COM257: Media History and Theory

This week’s reading “Mobile Telephone History” begins with Farley giving the audience his definition of a mobile phone for the purposes of this reading. With a common definition established, Farley is able to go on to explain the origins and current state of mobile phones. He explains that America led the mobile phone movement, and that this was for three reasons: 1) The U.S. was the one super power country that was left physically intact after WWII, 2) Bell Telephone laboratories had enough radio engineers and scientists to make the research possible, and 3) Motorola grew a lot during the war. J.K. Jett, the FCC commissioner of the time, was the first to suggest his idea to reuse frequency; that is, millions of users would be able to use the same channels. Then, in St. Louis, Missouri on June 17, 1946, AT&T and Southwestern Bell were able to create the first mobile radio-telephone service, using radios built by Motorola. Eventually, however, interference between the channels ensued, forcing Mobile Telephone Service (MTS) to reduce its network to three channels. But with the growing popularity of the mobile phone, waiting lists immediately developed in all 25 cities with MTS. In December 1947, D.H. Ring and W.R. Young were able to create the first true cellular radio system for mobile telephony. While phones were being manufactured at a speed to keep up with technological developments and meet popular demand, there weren’t enough channels to accommodate all of the users. Because of this, the Bell System asked the FCC for more channels in 1947. While the FCC did grant Bell System a few more channels that could be designated for cell phone usage, they also granted channels to other companies in 1949. Known as Radio Common Carriers (RCC), these companies now held the possibility to emerge as major competitors for Bell System. A major development occurred on March 1, 1948, when the first operator-less service was developed in Richmond, Indiana. Although many RCCs continued to employ manual service until the 1960s, this was a major and necessary development for the emergence and increasing popularity of mobile phones. Four months later, on July 1, Bell Systems unveiled their transistor, which would allow for phones to become more compact and affordable. While the telephone industry was going through a revolution in the States, much of the rest of the world was very slow to adopt public radiotelephones. Upon gaining their independence again after the war, however, Japan became a major contender in the ever-changing phone industry. While other countries were concerned about quantity, Japan insisted on providing a quality product in the same numbers as other manufacturers. Japan’s quality and quantity mindset would practically lead many companies out of business and would force other manufacturers to reconsider their own production plans. Again, RCCs requested more MHz frequencies for the mobile phone system, but it took the FCC a decade to react. Because of this, research met a standstill for a few of the upcoming years. In 1964, Bell System created the Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS), but the main issue was still not resolved. Networks all over the world were reaching their user capacities. But finally, in 1970, the FCC granted the necessary airwaves for the mobile phone industry to perform to its full potential. In 1969, passengers on the Metroliner were able to try out the first mobile phones, going 160km/h. During that year, Motorola manufactured the first commercial mobile phone, and many companies began creating attaché phones—those that were connected with briefcases. The first North American commercial system began in August 1981 in Mexico City. Nordic Mobile Telephone Network was the first multi-national cellular system and offered roaming. But it still took America years to be able to compete with the quality of Japanese manufacturers. The first United States commercial cellular service was developed on October 12, 1983 in Chicago by Ameritech. But while America was focusing on analog service, which seemed to be working just fine, Europe was preparing for a digital future. America did not want to embrace a system in which their analog users would be unable to participate, but they ultimately realized that they, too, needed to embrace this upcoming digital error. America thus created their dual system, on which analog and digital users would be able to function. In Europe, GSM was created, a single network that united all of Europe. GSM appeared in the U.S. in 1995. Today, the CDMA networks have emerged into existence, which has enhanced the mobile experience in terms of data transfer, clarity, and message sending. This reading was very interesting to me because I had no idea the idea of mobile phones has been around for such a long time. I still remember my mom’s first cell phone back in the mid-90’s, which was practically the size of a brick and had a five inch long antenna. The thought of how much cell phones have developed from then to now makes it hard for me to even imagine what could happen in the next fifteen years. At the end of this reading, Farley poses an interesting question: what will future phones look like? It’s hard to fully imagine, but I am sure we will continue to watch them get smaller and more functional.

In the “Introduction” chapter of Jull’s book, he discusses gaming, its terms, its history, and offers a brief overview of what the reader can expect to learn and see in the following chapters. Jull begins his introduction by explaining that video games are half-real. Real, in the sense that they exist, have real rules, and winning or losing is a real event. Fake, in the sense that the dragon you may slay in order to win is a fictional character, and you are interacting and with a fictional world. The first half-real experience began with Spacewar!, the first video game, in 1961, and Jull explains that in this sense, video games have had an extremely short history, especially in comparison to other media such as TV, cinema, and print. But if video games are instead seen as a mere continuation of games, video games are part of an extremely old medium that has existed for thousands of years.

                “Why computers?” is the next question Jull sets out to answer, and the reasoning behind why video games are played using this interface as opposed to an alternative one. His answer is that computers “work as enablers of games,” meaning we can play old games in new ways and new games in ways that otherwise would not have been possible. Jull defines the gaming experience as a learning process, and explains that there are two main ways that games provide challenges for users. One way is through emergence, when a small number of rules yield a large number of possible results (as with sports games, board games, strategy games, etc). The other way came about with the emergence of video games, and is called progression, where a person has to complete certain tasks in order to win the game.

                Jull then defines the classic game model, the model on which all games are fundamentally based. The classic game model has three levels, which possess six overall characteristics. The levels are the level of a game as a set of rules, the level of a player’s relation to the game, and the level of relation between playing the game and the rest of the world. The six characteristics of these levels are 1) a rule-based formal system 2) with variable and quantifiable outcomes 3) where different outcomes are assigned different values 4) where the player exerts effort in order to achieve the outcome, and 5) the player feels emotionally attached to the outcome 6) and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable. Jull explains that all games have these six features, although video games do bend the rules a little sometimes. He goes on to define games as transmedial, in that a number of different media can be used to play games.

                Games ultimately became a comparison point among many seemingly unrelated concepts. German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein compared games to language, in that neither can be fully defined or narrowed down, while Ferdinand de Saussure took it a step further as to say that, just like the location of pieces on a Chess board, the location of every term in language is what ultimately leads to meaning. Economists Neumann and Morgenstern created “game theory” in analyzing economics and referring to certain problems people may experience and the strategies they may then employ. Games are also what led Claude Shannon to begin artificial intelligence research in 1950 and brought about many mathematic insights and methods. Jull acknowledges significant books on game studies such as Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens (1950) and Roger Caillois’ Man, Play, and Games (1961), to drive home his point of gaming’s impact on many other academic areas.

                There is a rush right now in the game world, to be the first to prove certain theories and draw testable conclusions, given that researching video games is an extremely new concept. There is question as to whether researchers should study the gamers or the games themselves, and to that question there is no right answer and justifiable points on both sides. It is a fact that players often change the rules of a game to make the experience their own, and some researchers argue that if this is the case the player might just as well be playing Monopoly as Connect Four. Others argue that the play IS in fact playing Monopoly instead of Connect Four, and that there is a reason for that; there is something about the game of Monopoly that the player would rather be playing.

                Caillois argues that games can be rules or fiction; that a game heavily focusing on rules can’t be fiction or present a fictional world. Jull, however, offers his own point that merely by adhering to these rules, the player is immersing himself in a fictional world. Thus, games are rules AND fiction.

                Manny early video game studies were a discussion between narratology, the story elements of the game, and ludology, geared towards separating itself from the narrative elements and defining video games in its own category. He then explains the over-branching contradiction presented by the video game itself: if play is supposed to be people in free-form, why limit ourselves to the rules of a game? The answer Jull provides is that the game provides a context and a meaning to our actions. It provides a context for human interaction, and competitive games are social affairs. Just as people enjoy movies for unique reasons, people enjoy games for unique reasons, and it is unfair to group all game lovers under a label such as adventure-seeking, or violence-driven, or fantasy-obsessing. He tells us that games can and should be seen as art, and there is no reason why I person who loves playing video games can’t equally enjoy kicking back and reading a few chapters of Chaucer.

                With the way the world is headed, I found this chapter particularly easy to read and interesting. Before this reading I never would have consider myself a gamer, or any of my friends one. However, a lot of my guy friends have an undying love for Grand Theft Auto, and I will fool around with Wii and Sims on occasion. Jull makes a good point about gamers in this chapter, especially his last assertion that people enjoy games for all different reasons. I think there is a certain connotation that comes with the word “gamer” but the reality of our world is that, if we all aren’t already, pretty soon everyone will be experiencing video games in one way or another. It can be anything from the Solitaire game you play in class under your desk, to the virtual city you’ve built in Sim City. As the world becomes more and more computer oriented, these games are going to become all the prominent. It is only a matter of time before we are all “gamers,” whether we are willing to call ourselves that or not.    

In this week’s reading Popularizing the Internet by Janet Abbate, the emergence and spread of the internet is discussed. She believes that the ultimate success of the internet can be attributed to the internet’s modularity (the fact that certain aspects of the internet could be changed without the entire thing being disrupted), and its ability to grow rapidly under stress, expand gracefully, and accommodate diversity (network builders around the world were able to work together in hopes of connecting their systems). In the 1980s, the internet, created by ARPA, existed strictly for military purposes. Over time, research networks were added as an additional use for the internet. Civilian access to the internet hadn’t begun until computer scientists took a stance. While some computer scientists were associated with universities affiliated with ARPA, those who weren’t felt disadvantaged. So, in May 1979, computer scientist Lawrence Landweber called a meeting discussing the issue. It was during the second meeting, though, which was attended by Vint Cerf, an ARPA member, that the offer arose to connect ARPANET with CSNET, the other popular network at the time.

                In 1983, ARPANET split into two networks: ARPANET and MILNET, which would be dedicated to military use. With the military having control over their own network, it was more acceptable for civilian access to be granted to the internet. In light of the split, a major growth in internet usage ensued. From 1985 to 1987, computers connected to the internet grew from 2,000 to 30,000. It was not so much the growth of ARPANET leading to internet expansion, but instead the amount of networks connecting to it. Networks became more abundant as more locally based computers were owned. The growth of personal owned computers increased the need for local networks to be able to connect to them. In order to address this, Robert Metcalfe created Ethernet. In 1982, there were only 15 networks; in 1986 there were over 400. Names needed to be created to make it possible for people to access all the different networks. Originally, each network had two names: a word people could recognize, and numbers that the computer would recognize. This led to long, complicated access codes, however, sp the domain system was created by Paul Mockapetris. ARPA created six major domains: edu, gov, mil, com, org, and net. As a nationwide network is under works, CSNET and ARPA has managed to link almost every university in the country.

                Eventually, ARPANET began to show its age. After twenty years, its servers were incapable of keeping up with the increasing traffic and speed of the internet. Because of this, the decision was made to transfer all of ARPANET’s networks into the CSNET networks. At this point, many commercial providers began offering the internet. Some were direct spinoffs of NSF; others were major companies who saw the benefits of providing internet service (MCI, AT&T). To improve internet experience, CIX was created, and accepted traffic from any other member network free of charge. Many other networks ended up joining CIX because of the benefits of not being charged. Also during this period, USENET was created as a cheap way for universities to communicate amongst each other. Similar networks, BITNET and FidoNet, soon followed, intended to offer cheap service to the general public.

                In the 90s we saw conferencing systems, a system in which users dialed into a network, as with the first version of AOL. With all the new networks, communication among them became difficult. Ultimately, they all switched to the domain system.

                Management was becoming increasingly difficult, and the ICCB was replaced by the IAB in managing domain names, network conflicts, and other internet issues. But as internet popularity grew both in America and overseas, it became necessary for it to be unaffiliated with the American federal government. In 1992, the nonprofit organization, Internet Society, was assigned formal oversight over the IAB. Although the internet took a while to catch on for a couple reasons (for a while it was strictly a text-based medium, and in the beginning stages accessing information was difficult) it ultimately became seen as an entertainment medium, a shopping opportunity, and a means of self-expression. It was Tim Berners-Lee in 1990 who established the concept of the World Wide Web. An html, URL based system, it was the beginnings of what we know of as today’s internet.

                This reading was really surreal to me, because it’s so hard to believe that the internet was ever not what it is today. I can’t imagine only being able to access edu networks, or gov networks depending on which one I belong to. Today that all seems so meshed together that I don’t even pay attention to what network I’m even accessing. It’s crazy to believe that the internet was ever anything but the World Wide Web, even though just twenty years ago it was nothing but a series of sloppily connected networks.

In this week’s reading Nonlinearity and Literal Theory, Aarseth defines his concept of linearity vs. nonlinearity by using the Webster’s Dictionary definition, which says that it is “the study of the ways in which various sections of a text are connected, disregarding the physical properties of the channel (paper, stone, electromagnetic, and so on), by means of which the text is transmitted.”  Aarseth explains that all text is composed of certain, basic units: graphemes (letters), lexemes (words), and syntagms (sentences). He notes, however, that there is a step between these three levels and the text as a whole, and he names this missing link textons. A texton is the parts of the text that can be linked, unlinked, and re-linked to form new meanings, stories, and ideas within the text itself; the existence of textons allows for a text to be nonlinear. With this necessary definition in place, Aarseth goes on to examine non-linearity on a basis of four levels. The simple level, which allows for a text to be explorable by the reader; the discontinuous level, which creates jumps and links between textons; the determinate cybertext, in which textons are predictable but conditional; and the indeterminate cybertext, in which textons are dynamic and unpredictable.  At the simple level, he gives the most famous example of the ancient Chinese Book of Changes. With this book, people would have a predetermined question they wanted to ask the book. Then, using either three coins or 49 yellow stalks, they would do a certain procedure that would lead them to an answer on a certain page in the book. Aarseth also cites a famous French example from 1961, a book in which millions of sonnets can be created by following a page-turning, line-reading procedure that can land a person with a different thirteen line poem every time. Aarseth explains that simple nonlinearity almost gives off the impression that there is no reader, no person that is going to sit down and read the text from cover to cover. Instead, just a series of different manipulators who will continuously create different stories and outcomes using the text. He then explains a hypertext, which is merely a connection between one part of text and another, another example of nonlinearity. It was Vannevar Bush who first came up with this idea in 1945, as he pondered ways for scientists to keep up with all the new findings being made in their fields. A couple decades later, Michael Joyce’s Afternoon, a story was released as the first hypertext book. With this book, people had the ability to click certain words to jump to certain parts of the story, some links only clickable if the reader had clicked a certain link before it.  Aarseth also discusses cybertext, and offers examples of its development overtime. Eliza, he explains, was a virtual psychologist developed by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966. A person could type his problems to the screen, and Eliza would write back based on a series of pre-programmed responses. Also around this time, the Adventure game was created, in which the user controlled “himself” on the screen, by typing simple noun-verb phrases; i.e. ‘grab gold’ or ‘open door.’

                When I first started reading the passage for this week, I didn’t think I’d be able to establish any relevance within my own life. Upon reading about linearity is, however, I realize I’ve been interacted with nonlinear texts since I started reading. When I was in elementary school, my favorite stories were the Choose Your Own Fate Goosebumps books, where at the end of almost every page you get to choose what to do, where to go, who to talk to, etc. This made me realize how prominent nonlinear text is in my life; any time I’m online and click a headline or a link, I’m dealing with nonlinear text. Now that I better understand what it is, I am noticing it all around me.

In the second half of this week’s reading by Briggs and Burke, the emergence, significance, and global impact of television are discussed. By the time TV came into play in the mid-1930’s, broadcast had already been greatly developed via the radio, which made it difficult for people to imagine how TV could fit into the already established world of broadcast. This, and the fact that the TV was introduced in the midst of the Great Depression, made it so that it took a while before the television was able to make the impact that it eventually would.

                It was when America entered World War II in 1941 that NBC and CBS, also radio broadcast pioneers, began to host television broadcasts. But it was DuMont Laboratories, invested in by Paramount Pictures, that ultimately took the reigns and continued to offer televised broadcasts for the duration of the war. Initially, it was believed that only the upper class would be attracted to television, but this assumption proved false between the years of 1947 and 1952, when the number of TVs owned in America rose from 178,000 to 15 million. With the rise in television sets, movie ticket sales began to decrease, and it wasn’t until 1950 that the idea of selling movies to the television networks came into play. It was also during this time that videotapes were created, to make it so that any broadcast could be replayed at anytime, anywhere.

                Before very long, however, TV began to follow in the steps of its predecessor (the radio) and move from news towards entertainment. In England, Queen Elizabeth did a major part in launching the popularity of television by airing her coronation to be viewed by the nation. Eventually, Parliament intervened in the BBC’s monopoly of British broadcasting, and created the Independent Television Authority, that came up with the idea to use commercial advertisements as a form of network sponsorship. But even with Queen Elizabeth’s efforts and Britain’s innovation, the number of television sets in America vastly outnumbered all of the TV sets in all of Europe. With American culture fully saturated, the U.S. began to expand its interests overseas. By the 1960’s, TV could be found in 90 countries and was extremely popular in Japan, France, Italy, and Germany, although there was much more government intervention in these other countries, especially Italy and France.

                As time went on, the question as to whether or not television was a good thing began to emerge. Some began to argue that TV was becoming more of an unhealthy habit as opposed to a willful act. There was conflict within the FCC, as to how to best protect society from what networks were putting on the air. To address the issue, PBS, the Public Broadcasting Station, was created, and educational shows like Sesame Street started being broadcast.

                This reading also discusses the many major events in American history that solidified the significance of television. The Vietnam War, Civil Rights Movement, and Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon were all watched by millions on TV, bringing the real world into American’s homes for them to truly see for the first time. But with this wealth of information overload, it became necessary for UNESCO to call a meeting in Nairobi and present Article Twelve, which made it every country’s responsibility to monitor the communication practice in any and all of their international jurisdictions. By this point in history, information had become synonymous with power, and the distribution of that information needed to be monitored responsibly. Briggs and Burke make an important point in their Conclusion section, also, that TV never replaced radio. Instead, they continue to coexist as a means to both entertain and inform.

                This week’s reading, in A Social History of the Media by Briggs and Burke, discusses the emergence and impact of radio from its introduction up until the TV-era. The BBC asserts that it is necessary for one to begin the study of broadcast with the radio instead of the television, because  many of the same institutions (such as NBC, CBS, BBC) are responsible for ushering in both. Briggs and Burke shape their analysis of the radio by looking at the ways radio was used and its influences in different countries. In Nazi Germany, they explain, the Nazis took away the powers of the press and used the radio as a weapon to assert their Nazi ideals. Meanwhile in America, the radio was used to promote democracy and as mainly a means of entertainment, and FDR used it for his colloquial fireside chats, which he presented multiple times throughout his three terms to address the American public on the state of the nation. Then there was the BBC, broadcasting to Great Britain, which underwent major change during WWII. It was the first station to have special Sunday broadcasts and specials, separating Sunday from the rest of the week, and was the one station to keep broadcasts in the hands of the broadcasters and not litigated by the government. This meant that during wartime, while America and the Soviet Union were strictly running serious broadcasts, the BBC still offered lighthearted programming. In discussing these pioneering moments in radio, Briggs and Burke also discuss major people to further elaborate on the impact of the radio. Ed Murrow has been memorialized in broadcast history for his then innovative style and his memorable broadcasts from London during the Battle of Britain. H.G. Wells’ is still known for his famous War of the Worlds broadcast that led to panic as the listening public mistakenly perceived his fictional broadcast of aliens landing and taking over the world as a reality, which goes to show the impact of the radio on society. If it was on the radio, then it must true.   

                By 1930, the popularity of the radio was fully noticeable; there were 14 million radio sets in use. As the radio became more popular, Briggs and Burke explain that the greatest fluctuation in broadcasting stations was the way they went about advertising. Unlike Britain, America started a practice of sponsorship by businesses for their most popular broadcasts. The Audimeter was invented, which made it possible for stations to measure how many people were listening to certain programs. The ability to trace who was listening to what, led to a major expansion of what was offered on the air, such as sports, weather, and church services. The radio’s popularity did not begin to dwindle until the introduction of the television, but to counteract this downward trend, radio broadcasters began being featured on FM stations (which had a clearer frequency) and expanded the number of stations that existed. Radios were also adapted to be put in cars, which added to their popularity once more.

                This reading really reminded me of Com250 last semester, when we began our discussions on the impact of the radio. We watched a movie Radio Days, where a family would literally live their day around the radio. We discussed the War of the Worlds broadcast, and established that then, people believed anything that a broadcaster said. We even discussed the impact of the radio on different cultures and how it is theorized that without the radio, Hitler would not have been able to lead the world into WWII. This reading was nice, because it simply reiterated a lot of what I had already learned about the impact of the radio, and reminded me how truly significant it is in societal history.

In this week’s reading by James W. Carey, the major impact of the first major communication technology, the telegraph, is discussed. Carey begins by explaining the lack of documented studies on the influence of the telegraph, which makes it all the more difficult to realize just how significant this invention was. But it was because of the telegraph that the words communication and transportation were no longer synonymous. Until the telegraph’s introduction in the mid-1800’s, communication couldn’t happen if transportation didn’t happen, usually via train. Because the telegraph made it possible for a person to stay in, say, New York, and send a message to someone in, say, Pennsylvania, communication and transportation were officially separated in their meanings. The telegraph was able to send a message to millions, both overseas and within the states, and had major influences on three ideologies of the time. First, it led to a true capitalist system, in which the market became truly competitive. Because information could travel over miles and oceans, prices could not be incredibly cheap in one area and vastly overpriced in another without people turning to the less expensive source of goods. This meant that markets had to standardize their prices in order to remain competitive with one another. The second ideology the telegraph impacted was that of Christianity. Religion was able to spread faster and farther than it ever had before because of the telegraph. It could reach even the most desolate towns, now, and the Christian views tended to monopolize this network. And the third (and less discussed) impacted ideology was that of technological production from the invention of the telegraph, on. After the telegraph, technology production became a formulaic, industrialized practice. It started being executed formally, in warehouses, factories, etc.

                Carey goes on, in the second part of this reading, to explain even more impacts of the telegraph. It altered journalism indefinitely, changing everything from the language journalists used to the way they did their reporting. Regional terms and slang were no longer acceptable means of writing because articles needed to be understood by people all over the country, now. Subjective reporting, favoring one ideology or political party over another had to change, because journalists were now writing for the masses, not just a local township who all held the same views. Articles became less story-like and embodied more facts, because sending words along the telegraph was expensive and news reports needed to be as concise as possible. The telegraph was also able to impact the domain of the empire. It answered the question as to how countries our size would be able to be governable, and it enabled people to secure overseas investments that had previously been difficult (if not impossible) to confirm. Railroad crashes lessened, because information could now travel faster than a horse could gallop, and news of an impending collision could reach train conductors in time for the accident to be prevented. As I stated before, the telegraph nationalized markets, and even had major effects on the Stock Exchange and future buying and selling, which ultimately led to the Wall Street practice we see today. With all this global interaction, the telegraph ultimately led to the need for time zones; if people were going to be interacting as much as the telegraph allowed for them to be, some sort of standardized time needed to be implemented. Conceptually thought of by Dowd, but ultimately executed via the Allen Plan, time zones were officially adopted during WWI and have been being modified regularly ever since.

                Reading this article reminded me a lot of a paper I wrote last semester, in which I was studying the impact of communication technologies on political campaigns. As Carey mentions time and again throughout this reading, little studies have been conducted on the telegraph and its introduction and impact. I realized that especially when attempting to research the telegraph for my paper last semester. I could find maybe two articles on the significance of the telegraph, while there were hundreds on the telephone, TV, and the internet. I think it’s unfortunate that the invention that started it all has been so vastly overlooked, because as Carey explains in this chapter, each new communication technology is just building on the one before it. I found this article really interesting and informative, and only wish I’d had it to my disposal last semester when I was trying to find this type of information on the telegraph.  

This week’s reading entitled “Printing and the Rupture of Classification” (by Hobart and Schiffman), discusses the impact of print on the concept of classification and knowledge throughout the ages. Before the invention of print and writing, people had to rely on their own minds to recall information. But as this reading states, “Printing transformed the intellectual landscape.” The ability to keep records led to major transformations in world history, including the European Renaissance and the Reformation. With the ability to print, knowledge became much more widespread and abundant, and obvious contradictions among what people “knew” became apparent. Hobart and Schiffman also explain the development of the codex, or the book-form, of taking down information. As opposed to having to search through scrolls, codex made it possible for people to go to an exact page to look up information. With the development of the codex came the utilization of parchment as opposed to papyrus, which made books more affordable and thus more accessible. As knowledge became more abundant and obtainable, new ways of organizing and interpreting such information came into play. Before print, philosophy had been the major means of studying the world. With the onset of print, rhetoric and logic became new major ways of looking at information. According to Aristotle, philosophy is intended to address issues of truth, while rhetoric is intended for issues of probability. Hobart and Schiffman point out, however, that as society came to accept more and more that they cannot determine what is always true, the study of rhetoric became more prevalent than that of philosophy. They acknowledge specific humanists and philosophers in history, such as Aristotle, Montaigne, and Descartes. It was Descartes, however, whose study of knowledge and its significance ultimately led to the separation of knowledge and wisdom for centuries to come.

                This week’s reading was a nice change from the technological concepts often addressed in this class, and I found it especially interesting because this is an issue that has not fully been resolved even as of today. It reminds me specifically of a conversation I had this past summer. I was taking an online literature course at home, offered by my local community college, and for this course we would go online regularly and write on discussion boards for our participation points. Although this summer class undoubtedly relates to many other aspects of our course (such as interfaces, databases, etc), there is one topic in particular that addresses this reading. Via the discussion board one week, the class talked about which of the two forms of knowledge was the most significant; which of the two qualifies someone as smart. The answers were split, with some saying that strong morals and philosophies made a person intelligent, others saying logical thinking and rhetoric make a person more intelligent. I find it particularly interesting that a divide that Descartes created centuries ago is still up for discussion today, and I wonder if there will ever be a universally accepted “right” answer.   

This week’s reading by Katherine Hayles is entitled “Virtuality,” which she defines as: the cultural perception that material objects are interpenetrated by information patterns. In this chapter, she addresses the concepts of information and materiality, which have in somewhat recent years been deemed as separable. This separation was first deemed possible in the 1940s and 50s post WWII era, through other fields such as molecular biology. Using the human body as a basis, it became decided that DNA is the codified information that makes a person who he is, and that the body is the materialistic outer shell that that information embodies. Therefore, if physically possible, these informational codes could be transported from one outer shell (the body) into another outer shell (a computer), as demonstrated by many games and movies of that era. Another important concept developing during this time was that of information theory, and the realization that messages aren’t sent, signals are. For example, an actual message isn’t sent across a telephone wire, but instead a signal understandable by the medium is sent, to be decoded upon reception. The same goes for the internet and other virtual forms of sending information. Claude Shannon even derived a mathematical equation for information and broke the information/materiality concept into three categories to make it more easily distinguishable and definable. These three categories are: signal/not signal, information/noise, and pattern/randomness. Hayles gives the example of pattern/randomness, where while people may conceive information as structured meanings and codes, randomness actually holds the most information because we don’t know what may be coming next. She explains that if she were to offer the reader the first line of a nursery rhyme, we would probably be able to finish what comes next. But in a random number sequence, there is no prediction possible, and our full attention is necessary in order to see what it is that will be coming next.

                I found the information/materiality aspect of this text especially interesting. We began discussing this in our last class, and some very interesting examples came up about the significance of each. The idea had come up that if a person were unable to make it into work, the appropriate thing to do would be to call as opposed to text. Even though the message would be the same, the materiality of that message would be different, and ultimately affect how the receiver decoded it or interpreted it.

                This week’s reading by Manovich discussed augmented space, which he defines as public areas such as malls, stores, airports, etc., where many different types of information can be accessed wirelessly. He attributes this rise in augmented space to the virtual obsession of the nineties, during which time graphical browsers greatly increased the amount of people who could access the internet, and the internet, in turn, led rise to the norm of completing previously physical tasks (reservations, shopping) online. This concept further developed with the onset of the 21^st century, into an idea of no longer going to a virtual world via our stationary computers, but bringing that virtual world with us wherever we go. The invention of cell phones, PDAs, and personal computers led to the establishing of cell space, which is the invisible layer of information that fills many public places, customizable by the users who possess the devices capable of accessing the information; places where you can access wireless internet or obtain cell phone service are primary examples. With cell space can be included the concepts of surveillance and electronic displays. Together, these three factors remove data from various spaces (surveillance) and augment physical space with such data (cell space, electronic displays). Thus, it can be explained that data flow from a physical space is considered surveillance and data flow into a physical space becomes a part of the cell space. Manovich goes on to compare the theories of two communication theorists: Foucault and Shannon. Foucault, who said that communication was reliant upon human sight, and Shannon, who said—more accurately for today’s times—that communication is always accompanied by some type of noise.

                At this point in his explanation of augmented space, Manovich makes augmented space more relevant by discussing it in terms of architecture, art, and cinema. In terms of architecture, this concept of augmented space means that architects are going to have to take into consideration this additional data layer that their building will be expected to handle. With art comes the terms white cube and black box (white cube being 3D and black box being 2D). In today’s society, the commonality of 3D art is becoming evermore prevalent. Then there is cinema, which is primarily stuck in the black box era of 2D projections. However innovations are in the works, and people like Paik are investigating new 3D ways to project movies for an audience. Manovich’s point in this reading thus seems to be, that anywhere a virtual world overlaps with our physical world is an augmented space, and that these spaces are becoming steadily more prevalent in our society.

                As with last week’s reading, I find this one extremely relatable, also. I never knew what such space was called, but I fully agree that augmented space is everywhere. Our campus, for example, is one big augmented territory, full of cell towers and wireless access and screens that allow us to obtain information whenever necessary. It’s gotten to the point it seems like an architectural screw up if I can’t receive cell phone service or access WiFi from a certain area, and I can only imagine how much more extreme this concept of augmented spaces will become. I’m sure the day is not too far away when wireless access will be everywhere; even on public transportation.

In this week’s reading, Kellerman discusses human spatial mobilities in their two predominant forms: physical space mobility and virtual space mobility. When regarding physical space mobility, one is discussing a person’s physical movement from point A to point B. The most popular form of such mobility was introduced in America at the beginning of the century by Henry Ford and has revolutionized physical space mobility ever since: the automobile. Inversely, Kellerman also discusses virtual space mobility, which concerns the travel of information from one person to another. The greatest contributions to this form of mobility were the phone, the first major virtual space innovation, and the internet, whose impact in turn is comparable to that of the automobile. Kellerman explains that virtual mobility has gone through two major phases. The first is the conversion of all information into electronic bits that can be transported electronically, and the second is the development of today’s sophisticated mobile devices such as laptops and cell phones. As the years have progressed, it has become apparent that the speed at which information travels and the speed at which people travel is a direct relationship; as information moves quicker, so do our forms of transportation. Kellerman also explains that at the core of both communication systems lay three basic processes. First is standardization, which, in virtual reference, standardizes all information into transferrable electric bits, and in physical reference standardizes cars and laws in a way that makes the requirements to drive one model the same as those to drive any other. Next there is structure, which consists of infrastructure, logic, and content. Infrastructure refers to the physical, which for virtual and physical would include things wires, cables, roads etc. Logic references the users, and any regulations imposed at the assumption that humans will be utilizing this medium. And content is referencing the insensitivity of the internet and cars as to who is retrieving the information or operating the vehicle. Lastly there is Operations, which are the establishment of networks that allow for the flow of information. Kellerman then goes on to compare and contrast the impacts of these different innovations on our daily lives. For instance driving has in many places replaced walking, and while driving can take you further, walking can take someone more places. He draws similar comparisons between the internet and the telephone, acknowledging how an incoming call interrupts time immediately, whereas an e-mail does not. He also explains the significance of wireless, and how it is steadily blurring the line between public and private space, as well as inside and outside. Kellerman explains that wireless encourages travel because people no longer fear that they will be unreachable just because they are away from home or their desk. In short, Kellerman uses this chapter to explain the major impact mobility has placed on society, and its ability to virtually redefine and abolish the meaning of distance.

                I found this chapter particularly interesting because I find it the most relatable chapter I’ve read thus far in class. A book was recently published entitled The World is Flat, which addresses this same thing. Technology and our ability to defy distance have completely revolutionized everything from the way we travel to how we do business. I find Kellerman’s explanation that wireless communication makes us more likely to travel especially interesting, because there was a time not too long ago where people wanted to travel to get away from it all. Now it seems we want to go to the beach just to bring it all with us. Because technology is always growing an evolving, I find it hard to imagine that information and physical mobility may one day make the world seem even smaller than it already has, but I’m sure that day is coming. It is actually probably closer than we think.  

In this week’s article, Manovich discusses the database, its forms, its uses, and its growth and development through the years. He introduces this passage with an anecdote about his experience at Razorfish in 1999, a leader in interactive design. Razorfish was then striving to merge into the realm of product design, instead of solely being known for their screen savers and websites. It is here where the database comes into play, a form of new media that organizes encyclopedias, recipes, and any other document into a computer-ready format. The database can be broken into two major forms, the Internet and CD-ROM, and games. Games is also the form of the database where the database’s inherent opposite comes into play—the narrative, whose purpose is to string data together to form a story. But Manovich addresses this aspect later. When dealing with the first form of the database, information can steadily and readily be added. Manovich points out that this fact alone indicates that a website can never fully be deemed “finished” because the creator always holds the power to add more information. Conversely, any element in a game can be deemed as “motivated” or “justified” in a player’s eyes. It is this form of the database that leads people to think in literal (learning new ways to play the game) and metaphorical (mentally understanding the model of the game) algorithms. Manovich uses this assertion as headway to explain his following claim, that the world can be reduced to two basic forms of software objects: the afore mentioned algorithms, and the newly mentioned data structures, which he defines as data organized in a way that allows for eventual retrieval. He explains that algorithms and data structures have an inverse relationship; that the more complex the data structure, the simpler the algorithm (steps taken to receive the stored data).

With databases’ popularity booming in the nineties, people were soon cramming everything from photos to audios to books onto CD-ROMs and computers. Even Steven Spielberg jumped on the bandwagon, and created the Shoah Foundation that recorded, then digitized, accounts from Holocaust survivors. Manovich declares that the database is easiest the largest and most significant aspect of today’s new media and that it is the center of creativity in today’s world.

Manovich uses the last few paragraphs to discuss the two levels of the narrative: the syntagm (what’s real) and the paradigm (what’s imagined). He grants praise to Vertov and Greenaway, two of the major database filmmakers of our time. But most importantly to me in this section, is Manovich’s explanation as to what defines the syntagm and what defines the paradigm. In my Analyzing Style class, we spend class period after class period studying prose after prose, and syntagm’s similarity to syntax (both in meaning and in spelling) cannot be strictly a coincidence. Just as syntagm is the database—the whole—syntax describes the sentences that make up a prose. Just as a database can be organized in a different way to serve different purposes, sentences can be organized in different ways to create a new meaning for a prose. It’s really interesting to me how closely these two aspects of such completely different classes relate to one another.

                In this reading, Manovich discusses interfaces and their ever-changing impact on societal life. He begins by citing the significance of GUI, or Graphical User Interface, that was originally pioneered by Macintosh. This new innovation made it possible for computers to “remember” hundreds of files without ever “forgetting” any information, unless that information was directly deleted by the user. With this new idea of memory instated, GUI ultimately became the filter for all culture. That is, it became “a form through which all kinds of cultural and artistic production is being mediated” and a major part of our culture. With this new communication culture emerged a new code, or language, if you will. As Whorf-Sapir hypothesized, people who speak different languages see the world differently. Similarly, the human-computer interface (HCI) led to a new language and outlook on the world. One of the most notable changes that HCI introduced was the inability for people to clearly separate leisure from work, because suddenly both were being accomplished via the same interface: computers. As computers continued to develop over time, another major change occurred: content no longer always preceded expression, or—in other words—information was no longer just sitting around on the internet to be retrieved. As the internet became more interactive, applications and software began emerging that literally lacked a true existence until user interaction took place.   

                With this new culture in place, Manovich tackles the question “why?” Why do CD-ROMS and websites look the way they do? What influences their appearance? He tells us that there are three factors, in particular, that are to blame: print, cinema, and HCI. Print gains its significance because text was the first form of digitized media, and also because text comprises every web address or IP address or searchable term imaginable. Secondly, cinema is of great importance, especially mobile cameras. Cameras have a way of presenting the world through a rectangular view. Beyond that view there is plenty more to see; plenty of different points of view to be taken. A computer screen offers the same rectangular view and acts in a very similar way. By scrolling up and down on a page, one can see what else there is to notice beyond that initial rectangular view. And over time, as film editing and photo cropping and other cinematic concepts have become primarily plausible via computer usage, cinema has thus become HCI. Very importantly, Manovich wishes for us to understand that just as cinema has become HCI, cultural interfaces are forever changing and it is possible that they may never, fully stabilize.

                In regards to the concept that content no longer always precedes expression, I am pleasantly reminded of my childhood playing the different Sims games. With this game, especially, things unfold as you let them; you dictate what will happen next. It isn’t just a predetermined set of motions your character will go through, but instead you determine if she will say yes to a date and what she will wear and if she’ll call back. Content and expression are unfolding simultaneously, as Manovich explains tends to be the case when it comes to new media artwork. It allows for users to create a world of their own, not simply play in a world that others have created for them.

In Manovich’s article “What is New Media?” he seeks to explain and compare the differences between old media and new media. He strikes this divide in a number of ways, one of which is by noting what makes media considered “new.” The common definition of new media is media that will likely change life as we know it, and currently utilizes computers and technology. Manovich adds however that this is not always clearly the case, and that the definition of “new media” may need to be better refined to portray its true meaning. He begins his explanation by citing the transformation of media over the years such as the printing press and photography and their global impacts on society. But unlike the computer, their impacts remained strictly within certain areas of media—distribution and still images. The computer, today’s form of new media, impacts virtually every spectrum of media and communication, thus making it unlike any previous communication invention. Therefore, he concludes that new media may be more clearly classified by using five specific guidelines: 1) its numerical representation, or a number code that makes it possible for the computer to receive messages; 2) modularity, or the aspect that makes it possible to alter certain components without altering others; 3) automation, through which computerization uses parts 1 and 2 to make automatic contributions or improvements in software such as word processors or website building; 4) variability, where computers can contribute to the creation and array of versions of something available for use; and 5) transcoding, which allows the computer to portray a message for us to understand, while also encoding the message for it to understand. Manovich suggests that as years pass, more and more new media will begin to embody more and more—and ultimately all—of these characteristics.

                I found transcoding particularly interesting because I was expected to use this technique in a computer programming course I took once before. In the course, we had to create a very simple program for the computer to understand what certain key strokes would mean. In order to do this, we would type in a series of 1’s and 2’s in a particular order, to make it possible for the computer to recognize what, say, pressing the ‘Shift’ key would indicate. Through doing this simplified activity, I was able to see this sort of double language taking place between the computer and the person expected to utilize the program.