"Never get too dependent on technology. It betrays you when you most need it." A few recent episodes have reminded me to stick to this wisdom. There was the case of the McLuhan ghost making the projector blink distractingly in Leo's recent presentation. Lucky for us that we were pretty determined to not be distracted and switched to a non-technical solution by just huddling around the computer screen instead. Then yesterday, I accompanied my husband to his presentation on "NAFTA and its implications for Mexico and Canada" at York University, and his Powerpoint file was found incompatible with the university's system. (I think it had something to do with his office's use of Spanish-based Windows.) That certainly threw him off course, because the whole presentation depended on the tables, figures, and statistics that needed to be shown on screen. These incidents reminded me of my own frustration when I couldn't show the slide presentation I had painstakingly prepared because there simply wasn't a projector (in a forum where they should have had one). And since yesterday my email service with Rogers has been acting strangely, and I couldn't be sure whether the several attempts to send out mail actually went. I usually don't communicate by email so much, but since I've started blogging, I find myself more dependent on emails as a supplementary communication channel. I couldn't help ending up with this nagging suspicion about whether it was the avenge of Microsoft and Bill Gates on us unsuspecting users of computer technology. But I guess the positive side of these experiences is the reminder that we should use technology with caution, don't get over dependent.
Discuss
Friday, October 31, 2003
Transparent identity, accountability and connectivity
I started this post with the intuitive feeling that the issues of identities, transparency, accountability and connectivity were emergent values related to blogging. The culture of the internet seems to be moving from a preference of anonymity towards the practice of revealing and establishing a consistent, trust-worthy identity. This reversal can be noted by the move towards the building of reputation capital in online communities. With the arrival of blogging, the online users are suddenly given a personal voice in a very transparent way. Blogging is a practice in which the blogger cannot remain anonymous but must clearly identify himself/herself by revealing personal beliefs, viewpoints, passions, preferences, hopes and dreams throughout his/her blogging practice with consistency. This transparency of identity fosters accountability and in turn nurtures connectivity. In other words, as blog readers come to know and identify with a blogger's beliefs, hopes and dreams, the readers learn to trust the viewpoint of the writer and will continue to come back to read that blog that he or she identifies with. When identity is shared in blogging, we have connectivity. A few supporters of how identity is necesarry to blogging can be found with spacewaitress who gives the link to metalfilter and the commenters related to those two posts. Also in mathemagenic's words, "blogging gives me better identity than on-line profiles, cv, and publication". Here, I'm going to do something that was declared not 'correct' in blogging, that is editing my work after it has been posted. Why not? I'm adding here another link to support my argument that a strong identity, especially, 'passion' is necessary in blogging. I would like to point out to Christopher Lydon's audio blogging, in his interview with David Weinberger, in which David strongly emphasizes the place of passion in blogging.
I feel frustrated and have struggled by this attempt of mine to describe and validate the linkage of these issues, but I remain certain and am encouraged that they are emergent values of an increasingly complex internet environment which was brought about by the phenomenum of blogging which I feel are core values of a much larger emerging paradigm. Which brings me to point out that in subsequent blogs, there will probably be more unclear postings which I will struggle with in public because our esteemed Prof. Derrick has asked us to work out on our blogs our thoughts on our course project for presentation and evaluation in the coming month. Well, there's the comfort of Jay Rosen's view that "blogging is about making and changing minds" as Tammy has pointed out.
Discuss
I feel frustrated and have struggled by this attempt of mine to describe and validate the linkage of these issues, but I remain certain and am encouraged that they are emergent values of an increasingly complex internet environment which was brought about by the phenomenum of blogging which I feel are core values of a much larger emerging paradigm. Which brings me to point out that in subsequent blogs, there will probably be more unclear postings which I will struggle with in public because our esteemed Prof. Derrick has asked us to work out on our blogs our thoughts on our course project for presentation and evaluation in the coming month. Well, there's the comfort of Jay Rosen's view that "blogging is about making and changing minds" as Tammy has pointed out.
Discuss
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Blogs and control
Tonight was the first time that I got together with some fellow bloggers from my MMS class. The high of a fun gathering of like-minded people is definitely much more engaging than a satisfying communication with blogging. But I feel that blogging has spoilt me somewhat for normal conversation. Why? Because I missed the "linking" part of blogging, being able to show somewhat concrete support of my point of view, without having to elaborate so much. Normal conversation now seemed to lack the precision of blogging. In conversation, the subject does tend to go off to various tangents and I felt that I had less control in the flow of conversation than in a blog. (Have I become a control freak?...Well, I know I tend to be one in my household...understandable as a mother to teenage kids...but I find it unpleasant to face that situation with my friends.) In conversation we spontaneously touched upon a whole bunch of subjects which would not have possibly been done with a blog. So I came home a little bit intrigued by this question: "Are blogs tools of control or are they tools of 'free' expression?"
Of course, the tone of this thought was already set into motion by Leo Reitano's presentation of his Phd. research on the "Polysphere Model" earlier in the evening which gave rise to the occasion of the class gathering. Leo passionately put forward the notion that "just using the web, ...blogging, even different modalities of technology is not enough (in shifting the paradigm of learning and education)....what's important is examing the assumptions we have taken before using these new learning modalities,... did we assume unconsciously that it was to serve our outdated modes of command and control, divide and conquer?" A strong challenge was put out by Leo and for those who are interested to find out what he proposes as an alternative model for learning, I understand that Leo's research paper will be posted for viewing somewhere on the McLuhan Program homepage.
Discuss
Of course, the tone of this thought was already set into motion by Leo Reitano's presentation of his Phd. research on the "Polysphere Model" earlier in the evening which gave rise to the occasion of the class gathering. Leo passionately put forward the notion that "just using the web, ...blogging, even different modalities of technology is not enough (in shifting the paradigm of learning and education)....what's important is examing the assumptions we have taken before using these new learning modalities,... did we assume unconsciously that it was to serve our outdated modes of command and control, divide and conquer?" A strong challenge was put out by Leo and for those who are interested to find out what he proposes as an alternative model for learning, I understand that Leo's research paper will be posted for viewing somewhere on the McLuhan Program homepage.
Discuss
Monday, October 27, 2003
Hybrid media and its resultant explosive/implosive energy
McLuhan writes, "The hybrid or the meeting of two media is a moment of truth and revelant from which new form is born. For the parallel between two media holds us on the frontiers between forms that snap us out of the Narcissus-narcosis. The moment of the meeting of media is a moment of freedom and release from the ordinary trance an numbness imposed by them on our senses." (Understanging Media, pg. 55.)
Spams are quickly making emails dysfunctional. The article, "Guess What? I don't have email", by W.D. Valgardson, of The Globe and Mail, Oct. 22, is a good example of how. Some people are, or have already converted to domain names and blogs as a new form of connectivity that will stay for some time until these new forms themselves also become overheated. According to McLuhan, overheating of a medium leads to reversals. (On reversals coming up later.) Blogs are one of these intriguing "hybrids" (or in my view, maybe even the 'meta'-hybrid) that McLuhan tries to inform us about as per quote above. He says that when we get hybrids (interprenetration of one medium by another), the violent release of energy (either by explosion or implosion, fusion or fission, this I am not so sure if I understand) snaps us out for a brief period from the "Narcissus-narcosis" in other words, "numbing" effect" (like the fish not knowing it is swimming in water, again.) McLuhan, in fact, sees this energy to be so violent as to call it a "civil war in media". The sometimes heated discussions that goes on about blogging does give one a sense of a "civil war", and it's happening in the electric medium! Hybrid energy is powerful stuff!
Discuss
Spams are quickly making emails dysfunctional. The article, "Guess What? I don't have email", by W.D. Valgardson, of The Globe and Mail, Oct. 22, is a good example of how. Some people are, or have already converted to domain names and blogs as a new form of connectivity that will stay for some time until these new forms themselves also become overheated. According to McLuhan, overheating of a medium leads to reversals. (On reversals coming up later.) Blogs are one of these intriguing "hybrids" (or in my view, maybe even the 'meta'-hybrid) that McLuhan tries to inform us about as per quote above. He says that when we get hybrids (interprenetration of one medium by another), the violent release of energy (either by explosion or implosion, fusion or fission, this I am not so sure if I understand) snaps us out for a brief period from the "Narcissus-narcosis" in other words, "numbing" effect" (like the fish not knowing it is swimming in water, again.) McLuhan, in fact, sees this energy to be so violent as to call it a "civil war in media". The sometimes heated discussions that goes on about blogging does give one a sense of a "civil war", and it's happening in the electric medium! Hybrid energy is powerful stuff!
Discuss
Psychotechnologies and screenology
In my haphazard attempt to understand blogging and its effects, I couldn't wait for our instuctors to get to the subject of screenology which I think is going to be discussed in 3 or 4 weeks time, and decided to break the linearity of course work, by pointing here and now to Prof. Derrick's webpage on psychotechnologies and his brief description of screenology (which I was looking for). I think bloggers are yet unconsciously aware (as the fish again), that blogging is very much affected by how we look at or relate to the screen and how we design what looks on the screen, and that the screen we are designing upon has yet to evolve to a stable form.
Discuss
Discuss
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