CHANGE? by Cancan Huang

change?

CHANGe?

Cancan Huang HUA13407763 Graphic and Media Design, Year 1 Contextual and Theoretical Studies 1

CONTENTS

INTERPERSONINTERPERSONAL COMMUN AL COMMUN ICA ICAcommu TION interTION mode modernmode rn rn society INTERPERSONsociety AL COMMU

AL COMMU IC INTERPERSON TIO AL COMMU mode IC r TIO societ mod r societ change?

change? How does the interpersonal communication change in modern society?

To be hybrid reflection on lecture: hybrid practice lecture, by monika parriender, 2014

photograph reflects truth? reflection on lecture: CRITICAL HISTORIES OF DESIGN 1, BY MARK INGHAM, 2014

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF reflection on Clecture: RITICAL HISTORIES OF DESIGN 2, BY MARK INGHAM, 2014

design for politics reflection on lecture: graphic design and politics, 2014

can i design a chinese typeface? reflection on lecture: typography and communication

CHANGe?

How does the interpersonal communication change in modern society?

(Image1 Studio, 2013)

(Marino, N.,2013)

INTRODUCTION “At work there is no time for work and at home there is no time for being at home.” —— Richard H. R. Harper There is no doubt that we all live in a modern society, in information age.You might know this better than me: when you are on the train, you are looking at your phone although there is no signal, when you have lunch alone or with someone, it doesn’t matter because you still fix your eyes on your phone, when you are just shopping in the street, you also hold your phone tightly; when you are exhausted at home from work, you still can not leave your phone alone. These “phones” are just metonym of modernization. It wasn’t so long ago that we were living without phones, laptops, pads and online social network. Can you imagine if you live without these things? Thanks to this new communication system, life has become so much busier than it once was. Some people prefer to writing and reading on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram rather than talking in front of people. We do appreciate that the development of technology cause it takes more convenience to our life. However, the technology, to a large extent, is changing how people communicate to each other. Oral communication could be said to be the most used form of communication, and interpersonal communication is one of the most important types of it. Could we say the way in which social media communicate is kind 4

of interpersonal communication? Definitely the answer is “Yes”. But it is not all verbal. It seems that we are creating a new way to express. Therefore, in this frenetic, networked world of the twenty-first century, what changes does the developing interpersonal communication bring to us in modern society?

Def inition What’s interpersonal communication? As Wikipedia defines: “Interpersonal communication is exchange of information between two or more people. During interpersonal communication there is message sending and message receiving. This can be conducted using both direct and indirect methods. Successful interpersonal communication is when the message senders and the message receivers understand the message.” What’s modern society? The society is changing all the time. But here we will discuss about a modern society that is well networked with social media in the information explosion era of 2014. Information explosion leads to communication overload. We accept omnipresent information every single day and only low percentage of them is effective to us. The e-mails, the texts, the banner advertisements, the newspapers the information is everywhere. Interper-

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sonal communications the same situation – they are everywhere. Social media entirely change the style of how people communicate to each other. We don’t need to talk and rarely make phone calls. And our private information could be easily found through the social network. The communication overload and the desire of communication (Harper, 2010) are mutually complementary. They all contribute to the change of interpersonal communication. For people’s desire, in a positive way, we share our life by slipping through your phone with no difficulty. Sometimes, it is more than communication

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—— more sense of presence is wanted so that this group of people expose themselves a lot on the digital platform. They want themselves to be more noticeable and they love to be talked about, luckily, they can achieve this easily through the powerful network. The digital world is too well networked to hide. We are also reading the irrelevant post from others everyday. We are always following and being followed by people. Whatever you do, people are watching you.You are apparently communicating with people, but it is such a virtual world, isn’t it?

1. SOCIAL MEDIA and iNFORMATION OVERLOAD The world began to change in to digital at the beginning in the late 1970s, and young generation is born in digital world —— this modern society. The young generations only know this world as it is digital and they connect to each other in a digital way too. In the book Born Digital, John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, the author of the book, call young generation ‘Digital Native’ (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). Can you imagine having a life without Internet, without 3G phones? We have already get entirely touch with the digital world, even we, ourselves are digital. We ‘talk’ to each other online. Thanks to the chatting software, there seems no distance between time and places. To give an example, my sister lives in Canada and I live in London, every time I tell my mother that we chat a lot and just on ‘Whatsapp’, she still feel unacceptable that we two even don’t really talk to each other. This example is how the communication works in this generation in miniature. How are the Digital Natives’ lives? They spend so much time on online social activities for absorbing all new posts. Well, they live on social media. It seems that if they don’t refresh the page they can’t continue to live. The information overloads although they don’t notice yet. Information overload is a very real and uncomfortable phenomenon, and there’s still a great deal

of researchers who don’t know about its effects on themselves. (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008) We should have controlled the way we absorbing information, but we choose to be controlled by the information – we even don’t make a choice and it just naturally come to that. The negative effects of have too much information amount is called “technostress”. (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008) Technostress can diminish one’s well-being, decrease one’s appetite, cause insomnia, and suppress immune functions and so forth. This could be what the overload social media does to the addict. What about the type of people communicate? Social media certainly affects how we engage communications. It is an imperceptible cultural shift. “The emergence of social media is an important facet of traditional communication theory”. (Harper, 2010) The time of face-to-face is decreasing and people get used to talk online with some applications. People even successfully communicate with each other without talking in everyday life. According to Paul Booth, PhD, an assitant professor of media and cinema studies in the college of communication at DePaul University in Chicago, people actually are becoming more social and more interactive with others. 5

Because the social connections through social media are not strengthened as much as face-to-face communication, so we don’t tend to deepen our relationships. (Keller, 2013) Although this is true, we have hundreds, even thousands of friends on our Facebook page. But you just add a wide circle of acquaintances. They are supportive to build your “powerful” social network but they won’t be really helpful when you are caught into a crisis. The distinction between genuine friends and acquaintances is becoming blurred. Anyway, this won’t go further. These acquaintances can also be reflected on “Likes” and “Comments”. Some communication based on ‘Likes’ on social media. If I ‘Like’, there seems a conversation happen invisibly– it means I aware of what you have done, and I agree or appreciate. This is weird, because ‘Like’ and ‘comment’ are two types of concept and its meaning is different.You might mention the post you “Likes” or the person you follow in the real life ——

seems to have a connection between this object and you. Responding to the definition of interpersonal communication, the “Likes” activity relfects the process that two sides are exchanging information. At the same time, the number of Likes reveals the complicated mindset with unification of self identification and social identification.

2. SOCIAL IDENTIFICATION and SELF-IDENTIFICATIOn Continuing the topic of “Likes” on social media, some people are proud of so many likes. It is hard to define if there is interpersonal communication happens, but you can’t say it is not between human. Continuing the topic of “Likes” on social media, some people are proud of so many likes. It is hard to define if there is interpersonal communication happens, but you can’t say it is not between human. “Social media wrecks our self-esteem, say women” —— Daniel Binns, Metro This image comes from a report extracted from May 16 Metro Newspaper. In this report, 41 per cent of women say that social media influences their idea of beauty, and 57 per cent of women say receiving Facebook ‘Likes’ improves their confidence.“Ten years ago, 75 per cent of women said the media set ‘unrealistic’ standards of beauty, that figure is now 66 per cent.” (METRO, MAY 16 2014) Social media is actually changing how people think, especially for Digital Natives. Comparisons are odious especially for women. Social media plays another invisible role in this case. The variation of the number show 6

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interactive quality leads some Digital Natives to prefer their “second life” to their first. For some, the Internet allows for escape from the frustrations of real life.” —— Overload, Born Digital According to Nicholas David Bowman, PhD, an assistant professor of communication studies in the Eberly college of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University, “For these people, they likely feel such a strong sense of identity online that they have some difficulty separating their virtual actions from their actual ones.” Lightisfar, 2013 Social Anxiety

that the communication happens: there is a sender and a receiver who exchange the information. The posts and the likes virtually are the content. On the “Beauty” issue, most people, comparing to some celebrities, feel inferiority. To be honest, we can’t always be the best one cause some people are always better than us. In this case, the overload information taken from social media cause nervousness, and this group of people is disadvantaged at the interpersonal communication. The message sender and receiver in this interactive communication are more active than in a traditional communicate method. Therefore, the two sides in this communication are not balanced, and one side is fulfilled with his/her self-satisfaction and the other side is compromising on the social identification. “The increasing power and attractiveness of the Internet for purposes like escape and self-expression is part of the problem for some young people. The Internet’s

One more change of interpersonal communication is, we can play a virtual role online. To make a conjecture: if people could not gratify their desire in reality, what would they do? They can start their “second life” online if there exist some contradiction between their selfidentification and social identification. How does the gap between these two kinds of identifications change interpersonal communication? Based on the social media network, people have chance to reach some information before they officially know each other. The early-accessed information establishes the conversation from a good beginning. If you know more at the start, you will have more confidence and trust in each other. Thus, the happening conversation will be approaching a stage that can make this gap as small as possible. In the process of knowing each other, the gap will access to a more ideal and effective level. In other words, we can partly control which stage the communication is trending to.

conclusion “To communication is to foster communication.” —— Richard H. R. Harper To make a conclusion from what has been discussed above, how does the interpersonal communication change in modern society? Information overload is a very real and uncomfortable phenomenon In the information overload era, there is an imperceptible cultural shift happen from the traditional communication way to a new social networking environment. Communications just come straightforward. We even don’t notice that we are trapped in all information overload era. To be selective, we have to manage the overloaded communication so that we won’t let technostress to damage any of our happiness. What’s more, because of the transparency of social media, the

gap between self-identification and social identification become more visible. When interpersonal communication happen, people could have idea in mind and have space to coordinate the gap to create a more effective and ideal conversation. Also, people will react separately and give responses on social networking depending on the information they get from social media. It’s believed that everyone know what the benefits that modernization takes to us. At the same time, people should be aware of downside and don’t let the negative effects involve too much in our life. “To communicate its to foster communication”, we won’t get lost in how to communicate, try it in a way that you need most and consider it is right to connect with people. 7

bibliography lecture Parrinder, M. (2014) Urban Modernization. London College of Communication, 23 January 2014. (The lecture, as the original inspiration of the article, I’m learning and thinking about “Modernization” from this lecture. How do people’s lives change from the old time to modern time? Some phenomena occur with the developing of technology. There is an impressive image called “The terror of advertising” from Henri Lefebvre at 1950s and lead me to think about “Everyday life” which is from same theorist. Occupying the most time of modern people, social media must be the obvious one. So I decided to do research from social media and interpersonal communication, this is how the idea begins.)

books Chen, G.M., Xiao, X.S., Lu, W., Li, P.W., Liu, S. & Li, M.H. (2011) Theory of Communication. Taiwan: Wu Nan Publisher. (I studied a one-year course on theory of communication in my previous college in 2012-2013, and all my understanding of communication theory comes from the deduction of my teacher – assistant professor Mr. Liu,Y.R., and this book as the textbook. We did several practices to explain and understand the theories. So this is a foundation of this entire article, combined with my experience. As a Digital Native and one of the young generations, I believe that my personal experience could be helpful to explain and make a statement on this topic.) Harper, R. (2010) Texture: Communication overload & desire to communicate, think about how this. London: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (The session: Introduction and The communications paradox, as the reference, are contributed a lot to this article. In the Introduction session, I have read some proper nouns that help me to do further research on them. Such as “communication overload”, “Desire for communication”, and I get inspired from some views, so I made a few quotes above and these are worth pondering.) Palfrey, J. & Gasser, U. (2008) Born digital: understanding the first generation of digital natives. United States of America: Basic books. (I’m really impressive by the “Digital Native” idea that drags me into the thinking about what’s the difference between generations, what was the entertainment for last generation, like my parents generation. The session “Overload” mentions some fascinating thoughts, for example there is a discussion about young people choosing their second life on the Internet.)

e-journal Keller, M. (2013) Social media and interpersonal communication. [Internet]. Social Work Today Vol.13, No.3, p.10. Available from; < http://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/051313p10. shtml > [Accessed 22 May 2014] (This is such a data-base article that several researchers are mentioned. It quotes from a few professor studying in related area. And the information it provides is so useful for my article. The people reaction and behaviour they observed fully reflects the power of social media and it is quite typical.)

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newspaper Binns, D. (2014) Social media wrecks our self-esteem, say women, METRO, 16 May, p.31. (This report reflects how women judge themselves with the effects from social media. Women care about their appearance. But thanks to the social media, the confidence is decreasing. The topic of social identification is developed from this point. Because people change their mind and there is a diagram shows the comparison data of 2004 and 2014. )

online source Interpersonal communication. [Internet]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_communication [Accessed 22 May 2014]. (Interpersonal communication actually is quite normal. Combining with the Theory of communication, the interaction model is a reflection of this kind of communication. It don’t need to be that academic studying the perfect definition. So I made a shorten version and this is a basic definition with key elements of what is interpersonal communication. ) Tiegert, V. (2010) Ways Technology has Changed Interpersonal Communication. [Internet]. Available from: http://www.relating360.com/index.php/ways-technology-has-changed-interpersonal-communication-2-15489/> [Accessed 22 May 2008]. (This article mentions “technology makes people busy”, and has a description of how busy is it. And it also has the same statement with mine: try to balance technological time and our personal time.) Modernization in Encylclopedia Britannica. [Internet]. Available from: <http://www.britannica. com/EBchecked/topic/387301/modernization> [Accessed 21 May 2014]. (Modernization is another key word of this article. To define “modernization”, I looked it up in dictionary. The explanation provides some key words equal to “Modernization”. First, modern society is industrial society; secondly, it is a sociological concept, related to the transformation from a traditional, rural, agrarian society to a secular, urban, industrial society.) Communication methods. [Internet]. Available from:< http://www.tutorialspoint.com/management_concepts/communication_methods.htm>[Accessed 22 May 2014] (This website has simple diagram of the types of communication, and it describes the difference of oral communication, written communication and body language. And it also discusses how and why we choose certain types of communication. The knowledge on this website is all clear and easy understanding. My reference part is about oral communication.)

Barford, V. (2013) Is modern life making us lonely? [Internet]. BBC News Magazine. Available from: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22012957> [Accessed 22 May 2014] (There is a few points summarize from this report: 1. Loneliness among young people is increasing; 2. social media change the way of communication; 3.the information separate in different group in people’s social network; 4. Loneliness is “hidden killer” for elderly; 5. Proportion of adults living alone increase which increase depression.)

Jim-My web writers (2012) Communication Theory in a social media world. [Internet]. Available from: <http://mywebwriters.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/communication-theory-in-a-socialmedia-world/> [Accessed 22 May 2014] (Two key words: Communication and Social Media. This website talks about the transaction from traditional way of face-to-face communication to social media screen-to-screen mode.) Maggiani, R. (2014) Social media and its effect on communication. [Internet]. Available from: < http://www.solari.net/documents/position-papers/Solari-Social-Media-and-Communication. pdf> [Accessed 22 May 2014] (This article discusses the multidimensional interactions and basic rules of communication. The “Understanding social media” part talks about the social media is boundless, but they all share a common rules as conversation, contribution, collaboration, connection and community. The connection, people (in the network community) seldom meeting each other in person, they are no longer have a physical communities.) The negative effects on social networking. [Internet]. Available from: <http://soulthinks. com/2011/05/16/social-networking/ > [Accessed 22 May 2014] (The image and video shown on this website are quite reflective, it also emphasize the negative effects that social networking takes to children. ) Doig, W. (2012) Modern life is killing us: Long hours, crazy commutes, urban pressures. – suddenly our cities are bring us down. [Internet]. Salon. Available from: http://www.salon. com/2012/08/11/modern_life_is_killing_us/ [Accessed 22 May 2014] (What a shocking title: seems we all need to reflect on what’s going on in our urban life. This report says the length of commute affects the happiness. People are so stressful in their modern life. They are quite busy not only because of the stress from work but also the social networking everywhere. Some people get depress and frustrate and have some mental illness.)

image Marino, N. (2013) The subways and trains are sometimes as silent as an operating room, each commuter with its own Smartphone “living the Samsung life” in some Samsung Galaxy. [Online image]. Available at: < http://nicolonelytraveler.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/little-giant.html> [Accessed 22 May 2014] Image1 Studio. (2013). I’m sitting beside you, but you are looking at your phone. [Online image]. Available at: <http://www.image1.cn/h/470/20131023/15863.html> [Accessed 22 May 2014] SMM Boost. (2013). Social Media. [Online image]. Available at: <http://www.socialmediasmarketing.com > [Accessed 22 May 2014[ Lightisfar. (2013). Social Anxiety. [Online image]. Available at: <http://lightisfar.deviantart.com/ art/social-anxiety-296280526 > [Accessed 22 May 2014]

to be hybrid

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Rain Room, 2012

to be hybrid reflection on lecture: hybrid practice lecture by monika parriender, 2014 When idea was being introduced to us: hybrid practice on communication culture, there are several practices really impress me. One of the most fascinating is the project “Rain Room” by Random International. It is just awesome. All senses are united in this exhibition. When people walk into the rain, there is a brand new and individualize experience that people would never have. This is not just fix to the traditional umbrella, and the technology itself can create an invisible umbrella for you and it makes you comfortable. Try to imagine, when you are experience this what would you think of? For me, my brain probably just gives it a short circuit. This is too advanced to think about. Sometimes, something new just happened and we even didn’t notice. Or, if we notice, we didn’t think about it. When our world, our physical world has developed to certain stage that the object with only single functions

would not be popular and admired by people. This is kind of modern “natural selection”. The competition happens everywhere. Every company is being carefully and fully prepared in each competition or they would be out by the market selection. The change is always too fast to catch up. If you want to be successful you need to think advance. Indeed, we need more hybrid practices, to mix two or more fields and skills, which are totally different to create new projects and new experiences. Actually, some boundaries between subjects are becoming blurred, but everything is connected in some way, isn’t it? It just happens again as how the smart phone developed to a multi-function one: phone, camera, mp3, GPS, even it becomes a mini computer. That’s so-called creativity and we will find some inspiration from the hybrid experiments to be more creative. 11

change? photograph reflects truth?

photograph ref lects truth ? reflection on lecture: critical histories of design 1, by mark ingham, 2014

The first photograph was taken in 1839 in which generally regards as the year that photography commenced. We hear this a lot: “Show me the photo” to convince people if you are talking about the truth. However, is it true that photograph reflects the truth? Not necessarily. The photo the lecturer shows us are taken in 1850s, Victoria time, and the object is the invisible baby. Why we call it “Invisible”, because the baby was dead. The body was supported by frame to create this photo. We don’t use “create” for photograph a lot, but in this case, I doubt that is photograph equals truth?

The first photogarphy, Nicéphore Niépce, 1826(1827)

Selfie is always a nice choice to discuss if the photograph is same as reality. Well, most of the selfies from young ladies are probably not the same. To make a small joke, if it is the same, these young ladies would never take selfies again. Another example is about journalism photography. A few years ago, I visited the exhibition – Capture the moment, the Pulitzer Prize Photographs. After that, we need to finish a study report analyzing the semiotics elements. What makes photograph so fantastic, is the camera captures everything. There is a few photographs which are titled “Set-up”, that was not really happening that time. To be critical, is it also reflects the not all the photographs are based on truth? Sometimes, people always make a guess at some situation happened in the photos. Also, we can get lots of information and conjecture the fact of stories happened behind the scene. “What you see is what is happening” is not 100% correct and there is room for conjecture.

Unknown Photographer, Dead Child, ca. 1850, daguerreotype

history repeats itself

history repeatS ITSELF

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reflection on lecture: critical histories of design 2 by mark ingham, 2014

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. ” – Karl Marx

Robots of Brixton, 2011

A short video Robots of Brixton (2011) has been played in the lecture: Critical Histories of Design by Mark Ingham. We need to live in a traditional way sometimes. Not all the new things we are creating are better than the original life. People in my country always accept new things and abandon the old thing they have. They break down old houses, old shops, old building. They make things disappear faster and faster. Anyway, the history repeats itself one day, so why we live so fast but not enjoy every different generation. It feels terrible when the world becomes like that: the robots are controlling our society. “Wherever there is oppression there is resistance.” This is what has been told since we are young. It makes me think of the issue happened these days between Taiwan and China Mainland. History repeats. There are some scenes that seem to happen decades ago in our textbook of history. This

begins with the trade pact between Taiwan and China Mainland, and it becomes more and more serious and have a broadly impact. Even there a student movement, called Sunflower Movement happens to fight against. What I want to talk about here is, since the movement has subsided, from my view, what made me admire is their courage. The courage from those students, who are brave enough to stand in front of people, to fight against the government, to fight for their rights, to fight for democracy. They are lucky that they have chance to do this for their homeland. There are always a complicated relationship between Taiwan and China Mainland. I have studied in Taiwan for two years. Taiwan is the place that you will fall in love with it quickly. It’s such a lovely island with lovely people. The people of these two places should definitely know more about each other to refresh their stereotypes. With my sincere wishes, hope there is always peace between these two. 13

change? design for politics

Design for politics reflection on lecture: GRAPHIC DESIGN AND POLITICS, 2014

I love NY was designed by Milton Glaser in 1977, and this logo is for promoting tourism in New York City since 1977. Developed from this logo, you can find lots of “I love XX” on the Internet. I want to talk about how design works for politics. At least for me, young generation doesn’t feel like to talk about politics, and some designs for politics do not look good. New york is one the top cities in the world and this is undeniable that this is a successful campaign that it swept the world. As a design student, we rarely think about our project can do something with politics, especially in my country, China. There are some strict boundaries can never be

crossed. The politics designs in China are always inflexible, and it is not about creativity, it just about authority. I have some examples of how it politics promotion looks like in my city, Guangzhou. Referring to I heart NY, promoting tourism of a fascinating city could be fun and attractive. These are typical posters to promote socialism with Chinese characteristics: the huge slogan, the common typography (always in red), the bright colours. the landmarks of city, and the blue sky. These posters won’t change a lot in a long period. As I mention before, design for politics could be more fun.

can I design a chinese typeface?

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can i design a chinese typeface ? reflection on lecture: typography and communication, 2014

Designers always complain about typography. Why? I mean, most of the people would not aware of the slightly difference between similar typography. “Oh, terrible typography!” Indeed, typography is a study that we can learn so much about it. Unfortunately, to design a Chinese typeface needs at least 3,000 common words. But design an English typeface would be much more easier. This is why English has huge amounts of typefaces and Chinese has just not many as English of course. We don’t have many choices on typography, so that the fun of looking for diverse design of typography can’t be fully experienced in Chinese. Also, the difference between simplified Chinese characters and Traditional Chinese characters reduces the number of typefaces. There are two cases, one is just using the ordinary types and the other one is create new designs based on the ordinary types. Actually there are some interesting Chinese typefaces, but it is not that useful especially for commercial design. More important, it depends on the taste of the company and the designer. In some cases, designers don’t need to spend so much time to design characters because their audiences would never notice. I guess this is how to communicate effectively. For those designers who want to challenge themselves and make really nice designs, design new characters is inevitable because they don’t have many choices.

I would like to share one of my favourite poster design. The typography in this poster is super pretty unique. There seems the characters are stamped on the sheet, at the same time, it combines some English letters. This is sort of shopping map, so the characters are hanging around with the relax the flexibility. It succeed: trying to be different.