Category: BCM 240

We all are well aware that paying attention at times can be very tough. For instance, let’s just talk about our attention span when we’re in college or just about anywhere do you find yourself zoning out at times without even realizing? Don’t worry you’re not in this alone, I’m pretty sure that almost everyone one is guilty of that at least I’m being honest. I remember back in high school during Math class I used to mostly zone out and daydream because I was horrible at Math. Like seriously no matter how hard I tried to make sense of those Xs and Ys, it never registered in my brain. 

In the lecture, we learned that attention involves the allocation of cognitive resources to deal with multiple inputs at once. Everyone is different so attention span may differ to individuals and the interest level. Like I said before, I barely paid any attention during my Math class because I never enjoyed the subject but it was opposite with my friend who enjoyed solving equations and paid attention.  

We all struggle with attention especially today’s multitasking generation. We all are guilty of using our phones while watching a movie or listening to music or cooking etc. Our computers and laptops will have more than one tab open simply because we like to be able to have many things going on at once. 

Did you know that the attention span of an average human is now shorter than that of which a goldfish has? According to a study done by Microsoft Canada, the attention span of an average human being is up to 8 seconds in 2013. They also found that the average attention span of a goldfish is up to 9 seconds. 

According to Microsoft Canada, there are three types of attention spans:

1. Sustained (prolonged focus)– Maintaining prolonged focus during repetitive activities

•    Selective (avoiding distraction)– Maintaining response in the face of distracting or competing stimuli

•    Alternating (efficiently switching between tasks)– Shifting attention between tasks demanding different cognitive skills

Anyway coming back to the topic we had to find a friend or family member and co-design a short task that will examine their attention capacity, relative to yours. I chose my friend for this task as she is constantly on her. We were out for lunch and as usual, she was on her phone, checking her Instagram. I told her that we were gonna play a game where if checks her phone more 5 times before we finish our lunch she’ll have to pay and vice versa. 5 minutes in and she already had gone through her phone four times and yes she never made it through the lunch and end up paying for the lunch. 

During all this time I was observing her and realized that she would just be on her mostly scrolling through Instagram and watching other people’s stories. What’s even funny was that even when it wasn’t her notification sound alert she would still check her phone thinking it’s her. She said she just couldn’t stop herself from checking on her phone. It was kind of annoying because I like to be present at the moment and talk when I’m with somebody. That’s when I thought of what  Alexander Horowitz said about the attention that, “It asks us what is relevant right now and gears us up to notice only that”. 

I could see that every time my friend was on her phone she was interacting with someone or something while listening to me talk and multitasking. But I would at times have to repeat myself because she wasn’t paying attention to what I was actually saying and just nodding her dead while her eyes fixed to her phone screen. It seems like as the technologies advance our attention spans will not have a chance to grow and live up to its full potential.

References:

• Alexandra Horowitz, On Looking 11 Walks with Expert Eyes, New York, Scribner, 2013
• Microsoft Canada, ‘Attention spans’, research report 2015, viewed 3 October 2015, https://moodle.uowplatform.edu.au/pluginfile.php/490916/mod_resource/content/1/microsoft-attention-spans-research-report.pdf

Project Title:  Online Learning experience on BCM Students

Background

Online learning is education that takes place over the Internet. It is often referred to as “e-learning” among other terms. However, online learning is just one type of “distance learning” – the umbrella term for any learning that takes place across distance and not in a traditional classroom. By far the most popular approach today is online learning. According to the Sloan Consortium, online enrollments continue to grow at rates faster than for the broader student population and institutes of higher education expect the rate of growth to continue increasing. 

Online learning was introduced a long time ago but it has become very famous during this Co-VID lockdown time. With websites like Webex, Zoom, Skype’ and many other it has become a popular form of distance education today and the trend is only increasing. 

Why online distance learning and why now? Online distance learning meets the needs of an ever-growing population of students who cannot or prefer not to participate in traditional classroom settings. These learners include those unable to attend traditional classes, who cannot find a particular class at their chosen institution, who live in remote locations, who work full-time and can only study at or after work, and those who simply prefer to learn independently. 

How It Works 

The instructors have to create their “virtual classrooms”. The teachers use web-conferencing software and invite all your students to join in at a pre-scheduled time. These online learning apps can be used on laptops, desktops, tablets, smartphones, and even desk phones, giving students many ways to access the class session.

Methodology

To get a better insight into the topic I will be looking up for some academic articles to quote and back up my statements and statistics that that will give evidence.  

To get my primary evidence, I will be interviewing a form of qualitative data analysis with my fellow BCM students maybe around 5 of them and to make it more interesting I’ll be trying to get in touch with students from other BCM branch to see how effective the online study was and their part of the Co-VID learning stories. I will also be writing and autoethnography sharing my very own personal experience as well. 

I will be using the same set of questions for all 6 participants including myself. The interview could be in a voice recorded form or maybe just a text depending on the participants. The questions will provide some personal reflection or story describing their experience of learning at home during the lockdown. Some possible key questions will be: 

• How did you engage in learning during the lockdown period?

• What did you enjoy about learning at home?

• What didn’t you enjoyed or found difficult about learning from home?

• What parts of being at school did you missed when learning at home?

• Are there aspects of learning at home that you would like to see continue when schools reopen?

Stakeholders

My key stakeholders will be my fellow BCM students around 5 of them and to make it more interesting I’ll be trying to get in touch with students from other BCM branch to see how effective the online study was and their part of the Co-VID learning stories. I will also be writing and autoethnography sharing my very own personal experience as well. The interview will be recorded in a phone upon the participants’ consent. 

References: 

• Azad, M. (2011, March). (PDF) A Critical Study Of Effectiveness Of Online Learning On Students� Achievement. Retrieved July 02, 2020, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286937736_A_Critical_Study_Of_Effectiveness_Of_Online_Learning_On_Students_Achievement

• Dr Nina HoodNina is responsible for the strategic direction and day-to-day operations of The Education Hub. She is a trained secondary school teacher, N. H. (2020, June 10). Survey: Lessons from Lockdown. Retrieved July 02, 2020, from https://theeducationhub.org.nz/school-survey-lessons-from-lockdown/

This week’s blog is quite interesting as I’ll be talking about my class field trip; a journey to a shopping mall while observing the use of public information displays and media services and reflect on how people transit from private media practice to public media practice. It was interesting to see the difference between the private and the public space as we observed the ethics surrounding photography and photographing people. According to one of the reading article titled “The Art Laws Centre,” there are some limitations while taking a picture of other people like being respective by making sure that first, you get the person’s consent before clicking their picture especially if the to be photographed person is underaged or you’re in a private space.   

Coming back to my ethnography field research surroundings, as a field trip me and my partner Nazia had to go to H&M Megbox. On our way, we had to observe our surrounds and people’s behaviour. We went to take a free shuttle bus to Megabox and when we got there it was empty like no one was in the queue because everyone had got in the bus so we ran to catch the shuttle bus and made it just in time. As we got in the bus was pretty full and during the whole ride, I saw that most of the passengers were on their phone barely let’s say maybe around 2-3 of them weren’t on their phone and just looking out the window. After like 10 minutes we reached Megabox and made out way to H&M. 

We reached H&M around 3:10 pm and just looking from outside there were quite a lot of people inside the store. There were various groups of customers inside the store from young adults, middle ages, elderly, children to all. So we can say that H&M is a go-to place for almost all age range. Most of the people in the store looked like they were with their family members, friends or their partner. The people who ha company were chatting and laughing while getting each other’s opinions looking at clothes. As for some of the other shoppers who looked like they were by themselves had an earphone plugged in their ear while some others seemed to be enjoying the store music that plays in the background. This makes me realize that shopping has become quite an interesting activity as now we can enjoy this soft background music creating an ambient to keep the shoppers entertained. 

Just like the background music, there was some other digital signage as a part of the media practice in the public sphere to display and advertise the store like the RED BIG LETTER SALE banners to let the people know about the sale and tempt them to spend more. I bet it’s easy to catch people’s attention with these BIG RED lettered SALE banners cause me and my friend couldn’t hold back ourselves and actually end up looking around the shop for an hour and trying clothes and later bought some cause they were on SALE. We tried our best not to go get any media involved but we had to break that rule as we took pictures in the fitting room. 

After that, I took that same free shuttle bus back to the Kowloon plaza and unlike before we had to wait for 5-10 mins for the bus. As we were waiting the queue got longer in an instant and the waiting area was flooded with people. While waiting I saw the lady in charge of maintaining the area had a walkie talkie attached to her and a kid in front me was playing a candy crush game on an iPhone while a kid behind us was crying because his brother didn’t want to share his Dragon toy which had sparkled light and roaring automated voice. I so wanted to record that and maybe post in on my story but since it wasn’t ethical of me to do so without their consent and given that he was a kid I didn’t do so. And I don’t think people in Hong Kong would stop and listen to you if you were to try and ask them for consent to take pictures. 

References

• Arts Law Centre of Australia. (2016). Street photographer’s rights. Retrieved July 3, 2020,from https://www.artslaw.com.au/information-sheet/street-photographers-rights/

It’s week 5 and today I’ll be talking about my cinema experience to see if Torsten Haggerstrand’s conceptional framework of time geography affected my cinema experience.  According to Torsten Haggerstrand’s theory, three constraints can affect a person’s ability to experience the event. Firstly Capability, the physical ability of the experience. For example, how am I gonna get to the cinema and like what transportation am I taking? Secondly Coupling, the possibility that revolves around time like how long will it take to get to the cinema and how long the movie will be shown for. Lastly the Authority, the inability do certain things due to some rules and limitations like the operating hours of the cinema and the sitting plan of the cinema etc. 

After the COVID19 lockdown lift, I was excited that the cinemas were reopened. My friends and I were quite excited and decide to go to the movie after class. My friend insisted that we just watch whatever was available on the next few hours but since the cinemas still had to follow the social distancing rules we had very few options available to us. And that is how we end up going to the  “The Oval Office” a VIP suite with only 18 seating in AMC Pacific Place in Admiralty. I was super excited as we were finally going out to watch a movie after a long time but even more so because it had never to watch a movie in The Oval Office. We looked at the price which was HK$250 per ticket including a snack and drink set which was a little pricier than the normal ticket price but I thought was quite reasonable as it came with a snack and a drink and not to mention the VIP treatment and the ambience. 

After looking at the movie options we picked our movie which was a Korean movie “Train to Busan – Extended version”. We bought the tickets through an online ticketing system and honesty this is probably one of the best things about the advanced technology. I mean it’s so convenient that now we can easily choose the movie and our seating just through our device and pay for it in an instant without actually having to queue up in the cinema. 

We took an MTR to the cinema as the AMC Pacific Place was just a few minutes of walking distance from Admiralty station. It was quite a hassle because as usual Admiralty was crowded with people. After pushing our way through the crowd in that hot weather we got to the cinema. We had to scan our barcodes to claim our online bought tickets which were pretty quick. After that, we went to the snack section to get our popcorn and drinks and wow there were quite a lot of people despite the COVID19. 

 The Oval Office area is stylish with modern décor with French reclining leather seats.  You can also order from their special made-to-order menu designed in collaboration with French restaurant Plat du Jour, which will be delivered to your seat before the movie begins. Most importantly, they have a private lounge and bar for guests to enjoy a fine selection of wines and cocktails like wow now you can enjoy alcohol in cinemas. We truly have come a long way. 

This was a whole new experience because I’m most familiar with the cinemas with simple fabric seats which have a cup holder on either side with arms which may or may not move up and down. On the other hand, The Oval Office has French reclining leather seats, built with user-friendly service buttons so you can order food and drinks if you feel peckish throughout the movie. The staff kept on doing in and out with snacks and drinks and delivering it to the customers. The process kept on going on and on during the whole movie. I thought it was pretty cool because it felt like I was in a restaurant but I’m also watching a movie at the same time. But some people may not like it as it may be a little annoying as you will the staff moving around quite a lot. I get it that some of you might think that HK$250 for a single movie ticket is quite a lot but I would highly, recommend you all to go there at least once for the experience. Honestly, if you do the math like getting a normal sitting ticket with 3D/4D screening and some snack set will round up to somewhere close to $250 so why not just get the “The Oval Office” sitting and enjoy the experience. 

Reference:

• Jones, E. (2016, October 04). Hagerstrand’s Constraints on Cinemas. Retrieved July 03, 2020, from https://edwinajones100.wordpress.com/2016/08/30/hagerstrands-constraints-on-cinemas/

• Yu, H. (2019, July 29). Hong Kong’s Most Luxurious Cinema Experiences. Retrieved July 03, 2020, from https://hk.asiatatler.com/life/most-luxurious-cinemas-in-hong-kong-2019

This week, I went to my mum again to how the internet is changing practices and spaces for her. I think most of you will agree that the Internet has become something that we cannot live without especially in today’s world where everything seems to revolve around the internet. 

Right now, we have 2 televisions, 6 smartphones and 2 laptops all mostly connected to PCCW network and China Mobile Hong Kong. My mum thinks getting a smart TV and fast Wi-Fi contract signing is an awesome thing because before with the slow Wi-Fi it took a long time to download a video and to surf the internet. But now with a faster Wi-Fi connection, we all can use the internet at the same time and it still works super-fast. 

My mum still remembers the very first time she ever used the Internet. She recalls going to a cybercafé with her friend and making her first social media account which was; Yahoo. I can see the excitement in her eyes as she tells me how fascinated she was when she made her Yahoo account and started to chat with her friends and the exposure to emojis made the conversations even more entertaining. But all this came with a price as they had to pay to use the internet. Since the Wi-Fi is unlimited now, my mum is making the most out of it.  

With the development in technology, it has become so much easier for us to communicate with people as long as they connected to the Internet you can keep in touch with them no matter how far they are. For instance, with services like video chatting, messengers it has given us a platform for us to meet up with new people and share and exchange our culture, ideas. Before my mum used to treat the internet as an entertainment medium to watch movies, connect with people but now it’s used for other various purposes too like in the education field, work, meetings etc.

We’re so indulged in our electronic devices that International Business Times (2014), people are suffering from “Electromagnetic Sensitivity” which can be seen through symptoms of headaches, heart palpitations, tinnitus, eye problems and feeling the sensation of burning skin. 

We’re basically living in a digital culture where you’re more connected with someone on your than a person who might be sitting next to you or around you in a café. Even in my case, my whole is based on online assessments from blogging to presentations etc. which probably wouldn’t have been possible without the internet.  

It’s amazing that the devices have made our life so convenient but, in a way, it has also made us more anti-social. Do you remember the last time you travelled in a bus or MTR and see a person not using their phone? I bet no, cause all I see in the morning when I’m travelling to college is people on their phone including myself. We seem so busy with our devices our mind rarely gets freedom, maybe the only time it gets to relax is when we’re sleeping. 

So, maybe it’s time to put our devices aside from time to time and live in the moment and spend the time with our loved ones while we still have time because tomorrows not guaranteed.  

References: 

•    Murton D,n.d., ‘Is wi-fi making you anti-social?’, weblog post, Convince & Convert, accessed 30/8/2014, http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-research/is-wifi-making-you-anti-social/

•    Russon, MA 2014, ‘Are you allergic to Wi-Fi? ‘Electromagnetic Sensitivity’ sufferers flee to remote West Virginia Town of Green Bank’, International Business Times, 11 March, accessed 29/8/2014, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/are-you-allergic-wi-fi-electromagnetic-sensitivity-sufferers-flee-remote-west-virginia-town-1439838

According to Lassiter (2005), Collaborative Ethnography is to “literally working together, especially on intellectual effort”. The research has a team of researchers sharing their experiences based on their ethnographic observation.

I think collaborative media ethnography brings out more ideas than just practising one-way ethnography where the ethnographer asks, and the interlocutors discuss according to the direction of the pre-set questions. There are more collaborators involved as there would be more ideas flowing.

However, with that being said, there might be some challenges on the way such as the conflict among Ethnographers but to avoid such conflict all the involved Ethnographers have to make sure that they are not biased and respect the ethical values of conducting the study. 

For example, we all have experienced the collaborative ethnography in of the BCM240 class activity during the tutorial where we had to get in groups and interview our classmates on their experience of using the internet. I say it’s a collaborative ethnography because we all were involved in this activity. This activity gave a chance to interview my classmates about their first experience using the internet and how they felt at that moment. 

It was really interesting to see that some of my classmates have the same experience as I do of using the Internet for the first time and fighting with the sibling for the remote and stuff like makes the conversation more relatable. Unlike quantitative research with just plain numerical analysis collaborative ethnography gives you a chance to share your experience and share a story. With more classmates involved, I got more opinions, which meant more opinions to work with resulting in more work. Which is why collaborative media ethnography may be a little difficult to work with.

Reference: 

• Lassiter, L. E. (n.d.). Collaborative Ethnography. Retrieved May 26, 2020, from https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/468909.html

The second week’s blog is to write a short narrative based on a conversation with someone older than me about their memories of television watching in childhood. I decided to interview none other my mum, Subitra Pun to share her experience watching television to see how far the television space has come from her time to now.

Born in 1969, my mum grew up in Kathmandu city in Nepal. It’s the capital city of Nepal with a population of 2.5 million people. My mum said there were among the few families holds to own a color television in their neighborhood. It was a big thing since not a lot of people had television in their house. Reminiscing the old times, she remembers her first colour television as this small screen TV which was put in between a solid wooden cabinet with glasses and some other home decorative stuff around it. 

She also said that sometimes some of the kids from house next door to her would come to watch a television. They would all sit quietly and watch whatever was showed to them (usually a movie comedy shows). This meant that they would have to fight for the best seat for themselves as a lot of the other kids would also be there. 

This very statement took me back to my dorm days back in Nepal, where we would also gather around to watch movies during Sundays. However, the difference was that we used to watch it in a bigger television with a big projector with larger sitting space with our chairs just like in cinema halls whereas my mum and the other kids used to watch it in a small television screen while sitting on the floor as the best sit used to get taken by their mum and dad (my grandparents). 

Unlike me who treats watching television as a medium to cure my boredness, my mum recalls watching a television was like a family affair/ a bonding time. It was time for them enjoy some family bonding time while watching a movie and laughing together. 

Looking at television now and listening to my mum’s experience with television, I can see a lot of changes. For example, almost every households now owns a television and some in have more than one. Talking about our households we have 2 flat screen television now where if my parents are watching something in one of the televisions, we can use the other one to watch something else or if both of them are occupied I can just use my smartphone or laptop. 

This was an interesting conversation with my mum to learn more about how the mass media has changed so much since my mum was a young kid herself. It’s so fascinating to see that my mum has come all way from a small colour television with few limited channels to a time where now she can watch various channels and even record her shows/ movies to watch it later at her own time without having to wait for the repeat telecast.  

In today’s world the term “media space” could have a different meaning than what it was back in my parents and grandparents age. Why could it be? First of all, the technology has advanced a lot in that period and just look at everything that’s around us that makes our media space that makes it a lot different to our parents’ time. As for this week’s blog we’re being asked to introduce our relation to the practice of being in media space. 

As an adult who is doing a mass media communication study degree, I am always surrounded by my electronic devices like my phone, laptop, PC and its hard to escape from it as all of my assignments are to be completed online. I would lying if I say that “oh I don’t go through the Internet a lot” because I am constantly surfing through my online platforms like Instagram every couple of hours just to scroll through my feed and see what’s new and trendy be it a place to eat, fashion and so on. Or just go through my Facebook messages or check my emails or might as well do all of simultaneously just because I am so used to doing it that I brain unconsciously does it twithought even realising it. 

So, why do I do that? As simple and as funny it may sound to some of you, I realized that I do this because this is my way of making sure that I keep up with what’s going on in the world, the people around me. Some of you might say why bother texting and checking up when you live in the same house. Well, since we’re so busy with our college, work and some of us don’t have the chance to be with our family/loved ones as much as we would like to right then the social medias comes in handy, helping me keep up-to-date with what goes around with my people and connect to the new ones. 

I remember when I went to South Korean from my Diploma Programme with my other classmates. I didn’t have a local SIM card so I couldn’t make a call, but it was all good because there was free Wi-Fi connections almost everywhere; the hotel, malls, cafes and some public spaces. So I had no trouble in keep in touch with everyone as I was making calls, sending them pictures, videos through social media platforms. Thinking about it makes me realize how media space is so convenient and is making our lives so much easier.