Gane, Nicholas, and David Beer. New Media: Key Concepts. Oxford: Berg, 2008. Kindlebook.

 

Chapter 5: Archive

(*Note: attempts to cite come from the digital pages assigned via the Kindle Cloud Reader)

The “new archival phenomena” is known as “architectures of participation” (0’Reilley 2005).

How do we (should we) conceptualize storage?

1. Archives today are networked unlike the papers of old which were simply stuck in a file and thrown into a trunk
2. The underlying conceptual designs (even if they don’t work properly) are just as important as the information they carry
3. In this digital age, we must see that “archiving” does not mean putting away and keeping others from accessing something easily; everything is dynamic and accessible.
4. The “responsibility for the design and governance of archives” ultimately belongs within “the hands of their users” (71-72)

Derrida looks at “the connections between archives and the structures of human memory” (72). n my own life I can see my memory “muscle” is getting slack because I now I can easily retrieve information. I saw evidence of this in class just last week when I had trouble remembering Sherie’s project idea even though I had just read it. Without it visibly sitting on my computer screen, I was not able to recall the information when I began to speak.

According to Derrida’s focus, power belongs to the one who holds (archives) the information (73). Today’s private information is largely publicly held and/or viewed (flip-flopped). Derrida seems to fall in line with McLuhan’s thought that “the medium is the message” by thinking that “media technologies are not passive conveyors of content or representations, but actively structure archives and perhaps even their users” (74). Derrida overlooks the various forms of archive data in preferring only the written word via email; new media must consider sound, text, and image.

The internet, though not exclusively an archive machine, contains technologies which “unbind the archive so that anyone with a connection can consume, contribute to, and in some extent, police its space” creating “popular” (Michael Lynch) information. This results in “the everyday tak[ing] on a new significance” (77). Zygmunt Bauman refers to this “mass archiving of the everyday” as “individualization” (78). Andrew Keen is afraid this me-centered shift “threatens to bring an end to ‘informed citizenship,’” yet my experience is that very few citizens are really informed, with or without the various networks offered through the internet.

Important Greek terms: the oikos (private space or nuclear family), the ecclesia (public space – more literally “church” or “assembly”), the agora (the classical meeting place of private and public issues or “gathering place”)

Side note: Bauman, Castells, and Keen are afraid of the me-centrality of the internet (via YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, etc.) but doesn’t this networking serve the same purpose as a good work of fiction in helping us share life experiences without always having to pay the consequences? In a broad sense, aren’t we using the net to fulfill our need for catharsis as Aristotle would claim?

Keen is wise to point out that plagiarism will increase with this notion of “free information” being available at the click of a mouse without any “capitalistic” gatekeepers to protect it (80).

Foucault (from a political stance) is concerned with archiving only “official” information and in essence erasing “subjugated” knowledges (84). In addition to this possible problem, today’s inclusion/exclusion can also include access to this knowledge. But hasn’t that always been the case? In the middle ages, only those who knew Latin or French were “educated.” Just as Martin Luther worked to get the Bible to the common people in their common language, do we have a call to get today’s information to the masses in the same manner? Can we? So what used to be a language barrier centuries ago has now become a digital barrier.

Chapter 6: Interactivity

Separates “old” from “new” media, but hard to really define.

Utopian versions see interactivity as “freeing us from the limits of geographical and bodily spaces”: the “dream of transcendence” (Stephen Graham) and the “myth of interactivity” (Lev Manovich).

McLuhan designates different media as “hot” or “cold,” but he links books and films in the “hot” category and television in the “cold” category; how are television and film media different? Manovich says the opposite, but I still disagree; I don’t have to create an image in my head when watching cinema – it is created for me.

Cool: not “well filled in with data”; requires interaction or talking

Hot: low in participation

Manovich wants a range of interactivity and a series of interactivity “types” which are either open or closed (92). The fact that we can create paths, tags, etc. inside Scalar gives us open interactivity but when we follow those links or paths, we have closed interactivity. I’m seeing how Scalar is demonstrating the practical to balance out all this theory (but I wish Scalar were less quirky).

Spiro Kiousis (2002) explores the question of truly how interactive digital interfaces really are or if interactivity is mostly perceived by the users (93). Examples include the interactive design of many science museums (Kiousis) and especially the Holocaust museums (Anna Reading) as attendees may be perceiving history differently and remembering different things than via traditional museums. “This suggests that interactivity is not simply a technical interaction between a device and a user in a museum space, but rather a process through which ‘public memories,’ (sic) knowledge and culture are mediated more generally” (96).

Four approaches to the concept of interactivity:

1. technically informed (interactive opportunities built into the hardware and/or software)
2. human agency (human involvement or human use)
3. describing communication between users which is mediated by new media
4. political concept (changes in governmentality and citizenship)

Interactivity by sites like Slacker.com, Pandora.com, and Amazon.com may help give users a more customized experience, but the bottom line becomes commercialism as sites are geared more toward specific consumers. Such use can become discriminatory as companies begin to target those from whom they believe they will receive more money (100). Key words: “fast” or “knowing” capitalism (Nigel Thrift)

 

Chapter 7: Simulation

Jean Baudrillard considered the key theorist of simulation and hyperreality (defined as the virtual but more real than the real)

3 (4) Levels of Simulacra: modes of experience

1. Renaissance: trying to “counterfeit” or copy nature via signs or objects
2. Industrial: no longer “reproduction” but “mass production”
3. Simulation: no more counterfeiting or “pure series” but models connected to models
4. (added in 1990s) Fractal or Viral

Reality is no longer “understood to be a universal phenomenon … but rather is treated as a historically specific construct” (105).

Kittler’s “system of secrecy” helps us realize that layers are hiding beneath layers: “For example, the direct operating system (DOS) of the personal computer hides the BIOS that enables this system to run, and applications (such as Word) hide, in turn, the workings of DOS. The end result of this upward spiral is the illusion that there is nothing other than software or simulation…” (108). Because of all these “under-the-surface” layers (and the daemons that help run applications), “the commands of the applications we use command us (Ostrow 1997: ix)” (109).

Kittler says that “ the internal logics and coded routines through which such technologies work, and through which simulated environments operate and are produced, are to be a – or perhaps even the – key focus of sociology and media theory” (110). So the one who writes the underlying code can manipulate the masses in a sense. Wow. Now I see the focus on the political in many of these essays.

Posthuman studies: separating information from matter (hardware and software / physical and virtual space) which leads to cybernetic theory. Haraway considers “three key boundaries that have helped preserve the sanctity of ‘the human’ as a self-contained being: those between humans and animals, animal-humans (organisms) and machines, and the realms of the physical and non-physical” (115). Genetic modifications or added hardware (prosthetics) call into question the “natural” order of humanity. For those who don’t put stock in an eternal soul, this debate can be very problematic. I know this sounds too simplistic to many people, but it helps distinguish humanity from other forms of being. A man with a pacemaker to keep his heart beating to a regular rhythm and a woman with a prosthetic arm are still humans, regardless of how much they depend on technology to help them live.

Kittler “departs from McLuhan and … other human-centered media theory” which focus on “either the user or audience” (115).

Chapter 8: Conclusion

You said it! “Concepts are never fixed or definitive tools of thought, and are only meaningful or ‘good’ insofar as they may be applied to the study of specific research problems. … [They] are rather ‘thinking technologies’ that are deeply contested” (120).

As “new” media become assimilated into our normal lives, the “new” becomes “mundane” and we forget to ask the questions regarding how we are being formed or transformed by the technology upon which we rely.

 “What’s In a Name?” Claire Lauer

Part 1

Are the following terms all interchangeable:  Multimedia, multimodal, digital media, new media? This question led to the larger question for considering the “anatomy of a definition: how we develop definitions and how definitions shape our work in academia, the classroom, and public life” (Intro page). *Part II references an additional word: design

Resource Guide:

• “Computers and Writing” Conference
• Computers and Composition journal
• Wyosocki, Selfe, Sirc, Johnson-Eilola (2004) Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition
• Selfe (ed) (2007) Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers

Aporia: The expression of a doubt (Dictionary.com) Used in the context of not explaining the images that accompany text.

Key for group work in classes: “A conversation provides a place for people to explore ideas and try out various perspectives or approaches to problem solving.” Spoken language also communicates on different levels through “cadence and tone and tenor” (Aurality page).

A vote for the importance of definitions:  “Yet the effort is imperative because defining terms helps us figure out what we think, not just find the right words for what we already know. It helps us discover what we value and where we stand in relation to what has been said and done before. It positions us in the conversation, exposes our assumptions, announces our intentions, and helps us explain to ourselves and others who we are and what we believe” (Developing Definitions page).

The 7 Qualities of a Definition:

1. Audience-Oriented: Definitions are neither static nor consistent, but can change depending on the audience to whom a term is being directed.
2. Contextual: A term’s definition originates from and cannot exist outside of the social, historical, political, and technological context in which it is developed.
3. Historically Situated: Terms do not exist in a vacuum but carry with them the multitude of past understandings, practices, and uses. Terms can, in their very names, call attention to or move away from their histories.
4. Limited: Terms are necessarily limited in scope and what they can represent.
5. Multiple: Terms can be appropriated and defined differently to suit the purposes of members of different discourse communities.
6. Precise: Terms are often defined using precise language.
7. Relative: Terms are often defined in relation to other terms and what is similar or different about each.

 Part 2

Will the term “digital” become outdated since everything is digital now? (Jason Palmeri “Future of the Digital” on Contextual page)

“Proximity and novelty” together keep things fresh (Gunther Kress “Proximity and History” on Historically-situated page)