Category: readings

October 10, 2013

Week 11 Reading

Schultz, Pit. Latour, Bruno: On Actor Network Theory: A Few Clarifications 1/2

The Actor-Network Theory (ANT)

Misuse of the term ‘networks’ has lead to misunderstandings within the actor-network theory. For example:

1. Networks are given a technical meaning, such as a train network or telephone network. A technical network in this state is only one of the possible final and stabilised state of an actor-network.

2. The ANT has little to do with the study of social networks. The word actor, or actant, is extended to non-human, non individual entities. Whereas social network adds information on the relations of humans in the social and natural world. Social networks are included in ANT, but are not prominent or seen as of greater importance.

The ANT claims that modern societies cannot be described without recognising them as having a fibrous character that is never captured by existing theories without being influenced by their existing politics, layers, or territories.

October 3, 2013

Week 10 Reading: Manovich

“Database as Symbolic Form” by Manovich.

New media objects do not nescessariry tell stories, they are instead correlated as databases and don’t have a traditional beginning or end. They are void of any form of element organisation or structure. Instead, they are collections of individual items.

Database: a structured collection of data. Data is stored and organised for fast searching and retrieval by a computer.

Databases can be hierarchical, a network, relational, and object-orientated; using different models to organise data.

Web page: a sequential list of separate elements: text blocks, images, and links to other pages.

Online, pages are ever-growing and evolving. New elements and links can be edited and added at any time, making the Web an anti narrative made up of collections, not a story. As Manovich asks, “how can one keep a coherent narrative or any other development trajectory through the material if it keeps changing?”

Algorithms and data structures have a symbolic relationship. The more complex the data structure of a computer program, the simpler the algorithm needs to be, and vise versa. According to a computer, data structures and algorithms are two halves of the ontology of the world. In contrast, narrative forms do not require algorithm-like behaviour from their readers.

September 19, 2013

Week 8 Reading: Barabási “Rich Get Richer”

Barabási, Albert-László. “Rich Get Richer”

The random model of Erdos and Renyi rests on tro simple and often disregarded assumptions.
The web is always growing, and therefore cannot be assumed to be static when analysing its structure.
Most networks share this essential feature of growth.

Model A. nodes link randomly to one another. The longer a node is in the web, the more time it has to gain links.

However, links aren’t (always) random, as computer users select the nodes/pages that they want to visit. For example, you have a choice of which website to visit in a Google search, or you may be taken to a random page in the search results. I tend to agree with Barabasi here when he says he doesn’t think anyone ever uses this option.

The better known a website is, the more links it acquires and it can therefore be referred to as a hub. Users prefer to link to the better connected hub – while our individual choices are highly unpredictable, as a group we follow strict patterns.

Real networks are governed by two laws:
growth – for each given period of time we add a new node to the network. This step underscores the fact that the networks are assembled one node at a time.
preferential attachment – We assume that each new node connects to the existing nodes with two links. It is twice as likely that a newer node will connect to the more connected node when given a choice.

Each network starts from a small nucleus and expands with the addition of new nodes.

August 30, 2013

Reading week 6: The End of Books? – Or Books Without End?

Extract from Douglas, J. Yellowlees. The End of Books — Or Books Without End?

I found this weeks reading very thought-provoking because the subject matter is very topical as we are living in a time where nearly everything be becoming ‘modernised’. We’re told that the death of print media (and possibly print-everything) is probable in the near future, so what will happen to good old fashioned books?

I myself have recently rediscovered the joys of reading for pleasure while on holiday in Vietnam. If I could be teleported anywhere right now, it would be the muggy beach of Nha Trang sipping on a coconut while reading.

Victor Nell’s definition in Lost in a Book: The Psychology of reading for Pleasure is very accurate “lucid” is the sense of becoming so immersed in a narrative that we become ‘lost in it’. There is a trance-like state of emersion on a novel that engaging readers find pleasurable.

Part of the concept of the book is bound up in its fixity, the changelessness of its text. I found myself agreeing with this point. As much as I enjoyed the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books at the library as a kid, I think there is some element of the reader choosing the outcome as a fixed narrative. Besides, I would always read all of the options in those books and then choose accordingly…cheating on the purpose of the books I suppose.

I can understand the desire to select an ending that pleases you, but each person has their own way of interpreting novels and that’s why some people would classify Romeo and Juliet as a love story, and others a tragedy.

Many people prefer the original book than the film that follows. Often it is not interpreted as the reader imagined, or they are disappointed. This is because one of the joys of reading is that even if you can’t choose the outcome, you are engaging with your imagination and creating your own movie version of what you’re reading. Sometimes watching a film based on a book you’ve read can be frustrating, as the characters don’t look the way you think they should.

Hypertext and modern technology bring up many questions in relation to books. Such as what is a book? Is a blog a book? How about an eBook? Personally, I enjoy holding a physical book, but I also quite like the idea of never-ending stories/books and the possibilities that arise as a result.

August 16, 2013

Reading response: In-class ideas

My pal Memphis had some excellent take away ideas from this week’s reading by Vannevar Bush. She even wrote a blog post about it – making my job easy..here’s a link!

In summary:

– The reading re-affirmed the importance of technology in this course, and utilising the technology available to us.

– Re-visited the idea of active learning and adapting with technology instead of doing what we’ve always done out of habit. A good example of this is how we learn at Uni. Why keep having traditional lectures and write essays to prove knowledge when we can move forward with technology? Be active in learning, not passive!

August 15, 2013

Reading week 4

As We May Think by Vannevar Bush

It is quite strange to read this article, written in 1945, and realise that Bush is discussing technologies we use on a daily basis, and has pretty much predicted the future. Advances in science and innovation in technologies are usually taken for granted by us Gen Y’ers, but it really is amazing how reliable the technology is that we have so openly integrated into our lives.

This quote stood out for me

” For years inventions have extended man’s physical powers rather than the powers of his mind. Trip hammers that multiply the fists, microscopes that sharpen the eye, and engines of destruction and detection are new results, but not the end results, of modern science. Now, says Dr. Bush, instruments are at hand which, if properly developed, will give man access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages. “

This is so true of ‘recent’ technology. The internet comes to mind straight away. We are so lucky to have “access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages”.

I will often claim “what did I ever do without the internet?!” sure, I was in Primary School and preoccupied with climbing trees and writing in my *physical* diary, but for older people being introduced to the internet must have been like opening a huge door of information. Even though I tend to waste this privilege by watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians online (hardly brain-expanding, but hey, it’s my guilty pleasure), I do appreciate the wealth of information available online.

This also makes me question the future, how can we expand these technologies even further? What else is left to expand of the human experience now that we have covered physical and mental expansion?

August 5, 2013

Chris Argyris reading

When I first opened the reading I was like…

Chris Argyris: theories of action, double-loop learning and organizational learning looked intimidating. As a Prof Comm student, anything with the words ‘theory’, ‘models’ and ‘research’ makes me want to cry then take a nap.

Which seemed kind of ironic once I started reading, particularly this statement about Model I:

Touche, Argyris, touche.

So maybe I was being a bit defensive coming into this reading (and also this subject), but it was difficult to break it down in a way I could understand. The main points I took away from this reading are SIngle and Double-Loop learning, and Models I and II.

Mental modes are subtle patterns of reasoning. They are personal mental maps that determine how we plan, implement and review our actions.

Single-loop learning: When you identify and correct a problem without having to change the underlying policies and objectives.

Double-loop learning: When you have to modify the organisation’s policies, objectives and norms in order to solve a problem.

I think this concept of double-loop learning is quite liberating, and can be applied to more than just how we learn. When you are honest with yourself and investigate the reasons why you want to achieve a specific goal, you are no longer just going through the motions, you have changed the foundations of your own personal ‘policies’.

For example, I recently became a vegetarian. I realised that all my life I had eaten meat without much thought because I had been brought up that way. I might occasionally cut down on meat to achieve a health/weight loss goal, but hadn’t thought about why I eat meat.

When I delved a bit deeper and was exposed to some horrible truths about the meat industry, I made the decision to re-write my personal beliefs and stop eating animals. This evaluation of my own ‘policies’ has been the most confronting part of becoming vego. I also think it has enhanced my potential for growth, because I am no longer ignoring or ‘moving away from’ that fact that most of the animal products I ate came out of suffering.

Model I: Win, don’t lose, control the environment, treating one’s views as obviously correct, avoid embarrassment.

Model II: Shared leadership, focus on achieving shared goals, free and informed choice, encouraging public testing of evaluations.

These models make me think of the course so far; it’s broad, open to interpretation, and we’re encouraged to share anything and everything. Very Model II. This model makes me want to hide and save myself embarrassment (just call me Model I Molly), by not expressing much, not having questions, and avoiding involvement in class conversations.

So even though Chris Argyris wrote about all of this ages ago (and, like, without the inter webs!), it is still relevant to us.