This week's blog post is in response to both Mike Featherstone's article Theory, Culture and Society and David Carr's semi-provocatively titled piece Is Google Making Us Stupid?
I really liked reading both of these articles. They were both very thorough and yet succinct at the same time, although Carr's piece felt like it may have left some loose ends untied.
Speaking of Carr's article, I see where he's coming from with his argument that the internet is in some way tinkering with our brains and our memories. However, I view this phenomenon in a different way that I don't believe he really touched on.
The internet isn't destroying our brains or our memories as much as it is just changing how we retain information as well as what we are more likely to retain.
The human brain seems to be more likely to remember information that it took a lot of effort to track down (i.e. spending hours in a library combing through stacks and poring over a book). With the advent of Google and the rest of the internet's database of information, the entire concept of "tracking down" information has become pretty much obsolete.
We take the internet for granted in the assumption that it will always be there with us. Knowing a vast wealth of information is always going to be available at our very fingertips, we are less inclined to remember anything knowing that we can always easily look it up in the exact same spot in cyberspace later on with little to no effort on our part whatsoever. Carr kind of glossed over this in favor of writing about how the internet is shortening everyone's attention spans this way.
That's is for this week. I won't have a blog post next week because I don't have one due over the week of spring break. I leave you with a link to a brand new blog that I am a coauthor of with classmate Taylor Reed. This is for my big semester project in my Digital Journalism class. This makes five blogs that I now am expected to maintain. So long!
Monday, March 18, 2013
Monday, March 11, 2013
Inside Authorship
This week's blog post is in response to three articles. They are The Death of the Author by Roland Barthes, Models of Authorship in New Media by Manovich and Michel Foucalt's piece on the function of the author.
They were all very short HTML based pieces (which I appreciate at this time of year) but they were very straight forward and got their points across wonderfully (even if Manovich's writing felt a little unfocused).
Barthes' piece was rather unusual for it's length. I felt like I was reading the CliffNotes for a much larger piece of literature I was supposed to have read all the way through for this class, but since that wasn't the case here, I appreciate the brevity of this article.
Still, Barthes and Foucault had the most interesting takes on this subject. The concept of "authorship" is something fresh and clever to me in this context as I haven't read or heard of it being bought up in a digital media context until today.
It is a very relevant and important topic for this class and I'm glad it was bought up. While Barthes and Foucault's articles were written quite some time ago, they can be applied to today's world much more easily. Barthes and Foucault viewed authorship mostly as a deep philosophical concept and applied it to the medium of books and literature. This can be better applied to the internet and social media. Manovich briefly touched on this, but didn't quite get there as he was more interested in talking about how it applied to writing software.
Both articles claim that some insight into the author's identity is key to deciphering their text so, in essence, if one were to "remove" the author form said text then figuring out its meaning would be virtually impossible. It is true that whatever the medium you write in, your writing stays with you forever. At the same time, it belongs to the public and whatever you write will be associated with your identity forever not just as an author but as a human being. Your writing both consciously and subconsciously reflects who you are inside.
This especially holds true for the the internet and especially social media. You can remain as anonymous as you want to online, but what you write is attached to an identity and said identity is forever bound to you as a person. Social media is different because your putting your real identity there and whatever you write and produce is associated with you personally and will stay with you forever as the internet becomes less tangible and more consuming of our lives and memories. Books are one thing, they are in print which is a tangible medium. Still, the stories within become part of our culture and consciousness. The internet is also different because if you're not constructing a work of fiction, then you must be consciously posting what you yourself are doing or thinking at any given moment in real time.
I guess what I'm really trying to say here is no matter where you're writing, be careful and responsible of what you write because you don't know how wide your audience reach could get.
That's it for this week. For now, I leave you with this link to my new website where I've made some major design changes. See you next week!
They were all very short HTML based pieces (which I appreciate at this time of year) but they were very straight forward and got their points across wonderfully (even if Manovich's writing felt a little unfocused).
Barthes' piece was rather unusual for it's length. I felt like I was reading the CliffNotes for a much larger piece of literature I was supposed to have read all the way through for this class, but since that wasn't the case here, I appreciate the brevity of this article.
Still, Barthes and Foucault had the most interesting takes on this subject. The concept of "authorship" is something fresh and clever to me in this context as I haven't read or heard of it being bought up in a digital media context until today.
It is a very relevant and important topic for this class and I'm glad it was bought up. While Barthes and Foucault's articles were written quite some time ago, they can be applied to today's world much more easily. Barthes and Foucault viewed authorship mostly as a deep philosophical concept and applied it to the medium of books and literature. This can be better applied to the internet and social media. Manovich briefly touched on this, but didn't quite get there as he was more interested in talking about how it applied to writing software.
Both articles claim that some insight into the author's identity is key to deciphering their text so, in essence, if one were to "remove" the author form said text then figuring out its meaning would be virtually impossible. It is true that whatever the medium you write in, your writing stays with you forever. At the same time, it belongs to the public and whatever you write will be associated with your identity forever not just as an author but as a human being. Your writing both consciously and subconsciously reflects who you are inside.
This especially holds true for the the internet and especially social media. You can remain as anonymous as you want to online, but what you write is attached to an identity and said identity is forever bound to you as a person. Social media is different because your putting your real identity there and whatever you write and produce is associated with you personally and will stay with you forever as the internet becomes less tangible and more consuming of our lives and memories. Books are one thing, they are in print which is a tangible medium. Still, the stories within become part of our culture and consciousness. The internet is also different because if you're not constructing a work of fiction, then you must be consciously posting what you yourself are doing or thinking at any given moment in real time.
I guess what I'm really trying to say here is no matter where you're writing, be careful and responsible of what you write because you don't know how wide your audience reach could get.
That's it for this week. For now, I leave you with this link to my new website where I've made some major design changes. See you next week!
Monday, March 4, 2013
Inside the Digital Divide, Cyberqueers and Social Networking
This weeks' blog is in response to the readings Social Network Sites Definition, History and Scholarship by Dana M. Boyd, Cyberqueer by Nina Wakeford and The Digital Divide in a Global Perspective by Castells.
They were all very informative and fact based reads, however flawed they might have been. As an avid Facebook and Twitter user myself, the article on social networks wasn't terribly revelatory to me, but I did like learning how early on social networking had gotten started and how narrowed in focus it was in the late '90s/early 2000s. I really learned more about the origins of social networking than I expected.
The Digital Divide pieces, however, was all over the place and had little to no real focus whatsoever. I felt like I couldn't pick up anything worthwhile from it. The Cyberqueer article was interesting as it offered a unique perspective on how identities (particularly sexual orientation) play out online. It didn't really land with me on a personal level or anything, but it was certainly something to think about and it could apply to all of us in ways we aren't even aware of.
This social networking article did actually raise an interesting point about how we may or may not define the concept of "friendship" differently in the 21st century as connections get more and more impersonal. Sure, they are "connections" to say the least, but are they really "friends" if we've never met these people in real life? They could be if we ever do get a chance to meet them. It all depends on how one uses networks social via social networks (for lack of a better phrasing). Does one use such platforms to stay in touch with current real life friends or to meet new people alter on in real life? Does one use it for social friendships or for business contacts? It's hard to always know.
I think I will just leave it there for now. I didn't plan to spend much time on this week's entry as I'm already getting sick and I have a midterm on Thursday to study for. I will just end by saying that you can expect some new changes at my website for a Digital Journalism project by the end of the week. This is another thing that should be taking up some of my time this week, so goodnight!
They were all very informative and fact based reads, however flawed they might have been. As an avid Facebook and Twitter user myself, the article on social networks wasn't terribly revelatory to me, but I did like learning how early on social networking had gotten started and how narrowed in focus it was in the late '90s/early 2000s. I really learned more about the origins of social networking than I expected.
The Digital Divide pieces, however, was all over the place and had little to no real focus whatsoever. I felt like I couldn't pick up anything worthwhile from it. The Cyberqueer article was interesting as it offered a unique perspective on how identities (particularly sexual orientation) play out online. It didn't really land with me on a personal level or anything, but it was certainly something to think about and it could apply to all of us in ways we aren't even aware of.
This social networking article did actually raise an interesting point about how we may or may not define the concept of "friendship" differently in the 21st century as connections get more and more impersonal. Sure, they are "connections" to say the least, but are they really "friends" if we've never met these people in real life? They could be if we ever do get a chance to meet them. It all depends on how one uses networks social via social networks (for lack of a better phrasing). Does one use such platforms to stay in touch with current real life friends or to meet new people alter on in real life? Does one use it for social friendships or for business contacts? It's hard to always know.
I think I will just leave it there for now. I didn't plan to spend much time on this week's entry as I'm already getting sick and I have a midterm on Thursday to study for. I will just end by saying that you can expect some new changes at my website for a Digital Journalism project by the end of the week. This is another thing that should be taking up some of my time this week, so goodnight!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)