Blog posting written by Shawn Steiner, Film, Photography, and Visual Arts '13, FLEFF Blogger, Elkridge, MD

Welcome to FLEFF's opening day and the first of many live blogs of the week. 

We have concluded our discussion, but at 10:00AM-10:50AM in Park 220 Ulises Mejias will lead a discussion about Augmented Reality Games

ULISES MEJIAS: OFF THE NETWORK

"Networks increase participation, but also increase inequality."

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"It's not if we shape our tools or if our tools shape us, but how."

Mejias' agenda includes "thinking the network" and then how we are to then "unthinking the network" to get us to move beyond network logic through many strategies, like intensification.

First, what is a network?

1. Nodes (each one of us)

2. Links (similar interests)

The problem with this type of "nodocentrism" is that a node cannot connect to anything except other nodes. Take your friend who refuses to make a Facebook page, you may realize the trouble they have getting party and event invitations since people only invite people currently on Facebook. This is an issue with social networking.

And, while those with few connections still grow (the poor), those with large networks (the rich) will rapidly gain more connections. This is a preferential system where Mejias says "the rich get richer."

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"[Networks] are shaping the way we think about friends."

A network in Facebook or media terms is something very specific. It is a template created that is altering the way we think about things like friends and likes. It is software and programming that is reprogramming our mind based on algorithms.

It has moved from a network as a metaphor to a network as a template.

Mejias also explains the change from old media as a "one-to-many" monopoly to a new media "many-to-many" perfect competition.

However, monopsony is the economics of new media, it is a "many-to-one" approach.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Can these metrics help us catch terrorists? How?

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"The sacrifices in privacy may not be worth the gains."

Inequality through participation takes many forms. This includes surveillance, filtering, blocking, psyops, spambots, and the loss of freedom of speech.

This is done by organizations and companies that run social media networks. Using fake accounts to spread propaganda, deleting so-called "problematic" accounts, and simply shutting off the network are all possibilities that can limit the people utilizing the network.

QUESTION: What are the power dynamics between activists, hackers, and the media?

SHORT SCREENING: Virtual Revolution, a BBC documentary.

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"Dissent will only become possible in the spaces outside of the social networks."

We need to look into the spaces between the nodes. We must see the paranodes are the resisters, the rejecters, the expelled, and the excluded.

Paranodality: the outside of the network is not empty but inhabited by multitudes that do not conform to the organizing logic of the network.

And once we reach these paranodes and maintain a MOBILITY between being in a network to being outside of it we can find power (intensification).

QUESTION: Is it easier to express dissent inside or outside the network?

Blog posting written by Kimberly Capehart, Documentary Studies and Production '16, FLEFF Blogger, Cherry Hill, NJ 

How much time do you spend on the Internet?

In a society that is constantly connected to smartphones and laptops, researchers have determined that the average teenager spends around seventeen hours a week online. But with the modern potential the Internet has for communicating with others, how can you blame them?  

Popular websites like Twitter and Facebook make it childishly simple to share thoughts and ideas; and once that idea is put out on the Internet, it's as simple as the click of a mouse (or the click of a trackpad, for all of you wireless folks) to share that idea and to spread it to more people. The "retweet" option on Twitter and the "share" option on Facebook promote a global network of idea sharing: a tweet can be tweeted in Ithaca, New York and in a matter of seconds can be seen by people as far away as Berlin, Germany and Koriyama, Japan. 

The potential for idea sharing isn't limited to social media. Smartphone applications like Instagram and the recently-popular Snapchat allow users to share pictures in a matter of seconds. Internet-based computer applications like Skype and Oovoo allow people from around the globe to video chat while simultaneously allowing them to share files. 

This list of websites and applications that connect people and their ideas goes on and on and is constantly growing each day. The number, and diversity, of users is also growing daily; teenagers aren't the only ones taking advantage of idea sharing. Major corporations, local businesses, non-profits, musicians, artists, and so many more people reach a huge audience through this global idea network and can easily tweet, post, share, etc. their own ideas much more easily.

Mobilities is what makes this massive sharing of ideas possible, even when people are sitting at home. Mobilities allows ideas to spread around the globe and spark new ideas in others with ease. Connections and communications that never would have been able to happen are able take place thanks to the global idea network that Mobilities accommodates. 

FLEFF is what brings these ideas, and the people responsible for said ideas, together. If so much idea sharing is able to take place around the world without people meeting, imagine how much more occurs when people come face to face. 

This year at FLEFF, members of this global network of ideas will connect face to face. People from all over the world will be coming to Ithaca, NY to share their ideas on a wide range of topics, and the best part is YOU can join in on this global conversation and share YOUR ideas.

Are you ready to network?