It's Deja Vu All Over Again
Thursday, October 02, 2003
MonsterMediaEnglish - ISSN 1680-4961
MonsterMediaEnglish - ISSN 1680-4961: "MonsterMedia - monstrosity in the face of weblogs
MonsterMedia - monstrosity in the face of weblogs
Abstract
My paper is trying to setup the grounds for researching the newly established blogosphere and the media culture in general in terms of cultural practices vis a vis the new phenomenon. Martijntje Smits theory on how society reacts on new technologies forms the basis of the research on weblogs. Her „pragmatic monster-ethics" outline social and cultural reaction in view of the emergence of new technologies. My paper elaborates on weblogs, the blogosphere and its practice of linking as new technologies and techniques of content creation that challenge our established public media space.
On the grounds of this outline the discourse within the blogosphere as well outside of it will be researched.
another book review
This book review seems to be a good read.
One thing I want to add to my own comment on this book is that Nakamura pointed out an important issue: that "non-white"/"non-Caucasian" scholars seldom get themselves heard in theoretical discussions in academia. I believe that the very fact that she had this book published is really important because she was able to bring in a perspective that many scholars in the field never had. That in itself is an important accomplishment.
The Electronic Book Review
The Electronic Book Review This is an interesting electronic interview between Nakamura and Haraway. Hot dog!
I liked Nakamura’s coinage of the word: cybertypes, but her argument did not strike me as new. As I wrote earlier in the blog: the (capitalist) system reproduces itself and new technologies do serve that purpose. I do agree with her that we should not take for granted what technology provides us. Maybe someone who is interested in changing this cycle can do an in-depth study of “Scandinavian social democracy” that Winner mentioned in Technology and the Politics of Knowledge (the part in our course pack) and that Scandinavian project.
What I want to question is her discussion of scholarship on cyberculture studies and her comment that it “has yet to find a consistent disciplinary home (courses on the topic are offerd in English, rhetoric, communications, and cultural studies departments).” Isn’t that really necessary? Did the study of communication/rhetoric find a consistent disciplinary home? Isn’t she trying to give cyberculture studies a “menu-driven identity”?
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
eLearning/CMS: Syllabus
The Syllabus Magazine archive of articles on eLearning and CMSes.
eLearning/CMS: Syllabus
Falling Through the Net
Falling Through the Net Sorry, this is the site that Samantha has up on the board...
Opining on Diversity
Imagine Bender is really heated as she speaks these words:
Diversity = a word administrators and politicians love to throw around and purposely not define. Why don't they define it, because diversity does not do anything for anyone (as it currently is practiced). Unlike Karl, I do not know diversity when I see it. I know what I wish diversity was. Diversity seems to me to be an excuse for racism to continue - if we admits some blacks or Hispanics under the name of creating a diverse campus (or workforce) then their commitments are to diversity, not to scholarship or community. I confuse diversity with affirmative action, and it's probably because of my institutional research background. Diversity should be understanding among people and respect for who they are. To me, diversity is not just about race, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation -- it is about being people no matter what you bring to the table. Being respected and "celebrated" for what you bring to the table, despite what color you are.
So far I probably have not caused much of a ruffle for my reader, but here goes that: The discussion arose about diversity on Purdue's campus and this argument flowed from me: We will never have a diverse campus until people can be appreciated for their contributions to the community and scholarship of this community as a whole. Yes, our campus lacks racial numbers, but we have a whole lot of hatred and bigotry going on at the intellectual level that is somehow accepted and just chalked up to tradition or even fact - after all the engineers are smarter and work harder than English majors--right? Engineer don't make the world go round, despite what they think. I'm going to stop this discussion for now because I think I've made my point.
I know when I walk into a room and there is a mix of races, ethnicities, and genders, but until I am there I can't tell if people get to share their diverse knowledge, experiences, and personalities. I'm not sure if diversity is just about respect. It also has to have a component of integration of the other. Just because I am respectful of someone (and treat them kindly) doesn't mean I care about what they have to say, I must respect them - not merely be respectful of them.
In terms of Nakamura's book, there isn't a physical/apparent diversity in the technology workforce (maybe--can we really say it's diverse when it is white and Asian males?), but she seems to argue that there is no understanding, or integration of the true people. Great, we like Curry food. But what about these employees as people. I read overall that she is arguing that all of these people have come together but there is no diversity among them.
On a side note: I used spellcheck on this and the computer wanted to replace Purdue with Prude - hmmmmm.
Monday, September 29, 2003
Opening a can of worms, maybe
So there's something that's gnawing at my brain about Nakamura's book. It's a word, one that, despite Nakamura's relentless unpacking of so many terms, seems to remain more or less unpacked. The word? Diversity.
I'm not sure what I understand that word to mean anymore, if I ever did in the first place. I'm familiar with Nakamura's citations of the word's appearance: bumper stickers, campus events/slogans, political posturing, globalization protests. Still, the word remains a problem for me, because I'm not certain enough what it refers to. Is it simply a reference to the--and here's a word I really dislike--multiplicity of cultures, races, ethnic groups, and so on? Or is it more ideologically loaded? Is to use the word "diversity" loaded with terms like "respect," "honor," "acknowledge," and the even more common term in sloganeering, "celebrate"?
My problem is this: most of these bumper-sticker and campus-slogan uses of "diversity" are just as guilty of the erasure of difference as postmodern, fragmented subjectivities. Too often, it seems, "diversity" is the "I'm OK, you're OK" school of encountering real differences between cultures. The fact that a shared etymological word--"diversion"--from the Latin diversio(an act of turning something aside) has such bad connotations doesn't help the case. If "diversity" is diversio, then there is a turning aside of difference: the minute we "celebrate" or "acknowledge" diversity, we tend to discount it, mark it irrelevant, replace it to the position of the oppressed or subaltern. "I'm OK (I am male, white, wealthy, wired), you're OK (even if you're not, I've acknowledged you're not, so please be like me now)."
But such is the functioning of language in these times when everything is bent to corporate interests. Instead of referring to people as "poor," we now refer to "the economically disadvantaged." I'll let you come up with other examples like that on your own. But what I see happening here is the sanitization of really thorny problems through language, through signs. Nakamura's critique of critical theory's ability to crank out neologisms to account for so many ruptures is central here. But, again, "diversity" pops up--it's a word that I don't believe she critiques or unpacks in earnest. I leave this tortured post on this note: I know diversity when I see it, but I don't know how to talk about it.
Comment on businesses Article
The idea I take away from reading the BusinessWeek piece (see Samantha's post/link below) is this:
"So far, the people the legislators are hearing from are the lobbyists. If a 15-year-old in São Paolo can't invent tomorrow's Google, we will all be impoverished because of it. " (Rhiengold)
I think this relates to the need to fuse a connection between the "real" world and academia. I'mreferringg to the disjointed relationship between companies and their users. The idea that we can not really predict what people will be able to do with a technology until it has proliferated society and people are creating/being the market for it. Maybe this is a weak connection, and I am starting to rethink it, but there is something to be said for congress not being connected to what society needs (do they really even care?) and academics being comfortable in their holes of knowledge without worrying about what their students are connected to and what their students have to know to succeed.
The big problem I am struggling with in my Tech Writing class is that I feel as if I want my students to do more of what they will be doing in the workplace, but it's not a realistic demand on my time. I have them write memos because getting 60 emails would be hard to handle, comment on, and organize. Yeah, I've tried folders and a bunch of other things; I don't need any advice on this. For me, the connection to the workplace is important, and it is up to me to make that connection. If I don't, I fail them.
So, are we being failed by companies and our congress who are not addressing our needs through the legislation/patents on technology? But at the same time I wonder if we need more legislation on something that doesn't exist yet? Bear with me, I'm rambling here, companies create devices (for lack of a better word) and we make or do not make a place for them, creating a need in our own lives for them. Can you regulate what you don't know you need? Isn't that what the legislatures and companies are attempting to do? We have to admit that we fail our students by not staying current or changing what we think they need to know?
BW Online | September 25, 2003 | How Will "Smart Mobs" Play Out?
Back to our discussion about connecting the "real" world to academia. There is an article about Rheingold's Smart Mobs in BusinessWeek. It talks about discovering applications for existing technologies and hints at how our needs guide development.
BW Online | September 25, 2003 | How Will "Smart Mobs" Play Out?
