Author: Adrian Miles

Reading 09

Adrian Miles

A continuing foray into the shapes of networks, particularly the sorts of shapes relevant to the internet. This is about power law distributions and small world networks. Which is a) why the internet has a different relation to size than the ordinary physical world, and b) why when you say something about someone else it is pretty simple for them to know about it.

“The 80/30 Rule”. Barabási, Albert-László. Linked: The New Science of Networks. Cambridge (MA): Perseus, 2002. Print. (extract, PDF)

Anderson, Chris. “The Long Tail.” Wired. N.p., Oct. 2004. Web. 23 Aug. 2013. (PDF, and Web)

Reading 08

Adrian Miles

Now we move to thinking about what sort of network the Web and Internet might be.

Watts, Duncan J. Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. London: Vintage, 2003. Print. (Extract – PDF)

Barabási, Albert-László. Linked: The New Science of Networks. Cambridge (MA): Perseus, 2002. Print. (Extract, PDF)

Trust Networks

Adrian Miles

Quick dirty one. In reply to a recent email about ‘trust networks’:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_software#Debates_or_design_choices
where they discuss trust in a specific way in that section

complicated but a table in there is useful
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/netgov/files/png_workingpaper_series/PNG06-002_WorkingPaper_MergelLangenberg.pdf

http://www.ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/465/430
discusses trust

the readings are able to move into network stuff so some of the above material will begin to make more sense *after* we move into the next readings….

Reading 07

Adrian Miles

Apologies, I had thought these readings were online before I went to London for a conference. (Ah, they were but there was a tag problem so looks like they didn’t appear under the reading heading. So you might have found them, you might not have. Treat the Shields addition below as very useful and important….)

But they weren’t, so here they are. The first two, which are from the same book, are a poor quality PDF scan, apologies for that. The third, from Shields, is not about digital media (it’s from a book that is about what we would call ‘creative nonfiction’) but what he writes about collage and nonfiction and story is very useful in relation to the broader conversations that have been happening around story, linearity and so on. The Shield’s book has been very influential, and note that it is an essay, but not as we usually think of an essay, and is also a demonstration of how you can write critically (making an evidence based argument) outside of the very conservative form of the ‘traditional’ essay – a form that is poor for thought, and good for proving what you already know (which I would have thought is the opposite of research, and learning).

Key Readings

Murphie, Andrew, and John Potts. Culture and Technology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print. ‘Theoretical Frameworks’ extract (PDF)

Shields, David. Reality Hunger: A Manifesto. New York: Vintage, 2011. Print. “Collage” extract, (PDF)

Secondary Reading

Murphie, Andrew, and John Potts. Culture and Technology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print. ‘Introduction’ extract (PDF)

ACCC sues US video games giant Valve

Adrian Miles

ACCC sues US video games giant Valve.

Good example of how local media laws apply. So if I libel someone in Britain, and arrive in Britain, and they want to take me to court, they can, even though what I wrote I wrote in Australia and the server is in California…

In this case US company sells stuff here, and ignores Australian consumer law. As the ACCC says, sell here, local laws apply. (It isn’t really complicated. When I am in America American law applies to me, I can’t claim that in Australia it is legal so all is good.)

Temporary Interruption

Adrian Miles

I will be overseas at a conference for the next week and so it is unlikely I will be doing much here. Enjoy the semester break, do the readings, and given the sorts of questions that have been occurring in classes, blogs, and so on, I’d recommend you read:

Shields, David. Reality Hunger: A Manifesto. New York: Vintage, 2011. Print. Extract, PDF

Readers Reading

Adrian Miles

Jamie on the Douglas reading and the difference between us changing our interpretation of something each time we read it, versus the thing we are reading each time we read it. Meanwhile Niamh sees that hypertexts are more complex than choose your own adventure books, and that they are fluid rather than fixed. Excellent summary from Anna, picking up key points. Cassandra is, well, more shocked I think. The point is not take an existing book and turn that in hypertext (that is like treating cinema as filming plays) but to think about what a story that began from the condition of hypertext might be. This is the key difference. Books that work well as books won’t work well as hypertexts, just as we can argue whether the film version is any good or not. Rebecca remembers choose your own adventure books to, though of course these don’t change, just our pathway changes, which is an important difference. James on the Douglas reading and books and futures. Marina on the changed role (and authority) of the reader in hypertext – and by implication other multilinear narratives. Kiralee is interested in the idea of a story where the reader has some agency.