Blog Post 8: Final Post

In this weeks lecture, we discussed the topic of interactivity. Interactivity can best be defined as communication between a human and a computer program eg. performing a series of button pushes which command a program to complete a task and the program responding by completing said task.

Digital Narrative is very important. Ever since the invention of the world wide web, It is the core element of the internet and devices and platforms we use to communicate. One of the great features of modern day technology is Interactivity. It involves defining communication goals and structures. There are numerous elements to interactivity these include Access,content creation,engagement and expression.

Digital Interactivity is a major aspect in the development and growth of society as it is a clear indication as an advancement in technology. In our society today, many different companies and websites use digital interactivity as a way to entice their audience and to make them feel as though they are more involved and engaged with the site.

One Particular website, to comes to my mind when I think in terms of digital interactivity is in ‘The National Geographic’. This link, http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/hard-time/articles/facts-love-behind-bars/ is a link to a show called ‘Hard Time’ goes into detail on ‘Love Behind Bars’.

The site/show is created to give viewers an inside into the lives of criminals, and what life is like for them behind bars.

This particular section on the National Geographic site, like most other sections in general, follows a pedagogical style, as learned in lectures, as it is presented in chronological order according to the events and in what way they took place. This helps to aid the viewers as down along the right hand side of the view it presents more episodes and more facts, all links that can be clicked on to provide more interesting information and lead to episodes of the show. This allows for users to continue on the site at an easy and accessible manner for all its users.

The ‘National Geographic Site’ is also colour coded for all the users to again, allow for easy accessibility.

 

 

Blog Post 7: Game analysis – blog post on analysis of a game – can refer to any immersive game-like presentation including ‘serious games’ or ‘gamification’ elements in other storytelling presentations e.g. interactive docs.

For this weeks blog post I will be analyzing the game ‘Subway Surfers’. Subway surfers is a 2012 3D, single player, endless running game developed by ‘Kiloo’ and ‘SYBO Games’. The game is widespread available through many different platforms. It is available on Android, iOS, Kindle, and Windows Phones.

Players of the game take the role of teenage hooligans who, upon being caught in the act of applying graffiti to tagginga metro or subway railway site, run down the tracks to escape from an Inspector and his dog. As the hooligans run, they grab gold coins out of the air while simultaneously dodging collisions with railway cars and other objects, and can also jump on top of the trains to evade capture. Special events happen within the game that allow players the opportunity to receive more coins.

The graphics that accompany the game are very exciting and certainly up to speed with our ever evolving digital era. When players initially download the game, Jake is the default characters that players begin with, with all other characters being locked.

It is possible to unlock other characters throughout in game activities, such as collecting items of clothing or gathering the collectables that are encountered throughout the chase. It is all possible the purchase character through the coins that have been collected throughout games.

The inspector and his dog are also other characters involved within the game. They chase that characters within the game trying to catch the characters such as Jake or obstruct them and make them hit into obstacles, ending the game.

As with the vast majority of the games widespread available to us today, there is audio connected with the game that plays in the background as your characters are being chased. The element of focusing on addictive skill acquisition is present within this game. This game can become very addictive. This game is about the progression you make while playing it and the rewards you receive when you complete the various levels.

Blog Post 5: ‘Life on Campus’

 

This story that I am going to tell, through images is about ‘Life On Campus’. Life On Campus refers to the everyday journey and adventure that student encounter everyday that they step onto the UCD campus.

Many find, upon enrollment, that UCD is very overwhelming due to its size and large number of students enrolled in the various different courses that are there to be offered. One can feel intimidated by the amount of people that are here on a daily basis, but soon they realize that being a UCD student is a great privilege and one that should be greeted with great honor.

An average day on campus begins by passing this particular sign, it signifies the main entrance to the UCD campus and proudly portrays the well known UCD logo to all that pass.

This image represents the place of study and learning for all UCD students. It is a lecture theater where one goes to take part and to try and enhance their knowledge. On average students will spend between 12-30 hours per week inside these theaters. There also in tutorial and seminar rooms and laboratories.

This image represents the sports and fitness facilities that are widespread available throughout UCD. There are numerous temas available to all students and all levels of ability through a wide variety of sports such as hurling, football, soccer and many many more.

This image represents the UCD library. The library is available to all students that are enrolled within UCD. Throughout the semester every student will find themself here, completing assignments and studying for the end of semester exams that loom over every student head.

This image represents the parking that is available spread throughout UCD. Each student can purchase a permit online from UCD, enabling them to park within the UCD campus, that is, if they can find a space!

This image represents the food and nutrition that is available within UCD, there is many restaurants and canteens available throughout the campus for each and every student. Over the last few years there has been many more restaurant added to the UCD chain such as Chopped and Subway.

This image portrays the UCD Harry Potter Society, it is one of the many societies that are available within the UCD community. It provides the opportunity for students to meet other students within the college and make new friends for life.

Although every individual’s experience of the UCD campus life, I feel, through these images, that I have provided an interesting insight into what life on the UCD campus provides.

Blog Post 4: Digital narrative analysis – write a brief analysis of an experience with a digital narrative of choice (online or in context/public) looking at issues of time, space and agency.

Digital narrative is a term that has become very popular in the last number of years. We have reached a new technological era with a never ending evolution of our digital abilities. Since the introduction of the online and the thousands of different platforms that lay within to tell stories and express themselves. Stories can be portrayed in so many ways as we now have multiple resources that we can use to tell that story.

We have now thousands of various devices people use to show their story online and with the help of software the devices have and applications that one can download to convey the story the way they want to. Using digital narrative has become extremely popular as it is easy to use, convenient and the majority of the people in the world today are online in some shape or form.

In our society today, we use the term/expression digital storytelling a lot these days as it is the that describes the new practice of everyday people who use digital tools to tell their story. It is very clear and evident the world we live in today everything is being done online and the tools being used are being updated constantly and new ones are being developed everyday. Ongoing use of these tools broadens the mind and the creativity of the person develops as they are being shown all the possibilities when telling a story.

My experience with a digital narrative is related to sport, through hurling, of which i am very fond of and play religiously.  The online podcast which was broadcasted live on Facebook is the digital narrative. It is called the GAA.ie and there are various different GAA representatives and chairmen behind the setup that gives a pre match analysis and broadcasts live matches. 

 

Cork Star – Patrick Horgan

From week to week special guests are invited onto the show to give their various different thoughts about the game and the various different teams competing. It is a weekly podcast that is widely available. This podcast in particular focus in on the Cork V Clare hurling game that took place, with cork narrowly winning the game by a couple of points thanks to their star Patrick Horgan.

They were telling the stories from the GAA games that had taken place over the weekend, giving an in depth analysis on the county’s and player performances as well as upcoming fixtures. This way of portraying a story is very convenient and easy to access. You can stream it live on your various devices through the app Facebook and then listen to it when they upload it to the platform. The broadcast begins at  certain time which can be viewed live or watched at a later time.

In my opinion, this particular method of streaming a story is very interesting but also extremely useful, as it allows you to see real live reactions and opinions, for example, i could see the physical expression of the men’s faces when a controversial topic was discussed or brought to the table.I think this form of digital narrative is becoming very popular with podcasts and other shows online.

   Personally, my most frequently used form of digital narrative would be Facebook. In recent times, Facebook is the one site that I always turn to and can be guaranteed to find interesting digital narrative content.

In my opinion, this particular method of streaming a story is very interesting but also extremely useful, as it allows you to see real live reactions and opinions, for example, i could see the physical expression of the men’s faces when a controversial topic was discussed or brought to the table.I think this form of digital narrative is becoming very popular with podcasts and other shows online.

Blog Post 3: Analogue narrative analysis – using one of the approaches to analysis of narrative mentioned in class (or from your own research), write a brief analysis of a story of your choice from any medium.

In this weeks lecture we discussed the analogue narrative analysis and we also discussed  the patterns and formats by which most narrative stories are told. From the various different readings that were made available and through an in depth class discussion we came to a conclusion that in general narrative structure has remained pretty much unchanged over the past few hundred years, with the exception of modern shakeups such as the ‘anti-hero’ or the plot twist, which have emerged over the last few centuries.

One of the approaches to analysis of narrative is the actual story and with that comes the character type. It is evident that from the common character types that have been defined what type of story it will be. One can analyse and discuss in depth what the story entails and what type of story it is by studying the characters in the story. Most stories include major and minor characters.

They all have a part to play within the story and all have equal importance, but it goes without saying that some characters have more importance than others. The characters can be divided into  various groups such as Dispatcher, Hero, Villain, Donor etc. All these types of characters can be seen throughout all types of stories including films, personal experiences and also through way of music.

This analysis of narrative can be seen throughout the story of Finding Nemo. This story which has been portrayed as a film and through a play on stage conveys many different character types which are all evident throughout the entire story.

 

The Hero – Marlin 

Marlin a clown fish, is overly cautious with his son, Nemo who has a foreshortened fin. When Nemo swims too close to the surface to prove himself, he is caught by a diver and horrified Marlin must set out to find him. 

The Helper – Dory

The helper is there to assist the hero in reestablishing the equilibrium. A blue reef fish named Dory who suffers from short term memory loss, who can barely remember anything, joins Marlin and complicates the encounters with sharks, jellyfish, and a host of ocean dangers.

The Villain – Philip The Dentist

Philip, among many others throughout the movie, including sharks, birds and various other creatures can be seen as the villain of the movie. He is the dentist who takes Nemo the the fishes tank in his dentist surgery for his niece Darla. Merlin must retrieve Nemo form here, with great difficulty.

The Donor – Crush

The donor is a character that gives some kind of importance to the the narrative. In Finding Nemo, the donor is Crush, a surfer dude turtle, as he provides Merlin and Dory with information as to where Demo is and aids them in transporting them in the right direction.

This method of analysing narrative is very popular when studying different stories as the characters are the ones that are telling the story through their actions and words. Hundreds and hundreds of films have been noted throughout the years to have the same character types in them as they are the types of stories that attract a big audience. This method portrays what the entire story will entail of and what the audience can expect throughout it.

 

 

 

Blog post 2: Thoughts on the role of narrative in culture and the variety of possibilities in storytelling with reference to an everyday narrative experience.

In this weeks lecture, we discussed the role of narrative in culture and the various possibilities in storytelling with reference to an everyday narrative experience. The role of narrative is in culture is all about the the process in which a story is being told. The modern day society that we live in today has explored the millions of ways that a story can be told.  

In the first part of this week’s lecture, talked about the classical western theory and the Ancient non-western narrative theory and in the second part of this weeks lecture we looked at the technology used for telling stories such as their form and function and looked at how stories were told from the prehistoric age  to the 20th century.

Before the introduction of all the modern day technological tools technology was introduced there was many creative ways in which people could tell a story. This was through the use of poetry, music and painting and various other methods. Different cultures in the world had different ways of telling a story to their people. The role of narrative can have a different meaning to each and every different person, it is one’s opinion. Mainly it would how an individual would tell a story. Stories have been told through different mediums such as the theater, humans/hands, printing, the camera and many more. We use these mediums to make the story effective and believable. 

Abbott (2008) explains that without storytelling, humans cannot understand time. He divides time into two categories, regular and narrative. Regular time can be measured by static intervals, for example, hours, minutes, or seconds. In contrast, narrative time can be measured through events that happen within the story, for example; “Karren fell and then she cried”. Although the reader is not given a simple representation of when these two events happened in hours, minutes, or seconds, the word ‘then’ implies that Karen cried after she fell.

In our society today, with new and advanced technological abilities the way and manner of storytelling has changed dramatically. Individuals have the capability to experience new forms and varieties of narrative every day through social media applications.

The most popular form of storytelling online in our society today, is of course Snapchat, On this particular platform anyone can be the storyteller. Snapchat is an application that allows users to create their own digital content. This new storytelling allows for a ten seconds or less of graphics, depicting stories of real time.

Each user creates their own profile and Bitmoji, allowing them to add and to connect to other Snapchat users, anywhere or anytime in the world.

 

Blog Post 1: What is ‘Digital Stroytelling’

Week 1:1

 

In this week’s class of Digital Storytelling IS30380 week we discussed how the role of narrative has been shaped and formed throughout the years, from all over the world. Not just the role, but its purpose in storytelling and the immense effect that it has.

It is blatantly evident that the meaning of narrative has changed immensely over time. Narrative can be broken down into various genres, but one’s beliefs and reflections of the beliefs of these narratives can be extremely broad.

For today’s lecture, Week , we began the class by discussing classical narrative theory and discussed in detail how it views narrative in  a more normative sense and also exploring that narrative has the power to affect people in many ways and on various levels.

We then continued on the lecture to discuss how different philosophers approached the role of narrative in storytelling, focusing on Plato and Aristotle, who possess a negative outlook on the power of narrative. We then began to look  at how cultures approached narrative. We saw from the lecture that, Indian storytelling saw narrative as a means of reaching goals which were the core to the stories overall plot. An strong connection between plot structure are prominent in Indian storytelling.

As the lecture continued on, we began on discussing the topic of Western Narrative Theory which focused, in detail, the renowned philosophers Plato and Aristotle. Plato was a moral philosopher who was more concerned with the effect of literature, poetry and storytelling on the individual themselves, believing that art had such a profound effect on human beings. Plato believed there was a danger in the consumption and creation of such material as he was strongly of the opinion that it had the strong potential to drain life of value.

From class, we learned that, Aristotle saw narrative form as being more affected and defended art and literature, even though he was a student of Plato. Aristotle believed that the kind of narrative, whether it be comedic or tragic or of any sort was a type of marking scheme which provided an insight into measuring the potential of narratives. He created a ‘poetics’ which was a form of measuring narrative.

Overall, in this weeks lecture, we gained a great insight of what digital storytelling is and the role of narrative.

Unplugged

Can you Unplug?…. Take the challenge

 

This week’s assignment was to document one whole day without the use of the internet. We are living in an era where the thought of not being connect is it a question, it’s become a necessity that has crept into our lives as our generations continue to grow and develop. Personally, the internet and social media is the first thing that I look at when I wake up in the morning and the last thing that I do before I go to sleep. To unplug myself for a whole day proved to be very difficult.

On a normal day I will have college and work and with exams coming up all my spare time is being spent in the library studying for my finals. During these days and given the time of year, I would not be constantly on my phone and if I have not checked it for an hour or two it would go unnoticed, but the fact that I knew I was unplugged for the day, made the temptation ten times stronger and really tested my will power. Even though I was completing college work and working, I had the urge to  check the internet to see what was happening in the online world that we are constantly surrounded by.

 

 

In our era, there’s times where you will have been on your phone or laptop for a lengthy amount of time without even realising it. I feel that this is a bad thing, society should not be changing this way, with everyone walking around on their phones, praying for interaction with another online user. As one actually completes the challenge of unplugging you find yourself less reluctant on the platforms of social media and the internet.

 

I found that unplugging for the day made me a lot less stressed, I was at college and work and not constantly checking my phone every two minutes to see what is happening on my online platforms, instead i was engaging in more interactions with my colleagues and began to converse a lot more than usual with them, when I told some of my colleagues what I was doing some of them even turned their phones off for the day during work so see what it would be like and they agreed with me in saying that they were a lot more relaxed and that the enjoyed their day a lot more.

 

 

Although I struggled at times and it may not be for everyone, but I really enjoyed unplugging for the day, it was nice to just take a step back from the internet and the online world that we live in and just to take in the world that surrounds us in our daily lives.

Digital Death

For this weeks blog post, I watched an episode of the Black Mirror, a Netflix series that is a science fiction anthology series and one that I frequently watch.  The episode I watched was the first episode from Season 3 called Nosedive.

The episode is about a world where people rate each other from one to five stars every time they interact with one another. These individual rankings that they receive, are a determinant in the lifestyle in which they will live. Many services that can be accessible and usable are based on the individual’s rating. Lacie, a young woman, who is obsessed with her ranking and always goes above and beyond making a great first impression on everyone she meets so that she can live a happier life, is surprisingly rated a 4.2 and is unable to buy her dream apartment unless she is a 4.5, which is causing her great stress and upset.

 

In order for her to be able to buy her apartment, she would need to increase her rating by at least 0.3. By meeting higher ranked people, her ranking would rise so she could purchase the apartment that she always wanted. Upon receiving the invite from her friend Naomi’s wedding, who is rated a 4.6, to be the maid of honour, she was ecstatic and could see her opportunity to significantly increase her rating in an attempt the buy her dream apartment. On her way to the wedding things take a turn, her journey does not plan out the way she hoped. By arguing with many people including the airport customer service worker and continuously being rude to people she encounters on the way, her ranking falls and falls and she gets very upset, anxious and worried because her appearance was being affected negatively. You could see by her that the low rankings she was receiving greatly affected her and she was determined to fix this, by changing her appearance and posting photo’s that people would want to see.

As her rating continued to drop and drop, reaching a very low value of 2.8, her friend Naomi contacted her once again, but this time she was contacting her about the wedding to uninvite her! She also explains to her that the only reason that she had received an invitation to the wedding in the first place is so that she could increase her rating in order to be able to buy her dream apartment. Lacie is horrified by these events and begins to take a mental turn which results in her being arrested and ending up in prison with a cellmate where there are no ratings.

The Networked Self

This weeks post will discuss the networked self. In our society today, networking is seen every single day by people all across the world. Networking is they way in which the people of today stay connected with one another. Within our reach, are hundreds of thousands of various platforms available that all users, no matter where they are in the world to connect with one another. Whether it be a social media website such as Facebook or Twitter, or the use of email accounts or video chat rooms such as skype of FaceTime, one can easily connect with another at the touch of a finger.

This weeks reading, relaying the story of a couple by the names of Peter and Trudy, allowed me to thoroughly comprehend the true power of The Networked Self. I began to understand the power of the networked self when I began to read about the medical troubles that peter and Trudy face in a very short period of time, leaving them in a very serious financial position.

They couple were unable to keep up to date with their bills due to the results of extreme medical bills, they were at a dead end, something had to give! They were in dire need of financial assistance. A friend of Peter and Trudy recognised the situation and began to use various different networks to contact various family members and friends that the couple knew well. Through the use of this networking, family and friends were able to make light of the difficult situation that the couple were facing and help out, they donated money to help Peter and Trudy overcome their tough circumstances.

 

With the advancement of networking in our present society, transferring money to someone is available with a few clicks whether it be through a phone, tablet or desktop. Being a GAA player, I have witnessed these circumstances before when one of the players  on my team, who happens to be self employed, severely broke his leg in multiple places, leaving him out of work for 6 months with a family at home, through the use of various different networking platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook, as a team, we were able to connect with one another and organise a fundraiser in order to collect money for our team mate and his family.

Networking in our society today is also used as a powerful tool to be able to connect and stay in touch with one another. Modern day business have also incorporated large network systems within their firms, allowing them the ability to connect with other firms and allowing business transactions and communications to take place.

 

 

The power of the networked self can also be seen in the form of online dating websites, it allows people to match and communicate with one another, and in some cases, forming long life relationships between two people.

 

 

Personally, I feel that Networking plays a vital role within our society today, It plays a huge role in my life and has provided me with vast opportunities allowing me to enjoy my life a lot more.