Qotw10: playing for credit-secondlife

Fox! NCmon Jewell is my name here. I put monica but there were already many taking this name. So I combined my chinese and english names.

Before I reached that section of appearance, i already mustered how to fly, hover and take objects.

I changed my appearance of the avatar. I made her skirt spoof, make heels and edit the skin color.

But I love the teleporting. I went to butterfly island which is all pink. The outside garden is so beautiful.

On butterfly island in the main building

Does the character resemble myself?

1) It kind of does, because I love animals. This was the only avatar of animal so I chose it. I have experimented with the clothing, shoes and eye color.

I drove a jeep on Orientation island. It went too slow for normal driving. I would like a fast race car if I could afford it! flying is more exciting.

2) I would like to be a brave explorer and that is what I am doing here. Genderwise it is the same, female. I like to dress with unusual wear. These boots are cool. Although I look mild on the outside, I actually like doing new and exciting things.

I took some hellfire clothes. They were free, so I took the bundle and put it on.

I tried to create things on the lawn, but the notice said ‘owner does not allow it’. A structure gold wire came out. I realize that people can earn money by lying by the pool. When I logged out to stop the comp lagging, I was sitting by the pool.

I hope to earn more money by making objects. That is the primary objective I usually aim for when I game. Money is the resource, just like in reality. You need it for basic clothes and food etc.

Problems I faced

I am a gamer but I think Secondlife is hard to navigate. Today I could not see the usual big map.

I did not know how to read the map and could not find my way around. That is why I took a long time to go around Orientation and finish the exercise. The menus are too wordy. I noticed my friends were only stuck editing their appearance. Perhaps these features can be modified?

I found it so tedious to read everything before I could proceed.

I think the cooler features are making things (yet to succeed in doing), building, flying and teleporting. Secondlife is not really a game. Games are exciting and much easier to do. Instead I think it is a simulation of real places. Malls, fields, casinoes, discos are where humans hang out.

I look forward to meeting familiar people and see Lion City and SIM. I do not know how to go there yet.

In the next mission, I will talk about why secondlife is not a game.

Qotw9: STOMP is it citizen journalism?

Citizen journalism means to report news from your own standpoint. After September 11, many people wrote in their blogs, connecting the whole world on this tragedy. Photographs and little bits and pieces are posted on the web (Gimore, 2004) .



Is stomp.com ideal citizen journalism?

Definitely because people are sending in their mms and emails of recent happenings, like food news, people fighting, who fell down the mrt track. These news are highly personalised.
There is a section on asking questions and " talkback" which allows for audience's opinions. There is two way communication.

According to Bowman &Willis (2005) , citizen journalists filter, check for loopholes in argument, use photographs, audio and videoclips to record, doing " grassroots reporting", and so on. Stomp.com have all these features. People can sign up for a free account to volunteer opinions. I have tried to interact on the forums under the alias slovenlee.

Actually I applaud that Singapore has decided to embrace the new technologicsl method of reporting news, and the page is very colorful. This makes it attractive to readers.


Improvements:

The first disadvantage is that signup is tedious and hypersensitive to login. I had to try multiple times. There were a lot of errors that came out.

The Starblog section should have a better color scheme, green is almost too hard to read from. I think they should stick to a black background like the rest of the Stomp.
The games section under Stink should have more fun games. There are only word-games there. This is quite boring. There should be more shooting or space games for the young. Word games are for more for intelligent and older people. If stomp were to be more youth friendly, this area needs to be improved.

They should show recipes and steps on how to make nice food like what has been shown.
There is a lack in response on the bulletin boards. There are only 2 replies each time.



References:

Gillmor, D. (2004) We the Media. Retrieved March 29,2007 from
http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tipe=text/html

Bowman and Willis (2005) Nieman Reports: The Future Is Here, But Do News Media Companies See It? Nieman Reports, 5 (4) Retrieved March 29,2007 fromhttp://www.hypergene.net/blog/comments.php?id=327_0_1_0_C

Qotw8: Theonlinecitizen

Chosen:

The title of this blog is theonlinecitizen, link is http://theonlinecitizen.com/

Writer is Andrew who is from the Worker’s Party. The first postings began in December 2006. Technorati ranking is 59, 044.

The topics range from social matters, like how to help the elderly to what the Members of Parliament are doing. Sometimes there are posts on world matters, like the March 21, 2007 entry which discussed the ten polluted rivers and why the Pakistani coach was murdered.

The tone is objective for advertisements (like the Asean meeting on Youth) and what people in other countries are doing. But for today’s post, of untrue material, politicians lying and blogs which tell the truth, Andrew comments about Dr Balakrishnan’s remarks that the bloggers can publish freely about the government on the Net. “Blogs can prevent politicians from lying” (theonlinecitizen.com, 2007). He does not feel happy that our government says neutral things.

A second keypost is that he feels job discrimination is not helped. No one can sue employers who are biased against race and disabled people.Andrew sounds critical of the PAP. Readers who dropped comments on this post said they hoped laws would be imposed like in the UK against race and age factors.

Do blogs allow for greater democracy in Singapore?

Blogs are the new media now. Already in traditional media like radio and tv, it seems that whoever cannot win the public’s eye will become out of favor ( Thornton, 2002 ). There is great democracy in other countries. As long as people keep away from Nazism or very inflammatory remarks, most things are all right.

For Singapore, let me examine democracy in various contexts.

Democracy means content is negotiable, people can take part in equal amounts of discussion, even those who are affected (Thornton, 2002).

For the blog I have adopted, he can discuss about the policies of the government. But there will definitely be media watchdogs who keep a tab. It is impossible not to be detected. Racist bloggers were sued some time ago.

What if you kept away from racist content? Basically there are some blogs out there with poorly written English and comments about the government, which still remain. In my search, I came across one called the loud voice. The blogger was using a lot of swear words. But the entries are still up. There is relative freedom for vulgarities. Thornton ( 2002 ) states that if people were to be literate, then there can be equal basis for discussion. Those whose first language is not English sound awkward and are discriminated against. Singaporeans can all speak fluently, so this means there is equal opportunity to post something.

I am appalled at the singlish used. Frustrations and sadness can all be vented locally. It shows that there is no language ban. Teenagers can talk about their personal problems and matters online.

Although blogger.com has a policy that they will remove material that is copyright or offensive, I have seen people post music and other people’s works on the blogs. But for the SDP’s podcasting, Dr Balakrishnan announced a ban against them. Netizens had also filmed and put up videos but they were all right (Giam, 2006). People used their mobile phones to snap videos. So there is democracy because you can film things without any bans or laws against you. But the boundary is, not to comment about polls and elections, especially if you are a politician.

I think that democracy is quite free in Singapore, because vulgarities and politics can be mentioned by most people. Unless you are a government official, you do not have to worry. Singapore will not press charges against your comments on blogs. But the worst case would be Dr Chee Soon Juan who is always on the headlines. He was jailed for talking about the headscarf issue that malay girls can be allowed to wear them and he asked for “the Chinese to speak up”. He admits to being a self-promoter.

References

Andrew (2007). Blog Retrieved from onlinecitizen.com

Giam (2006) The Politics of Singapore’s new media. Retrieved march 23,2007 from

http://theonlinecitizen.com/2006/12/31/review-the-politics-of-singapores-new-media-in-2006/

Hahn, Lorriane( 2002). CNN Talkasia. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from

http://www.singapore-window.org/sw02/020529cn.htm

Thornton,A (2002) Does the Internet create democracy? Retrieved march 23,2007 from

http://www.zip.com.au/%7Eathornto/