CS6031

Interactive Media In Society

Kayleigh Smith

Introduction
Given the recent financial crisis many people in Ireland have resorted to emigration to foreign countries. The central statistics office says the number of emigrants from Ireland in 2009 is estimated to have grown 40% as a result of a combination of rising unemployment and living costs in Ireland. 1 A popular destination for Irish emigrants is Australia. Although it has not been entirely unscathed from the effects of the world economic downturn, it still has more to offer than Ireland. It presents a warmer climate, which boosts moral, lower cost of living, better employment opportunities and a demand for skilled workers e.g. computer programmers, medical professionals etc.2 On the 13th of December 2011 the US introduced a new bill to allow 10,000 Irish citizens to obtain American work Visas annually. The bill is the first in 15 years, when the Morrison and Donnelly visa lottery programs were cut, that focuses exclusively on Irish-American immigration. 3 Although this opens opportunistic doors for people leaving the country, it also will result towards a rise in the number of emigrants in the coming years. My aim for this project is to explore existing methods of communication between emigrants and loved ones left behind and to propose and develop a new innovative immerse experience that gives actors, controlling this form of communication, a feeling that the immigrated person or person left behind is occupying the same space.

CS6031

Interactive Media In Society

Kayleigh Smith

Stakeholders & Popular Communication Choices

Human

Immigrants Family members of immigrants Friends of immigrants Foreign Embassy's

Non-Human

Communication Services

Postal Services
This is a system for transporting letters and other tangible objects

that are delivered to destinations around the world. This service is constrained by time usually taking 24hrs to deliver in the same country and up to a fortnight to other continents.

Email Services
Electronic mail, commonly known as email, is a method of

exchanging digital messages from an actor to one or more recipients across the Internet or other computer networks. This method is fast and free.

Phone Services
This service allows for real-time communication via a

telecommunications device. The device can be fixed to an area or mobile.

Skype
This service and software application allows users to communicate

with peers by voice, video, and instant messaging over the Internet. Also phone calls may be placed to recipients on the traditional telephone networks. This tool can also be installed on mobile devices.

Instant Messaging

CS6031

Interactive Media In Society

Kayleigh Smith

Instant Messaging (IM) is a form of real-time direct textbased communication between two or more people using computers or other devices. More advanced instant messaging software clients also allow enhanced modes of communication, such as live voice or video calling and inclusion of links to media.

Windows Live Messenger Aol Aim Gmail Chat Huddle Google Hangouts

Blogs

Blogs are usually part of a website, where content users want to discuss or display is updated with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

Wordpress Blogger Generation Emigration

Generation Emigration is a blog designed and developed by The Irish Times to allow Irish emigrants to discuss their experiences and destinations. It also offers future emigrants tips and insights into the future motions of emigration.
5

Social Networks

Facebook
This is a type of social networking site where users create a

personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups,

CS6031

Interactive Media In Society

Kayleigh Smith

organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists.

Twitter
This is an online social networking service and microblogging

service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters known as "tweets". Users can follow each other to keep updated on their tweets automatically.

Google+
Google+ is a social networking integrates new social services

identified as Circles, Hangouts and Sparks. Google+ is available online and will be available as a desktop application and is already available as a mobile application.

MySpace
MySpace is a social network similar to Facebook. It took off in

2003, however since 2008 it has been on a rapid decline.

Photo and Video Sharing

YouTube
YouTube is a social Networking site where users share their

interests through videos and comments upon those videos. Users have a profile in the form of a channel where all their videos and comments and subscriptions are on display.

Flickr Photobucket
Flickr and Photobucket are image and video hosting websites and

online communities. In addition to being popular websites for users to share and embed personal photography, these services are widely used by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media.

CS6031

Interactive Media In Society

Kayleigh Smith

Interviews
Informal interviews were conducted to obtain insight into both sides of the immigration experience in terms of communication home or abroad. Two interviewees were a friend or family member left behind by an emigrated loved one, the other was an emigrated party. The interviews were conducted in person bar the immigrated individual. The Skype software application was used to communicate with this person. Particular questions were drawn up previous to the interviews e.g. how long had emigrated individuals been living in a foreign country? Were they having a good experience, if not how much do you worry and contact this person? How frequent and how long is contact held between both parties? What forms of communication is preferred and why? Etc. These questions aided understanding of the issue of emigration and issues surrounding modern and traditional communication techniques.

Interviewee 1: Age: 27 Current Location: Ireland. Situation and Communication Uses: Interviewee 1 has several family members and friends scattered foreign continents such as Australia, Canada, and Asia. He expressed that he found it difficult to deal with the initial shock of such a large number of family and friends were emigrating and had a feeling of being left behind. His choices in communication were clearly all modern forms including Facebook, Skype and Email. He enjoyed the sharing photos, videos and status updates on Facebook as it emanated a feeling of being up to date and current with emigrated parties lives. He felt phone communication was too expensive but would pay extra to send tangible objects via currier over postal services.

CS6031

Interactive Media In Society

Kayleigh Smith

Interviewee 2: Age: 52 Current Location: Ireland. Situation and Communication Uses: Interviewee 2 has a daughter who immigrated to Australia. Initially she had concerns of her daughter emigrating solo, as a result she felt active communication was essential. Her choices in communication were of more traditional methods. The most frequent choice being the mobile phone. She enjoyed the ease of use and being able to converse in real time, however the cost of calling internationally began to take its toll. She had recently started to familiarize herself with a personal computer. Another family member thought her how to use Skype which she enjoyed as it was simply to use, she could hear and see her daughter and free to use. She found this to be an excellent tool in communication as she is only beginning to understand online interfaces and doesnt feel the need to join social networks or use other services.

Interviewee 3: Age: 31 Current Location: Berlin. Situation and Communication Uses: Interviewee 3 chose to immigrate to Berlin to further his career in electronic music. He felt that Ireland didnt have a big enough market to further his learning and practice live performances. He was the most active participant in modern communication. He enjoys blogging, IM, Skype, email and Flickr. He mentioned that he avoids social networking sites for privacy reasons. In relation to Skype, he commended the intended practical functionalities of the application but found the lagging of calls both voice and video frustrating.

CS6031

Interactive Media In Society

Kayleigh Smith

The Power of Modern Communication Techniques

Text based methods such as email or instant messaging hold the advantage over traditional methods. Speed for one. An email or IM can travel as fast as the speed of the network its routed through. They benefit the user rather than hinder them. Emails offer predefined and customised templates and signatures. More than one recipient can receive a copy without impact on cost or security. Applications such as Skype, Google Chat etc allow for video conferencing which was only imagined in movies a few decades previous. Social networking has opened doors for people to connect with friends and relatives all over the world, including making new connections. These technologies have not only impacted personal lives but they also have improved businesses and empowered small enterprises allowing them to be more efficient, productive and prominent in the public eye. Information is not isolated to one domain or location but now it is shared and easily accessed 7. Users may find an interesting article or piece of information and at a click of a button they can share it one place which can update all other applications and devices. The power of GPS on phones has saved lives where emergency services can track a persons location using their phone. Its undeniable that modern technology and communication technology in particular have had a considerable impact on our society today.

The Politics of Modern Communication Techniques

All the communication techniques mentioned above have all enriched our lives with ease of use, convenience, information sharing and many more. However have these techniques given us a false sense of empowerment? Users have the option to customise colours, backgrounds, fonts, headers, designs etc to profiles, email accounts photo-streams, interfaces and so on. The user can become engrossed and dazzled by the intuitive and innovative facilities of communication and can fail to notice the free labour they are supplying to large corporations.

CS6031

Interactive Media In Society

Kayleigh Smith

For example, try sending an email in Gmail to yourself or another person. Mention a buzz word such as skiing or holiday. The moment the email is sent an advertisement will appear in relation to the buzz word mentioned in the email. Search engines and Internet Service Providers have for years refused to tell the public how often low enforcement officials have forced them to give up information on users. Google admitted to such allegations, unveiling a Government Requests Tool that shows the public how often individual governments around the world have asked for user information, and how often theyve asked Google to remove content from their sites or search index, for reasons other than copyright violation. The answer for United States users is 3,580 total requests for information over a six-month period from July 2009 to December 2009. That amounts to about 20 a day.
8

This has now been a growing concern for users. People are becoming more aware of data retention. Facebook introduced a new terms of service agreement in 2009 for its millions of users. Changes went mostly unnoticed until the Consumerist blog published an article saying the new terms allow the social network to do anything we want with your content, forever. The revised terms go further than those offered by some other major web properties in that they give Facebook rights to data you upload from other sites such as your photos, including from other photo sites like Flickr as well as rights to data contained on sites that let you share information back to Facebook.9

Conclusion
The number of growing emigrants is on the rise in Ireland today due to economic and personal reasons. Choices in communication are in abundance and effective however, users are happy with these forms of communications only to certain degrees. Of course there will be opinions to what advantages and disadvantages these communications method hold. A major disadvantage is the fact that personal data such as interests, hobbies, locations and goings on of peoples daily lives are being collected and used to for purpose such as related advertising. My aim to create a piece of communication technology that tackles these issues by creating a more personal experience where

CS6031

Interactive Media In Society

Kayleigh Smith

users may feel they are in fact in one location together. Also my aim is not invade users personal information and result in a secure immersive method of communication.

RTE News, (2009, Sept 22). "Highest Emigration figures since 1995". Rte News http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0922/cso1.html
2

Immigration Agency, (2009). "Economic Recession in Ireland means more Irish emigration to Australia". The Immigration Agency http://www.business-visas-australia.com/economicrecession-in-ireland-means-more-irish-emigration/ News, (2011, December 13). "Economic Recession in Ireland means more Irish emigration to Australia". The Irish Times http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/1213/breaking53.html About(2011). What is Skype? Skype http://about.skype.com/

Generation Emigration(2011, October) The Irish Times http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/generationemigration/category/features/

6

About(2011) Twitter http://twitter.com/about

OSKA, (2008, Apr 4) Advantages and Disadvantages of modern technology http://oskaresearching.blogspot.com/2008/04/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-modern.html

8

Singel,R (2010, April 10). Google U.S. Demanded User info 3,500 times in 6 months http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/google-warrants-transparency/

Eldon, E. (2009, Feburary 17) Iss Facebook really using its new terms and service to your own data? http://venturebeat.com/2009/02/17/is-facebook-really-using-its-new-terms-of-service-toown-your-data/