In order to successfully participate in networks (both online and offline), we need to develop the skills to find the information we need. For me, finding means knowing how to create pathways between information. Online, this means clicking between webpages and media items until I arrive at the platform which houses the information I think I need. It is here that I am then able to move on to processing data and contextualising this information in order to understand it and create meaning.
This model of finding does not just apply to the Internet network, but also other types of networks as well (such as using a map and reading street signs to find information pertaining to the road network). After all, networks are simply a system of parts that have some kind of relation to each other. Watts tell us that “a network is nothing more than a collection of objects connected to each other in some fashion” (2003).
There are problems and hurdles that can occur when finding information, such as issues with privacy, access, copyright. There are also gatekeepers of information who can make it more difficult to find what you’re looking for. To be network literate is to understand these hurdles and know appropriate strategies for how to overcome them.
In my professional practice as a media maker, I foresee this as the issue that might affect me the most, as I want to eventually work as a journalist. Gatekeepers will be thick and fast in the industry, and may include governments, corporations, celebrities, sports teams, and individuals who only want to present selected information. It will be my role to uncover the whole truth of the information in order to produce investigative journalism. I will be tasked with finding the right information in almost all of my media endeavours.
The web has become an egalitarian space. We’re all talking to each other, rather than previous models of top-down communication which were autocratic and hierarchical (such as Lasswell’s model of communication). With these changes that empower audiences to be active, rather than passive, come new methods of interacting with each other. This can be proven by the rise in prominence of platforms like Twitter.
This model of finding does not just apply to the Internet network, but also other types of networks as well (such as using a map and reading street signs to find information pertaining to the road network). After all, networks are simply a system of parts that have some kind of relation to each other. Watts tell us that “a network is nothing more than a collection of objects connected to each other in some fashion” (2003).
There are problems and hurdles that can occur when finding information, such as issues with privacy, access, copyright. There are also gatekeepers of information who can make it more difficult to find what you’re looking for. To be network literate is to understand these hurdles and know appropriate strategies for how to overcome them.
In my professional practice as a media maker, I foresee this as the issue that might affect me the most, as I want to eventually work as a journalist. Gatekeepers will be thick and fast in the industry, and may include governments, corporations, celebrities, sports teams, and individuals who only want to present selected information. It will be my role to uncover the whole truth of the information in order to produce investigative journalism. I will be tasked with finding the right information in almost all of my media endeavours.
The web has become an egalitarian space. We’re all talking to each other, rather than previous models of top-down communication which were autocratic and hierarchical (such as Lasswell’s model of communication). With these changes that empower audiences to be active, rather than passive, come new methods of interacting with each other. This can be proven by the rise in prominence of platforms like Twitter.
Twitter connects users with their followers in a way that provides equal access to talking to each other. #connection #active #audiences
— Emily Malone (@_EmilyMalone_) October 24, 2014
An example is that I can easily tweet to politicians, which is a kind of communication that previously could only have happened by writing a letter or placing phone calls to an MP or senator’s offices. Similarly, I can weigh in on debates by tweeting to journalists and news publications, whereas previously I would have been limited to writing a letter to the editor. Adapting to these new methods of communication show that I have the capacity to embrace change and utilise new affordances.