Final Thoughts/Evaluation

The semester is over and we have now learned about the contemporary topic in media theory of New Media. This class opened me up and exposed me to many areas of study that I never have known about. I understand computers, but I am not very tech-savvy at all, and these new ways of looking and understanding what computers, internet, communication, and cinema can all be was awakening. I really liked the format of the class; small group discussions allowed us to take apart the texts and come up with interesting topics to discuss in the whole class setting. We were able to see some fascinating texts/images/viewing experiences/internet sites that I would have never seen otherwise.

But this final post is also evaluating the experience of blogging. All I can say is that by dint of the fact that I’m not very tech-savvy, having our reading responses due by being posted on the blogs was not enough of a palpable threat of accountability. I always do the reading, and if I’m forced to turn in the paper response, I will do it. But I guess that is all about laziness/personal work habits/allocating priorities. I do realize that the blog allowed us to explore much more than a one-page response solely does, which I am glad for. I loved finding articles in my daily reading of news sites that were relevant to the class, and then posting them on my page. If I ever had a random thought, went to an interesting presentation, or saw a connection to my daily life, blogs are a great way to share that. Yet, I would have felt more “academic” if we had to do a structured response that I would have spent more time on (if only on printing it out and proof-reading it for errors before I turned it in). I think that the blogs were a great way to explore the informality of the internet and the aspect of interaction and adding to the World Wide Web, yet for me, it still is not as much of an academic space in my mentality. I’m sure that my opinions on this will change soon, but even just putting my final paper on the internet was an interesting experience. It allowed me to link to pages and put pictures and graphs in, but I’m not sure if I was able to fully utilize the new media to get across my point. It’s a very self-conscious thought to be blogging about the experience of blogging in the form of a blog, but that one of the new ways this semester that I have realized that you can explore and learn—none of my other classes have anything similar experience like that.

All in all, I’m glad I took this course, it was very interesting, I should have blogged more, but I guess this is all just a learning experience in the end.

My Project

Here is the site for:

New Media and Technology in West Africa :

The social, linguistic, and political effects of new forms
of technology and communication

http://pages.pomona.edu/~apv02003

enjoy.

Final Presentations

I really enjoyed being able to see everyone's final presentations in the last three classes. I am amazed at the creativity that people have, the interesting ways in which they approached the concept of new media, and their final feelings of the efficacy of these new methods. If I possessed the creativity or technological skill that many of the students here have, I would have loved to explore something like that. Over break, I will probably spend some time poking around people's projects (that are online), and perhaps trying to learn how to use some of the computer programs that would allow me to do interesting things like that...

I am pleased with the research and work that I did for my term paper, and although it is very traditional, I was able to delve into a topic of interest and relevance to my semester abroad, and my interest in African politics and economic development, but as viewed from a different angle: new media. It will be fascinating when I'm actually in Dakar to see first hand internet usage and people's conceptions and usage of it. I've been reading the information that my program has given me, and I think that I will be bringing my laptop with me (which I never expected to), because then I'll be able to have more freedom to write my papers, start on my (gasp) thesis perhaps, and correspond with my friends and family. I guess I will be able to go to the university library or intstiute or even an internet cafe to hook up, because my homestay will definitely not have the power or internet hookups I'm sure.

I've been thinking about how I am going to keep in touch with my friends and family-- most people send mass e-mails, but I'm actually considering doing a blog (ya, even with my experience with this one...), as a way for me to keep track and remember my experiences more than letting other people know what's going on. A couple of my friends have blogs this semester while they're abroad, and truthfully I don't read them very often, but when I do, I love to poke through them and get a great overview of what they're feeling! So we'll see what I decide when I get there.

Nonetheless, I'm very happy with my project and I'm glad that I was able to learn a lot about a fascinating and ever-changing topic.

CDs and comics offer digital aid

Interesting article, coming again from the UN net summit in Tunisia-- comics and software for digital aid? Who knows! Perhpas that's the future

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4450060.stm

More news on technology...

Another article of interst to development of digital technology for the world-- $100 dollar laptops!

UN debut for $100 laptop for poor

Also on the BBC News site, they have an open forum on reader's opnions/reactions about the digital divide. (Yes, I have been working diligently on my term paper, so much fascinating information/distractions available on the internet!)

Can the digital divide be bridged?

Economist Article

This week's Economist has an interesting article about the World Summit on the Information Society, held in Tunisia this year. This topic (very a-propos to my term paper subject) is essential when looking at the future of the internet in a global information society. They discussed things like taking the sole control of distribution from the US and giving it to other nations as well, and ways to bridge the "digital divide". I look forward to reading more about this conference, but here's the link for the article.

http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5165014

Connected: Politics, Culture, Technology, and Society

Steven Shaviro’s book Connected is an interesting compilation of his research, readings, musings, and anything he feels is related to living in a networked society. In the second half of the readings, he discusses everything from globalization, to drug usage, to film noir, to Darwin, and philosophers. Although his chain of associative thought may be difficult to follow at times (seeing the chains between the different vignettes), the reader can still glean a sense of correlation and connectivity in its themes. It reminded me almost of an epistolary novel, in the jumping, yet connected fragments that allow for a multiplicity or freedom for many different voices or thoughts. Like in Montesquieu describes in the intro of Lettres persanes, there is a “chaine secret” that underlies and ties together all the letters—the same way in which there is a connection in all the fragments of Shaviro’s book.

I tried to follow and connect the chain of his ideas and themes on how politics, culture, and society are affected by this new technologically and in all ways connected society. Relating to the earlier part of the book, discussing the intersection/taking-over of the physical by the virtual, he writes: “The physical and virtual worlds should not be opposed; rather, they are two coordinated realms, mutually dependent products of a vast web of social, political, economic, and technological changes” (130). This introduces the themes of space and society, and the politics of culture. Human interactions have changed due to the new networking, including the spaces in which this now occurs. We no longer have the same type of contact or physical space that connects us with people. He mentions the downfall of community and change in social space. The flow of information in society is changed by the technology and digitalization of connected communities.

He then moves into discussing the capitalist society that is a product of corporations and labor-related forces. He uses Noir’s idea of vampires and zombies (164) to characterize how “a positive feedback loop is thus set into motion: the accumulation of profit leads to the decline in the rate of profit, which in turn spurs an even greater absolute accumulation, which in turn leads to an even greater relative decline, and so on ad infinitum” (166). This interminable process of capitalism and consumerism in society creates and destroys important links—it creates the links through the consumerist transaction, exchanges of money, and receiving of product; but it also destroys perhaps personal links with the real world and the non-material society, thus turning the individuals in society into zombies. He describes capitalism as a monstrosity and exploitative.

When talking about the connections between the entire world, these new opportunities have allowed the intersection and interaction with Otherness and the Outside (175). Everything is available in excess in this new society, and the dominant hegemonic forces are the abundance of information, suppressing and hiding the elements of society that are undesirable. Those who are “disconnected” no longer exist—like homeless people, or the poor fall into a black hole. “The global flows of capital and information obliterate every obstacle in their path, trapping us in the network’s sticky web” (178), yet there still are buffers that can protect us from complete connections, such as user interfaces. There are economic, social, and political consequences of these connections, and these disconnects. The glut of information includes as well as alienates, and the consumerist society cause culture and economic forces to collide (194).

Community and Cyberculture

In David Bell’s An Introduction to Cybercultures, he discusses the idea of community and cyberculture brought about by the internet. The internet allows the possibility of groups to gather in an online or virtual community, but this raises questions about “detraditionalization, globalization, and postmodernization.” He begins by discussing what community is, and how it is organized in the traditional sense, using Ferdinand Tonnies (an urban sociologist) and Benedict Anderson (who is often cited by political scientists) to understand the importance of personal flow and integration. Globalization, especially through internet and technology, has created the opportunity to reshape the world and the way in which we associate ourselves. The internet allows us to choose which community to belong to, and “in the face of all this disembedding, detradionalizing, globalizing uncertainty, we need to find new way[s] to belong—and the Internet is on hand to provide exactly that.”

There are arguments about whether an online community is “real,” focusing on whether it grows organically, or if it’s inevitable, or whether “shared interests” constitute enough to create a community that is virtual. The internet is often described as a democratizing force, which allows individuals around the world to connect, access, learn, share, and contribute to the global discourse. The flows of information are often shaped by the groups or associations in which one chooses to access with the internet, thus, allowing one to find like-minded or similar interest people. Is the idea of internet communities itself contribute at all to democratic principle? Is there any effect on having these groups (or, one may say factions) that are all present? Or are these groups not competing or vying for voice, as shared interest groups do in democracy? Is there any need to compete for voice in the vast expanse of unlimited space in the World Wide Web, thus making the limited resources the government, to say, provides? However, these are not the particular questions which Bell raises—he is concerned with the role of sub-cultures and the differing effects that internet communities provide.

Some technologies collectivize while others individualize, and one can look at the ways in which each are used to understand the effect. With computers and the Internet, we have the opportunity to create and join communities online that can give us a sense of belonging. An individual can find a collective sense of being and togetherness with their community, even though physical space separates them. But again, one can view the physical separation as the deal-breaker for the creation of a community. Is a like minded conception or mentality enough to create a community? Does the Internet not fragment individuals and physical society more, by allowing one to regress and find comfort in their computer, an inanimate object, while feeling that they are fulfilling their social interaction with a screen? If the conception of a community involves interaction and reciprocal relations, about belonging and exclusion, then the fluidity of identity on the internet adds another boundary for community. Does it make the community association less “real” if in a group that is created for women, a man who poses as a women (through the anonymity of the internet) participates? What are the bounds for belonging and understanding to have an authentic community, or can one even have an “authentic” community. The abstract nature of belonging on the internet can have different effects on the individuals who participate, and the social, political, and cultural implications of belonging and association are far-reaching, beyond the technology of the internet itself. As Bell struggles himself with finding a proper definition of community, I too see many obstacles in creating a true understanding of how “virtual social relations” can be conceptualized and related to the traditional understanding of physical communities. Nonetheless, internet communities and the globalizalizing, democratizing forces of the internet have all changed the ways in which our society interacts with others and technology.

Virtual Africans and the Technology of Empowerment

Virtual Africans and the Technology of Empowerment
Prof Chika Anyanwu, University of Adelaide

Last Thursday I went to the I-Place talk, which I found fascinating (and very a-propos to my term paper and what we’re studying). He discussed the Africans of the World, the importance of the Virtual African Diaspora (VAD), the false/colonial diasporic identity, and the role of new technology to empower. He placed his argument in the historical, post-colonial dependency theory understanding of globalization, Western bias, and new age colonization—the imbalance of information in the Western world and the developing world (90% of information data is stored in English).

Digitalization and new media have the opportunity to empower the youth culture, where the change, reception, and adoption of new media technology are going to take place. It is necessary to break the “digital divide” that separates the developed world from Africa. Especially with the African diasporic population, technology (i.e. the internet) has the possibility to unite, as well as alienate the populations. Technology can provide a “connectivity,” but it also can allow for “virtual voyeurism” for these persons who find themselves divided between their original and new identity, but alienated from both.

New Media Technology plays a role in the cultural dislocation of the VAD population. Media can aid the ideological movement of people from one geopolitical cultural space to another. There are also the insiders and outsiders of content and discourse in this new “virtual third space” for Africans. Technology and the internet become an “alternative narrative of discourse,” giving collective power and recognition—if the populations can embrace the technology. If used correctly, new media technology could provide things like digital story telling (like a new version of the traditional Griot of West African society), allowing a repository of memory and knowledge, be a snapshot of history and development, and a way to gather community and nation-build.

He concludes with his objectives of his project of digital African empowerment through the use of new technologies—which involves databases/databodies, after having created a need-analysis of African societies. Providing a navigable space, a repository of data, will allow Africans to connect, in a civil society model of information sharing, rather than the public sphere. It is important for the VAD that they own the information; the empowerment come from knowledge and connection.

This lecture was very interesting, and Prof Anyanwu has a lot of fascinating research and areas of study—but I found the different sections a bit disjointed. Obviously, he was trying to fit huge ideas in a small time space, and he had to abbreviate and move us quickly through the different associational path to his project objectives. However, I was surprised at the end when his project involved database information for empowering Africans and the African diasporic population: I had expected that the solution to this problem would be the implementation of infrastructure and education for creating a digitalized population in this globalized world (but I am most likely biased by my political, policy-based view of this situation). He obviously has felt the effects of being an African diasporic individual, facing double alienation, and he is searching for community and empowerment through the connectivity that database of information, history, culture, tradition, and new media technology can provide.

The Three Films

Mission to Earth: I watched this film first, and it was probably for the best because this, of his films, is the most like normal narrative film. It follows the story of Inga, an alien from Alpha-1 who is on an extended mission to Earth to study us through observation. Yet, she experiences an isolated and alienated existence, and the music and images portray the sad life of human existence. She is an immigrant to Earth and is trying to fit in but always feels estranged and torn between her two lives. The form of the film is in a multiple-frame screen, with several images, sometimes moving film, sometimes still photos, or sometimes just solid blocks of colors. There are many images that are repeated throughout the film, and the classical music soundtrack is sad and eerie at many times. The motion graphics, live-action film, and still images that are juxtaposed on screen at the same time portray her split identity and feelings of separation from herself, while visually stimulating and almost distracting the viewer of the film.

Absences: This short film was very different than the norms of cinema—although still following a semblance of a narrative, the film uses multiple frames, scrolling text, oral narration, and natural sound to tell the story. There is a rhythm and progression to the story, which is of a woman who is feeling the loss/deciding whether or not to leave after having broken up with/ended some sort of relationship with a man named Kenneth. Each different scene/visual display has a different multiple frame setups, sometimes which several moving different moving-film boxes, sometimes with only one or two. It was an interesting experience to watch, and it left me with a somber, almost peaceful feeling from the combination of images and sound that, combined together, create meaning through “associative chains.” The film’s images and sound were selected with a computer program that has a complex algorithm to determine which visuals and aural elements to pair together.

Texas: In this film, there was narration, text, and multiple squares of moving images, as well as color blocks. Many times there were five or six different images at once, some had no real relation to what was in the text of the narration. The story was about this couple who are at this Chinese restaurant and are having a conversation, talking about their family and historical situations (the Cuban missile crisis), and then “crystals” attack the restaurant windows—a seemingly surreal part of the narrative. There are many repeated images of urban scenes, and anonymous people, giving a feeling of alienation form the urban experience or modern life. The visuals are overwhelming at times, which have many different scenes to look at (while I did not always knowing why I was attracted to the almost inactive image of a woman sitting at a computer). In Manovich’s description of the short in the booklet, he describes this film as being a representation of the “subjective experience” living “between layers” of the past and present, East and West, and new cotemporary society. The Soft Cinema software selects samples from sets and mixes them in real time to create a rhythmic set of images and sound to correspond to the oral narration, creating a compelling and fascination cinematic experience.

Manovich: Soft Cinema

I was not sure what I was supposed to expect when I went to watch the Soft Cinema DVD for this assignment, but I found it a very interesting experience to watch these three short films. From Manovich’s website (www.softcinema.net), I found this summary of the four principles of what makes the concepts/form of Soft Cinema: Ambient Narrative...

“ 1. "Algorithmic Cinema." Using a script and a system of rules defined by the authors, the software controls the screen layout, the number of windows and their content. The authors can choose to exercise minimal control leaving most choices to the software; alternatively they can specify exactly what the viewer will see in a particular moment in time. Regardless, since the actual editing is performed in real time by the program, the movies can run infinitely without ever exactly repeating the same edits.
2. "Macro-cinema." If a computer user employs windows of different proportions and sizes, why not adopt the similar aesthetics for cinema?
3. "Multimedia cinema." In Soft Cinema, video is used as only one type of representation among others: 2D animation, motion graphics, 3D scenes, diagrams, maps, etc.

4. "Database Cinema." The media elements are selected from a large database to construct a potentially unlimited number of different narrative films, or different versions of the same film. We also approach database as a new representational form in its own right. Accordingly, we investigate different ways to visualize Soft Cinema databases. ”

His Soft Cinema program compiles and creates the images/sound/visual of the narrative through a complex computer program, each different type creating a different final experience for the film. It is an interesting idea to not have the typical concept of the “auteur,” yet to have a computer make the choices of all types of visual representations and sounds, not just the expected conventions and norms of cinema.

Lexia to Perplexia

Perplexed is an apt way to describe how I felt during the reading of this text. In approaching this text, once I figured out how to open and start it, I tried to read it in the “linear” and “planned” way to be read—and it did seem like there was a pattern and order that it was supposed to be read, as you progressed through the four different phases. However, my reading, after attempting to click from the links on the left side moving to the right side of the page, seemed to devolve into random-clicking, trying to make things happen. Occasionally, I lost the path/seemed to hit a dead end, and I started the section over again and seemed to have a much better time working my way through it.

As for reading the text itself, I tried to read the main sections that came up, and then the smaller text boxes that would appear. However, it seemed to lack a true narrative and the abnormal (computerized) way in which the first section was written was very hard to follow. At times, I felt frustrated by the text in that in didn’t show me what I wanted to, or what I was trying to read/get to disappeared. Especially the fourth and final section, with the overlapping texts and popping words was extremely distracting and off-putting.

For the most part, the interactivity with this text was not as free as with the other narrative texts that we had followed—there was a path and stages that one was supposed to reach, yet it was still frustrating and I felt unfulfilled when I reached the end. But it does demonstrate the capabilities of new media technology for creating an interactive, mediated transmission of information and artistic content.

The Language of New Media

In Lev Manovich’s text, The Language of New Media, the first chapter covers the characteristics and defining features of what is “new media.” This is helpful in defining the process of new media creation, and its relationship with the “old” media. New media contains a broad range of media, including Internet, computers, DVDs—and much of the computerized/digitalized world of today. The five main principles of new media are: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding.

The topic of variability within new media is the view that something “can exist in different, potentially infinite versions” (36). With the internet and computers, one can create and replicate and image/page/text with slightly different changes—the possibilities for permutation and reproduction are expanded in comparison to the old media reproduction techniques like the printing press. With the computer media, one can have immediacy as well (“such immediacy is reality” [37]). The new media’s ability to create variations allows customizations and an individual interaction with the text. The text raises the question of whether or not this interactivity and ability to choose allows too much freedom, and that we perhaps don’t need that much freedom.

Hypertext and new media texts, through their variability, allow the individuals to create their own path or version of a text/digital experience. Manovich writes, “in this way new media technology acts as the most perfect realization of the utopia of an ideal society composed of unique individuals. New media objects assure users that their choices—and therefore, their underlying thoughts and desires—are unique, rather than preprogrammed and shared with others” (42). Is it the goal of new media to make everyone unique? Does variability actually provide each of us with the opportunity for a personal experience? Although hypertext and new media encourage, or more accurately, force “work” on the users part to access and make a conscious choice about the way you read a “text,” that does not necessarily make the experience better. Perhaps when reading a text, the user’s perceptions or thought process might not be as good at the creator as the text, and it would be better to provide a path to follow—which is why many times “we are asked to follow pre-programmed, objectively existing associations” (61).

Hypertext and new media gives the user the ability to use their free will in making choices. Thus, with all of the information that has become part of the public sphere because of the Internet and the World Wide Web, we are presented with massive amounts of information to be processed. It can be thought of as an ergodic process in order to process and wade one’s way through the glut of knowledge available. Although we are using our own mental processes and associate thought when attempting to interact and extract information through a new media text, we are posed with the conundrum that “interactive media ask us to identify with someone’s mental structure” (61). So, does the Internet and interactive (variable) media increase or decrease our ability to access information, or has everything become mass-produced, shared, and mapped? When looking just at the World Wide Web, it seems that there are so many ways to access information, and part of the associate path will be dictated by constraints of the medium itself, and the individual’s ability to do the mental work required to process this information.