Thursday, March 16, 2006

RAFAEL_CH-7_JEREMIJENKO_I

CAN U CAPTURE A VOICE?
VOICE IS THE ICON OF PERSON. "TO BE GIVING A VOICE" IS SHORTHAND FOR THE FUNDAMENTAL UNIT OF DEMOCRACY: VOTING, "BEING REPRESENTED," OR PARTICIPATING. A DEVICE OF SOCIALITY AND THEREFORE INTERACTION, IT IS USED TO INTERPOLATE A SUBJECT(PRESUMABLY A PERSON) INTO SOCIETY, OR AS A PERFORMATIVE DEVICE TO INSTANTIATE SOCIAL AGREEMENTS AND IDENTITIES.
WHAT ABOUT VOICELESS PEOPLE? I DISAGREE HERE WITH THE REFERENCES FROM THE WRITER OF THE BOOK.
ALSO, I DO NOT THINK VOICE IS THE FUNDAMENTAL UNIT FOR DEMOCRAY. DEMOCRACY CAN BE ACHIVE WITH OUT VOICE. THE WRITER GOES TO FAR TRYING TO MIX A TOPIC CLEARLY OUT OF THE BOUNDS WHEN IT COMES TO THE BOOK. INFORMAL AND FORMAL COMMUNICATION ARE BLEND TOGETHER, THEY NEED EACH OTHER IN OTHER TO SURVIVE, USING ONLY "VOICE" AS A FUNDAMENTAL SOURCE ITS WRONG FROM MY PERSPECTIVE.

Betsy_Ch.7_Sack_Q

I really liked Sack's article because its dealing with questions I have had with all the added information on the web. How can all this be organized and categorized. At the end of his article he states: "the group of participants involved in a VLSC need a means to recognize themselves as a socially, politically, or economically (in) cohesive entity for purposes of self-governance."

"The Conversation Map system is an attempt to provide one effort towards building tools for community self-recongnition and self-governance."

Do you think these are good tools for building community and self-governance? Is this replacing going down to the town meeting to find out what's going on? Is this a form of education, persuasion, or propaganda? How could this change the face of the government/economy/and communities as we know them?

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Nick_Ch8_Montfort_I

"What is important to realize is that while there are such things as 'games' and 'stories,' many new media artifacts are neither of these, but employ elements from both." (p. 311)

This is essentially what I have been saying through out this whole book. I think most of these authors have been trying to examine nitches, which are admittedly very important, but I think they seem to be missing the big picture. Everything here is so new that I think we must examine the larger picture and not narrow it done and pigeon hole any of these new technologies in to one or two limiting categories. That is my big idea for this whole book, while all of this is important I think we must not try to limit or simplify any of these new media.

Nick_Ch7_Sack_Q

I really, really dig Warren Sack's theories on very large scale conversations. It is such an interesting theory, which seemingly combines a number of different organization structures into concise way to track larger community discussions. I found a couple of updated articles on the subject by Sack and are interested to see how he addresses how the internet has changed in the last 5 years. For instance, if he has a way to incorporate blogs and large community sites, such as myspace.com or facebook.com.

Either way past this, my actual question is...does all this organization, filtering and narrowing of information cut down the possibility of random exposure to information that goes against a persons belief? Does this just bring out only information which confirms people's current beliefs?

Monday, March 13, 2006

Flook_Ch7_Vesna_Q

Victoria Vesna’s chapter on time and community is a good article about where the future of networking might go. Instead of focusing on unrealistic and fictional accounts of where digital mediums might go, Vesna concentrates on concrete and realistic occurrences of today and how they might impact the future. She simplifies it here: “we have the option of collaborating with people whom we never even meet, and consciously plan projects in which the audience become an integral part of the piece and even play an important role in its development.”

My Big Question is simply this: how will future networks affect our lives? Today, the internet has a prominent role in people’s lives, but it still does not control (most of us). I think this might change, but (in relation to Vesna’s article) in what way?