Collaborative Gallery Project

Here is the link to my video for my collaborative gallery project.

Creative Gallery Progress

I'm in the process of working on my project still. I changed my idea to making a video with a bunch of people's twitter statuses, and making my own rhyming poem. I will use "thelongestpoemintheworld" as a way to search for people's statuses, then put together my own unique poem that hopefully makes sense. I am in the process of finding these statuses and arranging them in an order that makes sense, but i realized it is taking alot longer than i thought it would take. If i am able to achieve exactly what I want then i think my project will tun out really good, but on the other hand these next few days I am going to have to work really hard to find another statuses that will make sense and rhyme together and then put them into a video-like format to display. It's important to note that I am taking "printscreen" shots of each twitter so you actually see their twitter pages so i can llsutrate these are real twitter msgs and not jsut me making them up. It's going to be a real challenge to find all of these rhyming statuses but i think somehow it cna be done.

Sloths

Twitter and Multimedia Authorship Essay Final Draft

Here is the link to my Twitter and Multimedia Authorship Essay Final Draft

The Real OT

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Creative Response to Topic

I am not exactly sure what you mean by a “creative response” to my topic. I am guessing we will go over this in more detail but as of now I am guessing you want some type of creative visual to illustrate our topic. When I think about Twitter I realize that there are already so many creative illustrations out there that are representing Twitter. For example, there are many (467,000 to be exact) You Tube videos that are already created that poke fun at Twitter. I used two of them in my theory presentation. One was a cartoon that questioned the idea of “who sees our tweets?” and “who cares what you are doing?” Another video I displayed was a Rockin Robin Spoof about “tweeting all day long”. Both were comical and entertaining while still describing what Twitter is and why people use it. Along with Twitter YouTube videos there are websites like longestpoemintheworld.com that pokes fun at Twitter by using anonymous Tweets to create one long rhyming but nonsense poem. These types of creative responses to Twitter can help me generate my own idea for how to represent my topic. For today’s class, we were required to check out two different web pages you provided on syllabus and I feel that one of them could tie into Twitter and my topic. The dailybooth.com website is a site where people post updates about what they are doing at the moment in time (much like Twitter) but along with text they also have a picture of themselves doing what they are doing. Dailybooth.com may be a good way to illustrate Twitter because it not only has textual updates but has pictures for visuals. This site has generated some ideas I could possibly do, for example taking people’s pictures with a status update underneath. I could also attempt at making my own You Tube video demonstrating how tweets are lost within the this World Wide Web, but I am not sure what I would put in this video. I was also thinking about taking a mass amount of Tweets and creating my own poem that rhymes and makes sense at the same time while describing Twitter. These are the beginnings of my thoughts.

I really think I might ask people to jot down a sentence of what they are doing in that particular day, take their picture, then put all the pictures and thoughts together in a youtube video

Twitter and Multimedia Authorship Essay Draft

Ashley Graff


Here is the link to my Twitter and Multimedia Authorship Essay Draft.

I have not completed my essay, but so far I have addressed the issue of who gets credit for what when it comes to using Twitter. I have given various examples of collaborative peices of art that people have made using Twitter. I stopped right before talking about controvery surrounding Twitter and I am going to explain how people are using "tweets" in ways the authors don't agree to, using the Sarah Palin and Conan example. I am also going to explain the benefits of using Twitter and how it is changing our society, becuase there are many articles about that. Then that is probably how I will end my essay. Again this is not a completed essay

Relections on Project so far

I am still conducting research on Twitter. I have found some pretty interesting articles explaining how useful Twitter is. I have learned so much more about Twitter over these last weeks. I thought Twitter was really just another way to interact with friends, (which is it's main purpose) but there is so much more that people are using Twitter for. Many ofthe articles I find are praising Twitter but I know I need to look at the downside to Twitter too, especially since I am going to talk about the idea of authorship and who gets credit for what, which Twitter is essentially using people's information, and I need to address the question, is Twitter being fair to others' privacy and rights as an author? I need to look at both the positives and negatives Twitter has to offer. Adressing both sides will allow for a better argument within my essay. The sites I have bookmarked I feel are going to be pretty useful when I go to give examples. I do feel that i need to look at some more journals to get actual studies of people using Twitter so that I have concrete evidence. I need to formulate some better questions to address and really think about everyhting I will discuss within the paper. I should start outlining my thoughts.

Here is think link to my Organizational Diagram

Annotated Bibliography

Here is the link for the Annotated Bibliography

Final Theory Presentation

Here is the link for my theory presentation.

Reflection on Topic so Far

I think I am finally starting to have a strong idea on how to present my theory and what to focus on. As I have noted numerous times before I will be focusing on the social networking site Twitter and specifically on authorship that surrounds Twitter. When I originally started this project I honestly did not know that much about Twitter. I was familiar with the site because I was introduced to it when I was watching a talk show one day and I thought it was interesting that I could “follow” certain celebrities. I created a Twitter account and occasionally checked it to see what celebrities were up doing. However, I never used it to post my own thoughts. Now that I have been researching Twitter for several weeks, I have come to realize it has become a huge phenomenon within this multimedia world. Twitter is being used by celebrities, athletes, doctors, professors, students, companies, and everyone in between. Twitter has made its way into classrooms, sporting events, and even surgery rooms. It is truly amazing what Twitter, a text of 140 characters, can offer us. Professors are using it to send out homework reminders, coaches are using it to relay information about sports teams, companies are using it so send information to customers, and the most fascinating of all doctors are using Twitter to allow patients’ family members to follow their progress while in surgery. Not only are people using Twitter to relay information, but writers are even releasing their novels via Twitter or using Twitter messages to create and publish books. “Twitter Wit” was a book that was recently released in book stores and was creating by solely using other people’s wittiest “tweets”. Even though this book used other people’s tweets, they never received credit for the book. This brings me to the idea of multimedia authorship. What makes someone an author? This project has made me think about the idea of an “author” in this thriving multimedia world. With all of the tools available on the Internet, almost anyone can be an author. So when people use Twitter to post their thoughts, are they ultimately an author? Well when we see books like “Twitter Wit” being published it appears that these innocent thoughts are eliciting bigger and better pieces of writing than ever imagined. Not only are books being published using Twitter, but other websites are using Twitter for the basis of their site. For example, thelongestpoemintheworld.com is a site that takes anonymous statuses and generates a rhyming poem. No one has given this site permission to use their individual status, yet it is taken and used to create a collaborative piece of writing. There is even a Twitter Search, which is set up just like Google.com, where you type in a word or phrase and see whose statuses match. Sites like these are allowing people’s thoughts to be spread anonymously around the Internet. This brings me to believe that as a multimedia author we have no identity. As soon as we let our thoughts and words loose on the Internet, all identity is lost. I feel like it is inevitable for others to see what I have written and never be able to trace it back to me. Once I post my thoughts they seem to never be my own again but become part of a larger collaborative piece of multimedia writing. This project has opened my eyes to just how easy it is to steal someone’s writing and words completely unintentionally. With so many people using Twitter and updating their statuses multiple times of day, there is a large amount of information people are releasing onto the Internet. We never will truly know where our thoughts are going to end up. It is just something we must deal with when we let our thoughts be expressed over the Web. We must realize being a multimedia author means contributing to a larger piece of work.

Link for Twitter Theory

Here is the link for my Twitter Theory :

http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AWW78keiDEz8ZGhqdzlndmRfOGZrYzdoZGZy&hl=en

Theory on Multimedia Authorship

When we think of authorship we may automatically think of paper and ink. In our minds we visualize paperback or hardcover books that are sold in bookstores all across the country. Authorship is the act of writing, or even the occupation of writing. I was oringally taught that authors were the creators and the writers of the novels I read, but with new technology comes new ideas about authorship. As this new generation moves away from paper and pen and uses keyboards and computers to elicit thoughts, multimedia authorship becomes a relevant concept. Multimedia is using a variety of different media forms to produce and create content. Therefore, anyone who uses media to produce their own thoughts or ideas is technically a multimedia author. Because of the popularity of computers and especially the Internet, almost anyone can be a multimedia author. Each and every day people use the Internet to express themselves. From creating a profile on Facebook.com, writing their thoughts through Blogs, or even using Twitter to inform people what they are doing, the Internet has become the most popular medium for people to become authors. The Internet has allowed authorship to be easily available to anyone, and because there are so many more authors today than ever before, our own words are becoming “lost” within this World Wide Web. It is so easy to post our own words and our thoughts for virtually anyone to see, but it is just as easy for people to take what you wrote and use it for themselves. Multimedia has given us all the power to become authors, yet it has also taken the power of our own words away from us. The moment I post my thoughts on the Web, they are no longer my own. They are only text on a computer screen lost among thousands of others. This multimedia world is lessening the impact of our words, because essentially anyone can take credit for what we say or create. Barthes says, “for the good reason that all writing is itself this special voice, consisting of several indiscernible voices, the trap where all identity is lost, beginning with the very identity of the body that writes”. Barthes thinks that the author’s identity is lost from the very moment he begins to write, and I agree that our own identity is easily missing using multimedia. How many times a day do we read writings on the Internet and never know who actually wrote it? As I focus solely on Twitter for my research project, most of the time we actually do know who is saying what because we see their names, however other forms of multimedia are taking an individual’s Twitter message out of context, and using people’s thoughts and ideas to create a bigger piece of art. Sites like Longestpeomintheworld.com are creating collaborative pieces of art by using anonymous Twitter messages. Even entire books are being sold in bookstores with people’s Twitter messages published in them. What we once thought was just an innocent thought we typed out onto the Internet, has become transformed into something bigger and beyond our control. Once we apply our fingers to a keyboard and type out a text, we no longer have control of where our own ideas will eventually end up. In someone else’s mouth? It’s safe to say that multimedia authorship has allowed our own thoughts to freely run wild all over the Internet. Our identity is easily lost, and once we submit our words to text and to the Internet, we’re ultimately left with what we begin with, just a single thought in our mind.

Having Fun With Wordle

Final Research Paper Proposal

Twitter has become one of the next biggest fads to hit the multimedia world. It’s a free social-networking site where people can read and send messages. It works much like sending a mass text message, by using the Twitter website or by using applications accessible on cell phones. Twitter is basically based on the question, “What are you doing now?” In 140 characters or less people are able to answer this question, with a “tweet”, allowing people that they know or do not know, known as “followers”, to read the answer. This newest craze is around three years old and currently has about six million users. Anyone can use Twitter, from celebrities, professional athletes, journalists, to doctors, professors, and students. Big and small businesses alike use Twitter to announce their company’s latest news and for their customers to easily interact with them. It is an efficient and effective communication tool used to send any kind of information.

There are a variety of reasons why people use Twitter, and as Twitter becomes more and more popular the idea of multimedia ownership becomes a relevant question to address. Is a “tweet” copyrighted? Some feel that because a “tweet” can only be 140 characters long that there can be an exception to it not being copyrighted. If someone likes what your status says should they ask your permission first to use it? Sites like www.longestpoemintheworld.com select anonymous people’s statuses to aggregate a poem that rhymes. Who, if anyone, has given this site permission to select these statuses? This site illustrates various anonymous people’s pieces of work coming together to form a larger collaborative piece of art. My question here is who takes credit for this poem, the website itself, Twitter.com, or each individual person?

Not only are people creating websites and using statuses to form such pieces of work like poems, writers and novelists have actually begun releasing their full novels via “tweets”. On July 14, 2009 Matt Stewart announced he was going to release his entire novel, “The French Revolution”, entirely via tweets. This means 140 characters of his novel at a time. Stewart is certainly not the only writer to start doing this, various other authors have been attempting the same idea. Will releasing a novel via Twitter have the same copyrights as releasing a published novel in stores?

Along with novels being released via Twitter, there was recently a book published and released in bookstores called “Twitter Wit”. It was edited by Nick Douglas, who compiled together the “wittiest” tweets he received. Contributors of this book received no royalties, just a free copy of book. In this case who gets credit for this book? How is it right for the editor and HarperCollins to make a profit off of others’ “tweets”?

With Twitter becoming more widespread on a daily basis there are various questions to start considering regarding multimedia ownership. Although “tweets” are only 140 characters long, they are still a person’s thoughts, ideas, and words and ultimately belong to that person. Through my research project I would like to address the idea of who do these individual “tweets” actually belong to and in the end who will receive credit for what.

I will use the following websites:

Crumb, Michael. "Twitter Opens a Door to Iowa Operating Room - ABC News." ABCNews.com - Breaking news, politics, online news, world news, feature stories, celebrity interviews and more - ABC News. 1 Sep. 2009. 14 Sep. 2009 http://i.abcnews.com/US/wireStory?id=8465346.

Grigar, Dene. "The 24 Hr. Micro-Elit Porject." The 24 Hr. Micro-Elit Porject. 14 Sep. 2009 .

Publetariat. "Interview With Doyce Testerman - Twitter As A New Medium In Authorship, Pt. 3 www.publetariat.com." www.publetariat.com . 14 Sep. 2009 http://www.publetariat.com/write/interview-doyce-testerman-twitter-new-medium-authorship-pt-3.

Stewart, Matt . "Matt Stewart: Why I'm Releasing My Novel on Twitter." Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. 14 Sep. 2009 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-stewart/why-im-releasing-my-novel_b_231385.html.

Tate, Ryan. "You Wrote My Twitter Book, Now Promote It! - Twitterwit - Gawker." Gawker — Gossip from Manhattan and the Beltway to Hollywood and the Valley. 14 Sep. 2009 http://gawker.com/5345292/you-wrote-my-twitter-book-now-promote-it.

The Longest Poem in the World." The Longest Poem in the World. 14 Sep. 2009 http://www.longestpoemintheworld.com/what-is-this/.

"Twitter." Twitter. 14 Sep. 2009 http://twitter.com/.

"West Virginia University on Twitter Home West Virginia University." West Virginia University on Twitter Home West Virginia University. 14 Sep. 2009 http://twitter.wvu.edu/.

Research Proposal on Twitter

Twitter has become one of the next biggest fads to hit the multimedia world. It’s a free social-networking site where people can read and send messages, much like sending a mass text message, via the http://www.twitter.com/ website or by using applications accessible on cell phones. Twitter’s website claims, it is “without a doubt the best way to share and discover what is happening right now”. Twitter is basically based on the question, “What are you doing now”? In 140 characters or less people are able to answer this question, with a “Tweet”, allowing people that they know or do not know, known as “followers”, to read the answer. This newest craze is around three years old and currently has about six million users. Anyone can use Twitter, from celebrities, professional athletes, journalists, to doctors, professors, and students. Big and small businesses alike use Twitter to announce the company’s latest news and for their customers to easily interact with them. It is an efficient and effective communication tool used to send any kind of information.
Universities are also using Twitter to send out information to their students. Currently WVU has around 25 different groups their students can follow. Examples include WVU NewsFeed which sends messages to students about the latest news going on around the university. For the sports lovers, there are groups like WVU Maniacs, WVU Sports Buzz, Coach Bill Stewart, and Coach LeBlanc, which keep students updated on WVU’s sports teams and how or what the players did during practice or in their games. Twitter is a great way for students to keep up-to-date with information about their university. Some of the groups are even centered around specific classes at the university, for example there is a group called WVU CS 101, for students enrolled in computer-science 101. The professor leaves “tweets” about homework and projects that are due.
Another interesting topic I would like to study about Twitter is how surgeons are incorporating Twitter into their surgeries. The doctors “tweet” about what is going on in the operating room to the patients family members. I read an article about a doctor in Iowa recently making headlines by being one of the first surgeons to tweet in the operating room. This allows families and anyone else to follows a patient’s progress as they are being operated on.
The idea of authorship plays an important role when researching Twitter. Some questions that can be asked include is a “tweet” copyrighted? Some feel that because a “tweet” can only be 140 characters long that there can be exception to it not being copyrighted. If someone likes what your status says should they ask your permission first to use? I read a blog where a guy says he uses Twitter to send messages to his friends updating them about scores of games. He questioned if his tweets about the scores, but what if ESPN.com republished his tweet, would that be violating the law? Another question that comes to my mind is the website Sandy showed us called the http://www.longestpoemintheworld.com/. No one said their statues could be used for another website’s purpose, so is this violating the law? Another site that was given to me was http://web.me.com/dgrigar/24-Hr._Micro-Elit_Project/Home.html, where people submitted stories, in 140 characters or less, to be published into an even bigger story made up of other people’s “tweets”. This demonstrates how multimedia can demonstrate a collaborative way of making art.

References
http://twitter.wvu.edu/- A list of WVU's Twitter groups
http://tweeternet.com/- This site describes all the terminology of Twitter and what is and why people should use it.
http://twitter.com/- this is the twitter homepage
http://www.longestpoemintheworld.com/- this is a good example of how people are using twitter statuses to create something bigger
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/17/twitter.surgery/index.html- this is an article that discusses doctors using twitter during surgeries.
http://web.me.com/dgrigar/24-Hr._Micro-Elit_Project/Home.html- this site discusses how this man out together a book using twitter statues.

Rise of Plagiosphere & Ecstasy of Influence

Every time I type a paper for school, I constantly have the thought running in my mind, “What if this was already said?”. I would never intentionally plagiarize in my school work or in any other type of writing, first of all because the consequences are harmful and second because I have no need to. I am able to read something and summarize my own thoughts about the work, but what if how I summarize something or the ideas I acquire from a certain work I have read, is the same way someone else already has? In this never ending world called the Web, people are constantly posting their thoughts and ideas, and we are bound to run into someone who feels the same way we do. The article called “The Rise of Plagiosphere”, mentions the Turnitin program that many professors have begun using. Yes, this is a good idea if a student is stupid enough to copy an entire text and say it was his own words, but when it comes to small phrases, I hope they don’t think I am plagiarizing because ultimately I am probably going to have the same thing to say as someone else once did. It’s almost impossible not to plagiarize some one’s words, because someone somewhere has probably already thought or said what you already have. The article titled, “Ecstasy of Influence”, depicts how some newer pieces of work, such as movies, cartoons, and books, have been influenced by older works. I see no problem with this. The world would never grow and improve without people sharing their ideas and learning from others to be inspired to contribute their own thoughts. Our ideas must start somewhere, and somewhere is most likely form someone else’s thoughts. This article also talks about the commons, which is something that everyone can share. I see our blogs and any one else’s blogs like the commons. We are free to express our own ideas and thoughts and learn from others without being worried about how we say something and if it has already been said. I think we must have caution when writing on the Web, we must realize what we say will be seen by others and might even be used by others. But isn’t that the whole reason we write? Don’t we want people to hear us and take something out of it? No, I don’t want someone to take credit for an entire essay I wrote, but if they see something they like and can expand on it, that’s the reason I wrote it in the first place.

ENGL 303 First Post

I would consider myself to be "digital native" because this media greatly influenced my life while I was growing up. I use everything from computers, to cellphones, to ipods, in my everyday life. This type of technology started to become increasingly popular while I was in middle school, therefore I've grown up using As for others in my family, they do not rely on it as much as I do. Both my parents do not really understand how to use computers and they can't see the reason behind me texting all the time. I would say they are far from being a "digital native".

My earliest memories of using the web was chatting in the chatrooms and using AIM to talk to my friends from school. I would spent endless hours instant messaging people. That was what I used the web most for when I was in middle school.

I use the web for all sorts of reasons now. The main reason would be to find information quickly and easily. Within seconds I can find answers to questions I have. I am also bascially forced to use the web through school, since essentially everything from professors or other important school information is sent to me via my MIX account, which is required to have as a student here at WVU. I also use the web to keep in touch with friends, such as through Facebook. It's such a great and easy way to keep in touch with 100's of "friends" at once.

There are a variety of sites I visit, but the ones I probably visit on a daily basis would be my MIX account and Facebook. These are sites that are constantly updated so I am constatnly checking for any new information I might need to know. Besides using the web to keep in touch with important information, I also text message a whole lot. I think i text my friends more than I call them now, because it is a lot easier and quicker in a sense.

In conclusion, I am defintely use digial technoloy all the time.