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 Posted March 8th, 2007 at 12:24PM
This is my part of a larger collaborative project for my senior seminar writing class. I’ll link up the full project when it goes live.
Don’t bother remembering facts and figures, historical events and persons. The pedagogical norm of our school systems – the regurgitation of facts in multiple-choice or short answer form – is a disservice to the next generation. Today the collective memory of a thousand or ten thousand can be safely stored in a pocket, or held in the palm of a hand. A $50 flash drive contains more knowledge than Einstein could have ever possibly dreamt of. Individualism has been America’s chief religion and ideology, but today we find ourselves moving closer and closer to a collective consciousness via technology and the internet. Today, it is not what you know that is important, but how well you can google.
Reality today is much stranger than fiction.
This technological collective consciousness is the result of technology which brings all together, to share and learn and feed off of one another in a symbiotic (albeit perhaps cold, impersonal) relationship. Today’s wiki is an exact example of this, but all of the internet can be included.
The internet was born out of a need to communicate better so that we could war better. This technology grew exponentially throughout the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, in both scale and accessibility (and use and potential). From black and green DOS terminals to colorful point-and-click GUIs. From a token few researchers at certain technical institutions and the Pentagon to soccer-moms and their five-year-olds everywhere.
It has been said that Wisdom is the ability to understand others; it is the understanding of yourself that is Enlightenment.
Intelligence has, in the past, been measured by how much information one can retain. The pursuit of information, of knowledge. And then, following this, what one does with it – the pursuit of understanding. With the internet and its (our) collective consciousness, infinite knowledge (for the purposes of an individual) is readily available and at our fingertips. It is unnecessary to remember because we can easily google for the fact or information in question. Long-term memory is superfluous, and should things continue as they are, evolution will reflect this.
Today, the pursuit of wisdom or enlightenment can (ought to) take center stage. Intelligence today can be measured in understanding. The ability to think critically trumps the ability to be a good Jeopardy contestant. Emphasis shifts.
Toward this end, society evolves: constantly, slowly. Today’s children navigate the collective consciousness with ease. The elderly, less so. As humanity ambles along, it becomes adjusted to the new realities. The people change first; structures (libraries, the schooling system, the media) follow. Whether humanity begets the reality or vice-versa is irrelevant (unanswerable). Change happens; it is.
If you submit to us now, we will train you to be free tomorrow.
Those without the means of logging on (technological, economic and even geographical barriers still exist) are left behind and outside. Outside, one has two options: to continue as before, spending time and grey matter harvesting knowledge through traditional (deteriorating) channels; or to amalgamate with the collective consciousness. The pursuit of knowledge is inefficient; amalgamation is self-destructive (the loss of individualism). But at least a choice is presented. For those born into the machine, no true choice is allowed. All of the structures we surround ourselves with today are hegemonic; they disallow deviance or alternatives.
Some attempt to control the madness, but there is no method here. Censorship or regulation has failed, or will fail. This pursuit is as futile as controlling an individual’s thoughts or dreams. The consciousness is anarchistic.
The creation of a collective consciousness is also inevitable. It is the product of millennia of technological progress, culminating in a sort of “final solution.†Humanity’s thirst for knowledge has given rise to a system that allows everyone to know everything. And this is as close to nirvana as humanity can hope to achieve.
Posted February 20th, 2007 at 12:08PM
Norton looks at the role of blogs in times of crises. After reading, I created a dichotomy of two broad forms that “crises blogs†(if you will) can take: the public or general interest, and the private or more narrowly focused. Norton tends to favor the former, and I would agree.
This distinction doesn’t have to do with what events are focused on, but how they’re covered. The “narrow-focus†blogs that Norton writes of are dominated by “missing persons†reports or similar content with limited value. She cites a variety of examples following the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina. The value of blogs dedicated to missing people is limited, chiefly because of the random, unfocused nature of a typical small blog’s audience. The readers of a blog following either calamity would likely be a distance from ground zero, since they would have access to the internet and the luxury of spending their time online reading blogs. Or, imagine the success rate of a television program like “America’s Most Wanted†if the entire viewership was in, say, China. (An exception Norton notes is one Slidell, Texas blog, following Hurricane Katrina. But the actual effectiveness (were any of these personal messages posted ever read by the right party?) is still questionable and left unanswered.)
As Norton points out, all “crises blogs†are not wholly irrelevant. A first-hand retelling of an event can be gripping and humanizing, something that can affect the reader a thousand miles away. This is the more public, readily worthwhile “crises blog.†The worth of something like this is obvious because similar writing already (and has for some time) appears in print. First-hand accounts are everywhere, from respected monthlies to weekly tabloids.
To this end, blogs have the potential to become immensely important. The value of self-published first-hand accounts has already proven itself with bloggers from the Middle East – Iraq in particular. The accounts of both Iraqi and U.S. soldier bloggers have provided insights into the distant conflict that the public has arguably never had access to. Whether or not this is taken advantage of is a different question. And of course, with the rising significance of first-hand blogs, comes censorship or outright propaganda masquerading as reality. What quality control mechanisms do blogs and the broad blogging community have? For that matter, what quality control does print media really have? Print media has better copy-editors. Claims beyond that are questionable.
Norton ends the essay on an upbeat note that I think is unwarranted. Can blogs become a new, immediate form for communicating during times of crises? Not yet. When the levees are collapsing, our first instincts aren’t to start blogging about it.
Posted February 13th, 2007 at 11:59AM
Andrew F., The Last New Media Essay
An apt subtitle for this piece might be along these lines: “A formal essay, published on the internet, lamenting the end of the essay in the face of the internet.”
Andrew begins by butchering the traditional essay, an outmoded form of writing. The claim is then made that the weblog is the 21st century platform for nu-essay writing. He outlines several examples that take advantage of the benefits of online digital media to varying degrees. The first blog features staid, lengthy pieces that might be at home in any print book. The second features shorter posts and links to other sites on the interweb. But it still quotes extensively – a holdover from print media, we are led to believe. The integration of third-party Web 2.0 wunderkinds like YouTube or Flickr is the final, most comprehensive embrace of the new digital essay.
For the most part, I feel no need to argue with Andrew’s assessment here. (What’s the point?) But I am still led back to that question of why this change is even occurring. Is it what popular society wants, or is it the result of advancing technology? A decade ago, we did not expect our internet writers to pull photos from their photo albums or videos from their favorite video site. Now that we have the ability, we clamor for it and say that it’s the natural progression of things. Of course writing must become more visually slick and engaging, focused less on big words and more on aesthetic considerations. Of course we want to dumb down the written word to the level of television. It’s so obvious in hindsight, right? 
Can the de-emphasis of text really be the future of writing? Are picture books considered literary works? What if we put them online and stream music?\
The times they are a-changing.
Posted February 1st, 2007 at 1:42PM
Reading: 1) Look at and play with 5X5;
2) Read the interview with Dan Waber;
3) Read around in Shelly Jackson’s My Body
Writing: Blog entry on the readings.
5×5 is an interesting but largely trivial exercise in coding. For those not willing to spend two seconds clicking on the link: it’s a three-dimensional square composed of words. The square can be revolved and spun along the three axis (although movement via the mouse is limited to two axis, a glaring omission). By moving the square, we can construct crude, often scrambled, short sentences. It’s refrigerator poetry with the z-axis.
I can only assume that the class was told to visit this page as it reveals the potential of computers in the future of exploiting more advanced and complicated code / applications, involving that third dimension. The idea of written media suddenly obtaining a third dimension because of technological advance is curious because this third dimension has always been with us in “The Real World.” Still, perhaps it’s easier to construct such things as this 3d kitchen poetry set on the computer, vis-a-vis the fridge – if nothing else because 3d objects stuck on our fridges would likely be knocked off and broken.
Shelly Jackson’s My Body is a worthwhile example of the possibilities that digital media allows us. Jackson’s site is simple technology-wise: an initial site map, with links leading to short, separate entries – all connected to the theme of the day – Jackson’s body. The closest analogous print media to this site might be a “choose your own adventure” book where you flip about as you see fit. It’s a non-linear experience; there is no place “to start,” or “to end.” You don’t need to visit all of it. The site also involves artwork by Jackson – and in this way, it might be likened to a children’s book (which she has written several).
It might be worthwhile to note that Jackson did the writing and the artwork, but left the coding of the site to someone else. The same is true for 5×5 and Dan Waber, the proclaimed creator. In both these cases, the “artists” are unable to work capably in the medium, and rely on others to bring the idea to fruition. When before has the medium been an obstacle for the artist? Perhaps with the creation of the printing press – there was certainly some skill involved there. But print media didn’t intrinsically require mass-produced text (created via a press); digital media requires the media to be.. well, digital. There are solutions to this (easy-to-use applications – HTML WYSIWYG editors, for example) but digital media seems to require a much higher level of sophistication than, say, print media. Or possibly even film or radio(?)
Posted January 30th, 2007 at 1:42PM
Writing Space Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print (2nd Edition) Chapters 1-3, Jay David Bolter
Jay David Bolter is quick to announce the “late age of print.” This “late age” is determined by the uncertainty of the role of print media, in the face of alternatives. Bolter refers to film, radio, television – and most significantly here – “digital media.”
My initial reaction to this first chapter was to question his assertion that any of these are true, immediate rivals to print media. Film, radio, and television have been constants for the past 100 years. Have Americans begun reading less during this time? Arguably, sure. So OK, Bolter might have a point here.
However throughout this first chapter he overstates his point, of the eventual demise of print. On page five he points out that electronic versions of Brave New World and Jurassic Park have been purchased by thousands. This number is hardly impressive. He points out the existence of “specialized devices styled as electronic books” on page eight, but neglects to mention that all such ventures have been commercial failures. Six years after Bolter’s book, and we’re still reading it in print, and there is still no elegant solution to reading our “computer screens” in bed.
The second chapter is based on the idea of writing as a technology, and with the means (whether handwritten, with printing press, or electronic) having a measurable impact on what (and how) we write. This is logical. The printing press determined many things through its limitations – text was linear, with clean, straight margins and uniformity.
The most prominent argument against the demise of print is that, for even the most tech-savvy, nobody wants to read full-length novels on a computer screen. This is a product of various things, chiefly the limitations of the technology. Some of these limitations will be overcome in time, and others we’ll learn to live with. But if the media determines the content (which might make sense, although Bolter disagrees) then won’t the ubiquitous digital media change the way we read? Those other new(er) channels noted – film, television, radio – have either changed or reflected society’s shortening attention span. With digital media it stands to reason that shorter, more interactive (multimedia, if you will) will become the dominate form of expression. And, indeed, it already has.
Bolter explains these changes (and could have done so much more succinctly) on pages 16-17.
Writing technologies are never external agents that invade and occupy the minds of their users. These technologies are natural or naturalized only in the sense that they are constituted by the interaction of physical materials and human practices. No technology, not even the apparently autonomous computer, can ever function as a writing space in the absence of human writers and readers.
So the transition from novels and 2,000-word newspaper articles to short several hundred word digital texts accompanied with audio or video is what society wants. Whether this is true or not is debatable. The printing press created clean, minimalistic, uniform texts. Was this “wanted” by society, or was the ability to crank them out the real benefit, and straight margins only an acceptable side-effect?
Likewise, is the short piece accompanied by aesthetic designs want we want, or are we writing within the limits of the technology? Bolter would say we want it like this. The common rule of thumb among the blogging community suggests a standard entry length of around the size of, say, your average op-ed column; and not nearly as long as a detailed news entry on the NY Times. So is this a product of the media’s limitations, or the result of what consumers (readers) want? Anyone’s guess.
Posted January 25th, 2007 at 2:32PM
1. Given what you’ve read thus far and what you know, what do you think about blogs and blogging? What appeals? What repels? Why? Analogies? Metaphors?
2. Do you think social and/or political and/or personal and/or aesthetic consequences of blogs and blogging are significant? Do blogs change the world? If so, in what ways. If not, why not?
Blogs are overrated in much the same way that the internet itself is overrated. Blogs have the ability to transcend typical political or economic or social barriers. Anyone can freely self-publish – and the potential audience far dwarfs traditional markets of, for instance, print media. But potential doesn’t necessitate actual change, and the idea that blogs might democratize or revolutionize free speech remains a simple wet-dream of a Western tech-savvy elite.
Blogging and the rest of “Web 2.0″ is primarily concerned with interactivity, of slick design and [often irrelevant] content. Examples can be found by the dozen: MySpace, YouTube, various blogging and photo websites. And to be sure, the majority of these users aren’t the elite – they’re those most readily able to adapt and realize the potential of new technology. The youth. But as they jump on the interactive bandwagon, they use the technology as they see fit. This means, instead of using the new web to revolutionize free speech or diversify public dialogue, it’s used for the trite and trivial – the bread and butter of our day-to-day existence. Bitching about relationships or making arrangements for the weekend.
Blogging today seems less about free speech and expanding the public discourse and more about exhibitionism and flaunting our individualism. We’re all unique snowflakes and there must be an audience that wants to read about our vapid, insecure lives, damnit.
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