Mars Rover and Hierarchical System
The social or collective knowledge does not depend on facts, but relies on individuals’ knowledge, what they believe, intend, or a combination of their mental states. This is the construct of social knowing, a product of the introduction of computer and web-based sites like newscloud.com, Youtube.com, and Digg.com. In these sites, information and news created and edited by people that are not necessarily academics or professional editors, but are very influential within the social media network. This concept has a profound effect on the use and acceptance of knowledge and information, as seen in YouTube’s “Mars Rover animation and actual landing”.
The images posted on YouTube on 24th June 2011 by “JPL News” show an eleven-minute animation of NASA’s laboratory launch and landing of the rover, curiosity on Mars. This content is different from the YouTube video of the actual landing, posted by ABC News on 6th August 2012. Both videos are different but similar in several aspects. The videos are evidence of the influence social knowing has on our acceptance and conception of information. This is because, both videos have been edited and presented as clips of valuable information, the news editor felt were necessary in telling the story. Both videos represent stand-alone ideas that are ready for commitment as knowledge.
Curiosity’s landing animation is social knowing since the video does not represent actual landing footage. This is the creation of the expectations of scientists’ perceived knowledge of mars, its atmosphere, and surface, and “curiosity’s” functioning. The information presented in the video is not real, but it is a constructed image of what the scientists from NASA expect to find. Therefore, this video gives social knowledge, as viewers’ information of mars is reliant on the perception and beliefs of scientists depicted in an animation. This type of information is difficult to accept as true, since it has its basis on individual belief.
Since the video is an animation of scientific information, it is acceptable as truth, real knowledge. This is because, today’s society has embraced the digital age, where everything has a place and has meaning (Weinberger, 2008). An animation or a digital virtue is acceptable as real knowledge since it leads to new ideas, and it stimulates discussion and new concepts. This is animation from a scientific body like NASA, whose missions are often out of this world. The use of animations creates believable knowledge as it forms the basis of a scientific hypothesis. However, the acceptance of the content of the videos is due to the differences of both. This is in ABC News’ video, where actual pictures of mars and its surface, as taken by “curiosity”. In our knowledge, the animation video is different from the real video posted by ABC News. This gives the perception that the animation’s footage has wrong information, while ABC News footage is real knowledge.
The challenge of such a video lies in the authority of the person posting it online. According to Weinberger (2008), the authority of such videos is not as prominent as that of friends in the digital world. Today’s consumers rely more on their own knowing and that of their friends, as seen with social media platforms like YouTube. This creates a link between Curiosity’s actual and animated landing. The difference of opinion of this knowledge is in who created the postings. The animation video by JPL News received over 2,400,000 views while ABC News video had just over 730,000 views. The animation video had an overwhelming response from viewers, with over 13,000 likes as compared to the real footage that had 2,155 likes.
The animation video consequently had positive feedback with more constructive discussion, than the real footage that had rhetoric remarks and comments about the news reporter. This to Weinberger’s (2008) theory is that friends rather than authority influence the meaning of digital virtue content in the reporting business. In this case, the social network of the animation video as a greater influence on the public’s acceptance of the Mars missions, than ABC News authority in reporting the actual landing. The expectation is that ABC News is the authority in the news industry than JPL News. However, in Weinberger (2008) digital age, computers and the internet put things and concepts in a category they need to be, causing people to classify tasks, knowledge, and objects idiosyncratically. This new hierarchy reveals itself in the digital animation and real footage of Curiosity landing of mars, as a convenient masquerade of the truth of the universe. The videos in this theory represent the assault of hierarchy by the internet.
This hierarchy depicts the biases underlying the editing of information. The real videos choose two pictures of the surface of mars showing the wheels and shadow of Curiosity. The animation shows three dimensions of the expected landing. In Weinberger (2008) hierarchy, the animation receives more audience acceptance, than the real footage. The choice to show the NASA’s scientists in the control room, with two pictures of the wheels of the rover, by ABC News, left viewers questioning the authenticity of the information. This social knowing explains why the animation video had three times the views of the real footage. It also explains why the animation received positive feedback as compared to the real footage.
Reference
Weinberger, D. (2008). Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder. First ed. Holt Paperbacks.
