Category Archives: Networked Media

Readings 05: Landow

Reading 05.1

This week’s readings is a series of extracts from Landow’s book Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. 

Landow explains that hypertextuality occurs within blogs in two main ways: firstly by “[linking] chronologically distant individual entries to each other” to create context, and secondly by the comment function.

My key takeaways from the Landow reading is all about the agency of ‘readers’ in hypertext systems. They are no longer just passive consumers, but now serve dual purpose as both readers and authors themselves.

Landow also talks about the difference between blogs and personal diaries – a comparison which I find irrelevant. As Adrian has reminded us in the lectures, all our notions of the public and private are currently being rewritten by us, and the platforms we are using. I think blogs are best used when appropriated by the user in exactly the way they want. For example, a beauty blogger who posts product reviews and so on is using the blog as a platform which expresses their intentions best. Similarly, an academic with a blog can use it to collate their research and to postulate further discussions with their peers. One must (obviously) be wary of privacy online, and abandon our assumptions that anything online isn’t 100% public. But if a user wanted to utilise their blog in exactly the same way as they would use a personal diary, good on them in my opinion! Use away. You do you, and I’ll do me.

I liked the section of Landow’s chapter which talked over the role of beginnings and endings in hypertext systems. One side of the argument says that we can assume hypertext isn’t completely absent of linearity and sequence, and instead “possesses multiple sequences” (p.110). Opponents say that every hypertext system has to have a fixed entry point which you arrive at before the system of links begin. 

Landow draws attention to an interesting point which Ong makes in Orality and Literacy, that books, unlike their authors, cannot really be challenged:

The author might be challenged if only he or she could be reached…There is no way to refute a text. After absolutely total and devastating refutation, it says exactly the same thing as before… A text stating that the whole world knows is false will state falsehood forever, so long as the text exists.” (p.79)

However, I think this is quite different in online networks. Websites and blogs are so easily edited and republished, seemingly erasing any past information which has been put out there. Yes, the previous records are still stored somewhere in cyberspace, but I certainly don’t know where! The transient nature of online is something I certainly take for granted. I think it’s been built into my generation of ‘digital natives’ to expect this kind of change so frequently, that acceptance and adjustment is the only way to survive. Facebook is a perfect example of a platform which constantly reinvents itself (aesthetically), which proves my above point.

What does this mean for hypertext? Will linkages online get lost? Will we potentially keep running into ‘Page Not Found’ error messages as the online web continues to shape shift and change? What will happen to whole systems when the nodes that keep the links alive also disappear?

Trackbacks 01

Rebecca has been practicing her HTML (you go, Glen Coco) and has also graced us with this fabulous image. I like her commitment to learning about coding and the practical benefits she foresees this may offer her in her professional career. I agree with her, and I might start using a resource she suggested for skilling myself up with the language of HTML (how’s that for a tautology) called W3Schools.

Jamie muses over the Nelson reading from week 5 and assesses how far we’ve come since his predictions of paperless offices and a world without libraries. (Also, great Theodor pun, Jamie. I’m a big fan).

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Image via Quickmeme

Let’s be honest for a sec, when we need to research does our mind automatically think “library” or “Google”? Thanks to advancing technology we are being conditioned to move away from traditional print literacy.” – Jamie.

I completely agree with this, and have noticed my personal shift away from the traditional institution of the library throughout my academic career. During my time at RMIT I could probably count the times I’ve used the library on my two hands, however I can guarantee I’ve used the RMIT library’s online search tools and database for almost every assignment. That’s without even mentioning Old Mate Google…

Finally, Nethaniel talks about whether or not he’s a ‘humanities student’ at heart, after Adrian mentioned in Symposium 05 that ‘we’re not programmers’. I find this concept of student typologies very problematic and I’m trying to slowly work it out. Maybe it’s just my intrinsic dislike of labels (#angst) but I feel like this doesn’t allow for conceptualising students as multi-faceted with their own collective talents. Does that mean that because you’re studying medicine you’ll never understand the nuances of musicology? Can physical ed. students forget about political theory or gender studies? Basically, I don’t think that what ‘type’ of student you are is mutually exclusive of what ‘type’ of student you were, could be, or might be. I will end on that double negative.

Symposium 05: Network Literacy and Hypertext

Leftover Symposium 04 questions:

  1. Should network literacy be focused on in earlier education?

    • Can it be taught formally? 
      • Yes absolutely, and it should be. Some parts of it are already in practice, but not enough. Arduino is a service which is being used in school to teach children about how to make computers that can sense and control more of the physical world than the average desktop computer.
      • To some extent, you graduate from school being quite disempowered from networks because things have consistently been gatekept for you.
    • What do you think the solution is? Should we let kids teach themselves through doing?
      • Adrian believes the only way you ever learn anything is through doing, and I agree with him. I have, and always will be, a kinaesthetic learner.
      • Kids teach themselves how to do things. The issue is facilitating this in a way that they learn the how and why of things instead of the didactic ‘do this’ and ‘do that’.
      • School systems often take out the ability to think critically, as the architecture of school education is all tailored towards passing exams and getting good scores on essays and projects. You get trained to think that bell curves are natural order, but really they’re an educational ideology/construction. It’s been shown that information retention rates drop off exponentially after this type of learning, so it’s not necessarily a valuable method.

“We unlearn how to ask good questions. Problem with that in an age of distributed expertise, is that if you can’t ask good questions, you can’t find good answers. That’s the world we’re going into. Things are not black and white, it’s very grey and the skills you need to navigate this world are different.” – Adrian Miles

Symposium 05 questions:

  1. How is hypertext relevant to us as media practitioners?

    • Adrian says, how is it not? We deal with structures like that on almost all of our internet usage – such as YouTube (clicking from one video to another), Buzzfeed, news websites, Twitter, etc.
    • Elliott tells us of dual screening mentality which is a rising concern in the media industries, which says: ‘okay, we get your idea, but what’s the second screen going to be showing?’ As in, how are you going to utilise the network affordances by doing more? i.e. online webisodes, podcasts, building communities online, etc. Heritage media are doing this, but only slowly. They use it to shore up their existing model, as opposed to drastically changing it. They think ‘more is better’.
    • There’s a big gap, an opening to step in and properly use non-linear structures in storytelling. Adrian thinks that this is a waste that this isn’t working yet.
    • When moving into digital, content became highly granular (small chunks), and it becomes about the relationship between each other. Temporary relationships. This is how things get meaning, with the infinite multiple relationships between the parts. How we make stuff then had to change, because the end now doesn’t matter. And now the reader/audience power dynamic changes as well. Hypertext realised this.

  2. What predictions about network literacy should we be aware of?

    • Those who are network literate will engage with technology and come out on top better.
    • Media industries are changing drastically. However, history is not linear so we don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s a series of accidents.
    • Things to be aware of:
      • Physicality of the network – servers, infrastructure
      • Legal battles which may restrict or create affordances
      • Political battles, legislation, copyright.

  3. What are the consequences of being network illiterate?

    • You will have a reduced capacity to engage or develop appropriate strategies to engage.
    • Your only ability to understand will be through someone else – you will be dependent on them telling you what it means.  Think about what could this mean for creativity; corruption?

Symposium 04

Adrian was shocked in this week’s symposium to discover how little it seemed our cohort knew about the validity of certain internet content. I think, perhaps, that this was a stretch too far as I would hazard a guess that most of what we subsequently heard about looking for cues for legitimacy, such as locating which type of domain it’s coming from, was not new information for many in the lecture theatre. Where I thought the discussion turned very interesting though was when talking about how and why these practices are emulated, undermined, and impersonated (such as by The Onion, an American parody news site).

I think a similar area which is equally interesting is the rise of Twitter accounts which impersonate various organisations or people. Such as Vice Is Hip, Fake Pinterest, or even this article showing what might happen if Disney Princesses had Instagram.

However, I think these types of humour rely heavily on a more widely understood humour of parody, as opposed to impersonation.

We then listened to discussions about network literacy and its relation to print literacy, including what limitations and affordances both have. Adrian explained that we have a tendency to confuse form and content, which I wholeheartedly agree with. It was also interesting to hear Adrian say that the spaces within which network literacy happen have to be performed. They do not preexist us, we actually have to actively do them.

Adrian also reminded us that literacies, which exist in hundreds of forms, are always enacted in very minor detail. His example of ordering a lemonade in America illustrated this well. He explains that the varying social etiquettes of literacies complement and contest each other. They are not clearly defined, but entangled and messy, interacting and embedding themselves in our social practices.

We were reminded that we constantly rely on third parties to do things for us, leaving us disempowered due to our constant reliance on expertise. For example, we may know about books and how to write one, but we don’t necessarily know how a printer works. Similarly, we know how to curate our online presences with content, but we might not know how to build a web page. This is the sort of network literacy that needs to be ramped up in order to participate fully as effective media practitioners in our changing media landscape.

Symposium 03

Here are some of my musings from what was discussed in the first Networked Media symposium i was able to attend (I’m now two weeks post-arthroscopic surgery and can return to my regular activities! Hooray!):

The first question raised was ‘how much freedom do we have when writing critically of others or others’ work before we become liable for defamation or copyright infringement?’

Large copyright sign made of jigsaw puzzle pieces

We must begin to understand the rights and responsibilities of someone who operates a blog. As a blog owner, you are responsible for everything that is published on your blog – including in the comments. There is a difference between opinion and critique – we mustn’t make claims that are derogatory or defamatory towards people and dress them up as fact. The ‘truth’ is not a defence, and similarly, authorial intent counts for nothing. Regardless of if you intended for something to be offensive or not, if it has been perceived as offensive by someone or someones then it is.

There is a lot of complications when ascertaining whether your published material is ‘in the public interest’. Also remember that these laws differ between jurisdictions and across national borders. This is one of the growing concerns media professionals are adapting to in the face of globalisation, having to now work across a number of legal structures and licenses. 

It is up to the copyright holder to take action, however this area is becoming more and more aggressive, with entire law firms and organisations being dedicated to trawling the internet to find examples of copyright infringement (such as PPCA and APRA). Disney is a great example of how some organisations are being more lenient of traditional copyright law in order to benefit their audience-base who, in this example, formed such a community around the culture of Frozen (2013) where over 60,000 fan-made covers of the song ‘Let It Go’ have been shared across social media and have been collectively viewed more than 60 million times, even though these were all technically breaches of copyright.

We then spoke about the grey area of embedding. Adrian agreed that the existence of an embed button pretty much means you can use the content on your own site, because it is somewhat understood that the original source are the ones bearing liability. However, where this becomes a serious issue is when a user downloads the material and re-uploads it themselves instead of directly embedding it. The content is now being hosted on your own site, meaning you are infringing copyright.