Culture and New Media Technologies
Webblog.Yong Ming Kow

Stopping virtual trading = going back in time

Posted Sun, 04/12/2009 - 00:00 by Yong Ming Kow

In our worlds, there are a lot of ironies. Ironies are things you have to do yet do not wish to happen. Corruption is one of them.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/blackmoney/view/
This is an interesting video of a tips of an iceberg of the highest level of corruption in the world - amongst princes, prime ministers, presidents, and so forth.

Are you cultured? Reflections of culture on technological usage.

Posted Sun, 03/15/2009 - 00:00 by Yong Ming Kow

When we talk about culture, we may mean at least three different things. One, culture as a set of cognitive preferences, e.g., Chinese like red colors. Two, culture as a set of behaviors, e.g., Chinese preference to spend time with family members and close friends. Three, culture as a set of protocols for interacting with other humans, e.g., in mannerism and discourse patterns when meeting face to face. I think that the second and third type of culture is more relevant to technological usage.

Games = violence? Bah!

Posted Fri, 03/13/2009 - 00:00 by Yong Ming Kow

Within a few days, I saw computer games being blamed for violence in youth. First was about the cases in Singapore where a student slashed his professor before jumping to his death, and another student hanging himself. Second was about a German youth killing 16 others.

On the first case, Alice Loh said in Facebook, "Alice Loh at 7:23pm March 11
I thk we shld also start looking into the stress our kids have at home. this may includes parenting and society stress...exams...pressure. Restrict Violence Gaming is a MUST !"

China's problems: vested-interest or reform?

Posted Fri, 03/13/2009 - 00:00 by Yong Ming Kow

I thought this article provided a backdrop for my thesis on the inability of Chinese Internet groups to form productive alliances. The lack of suitable social protocols, was even reinforced by the lack of conditions to make one. An open group would tend to close-up when facing unruly users and scrupulous competitors. Something out-of-sight of our fieldwork seems to be at work, encouraging extreme measures against out-groups. It would be hard to imagine Wowinterface launch vicious hacking attacks on WowAce. However, it was rumored that attacks between sites happened in China.

Summary of Visit to China – Why is it ‘un’creative?

Posted Thu, 03/05/2009 - 01:00 by Yong Ming Kow

The thesis I was working on was about creativity of virtual worlds. More precisely, I am studying gamers who modify the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) – World of Warcraft. The gamers who modify the game are called modders, and the products are addons known as mods in the gaming world. I am also studying comparing the modders in both US and China, and for every 5-10 mods that were created by modders active in the US, 1 was created in China.

Reflections of China's Creativity

Posted Thu, 03/05/2009 - 01:00 by Yong Ming Kow

“There are too many people in China,” said almost everyone I met. Whatever problems that China is facing, that is the favorite answer. My one month immersive tour of China revealed something else – its serious lacking of cooperation between teams.

Netizen population surpassed 1b

Posted Fri, 01/23/2009 - 01:00 by Yong Ming Kow

Wow, actually I am awed by the small number. Considering we have 6b earthlings, 84% of us are still offline.

However, also consider that US + China consisted a total of 16% + 18% = 34% of all netizen population. These are the two countries we need to pay attention when talking about Internet usage.

The Truth of Culture

Posted Tue, 01/06/2009 - 01:00 by Yong Ming Kow

I have been studying cultural differences and in any culture, there is always a set of beliefs everyone strongly believes in. If there is anything that is common across culture, it is this:

If only 1 person proclaim it, it is lunacy.
If 10 persons proclaim it, it is heresay.
If 1000 persons proclaim it, it is a trend.
If 10000 persons proclaim it, it is the truth.

This applies to what Americans called freedom, Singapore's 5Cs, and Chinese's harmony.

Effects of culture on knowledge production

Posted Wed, 12/31/2008 - 01:00 by Yong Ming Kow

Consider this: How do we come about to invent a new dish, such as Singapore's 'national food' Chicken Rice?

I assume there has been a long history of cooking meat inside boiling water, or what we called 水煮. So people have knowledge of how to get the tender chicken out of boiling water. It is easy to get hard chicken meat out of it. I saw some chicken rice stall hanging and drying raw chicken at the back of the food center. Therefore, the knowledge on process the chicken before boiling has to be in place.

Orderly is where the activity is

Posted Sun, 12/07/2008 - 01:00 by Yong Ming Kow

I have been tackling a difficult problem lately, one of cross-cultural differences. The problem is - when you look at individuals within a culture, say china, you will often find outcroppings, deviants. When you seek history to explain behaviors, you can also encounter contradictory events.