ch 10

What is?

Who is?

What is my mood?

Proof we have individual moods:

Everyone has a specific mood attached to them. Ozzy is scary, Snooki is clumsy, Jim Morrison is oh-so-cool.

You see people on campus, in the grocery store, around town, and you associate moods with these people.

Think: People Of Walmart versus Vogue versus the general college student

We stereotype ourselves into groups, and see ourselves as different types of people.

We find our wide image backwards to avoid being caught in this mess. I am: a student, obsessed with harry potter, a design student, a geek, i have an eclectic taste in music, I like to go out on the weekends with my friends, I am from the mountains....

I am Allender.

What is my image?

"The wide image may be thought of as a series of murals decorating the border of identity”

My murals:

Career (concrete)

Family (the drive)

Entertainment (TPY)

Community (the River)

What links these together?

emblem

Charge: Discover the emblem. (Version of Wide Image)

Method: Exploration/Experimentation-- using the images and moods associated with our various discourses/Working backwards.

Why work backwards?

The wide image is our driving force/mood. This should be easy to find-- as it is behind everything we do-- yet difficult to find-- as it is internalized. We don't want to find the obvious-- we must experiment, discover to find best image for ourselves.

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Title-Image-Description.

We associate several types of images with different moods/feelings/ideas.

Example: we see Santa Claus, we think happiness/Christmas/snow/the holidays (usually)

Electrate approach: juxtapose images with other images of the same??? Santa Claus vs. reindeer vs. nativity scene??

Pop Art

Duchamp: turned a urinal upside down>> A fountain.

Warhol: A painting of a can is a can but it is an image of a can-- what is the difference between the cans?

Jim Krantz: takes pictures of famous advertisements/works and resells them as his own. He has made millions off of his photographs, which are oftentimes simple photographs of other people's works. What makes his better? Is there a mood associated with these? What is the connection between his work and the works he copies? Why does it sell better?

Art is experience. Architecture is experiential. Our emblems are experiential. As we experience a building or a new place or sensation, our perceptions are individual to the experience. These should affect us in a psychological and physical way-- stimulate our senses in a very precise, individual, and experiential manner.

The Bar (Street)

Probably the most confusing chapter I've read yet-- but I'm going to try.

The cultural "freakout" about binge drinking (or today, Four Loko drinking) is a cultural issue, rather than a behavioral issue. That is, we are more concerned that it is considered "okay" in certain groups or settings to consume more than we are physically able. You would not take 20 shots in 10 minutes in your front yard or at school, but you would at a bar or at a party. Well, to be perfectly honest, nobody could take 20 shots in 10 minutes, but this is an example so just run with it.

When we are in a certain setting or mood, we are apt to behave in different ways. On gamedays, we wear orange and yell and scream about being Tigers and having Clemson pride. Many people wear orange on Fridays. When I go home during a break and there is a Clemson football game on (mainly because I grew up in a West Virginia Mountaineers family, back to the theme of environment) I turn the tv on and kind of listen to the game as I'm doing something else, and I save my orange tshirts mainly for lounging.

These themes are linked into rites of passage-- the 21st birthday (and the morning after), the first football game of the season, the last football game of the season, and any occasion (mostly birthdays, football wins, football losses, trivia nights, days that end in -y, the completion of an exam or paper, etc.)

Everyone must take a midnight shot on their 21st birthday. Everyone must sit on the hill for at least one football game. No one should EVER read the inscription on the statue in front of Tillman, until after graduation.

These aren't specific rites of passage to anything but the mood we place ourselves within. If I wanted to sit in my bedroom on my 21st birthday with the door locked (closest thing to a neutral environment I can think of right now) then I wouldn't have had to take a birthday shot. However, I was with my friends, and at midnight we went and bought beer and I took a shot of vodka right as the clock turned. Now that I think of it, I was actually late getting to my friends' house, and they were yelling at me for not taking the shot right AT midnight.

When we place ourselves within certain moods or environments, certain behaviors are expected of us-- this is a part of the culture and the moods associated with it, rather than a behavioral issue. If I were to refuse my birthday shot, it would have discouraged everyone around me, and we probably would have ended up playing board games for a few hours and gone to bed. Instead, I took the birthday shot and we all drank for about 3 hours and danced around and had a lovely time. By placing myself within the expectations of the culture, the culture continued.

Ulmer's combination of narrative and argument usually guides me in the right direction-- I can't figure out how to tie in the tango allegory at all... something about it just isn't clicking with me today. As a matter of fact, I was lost from the tango onward.

This is what I gathered from the "office" at the end of the chapter, however.

He combines allegory and narrative to instill moods or images that we can tie the argument back to-- this is in the spirit of electrate thinking. Instead of saying "this is this and this is this," he is saying "assess how you feel when you read this story, and that feeling should tie into this argument."

To find our wide image, we should start looking at signifiers in all four aspects of our mystory and begin finding connections. He found the connection of "gall/gaul" and began assessing that connection to other allegorical principles.

History (School)

Understanding the way narratives work is as important as understanding the meaning of the narrative itself. A wide variety of stories in our culture follow the same paths, which is a part of our literate learning. In many stories, the main characters have inner and outer problems that conflict in different ways. Sometimes the outer problems are the same, and the characters are driven by their distinct inner problems. The main conflict of the story drives the characters to confront their inner problems and resolve them.

To understand our community history, we must understand the narrative history of our community and observe how we respond to it. The community within which we grow up is important in shaping who we are; the environment we are shaped within influences us indirectly. In a community, lives wrap their ways around each other through mysterious and strangely influential methods.

When I was 9 years old, an historic building burnt down in our downtown area (my town has about 3500 people in it, so it is a small community, but it is very spread out as mountain communities tend to be). The entire town went downtown and watched the firefighters put out the fire and then was present for the demolition of the building and its subsequent transformation into a park. While nothing drastic changed in most of our lives due to this event (only a few people lived in the building and nobody was killed during the fire), this time was a sort of a placeholder in my childhood. The event was part of my community narrative, so it has become a part of my narrative.

Our individual communities and our shared communities (my individual of Lewisburg, West Virginia, our shared community of the Eastern United States [I feel like different pieces of our country have much different cultural expectations at different points in our lives]) have different rites of passage and cultural expectations at different points in our lives. Watch any 80s movie and see the "new guy" continue his normal, cultural, teenage struggle in his new home, but then have to learn and conquer the rituals of his new community. (The Karate Kid moves across the country and has to continue adolescence, go on his first date, get a car, etc. but also deal with the "karate tough kids" in the neighborhood that he didn't experience in New York).

By exploring our community history and the rituals and passages associated with it, we can begin to see what things are important to our individual communities. A community doesn't always have to be a town, it can be a cluster of towns, a sub-community, a neighborhood, as long as it was an outside, independently progressing unit of people and place strongly present in the environment of our growth.

Interface Impressions

The Entertainment narrative template we are following is based on the archetypal pattern of the hero's quest, which expresses in turn an ancient ritual of initiation-- the achievement of individual identity.

Our assignment: create a webpage documenting a tv show (or book or movie) from our childhood that struck a certain chord of resonance with us. Assess our first thoughts-- then watch it again-- and record new thoughts.

I was a very impressionable child. I have these seemingly important tidbits of tons of things that just float around in the "important from childhood" section in my brain. I'm sure we all are, and I'm looking forward to this section of the mystory. I don't exactly know how to present it yet.

Impersonation as a starting point for understanding images/imaging. By capturing the essence of a person or a production, you can easily recognize the image that is being given by the object.

We won't be performing an impersonation of the person, but we will use gestures to write their icon.

The Bordovitz example shows us how this can be achieved-- he weaves, quite well, the news report of Evel Knievel's failed jump over a canyon with the news report of his father's death. He ties the angry fans in with the desolation in himself. He sees a tragic situation in his own life shown through a cultural device. He uses this as a tool to describe his own feelings and thoughts. While most readers wouldn't be able to understand exactly his emotions of being diagnosed with HIV, we are able to see the frustration, the almost win, the sadness, the feeling of failure associated with his realization.

The other two examples act the same, showing frustration, anxiety, hopefulness, and calm. They tie in tangible examples that serve as tools to describe their emotions.

"Write a structural self portrait, using the given circumstances of a character in a story as a figurative analogy for your given circumstances in your lifeworld." In other words, describe your life and feelings and circumstances through another story.

1993: dealing with computers will become less like operating a device and more like conversing with another person.

At least for me, this is true. Working with the internet and other programs on my computer is almost second-nature to me by this point. I spend so much time on my computer that I am infinitely comfortable working within its capabilities. We should use this fluidity to apply to our educational experience; to move freely between programs (metaphors, stories, and diversions) to create an end product (describe something).

Seances?

"Noticing and documenting the problems causing the dramatic conflict in your Family and Entertainment stories anticipate your work with problems in your Career field and in your Community as a consultant." It is our job to be able to explain our conflicts and our stresses through metaphors and diversions, to make our emotions and our responses more clear to those around us. By being able to explain an issue that has been around us for years, we can explain anything, right? These all help us find our wide image, which is supposed to help us become true electrate egents (is that redundant?). By understanding ourselves, we can understand the learning model, and apply it to our lives.

thin blue line/cosmogram

thin blue line_significant places in my life linked by a blue line.

location: italy

discovery: many of the most significant and beautiful places I found in Italy occurred along a single line. only with the addition of the two places further north did I begin to find shapes. the most meaningful shape I found was an open book; signifying the learning and sketching I did in these places and how they have become pages in my book of experience???

cosmogram_significant places in my hometown linked by lines and circles.

discovery: while i always thought the significant places in my hometown were in a circular path, the most significant reached out from my home to create a star pattern. the river and the rhythm of the hills compliment the reaching lines of the drawing. the text compliments my justification for choosing those specific places.

Cosmogram

Xanadu: referring to the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge; his dream/poem/recollection that was interrupted-- and lost forever-- the everlasting land of the ends of our lost trails of thought-- the ideal place for all information to reside-- the epitome of the creative process.

Mapping the Diegesis

diegesis: "the imaginary space and time of the world created in the poem"/film/medium

Xanadu: a "hybrid place" composed of elements from "exotic sites of otherness"--use of "exotic as the emblem of curiosity and imagination"

Four exotic sites: Zanadu/Mongolia; holy caves of ice/Kashmir/India; Mount Abora/Ethiopia; underwater caves/fountains/Gainesville, Florida.

A fact certainly only the closest followers of Coleridge's poem and residents/fans of Gainesville, Florida would know. Ulmer is locating the "uncanny moments" when he experienced a sense of destiny or a life path/direction.

Chora (Sacred Space)

Three kinds of space or place, according to the Greeks:

Topos: the abstract quality of place as a container

Chora: the scared nature of specific places

Kenon: the "nothing" (why is there something rather than nothing?)

Ulmer: choragraphy: a "hyper-rhetoric_ that chora is used, rather than topos, as a metaphor for the places of invention. As in, our thoughts now exist in the web and the electric pieces of the world, in our minds, our feelings in memories. These are not held within any object or a container, but within the emotions and sensations associated with the event.

Home and Family

Narrative

Our search for a wide image has a narrative structure-- we are in a process of identity formation, both within ourselves and as a collective.

The paragraph about Giddens makes perfect sense. We tend to describe ourselves using the same stories every time, which creates a single-lane, one way road with no side streets. That is, we are stereotyping ourselves as much as we do other people.

My name is Allender, I am a fourth year architecture major from West Virginia, I am minoring in English because I like to write. I am the Vice President of Membership for the American Institute of Architecture Students here at Clemson, as well as a member of the Gamma Phi Beta Sorority, and various honors organizations. I lived in Italy for a semester last year studying architecture, and I hope to attend graduate school next fall for Architecture.

or...

My name is Allender, I grew up in rural West Virginia. I once rebuilt a Volkswagen Beetle and nearly cut my thumb off with a table saw this summer. Working on a house renovation with my dad, I have built nearly an entire house. I have knowledge not only of construction but also in plumbing and electrical circuits. This summer I worked as a shuttle van driver for a golf course and also as a cashier at a gas station. I spend a lot of time outdoors and I can't imagine myself settling down anywhere but in the mountains.

It makes a difference. Both statements are 100% true, yet I can alter them to make myself seem to be a different person. In one, I am a focused, determined, and hopefully well-rounded student. In the other, I am the quintessential mountain girl. I know I could create at least 3 more personal identities about myself. The main thing is, according to Giddens, that the "sense of self-identity is... held to weather major tensions or transitions in the social environments within which the person moves." (72)

I like how Ulmer equates this journey to the progression of a play, movie, or even book-- this whole thing is a process that we can't rush. We wouldn't want Harry Potter to defeat Voldemort right in front of the Mirror of Erised?

Home(Page)Sick

We are within a circular journey-- quite like Odysseus (Ulysses), to name one-- a long, circular journey centered around one thing- the self- and it begins at home. (Freud: Tell me about your mother; Michael Jackson/Lindsay Lohan: I have daddy issues; the story of the prodigal son) This is all rooted in our culture/popcycle/whatever you will call it.

However, as the main part of this circular journey, we will alienate ourselves. It is within the struggle of life to have moments where we are thoroughly lost. The Romantics showed this well: the modern struggle is that of "fragmentation, dissociation, estrangement, or alienation." (75) Think Heathcliff. Okay, so we're not all that miserable, but we all have times where we fall away from the feeling of home. We all enter a state of homesickness, which is one of the many driving senses of pathos in our lives.

This Romantic (in the sense of Romanticism) sense of pathos in our popcycle has turned us away from showing emotion-- the suffering that comes out of literate emotion is too severe. The electrate form of emotion is something more natural, more balanced. The problem is that we have not brought human emotions into our form of education. I would honestly feel maybe just a little uncomfortable if Miss Havisham came into this classroom wearing her 20 year old wedding gown, but teaching emotion as part of inspiration or a piece of the human experience is quite worthy. Electrate emotion is not the Miss Havisham type of emotion-- it is the emotion that creates a link between the present and our past-- the mundane included.

Mood and atmosphere are part of our normal experience. Right now I am in the library. It is quiet but not silent, and bustling as I am on the main floor. People are focusing on work-- or maybe on Facebook. My mood is a strange simultaneous sense of urgency to finish this homework so I can eat lunch before my class in an hour and a half, but also the knowledge that I won't finish this assignment before I need to go eat so there is a sort of lazy "just shut the computer and get a sandwich" driving force right now. In five minutes, I will most likely be in a different atmosphere with a similar mood. This is not interesting to anyone, because we all experience this same sort of emotion and atmosphere, but it is an inherent and largely unrecorded part (at least until we used Facebook statuses) of the human experience.

Mystory

The mystory allows us "to locate [our] position in the popcycle of [our] epoch." That is, it allows us to discover the pieces of our culture and place that affect us.

Frederic Jameson on Allegory-- Historical writings, like the Bible, have a twofold effect: First, a retelling of events both in the sense of collective and individual, and second, an allegorical reading that affects the psychology of the reader. The allegory affects this psychology in a way that it affects the morals of the reader or actually affects the emotions or actions of the reader.

Allegory Popcycle

Literal/School/Historical FACT/Community History

Allegory/Entertainment/imitation through media/cultural mythology

Moral/Family/Biography/habits and customs/upbringing

Anagogy/Career/THE WORLD VIEW EMBODIED WITHIN SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE within a career field

We should be able to use "proportional analogies" to find the position in our mystory that is allegorical, or can be described by an allegory within, the popcycle in which we have been living in.

(James Joyce)

Each discourse of the mystory is "organized around the discovery, definition, and (sometimes) solution of exemplary problems." (83) We have to find these identifications in our popcycle to find our wide image.

(Frederick Douglass)

Both ox stories provide a learning experience. Life gives us challenges that only we can attempt; we will not always have guidance. Douglass nearly died learning how to overcome the oxen, and the boy in the Zen story labored hard. The boy in the story reached some sort of self-actualization, and Douglass became one of the most famous abolitionists in his time. This comes to show that the small, seemingly mundane story can be used as a parable for simple learning experiences and appreciation for hard work.

Family Discourse

We enter into an ongoing narrative within our own families, as a character in the story of those who bring us up. Our parents are the ones that instill the cultural and social expectations within our popcycle. According to Ulmer, some of our strongest memories from childhood are those moments where we recognize we have to alter our personalities to fit in within our popcycle.\

We are less interested in drama or idea, and more interested in mood and atmosphere, which can be seen in the Douglass/Zen parable. They describe a feeling or a mundane event that create a mood or atmosphere that means something else.

At the same time, we have narratives or anecdotes that create the scene of a bold memory of our lives. Like Jerry Garcia's parrot story, our lives are filled with these small, seemingly insignificant stories that end up being pieces of our overarching life story.

Image

"This chapter is devoted to describing how the image becomes a method, taking up where the antidefinition left off, to become a positive ordering operation in its own right." (Ulmer 43)

In architecture (my field of study), we pride the visual more than the textual in presenting our ideas. At the same time, our professors push us to be able to speak eloquently about our process and our projects. We took three semesters of speech classes in addition to a writing class. For the past four years, my undergraduate education has been pushing me to describe the complex thoughts within my own mind through image, speech, and the written word. Ulmer's descriptions are not too far from what I've been learning, so this is exciting to me.

The connection between word and image placement, juxtaposition, and choice create a discussion outside of what can be described by just words.

Maybe it can even be said that the ability to create an experience to describe something is better than a much longer and extensive essay. Humans are emotional beings that connect more with something they are familiar with.

Roland Barthes

When we see an image, we see more than one thing- an obtuse significance. A photograph of Barthes's mother is not only a photograph, is not only a woman, but signified "mourning."

The associations of "photograph" and the "mother" fall under the term studium, while the association of "mourning" falls under the term punctum.

and again:

studium: automatic, culture-driven associations

punctum: association in reference to a personal or private set of memories and ideas

The most compelling point about this paragraph is that this punctum has been around all the time, just that the literate apparatus we've been following hasn't been allowing us to notice its existence.

Maybe.

What about music? Poetry?

Haiku.

to be continued... sadly late

9/11 MEmorial

www.wix.com/ginkgogogo/9_11

ulmer_isms

The image of Wide Scope

driving image of your interests and research throughout life/main idea of your center of focus through academia

Popcycle

career/family/entertainment/community: ideas/rituals/customs/morals these sections place upon us throughout our growth that influence our livelihood/way we live/interests/focuses

Grammatology/the Thing/of Definition

a series of intense examples describing the invention of school/of the definition of words both in meaning and their actual appearance/sound/worth/work; intended to explain how literacy and scholastic work have influenced the way we learn; how electracy aims to change this paradigm

From Text to Felt

felt=fabric=textile=root for text/interwoven fibers/nodes/hooks appearing as a whole/Gestalt

Antidefinition

an electrate idea stemmed from the text/felt definition??? not clear.

MEmorial_9/11 Project

Thinking of 9/11 is weird.

I kind of like to think that we can blank it out of our memories a little bit. I feel bad for the pain and death and destruction that it caused. I am sad people died. I am sad people's lives were ripped out from underneath them.

I just don't like to think about tragedies like that.

I guess they're kind of outside my realm of understanding, just like the actual events were to me when it happened. (Using the punctuation in my cartoons that I drew.)

I went on youtube and watched a bunch of 9/11 videos. I got really upset when I saw the "falling man" and the commentator's first comments upon the second plane's crashing into the building.

I just realized a plane crash sounds bad.... but so many people die when a plane crashes. Hundreds. You never think of that when you hear plane crash. You just think of a wreck.

Drawing is kind of a healing thing for me. When I hold a pen or a marker I can kind of turn my brain onto autopilot. It just comes natural. I can relax and just think about something else while I'm creating something. It feels good. I get compliments and it makes me feel good, too.

9/11 just is. Just like the way I draw. I don't think, I don't worry. I just do.

The images were in a new color technique that I'm working on developing.

I like to think the victims are somewhere in their "coloring place"-- that is, they're doing something that makes them happy and puts them in a happy state of being. Everyone deserves just that moment in their life.

New Media and the New Way

Ok, so maybe reading this book is going to be a little more difficult than I first expected.

"Not to follow in the footsteps of the masters, but to seek what they sought." -Basho

I still don't really understand the EmerAgency?

However, I do understand the following:

The term "literacy" is too limiting in describing the change that is happening around us in the form of new media. Ulmer describes the trend of literate change from the beginning of time: the Greeks writing about Homer, the Renaissance writing about religion, etc. "The content of new media... is the old media."

Therefore, in this new way, we should write about what we already know. In this way, we will learn how to communicate in this new realm and begin a new wave of understanding within this new media.

What can we write about to learn this New Way?

Why, what do we know better than ourselves?

The main thing I have learned from blogging the past month is that my thoughts and life are more organized when I write and share about it. I have started my own blog and a Twitter page all geared just to organize myself with my life. I am learning more about myself simply by writing about my life, and I am learning more about this New Media by doing so.

Ulmer creates the idea of the mystory, (like HIstory) to teach people more about themselves and their lives while learning to understand this New Way.

At least, this is what I've understood so far.

Huffington Post reports: "New York Times will go out of print... eventually"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/09/arthur-sulzberger-we-will_n_710251.html

Blogging Brands

From the outlook of the company, a blogging BRAND is an opportunity to create a franchise, make some money, be forward looking, and to get their name out in the web.

Common types of blogging BRANDS
Corporate blogs (like the Google blog, which the book said didn't exist when it was written, which is why I chose it) talks about the company, their type of branding, their upcoming products, their place in the online- and world- communities. The Google blog right now has a video about the Google instant search, a Q&A with Bill Clinton, product highlights, and product improvements, to name a few. It is a way for the company to document its progress consistent with its BRANDING and connect with its consumers and mission statements.

Ads (like mentioned earlier with Dooce.com) Blogger Dooce is able to make a comfortable middle class income from her ad revenue, just because her blog is visited so often. Many popular blogs don't include monetizing ads (writers say they get joy out of writing and don't need to make money from it), but others spend so much time working on their blogs they feel they need to be compensated for it. There is a significant amount of money available to writers if they so choose.

Paid Posts (like this Kmart-sponsored blog post from a "dad" blog about holiday shopping at Kmart) are somewhat controversial as readers want something "human" or "true" when they read their favorite blogs. As mentioned earlier, readers form a relationship with their blogs and become to trust their opinions as they would a friend's. If your friend suddenly started trying to sell you everything they used (like a billboard or an annoying, flashing ad), you would begin to distrust their judgment on certain things.

Sponsored Blogs/Name Drops (are similar to paid posts but are not always paid in the same way). Rettberg speaks of companies that encourage their employees to write about their professional experiences in blogs and name-drop their company often, and often linking to it.

From the outlook of the reader, the blogging BRAND is something non-human. The readers are comfortable with reading blogs because they are genuine, human interpretations of experiences, opinions, and outlooks. When a friend (or trusted person) becomes a BRAND, they become inhuman and a piece of the "machine" that seemingly powers our world.

september 11, 2001

look at me! look at me!

As our media types have grown, our obsessive nature as humans has grown. Through media, we are able to find a group of people that identifies with our likes and dislikes, and we are able to unite through these media to create a fan base. From Beatlemania and love for Michael Jackson to Care Bears and Pokemon, it can be seen that throughout time (or at least the last 50-60 years) every age group has found a media icon to attach itself to.

The most successful book and movie trends today come in sequels. Harry Potter has seven books (and will have eight movies), the Spiderman franchise has stretched over three movies, and Shrek might just be getting a little annoying by now.

Television shows spread into several seasons, The Simpsons has stretched over 21 seasons, the popular medical show House over 6. Sex and the City, HBO's hit show based off a book, boasted 6 seasons of broadcast and 2 films. My 9 year old niece watches Hannah Montana on the Disney channel, wears Hannah Montana clothes, and listens to Hannah Montana music. She was Hannah Montana for Halloween last year, went to a Hannah Montana concert, and says she wants to be famous when she grows up.

Everything is a franchise, and these franchises are all narratives. We simply just aren't finished with a character at the end of the first movie.

Rettberg speaks of several blog cases where the readers were thoroughly upset when they found out their speaker was a fictional character. While the previous examples explain how easily we tend to become obsessed with a trend, they don't exactly explain why people got so upset that their person wasn't real.

Carrie Bradshaw isn't real. Gregory House isn't real. Why does this matter?

Fame is something that seems untouchable, while desirable, to most of us. When we become obsessed with something that is actually tangible, it reaches another level of obsession. Back when MySpace was the hit, I remember people would strive to have as many friends as possible, some even hitting the 100,000+ mark. They would make bulletin posts, comment on each other's content, and write on their pages. This type of tangible fame, where you can see you have x amount of friends who care about you every day, is important to people.

Rettberg spoke of a YouTube vlogger (video blogger) who complained that lonelygirl15 (one of the fictional blogs in the chapter) was the second most subscribed on YouTube. He was more upset that she had an advantage over him in becoming more "famous" or "popular" in the YouTube world.

In a few years, if my sister gets a webcam for her family computer, perhaps my niece will film a video of herself singing and dancing and become the next big YouTube sensation. It will become a viral video, she will be featured on Tosh.0 and then maybe get on iTunes.

This is something tangible to all of us. Did you even think that was possible when you were 9 years old?

News Media

The assignment:

Watch several news networks on television, observe how they report the news, and then compare the reports to findings on twitter/online.

Initial observation:

I realize I don't know my television channel listings. I don't usually watch TV, and I don't watch the news on TV at all (I quit once I owned a laptop). After looking up the channel listings, I find two 24/7 news networks, Fox News and CNN. I have preconceived notions about the channels and their pedagogies; I put these behind me and forge ahead. (Side note: I spent about 15 minutes today on Youtube watching this channel, and today was the first time I've watched TV news in several months)

The main thing to notice about how news networks communicate these days is the dual-reporting that happens. The network has a reporter and often an interviewer talking about a preferred topic, and the bottom of the screen has a news-reel type interface that shows headlines. More often than not, I see headlines at the bottom that I care MUCH more about than the rambling they do on screen-- this is what got the Youtube channel I mentioned above going (Build a turtle fence?)-- some of these newscasters just aren't qualified enough to give their opinion (not to disqualify some news anchors). I have heard some people on these channels just speaking for full minutes to take up time before the commercial break. Maybe it is because we simply don't have enough news to cover a 24/7 channel.

I just realized I decided newscasters (who probably went to college for what they're doing) aren't qualified to give their report, however, I like reading twitter posts and blogs. I guess it is because I can choose what I read and WHO I read, rather than the network forcing me to watch what they want me to watch. It all comes back to independence, or the feeling that I am in control of what information I take in.

The Raw Data:

I watched each network for the amount of time they held between commercial breaks and just took notes on what they were reporting, both through the video reports and the "news reel."

Fox News:

The trapped Chilean miners (which I blogged about last week) are now able to communicate with their families through video chat.

American Economy: September stock market is starting well, while the labor market is looking bad; private hiring is up

There was a devastating earthquake in New Zealand, experts say there is a new fault in the surface of the earth, many are now without homes.

All of these were actually verbally/visually reported and mentioned in the news reel while the video reports were going on. The comments from the reporters were vague; they were giving more of a preview for later stories than a report (this was around 7 pm on Sunday), which was a little frustrating. I am not interested in hearing the long, drawn out discussions (often repetitive), so a short paragraph on what could be happening would be better than "Experts say there is a new fault in the surface of the Earth, does that mean we're looking at more earthquakes? Stay tuned.... [cut to commercial]"

CNN:

There was an interview on with the Connecticut attorney general about adult services (often prostitution ads) being banned on Craigslist, a "censored" bar appears instead of the heading. The man's opinion was that "websites should be responsible for what is advertised on their sites"

The news reel bar reported:

New Zealand city on edge after earthquake

"see news happening? go to ireport.com" [This is like a filter blog for regular people to report the news to CNN]

Pakistan floods lead to thousands dead; "washed away" special at 730.

They then went to a preview for the 7:30 special, reporting that floods have washed away a piece of land the size of New England, then went to commercial break.

I have two immediate comments after writing the news pieces; their "teasers" did not want me to sit through 5 minutes of commercials to see what they were going to say, and their news reel did not make me want to keep watching either; both of them made me want to get online and look up the full story.

Twitter:

Chilean Miners: By reading one page of tweets, I found out they had been underground one month, and that they were frustrated over their mail being censored. Also, I found that their video chats (so championed on Fox News) were only one minute a piece.

Economy: CNN tweeted 81% rate US Economy as "poor," others were more sarcastic or cutting in their posts, one saying that if Arizona removed all the illegal immigrants, their economy would collapse.

New Zealand: Tweets were mostly thoughts/prayers towards the victims, others reported facts (7.1 on the Richter scale) and articles about the tragedy.

Craigslist: Most just linked to articles elsewhere about it being banned, there weren't many opinions. Lang0sta tweeted: "Craigslist shouldnt give in to the attacks of its site, they are protected & immune from liability by the Communications Decency Act!"

Pakistan: Most reported that children are suffering the worst, especially through pictures from reporters.

Overall, my impression is that the twitter postings wouldn't exist unless someone found out from another twitter user/facebook/news media sites. I don't know if people get their information off of television news, and I know that I don't really have the patience to sit through the stations' time schedules when I know that I can get more extensive information by using the internet. Even the channels (ireport through CNN) know that the internet is the place to disseminate the news more effectively.

Citizen Journalists?

Our true ability to have free speech has been questioned over time:

Printing presses in the past only published books and pamphlets that would make them money or fame, refusing to publish anything that could get them in "trouble" with the mainstream, the government, etc.

Even today, when buying music, you have to check to make sure you aren't (or are) buying the "edited" version of the song-- thanks to overly controlling mothers across the country.

Blogs have freed us from the restraints of money- and power- hungry printers and media broadcasters. Blogger can be our Times, and Youtube can be our CNN.

Rettberg calls out a few different types of journalistic-style blogging.

Personal blogs of news-worthy events, such as:

Residents of New Orleans during Katrina relief

Residents of Baghdad during U.S. invasion

VA Tech student during the shootings

Gatekeeper blogs

Gatekeeper blogs are blogs that watch the news media and control the information that is disseminated across their sites. That is, they expose and further investigate ideas that the news brings up. (See "Rathergate") They also promote discussion about the events and encourage the discussions to continue through "points" or "karma" awarded to on-topic comments.

Through blogs, the mainstream media, and the ability to share findings with your "network" (through Facebook, Stumbleupon, Digg, etc.) we have created a symbiotic network of media through the web.

Your Social Network

On the internet, everyone is famous to fifteen people.
David Weinberger

Social Network Theory

(Side note: When searching the Wikipedia article for social network theory, the wiki asked me "do you mean the Social Network (film)?," which is the movie that is about to come out about Facebook. This ties in to the "famous to fifteen people" quote, as perhaps with today's connectivity through Facebook, et. al., perhaps we are "famous," or at least followed, by more than fifteen people.)

Social Network Theory focuses on the idea of "weak ties," and their importance in the world of social networking. That is, someone you are acquaintances with will have more helpful connections in the world than a good friend of yours. This is because you and your good friend most likely spend more time together and have many of the same connections in the world.

I can easily explain this through the idea of Facebook. You look at a good friend's profile, and you have 85 friends in common, whereas if you look at the kid-who-sits-next-to-you-in-English-class's profile, you may only have one or two friends in common (and most likely, that connection is in your English class as well.

So, if you're looking for a good home for that stray puppy you found, you're better off asking the random people in a class that you barely know than your best friend who comes to every party with you and eats lunch with you every Thursday at noon.



"Distributed Conversations?"
I did not particularly like the subtitle for this section. I feel it falls more into the "fame" discussion at the beginning of the chapter (though it does need its own heading), or maybe it needs something about popularity.

The most striking thing about this section is the mention of Google (that link is not to the site, but to a comedy/research site that I read daily), who I have decided is fully going to take over the world by 2012. Conspiracy theories aside, I use Google Chrome as my default browser, Google search as my default engine, and Google maps gets me from point A to point B. (Promise!) Rettberg says at the end of the chapter something along the lines of "the more links to a blog, the more popular the blog is to Google's algorithms, and the more likely it will show up in its searches."

It also claims that while the internet is a completely dispersed set of interlinked computers (no central hub), no blogs are created equal---- that is, some are just more popular than others.

If someone who is not in my English class is reading this, it is probably a miracle, as I haven't sent a link out to any of my friends or "weak ties" of any sort.

The same site I linked to for my Google conspiracy theories has a comments section, and some people comment so regularly that they have some sort of friend circle within the site. Some people read the comments just to see one person's response, and they hold daily discussions about nothing in particular.

When I was in high school, I was addicted to a few message forums. Until I commented regularly, people didn't know/care who I was and responded politely to my posts. At the height of it all, I was friends with several of them on messenger sites and Facebook/MySpace, and corresponded daily with them. I ran into computer trouble for a few weeks, quit commenting, new people showed up, and I didn't feel like putting in the work to become a "regular" again.

Social Networking can be "work"?



Technology for Distributed Communities

A blog has persistence-- there is an archive. It exists through a graph of time. (Unlike p2p games like World of Warcraft, where you have to be present for conversations and guild meetings-- some more serious than others. I have TWO friends who have failed out of college because their WoW guild meetings were more important than their schoolwork) Basically, the world of blogging is difficult, as conversations aren't exactly linked to a name, and you can't physically view your readers.... at least without specific coding. With linking, it is possible to gather information about your readers and disseminate information about yourself to other blogs. This little bit of "work" can increase your social network.



Other Social Networks

This book was written in 2007-- and I am absolutely amazed to see how much in detail Rettberg goes in to about Facebook and how it operates. (Also equaling it to the now basically-extinct MySpace). I guess I didn't realize how much Facebook has grown in the last 3 years-- this is the 3rd time I've mentioned it in this blog post, and both of my parents, many of my cousins, aunts and uncles (even my nephew) use it regularly enough to not need a 3-4 page description.

The interesting thing she mentioned is, though, that the News Feed is almost like a blog post about the story of your (or your friend's) life.

"Once enough of your friends have joined a social network site, social pressure can make it very difficult not to participate"
Without Facebook notifications on my phone, I honestly would have missed out on several opportunities to see friends over the summer. I simply don't get on the computer when I am at home, working, as much as I do when I am at school (constantly connected).

The dangers of posting your life to Facebook are actually pretty dangerous-- 2 years ago, a chapter of my sorority got kicked off a campus because a dean saw photos from several weeks before online. Everyone should be careful of how they market themselves online.


Colliding Networks

If I could count the times I wanted to share a link on my Facebook page for my friends and couldn't BECAUSE....

BECAUSE I am too nice about accepting friend requests from:
-Good, close friends from college and high school
-Friends that I'm not that close to anymore but had a decent bond with
-Sorority sisters-close
-Acquaintances
-Family members
-Random person next to me in my English class
-Teachers, employers, family friends, my elementary school principal (who seriously did friend me- I promise he is on a limited profile view)

Basically, exercise discretion when posting your 21st birthday pictures.



Lesson of this post:
What you put online is in an archive, somewhere. Whether it is through facebook, links to other blogs, links from other blogs, or Google recording everything about everybody, what you put out there defines who you are. People (your strong links, your weak links, people you've never met) can see anything, anything about you.

Instantly Global- blogs in the news

I am currently sitting in Java City in Clemson, South Carolina, reading a blog about trapped miners in Chile. The blog is an Australian blog, and it is talking about how the miners are receiving PSPs (PlayStation Portable(s)- a video game device manufactured in Japan) to help pass the time. It was at that precise moment that I realized how truly globalized our world is.

The internet is a beautiful and scary thing—they used cameras to record the miners sending messages to their families (who they will not see for at least 4 months, according to officials, says multiple blogs). That being the beauty, what can be so scary? Well, this weekend I was unfortunate enough to have my computer’s motherboard fry, and as I wait impatiently for my new computer to arrive in the mail (on Tuesday—or Wednesday—I need to check my email to watch the online tracking) I am forced to spend an increasingly large amount of time in campus computer labs—showing me how dependent on the internet and computers I really am (which is, coincidentally, a lot).

But, back to blogs.

Searching for blogs on specific news articles—especially with the minute-by-minute news style that has come to popularity today—was difficult until I realized that Google had a “blog only” filter in its search settings. Once I clicked that, I was able to look at several different types of blogs, including a blog geared towards video games (mentioned above) in Australia, a blog geared towards Latin America in general (mentioned above, again, with the tag line: The English-language forum for all things Latin American, covering business, politics, and culture), and a psychology blog talking about the human breaking point when imprisoned. It is interesting how one news media issue can create discussion amongst so many different walks of life, and across the globe.

The final point that I noticed was that every major news network (BBC, CNN, Fox, The Telegraph, New York Times, etc.) now has a “news blog” section on their site. They are still written in the form of a newspaper article, but include questioning and some allow comments. It is interesting to note that they are adapting to this new form of reporting and the idea of a global forum for discussion.

From Bards to Blogs

Considering my two English classes this semester are Shakespeare and Electracy, this chapter speaks to the contradiction that is my semester. At the same time, I am taking an architecture class, which has ties to classical history, but has emphasis on digital design in today's world. My architectural portfolio class stresses the creation of both a print and a digital portfolio for job security and graduate school applications, and my final class, which is a drawing class, stresses the importance of becoming fluent in the relationship between pen and paper.

This entire semester is a confusion.... or at least a response to the cultural change that computers and digital media have granted us.

Probably the most interesting argument in this chapter (at least to me) is the dual position that blogging grants us-- the print tradition and the oral tradition-- and its connection to the writings of Plato.

Since the invention of the printing press, our "literate" culture has been a solitary act-- true, we read and participate in class discussions, we read and join book groups-- but reading is something done alone. It is a very personal and private activity, suggested by the "quiet" signs in libraries and study halls across the world.

Before mass print, we were an oral culture. Not many people were literate-- texts were read out loud for social interaction and discourse, news traveled by word of mouth and took years to reach other countries and parts of the world-- if, at all.

The change from the oral culture to the print culture across the world created a mass change in our society-- pamphlets (and literacy) spread the ideas of Protestantism, liberty, free speech, and human rights. We changed from a widely monarchical society to a world full of republics-- emphasizing that all men are equal, and later, that all women, races, and walks of life were equal. Without print, the call for a widespread unity of thought and idea was not possible, and today's society probably would not even exist.

We have now transitioned to a hybrid between print and oral tradition. With the internet, we are reading and writing more than ever before, however, this is not the private culture we have associated with literacy in the past.

Most blogs not only allow, but actually encourage comments from readers. Sites like Facebook and Twitter allow people to share their thoughts on everyday life as well as sites and articles they have found with their friends and family, while places like Stumbleupon and Digg allow us to share our thoughts with the general public, people with shared interests, and complete strangers.

With this transition to a oral (or shared/typed/liked?) type of interaction with our literacy, I am guessing my main question is....

What type of societal change is in store for us???

What is a Blog?

Really, what is it?

BLOG = web + log

Or, a log (coming from the word logbook, which was used to chart sea journeys) published on the web. What makes a blog a "blog?"

Chronology. As a type of logbook, the reader should be able to read past posts by the author and look forward to new posts. Blogs should be read regularly, over time.

Design. Blog authors are as consumed with the appearance of their text on screen as the actual content of their blog.

Personality. Blogs are written by and subject to the opinion of an individual.

Connection to the readers. Blogs should allow and encourage readers to make comments on the content.

The aspect of a blog is more of a medium (defined by the material and layout) than a genre (defined by content) as the medium allows users to publish simply what they choose, due to the personal quality of blogs. Blogs are so personal because they are so easy to maintain and develop over time, especially with the existence of Blog editors (such as Blogger.com)

To make a blog:

1) Choose a host or personal URL

2) Choose a template

3) Fill with content

(Writing + Connections/Links + Frequent updates = a recipe for success)

According to Rettberg, there are three major types of blogs:

A personal (diary) style blog, a filter blog, and a topic-driven blog.

Personal Blog study

Dooce

Dooce was one of the first people to be fired (dooced) from her job for her blog content. She's a designer, mother, pet owner and blogs about daily life. She warns:

"Never write about work on the Internet unless your boss knows and sanctions the fact that YOU ARE WRITING ABOUT WORK ON THE INTERNET."

http://dooce.com/about

Filter Blog study

Kottke

Filter blogs record the writer's finds on the web. Kottke combines web finds and personal commentary/story as per his interests.

Topic Driven Blog study

Dailykos

Topic-driven blogs focus on various topics of the author's taste. They are sometimes run by a collaborative group. Topic-driven blogs prioritize upon commentary between posters and commentators. Dailykos is a political topic blog. Most blogs of this genre use quotes and links to back up arguments and promote discussion in the political forum.

History of Weblogs

1990: Tim Berners-Lee invents and implements the World Wide Web (the internet had existed for years prior and was used primarily for scientific communication).

1993: The WWW opens to the general public with Mosaic, which allowed embedded images for the first time. Many people begin to create personal web pages, but they were not meant to be updated often.

1994: People begin start online diaries. Justin Hall is one of the first, whose website is a massive web of links that was hand-coded until 2003.

1997: Jorn Barger coins the term weblog; people begin using links in their weblogs to build arguments.

1998: Open Diary launches free hosting/editing templates for blogs online for the first time.

1999: Peter Merholz shortens the word "weblog" to "blog"

1999: First free weblogging tool (Pitas) goes online, then Blogger later that year.

2002: Oxford English Dictionary defines the word "blog"

2007: Technorati tracks over 70 million blogs