DigiMob meeting 17 March 2011

We had a bit of venue trouble today. We saw lovely tea cups and things all laid out and thought we were very special until we were told that there was a selection committee meeting going on. Sorry for that DigiMobbers:( TB Davie Room will be available to us every Thursday except 5 & 12 May and then I will keep you posted regarding the second half of the year.

Today Muya presented his proposal defence “The meaning of video game violence for SA children”. He is interested in the meanings that children under 16 attach to video game violence, how they define it in relation to real violence and how their definitions differ from that of the Film and Publications Board and their  parents. (More detailed blog post by Muya to follow.)

 

Sunday Edition: Bunny Foo Foo Adventures http://theunderfold.com/2010/01/31/

Next meeting: This week Bonnie will be sharing her theoretical framework, Thabisa still has something to present for us and if there is time, Nicci will present an overview of her data and plans for possible chapters.

DigiMob meeting 10 March 2011

Pic from http://struggleonline.wordpress.com/ - a very interesting blog by a SA community media practitioner! Sure you will love it too:)

Today Silke gave us a presentation on youth, mobile phones and civic engagement through participatory media production, her Masters thesis topic. Silke started off by telling us that she had felt blocked (which inspired the previous post, as I have also been feeling the block lately) before a coffee date with a friend who works for the UN who inspired her after requesting that she teach an online class on mobile media. Silke said she learnt a lot from talking, a vital reminder to all of us for the week: sometimes it’s good to talk more and read less:)  

Silke will blog about her presentation and findings so far in a follow-up post. We had interesting discussions about rights and public voice. It seemed the NGO was more worried about infringing music rights through online videos than about protecting the students’ identities. We spoke about how a channel does not equal a voice – such as the example of the homosexual girl who wanted to do a digital story on corrective rape. Making her identity public online could make her a target within her community, which also led us to talking about silencing and a consideration of which voices are silenced in the township. As researchers, we cannot assume that our participants have the same freedom of voice (or even access to the channels to make their voices public).  We discussed the rules of speaking within a community: what can you say, who draws the line and whose interests are served in the end?

Next meeting: Thursday 17 March (Muya and Thabisa to present, Bonnie presents the week after)

Breaking through writer’s block

Thanks to Herman Lategan for the following tips on writer’s block:)

• Writer’s Block is simply a cognitive distortion based on unfounded fear of failure and being caught out as incompetent. It’s in your own mind, a self-constructed inhibitor of productivity. You constructed it, you can deconstruct it. Remember, simply feeling that you’re not a good writer, doesn’t reflect the reality. Feelings aren’t facts.

• Perfectionism is a killer. No piece of writing, or any piece of art, or music, photograph, film or play, can be perfect. Nothing in life is perfect. Don’t get it right, get it written. Once it’s written, you can re-write and edit. A famous editor once said: “I don’t want it perfect, I want it Monday.” With other words, get it done, stick to a deadline and stop fretting. PS. This doesn’t apply to getting the facts right. Facts, spelling, grammar should be triple checked.

• Facebook, Twitter, Email and Internet surfing are the enemies of time. Remember: Planning to write isn’t writing. Doris Lessing said: “At some point I must stop talking about writing and just do it. Those ideal conditions: Solitude, time, money, freedom from care, would never happen.”

• Don’t compare yourself to other writers. You’ll suffer from self-inflicted performance anxiety and you’ll freeze. By all means, learn from others, but develop your own voice. Nobody can write the way YOU can write, because nobody like you exists. Remember, metaphorically, you might not be able to bake a cake, but you might be able to make a great fridge-cake.

• Play around with words, have fun, invent new ways of painting pictures with words and telling riveting stories. Athol Fugard once wrote: “Free yourself from labour and use more delight.”

• Reject rejection. Reject your inner critic, or the Hitler on your shoulder that tells you you’re incompetent. Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent. You don’t need other people’s approval to be successful. By all means learn from criticism, but don’t be immobilised and crushed by it. Ban your internal and external critics.

• “The art of writing is rewriting.” Margaret Atwood.

• Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.

• Finally, writers must be as disciplined as athletes, and repeated binge usage of alcohol or drugs impair the creative process. This isn’t moralising: Simple facts. And like an athlete, the more you practice, the luckier you’ll get.

DigiMob meeting 3 March 2011

I thought you may find this intersting - DigiMob Australia is a mobile repairs company. See: http://bit.ly/fhcEv9

What an interesting meeting! We had a variety of discussions about what we’re up to at the moment. Muya is nearly done with his proposal and has to present a defence – we will be there, just let us know when and where you want us:) Anja shared her interesting experience at the Bellville library where librarians are all for equality: youngsters can play games for their 45 minutes and are not kicked off the computers because older people want to look for jobs, everyone is entitled to their time and the activities they choose to pursue. This was quite a contrast to the eCentres in the West Coast I visited with Marion and Araba Sey, where people were not allowed to use social networking sites. Silke also did library interviews and discussed how the permissions required to do research in SA is vastly different to Germany where it’s all about having a signed authoritative letter with a department stamp or letterhead. Silke says that the interpersonal is valued a lot more here – personal contact and politeness – rather than having authoritative documents. Travis had an interesting experience with high school art students using Diigo: they subverted the affordances of uploading profile pics by using pics of mucho men as a classroom joke to make it look like their male teacher was interested in men. Nicola (me) shared that she had been helping out as a research assistant on a national youth survey. Marian spoke about blogging and Bonnie is very happy to have a framework for analysing mathematics tutoring interactions via MXit. Thabisa, newest member of the digimobbers, mentioned that she may do her PhD thesis on digital literacies, but is currently interested in Cape Access in Knysna. What a busy mob we’ve been!

Itinerary for this coming week: Thabisa will do a 1-page proposal OR discuss her Masters work; Silke will talk about her latest paper and Muya is going to prepare a mock defence as practice for the real deal.

The week after: Bonnie to discuss her theoretical framework, any other volunteers?