4. Google translate for active use in everyday life.

For people who do not have talent to study as fast other languages as others, Google translate has become a key tool for understanding foreign websites and someways communications between other nationalities. Although its lacking the full understanding of language systems and give sometimes quite funny and incorrect answers, it has proven its need and function as normal dictionaries do not allow to put together sentences. 

My idea is to apply the same application on phones for live translation to give the opportunity to communicate with people more efficiently between two people who perhaps do not share the same language. It could open the world more and make everything more easier to everybody.  This way nobody can loose themselves in translation. 

For this to work, it should need a lot more development and intreats in it. Google should focus more on languages and could hire one group of people from each country to focus on their side of the language and constantly improve it. Even when countries share the same language, then slang and everyday uses can be very different. For example, there is a big difference between Mexican spanish and Spanish spanish. Mexican one has a huge influence by American english. Also UK and US english is different as their slang differs quite a lot. 

The key functions to insure its popularity, should be that people's voice will be still the same. The application should have so called invisible translator to give it more natural feeling. Nobody would not want to listen for a robot or exchange their normal communication for talking with a machine. 

The biggest downside for this is definitely the fact that people will become more lazier to study other languages and therefor other cultures. It would narrow peoples view as for example the popular use if english has done. It is very hard to learn other languages when everybody can already share one, even though the knowledge level is very different from country to country and person to person. 

The application would bring people more together and would give opportunities for people who have not being able to learn other popular languages to discover something new. For example most of Estonian elderly people can not speak english, so therefor traveling for them can be quite difficult as they can not communicate with local people. The application would change their experience and would give them a new point of view to other cultures. 

3. Digital technology as a tool or a medium?

In a society, where having a computer and an e-mail account is almost mandatory, questions start to rise by sociologist if they are to users as a tool or a medium? Should we take the web environment something that helps us to create our tended objects or it is already a medium itself where the outcome is visible? 

Geroge Rückriem takes a closer look to this question and tries to analyze it through media and activity theory. First he is looking for and answer if those two theories are compatible as in activity theory "Tool" is one of the key concepts and "medium" is in the center of media theory. He comes to conclusion that if they are, we can benefit from it to understand better our virtual activity systems. 

In the end he comes to a conclusion that it is a tool and a medium. "The final answer to our question – is computer technology tool or medium? – runs: it is tool  and  medium. It  is simply a question  of approaching a thing reflecting it as tool or as medium. But we  have to be aware of the fact, that this change of view is a methodological potentiality of activity  theory only when reading it from the point of 

view of system theory"

I have to agree with him. No matter from what point of view to look at it, the information technology can be used as a tool and as a medium. We need software, computer, keyboard, etc. to create a content that later on will be published in various platforms in internet and therefor could not stand alone. 

For example if we would take an web environment such as Wikipedia that is a free online database system created by users for users. Anybody can write articles there about any event, definition, person and so on. Also the content is regulated and controlled by other users that the information spread in there is not false. From the aspect of activity theory, the creator (subject) is using computer (tool) and Wikipedia platform (tool) to create an article (object) based on previous references (subject) to publish it for others to read. The final outcome is for others to evaluate and control. As the article will be publish then Wikipedia has also a function as a medium. 

Although the article gives quite satisfying answers then in my opinion it starts to be a bit outdated already. It was published in 2003 and quite a lot has changed in relation to internet environments, its definitions and functions. Nowadays we can apply the same rules and etiquette for internet actions as we do it in face-to-face communication. Everything we say and do is taken with the same seriousness as we would do it in person. Also many normal activities have moved to internet. For example the key element for promotion and marketing is the use of internet by different tools and mediums that has given to us. Nobody can not have a proper promo campaign without announcing it in Facebook. Most of the marketing books published now are more focusing on the efficient use of social networks and how one can take advantage of it. 

In my opinion on what we should focus now, is the impact of this kind of usage of something so unreal as the internet is. It has reached more or less its peek. Children growing up now have a lot bigger ability to focus on different things and gaining informations. For example if we compare actions films between 2011 and 1989, then the editing is almost twice as fast as it used to be. Now we have only one question - how far we can develop with the technology?

2. Implementing activity theory.

Activity theory (AT) is a psychological meta-theory, paradigm, or theoretical framework, with its roots in Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky's cultural-historical psychology. Its founders were Alexei N. Leont'ev (1903-1979), and Sergei Rubinshtein (1889–1960), who sought to understand human activities as complex, socially situated phenomena and go beyond paradigms of cognition,psychoanalysis and behaviorism. (Wikipeadia)

Its based mainly on Marx theories on human and social interactions with the uses of tools provided by society. The main characteristics for activity theory are:

- subject

- object

- tools

- rules

- motive

- goal

- outcome

During the technology development scientist also started to apply the same theory with similar components to study the Human-Computer reactions as the popularity of the use of computers are formulated the same kind of virtual society what we experience in real life. It describes the environment and interactions between humans while the main tool for uses is a computer. It helps to study the complexity of behaviorism in contemporary systems as schools, libraries, etc. 

The main idea and focus behind this theory is to the interaction and mediated human activity through tools towards a goal that finally transforms into outcome. The tool itself can be anything used during the transformation. It can be either physical nor something used thinking. For example if a student writes an essay as a homework analyzing Marxist theories in USSR. Then the student is a subject that has previously affected by his teacher (also a subject) through interaction in a classroom. The student uses several tools for writing the paper - computer, published works, printer, etc. to work towards the object(goal) - analyze  Marxist theories as good as possible. The object is transformed to an outcome through the teachers view and judgement. This is a simple demonstration of AT in everyday life. 

The theory application becomes more complex to Human-Computer interaction as we would take the same situation, but would exclude the physical teacher as one of the subjects and would replace him with internet - both stand for social influence, but one is relatively more regulated than the other one. For example, if the same student would have to write the same essay based on independent research without any previous directing then the outcome could be very different, because internet gives you as much information as one can manage to look, without regulated if the information is false or not. The classical system for this would be user-created database Wikipedia. One should not take the information given there as the full truth while not making sure if the references given there match with the information written in the article. 

Although I understand the arguments given for and against for applying activity theory, then in a contemporary fast developing society the key elements and their functions are changing. Perhaps even faster to start applying to them previously known theories as they are not looking ahead to describe the future behaviorism. 

1. From mass media to personal media.

Research paper New Interactive environments

1. From mass media to personal media

Can You remember the time when You were a little kid and for asking Your friends out, You needed to go behind their doors or ring via home telephone that looked bigger than some of the wireless computers nowadays? And even when You got older You needed to write actual letters to keep in touch with people who were not living in the same region with You? Or it was actually unknown what Your co-students did during their summer breaks? 

In a growing technological society it is hard to remember that those times were not even 10 years ago. With uses of Facebook, Twitter, Skype, etc. one could easily be informed and have interactive communication while not even staying on the same continent. Also with these media tools an individual could reach the same amount of people as an audience for a smaller regional newspaper in 90s. In this way it becomes more indistinguishable the line between mass and personal media and their appearance on the same form. Is mass media dying and will be replaced with personal media? Or it is just highly personalized through increasing uses of personal media on its form? Or is it the other way around - personal media is dying as it becomes increasingly accessible for anyone and through that its content becomes depersonalized?

In order to answer these questions one should define mass media and personal media and how their definition has changed through the change of different media forms. Thompson in his book The Media and Modernity (1995) defines "mass" in mass media through the unimportance of the quantity of receivers but rather importance of  the accessibility of the product to plurality of recipients. He brings out five typical characterizations to mass media:

• technical and institutional means of production and diffusion;

• the commodification of symbolic forms;

• a structured break between the production and the reception of

symbolic forms;

• the extended availability of symbolic forms in space and time; and

• media products are available in principle to a plurality of recipients

As this theory is outdated and cannot apply to nowadays uses of mass media and personal media as their platforms and uses have changed in the last 16 years. For example in mid 90s the most common mediums for news were still television, radio and actual newspapers. Now all three could be easily accessible via internet. This accessibility has also changed mass media content and the relation between  the producer and the receiver. Many high profile mass media producers, such as CNN, BBS and many television programs, have included recipients to their content while making the production more interactive. Also as the increasing uses of social networks are applying the same characteristics of mass media to personal media. 

Certain personal media forms share characteristics that Luhmann and Thompson argue,  are typical for mass media: most significantly copying technologies are used and there are structured breaks between the production and reception of messages, which imply that expressions are detached from a shared temporal and spatial presence. Instead, the differences between mass media and personal media were discussed according to different interactional roles and network structures and users as active producers of mediated (and generally accessible) content.(Luders) A perfect case to illustrate this was a recent campaign Occupy Wall Street and the uses of social network Facebook. The beginning of the protest was not reflected in the common mass media platforms, but gained its popularity via personal media platform, making it hard to be unnoticed and creating a greater impact for the whole campaign, while reaching more people over the world than any national nor international media form could do. 

Although the border between personal media and mass media is getting thinner, the difference is still there. The article suggested a model that situates personal media and mass media differently according to two axes. On the horizontal axis,

personal media are more symmetrical, facilitating mediated interaction, whereas

mass media are more asymmetrical. On the vertical axis, personal media are

closer to the de-institutionalized or de-professionalized content pole, whereas

mass media are closer to the institutional or professional pole.(Luder) Mass media is meant to the recipients, but is not yet quite made by recipients. 

Generative Content Creation Task 1

Review:

In his article The Language of New Media Len Manovich looks how to separate new media from the old one and goes through the history how it all become. He rises questions such if the use of something new like a computer in an old art from such is photography makes it new and can same images distributed in different forms called new and old media at the same time. For example if a photo is but on a CD-ROM and demands a computer for viewing it – it is new media, but if the same photo is printed to a book – it is old media, because printing on paper and photography are both old mediums. Also he draws very strong lines between media and computer development as he refers many times that computerization is basis for new media – that means all new media is created on computers.

In the second part of his article he points out five principles that make old media new.

• Numerical Representation
  That means that new media is digitalized and therefor it has numerical representation as it is recorded and presented with digital media. Most of it is automatically created on computers – that means all the zeros and ones that stores information about certain objects that can simply define through a mathematical code and could be manipulated with another mathematical code. For example a photograph in a computer is saved as a certain formula and that can be manipulated with another formula to adjust contrast or sharpness. We can not access photo psychically as all the process happens within computer's data base that is purely mathematical.
• Modularity
  every object inserted remains independent in the project and evert project can be used in larger one without objects used to create the project loosing its independence. For example writing essays on computer. One can insert images, URL addresses, shapes or sounds, but they all can edited independently within the project.
• Automation
  ... is divided to low-level and high-level automation. An example of low level automation would be when a computer program like Photoshop is correcting scanned image automatically according to program's standards. High-level automation is when it is demanded more from the program. Good example would be different bots and AI (artificial intelligence). They are programed in a way that humans can communicate with computers as they are communicating with other people. Therefore program needs to process information more and reply according to that.
• Variability
  This principle is explained as widely as the word “variability” sounds. It seems to be that every objects varies from other objects, but at the same time to be honest I did not really understand the difference it creates between old and new media.
• Transcoding
  This is the principle that expalains and defines the use of computers' influence on media that is created on them. Due the new possibilities and technology development it offers us more oppertunities to create what we want. For example CGI (Computer Generated Image) in films – computer helps us to build our own story world according to out imagination that it is almost impossible to create physically with the use of old media.

My thoughts while reading this article was mainly focused on the difference between old and new media. The same question can be adopted to filmmaking. People started to make films in 19^th century, but now almost the whole industry edits on computers and knowledge of editing on a flatbed is often not even required anymore to become a film editor. And because almost everyone in western world owns a computer and all the operation systems like Windows and MAC OS consist primary editing software then everyone can learn how to do it and everyone can make their own films if they want to. Also public and free, but yet popular, distribution channels like Youtube is, make it possible for everyone to make their art public. For example Youtube's Fact Sheet states out under statistics that people are watching 2 billion videos a day on YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily. In fact, every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube. That means that every average Joe can call himself an independent filmmaker. In my head it rises many questions one of them is the value of quality. It is obvious that large quantity decreases quality, but for example people have started to appreciate less and less video art, because their minds have been so overwhelmed as the internet is full of it. There should be clearer line between someone's published holiday videos and someone's work that was only possible to execute via those limited tools – video camera, editing software and Youtube.

Task 7

My understanding of interactivity

After reading articles by Jensen and Kiousis who both observe and try to identify what interactivity actually is, it is still confusing to me – I could compare it with for example when a child asks you “what is life?” and probably he/she would get different answers from every adult. In my opinion to define interactivity as term in nowadays is hard, because every generation has a different background that differs from each other innormasly – if you would ask it from a 55 year old man and 15 year old boy then their understanding of interaction is based on what they think traditional medium for them is. One is used to television and radio media and other has grown up using computer most of his life.

Kiousis in his article introduced many theories on interactivity to give various background information and tried to give a definition to it himself. In my opinion he introduced good characteristics that interactivity consists – technology, communication context, user perception.

Technology is needed because typically interactivity is examined as a communication context between human cv machines or human to human via a machine (Rice, 1984; Kiousis). I would agree to that - the same factors could be applied to a normal face-to-face communication as for example in human to human via computer communication, but it is still hard to take them as same, because the environment where this interaction is taking place is completely different. For example communicating through computers users' can change the environment and have complete control over it as in normal everyday life the world is not changing according to our perception and interaction in it.

In my mind interactive environment is something where communication runs in both directions and the same communication has an impact to the environment that is controlled by the users. This way content in it, is created by the users who also can get immediate feedback to created content from other users – every user has a change to select, control and produce whatever kind of content they would like to see in a specific environment. In my opinion this can only work that purely in few mediums (for example internet), because it rises many questions if same characteristics are applied to some traditional mediums like television and radio, where nowadays viewer has more control over the content that they choose to consume, but at the same time the environment stays mainly the same.

Also one of the key characteristics in an interactive environment is the possibility to exchange feedback. A very good example would be Youtube that is an environment where users create its content (uploading videos) while others can comment on everyone's content to give immediate feedback. Also the users have a some control over what is posted. For example if they feel that some videos are too abbseen to be public, they can report and the video will be deleted. Youtube could not exist without it's users.

In conclusion as Jensen and Kiousis both did not succeeded to define “interactivity,” then for me it is also unclear mainly because the definition keeps changing with technology development. It can not be defined by the same rules that we had in 1950 or even in the beginning of this century, because the speed of technology development is increasing constantly – therefore the definition of interactivity keeps changing with it.  

Task 5

Summary

Jensen in his article explores the concept of interactivity in various fields and tries to find a proper definition to it. He looks to the history how it has changed in a relation to innovations in media. For example one can not compare the definition “interactive media” in 1950s with contemporary one.

In his article he introduces several communication theories that could help us to define interactivity. In my opinion one of the best ones to create a good basis for understanding communication was Bordewijk and Kaam's Matrix for the Four Communication Patterns.

	Information controlled by a central provider	Information controlled by the consumer
Distribution controlled by a central provider	1) Transmission	2) Registration
Distribution controlled by the consumer	3) Consultation	4) Conversation

He goes through many famous mass media theories (like concepts provided by McQuail, Lazarsfeld, Horton and Wohl, etc.) to help us understand what has meant by interactive media throughout the history – reading from that it becomes clear that what was thought earlier, when television and radio was considered to be as new interactive media, could not be compared with what is happening nowadays when the use of internet has changed many media standards. For example television channels are now providing an opportunity for the viewer to choose what kind of shows to watch, only to offer still competition to internet where people are already used to choosing their own content what to consume.

Later on in his article, Jensen tries to find different tools that could help us closer to the understanding interactivity. He eliminates interactivity as prototype and interactivity as criterium as they create more false conclusions than helping us simplifying meaning behind this word. More suitable for him is to define it trough interactivity's continuum & dimensions where he divides is to 1-dimension, 2 – dimension, 3 – dimension, n – dimension.

As he states in the end of his article that even though “interactivity” as such is widely used concept, it is still very difficult to define. In his conclusion he makes a statement that it is something very complex and differs from field to field, so it is impossible to give it one level definition.