It's Not Disney World, but CSS ... Here I Come!

For my individual tutorial I am going to explore CSS, which means I am also going to explore HTML. After hearing about all of the languages last night, I have decided that, as a newbie to this whole world, CSS/HTML, since it is so widely used, is a good entry point that will lead me in the right direction for my future work. I am attending the 2012 DMAC, during which I will explore video and audio editing a great deal. I hope to take that experience and apply it to the basic of website building that I will learn through my explorations this semester with the ultimate goal of creating my digital portfolio for my PhD language requirement.

This image (from Tools & Resources for Web Professionals) offers a great look into my final goal. I hope to understand better how the information transmitted through HTML is visually arranged by CSS into the final product that users enjoy and understand. I know that this basic programming understanding will help me as I venture out into more specificity at DMAC and as I ultimately define my independent study of summer 2012. I have a ton of ideas for that independent study, from designing my own programming course for high school students to creating a Kairos submission from my Pottermore research, but bless Shelley Rodrigo, my professor and independent study adviser, who told me today that she is willing to wait for me to explore more before defining my independent study. What a gift of trust -- that I will find something worthwhile to do, and she is willing to stick with me while I do that.

So, my short-term goal of CSS ... I am going to use the resources provided by my classmates to explore CSS this week and find specific tutorials to learn from -- I also have a friend in my yoga class who is a programmer and has provided me with a series of introductory lectures on CSS/HTML that I plan to listen to this week. I am also going to start looking into the programming behind sites using HTML/CSS to see just what it is I am in for. Finally, I am in the process of getting my own DreamWeaver/programming software for when I really start playing with programming. I think that is enough for this week's work; in the coming weeks, I plan to decide what kind of object/site I want to create with my practice programming. I have two early ideas: something fun for my two kids to play with and a note-taking site for me to explore (thanks again to Shelley for this recommendation!).

Exploring Blogs

Responses to first part of Lingua Fracta:
- Cheri Lemieux Spiegel's post
- Diane Cooke's post

Responses to finishing Lingua Fracta:
- Eric Sentell's post
- Mat Reynold's post





My partner in the canonical book assignment (McLuhan's Understanding Media):
- Jennifer Buckner's post
- (Reading Eric's post above and seeing that he was also reading McLuhan led me to read his McLuhan post as well ... so I have two on three topics versus three on two topics. Hope that is okay ...) Eric Sentell's post


I really enjoyed this -- thank you for the time to do it. For me, one of the things I am left pondering is the connection between Brooke's concept of perspective, Gane and Beer's concept of interface, and McLuhan's concept of the medium as the extension of man. I had not made these links before tonight, and now I am thinking about what McLuhan would think about Brooke's perspective (something I wrote about on Mat's blog) -- I think he would like it -- as well as what the interface as an extension of ourselves does to promote or combat the narcosis that comes with the unexamined medium (something Eric and Jennifer really got me thinking about). I think interfaces are designed so often today to fall into the background unexamined -- to create a "true user-driven experience." But in the end, this is a trick, isn't it? No interface really goes away -- no medium really does not exist -- and we only play into McLuhan's worry that we are leaving such media unexamined when we overlook the interfaces.

Images from:
Cover of Lingua Fracta from Hampton Press
Marshall McLuhan Portrait from the Estate of Corrine & Marshall McLuhan

Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #5

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
Chapters 1-11:

Marshall McLuhan ... "McLuhan wrote with no knowledge of galvanic skin response technology, terminal node controllers, or the Apple Newton. He might not have been able even to imagine what a biomouse is. But he pointed the way to understanding all of these, not in themselves, but in their relation to each other, to older technologies, and above all in relation to ourselves our bodies, our physical senses, our psychic balance. When he published Understanding Media in 1964, he was disturbed about mankind’s shuffling toward the twenty-first century in the shackles of nineteenth century perceptions. He might be no less disturbed today. And he would continue to issue the challenge that confronts the reader at every page of his writings to cast off those shackles" (Gordon).

Where do I possibly begin with such a thinker? By trying to put together the puzzle pieces of his book ... a book that reads like none other I have read. The chapters are in many ways entities in and of themselves, pieces of his thinking whose connections are surely clear to him yet unformed to me, a first reader.

So, I have made myself a list of the pieces as I see them:

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE

• "This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium -- that is, of any extension of ourselves -- result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology" (19).
  
• The example that helped me understand this the most was the shift to train travel from cars and how this redefined travel (and we often overlook the train's effects as the medium here) (20). "For the 'message' of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs" (20).
• McLuhan even quotes the Pope ... "the future ... and the stability of [modern society's] inner life depend in large part on the maintenance of an equilibrium between the strength of the techniques of communication and the capacity of the individual's own reaction" (33-34).
  

HOT AND COOL MEDIA

• Hot = high definition, low participation such as a photograph (39)
• Cool = low definition, high participation such as a cartoon, telephone, or speech which all require a great deal to be filled in by the audience (39)

ELECTRICITY DECENTRALIZES

• "Electric power, equally available in the farmhouse and the Executive Suite, permits any place to be a center, and does not require large aggregations" (56).

BREAK BOUNDARY

• "at which the system suddenly changes into another or passes some point of no return in its dynamic processes" (58)
• "One of the most common causes of breaks in any system is the cross-fertilization with another system, such as happened to print with the steam press" (59).
  

AUTOAMPUTATION

• numbness comes when we accept a technology as an extension of ourselves (narcotic from Narcissus)
• "To behold, use or perceive any extension of ourselves in technological form is necessarily to embrace it. To listen to radio or to read the printed page is to accept these extensions of ourselves into our personal system and to undergo the 'closure' or displacement of perception that follows automatically" (68).
• "Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms. The machine world reciprocates man's love by expediting his wishes and desires ..." (68-69). Fascinating prediction of why we are all so conscious of our social connections now
  

So what puzzle have I started putting together. Not quite sure myself, but I am left pondering two things ...

• What medium could I explore for its message? FaceBook? The way that it pushes new "friends" at us all of the time is the message that we need more and more of such "friends." I believe the medium of FaceBook has actually changed the meaning of "friend" in our society -- how many friends you have is certainly more important than what these "friends" mean to your actual life.
  
• I am also fascinated by the numbness and extensions he explores in chapter 4 ("Narcissus as Narcosis"). McLuhan is predicting the overly self-exposed nature of today's world: "With our central nervous system strategically numbed, the tasks of conscious awareness and order are transferred to the physical life of man, so that for the first time he has become aware of technology as an extension of his physical body ... With such awareness, the subliminal life, private and social, has been hoicked* up into full view, with the result that we have 'social consciousness' presented to us as a cause of guilt-feelings" (69). McLuhan never even needed to post a status update or tweet to understand the coming over-exposure of social media.

Pulling all of this together ... that is for another blog and another day.

* I am taking this word into my daily vocabulary ... Hoicked ... unintended and fabulous onomatopoeia.

References
Gordon, Terrence. "Marshall Who?" MM – Celebrating 100 Years of McLuhan – Marshall McLuhan. The Estate of Corinne & Marshall McLuhan. Web. 07 Feb. 2012.

Karsh, Yousuf. "Portrait of Marshall McLuhan." MM – Celebrating 100 Years of McLuhan – Marshall McLuhan. The Estate of Corinne & Marshall McLuhan. Web. 07 Feb. 2012.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Critical Edition. Ed. Gordon, Terrence. Berkeley, CA: Gingko Press, 2003. Print.

Puzzle Image from City of Citrus Heights

Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #4

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, chapters 16-22:

"Because without the Mercerism experience we just have your word that you feel this empathy business, this shared, group thing" (209-210).

After our 1/23 class when Dr. Rodrigo shared that one reason we are reading this book is to think about empathy as we study new media, I have found myself pondering this idea even more. When I first wrote about empathy, I was thinking about whether digital networks can ever replicate the empathy drawn from physical proximity that underlies non-digital social networks. Dick wrote (see above quote) that empathy will always be the divider between human and android -- which makes me think about whether humans can ever find full empathy through digital connections. Does the inherent lack of empathy in something digital create a barrier to the conveyance of human empathy across digital channels? Dick's empathy box does generate human empathy across its technology -- is this something possible outside of science fiction?

As I explored digital empathy more, I came across this assignment from Enrique Allen at the Stanford Digital Design School on exploring the paradox of digital empathy. Allen defines empathy in the digital realm as linked to intimacy -- that close connections create empathy because people understand human desires and needs through intimacy, thus gaining empathy. He offers two ideas on intimacy to ponder:

• "... intimacy in the digital realm is by nature a paradox. On the one hand, people use media to explore and gain intimacy (chat-rooms, second-life, facebook, we feel fine, skype) but on the other, media, by definition, is an indirect relationship between people. How are people bridging this gap? In what ways are people using media to gain intimacy with others?"
• "Think about the identity of a person 40-50 years ago and someone today. In those days, an identity was about a physical person but today identity is increasingly becoming a pattern of digital information about a person. Does your digital self have a greater impact than your physical self? How does digital intimacy interact with digital identity?"

The idea of people becoming as much their digital identities as their physical ones leads to the idea that digital intimacy does create empathy across digital identities. This is something I definitely will be thinking about more. I am someone whose digital identity is very much smaller than my physical one, but I also know that I am not like many in this way. My digital identity is broad -- if you Google my name, you will see that I am all over the place online -- but it is shallow because it is 95% professional. Therefore, intimacy is not the goal of most of my digital interactions ... so if I want to explore this idea more, I have to remember that my own experience is not a great benchmark. I would say that when I look at what I see as important to my whole identity, 25% would be digital and 75% physical. I wonder how you would break down your total identity into digital and physical identities?

On a side note, a presentation for Allen's assignment was really neat for me to see because it quotes Marshall McLuhan ... my canonical book author!

• “We become what we behold. We shape our tools & afterward our tools shape us.”
• a medium is “any extension of the self”
  

I am now even more intrigued to read Understanding Media.

Lingua Fracta, chapters 5-8

"If this book can help persuade some in my discipline that technology is a more central concern than they previously thought, then I will consider it a success" (197).

The ideas of empathy and our ever-increasing digital identities only add more credence to Brooke's hope that one day technology will be seen for what it is: the main way we mediate our lives. As McLuhan writes, technology does indeed shape us -- we can allow that to happen unexamined or explore these ramifications.

References
Allen, Enrique. "Digital Design Thinking." E281: Media+Design. Stanford Design School. Web. 28 Jan. 2012. .

Brooke, Collin Gifford. Lingua Fracta: Towards a Rhetoric of New Media. New Dimensions in Computers and Composition. Ed. Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, In., 2009. Print.

Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York: Del Rey, 1968. Print.

(Image from Left Coast Voices)

Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #3

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, chapters 11-15:
I am going to wait to comment on this novel for my next post when we have finished reading it all ... Today instead I would like to explore our next text ...

Lingua Fracta, chapters 1-4
I somehow reached my place in life as an English major and teacher without taking classical rhetoric. However, I am lucky because I am married to a Latin teacher who pulled right out of his files this when I asked him about the classical rhetoric canons. I hope you find it helpful too -- I keep mine in my Lingua Fracta book as my reference. My husband says the picture is of him at a younger age ...

I was struck by Brooke saying he was not going to wade into the debate over the definition of new media (xiii). I found this a bold move for someone writing about new media, and his explanation hooked me right in: a look at this definition would take away from what he really cares about, "the practices that these technologies enable and assist" (xiii). This focus on practice spoke right to me as a teacher because I could not imagine teaching without laptops in my classroom. Brooke captures my very thoughts: "Too often our discussions of technology center around 'making room' in our courses for it, at a time when the idea of writing is being transformed all around us. Rebuilding our discipline not just to cope but to contribute to such change seems to me the least of our obligations as writing teachers and researchers" (xix).

So I read these chapters very carefully because I knew the classical terms were new to me, and thus his new media replacements would be equally new. I have started to make a list of terms in my notes, but I do not want to repeat them here. Instead let's explore the idea of proairesis and end with a few more quotes that made me say, "Yes, that's it."

Proairesis -- yes, I looked this up too. The idea of action-driven suspense versus closure-seeking suspense can be seen in Star Trek:


Star Trek TNG, "Cause and Effect"

While you might want to watch the whole show (because of its hermeneutic effect!), just the first few minutes is enough to get you hooked wanting to know how the mystery is solved. Yet, Professor Felluga says something even more interesting -- because we know the main characters are not going to die, we actually are more driven by the action and wanting to see what comes than the mystery involving the lesser characters. Proairesis.

Because of hermeneutics, I want to know what is behind this closed door so I can satisfy the suspense. The object of the door (the text) is my goal.

Image from Pistaye Blog





Because of proairesis, I think about what more can happen as the day stretches to the sunshine horizon. The options within and created by the image (the practice of new media) is my goal.

Image from Computers.org




And now some quotes that I am still pondering:

• "As we turn to the production of interfaces, of digital writing, we require a model capable of taking account of not simply the process leading up to a release, but the activity that follows as well" (38).
• "I would argue that the technological, as a site of distribution within an ecology of invention, is important for moving from actual to virtual in our inventional practice" (81).
• "To continue Quintilian's metaphor, we might argue that, just because there is more than one way to walk through a building, this does not make its arrangement (architecture) irrelevant ... The mistakes that each of these writers [Quintilian and Manovich] make is to presume that arrangement must be an all-or-nothing affair: Either a text is painstakingly ordered by its producer and passively consumed or new media is the 'confused heap' that Quintilian warns of ... the issue is not whether arrangement predates our textual encounters, but rather what practices we might develop with new media to make sense of them" (91-92).
  Image from Timber Lake Christian Church

I now continue to walk my path through the ideas of Lingua Fracta, employing the practice of pattern between Brooke the author and myself the reader.

PS I have added alt-text to all of my images in the only way Blogger explains how to do it ... but it is not coming up for me. can you let me know if it comes up for you?

References
Brooke, Collin Gifford. Lingua Fracta: Towards a Rhetoric of New Media. New Dimensions in Computers and Composition. Ed. Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, In., 2009. Print.

Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York: Del Rey, 1968. Print.

Felluga, Dino. "Lesson Plans for Narratology: Citizen Kane." Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. [31 Jan. 2011]. Purdue U. [24 Jan. 2012]. .

Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #2

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Chapters 6-10
I am still enjoying reading this book. Dick has set up parallel story lines that I know must cross in significant ways as I finish the book, and I am curious how that will happen. A version of Rachael Rosen showing up at John's apartment was the first link, but now with the android faux police headquarters appearing, it seems certain that the idea of separating android from human will only tangle up more. I did wonder how the (as we were to discover) android police were able to run the bone density test so quickly on the victim in Rick's car; that test had been said to take a very long time at Rosen. Maybe androids are more adept at pinpointing other androids? Which is intriguing -- how the humans are worrying so much about correct identification, while the androids are either better at it or care less for accuracy.

One more point about DADoES: my husband is reading this along with me -- he told me when he saw the book that he had always wanted to read it because he loved Blade Runner. When I could not find a picture of the electric sheep for my last post, I asked him if there were electric animals in the movie, and he said not really. I therefore was waiting to see what he thought when he read how important they are to the book (I know the movie is loosely based only, but it is still intriguing for me to consider what they used and didn't): he was struck by how this element was removed to focus on the bounty hunter action. It got us talking about how Rick does not have a wife in the movie, and we thought about how he could be driven in his job just by his own desires versus the unhappy wife wanting a live animal.


Harrison Ford as Rick Decker in Blade Runner
Image from the Alt Film Guide

I do think though that the ambiguity of the live versus real animals adds a layer of complexity to the android versus human issue. If they cannot tell an electric cat from a live one, how can they possibly think they can do this with more developed technology for people androids?

New Media, Chapters 5-8
My reading of Gane and Beer did not link as much to DADoES this week as last, but I feel the connections will start again as I finish DADoES. So, what I want to focus on here are Gane and Beer's conclusions. First, let me lay out the concepts from this reading with quotes I feel connect these three in particular to the conclusions of the book:

• Archive: "archives are no longer housed simply in buildings such as libraries and museums, but are now increasingly generated and maintained by lay users in virtual environments" (location 1893, paragraph 1)
• Interactivity: "in spite of the almost ubiquitous presence of this concept in commentaries on new media it is not always clear what makes media interactive or what is meant by the term interactivity. Interactivity is a concept that tends to be used to bypass descriptions of the workings of media technologies" (location 1917, paragraph 1)
• Simulation: "simulated media environments are now so ubiquitous that they are taken for granted rather than placed under critical scrutiny. There has also been a subtle shift in the focus on contemporary media theory, which now rarely looks at simulation simply in itself" (location 2252, paragraph 1)

Two things jump out at me from these passages. First is that these new media terms have become oft-used vocabulary without users feeling the need to explain them. The idea that this then hides what is being described by the terms versus describing is a fascinating oxymoron -- using a descriptor to thwart description. Second is the point that these terms, even as they are being used in such an undefined way, are shifting in their meanings through the development of new media theory. I love the term "zombie category" (location 2640, paragraph 2), and archive is a perfect example of how a term can fight off such conceptual death.

The concept of archive was one I played with this past summer in Productive Theory with Dr. Phelps because I was so intrigued by the reinvention of it through digital means. If you care to read my concept definition, here it is. The idea of an archive moving from a strictly controlled collection to a wide open accumulation is both scary and exciting -- scary because of the overload we all face when trying to navigate the accumulation and exciting because of the different stories being told. One of the things I do as a teacher in a laptop school is help students understand that every action they take online becomes part of their digital archive of themselves -- a digital archive others might use as well. We keep our students in private environments for schoolwork in lower and middle school, then we open them to public environments in upper school with the idea that they understand how to be a part of this larger world. However, they are already often a part of this larger world for their own uses much earlier than we bring them there, so the conversation is so important to have all along.

References
Beer, Nicholas Gane and David. New Media: The Key Concepts. Oxford: Berg, 2008. E-book.
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York: Del Rey, 1968. Print.

My Story of ENGL 866

My Goals for New Media Theory I: My study of Pottermore in Tracing Digital Cultures in summer 2012 is the most interesting work I have done thus far in my PhD studies, confirming my New Media emphasis choice. This degree focus plus my acceptance into DMAC 2012 led me directly to this class and these goals:

• To gain a strong base in new media theory to found my DMAC project and future studies
• To determine which language I want to use for my digital portfolio requirement and begin to learn this language (and maybe even start on my digital portfolio)
• To determine my direction for my independent study post-DMAC -- this might be theoretical and it might be practical ... the wide scope of this class will show me all of the possibilities and allow me to explore enough to make an educated decision
  
• Last but not least, to take a class with Dr. Roderigo, who is my independent study mentor for DMAC and post-DMAC!
  

(Click on the green sliver to the right to advance the slides -- it is an arrow cut off! -- and click on the gray exclamation points to read all of my text.)