final exam rhetoric in cyberspace

Response to Response on Situated Stickiness

2004-12-14T15:25:00.000-08:00

In regards to Sleepwalker’s response, I agree that it is a loose connection to stickiness. I figured the link to situated cognition was slim as well, hence the tropically fruit punchy name situated stickiness. I was just saying, for example, that looking at that same excerpt from the “Tipping Point”, there seems to be a tie to situated cognition as well as the stickiness that Malcolm Gladwell highlights. Dr. Whithaus asked for a possible connection between the two theories, and it seemed that when the producers changed the setting that the children were used to being immersed in, the children chose to neglect the program, and Sesame Street was almost completely forgotten. Placing the children back in the evironment of situated cognition that they were accustomed to (Sesame Street) allowed them to find their way back to the program they loved. I guess the street that the producers used for the Sesame Street program represented “the glue” that produced the stickiness; I guess as it related to situated cognition, once the street “the glue” was removed, cognition was no longer an interest in the eyes of the viewers.

Response to Keeping Granny Comment

2004-12-14T14:38:00.000-08:00

In response to what Sleepwalker said, I recognize that the courthouse and the business field are two different entities, and I recognize where anyone can be expendable. I guess I was just trying to note that the lack of Information technology does not quite handicap the older women in this day and age as much as other things might. Harley Davidson carrying the image of being youthful is another entity entirely as well, and that may have adverse affects on older women keeping their positions but that does not have anything to do with their knowledge or capability in regards to getting the job done effectively. The employee that comes to assist the ladies in their work lacks actual knowledge in the field that he works for. All he does is put programs together the way the ladies tell him to in order to produce a result that the ladies would find more useful in the completion of tasks that are necessary at the job. He puts programs together merely because he is told to do so. The ladies actually know why he puts those programs together. An example of this is noted in an article that discusses the difference between “information” and “knowledge”. Information is something computers possess and something that is Technical IT professionals such as our courthouse employee can wield. Knowledge refers to the reason why that information needs to be wielded, and dictates a purpose for the utilization of that technology.

Response to Situated Stickiness Response

2004-12-14T13:57:00.000-08:00

In regards to my post on situated stickiness, sonicka commented on the stickiness of certain web pages. There are also sites that don’t allow users to simply close out programs that they don’t desire. They sneak spy ware and other programs into computer systems to the point where users start to recognize foreign programs on their system. Next thing you know, you are looking at your program listing and viewing programs that you can be fairly certain that you never accepted or authorized on your computer. I guess you can say that is this piracy is sort of a forced stickiness that is applied.

Internet and Working

2004-12-14T13:48:00.000-08:00

We talked in class about the idea that the internet has changed work in a number of ways. First, the type of jobs and work is changing (e.g. The Lexus and the Olive Tree). Next, the types of people who are doing the work is changing (e.g. Granny @ Work, also Lexus). Also, the way work is done is changing (e.g 21 Dog Years). Finally, the amount of time we spend working is changing.

This final issue, the idea that you can always be working and never be working at the same time got me thinking about my sister's fiance. Jason is a graphic designer specializing in web design, and he's GOOD. I mean, really good. You can link to his website to get a little taste (www.getyourlefton.com) And his experience demonstrates all the areas of work we've been discussing.

Since graduating from my alum, George Mason University, Jason has gone through almost a dozen jobs. He worked for a design firm, for Apple, for a company that did post-production work on films, for an interior design company... and on, and on. With only one or two exceptions, all Jason did all these jobs from home.

But Jason often explained that people who wanted websites didn't fully understand what kind of work goes into create one. His saying, which is a common one, is... When it comes to web design, there are three qualities: fast, cheap, good. You can have any two, but you can't have all three.

As a result of this fact and many others, Jason always ends up quitting his job in favor of free-lancing. And the reason is exactly what we've all been discussing. The internet changes the nature of commerce, and those who are involved in making that commerce function are in a unique position. On the one hand, Jason has the skills, technology, and access to resources he needs to create amazing websites constantly. He's always got his computer(s), he's always got or is near to internet access, and he has the skills (both learned and self-taught). Theoretically, he could work all the time. But practically, he can't. For people like Jason who work for themselves and work from home, the management/balance of time takes on a new form via the internet.

Does anyone else have any experience with this type of work?

(If you go to his page, my big sis is the one sitting next to him on the boardwalk, and that's VA Beach in the background.)

Response for Carls "Old Hat" posting

2004-12-14T13:27:00.000-08:00

I think that the idea Carl presented regarding Cyberpunk seemingly becoming a thing of the past is amazing. I always thought that somehow cyberpunk would live on forever in the eyes of those who engage in its creation. It does seem however that the reason behind the dwindling age of cyberpunk is that it has a hard time keeping up with the imagination behind actual technology. I mean it just seems hard to keep up from the perspective of cyberpunk in creating new material that grabs an audience causing them to be immersed in a fictional world of technology when your fiercest competitor, reality, keeps them immersed in the true world of technology from the workplace to the living place. It might have something to do with the fact that the Cyberpunk creators always assumed that these technological ideas wouldn’t ever be much more than imagination and technology blended together to experience something that will forever be unattainable. This nowadays, simply is no longer the case with the advancement of technology and the promising leaps and bound that this field plans to make in the future. “Simple sci-fi often assumes that, in the face of future technology, Man will be no different in action or attitude than he is today. Although it can be interesting to see a modern "everyman" dealing with the exotic problems created by future technology, those stories are rarely inspired.”

Revolutionary Choices

2004-12-14T11:42:00.000-08:00

In the arena of IT, it seems that the people who are fall due to the advancement of technology generally have to suffer their loss and fall by the wayside. Other common citizens facing the revolution of language at their jobs through IT have to spend substantial amounts of money on education for knowledge in order to keep up with today’s economic market. These things are understandable and acceptable. When IT begins to have an adverse affect on the major figures and investors of the technological industry however, it seems that they are able to sideswipe the need for their advancement in order to keep up with technology. The funny thing about this situation is that the revolution in advanced technology that they are now fighting is the same that they had a huge hand in creating. There was no problem with technology when it advanced profit for corporations, but now that it has evolved into a new creature that benefits the consumer, it is a problem that needs to be addressed. This article addresses how corporations are dealing with children by scaring them into not sharing files and discussing the morality and ethics behind not sharing music. An example of the flipped side of this situation however displaying how the industries and corporations have problems being users of their own medicine can be seen through Disney’s manipulation of the system surrounding the length of copyright on Mickey Mouse. Instead of pushing for innovation and advancement in their business, they are pushing for money and further revenue from a product that should have been in public domain by now. I am not an opponent of the revolution of language. It just seems that the revolution is a friend when it benefits business and a foe when it does not benefit business the way the corporations would like for it to. This seems to leave a fork in the road regarding Brooks’ theory and the way we as consumers react to the revolution of language through technology.

Finding Humanity in Cyberpunk

2004-12-14T11:28:00.000-08:00

This is a comment to Carl’s excellent post below (http://finalexamrhetoricincyberspace.blogspot.com/2004/12/is-cyberpunk-old-hat.html#), but since I have trouble with my links when writing comments, I’m blogging this as a post instead.

First off, both Frank Herbert’s Dune (at least the first three books in the series) and The Newshour with Jim Lehrer completely rule (“Dune…melange…the spice is the life”). Both are just about my favorite examples of their respective ilk (or groups of practice, if you prefer). Carl raises some great issues about cyberpunk literature (and culture) and what the future may hold for it, if anything. While many of my perceptions of cyberpunk are reminiscent of the typical antisocial, schizophrenic, anarchic, morally slippery, IT centered type of worldview that seems to be among the more standard definitions of “cyberpunk,” my most recent reader-response to cyberpunk literature (Neal Stephenson’s “Cryptonomicon”) is a bit more positive and humanistic.

True, many of the common rebellious, loner, antisocial themes prevail, as detailed through the actions of the novel’s characters: cryptographers that are charged by their government to protect the world from the Nazis, and yet seem to worry more about arcane theories of mathematics, engineering and cryptography that often have less to do with stopping the Nazis than with fulfilling one’s personal ambition and besting one’s enemy like chess players; and IT programmers and entrepreneurs that act on the surface to aid clients (including national governmental organizations) in setting up secure electronic communication infrastructure to serve the public, and yet are really only interested in how they can use that same infrastructure as a means to secure their own personal riches and electronic freedom in storing and manipulating information. Also, as others have noted in class (especially Liz I believe, in reviewing William Gibson’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties”), many cyberpunk characters seem to be mysterious black boxes (like computers) unto themselves, often acting without clear motives, as many authors seem to be more interested in the action than character development. However, many of these quarks are truly human behaviors, and to me often some more realistic than the archetypal hero.

Also, in “Cryptonomicon” (http://www.nealstephenson.com/), there are also romantic relationships discussed—albeit briefly, and for all of the focus on cyberpunk culture, most of the action takes places among clearly human characters, in our existing modern world (present day and WWII), so the book is not weighed down by blurred lines between human / machine, reality / virtual reality, etc, and could likely be mistaken by many new readers as a simple techno-spy thriller. Also, the characters seem to be fighting largely against corrupt systems that breed war and unwarranted regulatory oversight and intrusion on people’s personal lives—which means they occasionally act for true positive ends—even if you have to dig a little to find examples. Some novels that do blur these lines of humanity and reality also show the positive, humanistic side of cyberpunk, such as Idoru (reviewed by Elif, I believe http://finalexamrhetoricincyberspace.blogspot.com/2004/12/love-in-cyberpunk-vs-pathos-situated.html#), where the ideas of love between human and machine intelligence where played with—although admittedly not the central focus of the book, I understand. To me, while cyberpunk literature (and culture) is certainly focused on aspects of IT and electronics—and often the darker aspects at that, the focus often reverts to the interaction of these fields with humans. Humans use IT, become lost in it, meet destructive ends in it, find their salvation in it, look for love in it, and ultimately develop IT to realize their own grand designs in reshaping the world in their image, so much of what I’ve seen of cyberpunk literature actually centers on and reinforces that which is positive and humanistic. If there were no themes of humanity present in these books I think a lot of people wouldn’t read them, as even those of us who like to occasionally root for the bad guys typically hinge our excitement on seeing the good human hero(s) fall. As for the future of cyberpunk you may be right on mark...but a few decades ago they said the novel itself was dead too, right?

Remembering the Digital Divide

2004-12-14T10:35:00.000-08:00

With all the enthusiastic discussion going on in this blog, I'm terribly afraid that we are neglecting an issue of vital importance and direct relevance to a course on rhetoric in the age of cyberspace. This issue is the idea of the digital divide.

First, let me explain how I became concerned about this topic. This story's a bit of a long-winded chance to vent for me, so skip to the next paragraph if you're just skimming. Throughout the semester I have been working under computer conditions that anyone would considered undesirable, particularly considering the type of courses in with I'm enrolled. Let me paint you a picture: I am working off a laptop that has a busted LCD screen, which would cost more to fix than buying a new laptop (neither of which is an option on a graduate teaching assistant salary). In order to use my computer, I have to connect it to an external monitor. However, I do not have the proper drivers on my computer to hook it to the cable internet I pay for, so I have to save all my work on a cd, then bring it somewhere I can use the internet (e.g. a school lab). My fiance, who lives with me, has a barely-functioning PC (my laptop is a Mac iBook), which is hooked up to the internet, but it can only be accessed through a series of CTRL+ALT+DELETE closures and crossed fingers. Clearly, this system leaves something to be desired, but it managed to carry me through the semester... until last week. About a week ago, the internet stopped working, and the cable company has to come fix it (which will not happen until the end of this week at best). With all these problem, it's obviously not the ideal time for me to being attempting a final exam blog.

So, under far from ideal circumstances, I've been attempting to contribute to the blog as much as possible, but I've been met with little success and big frustration. The result was a "lightbulb" moment for me that I must share, and I hope you all will consider.

We have all taken for granted our access to technology. With as much as I have complained about my computer troubles, I'm obviously sitting in front of one right now typing this post. So, when all is said and done, I have computer and internet access... and 98% of the world does not. I encourage you all to read the article Digital Divide. It's basically an extremely interested and well-organized hypertext essay/wikipedia entry that explores the so easily overlooked gap between those of us who have (literally) constant access to the internet and those who cannot even dream of such a thing. If we really want to talk about how rhetoric is changing, language is changing, work and school are changing, all as a result of the development of cyberspace, we must keep in mind that we are discussing an idea that pertains to a mere 2% of the people in the world.

Resistance is futile

2004-12-14T09:43:00.000-08:00

The discussion on Granny at Work made me think how unbelievable it must be for people who are “dependent” on IT (such as those in Levy’s article or in Carl’s NPR) to imagine that there are still people surviving in the technologically advanced society without using IT. Here is my little story (relax time:-) ): One of my clients whom I was teaching English for almost three years was a woman employed by the Czech government as a social worker. Most of her carrier there (I guess 25 years) she has lived without computer. Her office was surrounded by the paper files and later-on installed computer substituted the place of the type-writer. For the time I knew her she kept avoiding that computer as much as possible. Unfortunately I never persuaded her to find time to show her how to use email (although she kept saying that one day she needs to ask her [male] colleague to show her how to do it). Because of that, our contact now has been broken. I an sure that she is still able to keep her position; I just hope that she was pushed to take some IT courses, otherwise she will become vulnerable due to this lack of knowledge. To me it is incredible, that she has a high level job position, holds PhD., but can’t send an email. I fully empathize with people like her, who all of the sudden have to deal with a new sleeve (Altered Carbon).

Technology is biting its way into our life in fast speed and the resistance to it causes more and more disadvantages, such as loosing a job, or failing a class (to pass 666 without using IT would be a mission impossible), or the matter of saving money (I am not in a “big money” circle, but just booking a room in Luxor, Las Vegas, is $10 cheaper over the Internet than the phone). What else can be said than that Resistence is Futile!

Altered Carbon + Situated Cognition (Altered Cognition?)

2004-12-14T08:23:00.000-08:00

I am going to give this a shot in hopes that things come out alright. In viewing the passage from Altered Carbon, I am wondering if there might be two sides to Jean Lave’s theory on situated cognition as it relates to this story. I recognize the other discussions we had in class referring to the immersion that is necessary in order for an audience to understand a new form of technology. But I will pose my thought in the form of this question; Instead of having soldiers/mercenaries that were familiar with war and violence immersed “in bodies they don't know,” “on a world they don't know,” and facing an enemy that they were not familiar with, could they have had the common citizens of their respective galaxies that knew the environment, their bodies, and their enemies immerse themselves in the art of war and violence (which I guess would be the thing that would be considered unfamiliar to them)? I don’t think it would be exactly the same situation, but could that produce similar results according to Lave’s theory? I guess I would argue yes due to the fact that both sides placed in that situation would be fighting for their lives, presenting an equal level of urgency regardless. Thoughts anyone?

Is Cyberpunk "Old Hat"?

2004-12-14T07:14:00.000-08:00

I saw a memorable TV program sometime back called “The Science of Star Trek,” in which the feasibility (or lack thereof) of the various Star Trek technologies was discussed in depth. In most instances—e.g. transporter beams, faster-than-light space travel, inertial dampeners, etc.—few real-life developments in that direction were discernable. The one glaring exception was in computer technology. There, it turns out, the IT depicted in the show is really obsolete compared to what real modern computers can do. In fact, the show constantly struggled to keep its “starship computers” up to date. Then in another program, a show about contemporary science fiction, Star Trek and its ilk were termed “old hat”—modern sci-fi was “The X-Files” or the cyberpunk works of writers like William Gibson. But this article by Finkelstein, “Cyberpunk and Cyberculture: Science Fiction and the Work of William Gibson” (2002) asks if Gibson and the cyberpunk genre are themselves “old hat.” Gibson, of course, is the one who coined the phrases “virtual reality” and “cyberspace” in the early ‘80s. The movement was first identified in a collection called Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986), edited by Bruce Sterling. According to Finkelstein, “unlike such sci-fi predecessors as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, or Frederick Pohl, [cyberpunk] was an angry and hungry response to social change, an amalgamation… ‘in often baffling ways [of] the rational and irrational, the new and the old, the mind and the body, by integrating the hyper-efficient structures of high technology with the anarchy of street subcultures.’” Furthermore, “[It] was a synergetic linking between the emerging scientific field of cybernetics and contemporary antiestablishment youth movements such as punk culture. Allied to this was an ambiguous attitude toward drugs and its subsequent incorporation into a vision of a future world fragmented, technologically saturated, and increasingly dominated by corporate structures and social difficulties” (ibid). I guess that sums it up nicely.

In sharp contrast to “old school” sci-fi, typified by Star Trek, the cyberpunk vision is dark and nihilistic; there is no room for optimism or projections of a utopian future. That makes one wonder about the ultimate effects of technology in the first place. As someone pointed out in another post, why does all this “time saving” technology tend to make us work harder? Part of the answer might be that we spend inordinate amounts of time “keeping up,” both with rapid new developments and with the new tendency to over-saturate. For example, I had to disengage from several e-lists because I was getting several hundred emails per day; there simply was not time to read through all that stuff. And by the time I reflected on an interesting message and composed an intelligent response, the thread had long since disappeared. The character Case in Neuromancer feels utterly lost because he is exiled from cyberspace; the liberating characteristic of that existence is its incorporeality—the freedom from bodily limitations. That’s almost what you need to truly function in cyberspace. Then, perhaps, you could deal with tens of thousands of emails per day and still have time to watch “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.” But that particular genre was rooted firmly in the ‘80s; and lest we forget, that was 20 years ago—almost an eternity by today’s standards. Again, “An issue often raised about cyberpunk is that it is a loose term whose boundaries are not defined. We can date when it started, but has the cyberpunk movement ended yet? If Gibson is the key figure of the cyberpunk generation, does the fact that he hasn't produced a major work in over five years suggest it is now effectively over, a literary subgenre that is past its sell-by date?” (ibid)

Let’s side-step the nihilistic attitudes of generations X, Y, and Z—which I find self-indulgent and disingenuous—opt to keep the latest technology, which must be regarded as a tool rather than a “way of life,” and point to another vision. One of the main themes of Frank Herbert’s Dune series is the emphasis of human potential itself. Futuristic schools like the Bene Gesserit train women (no men allowed) to the extent that they have almost superhuman powers. Mentats, on the other hand, are specially trained “human computers”—real computers having been banned throughout the universe. In an episode of the original Star Trek (“The Space Seed”) Kahn—a product of 21st century eugenics—dismisses technological advance as superfluous. I tend to agree. I fully appreciate IT and all its applications, but the real future is in the reform of human beings themselves. In that sense, cyberpunk may indeed be finished as a literary genre.

Source:

Finkelstein, David. “Cyberpunk and Cyberculture: Science Fiction and the Work of William Gibson.” Library Quarterly, July 2002 v72 i3 p386(3).

Virtual Work Space

2004-12-14T03:14:00.000-08:00

21 Dog Years at Amazon.com, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Steal this Computer Book 3, and Granny @ Work were the books that had connections to work, economy, capitalism or globalization in some ways. The first one talked about a 21st-century-slacker’s perception of the office space at one of the largest Internet companies; the second one looked at the many faces of globalization; the third one was connected to the implications of capitalism taking computer as central the object; and the last one pointed out how older women coped with using technology at work. Overall, all of them, in one way or another, had references to a work place that is getting increasingly virtual, where everything was becoming more electronic and boundaries of time and space took a new shape.

Virtual Work Space extended the place we work outside of the offices and abolished the time limitations. It was with the means cyberspace provided us with, basically electronic communication, that the concept of 24/7 work time came about. It has been good to have access to communication and information anytime anywhere. Yet, it has also contradicted with the nature of taking a brake. That is, in a time where things were automated through IT and were expected to provide us with more time and space, we would actually not be able to have any brakes. In other words, Virtual Work Space came along with a paradox in itself.

All these made me understand that IT technologies may not always work the way we thought them to do.

Adaptation: Elif

No Net? I'd rather go without food!

2004-12-14T01:54:00.000-08:00

I see that, like many people in our times, I have become a type of person whose philosophy is: No Net? I’d rather go without food! This sentence is, as you will remember, inspired by Steven Levy’s article’s title in the Newsweek, which describes how we let the Internet occupy a considerable place in our lives within a very short time.

“It's only been a decade since the first decent Web browser began transforming the Net from something cherished only by Star Trek fans with modems the size of shoeboxes to something your mother uses,” Levy states. In such a short time, we became indivisible with the Internet, and it is so hard to believe we can do without it now.

This brings to my mind Liz’s first book: Live Without a Net. While in the future we would expect to have a better connected Internet, there we had faced with the idea that people would actually live without it with no type of communication that would take place in that kind of a medium. In the post I had made about this in my personal blog, I had connected the central message of this book to the course concepts of remediation- immediacy and hypermediacy saying that, in the future, “… I believe, if there will not be a Net, there will be something else that provides our communication. Something even superior to the Net... Therefore, such concepts as "remediation" will continue to exist, but this time we will talk about how this new medium- whatever it will be- remediates the old media.” I still feel the same way that we may do without the Net only if something superior existed. At that point, Bolter and Grusin’s concepts derived from remediation would probably be interpreted according the particular medium we would be talking about at that time, since that medium would draw a lot of stuff from the way the Internet functions today.

My Neurons Feeling More Connected and Happier

2004-12-13T23:42:00.000-08:00

1) Thanks to the Final Blog, I am much clearer on some course concepts such as “revolution of language.” After all we have talked about concerning this issue and taking into consideration the definition of revolution later, I have realized we could not call “what is going on” really a "revolution." That was why, I, too, like Sonicka, had some fuzzy feelings about it before, which took a couple of blog posts and some time to figure out. Some of my words like calling blogs a "part" of a revolution (not the revolution itself), or calling it a "so-called" revolution, were indications of the way I felt. Anyways. I won’t go into it again, but I would like to state my final point on this. I have reached to the conclusion that there had been some changes in the use of language, which could not have happened, if IT technology did not exist. Nevertheless, this was not a revolution in the real sense. It could just be called- in terms of Brooke, Dr. Whithaus, Sonia, and all the people who elaborated on the issue, too- a part of an evolution of language, or a remediation, just a change in use of it.

2) Christenbury’s point while talking with Dr Whithaus in “With Good Reason” that we should be “alarmed if time spent in front of the screen with such activities (as Instant Messaging) becomes an idol,” reminded me of the cartoon below:) I hope we will not be like this during in-class exam, when we get the questions on paper.

That is all for this post. I will be here with some more original posts soon. See you, Elif.

Motivated and Un Go Head-to-Head

2004-12-13T18:18:00.000-08:00

I’m really intrigued by the personalities of the characters (both real and imaginary) that we’ve encountered in this class. They seem to fall into two main categories: motivated and unmotivated. The motivated characters include Neal Stephenson, the super searchers, and the hackers whose stories are mentioned in Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier.

I argue that these characters are predominantly self-motivated – even the researchers, who are getting paid: they have a love for finding information, and that has monetary value to someone else. The hackers really are like explorers, who explore simply for the sake of knowing what’s out there. Neal Stevenson is someone I call “The Man,” because he’s multitalented and has written both fiction and nonfiction that we have seen in this course.

On the other hand, we have also seen people who have not been so motivated. The characters in Cryptonomicon, Stevenson’s own book, seem unmotivated, apathetic, and cynical (from what I gather from the presentation). The ultimate in unmotivated and cynical is probably Mike Daisey, author of 21 Dog Years. He seems like a super slacker instead of a super searcher – he scrapes by and more fascinated by office supplies (which I also enjoy) than work. MD would probably agree with the writer at the Slackers Guild - who knew there was one? A great quote from the entry: "I hate knowing this stuff because it is all overly complicated and takes up space in my brain, distracting me from the rest of daily life." In Daisey's defense, does his stressful work environment turn him into a slacker in order for him to protect himself? Perhaps. But shouldn’t he still be motivated by something? It seems like information technology has helped the overall work/productivity situation, but it can’t really change people. People haven’t become any more robot-like, and people also have physical, psychological, and personal limits as to how hard they are willing to work. Information tech has changed the environment that people work in, but I don’t think it’s improved people very much at all.

I have to say as an endnote that I really have been thinking a lot about Life Without a Net, especially since it's the first time that I feel I really needed the internet and computers to finish my work (these posts) and couldn't because my connection has shut down at the University Village where I live, and the labs are either full or closed. This has been the first time where I have felt completely incapacitated - there might as well be no electricity!

Electronic Communication in The Workplace...More, More, More

2004-12-13T17:25:00.000-08:00

Opera Ghost’s discussion (http://finalexamrhetoricincyberspace.blogspot.com/2004/12/economy-and-work.html) and Jack B. Nimble’s discussion (http://finalexamrhetoricincyberspace.blogspot.com/2004/12/keeping-granny.html#) both bring up some interesting points about how electronic communication changes the playing field for people on the job. I think the most sweeping change it brings is simply that most people entering the job market today and in the near future will be expected to bring with them a sense of competency regarding the internet, email, and other forms of electronic discourse, and the individual’s competency must constantly grow and adapt to change in technology.

Previous communication oriented technological changes in the workplace have centered largely around singular closed systems (i.e., typewriter, telephone, copiers, fax machines), however the emergence of the PC radically changed this. Beyond merely using the PC to access remediated (as SB BS alludes to in http://finalexamrhetoricincyberspace.blogspot.com/2004/12/novelty.html) computer based versions of familiar pen-and-paper tools (i.e., word processing, spread sheets, calculators), PCs (and Macs!!!) offer a portal into a challenging new world, where everyone is expected to constantly learn, constantly adapt, constantly change their ways of working to remain valuable to the employer. While for some this merely means knowing what the internet is and figuring out how to archive old emails without deleting them; for many of us, however, it means remaining up to speed on things outside of our direct community of practice. While I work in marketing and focus on proposal writing, I’m expected to understand graphical design and all the tools our company’s graphic designer uses—even though graphics were not remotely part of my job when hired. Beyond that, people in my age group (mid 20s to younger 30s) are expected to be masters at “simple” PC applications such as Word, PowerPoint, and even relational database programs such as Access. Even my mother, who works in the Defense Department as an auditor, was expected to quickly learn how to write websites a few years so that she could develop a website for a class she was helping to instruct—and she didn’t even have internet access at home. But she knew it was critical for her to show she could adapt to what her employer needed, so what choice did she have but to struggle through it?

I wonder what challenges the next generation will face in the work place. Perhaps they will encounter what Neil Gershenfeld (http://www.media.mit.edu/physics/purpose.html) seems to so fervently wish for: a more elegant and “satisfying” system of electronic tools where the interface is seamless from the application. These tools (i.e., paper based novel, violin), he argues, are superior to the electronic tools we currently use. This also relates to Emily’s PowerPoint on Neal Stephenson’s (http://www.nealstephenson.com/) “In the Beginning…Was the Command Line.” This is one area where Mac computers (and their OS) leave PCs in the dust—not even close. As any Mac user knows, when you purchase new peripheral devices for your Mac, or install new software, the Mac OS typically recognizes the new hardware / software and runs it without issue (although Mac’s are still vulnerable to the black box of death syndrome where the user is simply informed that an error has occurred and the machine needs to reboot). PCs running windows on the other hand, being far more ubiquitous in the workplace, are ALWAYS having issues; even my IT friends that build machines and do coding in their sleep cuss their PCs everyday for developing buggy problems as time goes on, creating the need to periodically reformat hard drives and reinstall Windows to “clean” the machine.

I think that finding simple elegant interfaces and solutions that avoid time-consuming adaptation, learning and maintenance needs will eventually come to be seen as essential in implementing electronic communication devices in the work place.

Novelty

2004-12-13T16:31:00.000-08:00

Another theme that should be discussed is the idea of novelty. It seems obvious that information technology keeps things new, but I would argue that it is only in the last 10 years that fundamental cultural changes are happening so that it’s not just about getting the fastest, newest computer but what specific functions it can do for your life. Increasing numbers of people are getting used to living in the “new.” I also argue that as people learn more, they’re becoming more discriminating about the things that are new instead of flocking to the next big thing. For example, many people are excited to buy on DVD movies (and tv shows) they’ve already seen and probably own copies on VHS. But since it’s the “collector’s edition” and includes “deleted scenes that should have been left out anyway,” it’s new and gives people a reason to buy it. In this case, they’ve already chosen the movie; they like it and won’t have to take a chance.

Remediation presents old media and old ideas in new ways and keeps them new. For something substantial to survive in this new computerized culture, it has to either be new or have something novel about it for people to want to keep it around. For example, Neuromancer was published in 1984, the same year that Apple launched its groundbreaking computer and ad. As far as information technology is concerned, 1984 is ancient history. In 2004, the companies that provide the technology are also “old” so they are continuously trying to “think like a start-up” to retain that competitive edge. Both the ideas and the ad have revolutionary, precedent-setting ideas that continue to bring people back to them. Neuromancer asks the questions and we are still trying to come up with the answers.

Novelty definitely also appears in language. In response to the changes in technology, the language must change. People may have heard of Hi-Fi, but do they know Wi-Fi? I find it fascinating that the words we recognize have become more popular than the objects that they originally describe. My favorite example: spam. Now there's an intellectual property nightmare(the link goes back to a previous post on our blog) - they're in danger of losing their trademark! One of the best books that we have read that reflects the theme of novelty is In the Beginning There Was the Command Line, which traces the long lineage of operating systems; each one follows the next because there is something about it, perhaps open source code, that attracts people to it. I welcome your comments!

rEVOLUTION

2004-12-13T16:07:00.000-08:00

Studying applied linguistics, one of my posts definitely had to be on the issue of revolution of language. I was monitoring Elif’s posts on this topic and they brought up some good points. I found her post 1 and 2 taken from the discourse analysis perspective (especially in terms of Brooke's Remediation of Style), so I thought it would be beneficiary to shed some different light on this topic from the linguistic perspective.

From the beginning I was not happy about the term “revolution of language,” but I could not figure out why. I think that the linguistic theory of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis answered my question (although it took me a while!). Most of the linguists now agree with an idea that language reflects the reality (rather than that it determines it). From this standpoint, if we wanted to talk about revolution of language, we would first have to agree that there was a revolution of reality. So far changes in language were brought by changes of reality, mainly due to the ongoing evolution (especially in technology). For example, new words emerge in language because of new inventions, such as automobile, computer, or blog. However, I don’t view the invention of e.g. blogs as a revolution, rather it is a new invention which brings just some changes to the reality. This makes me think that instead of talking about revolution, we may talk about “Revolution” but without the “R” consonant.

Themes on Memory and Personal / Group Interpretation in Electronic Discourse

2004-12-13T15:21:00.000-08:00

The concept of how audience perception and memory is affected by the medium being studied and the characteristics of the audience itself is an important issue yet to be resolved in the rise of non-paper based means of communication. In fact, the argument of Socrates that writing itself would destroy memory (because people would no longer have to commit information to the mind when they could simply reference a written document, and would therefore not truly “know” the topic) has not, to my understanding been conclusively accepted or negated. In our class, however, we’ve pushed the argument forward in considering how web sites, email, PowerPoint presentations and essentially any form of electronic discourse physically alter the way in which we perceive and retain information.

Neil Gershenfeld’s idea that the paper interface is physically superior to the computer monitor interface in how information is relayed to the reader is one of the primary related ideas we have studied. Based on the research of his related group at MIT (http://www.media.mit.edu/physics/purpose.html) and my own experience in reading and studying from paper versus monitor sources, I would have to mostly agree, although I’m not totally sold that paper somehow imparts a better memory of the information studied than a monitor (although I’m sure there is a lot of data to help prove me wrong).

Stanley Fish and Wolfgang Iser, among others, have pushed for what is often called the reader-response theory, which also relates to perception and memory, but from the standpoint that the reader imparts his / her own meaning and perception—and thus logically to some extent memory—of a novel or textual passage. As Carl notes (http://finalexamrhetoricincyberspace.blogspot.com/2004/12/some-thoughts-on-reader-response.html) reader-response theory incorporates the idea of interpretive communities—essentially groups of audience members that are “initiated” and similarly focused with a particular viewpoint or knowledge base, which lends to a more similar interpretation of information by its members. In a simple sense, an interpretive community of electronic savvy communicators would reasonably be expected to better obtain and retain information from electronic sources, but I wonder if research bears this out? Jean Lave (http://geography.berkeley.edu/PeopleHistory/faculty/J_Lave.html), known for her work in social theory, introduces the ideas of situated cognition: that the environment, situation and context of a given material and its audience largely influences how one perceives that material (http://tip.psychology.org/lave.html). This ties into the ideas of communities of practice (http://www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm), as well as the aforementioned interpretive communities.

With Good Reason Broadcast

2004-12-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

Like all good Whithaus disciples, I tuned into WHRV 89.5 this afternoon to hear the rhetorical word. Whithaus’s sermon, “Can U Rite,” centered around the upcoming writing portion of the SAT. Those of us who have been feeding on the Whithaus word for several weeks now sat politely through some points that Whithaus made about student composition to the new babes in the congregation: he acknowledged a writing evaluation is important, yet he lamented that the College Board has not considered evaluation of multi-media documents such as Power Point slides, HTML documents and webpages. He proclaimed that the 20-minute hand-written essay has its place, but that a single sitting often does not fairly assess students’ skills.

Whithaus revived the idea of computer software that grades essays. He blessed the decision of the College Board to use only human graders rather than computer ones, but he prophesied the day that computer graders be used along side of humans. He preached that grammar check has already crept into the lives of our young ones and reminded the flock that Moses may not be able to cross with Joshua into the 21st century. It was strong meat for us all.

The sister Leila Christenbury then exalted us to not be too concerned with the Instant Messaging that our youth enjoy, but that we should only be alarmed if time spent in front of the screen with such activities becomes an idol. Teens should also be spending time composing longer types of discourse than instant messaging, reading novels, and talking with parents at the dinner table.

Are they voices crying in the Wilderness?

Liz Schleeper
December 13, 2004

Wiki wiki wikipedia!

2004-12-13T07:51:00.000-08:00

Carl mentioned Wikipedia in his post about the future of intellectual property, and I’d like to expand on Wikipedia with some observations. Returning to Aristotle’s appeals, ethos is the appeal that comes to my mind when describing Wikipedia, but in an opposite way than you might think. Wikipedia turns intellectual property on its head since instead of bestowing copyright ownership of an entry to the writer, the writer agrees by the rules of copyleft that his work can be reviewed and edited by anyone else. (I especially like the logo with the backwards "c") This agreement is like a contract between all the members of Wikipedia based on courtesy by allowing revisions of your own work and reliance upon each other to tell the truth. The writers are part of a discourse community since people who want to write entries must register with the site, but not everyone who writes feels the urge to alter the work of another person. All in all, the work is done anonymously, and so there is no need for ethos, which just doesn’t exist in the world of Wikipedia. Contributors don’t convince or persuade their readers that the information is correct because of their individual characters; they convince them with third-party sources and proof, which should amount to the truth that we can all agree upon. A neat idea. Shan-Estelle

Virtual Reality Destroys “Real” Reality, Memory

2004-12-13T07:45:00.000-08:00

The video game industry is one of the largest components of the IT industry (yearly revenue is estimated anywhere from $7B - $11B, on level with the movie industry), and yet for all the presumed visibility this market maintains it remains hotly contested and misunderstood, with some proclaiming video games destroy players’ sense of reality and may even inhibit normal brain development. It’s an interesting debate, as video games represent the first tangible, relatively inexpensive opportunity for anyone to get a sense of virtual reality, and thus this question may be a sign of things to come as humans venture deeper into cyberspace (also, on a personal note, I’ve played video games since the age of twelve, starting in 1988, and there are countless millions of other children worldwide that also devoted many hours to this pastime). A recent op-ed piece in The Washington Post addresses some of the fears surrounding video games, and by extension virtual reality. Patrick Welsh, an English teacher at T. C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, bemoans the rise of video games in “It’s No Contest: Boys Will Be Men, and They’ll Still Choose Video Games” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34784-2004Dec4.html). The commentary provides a glimpse into several sides of the issue.

Welsh laments the fact that many of his students choose video games over reading novels, which he feels provide a richer, more engaging, and ultimately more rewarding sense of reality than “razzle-dazzle” video games. Conversely, however, Welsh admits that many of his students most likely prefer video games precisely because they offer a more immediate, stimulating, engaging sense of reality. As one of his student’s remarks, "Three hours can go by and it seems like 15 minutes. Once I'm into it, it's hard to think of anything else; all my focus is on finishing the story line." Another of Welsh’s fears seems to be that players will suffer from a sense of deprived imagination, as they don’t have to recreate a video game’s world and characters in their minds, as they have to when reading a novel. Also, he sees that some of his students have trouble developing appropriate boundaries for how much time is acceptable to spend playing games, with some regularly sacrificing sleep and social activity to get through that last level of game play. He also points the finger at video game designers, and sees “a whole generation of boys being manipulated by mercenary video game designers who aren't terribly interested in creating high art.” Lastly, Welsh presents information regarding research done on the ability of video games to potentially impair brain development, citing research that showed an individual utilizing fewer areas of the brain when playing a video game compared to when performing math equations.

While I share a few of Welsh’s concerns, primarily related to matters of health and well being regarding impairment of brain development and sacrifice of sleep and social activity, I’m not going to release my joy stick anytime soon. Many video games offer vibrant, challenging storylines that require players to utilize precisely those things Welsh fears are being supplanted: memory, imagination, and brain function. One of the more recent video game hits is a wartime simulation game—a “game” that was originally created to help soldiers entering combat. Many video games demand extensive strategizing, memorization of seemingly random events and characters, and cooperative team play with other humans on-line. Novels don’t require you to remember such fine details to reach the conclusion; video games, however, often do. A lot of research also contradicts the research that Welsh presents, especially sense his research used a video game aimed more at children, and not a more robust adult oriented game. Further, with regard to sacrificing sleep and social activity, video games are no different than novels—or sex, work, school, movies or many other things—in how they hold the power to keep one awake into the early hours of morning, or make excuses to friends to avoid going out for social interaction. To me this is simply an issue of personal responsibility and choice—nothing more, nothing less. I’ve stayed up late as many nights to finish novels as I have video games.

In the coming decades, virtual reality will eclipse the term “video game” and present sensory opportunities that are simply unimaginable to many people today. Realms of existence that incorporate total immersion through all senses, and which will hold an exponentially greater hold over people’s imaginations, and offer a much greater opportunity for abuse and addiction, will be available to the public. If Welsh is frightened by what he sees in video games today, then God help him in twenty or thirty years.

To Plug In or Not to Plug In?

2004-12-13T06:32:00.000-08:00

One issue that interests me in particular regarding the burgeoning presence of IT and the internet in so many facets of our lives is the question of when is enough…well, enough? If IT supposedly exists in large part to make consumers’ lives easier, more enriched and connected to one another, while also saving time—and if this desire / belief is supported everyday by the enormous volume of sales of cell phones, computers, cable modems, text messengers, PDAs, etc., that consumers purchase—then why do so many people feel the desire to disconnect, either periodically or completely, from this new time-saving, connected world? Does this represent a fundamental backlash of people feeling too connected—that is connected beyond some personal level of ideal connectedness, or are these simply signs of a population learning to adapt to its new found freedom, like a kid on Halloween that suffers from excess indulgence? Is there even such a thing as too much connectedness or over indulgence?

While in the late 80s and early 90s this question seemed to heavily revolve around the idea that people need to break away from IT to get back to the “real” world (to walk in the outside air and connect with people instead of a machine), today, IT devices are typically marketed as increasing one’s connectivity to others in the “real” world. Two years ago I made my cell (home) phone number available to my entire office to reach me in emergencies or outside of business hours (which I didn’t even consider 5 years ago when starting the job), but conversely I also now don’t like to use my cell phone as much and often don’t answer it when my friends call, opting to call them back only if they leave a voice mail (this is similar to work, where in reacting to incoming emails and calls, I find myself discarding non-relevant messages, and selectively choose those messages I wish to engage. It’s the only thing that keeps from throwing the damn thing away entirely).

Martha Irvine, AP National Writer, recently published an article addressing this question (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20041209/ap_on_hi_te/always_online_unplugging), in which she portrays older adults that feel overwhelmed by the complexity and time required to adapt to and maintain a new level of connectedness, as well as young adults that have grown up with the technology, but also feel the need to unplug and enjoy “freedom.” She also draws heavily upon the insight of psychologists Dr. Michelle Weil and Dr. Larry Rosen, authors of "TechnoStress: Coping with Technology @ Work @ Home @ Play" (http://www.technostress.com/) and Dr. David Greenfield (http://www.virtual-addiction.com/about_us.htm), an expert in personal behaviors and abuse of technology and the internet, and several others studying the field, among others (interesting to note that the latter two URLs were listed as sources for the article, something increasingly seen in print media).

Like so many questions we face in class there are no definitive answers; however, the article delineates the larger question of connectedness into a few sub-questions that help steer the discussion: How much connectedness does one need? What forms of connectedness (i.e., cellular, text-messaging, etc.) does one prefer? What is an acceptable amount of time and energy to spend maintaining this level of connectedness and how is this threshold of acceptability determined? My biggest question (that I’m still figuring out for myself) is what level of connectedness is appropriate to maximize the benefits of IT, while eliminating the tension that leads one to feel the need to unplug and escape from all this “freedom”? If you’ve figured out a formula for this equation let me know : P

Brooke: Revolution of Language Cont’d…

2004-12-13T03:20:00.000-08:00

It was with Brooke’s thesis on the “remediation of style” when we first intensively started to talk about a revolution of use of language on computers. Blogging was a good example of this in terms of what we came across from the beginning of our ENGL 666 course, since it is also something we use as part of our course. I realize that the revolution mostly has to do with style in blogs. That is, blogs were a revolutionized style of journals. On the other hand, the revolution maybe most visibly took place in the structural use of language. With blogs, this started with adding new words to language- weblog, blog, blogger, blogging, etc, as I had noted in my first original post. Here, in this post, I wanted to expand the idea of revolution by connecting it to more vivid examples. They occur within typologically incorrect uses such as “FtoF,” standing for “Face to Face,” or “BTW,” standing for “BY THE WAY.” They have been developed from the beginning of the time the Internet was invented. They have, by their nature, taken place in conversations especially within instant messaging. So they were, perhaps, seen as time-savers.

Here, our questions would be: Was this really a revolution of language, if we take into consideration that “revolution” as a concept has connotations of major change of something mostly for better? What had these changes made us gain? Can “time” be considered one of the gains? Was it a significant one? Are we pleased with this revolutionized way of use of language?

I had already said what my opinion was in terms of whether it is a revolution or not, going from the example of blogs. However, I had not taken a favoring or opposing stand against this so-called revolution. I was a little hesitant to use the word, “so-called,” here, since I had already titled the change of language in cyberspace directly as revolution. However, what I wanted to convey through this word is that the answer to the question "whether what we are talking about is a revolution of language," we must also define what we understand from "revolution" perhaps. I will not go into a literary, social, political or any other definition of revolution here, but what comes to my mind, when I think about is that revolutions usually come to the places where there is oppression. The oppression builds up to such a point that it becomes unbearable and a major change takes place by means of some powers. So was it that in cyberspace people were kind of feeling oppressed by the use of language until then and they wanted to change it? Did it really provide them with better?

Overall, newly created forms in use of certain frames are obviously representing major changes in language. Their "being a part of a revolution or not" depends on the definition of revolution. And to answer my last question above, I can say that I agree with what, I guess, Donald, had said in the class when we were first talking about a revolution or change of language. That is, as long as we can differentiate between the new use of language in certain environments and in real life, e.g. in a composition class, we can consider the change is for better. Otherwise, we must be careful, since it may be harm to the essence of language.

Credit cards, Amazon.com, and the issue of security

2004-12-12T17:10:00.000-08:00

This post is related to Amanda’s Amazon.com presentation. I chose to make a post on this topic for two reasons: 1. I really enjoyed Amanda’s presentation partly because I am a regular Amazon.com customer, and 2. because of an incident that just happened to my husband. Last week my husband purchased some Christmas presents on Amazon.com (using Amazon.com for the first time). On Saturday he found out that there was an unauthorized purchase of a digital camera made on his account. After an unsuccessful search for the customer service number, we at least contacted the seller via email. Actually, later on we were able to leave a voice message at Amazon.com (I am anxious if their “buzzer from hell” went on and they’ll return the call on Monday), because my husband’s credit card company’s representative had the phone number. I wonder if that was a coincident or the credit card companies keep Amazon.com’s phone number because they get complaints like ours all the time.

The whole incident made me think about the issue of security on Internet. I know that Amanda mentioned the issue of credit cards and Net in her presentation, but I don’t remember any details (it would be great if someone wrote about this in a comment). I just read her related link which assured me that my husband is not the only one with this bad experience. Further, talking to his bank representative he also found out that someone tried to charge his credit card $3400 on I think digital.com (we never knew about it because the purchase was denied). This brings an idea of how the Internet is vulnerable to credit card frauds (or also hackers) because of the relative anonymity of its users. It is interesting to think about the necessary shifts in security. In a regular store, both the thief and the security are physically present, while on Internet it is not so. Also, I find here a connection with our “work” topic in a way that for instance a security person in a Circuit City store does not require having that many specialized skills while the security on the Internet needs to be specialized in IT. I think that cyberspace moves the “security job” to a different level. It also has some connections to our “economy” topic when I think about the reactions of some new customers that undergo the same experience as my husband. Will they ever use the service again? Or will they do their next Christmas shopping in a regular mall? And if they get robbed in a regular mall, do they ever come back there? It would be nice to see some statistics.

Some Thoughts on Reader-Response

2004-12-12T08:25:00.000-08:00

It seemed like a good idea to read up on Reader-Response, both as reference material for this next series of posts and to prepare for the final Tuesday night—it would at least seem prudent to have something intelligent to say if asked about it. Here are my impressions: first, what is Reader-Response theory? According to Wright (1995, p.529), “Whether [reading] is an art or a science, to be treated as a subjective and personal matter or regarded as a rigorous, objective discipline, has long been a matter of debate. Even the word ‘response’ is a complex and controversial one.” The theory emerged from the discipline of literary criticism (sardonically referred to as a “self-hating profession”) and “serves as an umbrella term for a variety of positions held together only by…concern with what goes on in the mind of the reader when he or she picks up and peruses a book” (ibid). The idea seems to be that the meaning of a written text comes mostly from the reader (the reader’s “response”), not from the author. The antithesis of Reader-Response might be that of your dusty old high school literature book—you know, the one that tells you, in tedious detail, what Melville REALLY meant in writing Moby Dick. The whale symbolizes this…the fact that it’s white means that…ad nauseam. Stanley Fish, one of the main proponents of R-R, “…is well-known for arguing that the text is the product of the reader rather than the other way round…(ibid). Thus, Fish would say that reading is a subjective and personal matter, one in which the reader creates his or her own “interpretive meaning.” One of the best examples of this debate revolves around sacred texts, such as the Bible. There are those who insist that the Bible has one, and only one, legitimate interpretation (usually literal), and they condemn any other as “heresy.” But the heretic and apostate (such as me) forms a whole different meaning from those texts, simply by not participating in the fundamentalist “interpretive community.” That’s what R-R says to me, anyhow.

I had a brief conversation with Liz about this one night after class. I told her how I had flunked 11th grade English two years in a row. Why, you might ask? At that time I was reading J.R.R. Tolkien, Hermann Hesse, Mervyn Peake, George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and a host of other writers whose works interested me. What we were required to read in high school English classes, frankly, bored me to tears. Besides, I was too engrossed in “The Lord of the Rings” to be bothered. So I flunked out. In retrospect, a healthy dose of Reader-Response would probably have done a lot of good. Regardless of the literary merits of “The House of the Seven Gables,” if a kid is forced to read the damn thing, what possible “meaning” can he get from it? Wolfgang Iser, on the other hand, asserts that reading is a collaborative process—a unique communication between two minds (author and reader), who have probably never met. Meaning is thus found in the coincidence, in the merging of ideas and experiences. The notion that readers must be “disciplined” might almost smack of totalitarian control, but as long as there’s freedom of choice about what to read, I can understand it. Iser makes a distinction between the “fictive” and the “imaginary” in a written text: “Iser finds the fictive a useful category because it avoids the straightforward binaries real/unreal or fact/fiction. The fictive is neither simply true nor untrue; it is ‘an operational mode of consciousness that makes inroads into existing versions of world. In this way the fictive becomes an act of boundary-crossing which, nonetheless, keeps in view what has been overstepped. As a result, the fictive simultaneously disrupts and doubles the referential world’” (ibid).

This brings to mind a previous series of posts concerning the illusion-generating power of television and cyberspace. In both mediums we have a curious blurring of the lines between reality and fantasy. Is cyberspace real or is it just a computer-created phantasm? I’d use Iser’s term and describe it as “fictive”—not quite real but not unreal either. The function of the “discourse community,” then, is to validate certain conventions of the medium—e.g. cyberspace writing (Read Me First, Wired Style), or the exclusive hacker communities (Neuromancer, Idoru, All Tomorrow’s Parties). Ultimately, it is to help create the “reality” of the cyber world. Applying R-R to cyberspace, one could say that it’s a new human experience, centering on communication; much more interactive than, say, television watching. More similar to reading and then having discussion groups. The decentralized, unregulated nature of the beast suits the pretexts of R-R exquisitely. To paraphrase The Opera Ghost, cyberspace is what YOU make it.

Source:

Wright, Terrence R. “Reader-Response under review: art, game, or science?” Style, Winter 1995 v29 n4 p529(20).

Blogs as part of the new economy

2004-12-12T05:08:00.000-08:00

I wanted to talk for a few minutes about how blogs are starting to grow, to the point now that they are part of the new economy. We all probably all remember my mentioning in class that Mike Daisey, author of "21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com" had a blog, in which he does make some mention of work, freelancing, and the like. Surely we all will mention work on our blogs, but what about when work becomes the blog.

I thought it would be interesting to surf around and when I did I discovered several blogs that were either fully about work or served as a job. One blog I found, Blog Work, actually lets individuals in this discourse community network so that they can post jobs and actually use their blog as a way to eventually make money.

Blog work is even looking for paid bloggers who can keep the mission of Blog Work going. Unfortuantly, it doesn't appear that Blog Work has really gotten off of the ground. However, I think it raises an interesting question about how a blog can become part of the new economy. Many people pay for subscriptions for magazines, would it be feasible that individuals may one day pay for access to blogs? Many companies have access to employee newsletters, in which employees can post any information they want in a discourse community about their specific company? I like this idea the best, but I think that it is unlikely that employers would encourage such unbridled speech about their company, afterall, a blog is a situation where you must take the good with the bad - all information on a blog may not be positive.

Blog Work was not the only blog I found that served as a medium for advertising employment at a company. I found another, but it was in german (the advertisement was in English).

Additionally, blogs offer the possibility for individuals in a certain field to network and talk about their work. It may not be practical for a professor to sit all day in a chatroom to gain information and meet people who may help him work on a journal article. However, logging into a blog takes less time and the textual information is always available since it does not happen in real time.

Finally, my surfing ended me at a very interesting blog that describes the work of the new/future economy as that of "an elaborate video game". The idea behind this goes back to the idea of collaborative learning, which certainly takes place in a discourse community.

The idea of blogs functioning as part of the changing workforce is not new. BLOGGER itself has an article entitled "How not to get fired because of your blog", which is aimed at

Does Google have all the answers: Browsee/Fish Memory

2004-12-12T03:41:00.000-08:00

Liz points out what Dr. Whithaus said in the class: It is not important what you know, but your ability to find the information. We wonder when the Internet was invented, we type the keywords in Google, and we get an abundant amount of information on it. And this poses a danger in terms of "memory." Does cyberspace turn browsees' memories into fish memories- undesirably short ones?

Translation/interpretation/adaptation: Elif

I think, the answer to this question is: it depends. It is a little bit up to an individual browsee to let that happen or not. A browsee should be aware that s/he can make use of the information s/he retrieved from the Internet only to a certain extent, if s/he does not process it in her/his mind and remember it when necessary.

Therefore, we must be careful that, besides the ability to find information, we still have the ability to learn the information. After all, the "source of wealth is knowledge," and it seems to continue to be like that for long whiles. Do I really believe what I am writing here? I could remember only the saying, but not the person who said it, and go Google to find it. OK, I also remember, the person who said it was a woman. Anyways, it is not that "I don't remember it, because I trusted that I could find it in Google and my mind just chose to forget who said it." I could not find it in Google, by the way. So, where are we going from there? Google does not have all the answers, sometimes. Or was it my lack of ability to find it? I don't think so. I agree, if I spend enough time, I can find it. I love Google, anyways. It has been great help in many situations. However, what I would like to say is that, I agree that the means cyberspace provides us with can threaten our memory, but it is individual's choice to be defeated. I am talking as if I am a very self-conscious, dignified, strong-minded person who is not defeated to the appeal of search engines:P I am suggesting this also for my very own self that we, as individuals, must really take precautions against the threat our growing ability to find information poses on our memories. DON'T FORGET:)!!! We may not always have Google standing by us (e.g. Closed "Google" in-class Final Exam for ENGL 666).

Keeping “Granny”

2004-12-12T03:06:00.000-08:00

I guess that I could say that I have experienced something slightly different from what was mentioned in the “Granny at Work” as it pertains to the courthouse in Virginia Beach. I am one of two males that work in my department at the courthouse. Our staff is composed of at least 50-60 personnel, leaving us with somewhere between 48 and 58 women. In regards to the ages of these women, the majority of them are much closer to fifty-eight than they ever will be to forty-eight again. Some of them are even beyond the fifty-eight year old margin. http://www.vbgov.com/courts/circourt/cclerk/0,1506,8092,00.html They all came up in the office together starting as interns under yet another group of, you guessed it, older women. There is a photo in the office that I would have loved to have been able to post, but due to the fact that these are women that we are dealing with, that was simply not possible (Insert joking disclaimer here).

Bringing this back to a point however, these ladies came up in the court system from a time when the only person that really dealt much with the computer was the head clerk of court. Everything was kept in manuscript form. Cases, deeds, wills, court orders, and everything in between were always kept in the form of a hard copy, and these copies were placed, by the thousands, in huge stacks in a massive room in the back of the office. The files that were no longer necessary were sent to storage for a few years and then eventually destroyed. I must say that these ladies can keep a file. Seeing them in action organizing documents, filing scores of information away for storage, wheeling carts to and from the back room, is amazing to say the least. They talk all the time about how much more they had to do in the past.

Nowadays, anyone in the general public can go onto the net and pull up general information regarding most cases and court documents. In the courthouse, all cases and files are now stored on a shared system that everyone can pull and print documents from almost instantly. When information technology reared its face in the courthouse the ladies were not at all familiar with computers or technology in general, but the superiors that staffed the office knew that training someone else to do what these ladies could do would be much more of a task than simply training the ladies to work with computers. The court spent a lot of money training their staff on the computer system; even now, we have a guy that works full time, and his job is to simply know the system, and check with the ladies from time to time to ensure that they aren’t struggling with any kinks or problems. Every lady now has a personal computer, an account, a web-mail address, and individual passwords so they can get in their respective folders.

Information technology does play a major role in how the system is run in the courthouse today, but the ladies know how to handle and quickly locate the hardcopies manually when there is a problem with the system. More new personnel are trained to do the hardcopy work as opposed to the computer work. “Granny at Work” seemed to suggest that the dawn of information technology made the work that these ladies could do rather obsolete. I would suggest that it may have made their job easier to manage, but their knowledge beyond the computer screen made these ladies irreplaceable. Please respond.

Love in Cyberpunk vs. Pathos, Situated Cognition, Work/Economy

2004-12-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

Don't look at the idoru's face. She is not flesh, she is information.
—William Gibson, "Idoru"

I first thought of writing a comment to SB | BS's post, but this might be a little longer for a comment, and I also would like to do something more than a comment- go from that specific post and make connections of the element of love in sci-fi, in general, and in "Idoru" to some of course concepts; mainly Aristotelian appeal- pathos, work/economy, and situated cognition. I could not talk about this book’s specific relation to our seven course concepts during my presentation that much. I just made quick general connections, but did not explain them in detail, due to time limitations, which I had to work on more before presenting. Anyways, this might be considered a “continuation of an existing thread,” I don’t know, but I just want to write what SB | BS's post made me think in relation to Rhetoric in Cyberspace.

I believe love is the most important indication of being human. Thus, it is not surprising that it is the most appealing emotion for any human. Since the cyberpunk books we read were generally taking us to places and times where things are super human, this may be why love element either did not exist or changed shape in them. I agree with SB | BS that this may be a result of authors’ questioning of love’s place in these sci-fi worlds. On the other hand, I can also connect it to one of the Aristotelian appeals, pathos, and say that authors can use it any time in any space, even in the sci-fi world, and can create more interesting results like in the case of "Idoru." I reach to the conclusion that Idoru was more interesting than the other sci-fi books talked in the class through my observation of the impressions of students who read Gibson’s other books. In addition, from the reviews I read on the Internet, I realized that "Idoru," even though it was not a literature or novel-writing success, was, in a sense, one of his most preferred books due to its interesting point- a man falling in love with a machine that is in the form of a beautiful woman.

As noted, people liked it very much even though it was not a literature success. That means it might have been even better if the idea of love was emphasized more or used in a different way. Because, one of the structural deficiencies, people thought, this book had- and I agree with them- was that Gibson talked so much about the situation of Laney in it and it took a long time to come to the part where the expected events about Idoru and Rez took place. While I was reading the book, I was, in a way, craving to come to the part where Idoru would appear. I was craving to see what kind of a love it would be.

Thus, I think love should be part of sci-fi productions, too. In the darkest film- cyberpunk books usually have quite dark events with all those violence and crimes- love comes from somewhere and lights a match, and by building on our pathos it takes us to a completely different place in relation to the themes of cyberpunk.

It occurred to me more in time that the ideas in this book also had something to do with concepts of “situated cognition” and “work/economy.” I had mentioned the “work and economy” part in the class, too. To summarize, the book mainly talked about how media created fame, how it was all “not personal, but business,” and was all about money.

Thus economy was the main drive for most of the happenings and the interesting thing was that it was not actually “love” of a human to a machine that made surrounding interests worry about, but it was, in fact, their interest relations that concerned them. For instance, Blackwell, the head of security for Rez (the singer who fell in love with Idoru) hired Laney with the idea that “someone’s got” their “boy” and he would find who he/she is. Since he was thinking that a man could not possibly love a machine woman, there must have been something lying beneath this. It was some bad intentions of someone, and that could spoil their man and so their business.

So Blackwell’s situated cognition, did not let him think that a man could love a machine. Yet, Rez’s did. He perceived this machine competely with all the characteristics of an idol female singer. She was there. She was even more than a virtual reality. With his situated cognition, once upon a time, he could organize things on the desktop of his computer. Now, he could look at computer-generated face of Idoru, touch her, and love her.

The emotions felt toward the character of Idoru symbolized the extent what our situated cognition could be enhanced to in the next century. In this book, Gibson brought this to our attention using one of the appeals Aristotle emphasized in his Rhetoric, pathos- appeal to emotions. In this case, love was the major emotion that made the characters invetigate what was going on in their sci-fi world, and like in every happening in the world, there was something to do with money (economy) in all of these.

Some Loose Ends

2004-12-11T20:04:00.000-08:00

Memory--Dr. Whithaus cited a modern aphorism in class: it is not what you know but how well you can find the information—or something like that. See, I have never had much capacity to memorize and apparently that’s fine these days. I think the ability to learn and retain high volumes of information will continue to be associated with intelligence (and financial gain for Ken Jennings) but search engines and all online resources give us denser folk a way to find, use then forget. That said, I do find that blogging and linking helps with my retention of information, mostly because of layout varieties on the screen. Carl said something about this, but I don’t remember exactly. . . .

Economy—I am still amazed that so many people are publishing on the web, building sites for the web, posting volumes of information on blogs so often for no financial gain. Plus, it’s astounding that email is free. Yes, I pay for my web service, but two long distance calls to Italy would cost more than I pay for a year of emailing. There have got to be million people who are trying to figure out how to charge me for each email I send. I wonder if Steal This Computer Book addresses my question—will accessing the internet and sending email decrease or increase in cost?

Liz Schleeper
December 11, 2004

Love, Science Fiction Style

2004-12-11T16:47:00.000-08:00

We’ve talked about technology and the economy and language in sci-fi novels. Many of the ones that we’ve “read,” involve elements of violence and crime, but only one (as far as I can see) has a major theme of love. In Idoru, love, even in the sci-fi world, just isn’t normal. Gibson’s book describes the potential marriage between Rez and Idoru, the construct, but I get the feeling that the idea of their marriage is completely blasphemous to their world, especially since it precipitates many events that bring the characters of the novel together to investigate. Can love exist between products of technology and humans? I don’t get the feeling that any of the characters from any of the books we’ve looked at have any kind of love for anyone else. In fact, the characters seem as disconnected from each other emotionally as they are connected technologically. Is that a regular theme of sci-fi or are these the authors’ individual statements about whether love has a place in sci-fi world? Perhaps Minority Report can shed some light on this, since John Anderton has a wife…

Linking out of Language

2004-12-11T11:59:00.000-08:00

One of our course themes, links and images, deals with how writing changes as a result of links and images usage. I see a change in the following:

1—Elimination of the appositive. If I wanted to reference Socrates in a post and want to focus on his idea that writing would destroy memory, in a traditional text I might say, “Socrates, the 5th century philosopher who drank hemlock, said that writing would destroy memory.” Ok, but now all I need to do is say “Socrates said that writing would destroy memory” since it’s assumed someone who needs a refresher on the guy can click and does not need to be diverted with an appositive reminder.

2—Reduction of adjectives. If I wanted to reference Shan-Estelle’s web project, I may describe it as a “well-crafted, meticulous, comprehensive, funky-fonted website.” Of course I could avoid all adjectives by simply providing a hyperlink and use the blog adjective of choice “Shan-Estelle’s great website” since a link to her site would eliminate my need to use descriptive language.

3—Elimination of introductory clauses. If I wanted to make a reference to “The Lexus and the Olive Tree,” one sentence may say: “When considering the similarities of globalization to the abrasive and oppressive nature of colonizing missionaries, the world market may be viewed as corrupt.” If I have a hyperlink, no intro needed: "Globalization can be as corrupt as some missionaries."

4—Marginalization of the written word. In the case of the above example, I have linked to an image that shifts the focus from missionary as corrupt to missionary as victim (at least the description that goes with the image does). The reader would have a choice whether to take my boring sentence to be true “Globalization can be as corrupt as some missionaries” or to process the meaning of the image's cutline.

5—Elimination of the art of summary writing. In newspapers, an ongoing news story often references past developments with summary paragraphs throughout. A random article about cell phone usage on airlines in New York Times yesterday demonstrates this. The writer must provide cell phone tragedy theories from past news stories to make the story complete. The third to last paragraph in the article could be eliminated (and in case of blogs this already happens) with a link to a past story or website that has the information. Of course, news webpages are usually taking the articles directly from the print versions, but the point is that links eliminate the art form of concise summary writing.

Liz Schleeper
December 11, 2004

SITUATED STICKINESS

2004-12-11T11:30:00.000-08:00

I think that Jean Lave’s situated cognition theory is fairly well understood by all. The thing that I didn’t see addressed as much however was the stickiness factor that we discussed in class regarding Lave’s theory. I must admit, I believed I had a clear view of what it meant, but I had a problem finding an example that would suit it. Then something happened that cleared things up for me. I received a phone call on my cellular phone http://photos1.blogger.com/img/92/2634/640/IM000902.jpg. Yeah, I’m sure that sounds funny, but the call came and I heard it; I knew I wanted to answer the phone, but I felt I could not. Maybe a little background info will explain things better. My first phone was a Nokia 8265. It is a rather small phone that was popular a few years ago due to its size and signal capturing capability. A lot of people used that phone with an ear bud. I was one of them. I guess you can say that those earpieces simply stuck to me. Back to the story of the unanswered call in question, I put so much into finding my earpiece to answer the phone that I kinda neglected the fact that the phone could be answered regardless. To me, the phone could not be answered because I could not find the ear bud for the phone. I don’t even feel right talking on the phone without my earpiece. I realized that I have had three different phones in the past two years; all of them either came with earpieces, or they were purchased at the time I bought my phone. I have rarely used any of my cell phones without it. I think the idea of the stickiness in IT (Information Technology) whether it be through earpieces, phone styles, or web page designs is to make these ideas stick to users to the point where usage does not feel adequate without it. Feel free to respond.

Speech-act of Apology in a Blog

2004-12-11T02:56:00.000-08:00

I wanted to put this in a separate post to draw your particular attention to how a blog may revolutionize the way language is used through links and images. The speech act of apology within political discourse that takes place in a blog... What do you think?:)

http://sorryeverybody.com/

Economy and Work

2004-12-11T02:07:00.000-08:00

My last two posts have just kind of danced on the edge of keeping with the course material. Thus, I thought I would try to really stay on track with this one. One of my favorite themes in this course was that of “work and the economy. I really liked the information on this theme because it relates so strongly to some of the things I have studied in the communications field. Ultimately, it seems that technology has made our lives easier, but it hasn’t made our workday shorter. Now that technology can help us do so much in our jobs we constantly find ourselves doing more and more work. Additionally, the capabilities of the web have made it all but impossible for us to disconnect from work. We can now be available 24/7, thanks to cyberspace. Microsoft has developed a remote desktop client that makes it possible for you to log into your work desk space and actually see the icons, programs, and files, that are on your computer in the office. When I worked as an executive recruiter for the pharmaceutical industry we were supposed to download this program, have it at home, and essentially check our email and do research all of the time And, thanks to the beauty of technology, we really had no excuse not to since it was all available over the internet. A good example of this was presented in “Granny At Work” where the book talked about the New, New Deal, the idea that full-time, long-term work would one day end.
Technology hasn’t just made traditional positions function more efficiently; it has also created new positions. You’ll remember in “21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com,” Mike Daisey’s position was CREATED because of the internet. In his case, individuals would log on to the Amazon web site, place their order, and instead of entering their credit card information (this was back before people “trusted” the web) they would call Mike and he would process his order. Mike wasn’t the only one. There were many more individuals just like him at Amazon, and probably in similar companies. Unfortunately, technology has not always had a positive impact on the workplace. Many workers have either found themselves displaced (because of failures to keep up with technology), or because technology has replaced their position. A good example of this would be telephone representatives and tellers at banks. Thanks to direct deposit (where transactions are made electronically), your company can automatically put your money in the bank, you can check the balance online, make payments online, and get your statement online. Thus, the slews of tellers that may have once been needed could be a thing of the past. Tellers will never be phased out, but technology has made it possible for companies, such as banks, to invest in computers and software, as opposed to employees and healthcare.

As mentioned above, the other negative aspect that technology can have is the possibility to displace workers because of their lack of knowledge (or comfort level) of technology. We saw this in “Granny At Work”, where a digital divide was presented, those 55 and older really didn’t have the opportunity to grow up with computers and technology, whereas, kids now a days are learning to play computer games as
toddlers and are more comfortable with the technology.

Despite all of the talk of a digital divide Shanestell (did I spell your name right?) did point out that the senior citizen population does make up the largest percentage of individuals spending time online.

Thus, while they may not be as comfortable with the technology they are at least trying. Technology
has changed the workplace, but implementing programs that help workers adjust to technology, and using technology to assist workers with their positions instead of replacing workers is important. Unfortunately,
in a cost-driven society, employers may be more apt to take the cheaper road.

Will there ever be an end to work? Probably not. This utopian dream has been around for some time, but every time technology makes our work environment easier, it just makes it more productive, freeing up our time to take on other tasks and projects.

Blogs vs. Revolution of Language and Situated Cognition

2004-12-11T02:01:00.000-08:00

I believe blogs are part of a revolution of language that came along with the invention of cyberspace, which has an inevitable effect on, also, our situated cognition. In my first original post, I would like to point out some of the facts that explain this revolution.

First of all, the word “blog” is derived from “weblog.” Along with it come new concepts such as blogging (activity of updating a blog) and blogger (someone who keeps a blog). Even the acquisition of these new concepts is changing language and the way it is used in everyday lives. Some may say they contribute to the way language is used, some may say they corrupt it. Yet, probably all agree that they are the signs of a major change.

How this change occurs in our everyday lives can be understood better by referring to the definition of language and relating it to how blogs work. A web definition belonging to the online dictionary of Princeton University defines language as: “a systematic means of communicating by the use of sounds or conventional symbols.” That may be the definition of language we use everyday in real life, but in cyberspace, especially through the means blogs provided us with, we do more than that to communicate, which contributes to the use of language. The most accurate examples to these means can be the features of commentary, links, and images. Commentaries carry the communicative characteristic of language to cyberspace by making blogs a conversational medium, and links and images help the way we convey our ideas.

This is linked to the concept of situated cognition, too, since it also affects the way communication is reflected in our cognition. That is, we can say, in real life, we have some conventional ways of communication. For instance, we can ask questions to try to understand the speaker more. In blogs, we have other things to do to get the main idea: we can look at the images, click on the links to other sites or to other posts, use trackback facilities to learn about what the initial point to start all the talk was, basically, get a bigger picture. Thus, the nature of communication changes, which also changes our situated cognition.

One can understand how blogs change use of language and affect our situated cognition more by knowing about the features that define a blog. A blog is a publically accessible online diary/journal that consists of many posts- usually time-stamped, in chronologically reverse order- with commentary and links. So, first, in terms of the nature of the genre referred to, “diaries,” blogs revolutionize language. “Diaries” are expected to be private. With blogs, they become public, which also means the way we perceive the concept of privacy change, which is a phenomenon that also, I believe, relates to “situated cognition”. In terms of the material conditionality, this takes place like this: Diaries, which have our very own hand-writing in real pages, become cyber-text linked together with links and images. And diaries that are either locked or kept in a rather inaccessible place, come online and become accessible by everyone. This fact also makes a blog a perfect part of cyberspace within which the concept of privacy has already been acquiring a new meaning, since the time the Internet came about. That new meaning have our perceptions mutated, which also changed our situated cognition of a diary.

Overall, the change starts within the discourse that makes a diary a diary and a blog a blog. My post is just an attempt to show some aspects of it. The issue is very much open to further elaboration.

To learn more about blogs and develop ideas about the possible ways they revolutionize language, you may check:

Blood, Rebecca. "Weblogs: A History and Perspective", Rebecca's Pocket. September 07, 2000. September 26, 2004.

Wrede, Oliver. “Weblogs and Discourse: Weblogs as a transformational technology for higher education and academic research.” Blogtalk Conference Paper, Vienna, May 23-24

Altered Carbon Passage and Situated Cognition

2004-12-10T13:07:00.000-08:00

Per request, here is the passage from Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon, which I read in class on Tuesday.

The quick context of the passage is that the main character Takeshi Kovacs is reflected on the experience of the UN Envoy's who's digital memories are transported lightyears and inserted into new bodies (sleeves) to serve as soldiers or "peacekeepers" throughout the galaxy.

"They're in bodies they don't know, on a world they don't know, fighting for one bunch of total strangers against another bunch of total strangers over causes they've probably never even heard of and certainly don't understand. The climate is different, the language and culture are different, the wildlife and vegetation are difference, the atmosphere is different, shit, even the gravity is different. They know nothing, and even if you download them with implated local knowledge, it's a massive amount of infomation to assimilate at a time when they're likely to be fighting for their lives within hours of sleeving."

I think Morgan is addressing the idea of situated cognition from a unique perspective here. (He's also satirizing the military experience in general, but that's a post for a different blog). It might be helpful to imagine yourself in a similar position. How would you process information if you had literally no understanding of the context in which it was taking place?

Now, let's expand this idea to the situation of someone using technology, the internet for example, for the first time. How would you navigate? How would you scroll around a page, use links, etc.? I would argue that processing the information in front of you on the screen would be nearly impossible. Having a basic understanding of the rhetorical situation of cyberspace is essential if a person plans on gaining anything meaningful and/or productive from the experience. To me, this makes people like those in Granny @ Work or the woman in NPR story Carl referenced in his previous post all the more amazing. Like Kovacs in the novel, these internet users are entering into a world where everything, the language, culture, appearance, etc., is completely foreign to them. Yet, they are choosing to push past the disconnect and to join into the discourse community that is internet users. And I say, GOOD FOR THEM!

Virtually No Reality

2004-12-09T20:36:00.000-08:00

It’s hard for me to believe that any true current study of cyberspace could happen without considering the current state of other media, especially TV. The same people who have home computers have a TV in every room and both experiences are related to situated cognition and the revolution of language.

According to one study, TV has a history of programming that distorts our sense of reality (examples: soap operas, news programs) to the point where we can accept as real the unrealistic settings in all programming, now especially reality TV. The study also reveals that an average viewer spends four hours a day watching TV and suggests that this places people in many shifting and decentered selves.

This idea of decentered selves is a major theme of a book referenced in class “Life on the Screen” by Sherry Turkle. Here, the author points out a similar phenomenon among those who spend lots of time in cyberspace. She found that virtual experiences “confirm a dramatic shift in our notions of self, other, machine and world.” She concludes that what emerges is a self that is “decentered and multiple” much like TV watchers are described in the TV study.

So I am thinking that as people are spending time shifting selves between TV and computer, along comes the reality TV show that is truly a distorted image of the real, but to those who are busy being shifted and decentered by high budget programming and fancy computer graphics, this low budget spectacle seems more “real” than everything else so it’s accepted as such. Am I far off the path or is there a correlation?

This relates to “situated cognition” since the environment in which both media are found has become a real environment, and to “revolution of language” because there are now two dominant environments where the transference of language is happening, and both of these places are known for changing self.

Liz Schleeper
December 9, 2004

Publishing Online

2004-12-09T17:29:00.000-08:00

I remember in our course we talked about how the web is a great medium so that anyone effectively can be published, and I wanted to get some opinions about those places online that let users publish their poetry in their database for free.

One of the great things about the web is that ANYONE regardless of talent level is able to produce something, have their voice heard, and claim it for their own. Naturally, this site boasts ways to make money from your poetry, wining those contests we have all seen in the newspaper. However, we all know that most poets on this web site will be starving artists.

Do you think the site offers a great service to the general writing community, especially to individuals who do not have their own web site or may not know how to create one? Or, do you think that sites like this really just promote people writing gobs of stuff and that the quality suffers? I just thought the web site was so neat because it effectively gives you a way to 1) get your poetry "out there" and 2) to place a copyright on it. I actually used to have a pretty favorable opinion of the site, even had a published poem on there and when I went to link to it today it was gone! I searched by everything but couldn't find it, and when I logged in with my email address it didn't recognize me as a user. Having the poem on the web site didn't make me feel special, but not being able to find my poem did make me feel a little lost...and suprised.

One interesting thing about this web site is that you can actually record yourself reading your poem and have it play when someone looks at your poem. Essentially, it is almost like a live performance, and even offers the possibility of poetry jam sessions.

Another great thing I thought about was the poetry in motion section of this site. Although it doesn't function like the poems in motion that we read in class, which are published on a different site this does sort of act like an electronic version of magnetic poetry...which is sort of neat.

There are other greating writing links out there for writers in cyberspace, including the Online Poetry Classroom which provides some great educational tools for those teaching or studying poetry.

Anyway, I'd love to hear some thoughts on the value, or not, that the cyber medium brings to poetry.

Intellectual Property and Napster

2004-12-08T07:36:00.000-08:00

I still have somewhat ambiguous thoughts on the subject of “intellectual property”—specifically regarding the phenomenon of file sharing. We’re all aware of copyright laws and patents—intended to protect the rights of creative individuals. That much we can agree on. However, the corporations and industries making the biggest noise about the “threat” of file sharing (that is, the ones currently mounting legal challenges) have themselves, in many, many instances, been guilty of ripping off artists and inventors, denying them the vast fruits of their creative work. I’ll discuss that momentarily. First, let’s look at the most famous of the “file pirates,” Napster. This comes from an article I found in Wikipedia: “The original Napster was first released in the fall of 1999 by college-dropout Shawn Fanning, who wanted an easier method of finding music than by searching IRC or Lycos. John Fanning, Shawn's uncle, helped him incorporate the company…It was the first of the massively popular peer-to-peer file sharing systems, although it was not perfectly peer-to-peer since it used central servers to maintain the lists of connected systems and the files they provided, while actual transactions were conducted directly between machines. This is in fact very similar to how instant messaging systems work.” The recording industry, of course, went after Napster and had the service shut down in July 2001. Supporters of Napster argued that it was really a program (rather than a corporation providing free music) functioning essentially as a search engine, but what got them in trouble was its use of central computers. Other such services have since appeared—Audiogalaxy, Morpheus, Gnutella, KaZaA, BitTorrent—but they have been targeted by the recording industry too. True peer-to-peer file sharing services, such as LimeWire, were harder to shut down. The real turning point, apparently, was when the industry began filing lawsuits against individual users for copyright violations. Despite several attempts to resurrect Napster, it was never able to fully recover.

As I said, I’m fully cognizant of the importance of copyright laws. Artists must be protected from what can only be called theft of their creative work. Thus, Napster was a problem that had to be dealt with legally. But I have very little sympathy for the recording industry itself, simply because IT has been historically the most egregious practitioner of artist rip off imaginable. The examples are numerous. I happen to be a blues fan and I collect classic blues records—Robert Johnson, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Son House, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, etc. While record companies made tidy profits on these classic recordings (and continue to do so), the performers were usually paid about $25 or $30 per side, flat rate, and nothing else. No royalties, no nothing. In many cases, the bluesmen went back to their lives of poverty. In 1964 the penniless Son House was discovered working as a janitor somewhere. Black artists in particular were victims of record company exploitation. Problem is, copyright protection is not enough to protect an artist. Whoever has the PUBLISHING RIGHTS is the one who winds up with the $$$, and record companies have a long history of persuading aspiring artists to sign over those rights. The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Billy Joel, and John Mellencamp are just a few of the artists who surrendered their publishing rights, have no control over their extant recordings, and made relatively little from multi-multi-platinum record sales. So, I almost applaud what Napster did—the recording industry got what it deserved, for a while at least.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster

Situated Cognition- A New Way to Read

2004-12-07T13:58:00.000-08:00

While doing research on a follow-up novel to Richard Morgan's book Altered Carbon, which I'll be presenting in class, I discovered something fascinating and directly related to one of our course themes.

Palm Reader is a free software that allows you to read downloaded eBooks on your PDA You can even add bookmarks, highlight, and make notes. Thus, an entirely new way of reading has been created. This software allows the user to take advantage of the price and availability of eBooks, the portability and convenience of PDAs, and the advantages of paper texts (highlighting, margin notes, etc.). This software begs a discussion of situated cognition.

I can see many advantages to using Plam Reader. While you could read anywhere you went, a hard copy of a book allows you to do the same. But with a PDA, you could carry a book in your pocket, or even more importantly, you would have the potential to carry multiple books with you. That could be extremely helpful for people in professions where having ready access to books is important.

On the other hand, I see a real problem in terms of readability. While I love the idea of always having a book I'm reading available to me, I doubt I could tolerate reading on such a small screen for a long period of time. If reading on a computer screen is hard on your eyes and is usually not done for very long, just imagine how bad for you it would be to be reading on a miniature version! Could you process the information in any enduring way?

Can anyone else see advantages or disadvantages to this type of software? What would Bolter and Grusin have to say about this "new media"? Has anyone actually seen or taken advantage of text in this "material condition"?

Remediation

2004-12-06T16:08:00.000-08:00

I figured I should do an orginal post because after a while it looks like we may run out of stuff to talk about if we don't get a new topic. Additionally, Dr. Whithaus, I wish you all the luck in the world in trying to keep up with all of these posts! :)

One thing that I really wanted to talk about on the blog was the idea of remediation. I got to thinking about it because I began to wonder if our class was really being remediated by 1) taking it into the virtual classroom, and then finally 2) putting the course in cyberspace.

When you look back at those first set of PowerPoint files Dr. Whithaus had, we see that remediation is "presenting themselves as refashioned and improved versions of other media." (Remediation PowerPoint, Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin, Reviewed by Carl Whithaus)

Isn't that what we are doing in this class, aren't we just refashioning the classroom environment and trying to improve it at the same time? Naturally, we haven't made a online room that we are actually looking at, but I pretty much see the same elements that I see in class:

1) Instructor Guidance
2) Interaction
3) Feedback

Now, those elements are certainly being remediated, but the core concepts aren't changing. And, I certainly think that we are improving our learning environment, because as was discussed in a
previous conversation the learning environment online seems to breakdown barriers and lessen the traditional power distance.

We have even taken our learning environment one step further in remediation by taking testing online. We have remediated a portion of our final exam so that we are actually taking the final online.

We aren't the only ones focusing on remediation of learning. Remember those lengthy driver improvement classes you can take to rectify a speeding ticket? Taking that class used to mean dedicating an entire Saturday to sitting in the classroom. Now certain states are recognizing an
online driver improvement course instead of classroom attendance. That is another remediation of the classroom environment.

I could go on, but I am going to safe the rest of my posting for a response because I want to hear someone else work out how remediation works. Does it have to be just a retelling of a story, or can it be situational?

Discourse communities and Genre

2004-12-05T15:19:00.000-08:00

This post is a follow up on my previous post on the discourse communities. Part of the linguistic study of discourse communities involves also the issue of genre. In discourse analysis, genre is described as “categories of texts which a person has to learn to recognize, reproduce, and manipulate in order to become a competent member of a particular community.” Further, the ability to understand or create different text-types is called “genre knowledge.” This exactly corresponds to the Reader Response Theory and to what we called the discipline of the audience. One of the books that in my opinion relates closely to this topic is “Read me First,” because it in a sense prescribes a particular genre. Blogs, I think, can also be considered as a particular type of genre. I am curious to see the results of Elif’s project on the analysis of the blogs’ discourse.

I forgot to name the sources I used, so here they are:
Discourse Analysis by Barbara Johnstone (2002) and An Introduction to Sociolinguistics by Ronald Warhaugh (2002)

discourse community or community of practice?

2004-12-04T13:04:00.000-08:00

In the class we mentioned that our 666 can be considered as a discourse community. To refresh my memory on the exact definition of a discourse community, I had to go back to my linguistic books. The discourse analysts define it as “a group of people who regularly talk to one another about a particular topic or in a particular situation.” As any other type of community, it’s characteristic with different patterns of social ties between the members. I further found that through an engagement in joint discourse activity (such as posting in a blog) we become members in a “community of practice.” This term is often used in sociolinguistics and they define it as “an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagements in some common endeavor.”

Based on my instinct and personal opinion, I would say that our class is a “community of practice” existing/practicing within a larger “discourse community” of blogs in general. However, looking at the above definitions (and also what was said in the class), it seems to be vice versa, in other words, that our class is a “discourse community” and all bloggers form a “community of practice.” I think I need some help on this or at least I would appreciate some other opinions, because the clarification on both of the terms seems to be a matter of discussion.

Checking In

2004-12-02T08:23:00.000-08:00

First, let me apologize for my “delayed entry” to the communal blog—I was down with the flu yesterday, though I did manage to drag myself to Dr. Metzger’s class. However, I heard a fascinating story on NPR concerning college students who grow accustomed to high-speed Internet access (their dorm rooms come equipped with the connection), but then suffer unspeakable things after they graduate and have to settle for old-fashion dial-up. Apparently, having to wait 30 seconds for a web page to download is excruciating after one has had the high speed experience. I can relate—my Internet at home is maddeningly slow and frustrating, such that I tend to avoid going online whenever I can. In the NPR story there was also a bit about a group of students who, as part of an experiment, agreed to go two weeks without the Internet. Some of them went through what can only be called withdrawal symptoms: pain, irritability, alienation, loss of identity. Some complained about actually having to make telephone calls; one guy described himself as “isolated and adrift” in an ocean of information. Some students boasted about being able to do multiple things online simultaneously.

This brought to mind some of the things we have discussed in class—specifically, the Reader Response Theory (Fish & Iser, right?). If one is truly part of an “interpretive community,” then it must be extremely difficult to suddenly find oneself disconnected from it. It must feel like a sort of exile. Human beings are communal by nature; we spontaneously form family groups in every situation—whether work, school, or what have you. Even our small Rhetoric in Cyberspace class has become a unique unit, such that I will actually miss the class when it’s over. As a newcomer to cyberspace reality, I must admit that I didn’t quite know what to make of the various theories being discussed. But now I’m very curious about the effects of cyberspace on our physiology (as distinguished from our mental selves). I found it hard to grasp the underlying premise of Liz’s book Life Without a Net—thinking, “would that really be so bad?”—but now it’s slowly dawning on me. Those who experience a cyber reality all their lives cannot but be affected by it. It would be like asking me to give up, say, rock n roll music (NEVER!!).

so sue me.... attempt #2

2004-11-30T11:02:00.000-08:00

ah, ha, here is the blog lesson of the day

one cannot use a comma delinated list of users when adding folks to a blog

hence, the error messages y'all (or at least two of y'all) received when trying to get access to this blog

but, that is fixed now.... so let the games begin

larc
carl

rules for the final exam

2004-11-29T14:23:00.000-08:00

ok.... here are the rules for the 50% of the final exam that will be taken on the blog

Format
between 11/30 and 12/14 at 7pm, you should post 10 times. each post is worth up to 5 points. 4 of your posts should be original posts, 3 should be responses to someone else's posts, and 3 should be continuations to existing threads (i.e., responses to responses to responses to responses to responses, you get the picture). If you post more than 10 times, your 10 highest scoring posts will be counted.

Links to other blogs or other websites will help push blog posts scores higher. The use of images will also help.

Content
We want to cover these areas: the major course themes and the books presented during class discussions (remember there are also the 9 books from the second series of presentations).

next question: how to proceed?

2004-11-29T02:39:00.000-08:00

Ok, so now we have a final exam blog?

And we have a list of format issues and content topics to cover....

but how do we cover them?

the idea here is to prepare for the two-hour in-class final exam by reviewing the course concepts and books

in the sprint of blogs and the sprint of the internet and the idea of leaving discussion as open as possible, the rules are up to you

do you talk about your own book? do you try to draw one of the course themes into discussion? try to tease out how you or another person in the class or even how I feel about that issue? sure all of those issues could work

although, i'm less interested in hearing your take on one of the books that you reported on, i'm more interested in seeing questions directed to others about their books

...

that's it for now

...

more questions may be asked in the studio tomorrow or via email

...

cheers,