The Birth Of Hacker Culture.

After researching Wikileaks and thinking about its cultural values, although I believed from a journalistic point of view that it can only bring benefits I do suppose it is fair to say that the cultural values could be questioned.
Anything that involves hacking in my eyes isn't ethically right, and in todays society unfortunately hacker culture surrounds much of the journalism and online world. So, Wikileaks is a form of Hacking and this does make it unethical, it promotes the idea that hacking is okay and this is where scandals such as phone hacking starts.
Phone Hacking has been made huge in the past few years because of journalists being so desperate for stories that the result to phone hacking. Because it is seen to be so easy to do online people are beginning to take it a step further by hacking phones, intercepting personal calls and text messages. Wikileaks is a prime example of a site to promote this, the people behind Wikileaks hack into government documents to leak stories, and if you can hack into government documents surely you can hack into anything?
I decided to look further into the ethics of Hacking and what it really is about, to do this I looked at Steven Levy who wrote a book on the birth of hacker culture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_Ethic  and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers:_Heroes_of_the_Computer_Revolution gave me a lot of further information into the background of Hacking. These pages gave me a lot of information about what hackers believe in. To them it is a free world, all information should be free, nothing should be hidden from us. So maybe they aren't breaking any rules or doing anything wrong at all? They simply feel that nothing should be hidden from us.
"Access to computers—and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total." Maybe there are certain cases in which information should be public, and maybe Hackers aren't ethically immoral. They are simply trying to make the internet and computers a free space, everything should be there to see because computers and there information can teach us a lot.
So maybe my views on certain 'Hackers' has changed. Although I still stand by my original views on the idea of Phone Hacking. Phone Hacking is far more personal and is one on one, certainly for journalistic prosperity, phone hacking should be a huge no no!

Wikileaking...Good or Bad?

In this weeks lecture our main focus was put upon Wikileaks, what it is and the impact it has had. I looked at past articles about Wikileaks to find out more about what it has done, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10757263, this article in particular tells us the types of information that has been posted freely on the internet because of the birth of 'Wikileaks' in 2006. It's obvious when researching the topic that it has caused much controversy since it was created. And the population seems to be split in opinion. On one hand, maybe it does give us crucial information that is helpful and informative but it also is invasive and leaks private documents that could worry a nation and government. It seems governments, in the firing line of Wikileaks, is who it worries most because it is a way of exposing their biggest secrets to the public.
From a journalistic point of view this surely can only be good news right? We are receiving inside stories, stories that could have massive consequences, and stories that are definitely of public interest. And without Wikileaks we would have no way of getting control of such stories. Therefore from my personal perspective I like the idea of Wikileaks. Not only because of its positives in the journalism field, but also because some of these secrets the public should know and they shouldn't be kept a secret.
For me, Wikileaks isn't there as a negative against the government, it is simply there as a way of serving the public, and that is what I think are its cultural vales and purposes. I can see why the government would be so against an organisation who wants to expose the things they have been desperately trying to hide from the public, but then again as long as Wikileaks is sensible about what they are exposing, i.e. they don't expose anything that might cause alarm or panic then, in my eyes, there shouldn't be much of an issue.
I have only one issue, concern or negative about Wikileaks. Does it promote the idea of hacking? It's a form of computer hacking, breaking into information that is hidden from them for a reason. In my next blog I will look to explore the idea of Hacking, both computer hacking and phone hacking and whether sites such as Wikileaks promotes these ideas.

Digital Oppurtunities.

This week it was our aim to look at how digital media may have impacted on our concepts of the media text. By doing this it made me realise just how many opportunities arise from being digitally cultural.
It was clear to me that a text can lead to so much more, both digitally and not. For example, it can start with reading a book, before you know your watching an film adaptation, then you can play online games about the book/film, then you can buy merchandise, or join fan bases. This all started from a text and then digital media has impacted that text to make it huge. Digital Culture provides this range of opportunities to link things together, novels, films and gaming.
The presentation we got shown involved a lot of mention on 'Para text.' I wasn't too familiar with what this really meant, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paratext. I looked to my friend Wikipedia in order to learn more about what it is or does. And so the main author can create his or her novel, which is then edited by editors, publishers and printers. It seems the Para text can affect the concept of the piece of literature. For example the artwork on the cover of the novel can affect your idea and concept of what the book might be about. This is surely digital media impacted upon our concepts of the media text?
I think the point of the lecture was to really concentrate on just how much the digital media impacts on us. The idea that digital culture provides a lot of opportunities for media texts, it gives us filming, gaming, fan sites, merchandise and much much more.

Do we trust the media?

My last blog post was all about politics and the media. I seemed to find myself on the topic of the media and how it has evolved through the age of print, and now we are here. In a place where journalism has become so drastic that journalist are hacking in order to get stories. I felt this topic deserved it's own blog, as who knows how long I could go on for.
Hacking, in my eyes, has always been related to computers. Hacking into someone's Facebook or Twitter account, or hacking a computer in general. But I think nowadays it is important to remember that although hacking may have derived through computers, for example see my Wikileaks post, Hacking has actually become much more than that.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14045952 All you have to do is look at this BBC news page to see just how far hacking has been taken. It seems journalists have been hacking into phones in order to get a story. So how can we really blame the public for questioning the media?
Have we abused the media power? I think it is easy to underestimate the media and just how much the media affects us every day. Whether It be reading a magazine, newspaper or watching the news it seems we are consumed by the media. So how can we be so into it without trusting it?
I think the last lecture on politics and the dream if democracy really got me onto the topic of hacking and media trust. I think its obvious changes need to be made drastically to the media, in order to win back any kind of trust from the public.

Politics and the Digital World.

Digital Politics and Power- The Dream Of Democracy. Seeing this as I walked into the lecture confused me somewhat, to me it was hard to link the idea of computing and digital culture to politics and power. And so, the lecture itself was enlightening and taught me a lot.
The lecture was all about looking at how digital media has affected democracy, and when I thought about it, it was clear to see just how much the media affects politics in todays society.
Gradually as the years have past media and digital culture have started to become a bigger part of democracy and politics. Nowadays it seem politicians rely on the media, newspapers, magazines in order to get them the publicity they need.
We looked at a presentation that showed us just how much democracy and the digital world can be linked together with positive outcomes. It was clear that when the Printing Press was created this would cause a shift in communications, people now referred to newspapers and books and this was able to spread the word quicker which would, in turn, affect democracy and the political world. "Over time print media evolved that were specifically addressed to dealing with the news and current affairs of the day." Quote taken from presentation. It seemed that the printing press meant people relied on newspapers to give them all their crucial information.
And so the link between democracy and politics and the digital world isn't as far separated as I first might have thought. The age of print as it was described in our lecture was a 'knowledge bomb.' And therefore digital media was originally greeted with great enthusiasm because of its ability to tell an spread news. Elizabeth Eisenstein wrote 'The Printing Press as an agent of change' in 1979. I looked into this further as it shows you just how crucial the printing press was in creating change and creating this 'bomb of knowledge. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/286525.The_Printing_Press_as_an_Agent_of_Change

Clearly there is a link now between the digital world and politics. But is the idea of democracy simply a dream? Journalism has evolved throughout the years, and here we are today in a world where journalism is being highly scrutinised because of its lack of morals, with people questioning whether the media can be trusted. But maybe that's a topic for another blog?