Category Archives: Readings

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.

Image courtesy of CartoonStock.com

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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Matt Ward’s food for thought: The interplay between fiction and design

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Matt Ward offers some interesting food for thought in ‘Design Fiction as Pedagogic Practice’. The title sounded scary BUT it was definitely worth the read.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sounds silly but I’ve never really considered the concept/word “design” when I think about writing. And design is essentially what you do as a fictional writer. You design characters, worlds, the plot…everything inside your story.

Ward is fascinated with this ‘interplay between fiction and design and speculation’.

He notes that “all design is fiction”  because designers create ‘propositions for a world that is yet to exist’. It’s actually incredibly interesting to think about this process. I’ve always loved to write so the notion of encouraging imagination to turn fictions into reality is really inspiring.

 

I’m imagining these uber-cool designers living in this amazing fantasy world where they dream up new worlds and gadgets to use in them. What a cool job!

 

 

Finally Ward makes an obvious but important point that “things that work don’t create interesting stories”. This is all too true in fiction! Who wants to read about a perfect world where everyone is happy and nothing interesting or exciting happens?!

He goes onto suggest that the current popularity of dystopian novels stems from this concept. It could prove worthwhile to take inspiration from The Hunger Games, Divergent and The 5th Wave (just to name a few) to get ideas for design…

Images sourced from BlazeDigital   and Blogspot 

Design Fiction and Bruce Sterling

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Design fiction. Edgy, new-age, ‘geeky’, cool…

Something I’ve never heard of before starting this course. And I sure like the sound of it.

Bruce Sterling explains design fiction to be “thinking about potential objects and services and trying to get people to concentrate on those rather than entire worlds or political trends…”

It kind of sounds like being an inventor. Tracy McBean anyone?!

It encourages people to be creative and think outside the square.

Sterling explains “it’s not a kind of fiction but a kind of design. It tells worlds rather than stories”.

In saying that, I think you can find elements of design fiction within stories. Most obviously sci-fi stories. The iconic ‘Back to the Future’ series springs to mind (LOVE that show btw). Hoverboards and time-travel cars could be considered as part of design fiction right?

 

I’d sure like to see the option of REAL life time travel cars become reality…

Images from ABC.Net and DavidDarling

THOUGHTS ON : BLOGS IN MEDIA EDUCATION

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Adrian Miles’ reading made me have a bit of a lightbulb moment about what this course is about/ aiming to do. The idea is about using a blog to engage in a different style of contemporary learning. It links in nicely with that other confusing reading about different approaches to learning such as double loop learning.

Having a blog allows you to think out your ideas and implement this whole concept of “The Takeaway Idea”. You can easily record your ideas, reflections, thoughts, activities and ramblings and develop your individual online persona. There’s the knowledge that your blog will be read by others and the notion of belonging to a community of other bloggers.

I started up my own personal blog at the beginning of 2012 keen to start developing my writing, my online persona and produce an online portfolio of my work. It led to me being offered an internship with The Teenage Girl’s Survival Guide and later Couturing Magazine. Both sites are aimed at different markets- I write monthly book reviews and an advice column for the former and beauty reviews for the latter- however, I re-blog all my posts once published onto my own blog.

I love writing and the idea of blogging and am hoping this course can make me become a more successful blogger. I’d love to produce some more original content for my personal blog rather than simply re-blogging work published on other sites. While I get the occasional comments from members of the blogging world I really want to learn how to maximise this interaction!

My takeaway ideas from “Chris Argyris”

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Taking away ideas from Argyris..

This reading seemed fairly confusing to begin with. I found myself wondering why we’d be reading about organisations and learning theories designed to make organisations better when we were studying media and essentially “just blogging”. BUT the conclusion seemed to point to some direction and relevance. That is, to use Argyris theories of double-loop learning in our university education rather than rely on learning by trial and error.

So, instead of going through an entire process where we wind up discovering what we have done wrong and reflect upon how to resolve this problem we can now cut out this wasted time.

Sounds a bit abstract but according to this reading we can learn by reflecting upon the “theory in action”. Basically, my idea of this theory is that it’s a framework for understanding why we make the choices/actions we do. Considering this, if we implement “double-loop learning” we can analyse and question the actions we make before we make them.

Double-loop learning is “creative and reflexive” which seems to be what this course is about. If not, well I guess I’m sure to discover more throughout the course of this semester.

On a side note…this feels scarily like I’m back in COMMS…!