Second life anyone?

Ok this weeks classes were super interesting. Ive always found any communication online with people i dont know extremely bizarre. i dont know if its just me or maybe just the generation im in, i just cant get the grip of it and see it as natural. Face to face communication is far more suited to me. Think there has just been to much publicity about internet dating and friendships online going very very wrong. 

When we first got internet at home when i was about 12 or 13 my mum was on my back the whole time checking what i was doing and not ever letting me talk to people other then my messenger friends. There was this general warning going around that chat rooms were full of sleazy old men and that they were really dangerous and i think that people have that in the back of their minds when communicating online. 

Ive been on a 'chat room' before but it was one of those themed rooms and i was writing an essay on the topic so figured would be a good idea to get a few peoples opinions and ideas since they were obviously already interested in the topic. I signed in, started chatting with someone and after about 5 mins talking about the topic i got a "where are you from babe, do you have a webcam" since them i have hated chat rooms and genuinely think you could never form a serious and honest relationship on them. That is a very biased opinion cos i know that people have created lifelong bonds and what not but personally i find chat rooms and other non face to face communication weird. 

What Erika said about second life completely blew me away, ive been thinking about it all week and have been telling a bunch of people about it because i find it all so crazy. Think i may have been living under a rock but doesn't it all seem way to far fetched and 'future like'?? A lady has become a millionaire from selling virtual property! what i dont understand is isnt everything you do on second life able to be done to the same extent in real life? like if your going to buy some new clothes and some food in a virtual game for your avatar wouldnt you just get it in real life and enjoy the actual object? That does bring up the whole 'what is real' thing and 'is anything actually real' but with second life it seems as if you are living through an object (the internet) rather then just living life itself.

Ok i am beginning to confuse myself with all my theories but does anyone else feel very 'behind' in all this?

One day if im very bored i may create a second life and see if i can get involved in it all but until then face to face communication suits me just fine. Sorry that ive asked more questions then anything in this post :p comments would be awesome.

cya all wednesday :)

Bloggers

How did everyone find this weeks readings? i hated the first one and really liked the second one so im not even going to touch on O Baoill's article. First of before this whole coms paper i had never really experienced the 'blogosphere', as ive said in previous posts me and the net have never had much of a connection. After reading Johnson and Kaye's article it got me thinking about the whole blogs challenging traditional news scenario. I personally think that blogs as a news source can be somewhat more reliable then news media. The news twists reality and only ever focuses on one side of every story. Blogs allow us to dive deeper into certain issues and get different opinions from a range of independent people rather then corporate companies. Bloggers are not constrained by professional and ethical standards so can fully speak their mind.

A not so professional blogger but one that is relevant to me is Perez Hilton. His blog Perezhilton.com is basically a more truthful gossip magazine. He posts a bunch of posts everyday about the going ons on of hollywood celebritys and isnt afraid to dish out the juiciest dirt on them. I am a self confessed gossip junkie and was a regular buyer of magazines such as NW and OK but after finding Perez im am now 100% devoted to him. The fact that perez says what he wants about celebs makes him a much better read. The magazines twist the truth and will build a wall of stories about a celeb to suit what they want to get across and more then often it seems that they couldnt be more wrong. Basically what im trying to say is media twist stories so much but bloggers have really no reason to do so, they are not afraid of the truth and prob the best thing about them is they are wayyy more up to date! An example: after Heath Ledger died, 4 days later the newest issue of NW comes out with an article on him accusing him of dating two girls at one time that was obviously printed at a time when he was still alive and kicking.

Perez hilton has now turned himself to a celebrity in his own right and his blog is now counted on for celeb news more so then what trash magazines are. So when asking if this type of blog is challenging media i think yes it most certainly is, more and more people are coming to trust this type of news more then press news.