds a year for the next five years. I’d like to think that we as a population continue to endorse the idea of collective intelligence, as maybe in the near future, lets say when I’m 24 (Wayne Rooney’s age) I’ll be making a quarter of what he is annually.

Reference:

Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D.(2008). Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, USA: Penguin Group

Flew, Terry (2008). New Media: an introduction. Melbourne: Oxford University Press

DMS Blog #1

You Have to Cover all Bases to Reach Your Dream

The dream of becoming a professional football player has been with me for as long as I can remember. Forgetting the fact that I shared that dream with probably one in every three children in England, growing up it was a realistic dream for me, and I let everybody know. I grew up playing FIFA 98 on the PC at my dad’s work, and I could probably recite every line of my childhood favourite movie, “Bend it like Beckham”. I had a collection of what were called Tazo’s’, and they featured all of my favourite football players and could be found in packets of crisps. When Christmas rolled around I tuned my vocal chords into the yearly recording of a Christmas carol by the England Football team, but what I didn’t know was that this was the way of the future. Or as Henry Jenkins says in his review of Transmedia Story Telling, “Transmedia, multiplatform, or enhanced storytelling as it is sometimes called represents the future of entertainment.” (Jenkins,2003)

“Let's face it: we have entered an era of media convergence that makes the flow of content across multiple media channels almost inevitable.” (Jenkins,2003)Does this mean that we, as a society, as consumers, have developed a situation where it is inconceivable for a movie to be profitable all by itself, does it need to have the accompanying game, soundtrack, toys and accessories? This idea of globalizing and commercialising products has soon become reality, due to the ease of accessibility and high demand. Transmedia Storytelling practices are described as the notion of designing different points of access for a particular product, and hence opening the potential consumer market to incorporate a larger population.(2007) It creates a sense of belonging, and the content becomes ever-present and addictive, generating lifestyles adapted too, by the consumer, for the product.

A classic example of these practices in place, incorporates the film trilogy The Matrix. After the release of the first chapter in a series of three films, the proceeding two films were preceded by ‘Enter the Matrix’ – the game- ‘The Animatrix’ – Series of animated cartoons- along with a small range of comics, possessing critical information, key interactions and the introduction of minor characters. Fans were bemused as to wether or not they were required to purchase every single product to understand the remaining two parts to the trilogy. As Ivan Askwith explains in his blog related to Advertising and Transmedia Storytelling, this was just one perception of the sudden delving into cross media promotion. Ivan claims that the vast majority of people see it in one of two ways: an enormous, yet sudden enhancement in digital storytelling – whereby the viewer/listener/reader can decide how highly involved they would like to be-. (2009) Although it could also be a major advance in the way in which to exploit consumers, “You mean I have to buy the game, four comics and watch an animated series, just to understand what is going on in the second film?” (Askwith,2009)

So, how does Transmedia Storytelling affect our everyday lives or our individual aims and goals? It may seem as though after what I have said so far, this idea that Transmedia Storytelling is the only possible in the commercialisation of a product, for a example a movie or a game. However, that is not the case, with these supposed worlds also being created and ever-present in the news, advertising and public relations professions.

My desired and planned profession is to become a professional athlete in the sport of football, and in today’s modern society these athletes are sometimes seen and treated as products. As stated earlier, although the idea of Transmedia Storytelling is relatively modern, I believe it has been around at least since I was young. Football, in itself has become part of the Transmedia Storytelling arena. Crazed fans adapt and change their lifestyle based around their favourite club or player, fans constantly want to be updated on the latest football news; either through the television updates, newspapers or even the internet and social networking sites such as Twitter. Weekly events include magazines dedicated to the sport, specific football newspapers and even fantasy leagues where you can manage your own football team. There seems to be a new football movie out every year to accompany the annual FIFA football game. When we talk about creating further access points to broaden the market along with the above, we have football players posing for calendars, enticing the female market, along with celebrity endorsed cosmetics and further products.

It is safe to say, that the sport of football at any level has created opportunities to incorporate a larger consumer or participatory market, by creating further entry points for a wider audience to incorporate the sport within their lives.

 If it wasn’t already, in the past few years Football has quickly become part of the rapidly growing Transmedia Storytelling era. Question is, have you got the latest version of the FIFA football game to accompany your weekly ‘Football International’ magazine? If not, you may just be missing out on that one piece of information.

Reference:

Jenkins,H.(2007).Transmedia Storytelling 101. Retrieved October 18,2010, from http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html.

Jenkins,H.(2003). Transmedia Storytelling. Retrieved October 18,2010, from http://www.technologyreview.com/biotech/13052/.

Askwith,I.(2009). Further Reading on Advertising and Transmedia. Retrieved October 18,2010, from http://www.bigspaceship.com/blog/think/further-reading-on-advertising-transmedia/.