CRDM 701

Week 12--Jayna

I think I?ll start with the last quote I typed in my review of the reading this week.  ?Words mean what people have made them mean, but people mean nothing that words have not taught them to say? (Peters, p. 258).  To me this quote brings the semester?s readings full circle? we communicate in the way that we have created over the millennia.  We express our thoughts, feelings, ideas through speech and writing, photography, music, and (other) digital means. Still, it is what we have dubbed it to be.  As Peters points out, the evolution of communication also limits us?but if it is true that communication has become disembodied (and I think we?d all agree with that to some extent, ie: conference calls with researchers who are only a voice to us and not a body), then perhaps there are no limits to how we can continue to take the evolution of communication.  Maybe I will be able to one day have conversations with my dog that are of the two-way variety, where she shares her feelings, and not just her nonverbal reactions to my tone of voice and body language.

Code, as discussed by Hayles, is much the same?while she argues that it is not its own language (or perhaps that was another theorist she was quoting), it to is limited by the capabilities of its writers, and is undeniably linked to language/writing, as the intent of the code must be translated from the desires of the humans creating it.  So, likening it to the Peters quote, code means what humans say it means, and code?s capabilities are only limited by what the humans can (dream to) develop for machines to carry out.  As Hayles says, ??a computer program has only one meaning: what it does?.Its entire meaning is its function? (p. 48).  As a result, those writing the code must be very clear in their intent, otherwise the code will not function correctly.

Hayles makes a number of connections that I feel relate to my topic of the perception of typography.  Here are two that I made specific note of: ??clearly it matters that print has now become a particular kind of output for digital text?. Print books in general have moved toward the visual and away from straight text?. It is also true that any book, conventional or not, participates in the rich historical contexts and traditions of print that influence how books are designed, produced, disseminated, and received? (p. 32-33).
?[1997-2004] have seen remarkable growth in the visuality of electronic media and the accelerating digitization of all media? (p. 37).

Both quotes speak to the importance of visual communication. It seems that although our communication has become more and more disembodied, we still desire the images to go along with our written messages.  Peters seems to agree: ?Our faces, actions, voices, thoughts, and transactions have all migrated into media that can disseminate the indicia of our personhood without our permission. Communication has become disembodied? (p. 228).  Here, I feel that Peters acknowledges the digital evolution and also gives a nod to digital?s visual representation.

Random thought inserted here? Most of us don?t know code. We use extremely user-friendly web-page creation software or simply type directly into discussion boards.  The code is there, interpreting our intent, allowing the page to look and feel the way we want, helping us to use fonts, colors, text attributes, photos, sound clips, to communicate our message in our way?Hmmm? with that I must run?my apologies for the brevity; too much to do and too much mucus in my head to allow me to do it efficiently.  Now there?s your disembodied visual!

Posted at 05:23PM Nov 14, 2007 by jrjackso in General  |  Comments[3]

Week 12 - Christin

OK, you all already know that I?m a programmer.  I know C++, I wish I knew Java, and that?s probably why Hayles? discussion on code both intrigued and frustrated me.  First of all, a point that I have to make because it always frustrates me to no end: Hayles writes about HTML as if it is a programming language.  It?s not and many hardcore computer programmers out there will get quite upset if you try to treat it as such.  There is a very big difference between a markup language (which is what HTML is) and a programming language and Hayles actually talks about one aspect that sets the two apart ? compiling.  HTML does not need to be compiled.  It?s part of the reason why, I think, that HTML can be taught so easily and learned so quickly and why it?s no longer considered an ability restricted to computer experts but relegated to any semi-power user of the Internet.  Most individuals nowadays who are online on a fairly regular basis know enough HTML (or could learn it in less than an hour) to build a simple website by themselves.

Enough of my ranting though.  I thought that Hayles? discussion of whether or not a programming language was a language in the sense that it could be compared to English, French, German, etc. was interesting given her approach, and I especially liked her clarifications about where they differed. On page 50, she discusses the important point of code as an executable language (2005).  The byproduct of such a classification is that we must think about code in a different way than written or spoken traditional language.  I seriously struggled learning Italian in high school and college and found learning C++ a whole lot easier. I think this is because we utilize a different part of our brain when we code versus when we write or speak.

We must, in essence, think like a machine when we code ? think mathematically, laying out how we need to program something so that the computer understands what we need to do, and without any ambiguity.  If I were to mistipe a word like I do in this sentence, you still understand what I mean.  If I mistype a single character in a line of code, the computer will not understand what I am meaning to tell it to do.  This black and white line of thinking requires us to approach this language very differently than approaching everyday communication.

What intrigues me, however, is that we can program a computer in this black and white manner, but then the computer can evolve to understand the grey areas.  Computer understanding, their intelligence so to speak, is what the Turing Test is all about.  Both the Peters and Hayles? the Mood Swings readings discuss a Turing Test and so here?s a link for everyone to go look at: http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/loebner-prize.html  It is for an award, the Loebner Prize for artificial intelligence for a Turing Test, lists the winners and available links back to 1991.  If you?re new to Turing Tests, you should definitely take a look.

We were discussing in the other class the idea of whether computers can trust or not, and although I don?t want to reopen that discussion if no one wants to, I do wonder why so many people are so apprehensive towards even the idea of a computer not being capable of trust (or a variety of other so-called emotions).  Peters brings up some very good points.  ?The key question for twentieth-century communication theory ? a question at once philosophical, moral, and political ? is how wide and deep our empathy for otherness can reach, how ready we are to see ?the human as precisely what is different.? (230)  Later, he writes ?It is human frailty, rather than rationality, that machines have difficulty mimicking.? (237)  I see in society a growing move towards the natural, towards the spiritual and I wonder if part of that isn?t our desire to find that thing, that part of being human that sets us apart and above machines.  If computers will one day be capable of doing everything a human can do, thinking as a human can, acting as a human can (as the Turing Test and cellular automata, which by the way if you want to play with a good example of see http://psoup.math.wisc.edu/Life32.html and Conway?s Game of Life), without the knowledge of inevitable death, where does that leave human beings in the order of things?  It would imply that a machine could be a more perfect human, a meta-human so to speak, which then forces us to seek out and strengthen what sets us apart and what makes us better than a machine that we, ourselves build. 

Posted at 05:08PM Nov 14, 2007 by caphelps in General  |  Comments[1]

Week 12 - Nick

Code, code, code, we are surrounded by code!  Or rather, code is the most recent metaphor for how we conceive of our lives which is, as usual, based in the technology of the times as Hayles points out.  These metaphors are part of the endless feedback loops that lead to socially constructed reality.  Once we collectively have a technological metaphor for the way something in life works, it seems we begin to apply it far and wide and the new technologies that result are created within that system and thus bear its markings.  I am reminded of the 'kid with a hammer' analogy I have heard in relation to new scholars with a favorite theory; all the world becomes a nail.  At what point does such a metaphor become hegemony, I wonder?  Certainly, such a worldview empowers some while disempowering others; when a metaphor is based on a technology then it must inheret the issues and weaknesses involved in that technology.  We have witnessed the technological divide and discussed this problem, but this has been a divide which has existed since there has been technology.  Thus, every technology of communication, from speech to print to code, has caused some kind of divide.  Can those who do not have access to the technology still be affected by the metaphor?

Something I found interesting, regarding metaphor, was when Hayle's pointed out that Derrida could be an underlying theoretical 'code' every bit as restricted to a priestly class of the few who understand it as computer code.  That really resonated with me, as someone who has struggled with Derrida every time I have encountered him.  To 'get' Derrida, I usually require a friendly 'interface' in the form of a mediating article that uses Derrida and explains his work as it relates to something I do understand.  Hayle's second chapter was one such mediating form, but even this was fairly dense and theory laden.  The real 'user friendly interface' that mediated this week's readings for me was her 'Trauma's of Code' piece.  Through that article and her examples of current literary/cinematic works, I came to grasp the concepts she was speaking of all along in a much better way.  And, ironically, I read all of this week's readings by Hayle's on my laptop.  That makes me, what, at least four steps removed in mediation from the 'real' language I was staring at? (Her text to Adobe's software to the alphanumeric coding that composes it all the way to the base binary 1's and 0's that compose that code) 

This work relates to my work on Google bombs in an interesting way.  Google bombers are utilizing and abusing the code of the organizing algorithm.  This is an method of organization that is entirely new and unique to the coded internet environment.  In days of old, the organizing method was in print (Library of Congress, Dewey Decimal system) and in days of ancient it was organized through rhyme and meter in people's heads.  People intrinsically trust the code behind the software to find the most relevant links to information that they request; bombers manipulate that code (again, through interfaces where they don't even see the code) and shove what they want to see up to the top of the heap.  They do this all without truly understanding the code they are manipulating due to their addiction to the interface. (How can they understand it when the designers don't even fully grasp it???)    We have moved into a world where the priests of the guarded language no longer understand the whole of the language but instead only grasp parts of it.  Has code brought us (again?) to a semblance of collective knowledge?

Posted at 04:06PM Nov 14, 2007 by nmtemple in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 12 - Kelly

While reading Hayles? writing this week I continue to draw connections between her ideas and my experiences as I navigate my way through Second Life. Hayles points out that ?underlying code surfaces at those moments when the program makes decision we have not consciously initiated? (forthcoming, p. 2). As a newbie to the Second Life virtual environment it was almost kind of creepy when my avatar would begin to perform tasks that I didn?t really feel like I had any control over and wasn?t expecting. I had almost a voyeuristic experience with my avatar when I would begin typing on my keyboard (to communicate with another avatar) and then I would notice my avatar was air-typing - I didn?t know what it was doing at first. I felt like I was observing an interaction that I wasn?t wholly a part of especially when my avatar would make appropriate facial expressions and filler motions that I had in no way prompted.

Though Hayles later argues that higher level of complexity can emerge from different mechanisms including analog in response to Wolfram and Fredkin, I don?t think this disputes the novelty of Fredkin?s major thesis: ?That the universe is digital all the way down and, moreover can be understood as software running on an unfathomable universal digital computer? (Hayles, 2005, p. 23). If we conceive that the actual universe is digital ?all the way down? then does that imply that the virtual environments like Second Life aren?t really that ?virtual?? Maybe they are more like subsidiary or sister environments. Second Life could just type of ?new kinds of environments in which human and machine cognitions are deeply entwined? (Gannon & Hayles, forthcoming, p. 36). In my research paper I am looking at how the visual culture of Second Life extends outward and possibly influences actual lives ? especially in regards to how the visual communication of avatars reflects Second Life values and changes how we conceive of our none-screen bodies. Gannon & Hayles (forthcoming) take this idea further by illustrating an actual physical extension of the digital into our bodies:

It seems eventually programmers will develop ways of allowing aspects of Second Life (or another casually immersive world) to become part of our actual world where we might not have control, like Whalen?s ?cognisphere?. In Heidi?s presentation last week she mentioned an example where nano particles implanted in a physical body would work on their own to kill cancer cells ? and they would be able to differentiate between good and bad cells because they will have been programmed accordingly. Her paper was discussing how ?the mind? was the last frontier for nanotechnology and I feel like this can also be connected to Second Life. Many people feel that Second Life is all about sex which is weird to think about at first since the physical aspect of sex seems crucial. In Turkle?s (1995) interviews with people who engage in netsex she found that ?They are constantly surprised by how emotionally and physically powerful it can be. They insist that it demonstrates the truth of the adage that ninety percent of sex takes place in the mind (p. 21).

One difference between literature and code that Hayles (2005) reminds us about is that code is not so easily understandable with the passing of time. ?Although they can still produce documents using these versions, they are increasingly marooned on an island in time, unable to send readable files or to read files from anyone else? (p. 51). This seems even more disturbing for those poor avatars who might eventually be left ?marooned? in an inactive world. I thought about this when I was investigating other virtual environments that are becoming less and less popular with the success of Second Life. I wonder if people feel any worse about abandoning an avatar or persona in a social world than they would about abandoning word processing programs?

One (of many) things I would like to discuss during class time is the Weizenbaum example Hayles (forthcoming) illustrates on pp. 27-28. Hayles writes that, ?In brief, it [the computer] possesses the kind of cognitive state that psychoanalysts train for years to achieve? (Hayles, forthcoming, p. 28). I wonder to what extent psychoanalysts really hope to achieve this. I am thinking now about when designers and writers says that when they are looking for critique of their work they try to separate themselves emotionally from their work so that can accept criticism and not take it personally. On the one hand this would help them remain more objective and prevent hurt feelings but would a complete emotionally sever from work have other negative effects as well?

Posted at 01:22PM Nov 14, 2007 by klnorris in General  |  Comments[2]

Week 12 - Karla

Hi everyone.  I have chosen a few points from the readings to raise in this post, making some connections to my research on text-based e-therapy and how its dependence upon disembodiment has positive implications.  Part of my entry is not completely cohesive with the rest, but as I was reading that part of the assignment I had a personal connection to it (through my 101 class) and wanted to mention it.  So, here goes, and happy last blog entry to everyone!

Toward the beginning of his chapter "Machines, Animals, and Aliens:  Horizons of Incommunicability" Peters writes, "Communication suggests contact without touch.  To talk on a telephone is to identify an acoustic effigy of the person with an embodied presence.  In 'communication' the bodies of the communicants no longer hold the incontrovertible tokens of individuality or personality.  Our faces, actions, voices, thoughts, and transactions have all migrated into media that can disseminate the indicia of our personhood without our permission.  Communication has become disembodied" (228).  I was interested in Peters' reference to "without our permission" and the various possible ways to read that claim.  Do we think of disembodied communication as "without our permission" only because it enables a way to penetrate bodies without physical contact with those bodies?  Or, do we conceive of it in this way because given the increased and increasing use of communication media other than face-to-face, there seems to be little choice whether we participate in disembodied communication?  Is it in part because we realize that nonverbal cues enable us to express ourselves in certain ways that we cannot necessarily replicate without the face-to-face interaction, so that there is some sense of a loss of control over communication when we have to rely predominantly or only on communication lacking those visual cues?  In terms of text-based Internet therapy, a central concern is the lack of nonverbal cues and the implications the absence of such signals has on the development of the counselor-client relationship.  How can the communicants truly communicate in an effectively therapeutic way when they only have written messages to use to express thoughts and feelings?  When discussing Turing later in the chapter, Peters comments, "The presence of the speaker's body is no guarantee that genuine interiority is being tapped" (236).  I think this statement raises an important point about the privileging of face-to-face communication and the belief that physical presence ensures an authentic exchange between the minds/souls.  Embodied communication (including face-to-face therapy) does not automatically equate to such a connection to "genuine interiority."

Referring to Hans Moravec, Hayles mentions in her prologue the idea of the "postbiological" future in which "the expectation that the corporeal emdodiment that has always functioned to define the limits of the human will in the future become optional, as humans find ways to upload their consciousness into computers and leave their bodies behind" (2).  *I can imagine how Dawn responds to this idea.  I wonder about the possibility of the "postbiological" future in terms of how realistic it is to completely separate the consciousness from the body.  Even though chatting online allows disembodied communication and people clearly are willing to accept this, there is still a desire for the body, whether by asking questions about it (age?  sex?  hair color?  etc.) or requesting pictures.  Not having a picture available almost seems a faux pas, as though you are a novice to computer-mediated communication if you lack the resources to provide physical "proof" of your body.  I have never used online dating, but I have friends who have, and they often either passed over the profiles that lacked pictures or else requested those pictures almost immediately after initating contact.  In terms of e-therapy, often patients who have never been face-to-face with a counselor (for various reasons) are willing to try online therapy, and after doing so, sometimes pursue more embodied forms of therapy, including telephone, videoconferencing, and face-to-face, demonstrating both a desire for and greater comfort with physical presence in sessions.

Although not really related to what I have been discussing so far, I liked the point Hayles makes in Chapter 1 regarding how electronic literature is understood.  She discusses the "tendency to apply to electronic literature the same reading strategies one uses for print, while underappreciating or perhaps simply not recognizing the new strategies available to electronic literature:  animation, rollovers, screen design, navigation strategies, and so on.  Whereas Aarseth faces forward and reads print literature through a matrix developed in the context of computer games, McGann faces backward and reads electronic literature through a matrix developed in the context of print literature" (38).  I have not read the McGann piece she refers to, but I have read some of his work, so I am a bit surprised to learn about his "[facing] backward."  Hayles' claim reminds me of the discussion I had with my English 101 students on Monday about analyzing and evaluating online sources, particularly how relying upon established print-based critieria is not adequate or advised.  My students seemed to understand why it is problematic to use print-based strategies, but also a bit uncertain how to proceed, which, I think is reasonable.  I agree that looking backward by placing electronic literature in a print context is problematic, but, particularly with regard to teaching, I wonder if/when we will develop an established way of reviewing electronic literature?  Shifts in the electronic appear to occur at a more rapid rate than those in print, so how do we confront this challenge?

Near the end of her second chapter, Hayles writes, "These dynamics make unmistakably clear that computers are no longer merely tools (if they ever were) but are complex systems that increasingly produce the conditions, ideologies, assumptions, and practices that help to constitute what we call reality" (60).  The idea that computers help shape what we understand as "reality" seems almost strange given discussions of the actual versus virtual, but at the same time, not really strange at all.  We have come to rely on computers for so much of our daily interactions and activities that to view them as just "tools" seems irresponsible.  As we have incorporated computers more and more into our lives to the point that they "help to constitute" our reality, how have we changed our understanding of what is real and what is not? 

In "Traumas of Code" Hayles states, "The modification highlights a principal difference between humans and intelligent machines: humans have conscious self-awareness, and intelligent machines do not. Along with the capacity to feel emotions, self-awareness remains a distinctively biological characteristic. Nevertheless, contemporary computers perform cognitions of immense power, complexity, and sophistication" (5).  Hayles' comments reminded me of the discussion in CRD 702 yesterday about the anthropomorphism of computers and whether or not computers can trust.  I cannot say that I think computers can trust, though the conversation was interesting.  I think the understanding of emotions and self-awareness as "biological characteristic[s]" is important to take note of, particularly in light of the anthropomorphism of computers/machines.  If technological advances were to enable a robot to feel emotions and to demonstrate self-awareness, would we still make the biological distinction?  Understanding that those are biological processes, even if they are attained by something unnatural, would we simply say that the machine is mimicking what it means to have emotions and self-awareness because it has been programmed to have those abilities?  Hayles writes in "Mood Swings," "In particular, humans seek meaning while computers execute commands" (27).  Whereas humans use emotions and self-awareness to help make sense of the world around them, would robots with similar capacities for feelings and self-awareness do or need to do the same, or merely use them to determine what actions to take next?

Posted at 10:13AM Nov 14, 2007 by kmlyles in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 11--Jayna

?Speech? is not so much possessed as active in community life?[when] advanced forms of communication are created? a more complicated division of labor is created and it becomes appropriate to speak of producers and consumers of knowledge? (Carey, p. 167-68).
??by the end of the fifteenth century?Commercialism of the publisher began to displace the craft of the printer? (Innis, p. 53).
??the goals of ensuring the safety of an auto-mobile population and the efficiency of the automobile system demands that driving subjects become highly normalized and self-disciplined? (Packer, p. 370). 

These three quotes show a clear lineage of the ?technology= power? tendency of our readings.  This week?s review of communication history pointed out that moving from oral societies to literate ones began the clear distinction of class separation, later promoted capitalism at its finest example, and moved us into current trends in communication technology being used as a means of cultural/human protection.  We saw the transition from leaving ?space? behind when transmitting messages, to bringing ?space? back into view as a means of security.

Packer addresses the electronic highway for automobiles and the AHS (automated highway system)? recently (have any of you seen this email?), a woman sued the manufacturer of her newly purchased RV because it wrecked when she set the cruise control and went to the back of the vehicle to relax.  She must have thought she was on/part of the AHS?even more outlandish, she didn?t only sue?she WON the case? that?s probably another blog for a different class.

Does all of the technology Packer speaks of to develop AHS and, as we currently use the GPS and On-Star technologies mean that we are bringing technology back to the confines of geographical space?  In order for Homeland Security to truly secure the highways and other transportation systems, wouldn?t they need to know where every vehicle, train, and plane are at any given moment? Now there?s a frightening use of technology?and in my mind, it seems like a step back.  A great technological advancement in the telegraph was the removal of space from the message, and with AHS and GPS, suddenly the space, or location of the vehicle?and our ability to communicate with it?becomes priority.  I suppose every cell phone in each car is already monitoring location to some extent, as we all have a positioning device in our handset.

Speaking to Packer?s identity of mobility, more and more cities across the world have surveillance cameras on the streets monitoring the comings & goings of individuals as well as the vehicles at intersections (and whether or not they?re stopping at red lights).  Break the law and you conveniently receive your ticket in the mail a couple of weeks later.  Hmmm? did you even remember you?d been at that intersection?  Maybe not, but the ticket clearly shows your car, your tags, your face at the steering wheel.

So this next thought is a bit random, but I?ll include it anyway and close with it? If communication is seen in terms of space and time, does that mean that the Internet negates the concern for space when it comes to preserving history?  Storage of papyrus, clay tablets, and books has always been a necessity and priority, but is space a non-issue now that images can be ?stored? in (Kathy?s Tubes of) the World Wide Web, and essentially remove the need for the space/container?

Posted at 07:03PM Nov 07, 2007 by jrjackso in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 11 - Christin

America has always touted our belief in freedom ? the freedom of expression, the freedom of thought, the freedom of the press, and so forth.  Does the move to a security society necessarily equate to the abolition of freedom?  I certainly hope not, but it appears to seem that at least somewhat this is holding true.  For a very long time the second amendment was believed to be crucial for the freedom of US citizens.  Yet, in this society where our government is engaging in ?homeland security? more and more, controlling our daily lives more and more, Americans in droves have begun to oppose in some form the second amendment.  Did the events of September 11 trigger such a fear in Americans that many are now willing to give up certain (if not all) freedoms in order to feel safer, regardless of if they are or not?  Almost my entire extended family lives about an hour north of New York City, and almost all of them seem to feel that way.  They?re afraid because the space they inhabit lies so close to the City that they?re at risk ? even though the towns they live in hold less people than even the smallest town in Wake County.

Packer states on page 383 that, ?One element of the model of the control society is the management of access to space.?  Space, for Packer here, literally means geographic physical, ?real-world? space.  But an analogy could be drawn here to another type of space.  Innis discusses how those who have had control over knowledge throughout history have had the power in society.  Knowledge has now begun to be disseminated literally through space (Wi-Fi, Cellular telephones, Satellite TV, etc.).  I wonder how many cars of the future will have wi-fi capabilities that the government can conveniently connect to, giving them more power over the virtual space (both in it?s embodiment as bits of data traveling through the air and the information it contains) as well. 

I haven?t really discussed lately the connections my readings have had to my paper, but this week?s readings kind of made it impossible not to.  Carey writes, ?Innis believed that the unstated presupposition of democratic life was the existence of a public sphere, of an oral tradition, of a tradition of public discourse as a necessary counterweight to printing.? (165)  He later states that ?The strength of the oral tradition in Innis?s view was that it could not easily be monopolized.? (166)  If Innis were alive today, I wonder what he would think of YouTube?s effect on democracy?  I would argue that YouTube is monopolizing a small subset of our oral tradition (and making a nice profit in doing so).  It is changing, slowly, what is needed and what it means to participate in a democratic society.  If you miss a debate on TV, you can watch it online over and over again until you understand exactly what each candidate stands for (or claims to stand for).  No longer must we read what happened in a debate in a newspaper if we missed it. 

Posted at 05:54PM Nov 07, 2007 by caphelps in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 11 - Kelly

A few concepts in the readings this week I think are interesting to discuss in regard to our class and the CRDM program.  Privatization of education through writing and buying into security are both ideas that are thoroughly interwoven in the process of our education, in the intellectual history of communication and what we aspire to research and even teach. Just like it is problematic that when discussing visual communication (other than written text) we use written text, it seems problematic that Innis and Carey spend so much effort articulating their arguments for print and then write, ?speech is the agency of creative thought; printing of dissemination?. And though this quote is referring specifically to ?printing? and not only writing, the issue was that knowledge grows out of speech and dialogue and is active instead of possessed. I agree that during some moments writing is private but I?m not sure if it prevents active information or the formation of democratic groups. We spend a lot of time on the 701 blog trying to come up with creative thoughts and then reading our classmates? ideas. This writing seems active, it supports the discussions later in class but even if we did not meet we could respond to one another?s posts or enter a chat room.

Also, Carey (1989) points out that ?once advanced forms of communication are created ? writing, mathematics, printing, photography ? a more complicated division of labor is created and it becomes appropriate to speak of producers and consumers of knowledge? (p. 168). This issue seems so complicated to me because I feel that the roles of producers and consumers change for each individual depending on the context of a situation. Eventually I think we all hope to be producers of information about communication, rhetoric and digital media but we will still be consumers of information/entertainment about black holes or why honeybees are vanishing. Carey says ?people become consumers of communication as they become consumers of everything else? (p. 169) and that ?the very existence of a commodity such as ?information? and an institution called ?media? make each other necessary? (p. 168). I definitely agree. But I am confused about his reference of ?people? being dependent on the ?journalist, the publisher, and the program director?.  What does he mean by ?people?? Anyone who is not in those positions he listed at the time? It?s possible those consumers could be the program director some day. And just because people are consumers of the information provided by a program director I?m not sure if that automatically makes them dependent. Again, I?m thinking about this in regards to our program and how I?m not so sure by attending a class and waiting to be informed/educated we ?lose the capacity to produce knowledge for ourselves in decentralized communities of understanding? (p. 169). Maybe we feel like we are producing knowledge since our classes do take place in an oral setting (but then again more time is spent with writing outside of the classroom).

So my understanding of the ?public? is that the Chicago School saw the mass media as bringing the public into existence and then later threatening the possibility of rational discourse and enlightened public opinion (p. 145); and Innis saw the existence of the public sphere (dependent on an oral tradition of public discourse) as a necessary counterweight to printing (Carey, p. 165). I thought the mention of Nerone?s concept of moving the debate of the public sphere away from access to representation provided another interesting viewpoint when trying to understand a media that creates and both inhibits a public sphere. Packer & Robertson (2006) explain that Nerone ?argues that ?sad histories? about the decline of participation and the rise of spectacle need to be rethought ?merely? as changes in an ongoing system of representation (p. 8) since the ?public? has always been mediated the people and the public is always represented. I hope we can discuss this idea more in class.

And again, I thought the idea of a resistant strategy against surveillance was another relevant topic in regards to our 701 class. Dawn mentioned in 702 something about the CRD 701 blog popping up with Google searches (I can?t remember exactly what she said but the word ?beware? was involved). The idea of surveillance has come up quite often in our class discussion but it never really seems to concern any of us. We continue to post publicly to the class blog and many in the class not only participate in Facebook, personal blogs, but promote /sell the importance of them. I?ve had students say to me, how can you be a serious communication student and not be very active (not only a member) on Facebook? If we feel like our discipline consistently supports networked systems how can we ?have the capacities to become non-active members? (p.396)? These might not be the technologies Packer was specifically referring to but I think there is a strong connection. Critiquing a network power may not only be seen as threatening from a terror perspective but also as an attack against our own discipline (even though our discipline also spends much time illustrating how these technologies do control us).

Posted at 01:29PM Nov 07, 2007 by klnorris in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 11 - Karla

Hi all.  I will try to keep this entry from becoming too lengthy and unwieldy, focusing on just a few of the points/quotes that were particularly significant to me.

In "The Bias of Communication" Innis traces development of communication technology across geography and time.  As he states, "The relative emphasis on time or space will imply a bias of significance to the culture in which it is imbedded? (33).  Innis demonstrates through his research how various cultures throughout history used means of communication to confront issues of either space or time, depending upon factors such as politics or economics to determine which necessitated greater attention.  Are the current methods of communication in the U.S. more focused on space or time?  Obviously, the country is part of a global network community that exchanges information and ideas on a regular basis, and, therefore, bridges the spatial gap (at least to an extent).  However, the quick pace at which everyday life moves requires communication that can link people together despite temporal distances.  Is there a greater balance on the emphasis of time and space now, or can we still see a leaning toward one more so than the other?

Innis later writes, ?We can perhaps assume that the use of a medium of communication over a long period will to some extent determine the character of knowledge to be communicated and suggest that its pervasive influence will eventually create a civilization in which life and flexibility will become exceedingly difficult to maintain and that the advantages of a new medium will become such as to lead to the emergence of a new civilization? (34).  The amount of time required to be considered "a long period" presumably extends beyond a couple/few decades, but assuming that online communication continues/increases far into the future, how may we expect it to affect "the character of knowledge to be communicated"?  What signs do we see now (if we see any) of how online communication is shaping information and what such changes may indicate for the information we later value and the ways in which we value it?

Carey asserts in "Space, Time, and Communications:  A Tribute to Harold Innis," ?Even if society were like an organism, there would be some controlling element, some centralized brain in the body, some region and group that would collect the power necessary to direct the nerves of communication and the arteries of transportation.  There would be no transformation of the great society into the great community by way of disinterested technology but only in terms of the ways in which knowledge and culture were monopolized by particular groups? (152).  We have discussed power dynamics a lot throughout the semester, and I like that Carey inserts "[e]ven if" in his reference to society as an "organism" because the interest in conceiving of society in such a way seems, at least in part, driven by a desire to emphasize the interconnectedness of different groups and how individuals work together.  Nevertheless, as Carey suggests, despite cooperation, there is still some "centralized brain" that directs the other constitutive parts and that, in this way, exerts control over the others, as it may determine the means and access to the means available.

Building on the power implications, Carey later writes, "In granting freedom of the press, the Constitution sacrificed, despite the qualifying clause, the right of people to speak to one another and to inform themselves.  For such rights the Constitution substituted the more abstract right to be spoken to and to be informed by others, especially specialist, professional classes" (163).  Further, "even though literacy can give rise to a form of democracy, it also makes impossible demands.  Literacy produces instability and inconsistency because the written tradition is participated in so unevenly" (164).  Innis believed in an oral culture that enabled a greater sense of democracy, as the oral tradition "could not be easily monopolized" (166).  An oral culture may perhaps be better able to ward off the compulsion of people to "become 'consumers' of communication as they become consumers of everything else" (169).  There would still be the problem of some being better speakers than others, however, whether due to having more knowledge of a specific subject or more eloquence when speaking, and, as a result, perhaps having greater value as communicators than others. 

In their introduction, Packer and Robertson state, "Carey, a Deweyan, writing against the dominance of a transmission model, refuses to detach community from face-to-face interaction; whatever the scale, democracy depends on the foundations of group life" (7-8).  Because so much interaction/communication has shifted to forms other than face-to-face, and the groups of people who interact through those means (such as by online chat or audio) are arguably communities, do we modify our understanding of community as a result of the changes in communication or do we do so to open up the way for those advancements in communication?  Basically, do we grant "community" an elasticity because of a felt need to do so given that much communication occurs through means other than f2f, allowing us to avoid seriously restricting how we conceive of community in a time when some people are only connected by the digital?  Or, do we privilege other reasons for modifying the way we perceive of community?

Referring to Packer's work, the introduction notes, "First, transportation has become increasingly dependent upon communications at the behest of safety and security.  Second, this linkage depends upon a conceptualization of how to use transportation and communications technologies to 'govern at a distance' - that is to ensure the smooth flow of power relations across increasingly vast distances through the exertion of as little direct action as possible" (6).  Packer's "Becoming Bombs:  Mobilizing Mobility in the War on Terror" of course speaks to this subject of "govern[ing] at a distance," as he writes, "Safety as a set of practices and a legitimizing discourse has been both a goal of biopolitics and a means for ensuring discipline and implementing a control society" (379). 

Packer later argues, "When life is not equally invested as a desired ends by state and citizen alike, life is no longer only that which must be groomed and cared for, but rather it becomes a constant and immanent threat which needs diffusing or extinguishing" (381).  The ability of individuals to become bombs and to use their means of mobility to threaten the lives of others contributes to the fear of movement and the effort to use transportation as a method of governance.  As Packer states, "It is not who is a threat, but what vehicular movement can be used to predict a threat" (392).  I think the issue of mobility is particularly interesting in terms of identifying the "other" and establishing an agenda of "us" against "them" in relation to international warfare.  If we look toward the "movement" rather than the "who" to anticipate future threats, how may this impact our creation of the "enemy"?  Packer comments, "The identity of the driver is of no consequence; traditional identity categories come not to matter, only movement" (392).  I am reminded here of comments I hear people sometimes make about suicide bombers and how those statements pertain more so to the use of mobility to harm others than necessarily to the perpetrators of the violence themselves (For example, claims a suicide bomber is cowardly for using a car to blow up others as opposed to walking up to someone and killing him/her with a gun).  There is still a judgment about the person who enacted the violence, but it becomes directly linked to the method used to kill, rather than purely a reflection on how that person is perceived for wanting to destroy another. 

On a not especially connected note to what I have been saying, the reference to the "driverless automobile" (385) is really striking given that there are now vehicles that park themselves, or at least that is how they are marketed.  However, the driver still assumes responsibility to an extent, such as by being responsible for mashing the accelerator or brake.  The push to remove the driver from the vehicle seems particularly interesting in light of discussion about VR attempting to remove the creator from the program, or even negating the necessity of physical embodiment in a virtual world.  The move to extract the physical/human body from the technology opens up much room for research, and with my own paper topic about online therapy I see this to be the case.  Material I have come across argues for or against disembodiment as helpful for therapeutic communication, and, of course, there were past computer programs that users became so attached to (even though the users realized they were speaking to computers) that they continued to communicate with them as though they were "real."  How necessary is physical presence to the technology and/or to communication? 

So, I did not manage to limit the length of this post too effectively . . .

Posted at 12:41PM Nov 07, 2007 by kmlyles in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 10--Jayna

I'll start of like Nick usually does--with a quote: ?We are entering an era of electronically extended bodies living at the intersection points of the physical and virtual worlds?? (Adams, p. 88). That one quote could perpetuate hours of conversation among us (perhaps it already has!).

And, I must include this ANALOGY?communication system: communicators :: place: inhabitants (Adams, p. 89) (yay!)

Adams ?nodes? and ?links? used to create topologies of communication can be likened to James Grunig?s public relations research on excellent communication. Grunig addresses the one-way, two-way asymmetrical, and two-way symmetrical views of communication.  Two-way symmetrical efforts are most effective and beneficial to the parties involved, according to his discoveries. (Grunig, Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management, 1992)  I was surprised that I didn?t see Grunig in the reference list of 1998 Adams piece, and would be curious to see if there are references in the 2005 book.  Symmetrical (using research to manage conflict and improve understanding) and Asymmetrical (using research to persuade) are used ?to describe the purpose of public relations as striving for balanced rather than unbalanced communication and effects? (Grunig, p. 287)  Later, Grunig says that the asymmetrical  should not be perceived as unethical or as an ineffective means to persuasion (p, 310).  However, it may not be the most direct route to persuasion either. 

The File Search, Computer Bulletin Board, and Computer Forum as described by Adams could be both persuasive and informational (except the file search, that would focus on the informational). The notion of designating topographical models (p. 91-93) for each of the social spaces is interesting perspective to me.  The sense of place, especially from a geographer?s perspective, is one that I?d not given any thought to before the last couple of weeks.  Adams puts it pretty directly, ??nodes can, and often do, move from location to location without affecting the topology of the ?virtual place,? and often cyberspace?s ?occupants? interact with no idea of each other?s locations?? (p. 98). To me, the social space diagrams are another variety of communication models, but emphasize the advantages to the interdisciplinary nature of communication. When we can take a look at our field?s natural topics from another perspective we can gain a great deal.

Similar to last week?s discussion, we see in Adams a recognition of priority on the visual sense, and adds an interesting comment, ??in everyday life, nearly all of what is apprehended in one sensory mode is taken to be real without resorting to other modes for verification? (p. 99).  He goes on to emphasize that we are even encouraged to only focus on a single sense at a time?I think of my research topic of typography here.  What we see provides us will all sorts of connotation, feeling, and even judgment. Type becomes part of that in cyberspace, as in many interfaces, type (and the words they create) is the visual we have to build our perceptions.  I also love the notion Adams brings about that in cyberspace we can be many different personalities, if you will, at once?but in physical space we can really only ?be? one at a time (p. 100). I?ve really got to put some more thought into linking the Castells and Latours pieces to Adams?s work that we examine this week. I pulled several quotes that I found to be food for thought, and I will share those merely as quotes in case others note the same ones and we can discuss in class. 

I?ll bring my others tomorrow, but here are a couple:

Latour mentions the necessity of physical place in order to contribute to the cyber-place??As for the computer user input, the cursor might flash forever without the user being there or knowing what to do?? (p. 272). Latour also recognizes the importance of delegation in our lives with nonhuman as will as the need for each other in communication with these two gems? Walls are nice, but the door is the miracle of technology. We delegate the door?s work to the hinge. (p. 258 & 259)
??humans, nonhumans, and even angels are never sufficient in themselves and because there is no one direction going from one type of delegation to the other?..? (p. 269)
Castells stresses the importance of technology?s role in communication as well as the link between technology and power??Economies throughout the world have become globally interdependent?new relationship between economy, state, and society, in a system of variable geometry? (p. 1).  ?Environmental consciousness has permeated down to the institutions of society? won political appeal, at the price of being belied and manipulated in the daily practice of corporations and bureaucracies? (p. 3).  And of course, ??technology expresses the ability of a society to propel itself into technological mastery through the institutions of society, including the state? (p. 13).  I look forward to our discussion and teleconference, and will have a few questions prepared.

Posted at 06:12PM Oct 31, 2007 by jrjackso in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 10 - Kelly

I?m going to use the blog to discuss thoughts on my research topic because it has changed this week ? I hope some of my thoughts will still be relevant for the rest of the class. Currently, I hope to examine the visual culture of virtual environments (Second Life, There and IMVU) with a focus on the visual nature of the 3D avatars within those environments. I felt like this week?s readings seemed to support why it is important to look separately at the visual elements of virtual environments?largely because people are learning to ?accept as ?real? much that is apprehended through only a single sensory mod? (Adams, 1998, p. 100). In the case of the casually immersive environments this is the sense of vision. Actually, Adams (1998) also points out that it is not only in virtual worlds where sight is the preferred sense. He explains using examples, ?A modern supermarket reveals another realm in which sight has been given priority over the other senses? (p. 100) and, ?modern suburbs are essentially odorless, flavorless, and textureless compared to the residential environments of most human history? (p. 100).

In a sense, avatars are similar to the nonhumans described by Latour. They are representations of a virtual self but they are used for tasks like machines. Latour illustrates through metaphor, ?He/she [the avatars] will fully play the administrative machinery (p. 270) ?Machines are lieutenants; they hold the places of the roles delegated to them? (1995, p. 275). Avatars are symbolic representations and I believe that trends arise in the visual appearance of the avatar. Castells (1996) writes, ?Symbolic communication between humans, and the relationship between humans and nature, on the basis of production (with its complement, consumption), experience, and power, crystallize over history in specific territories, thus generating cultures and collective identities (p. 15).  I think as symbolic representations, avatars contribute to collective identities over time. I think influence from the actual world generates visual aspects of an avatar and I think it is possible an avatar can be ?carried into ?real-world? contexts?. Adams (2005) cites Gerbner (2002) ?Bits of identity picked up in virtual context such as television and video games adhere to the self and are carried into ?real-world? contexts, where people externalize what they have previously internalized?. A really interesting study on the use of avatars found that ?anthropomorphic avatars were perceived to be more attractive and credible, and people were more likely to choose to be represented by them. Participants reported masculine avatars as less attractive than feminine avatars, and most people reported a preference for human avatars that matched their gender? (Nowak & Rauh, 2006, p. 153). The implications from this study that if given a choice people often choose avatars that are similar to their actual appearance. Perhaps this indicates people hope their avatar is more like an extension of their self as opposed to a fantasy?

Adams (1998) also explains that ?the costumes in cyberspace are constructed of words, and therefore are created during, rather than before, the moment of interaction? (p. 101). This would not be the case when using avatars. If someone chooses how he/she is visually represented prior interaction does that tell an audience anything about the person? Even if the avatar is similar to the actual appearance of the person communicating there are certain choices that have been made about the person is represented visually that indicate of how he/she wants to be represented. I think ?costume? is a great word to describe how a person represents him/herself online. In the case of the casual immersive worlds I think the avatar is an important piece of this costume.

The idea that computer networks ?desexualize the body and replace it with a disembodied gaze? (Adams, 1998, p. 101) is an idea presented by both Adams and Hillis (1999). This seems important in regards to the avatar because, visually, avatars within adult virtual environments are very sexualized. The boundary between male and female is one border that remains heavily guarded despite new technologized ways to rewrite the physical body in the flesh?? (Balsamo, 1995, p. 217). If anything, instead of disappearing, the distinction between feminine and masculine appears to be exaggerated in cyberspace (Biocca & Nowak, 2002). Adams also references Haraway?s ?Cyborg Manifesto? and I think it is relevant to the discussion the avatar that she states in the manifesto, ?technologies of visualization recall the important cultural practice of hunting with the camera and the deeply predatory nature of a photographic consciousness. Sex, sexuality and reproduction are central actors in high-tech myth systems structuring our imaginations of personal and social possibility (p.169). I am not making an argument that avatars are sexist, as Adams (2005) points out ?to dismiss all discussions of disembodied (or embodied) agency as sexist does not serve any symbolic or strategic purpose? (p. 14). I think the addition of the 3D avatars in the virtual environments might alter a ?disembodied gaze? or their addition could at least be discussed.

Oh, and ditto Karla ? Happy Halloween!

Posted at 03:51PM Oct 31, 2007 by klnorris in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 10 - Kathy

Castells (1996) quotes paleontologist Stephen J. Gould as saying that "the history of life... is a series of stable states, punctuated at rare intervals by major events that occur with great rapidity and help to establish the next stable era" (p. 29). Castells discusses the importance of electronic networks in the second Industrial Revolution, in that these networks were necessary for forms that followed, such as telegraph, telephone, and broadcasting. As our world becomes more and more networked, it seems that the electric networks, combined with fiber optic lines, Wi-Fi, and other new technologies, are a major indicator that we are moving into a new phase of the Information revolution - high capacity networks seem (at least for now) to be key to enabling further technological, economic, and cultural developments. We need to understand these networks and the impact that their use and development has on our societies and our lives.

If virtual place has implications for "cognitive, aesthetic, and moral space" (Adams, 1998, p.102), then it is important to look at how these places are constructed through networks and the way that we interact in these places. In Network Topologies and Virtual Place, Adams' topological diagrams of social space and the place archetypes (discussed on p. 92-93) were interesting for me to think about in the context of large networks. After reading that there are 4096 different network patterns when connecting a mere four nodes, I cannot even fathom what a topology of any particular moment of the internet as a whole might look like. This approach to virtual networks might be an interesting way to understand the differences between neutral internet structures and the proposed tiered service models - perhaps a visualization could help think about the ways that these network structures would construct different kinds of social space. Would these topologies still be workable on such a scale?

Adams also writes that "a topological similarity between a place and an electronic communication situation strongly suggests (but does not dictate) a similarity of social structure" (p. 98). What place does a topology of the current "neutral network" look like? What about tiered-service? Would "upgrading" to a tiered model be like knocking down a public library to build a book store? Are we in the midst of witnessing a democratic place become a consumer place?

Switching gears a bit, this week?s reading had me thinking also about the concept of non-humans as actors. After reading The Sociology of the Door Closer this week, I am trying to reconcile the ways that Latour talks about translation and delegation of work to machines and objects with Adams' view that only humans can be actors. Latour further explains the role of non-humans as actors in Reassembling the Social (2005). Actor network theory, which sees sociology as being more useful as a "tracing of associations" rather than a "science of the social" (2005, p. 5), stresses "the specific role granted to non-humans. They have to be actors and not simply the hapless bearers of symbolic projection" (p.10). This seems opposed to Adams' view in The Boundless Self (2005), where he writes that "agency is clearly a part of being human; technologies do not act of their own accord. They may function in society as "congealed ideology"... it makes little sense to attribute agency (the ability to act) to communication technologies" (p. 7-8). I would really like to discuss these opposing views more in class Thursday - of course, right now I feel strongly both ways.

See you all then - and Happy Halloween!

Posted at 03:35PM Oct 31, 2007 by kfoswald in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 10 - Karla

Happy Halloween all! 

Adams writes in "Network Topologies and Virtual Place," "If, as structurationists argue, place is process (Pred 1984b), then process can also be place; the implication of this processual similarity is that place indicates a process that might be divorced from material structure and location" (94).  He further comments that "communication topology can be detached from physical structure of place, yet remain tied to the concept of that place" (94).  Given the increase in use of online environments and tools for communication, these assertions seem particularly relevant, especially when one attempts to understand the geography of computer-mediated communication.  Adams mentions how names can reflect function (such as "round table") and locations (such as a town hall or bedroom) can suggest the kinds of communication that customarily occur in those surroundings.  As he notes, in terms of the places themselves, they are "physically designed and socially designated" to suport the types of communication that occur in them (94).  How does this translate for online environments, such as Second Life, which incorporate representations of real-life places, such as houses, bedrooms, etc.?  Does the anonymity of users help to break down barriers about what kinds of communication typically occur where?  If so, does this effect help to reshape our notions somewhat about what types of communication we engage in within the real-life places, or do we make such a sharp distinction between online and actual that the former does not carry over so much to the latter? 

According to Adams (again in "Network"), "[I]n the distanciated world, distress is often hidden by distance, and actions are easily divorced from their consequences in the minds of actors" (95).  When I read this statement, I thought about my own research project involving online therapy and how distance/lack of physical presence affects communication between patient and practitioner.  Of course, there are some differences between comparing etherapy to virtual worlds in which users' actual identities can be essentially completely disguised and, as a result, the fear of sanctions for their behaviors decreases.  Nevertheless, I found it striking that, as Adams indicates, "[o]ne consequence of modernization is that place, as a moral force, has dwindled in power" (95).  He mentions that when "[p]lace had a strong moral influence in regard to one's personal actions . . . if one broke the rules of social conduct, the local community bore witness and would pass judgment" (95).  Can we interpret the punishment (which can range from castigations to banishment) of those who inappropriately use online forums as comparable to the judgment from the local community Adams mentions?  How important is "embodied" judgment to maintaining the influence of place on moral behavior? 

On a final note from "Network," Adams states, "Something experienced through all of the senses acquires a greater quality of realism than something sensed only through one sensory mode" (99).  He later follows this claim with the assertion that "[i]f the experience of physical landscapes seldom involves more than one or two sensory modes, it hardly makes sense to hold computers (or other media) to a standard of reality that is multisensory" (100).  Adams gives as an example of walking into a dark room, smelling gas, and concluding there is a gas leakage without turning on the light for confirmation, as an actual physical situation in which individuals are willing to depend on one sense to reach decisions.  In contrast, virtual reality depends primarily on sight (of course), privileging that sense over the others.  Do we privilege embodiment so that we are willing in actual physical situations to depend on one sense to reach conclusions but are critical of VR for not being as multi-sensory as we would like?  Because I am within the physical space and know it to be real, even if I can only use one sense to determine the circumstances of that situation, does that make it more acceptable for me to critique VR because it does not provide me with the multi-sensory environment I want?  Although graphics have improved, does the fact I realize those visuals in VR are not completely life-like contribute to my willingness to be critical because the one sense I must rely on in that environment seems lacking?

Adams' claims in "The World of the Extensible Self" regarding uncertainty and miscommunication were especially interesting to me in light of my research focus.  As he states, "Uncertainty is always involved in communication's linkages through space-time" (3).  Further, "The ability to communicate at a distance supports the coordination of activities over great distances and hence aids the control of many risks, yet the risk of miscommunication becomes progressively greater as communications spread out in space, multiply, and engage with unfamiliar social contexts" (10).  Do we simply accept this increase in potential for miscommunication as the trade-off for being able to bridge gaps in space and time?  Although we may attempt to use certain methods to reduce the likelihood of miscommunication, such as emoticons, for example, do not these means present their own complications (how do I know my interpretation of that facial expression is the same as yours?)?  Of course, in an actual physical place I could make an expression that you do not understand, but presumably you could ask me what I was feeling or thinking for clarification.

The issue of power arises both in Adam's "World" and Castells' pieces.  As Adams mentions, access is one factor of the power struggle, as there are some who have access to technologies and others who do not (or on a more limited basis).  Castells writes in "The Information Technology Revolution," "Differential timing in access to the power of technology for people, countries, and regions is a critical source of inequality in our society" (34).  Further, "elites learn by doing, thereby modifying the applications of technology, while most people learn by using, thus remaining within the constraints of the packaging of technology" (37).  Although the Internet may be perceived as a wonderful means by which to achieve a greater sense of democracy and break down some power barriers, do we view most Internet users as just that (users), rather than as the elites who are "doers"?  If so, how does this impact our conception of the Internet?

Castells discusses the role of governments in shaping technology in his "Prologue:  The Net and the Self," stating, "[O]n the one hand, the state can be, and has been in history, in China and elsewhere, a leading force of technological innovation; on the other hand, precisely because of this, when the state reverses its interest in technological development, or becomes unable to perform it under new conditions, a statist model of innovation leads to stagnation, because of the sterilization of society's autonomous innovative energy to create and apply technology" (10).  The influence of the state on technology becomes of great concern when one considers Castells' earlier claim, "Indeed, the ability or inability of societies to master technology, and particularly technologies that are strategically decisive in each historical period, largely shapes their destiny, to the point where we could say that while technology per se does not determine historical evolution and social change, technology (or the lack of it) embodies the capacity of societies to transform themselves, as well as the uses to which societies, always in a conflictive process, decide to put their technological potential" (7).  Although the desire for governments to take  more of a "hands-off" approach toward technology is validated to an extent, how uninvolved in the technology do we want governments to be?  How do we weigh the advantages/disadvantages of government interference versus absence?

*You may have noticed I did not discuss Latour yet.  I enjoyed his "Mixing Humans and Non-Humans:  The Sociology of the Door Closer," but did not quite find a way to weave it in with the above comments on the other pieces.  One of his claims, in particular, stuck with me, so I will mention it briefly:  "The bizarre idea that society might be made up of human relations is a mirror image of the other no less bizarre idea that techniques might be made up of nonhuman relations" (273).  I found it interesting Latour considers the non-human in a sociological way and how doing so affects our understanding of what sociology/social studies means.  Maybe this will come up in class tomorrow.

Posted at 12:49PM Oct 31, 2007 by kmlyles in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 9-Jayna, Really

Dr. Hillis?I am excited that you will be joining us for class Thursday.

The correlation between power and technology, again and again, this is a recurring point made by authors each week.  Hillis addresses the military?s use of VR over the past few decades in helping to develop and test weapons before manufacture. Like most readily available (to the public) technologies, and even some medicines/vaccines, VR has stemmed from research and development done for and by our nation?s military.  What an advantage?and what an example of our ongoing quest for more power as a World Power. I?m interested to learn from Dr. Hillis how the past few years would alter the book if he were to write an addendum. 

Certainly, we?ve seen greater availability of VR/VE, and it has even expanded beyond the gaming industry.  Just Monday, one of our CRDM contemporaries shared that her company now has conference rooms set up in an on-line virtual world, where meeting attendees can be present as their avatar?or virtually created self, in a room that is not a ?real? space, but a virtual one.  And even as I was reading this I was thinking?but how can we take advantage of VE beyond gaming, how can I, as a corporate professional, make use of this technology to make my staff and achieving our objectives more efficient?? I still don?t know the answer to this, but it does make me think about the direction instructional technology has taken and will continue to take.

 
Pardon the leap here, but there are programs where on-line classes can happen in real-time (Captivate is the one I was trained to use), with lecturing professors and students who ?raise their hand? to ask questions and make comments.  Professors can respond in real time and alter the message to the needs of the students and even use a white-board for all to see, maneuvering between Powerpoint and the board.  After Heidi (I think it was Heidi) mentioned the capabilities IBM is taking advantage of, I thought I would check JMU?s web-site to see if the Center of Instructional Technology had started to educate faculty on the potential uses for virtual worlds. This is what I found:
CFI-CIT Workshop: Come Get a Second Life!
Register now for the 3-part hands-on workshop series on Second Life!
This workshop hosted by the Center for Instructional Technology (CIT) and the Center for Faculty Innovation (CFI) will be facilitated by 2006-2007 Madison Teaching Fellows (Tim Ball, Communication Studies; Suzie Baker, Psychology; Susan Kruck, College of Business & Center for Faculty Innovation; Michael Quinn, College of Business; Sarah Cheverton, Center for Instructional Technology; & Christie Liu, Center for Instructional Technology).
Effective teaching in the 21st century increasingly requires creating advanced technology in designing instruction. Forms of computer mediated education can be inadequate and cumbersome as they are mostly asynchronous and text-based. New platforms like Second Life (SL) allow ?face-to-face? interaction in a virtual space. In addition, SL fosters student and faculty creativity because it allows users almost unlimited potential to create virtual spaces and objects that can be used in teaching and learning.
By participating in our three-part workshop you will get your Second Life avatar and learn to communicate, move (teleport), create landmarks, manage friends, join groups and modify your appearance! We will also spend some time demonstrating various educational resources and visiting some fun places in SL.

Now, aren?t you all ready to sign up?? Tim Ball was a colleague of mine in the department at JMU, and I?m fascinated to hear how he?s using this in the department?s public speaking sections.  I have my own ideas? I know the VR/VE technology has been coming for a WHILE, but like the development of anything, it seems as though it?s progress and uses now has made strides on an exponential level in the last three years (?, 5 years? What do you think?).

I won?t address it now, but I?m also interested in the comparison of VR to an acceptance of schizophrenia (p. xl); I hope we get to address this more in class.  I?ve also been thinking about my paper and how fonts/typography play a role in the virtual world.  Avatars have to write sometimes, don?t they? Perhaps the font chosen by a user is determined by the individual?s personality?

Posted at 07:12PM Oct 24, 2007 by jrjackso in General  |  Comments[0]

dawn--week 9 blog

(I should probably mention that I am using a different version of the Baudrillard text, so the pagination will be different.)

This week's readings allow me to continue to talk about the identity and self in terms of the space between bodies.  My project topic is beginning reach something approaching actualization (finally), and it really is only tangentially related to embodiment.  But I find this idea interesting, and it seems to be a nice way to frame discussion of the relationship between the discrete private self (or selves, more accurately) and technologies.  So perhaps there is some there there.

Baudrillard (1994) addresses media and identity in his discussion of PBS's "An American Family."  He posits that we have moved from a model of persuasion to one of deterrence in which "'YOU are information, you are the social, you are the event, you are involved, you have the word, etc.' An about-face through which it becomes impossible to locate one instance of the model, of power, of the gaze, of the medium itself, because you are always already on the other side.  No more subject, no more focal point, no more center or periphery: pure flexion or circular flexion" (p., 29).  He goes on to point out that media are now "intangible, diffused, and diffracted in the real, and one can no longer say that the medium is altered by it" (p. 30).  
The discussion of identity and subjectivity (and agency) in "Spatial Materialism" (Wiley, 2005) also deals with these boundary issues, though not directly related to technology.  We are semi-autonomous assemblages and components of larger assemblages that "do not coincide with the biological boundaries of [our bodies] or the phenomenological boundaries of [our] perception and cognition" (p. 76).  And although we are always "concrete assemblage[s]" we remain "caught up in other assemblages" (77). 

In Hillis's (1999) introduction to Digital Sensations, I found the section "A Machine for Performance" especially meaningful for work on self and technology, and I think it ties together issues discussed in all of the readings.  I am not sure that I have completely understood the complex of VE, identity, and space discussed in this section, and I am going to try to work through it here.  In reference to the "fractured and multiple identities" we all take on, he writes, "Whether holiday makers or mothers, our bodies remain with us both as testimony to who we are and as a unifying dimension of ourselves within social polyvalency.  Not so in VEs, where users' bodies, if represented, are only components of simulated digital space and need not be tied to any representational public façade the self may employ" (p. xxxi). He goes on to point out that "one's self is constituted by and within the language community of which one is a part" and that this constitutive experience is becoming increasingly mediated, muddying the distinction between selves and technology: "Even as we experience increasing spatial segmentation among our human selves, the boundaries between the self and the technologies it uses to transcend this segmentation seem to begin to blur" (xxxiii).  But it seems, then, that if bodies function as useful physical fronts and may be recreated (remediated, perhaps?) or eliminated completely in VE, the boundary between self and other could also be destabilized, even erased, creating mass selves without discrete boundaries. 

Posted at 06:51PM Oct 24, 2007 by drshephe in General  |  Comments[1]

Week 9 - Kelly

I liked Hillis? discussion of escape. He points out that ?all too finite physical bodies are thought secondary to our minds and representational forms?a dynamic that is built in to virtual technologies? and then continues that ?all cultures facilitate this ?escape from the body and its needs and actions involving food, sex, and death.? I agree with this observation but I think it?s interesting how much of VE?s and games try to incorporate elements of the physical. A big part of the attraction to the Wii is extension of physical movement, death is maybe the most prevalent theme in games and we?ve mentioned before in class how people?s sexual persona is amplified in Second Life. The recent popularity of Larping is also interesting in this discussion. Since there is no audience the participants act out their fictional characters for their own enjoyment. What prompted this move from online role playing to physical meetings? Maybe this wish for a physical setting is partly because of a dissatisfaction with the way these worlds have been engineered. Like Hillis? discussion of the ARL world composed of ?light and almost entirely reliant on vision? (xxvi). The VE?s seem to neglect the other senses like with the ?aural icons? and the ?deauralization of space? (p. xxii). After our discussion on Ong, this kind of setting doesn?t seem very naturally attractive.

These cases and the cases presented throughout the all the readings provided great support for the Baudrillard simulacra discussion. This article really broadened my view of what can be considered a simulation?really most of postmodern culture. It?s interesting how he keeps referring to the ?death? of the real when Hillis mentions that this is part of the physical world we wish to escape. According to Baudrillard we not only escape the real world we kill it through simulation. His argument that simulations actually precede the real seemed hard to grasp at first but after reading his examples it isn?t hard to come up with others (actually quite easy). There are more discrete instances but the other day I drove a friend home and she mentioned that he neighbor ?didn?t have a job?. He pays his bills by playing online games and then selling his virtual money on ebay for ?real? money. He succeeded at completely escaping and the outside world was dead to him.

Another topic I hope we can discuss in class is the idea of the self in relation to the virtual environments. Wiley?s last theoretical challenge is for a ?more nuanced approach to the definition of the public, the private, and the self and to the politics of their articulation? (p. 86).  Hillis points out that the sense of self ?may in part be gained from the use of such electronically mediated technologies? and that ?the boundaries between the self and the technologies it uses to transcend this segmentation [among our human selves] begin to blur? (p. xxxiii). If our self is constituted by our ?language community? of which we are a part does this mean that the technology itself is part of that community? I think it is interesting in the maps we drew last week a lot of us included pictures of some kind of technology to describe the places that are important to us. Our maps seemed to represent the identity of our social space and by including a television (like I did) does that mean that technology helps compose my self? Beaudrillard and Hillis say that the distinction between the technology and our selves is blurred but I have to think about that more. At first I would argue that my identity is composed of the human interaction I receive through the technologies but then I guess how the interaction is mediated changes the information and in turn constitutes a different self.

Posted at 06:31PM Oct 24, 2007 by klnorris in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 9 - Christin

Hillis writes ?If an escapist movement in real space toward an unpopulated and virgin promised land is now problematic or unavailable, for many, seeking out and creating ?information superhighways? that permit ?migration? to new ?electronic frontiers? offers an imaginative and apparently compelling utopian alternative to physically going ?on the road.?? (xvi-xvii)  Virtual reality, then, is allowing this innate human curiosity and desire for exploration to occur.  If we don?t have a physical ?real-world? space to go exploring, we?ll just create one in a virtual reality ? we?re no longer limited by the size of the planet.  But while we?re creating it, we?re going to do so and create a reality in the way we wish we could with our own physical realities.  Kind of defeats the purpose of exploration, don?t you think?

But do we really care about the idealized exploration that we hear about with Columbus and Louis and Clark?  Maybe we?re more concerned with exploring a morphed reality so as to recognize what?s wrong with the one we already have?  Hillis later writes that ?Cyberspace not only suggests that an ideal existence is one that is technologically mediated; it also continues and intensifies a longstanding project to alter, via the use of technology, subjectivity and the meaning of what it is to be human.? (xvii)  Technology allows us to repair, so to speak, a reality burdened by humanity.  Reality is in the eye of the beholder but directly affected by those around us, so if we don?t like our reality, as opposed to removing the people we don?t like (now that?s a scary thought!) we can use technology to fix it.  Bolter and Grusin describe how ?the advocates of ubiquitous computing express grandiloquently the implied goal of all advocates and practitioners of digital media: to reimagine and therefore to reform the world as a mediated (and remediated) space.?

In light of Baudrillard?s comparison of simulation and representation, then, we could argue that a virtual environment is not a representation of reality but a simulation.  According to Baudrillard, representation begins with the idea that ?the sign and the real are equivalent? whereas ?simulation starts from the utopia of this principle of equivalence, from the radical negation of the sign as value?. (11)  So then, I wonder, if a virtual world, like cyberspace, is truly a simulation of our own reality, why do we believe crimes to be committed online?  If the world is a simulation, wouldn?t the crimes committed within said simulation be a simulated crime?  I don?t think so, but would that mean that I would have to argue that a representation can maybe exist inside a simulation?  Baudrillard says that ?represenentation tries to absorb simulation by interpreting it as false representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation as itself a simulacrum.? (11)

Ok my brain hurts ? to reference Karla, tough week of readings!

Posted at 05:19PM Oct 24, 2007 by caphelps in General  |  Comments[1]

Week9--Jayna, almost

AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!! I?ve just spent two days trying to get a couple of new Food Lions to a training class they need immediately through a person who is still learning her job?. So here it is rapidly approaching 5 pm, and my post is, well?coming up as fast as I can muster.

If only I could use a net meeting with her so she could see my PC and how our processes work, perhaps that would have helped.  It is the most accessible example of HMD (although not technically an HMD, since she/I would be maneuvering with a mouse and not a head mount) I can think of that would have been good assistance. The topic of Virtual Reality and how it alters communication is fascinating to me.  I will post more soon, but I wanted to post this before five so you all would know there is more to follow as quickly as I can (this issue I?ve been dealing with still rages on, so interruption will determine how quickly I?m back).

Posted at 04:55PM Oct 24, 2007 by jrjackso in General  |  Comments[4]

Week 9 - Nick

Virtual reality...the (next to) final frontier...these are the--

Wait.  That's the second Start Trek reference I've made, and I haven't even watched the show in years.  I should stop now.  But seriously, this concept that Hillis mentioned really stuck with me.  I have thought much in the past about how our conceptions of the world must be completely different from generations before when there was still territory to explore, some place that humanity has not seen (or humanity as one knows it).  The depths of the ocean still seem to offer some mystery, but that's about it considering outter space (that seems to be a loaded term after this week's readings...hmm) is still well beyond our reach.  I had not considered VR to be a frontier proper, and yet it really is.  We pour more energy into relentlessly improving computer technology than we do anything else including the space program, and the spaces that we create inside our screens have come to define us. 

However, is this newest frontier a simalcra as Baudrillard concieves of it?  Something that struck me about Baudrillard is that he really made a case for the simalcra becoming the real (if I understand him correctly) by producing all of the same side effects of the real and having nothing behind it.  To my mind, if that is the case is it even still a simalcra?  If there is nothing behind a simalcra and it produces the same effects as what it 'imitates' (if indeed it imitates anything), then it is the 'real'.  When does what is 'virtual' reality become reality?  I stare at the screen and realize that it stares back at me.  There is nothing behind it.  This is my world.  Or is it?  Is my virtual experience better than the real, or does it completely supplant it?  Is a virtual tourist any less of a tourist?

Bolter and Grusin consider that the idea that the purpose of the medium of VR is to disappear.  They actually go beyond VR and into certain types of painting as well.  To me, this is an interesting concept.  All technology seems to fade into the background at some point and it all shapes our reality.  Yet we will have a special relationship with VR should it become mainstream as it shapes our reality by radically shifting it.  Right now, we know what is behind VR but will we always?  I think of such dystopic movies as the Matrix.  There was something behind the simulcrum there, but most did not know it.  What would it mean if VR became, for all intents and purposes, just 'R'?  It is the old brain in the vat question, I suppose.

Posted at 03:52PM Oct 24, 2007 by nmtemple in General  |  Comments[4]

Week 9 - Karla

Hi all.  I think we can agree that the readings for this week were challenging, and I admit that I struggled through some of the pieces.  In this post I will try to pinpoint some passages I found particularly interesting, acknowledging now that there is much I will not be able to cover here.

First, I really enjoyed the Bolter and Grusin chapters because of their commentary on issues of representation, reality, and presence.  As Bolter and Grusin explain, the aim "of virtual reality is to foster in the viewer a sense of presence:  the viewer should forget that she is in fact wearing a computer interface and accept the graphic image that it offers as her own visual world" (22).  They identify VR as "immersive" in terms of being a "medium whose purpose is to disappear" (21) and as attempting to encourage presence by "[coming] as close as possible to our daily visual experience" (22).  Given the use of HMDs in VR, the notion of complete immersion appears unrealistic, though it does seem plausible that users can become so engrossed by the seeming reality produced by the images in the VE to at least temporarily ignore that they are participating in a simulation.  I wonder if, and this pertains to Hillis' writing, the militaristic base of VR helps to contribute to the possibility of "immersion"?  Specifically, I am referring to VEs that draw upon conflict situations, such as the one Hillis describes with the soldiers, in which users can be "terminated", creating a sort of life-and-death situation.  Although users realize they will not actually die if they are "killed" in the VE, in the moments in which their "lives" are threatened it appears easy for users to at least briefly identify themselves with their "characters" to the point of temporarily suspending reality (video games can create this same effect, as players will vigorously grapple with controls to "save their lives" and claim "they have been shot" rather than "their characters have been shot").  VR perhaps offers a stronger sense of this due to the fact users are "immersed" rather than "existing" only outside of the game.

Drawing upon Hillis again in relation to Bolter and Grubin's discussion of VR, I found it interesting that a character in the VE Hillis describes steps in before the user can encounter part of the environment (a tree?) more closely, distracting the user from his/her goal of coming in closer contact with his/her surroundings.  Is the use of such a distraction perhaps the result of wanting to inhibit users from more closely examining the VE, thereby preventing them (as much as possible) in a way from focusing on the "unreality" of the VE?  As Hillis comments, VR "privileges sight, and other senses play a subordinate role to it" (xxii).  Of course, it seems that VR would have to depend more heavily upon sight than the other senses given the "nature" of it, but is this also the case because it is easier to recreate something visually than in terms of other senses?  "Real" sounds can be recorded and added to the VE, but presumably images that represent the sources of those sounds will still be necessary, otherwise users are just surrounded by creepy atmospheres in which they hear lots of noises but have no visuals to which to track the sounds.  Wandering around in the dark provides a real life comparison for VR users who mostly hear sounds from their environments but lack visuals to accompany the sounds, but most of us do not move around in the dark most of the time (so privileging sound over the visual would perhaps lessen the attempt to make the medium disappear in favor of immersion).  As for the sense of touch, although VEs can allow users to actively participate in their surroundings (picking up objects, for example), how do users understand the textures of their surroundings?    I think of AR Facade at this point and how the user can pat one of the characters on the shoulder to offer support, but can that user "feel" what it is like to actually touch the shoulder?  Does the user have a sense of the flesh that he/she would feel if he/she were actually touching a person's shoulder?  Or of the fabric of the sweater the character is wearing?  To my knowledge, the user lacks such notions of touch.  Admittedly, I am not really "up" on VR technology, so perhaps advancements have been or are in the process of being made to enable users a greater sense of touch in VEs. 

On a final note about Bolter and Grusin's work, which will transition readily into Baudrillard's writing, the discussion of reality is particularly interesting in terms of how individuals and media establish reality.  Bolter and Grusin state, "Instead, the real is defined in terms of the viewer's experience; it is that which would evoke an immediate (and therefore authentic) emotional response" (53).  They follow this claim with the argument "all mediations are themselves real . . . as artifacts (but not as autonomous agents) in our mediated culture" (56).  According to Baudrillard, "Whereas representation tries to absorb simulation by interpreting it as false representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation as itself a simulacrum" (11).  Baudrillard indicates the attempt to define according to opposites, such as "the real by the imaginary" (36).  In relation to VR, it seems striking to criticize "limitations" of VEs with respect to how "unrealistic" surroundings can be, as though we identify (at least to an extent) what VR is according to what it is not.  Are such criticisms the result of the terminology we use (the use of "reality" coupled with virtual in a way that associates such reality with our "real" reality), a need to seek out and establish the real wherever we can, etc.?  I like the example Baudrillard uses of Disneyland with respect to the real, as he asserts, "Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation" (25).  If "it is now impossible to isolate the process of the real, or to prove the real" (41), why is there a preoccupation with the real?  Does the real necessarily carry some truth value greater than the non-real?  Why do we create non-real environments, but then try to recreate them in various realistic ways?

Finally, in his discussion of body and assemblage, Wiley writes, "Spinoza says that my body enters into relations of movement and rest with other bodies such that, together, we compose a new body . . . 'what we identify as a body is merely a temporarily stable relationship'" (76).  He later states, "A biological individual is a concrete assemblage with a certain degree of coherence and autonomy in relation to its contexts, so there is individual human agency, among many other kinds of agency, but the individual is always caught up in other assemblages (with tools, with other individuals, with the market, with ideologies and bureaucracies, etc.)" (77).  Wiley later addresses the subject of the other, referring to Grossberg (who drew from Deleuze and Guattari), commenting, "While identity theorists define 'the other' within an economy of difference -- that is, as what the self is not, cultural studies should see others as 'fragments' in their own positivity, 'without having recourse to any sort of original totality'" (79).  Connecting to Hillis' introduction, Hillis notes, "The ability of VEs to destabilize identity formations has clear implications for what we mean by community, city, and public life" (xix).  He states further, "The self can never be completely articulated, in part because one is never a self on one's own; however, one's self is constituted by and within the language community of which one is a part" (xxxii).  The issue of identity construction, especially in terms of online or VEs, appears to be a substantial topic of conversation now, and I think it is interesting to consider how identity formation in VEs responds to otherness.  For example, communities such as Second Life demonstrate a range of identities in terms of the avatars people use, and I wonder how "[t]he ability of VEs to destabilize identity formations" impacts how otherness is perceived in VEs. 

Given the current length of this post, I will just include a couple of ideas here at the end that I was unable to mention above.  First, Hillis mentions that "virtual reality" is sometimes used interchangeably with "cyberspace", and I am curious as to whether this is problematic?  The conversation in CRD 702 yesterday about terminology ("persuasion" versus "argumentation", for example) is partially responsible for that question.  Second, Hillis writes, "Within virtual environments, pleasure and surveillance are in an as yet underacknowledged dialectical, and not oppositional, relationship" (xxxviii).  Personally, I would like to hear a bit more about this.

*Because I am focusing my project essentially on how online therapy establishes presence and employs distance between counselor and patient advantageously for communication, the discussion of presence in this week's readings was of particular interest to me.  The lack of face-to-face communication in online therapy raises concerns regarding authenticity and the real, knowing whether a patient is telling the truth and whether the therapist is really there "listening."  One method of online therapy is VR, so it was helpful to read the pieces this week for their discussion of VEs as well.

Posted at 12:05PM Oct 24, 2007 by kmlyles in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 8 - Kelly

Except for the brief references to Carey?s discussion of the ritual view of communication and William?s writings on culture in communication, most of the ideas in the readings on space this week were pretty new to me. And I?m still trying to wrap my head around some of the assertions and vocabulary. Therefore my thoughts and blog post this week are short questions and observations.

Like many others who have posted in regards to the Myers article, I felt like I could relate to these concepts most easily. His personal explanation using the plumber and the conversations with the support group all seemed familiar?sometimes so familiar I would think, well of course we base our answers on place according to who we are talking to (and the various other factors he discusses). As stated in the relevance section, ?participants choose place formulations that seem to be relevant to what has been said?. I thought a really amusing part of the article was the one person in the 40 groups who gave an address in addition to a name and place. I read that and thought, who does that? ?even one person. If we had mentioned our specific addresses on the day we introduced each other at orientation that would have been bizarre?because it?s probably not relevant. What would we expect someone to do with that information unless they lived really close by or it was a well-known famous address? And then I started to wonder why should more attention be paid to place then any other introductory question that can have a variety of answers (the questions ?we want to get past? so we can discuss topics that interest us)? Meyers closing and then Falkheimer & Jansson?s article began to help me understand that the way I was looking at place was similar to the Geographic formulation discussion (building, pre-existing map) and not the relational, dwelling, paths presented by participants? (p. 340).

A concept I think I would like to discuss further (need more clarity here) is Jansson?s concept of texture. I think I understand the idea of space as ?communicative fullness? rather than a container or mere sign but I?m still having a hard time understanding the ?eroding boundaries between material and symbolic structures of space? or ?intersection of communicative/spatial praxis and the structural characteristics of space and place?. I want to talk about this more because the idea of describing an abstract spatial praxis as having ?texture? sounds incongruent. And can we talk more about ?informationalisation?? From what I gathered in the article this is a well-known word that I am unfamiliar.

Since the other posts have discussed Lefebvre?s concept space as ?organic and fluid and alive? I thought I would focus on the discussion of the festivals. I loved these ideas, what an exciting concept to think of cities as places to release repression and a means for ?free associative expression?.  I like this idea of rethinking a space and how a social space can completely transform a physical space. Maybe I was touched by his idea of ?human joyfulness? because I hear all the noises from the State fair outside my window (if any of you are going and need a place to park feel free to come to my house ? I won?t charge you $5-10 like my neighbors? maybe I would charge Nick).  ?Yikes?, was my first reaction to ?but then is there not always something cruel, wild and violent in festivals?? Maybe Lefebvre was talking about a different kind of festival (it wouldn?t be too far-fetched that he wasn?t referring to the NC State fair?) But most of the noises I hear from the fair are people insanely screaming from the rides, the booms of fireworks, gun-fire, sirens and the barking of neighborhood dogs from all the commotion.

Finally, I hope we can also talk Merrifield?s discussion about academic space. I feel like us first-year PhD candidates are all still kind of observers in this space but I think it?s interesting he says ?in our own daily practice, we deal more and more with abstract representations and codifications of society which are wrenched out of the lived experience of both ourselves and others outside the academy?. I?m curious how we should go about analyzing our own daily lives and spaces.

Posted at 09:34PM Oct 17, 2007 by klnorris in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 8--Jayna

10/17/07

The spatial turn in media studies? this is a very interesting concept presented by Jansson & Falkheimer, and I think I?d like to find the book just to peruse through some of the chapters they highlight. Once again, readings from the mass comm. theories master?s class I took 10 years ago pop into my head.  Lasswell and Schramm are as familiar as the old uses and gratifications theories surrounding early media, but it makes sense?families or neighbors would gather around the radio or television to take in the news or the stories & performances, and it has been quite some time since media was used exclusively in this way.  Jansson/Falkheimer say, ?Work and leisure, productions and consumption, are saturated with the ideology of mobility and connectedness, which is essentially a matter of transcending and/or erasing spatial boundaries by means of communication? (p.11).  So, the consumption has been there, albeit at smaller volume, and certainly the connectedness has been an important aspect of media studies all along.  In my view, it is the mobility and the ?dilemma of interactivity? that are the new spokes in the communications wheel.

Another spoke would be the ?time-space compression,? or the fact that the world is perceived as smaller now because communication across invisible boundaries is so automatic.  The mobility of communication is tied to this, and helps us feel in close proximity & more available to one another.  As Merryfield shares insight into Henri Lefebvre?s The Production of Space, I gather that Lefebvre was quite the visionary ahead of his own time.  He readily identified that the ?physical space?mental space? and social space? should not be examined separately?what a great idea! Seems he was interdisciplinary before his time, and even had a name for it-the ?spatial triad? consisting of representations of space, representational space, and spatial practices! Reading about Lefebvre made me think of Frank Lloyd Wright, the master of physical space who focused on the social and mental spaces needed in homes and public spaces.  I can imagine the conversations these two could have shared and wonder if they ever crossed paths.  Wright was also a visionary before his time.  His designs were what he called organic, and meant to blend in with the geographical space around them.  Entries were small or hidden and opened into larger, vaulted spaces. Function and flow were the utmost of importance, but the priority was on the life of the structure, that each had obvious purpose & personality that would age and weather with time as the surroundings where it was placed. Wright would fit right in with Lefebvre and Harvey: ?To change life it so change space; to change space is to change life. Architecture or revolution? Neither can be avoided? (Merryfield, p. 173).

As for the Myers article, again?very interesting; actually, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.  I?ve often felt that ?where are you from? is personally one of the most complicated questions to answer, and I love that he looks at such a common icebreaker in a new way.  In this article we see again the idea of community, or shared experience through communication?the mere mention of a particular neighborhood provides shared connotation for participants. I think we can also all say we?ve experienced the delta in ?local sense of scale? at one time or another.  The most recent incident where I reached out to those I know who were geographically close to a disaster was when the bridge fell in Minneapolis/St. Paul.  My mother will often call from Maryland because she heard some weather report and she?ll call saying only something like, ?are you drowning down there?? and I have no idea what she?s talking about because it hasn?t rained in days.  I also appreciated Myers?s deduction of the word ?just? (p. 326).  I find that I use it fairly frequently in written conversation, and with the exact purpose he describes.  I look forward to seeing where our class-discussion takes us on all of these articles, and hope to finish up the Wiley & Kitchin articles shortly.

As far as my paper?s topic and these readings, a correlation I see is that of shared meaning? one of the items I hope to discover is the shared meaning of fonts/typography across cultures, again I may be able to draw more connections after our discussion, but right now, that is the main one I see.

Posted at 03:13PM Oct 17, 2007 by jrjackso in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 8 - Karla

In his article "'Where are you from?':  Identifying place," Myers writes, "The processes of asking about places, choosing from various ways of referring to them, making them relevant to other participants, and relating them to the ongoing talk are often taken for granted" (320).  Drawing upon the results of his study, Myers indicates how this is the case, and I imagine anyone who seriously considers how he/she has responded to the question, "Where are you from?," understands the seeming fluidity of place.  Similar to the experiences Kathy shared in her blog, I have also often changed my response about place depending upon the conversation I was in and with whom I was speaking.  For example, although I graduated from a high school in a small town named Johnsonville, when I started attending Clemson University for my undergraduate degree I said I was from Florence.  Admittedly this is in part because I really did not (still do not) care for J-ville, but it was also largely due to the fact that I realized Florence would be more recognizable to others than a small town of which no one really knows (unless someone has lived there, knows people who have lived there, or else randomly passed through on the way to the beach or somewhere else).  My family moved to Florence during my freshman year, seeming to validate for me my claim to be from Florence.  However, realistically I only spent time in Florence when I was home visiting for a weekend/holiday or during the summer, so when asked where I was from, perhaps the more accurate answer in terms of time spent somewhere was Clemson.  In terms of where my family was, though, Florence was more "appropriate."  I generally located place as where my family was, and I still claim Florence as "where I am from." 

When I moved to TX to work on my M.A., how I responded to the question concerning my place became more complicated.  When I had to introduce myself in classes I said I was from Florence, SC.  When I traveled around TX, I told people I was from College Station.  Sometimes I would add that I was from Florence and had recently moved to College Station, but that was often only the case if someone inquired about my accent.  When I was at "home" in Florence, I found myself switching between claiming "home" as Florence and as College Station.  Around my family I tried to make sure I claimed Florence as my home, the reason for which I suppose was that I thought my parents considered Florence to be my home as well and that claiming College Station would somehow seem "inaccurate."  Even now that I live in Raleigh and am officially a NC resident (and have been since last August), I still struggle some with responding to the place question.  I generally will say I live in Raleigh, but am from Florence.  Then again, if where I am "from" is really my birthplace, then for years I should have responded to the question with "Savannah, GA."  Anyways, the point of my sharing all of this is to indicate how I personally have changed and continue to change my responses to the place question.  I find it interesting that how we choose to answer the question about where we are from often depends upon how we feel others will be able to respond to what we say.  So, when others introduce themselves to us, are we ever really learning where they are from, or are we just generally hearing about places as far as perhaps an hour away from others' "hometowns" because the respondents' believe those to be the best answers?  Why do we ask where someone is from if we realize that we change our own responses to the same question? 

Myers mentions that where someone is from can suggest "entitlement to an opinion" (327-328).  Given that when we first introduce ourselves we typically say our names and where we are from, often devoting a couple of sentences to indicating place by suggesting where towns/cities are in relation to other places or what the areas are known for (in contrast to just the few words to say "My name is . . ."), do we suggest that where we are from gives us more authority in the conversation than necessarily who we are according to our names?  How do we interpret the ability of place to function as a stronger indicator of identity than name?  What does it mean that people sometimes say that they know the "Smiths from Hemingway," for example, in terms of how names and places become interconnected?  Is someone whose last name is Smith, but who does not belong to the group of Smiths from Hemingway, an outsider in a way even if he/she is living in that area?  Who creates the claim that certain individuals have to place according to their names?   

Although I really enjoyed Myers' article and believe there is much more to say about it, I will move on to Merrifield's writing to try to keep this entry relatively short.  I will be honest and say that before this article I had no real clue who Lefebrve was, and after reading the article the first time I still was unclear about some of what I had read (and I am sure that even after reading the article again I have more to learn).  Similar to Kathy, again, I found the claim about space being "actively produced" (171) really interesting.  Conceiving of space as "organic and fluid and alive" (171) enables us to understand the reproduction of space and how space changes in various ways, whether according to the claims we make about space in relation to ourselves or what space means for others.  The affect of space on relationships, particularly in terms of capital and government, is particularly provocative, especially if one agrees that "[s]eparation ensures consent, perpetuates misunderstanding, and worse:  it reproduces the status quo" (171).  In citing Lefebvre, Myers writes that "invariably ideology, power and knowledge are embedded" in the representation of space (174).  Furthermore, as Myers indicates, conceptions appear to "rule our lives, sometimes for the good, but more often -- given the structure of society -- to our detriment" (175).  Must we privilege these conceptions, particularly if they are "to our detriment"?  I am reminded of a previous discussion in which the topic of dependence upon professionals/engineers/etc. who have the knowledge of systems the general public does not understand arose, and I wonder if we relate the idea of embracing the representations of space "professionals and technocrats" establish to that dependence?  Do we accept the representations because of the perceived authority behind them?

In "Towards a Geography of Communication," Jansson and Falkheimer raise the question of "how communication produces space and how space produces communication" (9).  Their discussion of mobility is particularly relevant to today's society, in which "the saturation of media texts in everyday life implies that a large share of them are consumed on the move" (11-12).  I was reminded of the trucks that now have the scrolling ads, which presents mobility in terms of both the trucks moving and the ads moving, but also in terms of the audience when that audience is driving past the trucks.  How does that mobility compounded influence the way we accept the "text"?  As Jansson and Falkheimer later note in their discussion of Richard Elk, the "re-theorising of space, epistemology and ontology, has resulted in two major propositions.  The first is that space is produced or constituted through action, performance and interaction.  The second is that space cannot be held in fixed sections or regular geometries, since it is transformed by a multitude of productions, practices and performances and therefore necessarily entails plurality and multiplicity" (20).   The idea of space as a result of "action, performance and interaction" reminds me of Lefebvre's view of space as "heard" and "enacted" (Myers 177).  I am interested in the idea of space as "heard."  Why does space "not arise from the visible readable realm" (Myers 177) but from being "heard" (and "enacted")?   Also, does the "plurality and multiplicity" of space in conjunction with the fluidity of place help to account for why "space" and "place" are sometimes used interchangeably (even though they are distinct)?

Posted at 10:42AM Oct 17, 2007 by kmlyles in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 7 - Kelly

When reading Douglas? epilogue I couldn?t help but think how her points were so similar to Adorno & Horkheimer?s chapter on the ?culture industry: enlightenment as mass deception?.(I know I keep bringing in other readings during the blogs?even though there is plenty of material to discuss without these tangents ? but I?m using them for the paper and they are on my mind). She discusses the ?myth of consumer choice? as ?evidence that Americans possessed unprecedented political and economic freedom?. She then points out ?we are told how much control we have over media content, that what we get is what we demand and want, and the media are our servants? (p. 322). In actuality, Douglas, like Adorno & Horkheimer, argue that society loses its ability to ?nourish true freedom and individuality?. Like other theorists of the Frankfurt school, they refer to a state of false consciousness and this false consciousness is perpetuated by ?less appealing realities of industrial capitalism? (Douglas, p. 321) or ?the culture industry? (A & H). Society does not realize the deceptive qualities of the culture industry because it claims only to give people what they want.

I thought this idea was interesting in relation to the McChesney reference that ?Congress had received more letters in favor of the chains than opposed to them? (p. 21).  This seems interesting because in this sense the FRC eventually did give people what they wanted or this at least alluded that was the case. McChesney even quotes Hoover as saying, ?one of the few instances that I know of when the whole industry and country is praying for more regulation? (p. 13). It?s almost like Hoover was preparing statements so he could later remind the country ? this is what you wanted.

Douglas points out that we think because we have many television stations that we have diversity of information and perspectives (p. 322). However, more choices in popular culture do not necessarily indicate freedom or individuality. Instead, Douglas would probably argue the culture industry is only doing a better job at masking deceptive qualities.

Another argument I would like to make about Douglas? critique about news stories and emerging technologies is that it neglects to acknowledge the possibility that the audience realizes the reports are not objective. So, the media may limit the public discourse surrounding how technology is, and should be, embedded in our very thoughts but does it define it like she says? I think the public often decides the uses and importance of a technology regardless of media reports. Sticking with radio I kept thinking about satellite radio and whether or not its development was in response to the change in traditional radio or whether it was developed by the whim of corporate powers. Either way it is not being adopted publicly as much as the corporate investors had hoped.

Douglas? discussion of the amateur radio I thought related well to the discussion of collaborative websites. The groups and publications formed because of their desire to share information and not in a top-down fashion. I think the collaborative websites have the same appeal. I?m starting to wonder if the sites that live successfully do a better job of providing more people a say in how information should be presented. In other words, maybe the sites that fail appear more totalitarian in their leadership or creation of the site.

Posted at 12:48AM Oct 03, 2007 by klnorris in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 7--Jayna

He with the most technology wins (or holds the power). This has been the common theme throughout each week?s readings, and this week was no different. A prime example comes from McChesney, "?FRC acknowledge that congress had given it no indication as how to determine the meaning of public interest, convenience, or necessity?the FRC had interpreted the phrase as meaning?thus favor those broadcasters with the best technical equipment" (McChesney, p.25). Williams also speaks to power when exploring the idea of driving forces behind technological developments. He uses the Press (or, journalists-as opposed to the printing press) as an example saying that the press is evidence that need pushed technological development, and the need was a result of political power and the need to disseminate the information (Williams, p. 21).

I was drawn in by the McChesney chapters. As I read, I kept thinking of the original radio tower at the University of FL, which I remembered dating back to the 1920?s. I kept thinking of the struggles WRUF must have gone through to stay afloat in those early days, and wondered about the personalities that may have journeyed to DC to defend their existence and right to hold an FRC license. While working on my Master?s, my assistantship was with WRUF am/fm as promotions director, so the image of the stone house on campus that housed the area?s first radio station wouldn?t leave my head as I read. Sitting down tonight, I pulled up the website for the J-School to find the details:

WRUF-AM AM850 (http://www.jou.ufl.edu/resources/radiotv.asp)

The Home of the Gators, Gainesville's first local radio station and one of the oldest in Florida, AM850 serves 13 counties with six hours of local news daily from its 5,000 watt transmitter. WRUF-AM went on the air in 1928 and will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2003.

By that math?next year will be the station?s 80th birthday. What is amazing about WRUF (other than the longevity), is that today, the stations are commercial. Technically, they are "college stations," but while it is students who serve as the on-air talent, they have professional sales reps who sell the advertising?thus making it unique among university radio station structures. Since McChesney states (p. 30) that university stations declined by more than half from 1927 to 1930, and noted the overall decline of nonprofit radio stations from 1927 to 1934, it makes me wonder how WRUF held on. I cannot find the information about when the commercial-side happened, but there is a separate campus station that serves as the local NPR affiliate and university public radio station, but I believe it was formed in the 80?s.

I love that I was reminded how I was part of a veritable Institution?and that the technology of radio (unlike the telegraph, but like print, I suppose), has really stood the test of time, despite its rocky start with regulations. I have to think that in mid-to-late 1920?s DC, being named to the FRC must have held a stigma as a kind of death sentence after most of the original committee members died during their tenure! Can you imagine? Was anyone else fascinated by the interpretation/use of the First Amendment? In his conclusion, McChesney says that "The First Amendment and free speech barely influenced policy in the formative stages; rather, they were only utilized later and then to protect the commercial broadcasting industry from any public intervention?" This leads me to question how interpretation of the First Amendment has changed over the decades, especially as each new form of mass media has emerged. That would make an interesting paper...

Posted at 11:41PM Oct 02, 2007 by jrjackso in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 7 - Karla

Apologies now for the length of this post . . .

The readings for this week provide an informative historical tracing of developments in radio (as well as television, courtesy of Williams) and broadcasting, spanning decades (early 1900s through the 1940s), major figures and groups (Herbert Hoover, AT&T, RCA, etc.), and orders (Radio Act of 1912 and General Order 40).  Topics such as democracy, politics, consumer relations, and the ever-popular subject of power, arise throughout the writings and offer several points of entry for discussion.

Starting with the Douglas reading, I found it interesting that the first radio message relayed across the country concerned democracy, in light of the issues surrounding control over the ether (How democratic can a medium really be if it is controlled by select private individuals/groups/organizations?).  Douglas writes, "At 11:00 P.M., a message from Colonel Nicholson of the Rock Island, Illinois, Arsenal was broadcast from station 9XB in Davenport, Iowa.  The message read, 'A democracy requires that a people who govern and educate themselves should be so armed and disciplined that they can protect themselves'" (296).  Although Nicholson was not referring to democracy in terms of radio, his statement has implications for the later discussions that occurred surrounding whether broadcasters should be self-regulating without government interference and what kinds of information they should broadcast (educational/cultural programs and/or other material). 

Douglas describes the role of amateurs in developing radio and broadcasting, noting how they "and their converts had constructed the beginnings of a broadcasting network and audience" and "embedded radio in a set of practices and meanings vastly different from those dominating the offices at RCA" (302).  Despite the contributions of amateurs to shaping radio as well as to assisting the government during war, amateurs still found themselves subject to the domineering pressures of larger groups such as RCA and AT&T and the politicians who supported those larger power players.  The fact that the amateurs "were ordered to close down and dismantle their stations" (Douglas 297) after the U.S. declared war on Germany, only to be recruited for service later because of "the military's need for skilled operators" (298), suggests how susceptible the amateurs were to forces larger than themselves.  As Douglas writes, "[T]he subculture of American men and boys who had previously fought with the navy over who owned the ether now supplied the armed services with thousands of willing, cooperative recruits.  They were no longer outside the system, they were part of it" (298).  Do we recognize a trend toward incorporating those who are on the "outside [of] the system" in other areas of communication?  Do those who attempt to maintain control over their own communication media and/or to subvert the system often eventually end up becoming "part" of the system?

As Douglas explains, radio could empower and equalize, granting listeners choices about their entertainment and greater access to cultural programs while maintaining balanced opportunity for all audience members by assuring that they could hear music and do so as though they all had "the best seats in the house" (308).  Of course, the ability to afford a radio factors in to the issue of equalization since not everyone had access to radios, but those who did were able to theoretically enjoy the same broadcasting.  The idea that radio could instill in listeners the "right values" (309) and do so in part by providing educational (as well as some religious) programming becomes an interesting subject to consider in relation to the equalizing quality of radio.  If radio were able to provide all its listeners with equal opportunities for cultural enhancement, did it offer a way to blur the lines somewhat among social classes?  Given that radio provided private entertainment people could enjoy in their homes, did that sense of equalization only really exist within the private home sphere or did/could it carry outward to the larger public?  Essentially, how much of an equalizer was radio really? 

The politics surrounding radio were particularly evident through the establishment of the three classes, high/medium/low, and the types of groups that fell into each category (high including AT&T, GE, and Westinghouse, whereas universities, churches, and labor unions were positioned in the lower class) (Douglas 316).  The development of these classes seemed to give radio a sense of having its own caste system, with the lower class becoming increasingly forced out and marginalized.  Radio acting as an "agent of American democracy and altruism" (320) seemed threatened by the power struggles taking place over which groups were "worthiest" of air time and stronger frequencies, and as conflicts over who should control the ether played out, the myth of control that the media were in servitude to the public (322) appeared to clearly emerge as myth.  Is there a myth of control about any communication media today, or does the public appear to acknowledge that the media is not in its service?

McChesney explains how "toll" broadcasting helped usher in advertising-based radio broadcasting (12) and "chain dominance" (21) began to take over the ether, with the support of various officials.  He uses the example of one Department of Commerce representative, who said, "'[T]he success of radio broadcasting lay in doing away with small and unimportant stations'" (19), to exemplify the belittling attitudes toward smaller radio outlets.  Radio became a "football for politicians" (24) and amateur/low class stations found themselves subject to policies (such as renewing licenses, which consumed money and time, and sharing usage with other stations as the FRC made decisions about which stations were worthiest of the majority of hours on air) that continually threatened their existence.  As McChesney articulates, the attitude "it would be best for educators and other nonprofit broadcasters to learn to work through the facilities of the general public service stations, rather than to attempt to develop and maintain their own facilities" (28) started taking hold. 

With the developments in management of ether came increases in commercial broadcasting, as a study conducted in 1931 found "that, on average, fifteen minutes of every hour were turned over to explicit sales messages" (30).  In his "Conclusion" McChesney writes, "The defeat of the broadcast reform movement was much more than a victory for oligopolistic, commercial broadcasting; in fact, it was a defeat for the very notion that the public had the right to determine how best to structure its broadcasting services."  Questions about not only who should control the ether, but also what programs were most beneficial for listeners and how commercial broadcasting should factor into radio play speak to the subject of how a communication form that initially begins with a sense of democracy can become subsumed by a more capitalist bent.  Do we interpret the changes in radio as necessary/inherent to a capitalist system or the product of something else?

The material from the reading that is probably most relevant to my research topic is the idea of not knowing who the audience is (since broadcasters could/can not be completely certain who was/is listening/watching).  Since my research topic concerns presence and its role in e-therapy, the complication of knowing/establishing identity is a major area of study for me.

*I realize that I did not really discuss Williams above, but that is basically because I was uncertain how to weave in what interested me most from his writing.  So, I will just insert here a quote that stuck with me:  "Until we have begun to answer them [questions about cause and effect], we really do not know, in any particular case, whether, for example, we are talking about a technology or about the uses of a technology; about necessary institutions or particular and changeable institutions; about a content or a form" (10).  I think Williams raises an interesting point about understanding cause versus effect, and maybe the topic will come up in discussion.

Posted at 10:50PM Oct 02, 2007 by kmlyles in General  |  Comments[0]

dawn--week 7 blog

I really liked this week's readings.  I know that's not the point, and I would say just that to one of my 101 students if she were to respond to a reading assignment by expressing simply that she liked it, but I wanted to get that out of the way.  I liked the readings.  They historicized the developments of technologies with which I am comfortable, but that have not reached the same level of transparency for me as writing technology, in ways that I found informative and compelling.

As I think about these readings in the context of the work I hope to engage for my final project, and in a way that could inform work that I could do, generally, it is meaningful to talk about them in terms of Williams's (1974) binary of "technological determinism" and "symptomatic technology" (p. 13).  To back up for a moment, even addressing the statement "television has altered our world" (p. 12) is, for me, striking.  To borrow from the Toulmin model of argument, that claim has become so pervasive that it frequently functions as a warrant.  Williams foregrounds this underlying assumption, recasting it as a claim and offers nine examples of potential meanings of that claim.  He then breaks these examples into two groups.  The first (technological determinism) emphases the seemingly organic development and consequences of the technology.  Since the consequences naturally follow from the technology, they would not have happened without its development.  The second (symptomatic technology) casts the technological development as natural, but its "significance lies in its uses" (p. 11), and those uses are indicative of something larger.

It seems that, as far as mainstream accounts are concerned, the technological determinist model is used most frequently to construct narratives of technological "advancement."  Development of technology is naturalized and set out on a (to return to a theme we've seen throughout this semester) seemingly magical trajectory that cannot be slowed, much less avoided.  Of course, narratives are constructed retroactively and, as both Douglas (1987) and McChesney (1993) demonstrate, frame issues in the way that best suits the system in which they're situated.  In fact, I would wager that these two accounts were probably fortune to almost everyone in the class.  Both authors address one factor that I found especially interesting: the commodification of the airwaves.  Douglas points out, "the ether was now considered a common property resource in which all Americans had an interest" (p. 317).  This resource had to be protected, conversed, and in order for it to remain unspoiled, communications corporations, not the government or the public (in the form of the amateur radio operators) were set up as the best option.  McChesney builds on this, offering examples of exploitation of power by members of the FRC.  For me, the most valuable reminder in both Douglas and McChesney is that none of it was inevitable.  Though it may not be possible to identify a moment, a point of no return, there was a complex of human actions, and all that comes along with being human, at work.  



To return to Williams, neither technological determinism nor symptomatic technology can adequately account for the relationship between humans and technological development.  Williams calls for an interpretation that acknowledges "intention," that technology is "developed with certain purposes and practices already in mind" (p. 14).  Those purposes and practices are, in turn, "direct," as "known social needs, purposes and practices to which the technology is not marginal but central" (p. 14).  Now, how does this all relate to my interest in individual identity and being apart from?  I am not sure, except that it serves as a reminder that we are both acting on technology and acted on by it.

Posted at 10:44PM Oct 02, 2007 by drshephe in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 7 - Christin

OK, to be honest, the Douglas article scared me a little.  Not because of its content, per say, but because of my reaction to said content and its uncanny resemblance to the current status, development of, and perceptions towards the Internet.  All throughout reading the article, I kept on responding to the quotes and anecdotes of what was occurring at that time in American history with ?that?s so naïve to think that way? or ?I can?t believe we didn?t foresee what thinking that way would turn into.?  Then, about half way through the article, I began to really connect the statements made and Douglas? summary of the social construction of broadcasting to the social construction of the Internet and, well, those same thoughts came back and in kind of a terrifying way ? what aren?t we able to see about the Internet?  What do we already see but are just accepting, without being able to foresee the consequences of our actions?  I guess this is a prime example of why programs like ours exist ? to make sure we do se the consequences.

Let me provide you with a couple of examples.  On page 301, Douglas states, ?The amount of listening in to far-off messages that took place, and the delight the amateurs took in this eavesdropping suggests that these Americans had a feeling that there was more information available to them than they routinely received.?  Is this not the same overwhelming ideal of the Internet ? a wealth of information previously unattainable now not only accessible but searchable?  Although not phrased the same way, the quote from Kaempffert on page 306 does speak eerily to the though of a global community that many praise the Internet as bringing about: ?It is achieving the task of making us feel together, think together, live together.? Later, she points out that many believed, ?Those isolated from the mainstream of American culture would now be brought into the fold.? (306)  Anyone read Ayn Rand?s Anthem? 

Another eerie similarity comes in the form of language.  She quotes Kaempffert again: ?It so happens that the United States and Great Britain have taken the lead in broadcasting.  If that lead is maintained it follows that English must become the dominant tongue.? (307)  On the same page, she compares radio to fishing ? it?s interesting that that nautical motif continues with the sailing metaphors we use for the Internet (surfing, anchors on pages, etc.).  Later, on page 309, she references the great possibility of expanding education to individuals unable to access physically quality educational facilities ? distance education seems to ring a bell here!

She then moves onto discussing broadcasting?s affect on politics, which connects very definitively to my paper for this class.  ?Crowds listening to a politician?s speech in a large public setting were subject to ?the mob spirit with its factitious enthusiasm?? But with radio, argued Bliven, people would listen to the speech not as members of a crowd, but as individuals.?  (311)  Politicians, she claims, would have to acknowledge the concept of speaking directly to citizens, much like in the manner of the YouTube debates.  The closest thing to resemble what occurred online with these debates were town hall meetings, but there too the mob mentality could take effect, unlike with the YouTube debates. 

Part of my reaction to this article was sustained by two very similar modern events to historical events as described in the McChesney reading.  He discusses the Radio Act?s legislation and the conflict between government control over airwaves and the interests of ?clear channel? companies (ironic that one of the major broadcasters in the Triangle is Clear Channel Communications).  For those of you that listen to Internet Radio, you may have heard very similar arguments and discussions about the Internet Radio Equality Act ? which would effectively shut down smaller Internet radio broadcasters for essentially the same reasons as discussed in this article.  You can read more at http://www.savenetradio.org/

The second ?event,? so to speak, is that of simple names.  ?WCFL?s Nockels termed General Order 40 ?infamous? and noted that with its implementation, ?the radio air has been monopolized so that the Big Power interests, Big Business, and the Big Newspaper interests have gotten all the cleared radio channels and nobody else has a ?peep-in.?? ? (33)  If you think about this in another sense, they got the best domain names.  There has been some speculation (none of it proven) that search engines actually rank pages with domain names with the keywords you?re searching for in them higher.  So, in essence on the web, those with the biggest and most widely-used keywords (the largest frequencies) can get more traffic and thereby more power online.  Right now, if you go to http://www.nissan.com, you do not reach the website of the Nissan car company, but of the Nissan Computer Corporation, a much smaller firm named for its owner.  Nissan, the car company, is suing Nissan, the computer company, for trademark infringement.  You can read more at http://www.nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php

It?s really fascinating how similar these two technologies are, from their histories to their acceptance and treatment by the mass culture.

Posted at 10:09PM Oct 02, 2007 by caphelps in General  |  Comments[0]

dawn--week 6 blog

At first blush, I didn't think I would have an easy time of writing about this week's readings in the context of my (emerging) topic for this semester's project.  I was, however, able to make some pretty interesting and meaningful (for me) connections.

I found especially applicable the discussions of photography and film by Sontag (1977) and Benjamin, respectively.  Now, I am not sure exactly how to make explicit the connections, but I know they are there, and I am going to work through them here, starting with a quotation from Sontag, "By furnishing this already crowded world with a duplicate one of images photography makes us feel that the world is more available than it really is" (p. 24).  In terms of individual identity, populating the world with multiple versions of our selves, and I am thinking here specifically of the many (and varied) identities available on the Web, this proliferation of selves can create an appearance of availability, of (to use a word from Peters) "accessibility" that may be inauthentic.  And, I would imagine, less real.  Sontag goes on to describe the need "to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs" as "aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted" (24).  This reminds of Turkle's work, which draws heavily on Baudrillard, on "life" online and the increasing need to mediate experience for it to be real.  I am sure that there are further, and probably simpler, connections, but I am having a hard time articulating them at the moment.

Pirandello's discussion, quoted in Benjamin, of the film actor, "With a vague sense of discomfort he feels inexplicable emptiness: his body loses its corporeality, it evaporates, it is deprived of reality, life, voice, and the noises caused by his moving about, in order to be changed into a mute image, flickering an instant on the screen, then vanishing into silence .  The projector will play with his shadow before the camera" (p. 229).

Pirandello writes of silent film in particular, and Benjamin points out that this does not hinder the applicability of Pirandello's ideas to sound film.  I would go so far to say that they are nearly directly analogous to managing identity on the Web, especially when that identity is managed through forms that use primarily still images and text to communicate information, like blogs or social-networking sites.  Benjamin also reminds us that movies are not filmed according to the linear unfolding of a story.  Unlike the stage actor, the film actor does not have the benefit of the narrative trajectory and that the latter is "very often denied this opportunity [to identify with the character].  His creation is by no means all of a piece; it is composed of many separate performances" (p. 230).  If we think of identity as performative, the contemporary identity functions in much the same way.

Posted at 12:28AM Sep 26, 2007 by drshephe in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 6 - Kelly

Two themes that I kept noticing, probably because I was trying to focus on the relationship to collaborative websites, was on the idea of ?experience? and collective thinking. Carey says that ?popular art is, first, an experience? (p. 66) and has little to do with effects or functions. Of course Carey is not speaking specifically about the Internet but in another article I read on artistic websites a similar statement appeared, ?the Web is said to offer experience, not object, and the viewer is the participant in that experience? (Weintraub, 1997, p. 102). I thought that was interesting that in discussions of popular art and the Internet the worlds of experience and function are separated. Carey continues by saying that no matter how long or intensively one lives in the world of popular art that there is still little or no relation among this world and the various cultural worlds people live.

I was having a hard time understanding how he so definitely came to this conclusion that various moods and motives do not extend beyond the domain in which they exist. He first introduces this idea with the ?scientific conceit? that ?living in scientific frames of reference is unequivocally superior to aesthetic, commonsensical, or religious ones? (p. 66). So, I understand that people may perceive these as separate but I think the motives and moods do intertwine the various worlds. I read another article recently by Judith Williamson (and I know this is kind of a tangent) that said, in order for Western society to offer an image of freedom and fulfillment, it claims a different set of values in its private and family life (caring, sharing, freedom, choice, personal development), values regarded as ?entirely inappropriate for the sphere of political, social and economic life? (p. 106). I think her point might be similar to Carey?s. She says that popular culture is more closely connected to the private and family sphere. And if the Internet is also described as an experience, not function, it seems it would more be in the sphere of this private and family life that is connected to sharing, freedom, choice, etc. I think this is relevant to the investigation of a successful wiki or collaborative site. Is the attraction to participation a desire to participate in a sphere that has been deemed inappropriate for economic and political life? But perhaps a collaborative site really is more important functionally than for its experience.

The simultaneous contemplation of media, where the mass can organize and control themselves in their reception (Benjamin, p. 235) appears relevant to the discussion of collaborative websites as well. A website does not seem to offer the same type of simultaneous contemplation as film but I wonder if the ability to control and organize a website creates a more progressive reception to material than a website that just presents information to the viewer without any insinuation that the viewer may contribute or alter the information he/she is receiving? People may not experience the websites as the same time like with film but there is more opportunity for public participation (as opposed to painting).

Posted at 11:54PM Sep 25, 2007 by klnorris in General  |  Comments[0]