Early in the semester, Mary pointed out the tendency writers/scholars have for being overly enthusiastic in their predictions of our digital future. No theme has shown up more consistently in our readings. Jenkins is no exception, though he knows better, "We may not overturn entrenched power (whether that of the political parties or their big money contributors) overnight." (219) Who is "we," and who is he kidding? Much of what Jenkins presents as new phenomena is simply the assimilation of new communication technologies, techniques and political realities by, arguably, our society's most successful communicators, the ruling political class. Two examples, one from the left and one from the right, should make my case. Interestingly, lawyers(the chosen profession of the political class) were at the "grass roots" of both of these.
MoveOn.org was founded by a married couple, Joan Blades (a lawyer) and Wes Boyd, from San Francisco. They had recently sold their software company and wanted to respond to the impeachment of President Clinton. MoveOn started as an email based petition drive to get Congress to "move on" from the distraction of impeachment. Since then MoveOn.org has grown into a large scale fund raising, voter mobilizing, communication organ of the DNC and supporter/endorser of progressive candidates. Though the technology was innovative at the time, the pathway from grassroots to big-time, moneyed, activist political player seems well trodden by groups like: NRA, AARP, NOW, SCLC, etc.
Jenkins also cited the CBS document-gate as an example of new media, grass roots mobilization checking the power of old media. He is only partly correct. I am friends with the man who exposed the differences in the fonts. His name is Harry MacDougald, our sons played little-league baseball together for years and we have both worked in Republican politics. Years earlier, Harry had extensively researched fonts for a court case and that enabled him to spot the fakes. I remember talking to him at the ballpark the day the media revealed him as the source of information. He was visibly shaken-up because his bosses, he was a attorney with Womble Carlyle, were extremely unhappy with the media attention and threatening his job. Harry's conservative Republican politics were widely discussed at the time, his work on the Clinton's disbarment, and his membership in the Federalist Society. Another fact, relevant in the dissemination of Harry's discovery, never received media attention. Harry's brother-in-law is Byron York, longtime contributor to the National Review, Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Meet the Press, etc. Byron is a good old-fashioned old/new media Washington pundit, with lots avenues for moving a story from a blog by an anonymous Atlanta lawyer to the lead story in the national media.
What seems so new is also the same old story of politics, money and connections. Good thing Mary told us to be on guard against exuberance.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
So?
I am somewhat frustrated by Convergence Culture. I think because I don't sense anything is really being said. Jenkins is taking us (me at least) on a tour of a familiar landscape. I already aware of most of this stuff and none of it, save the technology, is new. For example:
Ambiguity and cryptic/mythological/socially self-conscious/hidden messages intrigue people. This is present in gnostic gospels, claiming "hidden" knowledge (this is referenced, though undeveloped, in chapter 3). It is present in Freemasonry. It is present on Sgt. Pepper's cover. I take a cynical view of the "endless borrowings" (p. 100) within The Matrix, less philosophical discourse, more gimmickry enlisted to sell multiple viewing and DVDs.
DID ANYONE NOTICE JENKINS WROTE ABOUT ROOM 101 ON PAGE 101????
How is Janet Murray's notion of the "encyclopedic capacity"(p.118) of digital media new, except for the word "digital?" One of the first books I ever read as a boy was Treasure Island, it had a map, and it transported me into alternative world. If anything visual and digitized worlds are less satisfying because they place concrete boundaries upon the imagination. When you thought of Frodo did you see Elijah Wood before Peter Jackson? Can you ever return in your mind to the pre-Jacksonian Middle Earth? I am more interested in questions like this than Jenkins overview.
Also how can you discuss mediated digital alternate worlds without discussing Second Life (2003)?
Finally, I want to reference an obscure book that was very influential to me in my late teens or early twenties, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander. Mander, an ex advertising executive, argues that television cannot be redeemed as a technology. He writes about the power it has to create passive acceptance of ideas, centralized control and its relationship to authoritarianism and democracy, and commercialism. One thing he wrote though never escaped me. Mander talked about the way mediated experience privileges reality. When I watch the Gators play on Saturdays I think I am watching a football game, but I am not. In reality, I am sitting on a sofa in a dimly lit room staring at a black box with blinking lights and sound. The medium has the power to alter reality for me. That is something to think about, to be wary of.
Since reading Four Arguments my view of all video has changed. When the screen goes black between scenes or commercials, sometimes I see my reflection, sitting there staring at the TV, it gives me the creeps. Other times I have driven or walked up to a friend's house at night and seen several people staring at the TV while the blue light throbs through the windows and am disquieted. I am thankful for Jerry Mander's book and wish Jenkins was a little more critical.
Ambiguity and cryptic/mythological/socially self-conscious/hidden messages intrigue people. This is present in gnostic gospels, claiming "hidden" knowledge (this is referenced, though undeveloped, in chapter 3). It is present in Freemasonry. It is present on Sgt. Pepper's cover. I take a cynical view of the "endless borrowings" (p. 100) within The Matrix, less philosophical discourse, more gimmickry enlisted to sell multiple viewing and DVDs.
DID ANYONE NOTICE JENKINS WROTE ABOUT ROOM 101 ON PAGE 101????
How is Janet Murray's notion of the "encyclopedic capacity"(p.118) of digital media new, except for the word "digital?" One of the first books I ever read as a boy was Treasure Island, it had a map, and it transported me into alternative world. If anything visual and digitized worlds are less satisfying because they place concrete boundaries upon the imagination. When you thought of Frodo did you see Elijah Wood before Peter Jackson? Can you ever return in your mind to the pre-Jacksonian Middle Earth? I am more interested in questions like this than Jenkins overview.
Also how can you discuss mediated digital alternate worlds without discussing Second Life (2003)?
Finally, I want to reference an obscure book that was very influential to me in my late teens or early twenties, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander. Mander, an ex advertising executive, argues that television cannot be redeemed as a technology. He writes about the power it has to create passive acceptance of ideas, centralized control and its relationship to authoritarianism and democracy, and commercialism. One thing he wrote though never escaped me. Mander talked about the way mediated experience privileges reality. When I watch the Gators play on Saturdays I think I am watching a football game, but I am not. In reality, I am sitting on a sofa in a dimly lit room staring at a black box with blinking lights and sound. The medium has the power to alter reality for me. That is something to think about, to be wary of.
Since reading Four Arguments my view of all video has changed. When the screen goes black between scenes or commercials, sometimes I see my reflection, sitting there staring at the TV, it gives me the creeps. Other times I have driven or walked up to a friend's house at night and seen several people staring at the TV while the blue light throbs through the windows and am disquieted. I am thankful for Jerry Mander's book and wish Jenkins was a little more critical.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Speed Kills
Within knowledge communities the "knowledge" being constructed can move (grow??) forward at a rapid pace. If you stand still it passes you buy. The leading edge is constantly moving forward and you, therefore, face a dilemma. Do I jump to the front, leaving gaps in my understanding that I hope are either superfluous, or will be filled in later? Or, do I lag behind to have a fuller understanding of the transitions, the evolution of the thought, and to look for alternative outcomes ?
I see this at work in my personal use of technology. I have used Macs for around twenty years, but I don't take advantage of the Mac communities, read Mac World, or any of the various electronic resources available to help me keep pace with the newest innovations. Instead, I jump in when I need a new computer, peripheral, software, or application. On the downside, I never take full advantage of the available options. On the plus side, I don't spend as much money or time on my computers. I see time as the only irreplaceable commodity in life and have chosen to invest it elsewhere. Still, there is a trade-off. The negatives of ignoring rapidly changing information are limited when we are talking about entertainment or consumer choices, but what about politics, trends within one's profession, or more closely related to our class, academics? In these activities, where the stakes are higher, completeness should probably trump currentness.
Extending this idea of high speed accretion (is that an oxymoron?) to the work of scholarship, what are the implications of a wired, "spoiler," knowledge community focused on any of the areas we study; i.e. writing, pedagogy, multi-media, technological literacy, digital-divides, etc.? For example, a network of in-class educators doing less than rigorous "teacher research" and sharing their findings over the web. Because of the speed, I see these knowledge communities as vulnerable to privileging the "new" over the best. There is already this temptation in the academy, and epistemology in general. New ideas are exciting. Scholars want to make their bones. New approaches are a pathway to academic success. Traditional journals provide a cooling off function. Through them ideas are vetted, scrutinized, and advanced in a measured, informed, manner. It is a very conservative approach. The differential pace of an online open-source collaboration and traditional scholarship has an impact on outcomes. Are those outcomes useful to scholarship? In what ways?
Questions arise involving institutional memory, power, privilege, control, access, gatekeeping, rigor, validity, relevance and more. Our discipline sees knowledge as constructive and collaborative, but that doesn't mean slipshod, random or undisciplined. Can the research, knowledge building, arm of the academy ever be as "democratic" as the idealized "knowledge communities" convergence is creating?
I see this at work in my personal use of technology. I have used Macs for around twenty years, but I don't take advantage of the Mac communities, read Mac World, or any of the various electronic resources available to help me keep pace with the newest innovations. Instead, I jump in when I need a new computer, peripheral, software, or application. On the downside, I never take full advantage of the available options. On the plus side, I don't spend as much money or time on my computers. I see time as the only irreplaceable commodity in life and have chosen to invest it elsewhere. Still, there is a trade-off. The negatives of ignoring rapidly changing information are limited when we are talking about entertainment or consumer choices, but what about politics, trends within one's profession, or more closely related to our class, academics? In these activities, where the stakes are higher, completeness should probably trump currentness.
Extending this idea of high speed accretion (is that an oxymoron?) to the work of scholarship, what are the implications of a wired, "spoiler," knowledge community focused on any of the areas we study; i.e. writing, pedagogy, multi-media, technological literacy, digital-divides, etc.? For example, a network of in-class educators doing less than rigorous "teacher research" and sharing their findings over the web. Because of the speed, I see these knowledge communities as vulnerable to privileging the "new" over the best. There is already this temptation in the academy, and epistemology in general. New ideas are exciting. Scholars want to make their bones. New approaches are a pathway to academic success. Traditional journals provide a cooling off function. Through them ideas are vetted, scrutinized, and advanced in a measured, informed, manner. It is a very conservative approach. The differential pace of an online open-source collaboration and traditional scholarship has an impact on outcomes. Are those outcomes useful to scholarship? In what ways?
Questions arise involving institutional memory, power, privilege, control, access, gatekeeping, rigor, validity, relevance and more. Our discipline sees knowledge as constructive and collaborative, but that doesn't mean slipshod, random or undisciplined. Can the research, knowledge building, arm of the academy ever be as "democratic" as the idealized "knowledge communities" convergence is creating?
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