14.1 The End

After reading the opening criticisms of PCs I was almost certain for a moment there that Justin Long was going to burst through my window and desperately try to convince me that the brick in my office is a figment of my imagination and that his advertisements are funny. Thankfully, I did not have to replace a window tonight, though by admitting this I think I may have committed some sort of sacrilege in the eyes of the EMAC gods.

In all seriousness, I appreciated that after commenting on the flaws with security inherent in the PC that Zittrain addressed the usefulness of the system. While there are aspects of PCs being distributed to new mediums, there are still plenty of opportunities on PCs. Like Zittrain mentions on 59:

"Eliminate the PC from many dens or living rooms, and we eliminate the test bed and distribution point of new, useful software from any corner of the globe."

The devices meant to focus on certain PC functions, whether it is gaming for an Xbox 360 or videos for the "Telmex Internet Box", drastically reduce the options available to the user. I can access the internet and play games on my Xbox 360, but I would hate to type anything to anyone through that console.

What we are seeing to some extent is the level of innovation through applications made for PCs with the security of consoles and other similar systems. New features are still being added for Xbox users, though they certainly are not being created at the same rate or on the same scale as PCs.

Security can be a very fascinating topic in regards to PCs. Depending on the means for protecting a computer, there is just as much a chance of preventing your own applications from working properly as there is for preventing attempts to compromise the computer. Norton products and Windows Vista are fantastic examples. While bringing more protection to the table, personally I have no interest in affirming my intent to open a program every single time I try to access it. When firewalls cannot be modified to allow your own programs to pass through short of disabling the entire firewall, there might be a problem. Yet many choose to grin and bear it and may be better off for it.

I must admit I appreciate von Hippel's graph. Especially the prime example of Wile E. Coyote. R&D can research possible advances in their technology, but they are nowhere near as motivated as an individual who needs to make their workplace more efficient. The payoff for these individuals is in the work and the personal effect it has on them is more significant than the work of researchers that may have no direct experience with the individual's issues.

By far, my favorite section of the book is the one boldly labeled "Solutions". I could have really used this section in The Exploit, though it most certainly would have read differently. Being able to revert to previous settings is insanely useful; without it I would have lost my portfolio several times over the course of my undergraduate experience, and this functionality online makes life a lot easier. Though I can also attest to the dangers of a corrupted Red PC, after saving and restoring a backup on my computer from a corrupted file. The security no longer needs to be focused on the access to tools for modification, but on the undo button.

I can only imagine what it would be like to be banned from a site because someone in the same city did something stupid; Qatar has a very fascinating system working there. In that vein, the idea of spy versus spy withing computer networks is a fascinating concept; what better way to gather information on spyware than by spreading in a similar fashion? If computers could be saturated with this type of toolkit, the information made available would be invaluable. Strangely, it seems as though this would almost be more effective if distributed exactly like a virus; volunteers for this sort of program probably are already conscious of threats to their computer. By quietly monitoring the effects of various files on computers belonging to users who obviously don't concern themselves with security, I'd think malicious elements would be much more visible.

But I'm not a computer scientist, nor am I truly fit to make assertions regarding this material. I am content with the knowledge that we are seeing examples of these solutions and am interested in observing these issues play out through instances online.

13.1 Networking

To call this one of the more intellectual reads would be a gross understatement. After rereading most of the pages and returning to previous material to ensure I was (maybe) comprehending the material, it felt as though any preexisting concept of networks was smothered under the raw weight of protocol.

While it is generous of the authors to acknowledge the existence of protocol in a cybernetic and biological environment, it felt to me as though more was lost through this analysis than gained. Those not already versed in the finer points of DNA or TCP/IP are left to stumble through explanations that touch on topics but require previous knowledge to understand the full extent of the topic. I was particularly glad, however, that the genetics class I took as an undergraduate has paid off.

Having trouble keeping up with some of the examples didn't lessen the impact of this book, however. Thinking in terms of protocol and information, edges and nodes, is an emergent idea that specifically caters to the current mindset and technology available.

Of course, our government so frequently referenced in The Exploit is anything but fluid. It is ferociously vertical and still exclusive in several ways. While the book focuses on communities and governing bodies in the real world, it seems more likely that a community driven by protocol will come to fruition through online media and not be contained by any single governing body due to the fluidity of the medium. Short of a revolution, there is almost no place to begin shifting a nation to a protocol or even counterprotocol.

Early on (p26) there is mention of military action being shaped to accommodate a more protocological force. If I remember right this is mentioned later with the global deployment of the United States military, which seems to fall between hierarchy and protocol. There is a clear pecking order in the military, but it is also equipped to be highly adaptive if there is a change in command or an emergency. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I have no doubt it would be very interesting to see how these separated networks would adapt if they were to sever all edges connecting them to other military patches around the globe. How many isolated networks would react in tandem with other networks on the other side of the world? This doesn't exhibit the political openness of protocol or the horizontal distribution, but it may be one of the better examples of flexibility.

Counterprotocol seems like something still a ways beyond our grasp. We are beginning to demonstrate many-to-many interactions, but it still feels as though it is very much initiated by the individual, not by any "swarm" mentality. Blurring the line between edges and nodes feels like some maddening science fiction jargon, and I am hesitant to accept this prediction. The need for pushing past protocol seems accurate; remaining static accomplishes little, and it will be interesting to see if the next step in networking expands as predicted in this book.

12.0 Networking Error

The dangers of networking between groups in Watts' book really struck a chord with me. As a member of the campus newspaper, it has become increasingly obvious that change is needed. We have an online presence, but it is still in its infancy. As we start bringing video and audio aspects to our site, we start having overlap with our online television station on campus, and, if we were ever at the level where we could be reviewing music online, we could potentially have overlap with our online radio station.

This raised several very important questions. Namely, what should our media organizations do? Do we continue separately, possibly duplicating content and competing directly with our fellow media groups on campus? Do we coordinate and tackle ideas separately? Do we join forces?

Blasphemy, right? Combine several old forms of media into a new conglomerate. It's like throwing all the old forms into the blender and lapping up the abattoir remains like cannibals. Even though this is already happening on a magical little place known to a rare few as the internet. And contrary to some doctoral students that seem convinced that the internet will shrink as soon as the economy recovers, I think the internet is doing alright for itself as a source of news and information.

We can see this happening already; news broadcasts on television say that more information can be found online or in a newspaper, or vice-versa. When a new medium comes along that is a one-stop shop for information that is increasingly being taken seriously, being assailed by information through only one medium seems almost classical and quaint. All this is invariably a bit harsh and a bit too much, but the basic question remains: why are we keeping media separated besides to preserve older institutions?

This is part one of my networking complications in real life. Part two stems from the fact that for some reason the people in charge of media and communication at our school in many ways are terrible at communicating internally and externally. This is not the fault of one individual or one organization, it is an organizational flaw that is inherent in almost every layer of our media.

For example, a recent dance hosted by our radio station had an event established on Facebook weeks before the event, but most of the invites were only sent days before. Someone posted how much they hate that these events are only announced a week before they happen, and the official radio response was "Ask us earlier, cus we know." As if people should constantly be checking with members involved in the media group to get information because it's too inconvenient to broadcast this information ahead of schedule. There are very few things right about this situation. And there have been similar instances with each branch of media on campus, to be sure.

The only official communication between these organizations is handled through an operating board. This board ultimately exists to deal with jobs, legal issues, and implementing new media groups, so perhaps it's not exactly the place to be discussing certain ideas between organizations. But the real kicker here is that this group has met once this entire semester. Technically twice, but the leaders of the media groups were not invited to the second one. So aside from hunting down the offices of different media members or stalking them on Facebook, the best way to get information on a different branch of the media is to go through the one person overlooking every media group, since as was made evident by the previous example each group may not see fit to broadcast information to everyone.

The institution seems to resist effective communication at nearly every level of organization, and there's no easy way to fix this. So I've begun encouraging the creation of a new level through my position: advertising.

Maybe I'm an anomaly as the only standard paid individual involved in advertising in student media, but advertising is quite isolated from the standard positions in media. Physically as well as intellectually, since all of the newspaper office is across the hall from my spacious, empty workspace. And for a change, this can be very beneficial. As our website goes through an overhaul and gets online advertising, the possibility of advertising through other media groups arose. Even if there is one aspect that could reach over all media groups, it seems this would be a step in the right direction towards expanding our media network.

Of course, Watts says this can be dangerous, and I'm well aware that certain members of our newspaper staff and opinion publication would invariably come to blows within minutes of working together. Would it be worth it? Could it potentially be successful? Where better to risk something like this than in an academic environment? Provided things pan out and there is even a possibility of forming some connections, I'll be eager to see what life is like beyond these steel caves.

12.1 Statistically Probable

Whether it's simply gauging quantity or solving complex problems through formulas, numbers are extremely convenient. Six Degrees is by far the most mathematically inclined individual we've read so far, which brings a lot of interesting points to the table.

As someone who took a whopping two math classes as an undergraduate student, it is both refreshing and sometimes frustrating thinking of certain concepts in non-abstract terms. Prior to reading the book, I never really considered networks so important in so many fields of science. It does make sense, though; in many sciences, strange things happen when groups are added to the mix. As quoted early on from Anderson, more is different.

With each iteration and additional field of study, new approaches address the different angles that networking has been studied from. Each time, fascinating ideas are revealed, from the Small-world Networks constrained between two curves to the baffling tests performed by Asch. While each further study provides a better idea of how networking and in many ways society works statistically, each test comes with a disclaimer warning that these don't cover everything.

And really, how could they? Even with the development of computers since the 1950's that have allowed people to research topics and simulate environments in ways that were unthinkable before, there are still thinks beyond our ability to imitate or replicate. We can calculate the possible variations of societies based on grouping and random encounters, and while this provides interesting information about Small-world Networks, it brings about far more questions than it answers. I almost wish that Watts had included the variables and criteria used to generate this information.

This isn't to say that the questions are bad, by any stretch of the imagination. Over the course of the book, all the statistics and numbers add up to provide a far more encompassing view of how networks operate, but it seems as though this information can realistically only be viewed separately. Like a much more complicated Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, there are multiple aspects of human nature that we have significant problems comparing and gauging side by side. Even the most complex simulation would have trouble taking everything into account. Humans are tricky like that.

But we do get a better idea of some of the stupid crazy things people are prone to (again, see Asch). As Watts ends with, this is all still relatively new. Strangely enough, many theories in networking share traits in physics and epidemiology and sociology, leading to new networks being formed between unlikely groups in the scientific community. The research is there, the application is complicated, and the work is set out for those that wish to continue in this field.

11.1 Defining Ourselves

All this talk about defining ourselves online makes me feel as though we are increasingly defined by a set of variables and statistics. Not to say that we weren't before, but now it's far more obvious and quantitative. It's just like those programming classes I'm glad I won't have to take again: eyeColor = "GREEN", height = 76, hairColor = "BROWN". Each of these bits of information is categorized and stored away, in many ways bringing the body online through characters and numbers. This makes for a personalized space online with sites that remember our preferences like Amazon.com and can even tell us not only who we're romantically compatible with but how successful the relationship is likely to be across multiple categories.

All of this, however, is determined by the information we provide. Yes, we tailor that information. The information accessible to friends is in many cases also accessible to family and coworkers, as well as potential employers. Broadcasting personal information is typically not wise, and throwing up a few quotes from Shakespeare or saying one of your favorite books is Catcher in the Rye never hurt anyone.

As Boyd indicates, we define ourselves textually online and write ourselves into existence in this online space. When the writing stops, the persona online starts to fade; even information that is only a few weeks old is outdated when many are making their presence known every few hours. Once the information lingers for long enough, even if it is still physically present online, it can become detached from the person who originally constructed the information and eventually lost.

Years ago I frequently updated a page on deviantART and had a MySpace page. The MySpace page was rarely updated and I had more friends on Facebook, so even though the information was present there it drifted into obscurity to the point that I can't remember how to access my account. The information about myself never changed on deviantART, but each new art submission and comment on other artist's work maintained an identity and presence; the most recent post was who I was on that site. Once I stopped posting, people stopped visiting and the identity attached to that account stopped existing some years ago.

Now, I've reached a point where the information communicated online rarely has any synchronization with reality. While I have the option to broadcast my current state of being over Twitter or Facebook, it is more like announcing than expressing, though many friends on Facebook seem inclined to express their political views very visibly on my newsfeed day after day. And maybe that's the new state of things; less concern with what information is presented to others. People are already broadcasting their breakups on Facebook before their significant others know about it, so why not make everything as blatant?

10.1 Knowledge is Power

Blueprints are useful. Describing blueprints verbally is painful. A picture is worth a thousand words. Just saying. Also, I'm delighted to see Nakamura actually mention the difficulties and complications new terminology brings to the table. It seems in some cases that is the theme of some of the material that we read; for all the topics on communication, the way they're presented can easily hamper interpretation.

I couldn't help but think of the internet as a whole after reading Panopticism, which I'm assuming is the point I was supposed to get. Everything is recorded, equally divided, and uninterrupted work links the outside and the inside; this seems so familiar, but the internet as we've come to know it hardly seems like a disciplinary mechanism.

The paragraph on lepers seems reminiscent of the divided cultures on the internet. While not literally exiled to their leper colonies, individuals do isolate their presence online and tend to limit it to specific frequented sites and areas. In an escapist sort of way, people driven away by events or groups in reality are almost guaranteed to find like-minded individuals online. For some reason I'm envisioning Chevy Chase and Dan Akroyd in the slightly modified Lepers Like Us.

In many ways the internet does seem like a great asylum, dividing us by our characteristics and fetishes. The strange thing now is the fact that every individual is a spectator in the central chamber and an inmate; we have the potential to witness those around us and we are becomingly increasingly visible online.

Though I also agree with Nakamura's assumption about previous media; we can't describe all the new means with old terms, since it frankly isn't the same. We tend to fall back on the accepted uses that have prevailed in previous media.

Over the course of last week I spent my time in Austin at the National College Media Convention, which was a fascinating experience on many levels. I have only been involved with campus media for a year, which means I'm nowhere near as experienced as the advisers presenting information and many of the students present. And I felt better off for it. After listening to a person with a doctorate tell me that online news would greatly decline after the economy recovers based on seven-year-old data, I worried the ignorance might be contagious but also felt pretty smart comparatively.

Though it may not be a good sign. The 'experts' in the field in many cases have trouble converting their expertise to fit with new media, and the technology is changing at a rate where newly appointed experts have mastered outdated material. Mentioning the seven-year-old data is only important because so much has happened just in that span of time. The groups that are surviving and thriving in college media aren't necessarily professionals, but they certainly are adaptable, and that is far more useful than possessing a wealth of outdated information.

But I digress. For all the advertisements that bombard my screen every time I peruse the internet, it never occurred to me that there is a correlation between some of these advertisements and the virtual personas witnessing them. Teeth whitening ads and body-building advertisements seemed like just more spam, but they do cater to a particular interest and are more prevalent than most other types of advertisements. This probably should have struck me since I'm in advertising, though I suppose I'm not quite trained to think that way.

Though advertising now is at a peculiar crossroads. As many speakers at the NCMC confessed, their website had greater reach and potential but the advertising revenue from online was a incomparable besides the revenue from print ads. Part of this seems to be a result of something one of the speakers mentioned; many people don't understand why they pay for clicks on a banner. This goes back to the rate of change in technology over the past quarter of a century. Old ideas taken for granted clash with emerging concepts, and the results are... fascinating.

9.0 First Thoughts and Public Relations

Today started a little different from my normal Sunday. After driving to Dallas, finding parking, and climbing on top of a security booth, I got a very unique view of the unfolding events for PAC-WE. This was quite an experience, and an hour, several scratches, and a leap of faith later I had essentially witnessed around a hundred people in yellow ponchos form two distinct shapes in a parking lot.

Of course, there was significant meaning behind the event, but all that information can be found on the website. This is about the experience, as well as communication and responsibility for new media. Or it will be when I get to that.

I honestly had not heard the phone story listed in the beginning of Here Comes Everybody before. That experience seems like the ideal outcome, with so many people rallying behind one issue, motivated by some virtue. Well, aside from the off-topic forums.

And PAC-WE seemed like something along the same lines. I heard about the event less than a week before it took place, but after searching around I found that the event had a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, and had been covered by a KERA blog. Sometime before the event someone mentioned the expected turnout for the event, which incidentally was a bit larger than the actual turnout.

The event had been a work in progress for about a month, which is a bit more than the ten day miracle performed to recover a lost phone. Given, this was an exceptional case, but what was to keep PAC-WE from being one as well? Bad timing? Networking issues? There are more variables than I could possibly imagine, but I still wonder what could have made things even better and hope to see a similar event inspired by our campus' art program soon.

All the planning and communication for this event was well organized from what I saw, which made me think about the end of the cell phone story where Evans gets a new job in public relations. This tripped an alarm in my head about the destruction of the public sphere. Given, I haven't worked in PR, though this comes up quite a bit at the office for the newspaper I work at since most writers should try to not sound like PR. I work in advertising and have come to understand that distribution does not equal our number of readers.

Assuming there is some large, typical company with PR distributing information on the company to various sources and advertising paying others to display their product or service, where does Facebook fit in? Or Twitter, for that matter? Perhaps this is an obvious question, but it seems that the people who have large followings in social networks could be making a mint through companies in two ways. They know how to get a following and could probably create a network of individuals interested in the company's goods.

The other way these people could help is more indirect and quite possibly more effective. If you see a movie star drinking a sports drink on the big screen, the scene screams "product placement". If you see that same movie star tweet about drinking that same drink while kicking back and watching a sports game, it's not product placement; it's a personal promotion from an individual who isn't being paid to support that product. Or, we assume isn't being paid to support that product.

Twitter manipulations aside, assuming we should, who should network a company? They're not paying to promote, but is it still advertising? There's no mouthpiece in the form of other people to spread the word, but is it still public relations? Or is this something that could become a part of everyone's job? Most of us have these accounts for social networking, so technically we could all be funneling in resources for our businesses. If we should, why, and if so, who? Something I'll be pondering while finishing Shirky.

8.1 Public Sphere

On first reading the term 'public sphere' in our reading and how this is changed dramatically by the internet, I couldn't help but think about a story that is repeatedly brought up by one of my professors. The name eludes me, but essentially a man comes across a magical ring that makes them invisible. They promptly kill the king, sleep with the queen, and cause general mayhem. This is what the internet provides for us; a way to become (essentially) anonymous so we can do all manner of dastardly things (also see The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory).

But in many cases we don't. Is it because of panoptic surveillance? Are we not really invisible? Are we ultimately the same when we establish our identity online?

It seems like we're not supposed to just be ourselves, we're supposed to be more than ourselves. Revolutionizing politics and smashing traditional media are all in a days work for the new virtual person. Well, except for the fact that the same people who avoided and ignored political debate before the internet are doing it just as loudly now, and in some cases traditional media doesn't need the help of anyone to destroy themselves.

It would be inaccurate to say that there have not been interesting political possibilities and influences on the media (like this), but currently for politics this seems to be the exception, not the rule. For media, there's plenty, including an online publication for professionals and academics interested purely in video games, just one example of the bright, shining deviations from traditional media. There are political debate forums online, and online campaigning has proven to be a hit, but the revolutionizing of democracy may not be quite there yet.

I found the idea for multiple "overlapping and interconnected public spheres" fascinating; in many ways it seems this has become the case through various forms of social media. I'm not sure what this means globally or politically, but it is a shift towards mixing more perspectives into a larger scale public sphere.

Reasoning through debate strengthens the public sphere. "Publicity that is staged for show or manipulation" greatly wounds the public sphere. To equate mass media to public relations would be quite a stretch, but to deny the bias of media organizations and the potential for manipulation inherent in the information media outlets choose to show or hide would be unwise. This isn't to say that your favorite news anchor is trying to brainwash you, but to at least accept the possibility that there are biases among individuals and groups. So, assume for a moment that the information with a 'spin' on it is debated to strengthen the public sphere. This sounds like spinning yarn into gold, and yet it feels to me like garbage in, garbage out. Or has our public debate been 'faked' since the inception of mass media and our public sphere been suffering ever since?

This, like several other assertions made by individuals in Boeder's article, seem to ultimately perceive only good or sinister effects on the public sphere. It isn't good or bad, but it sure isn't neutral. This seems to be the theme for the class.

7.1 Encoding/Decoding

Stuart Hall's writing in many ways makes me think of a shot of Saussure with a dash of Marx for flavor. The way the we come to understand signs translates to the media we create and present to each other, and the meaning is defined by how 'natural' the codes used to transmit the message are.

The first things that came to mind were smilies, particularly when trying to relate the material to new media. Wikipedia claims this idea belongs to a Carnegie Mellon professor who came up with smilies in 1982, but in truth the basic origin doesn't satisfy my curiosity as to how it was distributed. Scott E. Fahlman may be responsible for first creating the sign, but the repeated use of the symbol from person to person assigned meaning to it. Visually, it isn't like broadcast media with lines radiating from a central point. It's more of a chain reaction set off by a central point, generating more points of origin and spreading in more ways than a broadcast could. It's like comparing a shaped charge to a nuclear bomb, with relative devastating effectiveness to scale.

I started using AOL Instant Messenger after the interface had been modified to convert a colon, dash, and parentheses into a properly-oriented yellow orb, though I can't say when I was first exposed to this sign. The dominant meaning for :-) is quite clear in our culture, though perhaps it's a sign of change with new media that the perceived origin of the terms is not necessarily a person or company but an application or site like AIM or Twitter.

But this was written in 1973 (provided Wikipedia isn't leading me astray). The rate and process for determining meaning, whether it's denotation, connotation, or dominant meaning, has been altered through new media. With technology in general, new terms are coined and widely accepted in a shared culture and language (television) and dominant meaning is altered (tweeting). This process is prevalent with nearly any technological advance. New media increases the rate which new codes are distributed, but it also allows for a virtual culture to develop a dominant meaning between all members of this culture with no physical contact or relation.

From the means for identifying a goon from SomethingAwful to the connotation of the phrase "I'm on a boat", the meaning for signs can quickly change with material found online. While the SNL skit was produced by produced by multiple people, it is still one broadcasting to many. Meaning was encoded into the video, distributed through television and websites, and decoded by viewers. Through mass media we've improved symmetry between encoding and decoding, limiting room for misinterpretation in audiences that share a language and culture.

Then take sites like SomethingAwful. With members across the world, the physical culture in the region where the person lives and the codes used there can be completely different from the virtual cultures visited online. Not only can members develop new dominant meaning through the messages from others, they can directly encode and transmit messages on the same level as any other member of this culture and have it (potentially) distributed to all members.

While pondering encoding, decoding, and the messages itself I can't help but hear echoes of McLuhan rattling around. The "global telepathy" is slowly(ish) being achieved with each new means for personally encoding and distributing signs to the world, from text to images to sound to video, maybe eventually thought. It does still rely on equivalence, but with each level and sense that people can convey their message through the less is lost in the decoding.

It's somehow strange to think that the end result is ideas presented in a lossless format. Wonder how much bandwidth that will take.

6.1 Language of New Media

Perhaps it's the fact that the references Manovich makes are something I understand, or perhaps the previous readings are contributing to my understanding. Either way, it's a good sign that the points Manovich lays out make sense.

The parallel development of film and computing machines as Manovich describes early in the book is something fascinating I hadn't really considered. Zuse's computer in particular describes a relationship between the two media that doesn't really come into play until much later. It is strange to think that the artistic side of media feeds the behemoth that will become mass media through computer technology, but as Jacquard's loom demonstrates, there has been this back-and-forth between technology and art for quite some time. In many cases ideas or tools of artists inspire others to build on those concepts to develop new technology, which can in many cases can be used to move art into areas that before were impossible to conceive before that technology, as we discussed last week.

When describing what doesn't distinguish new media from it's predecessors, the mention of lossy formating raises and important point about how data size and format has changed in the last decade and reminded me of why I don't use JPEGs. In many cases online and offline original lossy formats are being replaced online by lossless Portable Network Graphics and Tagged Image File Format files. Image files now contain additional information, from alpha channels in certain files to layers that before could only be viewed by programs like Photoshop. My education in computers has followed this development somewhat, with my origins in programming in QBasic and C++ to Java, Photoshop, Maya, and others, each bringing media that at one point was too massive to encompass in one device into an icon on our desktop that allows us to edit film, photographs, and 3D models with the click of a mouse.

The thought of what this means for the future is baffling. We can move from lossy to lossless and perhaps on to something else. When computers are capable of reproducing anything flawlessly, what is the next step? Maybe it's possibilities such as Ventner's "Critter Creator" that seem absolutely fantastical, but may not be so far fetched. The thought of being able to create life in a lossless format is a concept worth mulling over, especially if this means using a computer to create a human with no biological link to any other human; an Adam of sorts. Brings new meaning to playing God (or not playing, as Ventner said).

Externalizing thoughts and ideas struck me as a particularly fascinating remark by Manovich that ties into more than just "drawings, photographs, and other visual forms"; even our textual thoughts and ideas are distributed through means such as Facebook and Twitter, on Blogs and forums. These, too, represent standardization of thoughts. It becomes numerical and modular, from number of posts and the time the post was made to the 140 characters in that Tweet. It is strange to think that giving individuals the capacity to express their thoughts through images and words also standardizes them, giving them free reign to be unique along with their billion closest friends.

Thinking that the GUI is similar for work and play is particularly true from what I've witnessed, but I've also taken a few classes that are specifically about video games. Not only do we keep cut and paste functionality, there's saving, menus, and other details. Second Life blends the recreational functionality with business in an environment that is very much a virtual space with avatars similar to those found in games, but many of the locations in the MMO represent serious businesses and organizations, providing information and advertising.

All throughout the book Manovich seems to remark on the tie-ins between work and play, media designed for calculations and media designed for entertainment and the convergence between the two. While I certainly wish work now felt more like play, there are many instances where the line is blurred, from "Chinese gold-farmers" to occupations that incorporate more goal-based activities and use them as tools to keep workers happy and motivated. If the next level is turning work into play, then I definitely like where this is going.

5.1 Reproduction

As a person who has been to see several impressive exhibits, I can somewhat testify to the presence of Benjamin's 'auras'. In some cases, though, these auras do more to dispel an air of superiority than present the viewer with a unique and worthwhile perspective on an original work.

The principle of 'auras' described by Benjamin seems strange when compared with art that is, in some cases, produced entirely in digital space where the 'original' can be viewed from anywhere in the world. Mechanical reproduction in this case is strange in many ways. The art essentially exists in a space that is viewable from any computer. It isn't removed from the viewer as a photograph or reproduction of the artwork would be; the presence of the object in space isn't limited to one location.

For the sake of argument, let's say that the authentic original possessing the 'aura' was the first existence of the completed artwork on the computer of the artist that created it. The original existed in a set space, but barring a computer that never shuts off and always has the art displayed, at some point the authentic was removed from the screen. Is that art considered moved or destroyed? Technically, the art holds a digital space as a file in the hard drive, but what if you move the file to another computer? The image may not look the same, but essentially in order to transfer the file that contained that art the data was copied from one location to another then erased in the original location; so is the authentic original destroyed? Does digital art possess an aura?

If the object is viewed from a browser-based perspective, one could say a copy is produced and destroyed whenever the browser is opened or closed. While there is no real destruction taking place, the copy of the image ceases to exist in the space that was originally provided for it on a monitor. In some ways, this makes me question the value of the copied object since the rarity of the art doesn't seem to directly influence how valuable it is. This raises little flags on how to determine the worth of a digital print or of art as a whole, but that is something I can mull over at another time.

Reading that photography was the first 'truly' revolutionary means of reproduction (p224) didn't sit well with me. As we read last week, the printing press dramatically altered the economics behind reproduction, making it less of a time-consuming art and more of a practical trade. It seems that photography allows for images that more accurately represent images we see with our own eyes, but this development did not call for a dramatic overhaul of the entire system of reproduction. Printing remained very much the same, and the science of reproducing through print remained largely the same. Reproducing artwork that wasn't photography also remained the same. Of course, perhaps my interpretation is off due to my particular connotation of 'revolution'.

4.1 The Printing Revolution

It would seem pretty obvious to me that the development of the printing press was important, but actually seeing examples of how it was important laid out before you is fascinating. Standardization to some extent I had realized and understood, though I particularly enjoyed the description of the misprinted bible excluding 'not' from one of the commandments. Standardization of scientific (or what was deemed scientific then) materials and the distribution of these printed documents to scholastic readers and others who had done similar research seems like it would have had a significant aspect on the scientific community.

Two aspects of the book struck a chord with me. First, the level of uncertainty on specifics of the era. While the results of the development are seen in every bookstore and library, the exact transition from scribes to printers is impossible to recall for a variety of reasons. Estimates on the number of texts printed can be made, but it can be difficult to gauge exactly how many and when documents were printed. Traditions, myths, maps, and documents of every type that were put into print could be compared, distributed, and redone with improved data or lost due to inconsistencies or other problems with the material. Perhaps tangentially related to the incomplete compilation of printed material from this period is the papal bull that effectively promoted the inquisition as well as the Reconquista that took place during this time, effectively erasing certain documents.

Which brings up the second point, that the history of printing is so utterly intertwined with so many aspects of life in that time period that it becomes difficult to pick apart and analyze sections of it without dissecting the topic in entirety. It wasn't just technology; it was a tool that gave researchers more time to pursue activities other than 'slavishly' copying their notes that they could not trust to scribes, it was a dramatic shift in the economic model for literature, and it would certainly influence a culture that until that point was semi-oral and semi-literate, something we cannot reproduce and analyze. It can be assumed that it took a considerable amount of time to implement this new technology just throughout Europe, much less the rest of the world, yet now it sometimes feels as though it happens overnight.

With the introduction of new media similar problems are presented, especially the overarching effects of this media on our lives. There are a few significant differences, however, namely the scale of history for recently developed media. In my lifetime alone, I have seen the development of the internet, cell phones, AOL, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and a variety of other tools or mediums. These seem easier to define their history and development, but we have a new issue now that didn't apply to the development of the printing press; it didn't come out at almost the same time as texting, email, Twitter, and have so much overlap with each of these mediums, whether it had this overlap initially or was eventually introduced to it. We don't just have a new medium that is affecting our society, we have multiple new mediums that are influencing each other and our society, such as the variety of mobile devices that can use Twitter.

The process feels almost like a sort of rapid reiteration, where as soon as a new medium is thrown into the mix other mediums are stripping it down to the essentials, keeping the good parts while trying to retain it's original purpose and redefining what exactly it can do. Take the evolution of Facebook; once upon a time updating your status involved going to your profile and typing in a box after "So-and-so is:", and recently it was updated to include name links directly taken from Twitter. With each new medium, we are getting better at dissecting it and stealing the good bits, which theoretically presents the possibility of a constantly, instantly evolving medium. Whats more, it might even work.

3.1 Remediation

I feel it would be somehow irresponsible of me to not begin with my perspective on the writing style present at the beginning of Remediation. Starting with an analogy to a movie I've never heard of is fine; in fact, it seems par for the course with most books I've read in college. Either I'm simply not versed in classical books and movies like I should be or the more obscure the reference, the less likely someone will object to the writer's interpretation of the material.

Regardless, it was the fourth paragraph that hit me like a freight train to the face. "Both new and old media are invoking the twin logics of immediacy and hypermediacy in their efforts to remake themselves and each other." For the remainder of the paragraph, the writers ignore the fact that they made up a word and continue describing immediacy, a term I'm pretty sure I understand.

But surely they'll get to this term in the next paragraph. Okay, the one after that. "Immediacy depends on hypermediacy." Nice to know, but still uninformative. It isn't until later in that paragraph that I got the first glimpse of a useful context clue: "The CNN site is hypermediated". It's still not as concrete as I'd like, so I assume that I must be missing some obvious and decide to check online for a definition of hypermediacy.

Wikipedia brings up nothing. Nothing. Wikipedia has a page for the past UT student regent, Ben Dower. It can bring up information on weapons used in WWII that I've never heard of. Thinking there might be some mistake, I check Dictionary.com. No found results. I begin to worry a little. But Google is my friend, and brings back plentiful rewards. The first one looks good, especially since the title is A Review of Remediation.

At last I see it:

Hypermediacy is a "style of visual representation whose goal is to remind the viewer of the medium" (Bolter and Grusin 272).

A little alarm goes off in my head. I know these names. In fact, I've just recently been reading a book with these names written on the cover. Remediation by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin.

So I flip to page 272, in the glossary, and low and behold the definition is there. And there was much celebration and rejoicing.

Now perhaps I'm missing the point of the term 'immediacy' here, but this entire debacle left me skeptical before I had started the first chapter. This book has links to direct readers immediately to other sections of the book but allows readers to struggle with defining a new term for the intro. Maybe I just missed some obvious hints or am a little slower than the average reader, but if people crave immediacy, why fail to define a key term that is prevalent throughout the entire book the first time it appears? Or why not use the links that are scattered randomly throughout the book to point to the glossary to define this conjured term?

But perhaps that was intentional. Maybe the writers knew exactly what they were doing. It took me only a few pages before I resorted to checking another source to get information on the current media I was looking at. Within minutes after a 404 error in the book I was redirected to Wikipedia and shortly after that was linked back to Remediation. I really do like my immediacy.

Or maybe it wasn't intentional and either I'm a little slow or the writers could have been more clear. Whatever.

Apart from my inadequate interpretations, I took great interest in the analysis of computer games since my undergraduate work involved considerable interest in the topic. That, and I enjoy playing games.

It is very interesting to see different perspectives on video games. I had never considered action games to be a matter of maintaining equilibrium; on the contrary, I was under the impression that the opposite is the goal through the destruction and destabilization of the 'enemy', whether it happens to be invading aliens or something more conventional.

The description of Myst brings back fond memories of scribbling in a journal little secrets about a strange island. It is interesting that the writers consider the game to be distinctly film-like, because the graphics aren't as photo-realistic and the island isn't entirely believable. One might think the interactivity would play a role in making the player feel as though they were on Myst island. And now we have games built with such tools as the Crysis engine which strive to make the world around the player appear quite real and offer a level of interaction not available through film. It would be interesting to see what Bolter and Grusin think of how games have developed in the past decade since they now no longer "rely ... on their special claim to immediacy through interaction."

Social interaction in games ties into an important concept with emerging media: user-generated content. Much like members of Twitter or people who post on Blogs, the creations of people who play games like Little Big Planet or Spore can forge their own creations within this space and share their designs with the world. The hypermediacy of the tools in the 'creator' parallel the transparency of the final creations once they come into existence in play, yet the two environments coexist in separate portions of the game. Now, if only there was a game that provided both without the distinct separation... perhaps something to look forward to.

3.0 Alternative Dispute Resolution

Was it absolutely necessary for the writers of Remediation to create the word hypermediacy?

2.1 Ong & McLuhan

I feel it's necessary to state that while I've been told that Playboy articles are excellent, I've never really considered there to be a good opportunity to read one. That said, this article is one of the most gripping interviews I've ever read. Starting with background information is a good idea for an interview, but the personal touch describing McLuhan's attire and assuring him that he'd have time to answer at his leisure made him feel less like just a mouth spewing words and more like an actual person.

The disregard of new media by society is nothing new, which is something just as prevalent now as it was in the dark ages. When Gutenberg tweaked the bugs with ink and movable type, the church rejected this technology since they had a monastic monopoly thanks to an army of monks delicately painting bibles. And since the church disapproved, this was passed on to society at large. Now there's Twitter, what was first a laughing matter when a news anchor announced to his associates that he could be sent 'tweets' and quickly became a matter for national interest when information about a Middle Eastern crisis was being transmitted largely through Twitter. And all it takes is one big push or one big hit to get new media rolling.

While I'm not a particularly brilliant thinker, a little light went off in my head after reading about the medium as the message, indicating this just might be something worth pondering. And perhaps that is the case; take the Iranian elections. While it was important news at the time, the thought wasn't just "Wow, this is terrible," but also "Why am I getting this news from Twitter instead of a typical news organization?" That was the message, in a way; a new social media roaring and exclaiming dominance in a media jungle.

The instantaneous transfer of information isn't exactly new since technology has allowed for information to travel instantly over great distances for some time, but individuals are more connected to networks that provide the information. Take the death of Michael Jackson, for example. This news reached individuals through newspapers, radio, television, websites, and Twitter. The peculiar thing wasn't that people had this information so quickly, it was how quickly they got bored with it and were desensitized. Within 24 hours most of the world knew he had died, and in less than a week everyone I knew was tired of hearing about him. But the news went on and on, from conspiracy theories to unnecessary reports. People can get the basic information they need from a social media site, and they don't get the overkill reports from news sources, which could indicate why these sites are so popular for information.

I particularly enjoyed Ong's irony when describing criticism of new media; the best way to do it is to use the highest level of technology available, which typically is that new media you are in fact trying to reject. This combined well with the discussion of Phaedrus in class about how 'truth' was 'written on the heart'.

While Ong presents many interesting points, it seems that a fair portion of it is a recap from the material discussed in the previous class, including some mention of the Phaedrus and description of speech and writing that, while not as scientific as Saussure, gets the same point across.

Ong describes the new alien technology at the time as computers. Today, we've moved past the technology of computers and are tackling social media that is accessible every moment of our lives and can keep us up to date with the world at any instant in any location from any source. It is strange to think that the technology, while new in a sense, is more an extension of computers than any real 'new' technology. Perhaps it is more the combination of all the technological elements that is making current developments so interesting. Short of the kitchen sink, we've tacked on everything we can to our phones/PDAs/iPhones/Blackberries/computers, and now we're seeing just how far we can push the envelope with such integrated technology.

1.1 Phaedrus and Saussure

Phaedrus presents some rather interesting discourse on the nature of a good argument. It is the responsibility of the writer or orator to be informed on the subject, lest the writer "puts good for evil". In short, presenting an argument while oblivious to the facts behind the matter can only lead to bad places. The writer should also present the nature of the argument first and foremost, as well as define the key elements of the argument so there is considerably less room for confusion. Even if the writer is well informed and knowledgeable, without persuasive technique the argument won't have the same impact. The same goes for a persuasive speaker; without a basis in fact, there is no foundation to establish an argument on.

Saussure provides a more basic analysis of linguistics and language from the ground up, beginning with the definition of language then branching into further details on the subject. He goes in depth describing the distinction between a signifier and a signified, how individuals recall the sound of the word and associate it with an image and how the concept has meaning to us.

Saussure continues by describing the way that things can be assigned 'arbitrary' signs in a sense, being labeled something that phonetically may have no relationship with the concept. This is especially true with many terms that have been born from new social media. Take Twitter, for example. The process of posting on Twitter, tweeting, has very little to do with 'tweeting' as it was known prior to the existence of Twitter. There is no audio feedback for posts that sounds like the noise associated with tweeting, there are no birds involved or other tweeting creatures aside from aesthetically pleasing digital representations at the sign-in screen.

There is some reasoning in words developed for social media, however. Take a look at this lexicon, for example. A limited list, to be sure, but the terms have something in common: length. If at all possible, the words that may tangentially have something to do with the concept at hand are truncated and combined, such as blog, moblog, and so on. Acronyms are also extremely popular, and combining acronyms with words is social media nirvana (see podcast, Personal On Demand broadcast).

To say that shortening terms, chunking, and being concise are new techniques would be highly inaccurate. Newspaper writers have been working on hard-hitting ledes for quite some time to draw readers into their stories, for example. The difference now is the limited space writers have to draw in their audience has been condensed to 140 characters and the distinction between writer and audience isn't so clear.

Most people can identify the more experienced writers, however. As mentioned in Phaedrus, there is an order to things; a beginning, middle, and end. Although the means of presenting such writing has changed, the method has not. Take this journal of Game Studies, for example; the writing on this site is clear and professional, what we'd expect from an essay offline.

Not all blogs and other interactions in new social media have the same level of writing. Flamewars are a perfect example of individuals using new technology to attempt to use rhetoric persuade a community to take a position against another individual through means that are largely devoid of knowledge. These quarrels can be seen on most public forums online, and part of the reason why they are so prominent is due to the anonymity of the writers. While this technique may not change which writing we consider knowledgeable or persuasive, the largely anonymous population people use as sources for rhetoric in new social media can make it more difficult to determine how knowledgeable or deceptive the person at the other end of the line is being.