Tag Archives: readings

POTTS AND MURPHIE: ALL ABOUT THEORIES

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The Potts and Murphie reading was about key theories relating to culture and technology and our society. Here’s a list of the key points I took away from reading:

  • Poses the question are technologies neutral in themselves? So, does the way they are used determine their cultural impact? Or do technologies have intrinsic properties that shape the cultures into which they are introduced?
  • Technological determinism refers to belief that technology is the agent of social change
  • Technological determinism is linked to idea of progress
  • TD considers technology as an ‘independent factor with its own course of development and own consequences’
  • Ideas that we live in an Information society or Computer Age ‘betray the technological determinist notion that society is shaped by its dominant technologies’
  • Consider whether society is shaped by its technologies or are technologies shaped by the needs of society?
  • Alvin Toffler’s idea of the “Future Shock” which warned that ‘post industrial societies need to protect themselves from dislocating effects of automation and computer-based technologies’
  • Theorists focus on the way a new technology creates new potential and possibility for human thought, expression or activity

– McLuhan’s theory: All technologies are extensions of human capacities
tools and implements are extensions of manual skills, the computer an extension of the brain

– Media are technologies that extend human sense perceptions

WEEK 9: GALLOWAY ON PROTOCOL READING

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This reading was very long however there I do have some key takeaway ideas from my reading.

The reading discussed how the terms ‘diagram’, ‘technology’ and ‘management style’ come together in the modern age to define a new ‘apparatus of control’. The diagram refers to a distributed network resembling a web, technology is the computer and the management style is protocol.

Galloway ponders how the rise of technology will affect our future society and in particular thinks about who will have power and control. The theorist, Deleuze, believes we will exist in societies of control. They will operate with machines, information technology and computers. In this sense, Galloway and Deleuze say that power will no longer reside to the government as command and control will be able to move around.

Galloway speaks about computer protocol and defines it as a ‘set of recommendations and rules that outline specific technical standards’. On the internet, one such body of protocol is known as RFC (request for comments) documents. They are used by engineers who want to build hardware or software to meet common specifications.

Besides this, all this talk about control societies made me start imaging the premises for future dystopian worlds (both fictional and real!)

WEEK 9 READING: CULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY

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The John Potts and Andrew Murphy reading consider the terms ‘technology, culture and technique’ and how they intertwine in our society.

In thinking about what technology is:

  • Long history and changing meanings of the word
  • It developed with terms like the ‘Industrial Revolution’ to describe the radical restructuring of Western societies as a result of industrial processes.
  • During the 1860s, technology meant the system of mechanical and industrial arts
  • Technology has now come to describe the overall system of machines and processes
  • Contemporary meaning of technology is ABSTRACT. Can be said “we now live in technology surrounded by technological systems and dependent on them”
  • Technology in the contemporary world involves cultural values, ideologies, ethical concerns and is shaped by political and economic determinants

The reading then went on to discuss what a technique is:

  • Put simply it is “the use of skill to accomplish something”.
  • We need techniques to use technologies
  • If we lost technique we would lose operational skills and the thinking to produce technologies

 

Finally, what is culture?

  • Very difficult to define
  • Can be about self-contained cultures
  • Can also embrace all human activity around the world
  • Can pertain to the arts or entertainment
  • Potts and Murphy think of culture as DYNAMIC and MULTIPLE
  • It is dynamic because ideas and values change
  • It is multiple because it contains the activities of different classes, races and ages.
  • In the words of Brian Eno: “Culture is everything we do not have to do”.

 

07 READING: THE RICH GET RICHER RULE

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The second reading for the week was again by Barabasi, on the “rich get richer” rule. To be perfectly honest, this week’s readings have (so far) failed to interest me. They seem to just drizzle on about nodes and hubs and linking and wind up getting a bit complicated.

Barabasi compares networks such as the Web to Hollywood to demonstrate his points. This is what I got from the reading:

– If networks as varied as the Web and Hollywood both display a power-law degree distribution then there must be some universal law responsible for it that could apply to ALL networks

– The rich get richer phenomenon could explain the power laws

– EVERYONE agrees that the Web is growing

– Despite the enormity and complexity of the web it continues to grow incrementally node by node

– If we consider Hollywood with the Web both start as small networks and then expand as time goes on.

– Most real networks share an essential feature: GROWTH

– We link to things based on our knowledge and experience of the world
– When deciding where to link on the web we follow preferential attachment: So while our individual choices are unpredictable as a group we follow strict patterns.

Hopefully next week’s readings are a little more interesting…

 

 

 

 

07 READING: THE 80/20 RULE

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The Barabasi reading considered the idea of rules to explain the ‘network behind the web.’  Barabasi structured his article around Pareto’s Law known as the “80/20 rule.” That basically said that ‘four-fifths of our efforts are largely irrelevant’.

To explain this point, Barabasi used examples in management. So, 80% of profits are produced by only 20% of employees. Which to elaborate on in terms of the economy seems to say as the title of the 2nd reading does “The Rich get Richer”.

Anyway, the point of this reading wasn’t for us to examine the economy (well perhaps as a side note) but to see how the 80/20 rule can be applied to networked media. In terms of finding an exact science that has created the network, various studies have been conducted. It was hypothesized that ‘webpages are connected to each other randomly’.

Enter: The POWER Law. So basically, this power law doesn’t peak like a bell curve and implies that many small events coexist with a few large events. What they found, was that “millions of website creators work together” (perhaps inadvertently) “to generate a complex Web that defies a random universe”.

And in some way, I think this includes us as we are webpage creators of our own mediafactory sites. Together we create this network that operates the web.

 

INTERACTIVITY IN NARRATIVES….

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The Marie-Laure Ryan reading this week was all about interactivity in narratives in the DIGITAL world.

Overall, it was really interesting and I found the reading engaging enough to gather several takeaway ideas.

The key word in this area seems to be IMMERSIVE.

Game designer Chris Crawford says digital narratives “mandate choice for the user”.

  • No choice= no interactivity
  • “This is an absolute, uncompromising principle “

SO, interactivity seems to be the BIGGEST difference between “old” and “new” media.

But there are a few problems with working out how to be interactive in a narrative as Ryan says because narratives rely on linearity and unidirectionality of time, logic and causality. But interactivity is all about a nonlinear structure!

The key is to give users a “sense of freedom” while disguising the narrative design as an “emergent story”.

It all sounds pretty complicated, but the results definitely seem worthwhile!

It includes:

– Literary hypertext fiction

– Text based adventure games

– Interactive drama

– Single-user video games

– Multiple user online role playing games

//0.5 Reconfiguring Narrative

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This week’s reading was all about DIGITAL Narrative.
Remember those “Choose your own adventure” stories where you got to create the ending?
At the end of every few pages you had the choice to make a character do one of three actions…
“Pete runs to the basement…turn to page 56” etc
SO what does a choose your own adventure narrative look like in the digital age?
These are my KEY takeaway points from the reading:
  • Every digital narrative doesn’t take form of hypertext
  • Michale Joyce  was the first major author of hypertext fiction
  • Born out of desire to create multiple stories out of relatively small amount of text
  • It uses linking to grant the author even more power
  • Takes range of forms based on:
    Reader choice, intervention and empowerment
    Inclusion of extralinguistic texts (images, motion, sound)
    Complexity of network structure
    Degrees of multiplicity and variation in literary elements (plot, setting, characterisation)

AND finally this seems to sum it all up: “A fictional text must be stretched, skewered, and sliced if it is to exploit the freedoms and accept the responsibilities offered by hypertext technology and its new writing spaces” 

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WRITING AS TECHNOLOGY

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The reading this week was about “Writing as a technology”.

Bolter argues that the role of writing is for “collective memory, for preserving and passing on human experience”.

I consider myself a writer and a thinker. I look at the world around me, listening and watching out for potential stories. I use things that happen in my life as inspiration for my writing. So this definition of writing makes perfect sense.

Writing enables us to ‘arrange verbal thoughts in a visual space’. It can definitely be therapeutic, let you rip open the bottle of your pent up emotions, and encourage you to think out your problems.

And hand in hand with writing comes reading. What makes some novels absolute classics? Celebrated and remembered hundreds of years after the death of their creators?

This reading would suggest that the power of writing and words is so vast it can transcend time. Great works of literature possibly stand the test of time because they deal with important elements of the human experience that remain the same forever.

It’s encouraging to think that even though our writing technologies and publication methods are changing our writing can have an everlasting impact…

DAVID WEINBERGER…WHO AM I?!

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In his novel, David Weinberger raises questions about the relationship between self identity and the internet. How do you present yourself online versus the way you present yourself in reality? I found this really interesting to read about because of my work on ‘Augmented Reality’ in Comms last semester (more on that later!)

David talks about the internet offering the promise of anonymity, which essentially means users are free to build a new identity for themselves in the online world. So, the way we construct our profiles on Facebook may be vastly different to the way we present ourselves to our teachers or family. However, having said this, it’s true that humans also present different versions of the self in the physical world. The way you act when interacting with your mum compared to how you act when bar hopping will possibly be vastly different! I think the point is though that the internet makes us actively think about self representation by giving us the tools to easily construct who it is we want the world to believe we are.

The idea of self representation online is really obvious if you look at online dating. Functioning as a mediator between the online world and the offline world, the sites allow users to create their own profiles and find their ideal match. More often than not, many users engage in some kind of misleading self-presentation on these sites to attract more promising partners. In this way, the internet allows people to create their ideal selves easily and project this image through cyberspace.

An interesting term that stuck with me from this reading was “internet intoxication” (Sounds deadly!). It basically acknowledges that the internet has an effect on human lives and can assist people to create new identities.

This constant discussion of identity is again scarily Comms like (WHO AM I?!) But in all seriousness, maybe what is so scary is that the internet asks us to consider who we are, who we want to be and gives us (and others) the tools to re-create ourselves.

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VANNEVAR BUSH ~ COMPUTERS AND KNOWLEDGE

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The Vannevar Bush essay essentially discusses the notion of using computers to expand the knowledge and intelligence of humans. Whilst written in 1945, it is clear that in our present 2013 this notion is ever present and more than a simple vision. Computers are part of our everyday lives, delivering information to their users instantly.

Search engines, academic databases, online journals and online newspapers provide humans with knowledge about the past and present. However, that is not to say that using computers guarantees intelligence or knowledge about something useful. You might be able to easily and quickly find out the benefits of folic acid or the latest celebrity gossip BUT fail to learn information essential for your career path or assistance for learning how to answer difficult equations.

In other ways, while users have information at the tips of their fingertips, this is useless if they don’t understand the way to go about finding the information using appropriate search engines. There is also the problem of information overload.

Although in saying this- my first port of reference for most things would be the internet. Whether it be finding info for a uni assignment, my daily fix of celeb gossip, online shopping, style + beauty info or looking up my train schedule, safari has got my back!

The reading also argued that scientific and technological progress will continue to develop. From 1945 to the modern day this is all too true! It begs the question to speculate on what else will be developed and what our future world will look like as the internet has the power to continue to “expand the mind”.

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