Once again, this semester was a very interesting one. The more classes I take in media studies, the more I connect the relevance with cultural studies in contemporary times. I really liked many of the theorists and their analysis of the way technology interacted with the way we socialize and our culture as a whole. One of my favorites was Manovich and his book The Language of New Media. Manovich kind of reminded me of the course of Marxism and Cultural Studies when he discussed how we can look at the way Marx would analyze media (65) and his analysis of “media prisons” (107),
Another author I enjoyed reading was K. Hayles. She brought some interesting points, though I didn’t agree with her in some occassions. I liked the chapter on the Future of Literacy. I think it was very valuable to have the theoretical background to then move and apply to the specific examples of hypertexts and electronic media.
I had a hard time at the beginning differentiating between some of the terms, such as difference between a cybertext and a hypertext, and electronic media in general. I think this is something we could have discussed in more detail in class. I really liked using Google Wave, for the same reason as Jori, because I was able to pull up all our notes and reference the material faster. I also enjoyed the blog, though doing two entries a week was hard for me because I didn’t know what to write about for the second post. I enjoyed reading other people’s blogs and learned a great deal from their analysis.
I would have liked to explore more on the social interaction with media. Jori’s project had some outstanding videos that discuss the effects of media in our society and how media and technology are changing us. I think that integrating more of these concepts would generate very interesting discussions.
This class has definitely opened my eyes to the vastness of new media and technology, as well as its dynamic characteristics. I realized how little I know about how to work HTML and building a website. I look forward to learning more on this during the summer. Great class, and great company, thank you all!