April 29, 2008
EL336 Portfolio 3: From Print to Digital Culture
Hello, and welcome to my first portfolio for EL336, an English course offered at Seton Hill University.
This course is broken up into three modules: oral to manuscript culture, manuscript to print culture, and print to digital culture. The formal title for this course is Topics in Media and Culture--professors who teach this course switch up the material covered from semester to semester as they see fit. The topic that Dr. Jerz chose for this semester is the history and future of the book.
So far in this course I've learned that these transitional phases in technology (yes, the book is a form of technology, though some of us fail to realize it) were frightening for those living during these phases and experiencing them first hand. Writing wasn't always considered a skill that every human needed to learn, and technology hasn't always been embraced the way it is in today's world.
I've also learned that print made modern day education possible. The book is first and foremost looked at as an educational tool by the masses, but reading books is also one of the world's favorite past-times. Books made critical thinking possible--before the world of print existed, there was very little material to be critically thought about in the first place, and the material that did exist was very hard and expensive to get a hold of because it had to be hand-copied. The telephone is to our voices as the book is to the written word, it's an extension of reachability.
In conclusion, I've learned that as the technologies of the book and printing become fortified by the Internet, much of their essence remained in digital culture, which is why new media transitions so well into education and academia.
Below are links to my blog entries discussing my thoughts on the assigned readings for this course:
All entries fall under this category since they all include a link to the assignment, a direct quote from the reading, and name the source.
Aarseth (5, 7, 8)- Noticing innovations in communication technology
Choynowski- I discuss Dani's observation about hiding social anxiety through e-mail, instant messaging, etc.
Sawyer- I discuss Kayla's question on how the typewriter affected mood upon it's lease to the masses
Kirschenbaum (preface, chapters 1 & 2)- The Internet and making "disappearing text" permanent
Kirschenbaum (Finish)- Why do Internet users feel the need to alter published work when making copies of it for online use?
Doctorow (86-End)- Are there Haunted Mansion fanatics out there like the characters in Doctorow's book?
WM Turkle- Leslie comments on my observations that the internet is a buffer for personas
Kirschenbaum (Chapter 3)- Leslie, Dani, and Kayla comment on my observations on how new media makes us feel
EL336: Doctorow (86-End)
From pg. 102 of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow:
"Those are terrific," Dan said. "That guy must be a total fiend." The meshes' author had painstakingly modeled, chained, and animate every ghost in the ballroom scene..."
This quote immediately made me stop reading, and start searching for real Haunted Mansion fanatics, and new media they've compiled dedicated to the mansion. I found several YouTube videos of videos that DisneyLand patrons taped themselves:
The Haunted Mansion ride-through at Disney's Magic Kingdom
The 2006 Haunted Mansion Halloween Walkthrough
Even a very rough start of a 3D model of the mansion (made with Blender)...
3d haunted mansion virtual ridethrough
One of the same author's updates on the project (Liberty Square haunted mansion)...
An artists various representations of the Haunted Mansion
paper model based on his 3d model made using Lightave 8.0 by Newtek
I wanted to see if there were mansion fanatics out there like the characters in Doctorow's book, and I found them for sure.
April 23, 2008
Software chatter.
Found this so interesting I had to blog it quickly...
How Microsoft Word 2007 read this pasted line from a .pdf of an old book:
*Click to enlarge*
Okay, back to the paper...
April 22, 2008
EL336: Kirschenbaum (Finish)
From page 240 of Mechanisms:
"Indeed, there is strong argument to be made that digital information can best ensure its own longevity through its unprecedented capacity for proliferation, and textual theory must take this into account."
This line comes shortly after Kirschenbaum cites a source who says there is no real way to "pull the plug" on digital text. He then goes on, after this, to say that users browsing for "Agrippa" will find some page errors, which were the first attempts at the document's erasure from the web. Somebody, or some group of people, tried to ensure the original intent of the author--that the text be ephemeral; however, there are always more groups or individuals who, for some reason, have the need or want to publish copies of "Agrippa" elsewhere and this immortalizes the digital versions of "Agrippa" even though they might have slight changes, which Kirschenbaum points out are "acts of deliberate intervention rather than an accident of [file] transmission."
From page 161:
"None of this considers the possibility that copies of Afternoon have been individually altered by their owners and put into circulation, intentionally or otherwise..."
I chose this statement because I wanted to raise the question of why people feel the need to alter work that is not their own and publish it on the Internet? I understand that some people may have a reason to alter work, for example, students who are re-writing published pieces for creative assignments--but in this case, if they are being published on the Internet (or elsewhere for that matter) that the piece in it's original form should accompany the altered form. But how does the general public justify altering works by others? I think with today's Wikipedia world, that editing the works of others is commonplace and accepted online, however Wikipedia is a special case because those using the resource are knowledgeable in the fact that it is being edited by millions of people every day.
April 21, 2008
AIM: Rodriguez
Leslie: "Really Stormy, who uses InDesign anymore? Nobody."
*silence*
April 21, 2008 11:30 pm
April 17, 2008
EL336: Kirschenbaum (Chapter 3)
"...must of what we tend to essentialize about new media is in fact merely the effect of a particular set of social choices implemented and istantiated in the formal modeling of the digital environments in question."
I think what Kirschenbaum is trying to say here is that our ideas about new media are based on the choices we make when using the new media--which I would absolutely agree with. This is especially true when playing Interactive Fiction (IF) games. If an inexperienced IF player sits down at a program such as Inform 7, it's been to my knowledge that they want to type natural commands such as, "go toward the door" instead of "north" or "walk north" or "go nortth." The inexperienced players want to type commands how they speak, not knowing the computer does not comprehend such commands. This type of user would become frustrated because they would never make any progress in the game and therefore write-off IF altogether.
My mother is the same with word processors. She doesn't have the kind of education to know what choices to make in the program- she doesn't know how to center align text, or italicize text, etc. She can type efficiently, but that's because she already knows the choices to make--simply hit the appropriate key. Even if she accidentally hits enter and makes a line break, she becomes flustered because she doesn't know what she did to get there in the first place, so how could she possible correct her actions?
New media can make us feel unintelligent because society, in general, I think, feels that that they should automatically know how to operate it. Sending an e-mail or typing a document in a word processor these days, for our generation, is common knowledge. When I pick up my friend's Curve, which is a new modle of a cellular telephone by Blackberry, I'm baffled because the interface is so different from most other cell phones. This era of time craves technology, but it is human nature to fear something new and different from the norm. For example, I would never get an Mac computer, even though they're releasing some extremely powerful and efficient computers, because I need to have my left and right mouse buttons. Although I'm now accusomed to using Macs when producing The Setonian, and in digital imaging and graphic design courses I've taken, I could never own one. Had I grown up as a Mac user, I'd be singing a different tune. I'd rather sacfifice cutting edge technology for comforting familiarity. This might be why until last May, I was using a Compaq Presario from 1998, which I had to reformat about 7 times over the years I had it.
April 15, 2008
EL338: Kirschebaum (preface, chapters 1 & 2)
From the preface of "Mechanisms" on page xi:
"As one turns the pages, the drawings, some printed with uncured photocopy toner, rub and smear--a book that cannot help but to be remade in the act of reading."
First of all I'd like to say that William Gibson was naive of technological process when he intended Agrippa to be read only once. I understand the tactic, but did Gibson really think that this sort of disappearing hyperliterature would work? It's not even a matter of using technology to capture the words, for example copy and paste, but the reader could write the lines down as he read the fleeting lines. Perhaps he tried to convey that words only pass us by from day to day and how we let them affect us is our choice.
Anyway, I chose this line from the preface as my first agenda item because it struck me for the obvious reason of after reading it I asked myself, "can we remake books just by reading them?" In Gibson's case, the answer is yes because of the choices he made when going through the writing and publishing process of Agrippa. The smearing of the toner leaves marks on the book individual to the initial reader, and whomever picks up that copy of Agrippa some years down the line, they will form their own impressions not only from the original text but from the altered pictures of the previous reader.
Take away the uncured toner. Can we still remake a book by reading it? The only answer I have is undefinite, yes and no. Clearly the printed word is permanent, therefore readers have no way of altering those words simply by reading them; however, I thought about note-taking in the margins, but there the act of not just reading but writing is involved.
Chapter 1, Page 42:
"With electronic text we are always painting, each screen unreasonably washing away what was and replacing it with itself." -Michael Joyce, 1992
This line I feel marks the difference between print and electronic text. As aforementioned, the printed word is concrete and everlasting. Though electronic text is indeed published material, it isn't permanent as printed material because electronic text can be altered and quickly republished by millions of people (with computer access of course) at any given time of day. I found it interesting and true that Joyce likened electronic text to painting. When I think of painting, I think about the process of layering the colors and palcing my brush on just the right point on the canvas, because once the brush stroke passes over the easle, that paint cannot be removed. It can be blended and covered, and smeared with futile attempts to wipe it away. Electronic text is similar, the original form remains the same but others come along and add to it, take away from it, argue with it, etc. In this sense, Wikipedia could be likened to an enormous painting that's never finished.
April 13, 2008
I love Movable Type 4.0
On behalf of my sanity, I would like to thank Dr. Jerz for upgrading to Movable Type 4.0, because I was up until 4 writing the previous blog entry for my portfolio, which I'm still not finished with, I have another paragraph to go. I was finishing my work for Monday last night after work so I could spend the day today with my WONDERFUL boyfriend, Paul, who proceeds to get up before me this morning and get on my computer. After a while, while I was rolling around in bed in and out of sleep, I realized I'd left the in-progress blog entry open.
OH.
NO.
Yes, he closed the browser.
After bounding out of bed, lighting a cigarette, throwing the lighter across the desk, and telling Paul to get out of my sight, I clicked on "Write Entry" and saw a link that said, "A previous version of this entry has been saved."
Hallelujah, baby, hallelujah.
Paul is alive, I am awake, and we are both happy. I guess I still love him, kinda. :-)
EL200: [Portfolio 3] Best Practices for Newspaper Journalists
As editor in chief of The Setonian, there could not be just one theme in the book that is relevant to my position on the staff. The entire book touches on aspects I deal with everyday as a journalist and a leader on the student newspaper staff.
Haiman was wise when he chose to begin this book with the section "Newspapers are unfair when: They get the facts wrong" because accuracy is the most important aspect of the news industry--in any medium, but especially in print because inaccuracy is harder to remedy in that form. When broadcasting the news, the reporter can quickly recognize a mistake and correct himself, and the same goes for radio. Even in the digital world, with lightening fast internet, corrections can be published in seconds. In print the process is a bit slower, and by the time newspaper staff members recognize the error, there could already be a scar forming on the opinion of the public. My heart sinks when I recognize an error, but it breaks when somebody else brings one to my attention I hadn't caught. With a student newspaper, it's a bit difficult to not become used to looking at the layout, your eyes stop looking for errors after a while. With national newspapers, the size of the staff obviously helps counter balance errors; however, more people working for a publication also means more room for errors because there's less damage control. I have the ability to know and be in touch with all of the staff -- I make sure they all know and practice the same standards in all aspects of The Setonian, and for the journalism majors, their classes help with that as well.
I had a recent experience relating to the second section of "Best Practices" because I had to publish corrections for issue 6 in issue 7 this semester; there were incorrect photo credits and a forgotten student year, in place of which lingered a blatant question mark. I felt awful but luckily nobody was upset. There was no way I would ever even consider not including the corrections in the next issue. As soon as I was alerted about the problem I e-mailed the photographers and told the staff in the next meeting. Even though the mistakes are ultimately mine, I'm not embarrassed to admit them. We should all be aware of them to avoid similar errors in the future, and many sets of eyes look over The Setonian before it goes to print.
Section 6, "Newspapers are unfair when: They concentrate on bad news" is also an extremely relevant topic to me personally. As editor in chief I decide, with the help of the staff of course, what goes into the paper. I'm the moderator of the voices of the staff members. It is easy to start the chatter that is vital to coming up with content by starting a meeting with, "Questions, complaints, rumors?" The room usually quietly erupts with snickers but the bouncing of ideas commences immediately after. I like to start meeting sometimes by announcing the ideas I have for the news or other areas which are positive about Seton Hill. These are usually more public topics of knowledge because I am a commuter, and don't have the opportunity to hear about inside news like the residents on the staff. I try to also focus my editorials on more positive topics, or be conscious to provide solutions to any problems I may voice. I try to encourage the other columnists to do the same. As students it is natural for us to first look to the problematic news because that is what we form the most opinions about. We converse with our peers and when problems are recognized they become heightened by the group -- I guess we still have rebellious tendencies. The Setonain is the voice of the hill, and is the perfect medium to send messages to the university in. Because I am a commuter, I trust what the staff tells me regarding news on campus, and help determine what's actually newsworthy. Seton Hill gives students the opportunity to change laws through Senate and SHGA; we are lucky to be students in an institution that is so willing to listen to our complaints and act upon changing them. There is so much good to be said about SHU as well, and I try to balance and even outweigh the negative with the positive content in every issue.
There are some points in Haiman's best practices that don't apply directly to student newspapers because the positions are unpaid volunteer work; however, the book is extremely useful to journalists on all levels. I make an effort to uphold ethical journalistic practices in every issue, not just as an editor but as a writer as well.
April 10, 2008
El336: Sawyer
Kayla rose a good question about society's reaction to the typewriter on her presentation blog after reading about Mark Twain's experience with the new technology:
"Or maybe they didn't like how the typewriter made them feel? It turned them into a short tempered person?" -Sawyer
Technology was not integrated into their lives as it is today. Any alien object can make somebody feel uneasy--the typewriter probably made Twain feel very disconnected from his usual writing process because he was generating his thoughts into words through such a foreign object.
The unfamiliarity of the typewriter certainly had to have maid Twain's generation short-tempered. Just last week I was in tears for two hours because of technological issues. These days we depend on technology so much that we know how to fix our issues for the most part, but disruptions in normal technological functions frustrate us because they are unexpected. Our society has formed a sort of tolerance for and patience with technological issues, whereas when innovations like the typewriter were introduced the owners got rid of them after a short amount of time because they assumed they were junk. In reality they may have been using them improperly or didn't have the means to have the typewriter serviced.
EL336: Choynowski
Daniella chose some excellent quotations from Lesser for discussion, however I'm going to focus on what my peers are saying for these presentations instead of the readings they assigned to us.
"E-mail is of good use if you are not such an eloquent speaker. You can hide behind it. There is no nervousness visibly present in an email; observable nervousness can be a form of noise and distraction that can hinder communication." -Choynowski
How true, Dani. I wrote about this in a blog entry earlier in class this semester. I feel that I'm extremely obvious when I'm nervous. Of course, it doesn't help that any sort of amped up blood flow is very obvious when your completion mirrors that of a bottle of Elmer's glue, but I'm talking verbally. I get the feeling--I'm not certain I do this or not--that I stutter more, use filler words like "uh" and "um" more and make eye contact less when I'm nervous. I also have a tendency to ramble; my speech becomes much quicker and less audible, and I'm sure I fidget incessantly.
Perhaps it is the fact that my physical nature and body language give so much away that I know no matter what tone or word choices I make while speaking will never have the ability to mask my true feelings the way communicating over the Internet does.
This made me think, though, there are ways of showing emotion with text. I'd say they're elements of our textual language that are used more in the fictional world of writing: the ellipses, the exclamation point--mechanics one doesn't see often in academic writing unless a direct quotation is involved.
For example, if I were talking with a friend online:
Friend3345:Hi Storm, how are you?
I would respond naturally in various ways depending on my mood:
Me: I'm great! How are you doin'? (mood is obvious)
Me: Eh. (could possibly be indifferent, or potentially signal I'm mad at you)
Me: Eh... (the ellipses change the tone a bit here--I could still be indifferent but more willing to talk about it)
Me: I'm good. (shortness could mean annoyance, I'm doing homework, I'm mad at you)
Me: hey hey! (excited you IMed me, I usually only use this salutations with people I know very well)
...Alright, I think you get the point. If not, it's that our age and culture has adapted to being forced to decipher the emotions behind textual messages (e-mail, sms, instant messaging, etc.) quickly and accurately enough to have successful, meaningful communication in these mediums (or was is moda that we're calling it now? I can't remember from Tuesday...).
Yes, electronic communication does provide a physical mask, but we still present our emotional nature through mechanical and word choices. As I've already stated, I feel I communicate much more successfully through writing, be it electronic or manuscript. My father always says, "engage brain before mouth" and text must be thought about more carefully than speech or, well, there'd be no need for white-out (to save the lengthy discussion of revising while we write).
April 8, 2008
EL336: WM Turkle
From page 491 of Writing Material:
"When people pursue relationships through letter writing, we are not concerned that they are abandoning their real lives."
The virtual world does provide masks for people. The Internet gives the user the possibility to interact with millions of people all over the globe at any given time of the day, with any persona they wish to use. Today with all the social networking web sites, people are beginning to judge others more and more increasingly by the way they present themselves online. This is where the creation of "netiquette" is useful. Standards in correspondence evolved in manuscript culture--when was the last time you wrote a formal letter without, "Dear ______," as the opener and your signature at the end? Probably never happened, unless you were scribbling a post-it note to your mother about your plans for the day. The same kind of standards exist in digital culture, it's just that people know they can get away with acting however they choose online. There are no consequences to acting inappropriately online--unless you're caught by authorities. The Internet is such a vast world, however, that authorities cannot possibly patrol the world wide web thoroughly enough to prevent things like cyber bullying and e-bay rip-offs. The Internet connects us to one another yet at the same time separates us because the lack of person to person interaction makes the relationship less human, and therefore less important to us (in general).
EL336: Aarseth (5, 7, 8)
F.Y.I.: Hegemonic- Heg`e*mon"ic\, Hegemonical \Heg`e*mon"ic*al\, a. [Gr. ?. See Hegemony.] Leading; controlling; ruling; predominant. "Princelike and hegemonical." --Fotherby. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
From page 97 of Cybertext, by Espen J. Aarseth:
"Hardly any innovation in the communicative arts gets unnoticed."
This statement is so true today-- our lives are so enriched with technology that there is a constant call for innovation. On the same token, there's a call for innovation because technolog is so important to us. Any gadget or software that can better organize us, help us with our tasks more quickly, or give us hours on end of entertainment, society has to have. The demand for innovation comes from our natural demand for technology and our thought process of everything can be improved upon. I'm always checking version numbers on software...for example, the popular communications software Instant Messenger by America Online gets version updates constantly. I often wonder if as soon as they put out a version they begin working on improvements to release the next. The fact is society will never be content with technology--it will keep being pushed, but that's the beauty of it. The advances in technology only contribute to the advances of humanity as a whole. We are technology, though sometimes we fail to remember that. Technology wouldn't exsist without humans.
From page 132:
"Like the term interactive fiction, the term computer generated is by itself far too unfocused to be useful as a critical concept."
I highlighted this quote while I was reading because I have a deep admiration for interactive fiction (IF). I never really thought of the term IF as unfocused, but I'm going to take a shot at what Aarseth might be driving at here. Just as I mentioned technology wouldn't exsist without humans, computers can't generate information on their own. They need humans to give them commands in order to execute tasks. I suppose interactive fiction is unfocused, because it's not really the fictional story that's first interacting with the reader, even in an electronic format, because the reader is the ultimate controller of the story. The reader first interacts with the software before the story begins to affect him in any way.
I'd like to as Aarseth what a critical concept is to him...
April 3, 2008
EL336 Portfolio 2: From Manuscript to Print Culture
Hello, and welcome to my first portfolio for EL336, an English course offered at Seton Hill University.
This course is broken up into three modules: oral to manuscript culture, manuscript to print culture, and print to digital culture. The formal title for this course is Topics in Media and Culture--professors who teach this course switch up the material covered from semester to semester as they see fit. The topic that Dr. Jerz chose for this semester is the history and future of the book.
So far in this course I've learned that these transitional phases in technology (yes, the book is a form of technology, though some of us fail to realize it) were frightening for those living during these phases and experiencing them first hand. Writing wasn't always considered a skill that every human needed to learn, and technology hasn't always been embraced the way it is in today's world.
I've also learned that print made modern day education possible. The book is first and foremost looked at as an educational tool by the masses, but reading books is also one of the world's favorite past-times. Books made critical thinking possible--before the world of print existed, there was very little material to be critically thought about in the first place, and the material that did exist was very hard and expensive to get a hold of because it had to be hand-copied. The telephone is to our voices as the book is to the written word, it's an extension of reachability.
Below are links to my blog entries discussing my thoughts on the assigned readings for this course:
Douglass- Slaves viewed learning to read and write as the way to a successful life.
Calvino- One we learn to read, can we read without actually reading? Just read this entry, you'll see what I mean.
McCluhan (91-180)- The acts of reading and writing unify humanity.
McLuhan (180-263)- The spread of writing spread individualism.
Orwell (1 & 2)- What if writing were punishable by death?
Orwell (finish)- Are the best books ones that tell us what we already know?
Forum 2- Scarcity and Knowledge in the Medieval Era- My presentation blog entry, which focused on progressive learning versus cognitive learning, and how books play part in both.
Forum 2- Scarcity and Knowledge in the Medieval Era- Chris left a lengthy comment in response to my presentation topic.
I left a comment on Kayla's entry on "The Gutenberg Galaxy" about standardizing writing methods.
This comment I left on Jeremy's entry also about "The Gutenberg Galaxy" gives thanks to he who began to modernize the tools used in writing.
*I had some issues this time around in the timeliness area (which leads to lack of interaction), as I was unable to obtain copies of the texts. I blogged on every required reading though, and I'll make up for it in portfolio 3*
April 1, 2008
My family loves cheese.
Mom, myself, and little brother Doug:
"The Cheesers with Four Eyes"
That's what I'm calling this. I took this of the three of us in my room at her house probably last month, and I think it's hilarious. We were all just being bums that day. Dougie kind of looks scary in this picture, and I really wish I remembered what I was laughing about.
=)
EL336: Orwel (finish)
From page 165 of "1984" by George Orwell:
"The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already."
I can't decide if this is true or not, because this is such a personally rooted question. One person may get great enjoyment out of books on topics they're knowledgeable in, while on the other hand another person may object in saying there's no use in reading books on a topic you already know.
It's true, books are used as a tool to expand our knowledge for the most part but as students we tend to think of books more academically than others. If, for example, I were to pick up a book on figure skating, I could see the potential in it being one of the best books I've ever read, even though I already know a lot about the subject. Sorry for the skating reference again. I still don't feel Winston's perception of the best kind of books is applicable to everybody. It all really depends on what purpose you're reading for: recreational or academic?