Category Archives: discussion

I finally finished all the revisions to my Critical Project. As I explained in my presentation, the project basically compiles a lot of the theories in Media Studies with an applied perspective of the topic of online mediation and interaction.

My particular focus was on the function of cyberspace, the racial aspects, whether it is hegemonic or democratic,  and the Zapatistas as a study case to prove its democratic value. Please feel free to read it and send any comments you would like. I’ll set up a blog during the summer, and I can email you all the link. As of now, you can find my paper titled Cyberspace, Revolution or Hegemony at: staffwww.fullcoll.edu/mmonreal

In thinking about we feel fine I was conflicted in trying to figure out how I felt about the project, in terms of its function.  This desire to attribute some sort of purpose or functionality on this project is most likely embedded in this idea that our technology must be used for some sort of productive end goal.  The project of we feel fine IS doing something, it is creating a documented compilation of what we have coded as feelings all over the internet.  As users of the internet continue to blog and express what they are thinking, doing, feeling with the specific words “I feel,” it is an interesting concept to explore the internal and individual emotion through the written and shared word of “feel.”  Perhaps we can draw conclusions about the shared experiences and lives of the people who are using cyberspace to express these deep and heartfelt emotions with the world.   In recognizing this as being the work that we feel fine is doing, it becomes easier to understand the diverse role that technology and the internet can play in our lives.  Clearly there is the use of digital technology in an art space and atmosphere, which is easy to understand because the function in that work is not necessarily tied to producing some sort of object or completing a task.  However, projects that use technology in ways that straddle that line between art and machine are more interesting to look at, and ultimately open up our eyes to the multifaceted uses of technology.

Here’s the link to my final project:

http://tigistk.wordpress.com/

The applets aren’t up there, but let me know if you want them sent to you!

This class was really one of my favorites.  I think there were a lot of things that worked really well in terms of how the class was organized and run, as well as the content of the class.

Google Wave turned out to be a really helpful resource for the class.  At first it took some getting used to, but it did allow for everyone to assist in putting up ideas from the class discussion and then have that as a resource later.  The class room’s physical layout and the fact that everyone had a computer to use was pretty key to the class and using google wave made it easy to keep everyone from getting too distracted on their computers.
The blog was really helpful and interesting and a nice addition to the class’s discussions, readings and goals, the only thing is sometimes two posts per week were difficult to keep up with.  Otherwise people brought in a lot of really interesting ideas and connections onto the blog, expanding our topics even further into our lives/cyberspace.  Also, leaving up the blogs even after the class is over is great and will allow us to constantly look back and check out the interesting connections we’d made all semester.

The readings were awesome – the progression of the topics made sense in a theoretical and historical way – with each topic building off the last.

This was really a great class and I think that one thing to not change though is in keeping it small – I don’t think the class would have worked as well or been as engaging if it were in a much larger setting.

Thanks for a great semester all!

Here’s the link to my final blog:

http://ms168blog.blogspot.com/

This class has taken my on a writing mechanisms roller coaster.  Beginning the class with Marshall McLuhan’s work on mediums and our relationship to the machine, and ending with various example of Electronic Literature.  This class has not only redefine the way I think about the computer, but how I define literature as well.  Instead of passively interacting with the computer, I know think of the progression in writing tools, starting with the pencil, and coming full circle to the computer.  Even my definition machines has been reevaluated.

Also, for google wave, I was always one of those old fashion students who likes to have a notebook where I write notes, and initially I was really hesitant about google wave.  Turns out it was great.  It was a really helpful tool, and wasn’t too distracting either.   It added to the structure of the class, and was an additional way for us to engage with the material

While reading Jori’s project titled Online Deliberation, I came across a documentary which really sums up a lot of questions and thoughts I had before and even during the semester. This is a PBS Frontline documentary titled “Digital Nation” and it raises a lot of questions on the effects technology has had in our culture, society, and even in our brain.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

Some of the points I found fascinating were the effects that technology has had on children, and their socialization. The ways that families today have a different way of socializing and relating, even at the dinner table. Yet the statistics that most shocked me was that the average American youth spends on the average fifty hours a week using technology. This really got me thinking of the potential for indoctrination (see Mc Gonighan’s video on Jori’s website too). This means that this technology is actively teaching our children various ideas. The question then is what is it that children are learning? Can we say that they are being taught to be good consumers? or is there potential for activism and social change?

Finally, the other key point is the effects that the use of this technology has had on  our brains. There is an increase in activity, but according to Dr Small from UCLA, this activity increase may not necessarily be a good thing. Interesting research is being conduction on this. Be sure to watch this and post your thoughts, I would love to read what you think.

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!

So I know we’ve talked a lot about the death of the print novel in class, but something I’ve been thinking about too is the death of the magazine.  More so than the novel and other academic forms of texts, I feel like magazines and newspapers have quickly been dying out, and numerous publications have gone out of print.  I think this is directly related to the rise blogs.  I wrote a post about it for my project, and decided to post it here as well:

Over the past couple of years, various music publications have been forced to downsize or have gone out of business, while music blogs have flourished, expanded, and sprung up all over the internet. How can we view the music blog as a new form of interactive electronic literature – as it builds musical communities, and transfers music based literature to the web. Katherine Hayles opens her book, Electronic Literature, by saying

“Is electronic literature really literature at all? Will the dissemination mechanisms of the internet and the Web, by opening publication to the public to everyone, result in a flood of worthless drivel? Is literary quality possible in digital media or is electronic literature demonstrably inferior to the print canon? What large-scale social and cultural changes are bound up with the spread of digital culture, and what do they portend for the future of writing” (pg 2)

These question correlate directly to my discussion of music blogs, and I argue that it is the audience that serves as the publishing filter. Only those blogs that are well written and that are engaging gain a large readership, and those that are less than are often abandoned. Electronic Literature has lead to the rise of peer review, whereas with print, editors at large judge writers on a set criteria. Now readers have taken on this role. Readers have become active agents in the writing process as the readers comment can relate to anything in the post – ranging from content to typos.

What does this mean for the future of literature? Who knows, but I hope to continue to explore these questions as I read more and more music blogs. I think the engagement of the reader is exciting, if nothing else, and this will shift the way writing is approached. Now writers truly know their audience, and can engage in a direct dialogue with them if they choose to. The possibilities are endless.