Interactivity

There seems to be an endless stream of definitions for interactivity. Downes and McMillan's article provides a great structure for an ultimate definition of interactivity. As one of their respondents notes "Nobody knows, because the field of interactive communications is in its infancy, what the possibilities are. You have to base your definition of interactivity on what's out there. And it changes everyday. So your definition is going to have to have to be a bit loose in the beginning." Another respondent in the study astutely pointed out that "It is clear that interactivity is a multi-dimensional construct and each of those dimensions seems to be represented by a continuum." This idea of a continuum instead of a binary opposition between interactive and not interactive is important, especially in the context of meaning in the postmodern age.
The textbook gives McLuhan's definition of interactivity as positive in its transformation of the rigidities of a heated up print culture. I would certainly have to agree with McLuhan on this argument.
Kiouses' article provides myriad definitions for interactivity based on the work of other scholars (too many to list). He does a great job of synthesizing the body of literature and ideas surrounding interactivity. He divides the information down to three domains: technological properties, communication context, and user perceptions. Tying these ideas together makes for a comprehensive definition, stated as "Interactivity can be defined as the degree to which participants can communicate both synchronously and asynchronously, and participate in reciprocal message exchanges. With regard to human users, it additionally refers to their ability to perceive the experience as a simulation of interpersonal communication and increase their awareness of telepresence." He is also astute in stating that communication technology can mean anything from a telephone to a computer system. Many people assume this concept is only tied to computing and network technology, which is perhaps too specific. This definition, when combined with the idea of a continuum of interactivity defines the concept in the way I would.
Berners-Lee's article outlines the history of the world wide web, which has fueled the explosion of proliferation of interactivity. Without the web, would we even be having this discussion? I find it very interesting that Berners-Lee makes two statements that fit so nicely into postmodern ideas. When discussing Enquire, he describes how it led him to a vision that encompassed ideas and was decentralized, organic growth of ideas, technology and society.

Without the web and the abundant dispersion of computing technology long tail theory would not even exist. These technologies have expanded Berners-Lee's notions about what the web could do to territories he never dreamed of. The interactive features of the web such as Amazon recommendations and customer reviews make the long tail possible. The long tail is certainly a viable business model for the future. Using bits instead of atoms has allready almost destroyed the music industry, and has certainly influenced the film and publication industry as well. Netflix and Amazon still rely on atoms for the time being, but the day is coming when they will join iTunes as pure long tail business models. As technology improves and means of production and distribution continue to improve and become cheaper, businesses outside the media industry will begin to deal in bits instead of atoms. For example, customized t shirts could be designed via the web and created at home through a screenprinting machine or device that connects to a computer (wirelessly perhaps). This idea can and will in time branch out of the media and into other types of businesses. Custom furniture, clothes, cars are just a few more examples of where this business model can eventually take hold. The desire for customization and self-expression are important factors driving new media and long tail business models. Long tail businesses will succeed because as Anderson points out when discussing Amazon, "If the market for books that are not even sold in the average bookstore is larger than the market for those that are." Google allready takes advantage of the long tail of advertising.

Without "interactivity" which includes user generated content, the long tail could and would not exist as a viable business model. The long tail relies on user generated content for many of its manifestations. Only with the recent development of cheap computing technology, which has significantly improved the ability of the individual to compete with big media, has the long tail become relavant. New levels of interactivity have been and continue to be created. It is an exciting time to be both a consumer and producer of media.

Techonolgy: The Augmentation of Human Intellect

This weeks articles were a bit difficult to fully understand in their ideas, but this is what I gathered from the readings.

In "AS WE MAY THINK", by Vannevar Bush, he talks about how during the war scientists used technology to increase man's physical power to defeat their enemies. But it wasn't physical power Bush was really interested in, it was our mental strength. How to use technology to increase our intelligence and way of life. "For many years inventions have extended man's physical powers rather than the powers of his mind."
He used many examples and I thought that some of his predictions of how future technology would be were rather accurate. He predicted that "dry photography" would soon be real and common place in cameras, with the number of pictures that could be taken becoming almost limitless, as well as the speed in which they were developed.
Bush goes on to speak of how technology has and will continue to shape our way of life by making things such as the gathering of information easier. How much we can learn will be affected by technology, and so in effect he believes that technology has helped shape society.

In "AUGMENTING HUMAN INTELLECT: A Conceptual Framework", all the authors seem to lean towards the same conclusion, that in the past technology has mostly been used to increase mankind's physical power, but that the future is how technology will increase our mental capacity. The readings here talk about how the human intellect can be augmented to increase its mental capacity to learn. "By 'augmenting human intellect' we mean increasing the capability of a man to approach a complex problem situation, to gain comprehension to suit his particular needs, and to derive solutions to problems" states Engelbart.
They also talk about each individual layer and piece of an object or framework, which is much more in depth than most people would ever think of going into. They use the example of a computer.
"When one looks at a computer system that is doing a very complex job, he sees on the surface a machine that can execute some extremely sophisticated processes. If he is a layman, his concept of what provides this sophisticated capability may endow the machine with a mysterious power to sweep information through perceptive and intelligent synthetic thinking devices."
On the surface a computer gives us a 3d image of whatever information we typed in and allows us to communicate and find information easily and quickly. But underneath its outward shiny casing are RAM, sound cards, graphic cards, microchips etc, that are all connected to a motherboard so on and so forth. And going even deeper into the next layer are the tiny bits that make up the microchips etc. A normal person would not be able to explain how each layer works, but an electrical engineer could explain this, while a computer programmer could explain that, and the list goes on. So from their perspective, the smaller bits and pieces that are just as important,if not more so, than the end result.
At the same time it's such technology that has been taken for granted and helped shape our society. I think they all agree that we have shaped ourselves around our technology, enhancing or augmenting ourselves with it to increase that which we can understand and do.

The Web in its conceptual form

This week's readings were a lot to process. Breaking it down is the easiest approach to me in a chronological order.

Vannevar Bush's article explained that scientists and scholars, more generally, had become stagnant because they had no way of quickly and efficiently sharing their research with others. This resulted in a lack of progress in expanding knowledge and the human mind. At that point in the 1940s, we had been able to create advanced technology that was essentially an extension of what we could to do physically. However, what is most important to carry on is intellectual growth because advances in other areas would not be possible.

His idea of compressing information so it can be shared quickly and inexpensively with many people on a small machine, or the memex, provided the concept for personal computers and the Internet as we know them today. Who would have thought we knew all about this stuff more than 60 years ago?

McLuhan expands this idea of information sharing with his idea of the medium being the message. He categorizes mediums into hot or cold, with hot media having less interaction, while cold media did the opposite and engaged the audience. McLuhan would probably consider the web to be icy if anything, especially once Web 2.0 hit. People are creating content, socializing online, and connecting themselves and information into one big network. This introduces his concept of the global village where cold media connects us all and there is no nationalistic tie to the information or connection. The Internet is doing this and so far it appears to be following the McLuhan concepts of old or hot media moving into newer media, but eventually new content is created from it and the cycle repeats itself. The Web Theory book describes this better as the content of a new medium being filled with the content of the old and in time, the new medium will develop its own reorganization of content.

That's a lot of information and redevolpment of information.

Finally, the reading on on elements of diffusion describes to some extent what how and why new technology can be difficult to grasp. The process is broken down into four parts: innovation, communication, time, and social system. Currently, the Internet is as the stage where many across the world have adopted it as a tool, but many more continue to be left out because of money, techonology, distance and so forth. This is related to the social system.

So as I take this all in, it seems the Internet has come to a turning point in its purpose, which is why we are studying new media. It is going to take time for everyone who is connected to understand what it all is. Just like I'm attempting right now.

I think my brain hurts now.

Talk about some heavy reading!

The recurring themes I found in the readings included cause and effect of content and form of technologies, technological determinism, technology and its effects on literacy and power within the framework of society, and the connection between technological advancement and the arts.

I enjoyed reading Understanding Media by McLuhan the most. I loved his philosophical approach, the analogies, and the correlation he presents between advancements in technology and art. But the progression of ideas is extremely disjointed. There’s no visible logical order . . . the article reads like the merging of works by Rothko and Pollock. The simplicity of a subject is clear, yet misleading, and the presentation is chaotic! When McLuhan talks about how the medium is the message, though, he over-simplifies the idea that technology is an extension of social behavior, and that uses of technology have either positive or negative effects.

The predictions made by Vannevar Bush in the mid-40’s really surprised me. His approach to the subject matter seems most practical of the four writers. And talk about intuitive! He understood the purpose and effects of technology. When he explains how specialization of technologies bogs us down, but that it is necessary for progress, he hit the nail on the head! Technology, while potentially time-consuming in regard to social use, makes life so much easier!!

Williams’ article takes a closer look at how new technologies are adopted by society. With McLuhan, he discusses in-depth how technology affects media, and how mass communication influences acceptance of technologies by society.

I enjoyed reading Engelbart the least. Wading through the material, I felt like his approach to explaining how technology “augments human intellect” was too theoretical, that he had too few ideas of his own, and that he relied too heavily on Bush’s work. Did I mention I had an especially difficult time reading his article because of all the GSP issues? Eeek!! The one idea Engelbart actually made himself that caught my attention was his belief that, as time progresses, humans have an increasing need for computers, or The Clerk, but computers require fewer commands from humans to operate.

4 guys!

Barely made it ^^;

Mine is really simple. I think they all insisted that there are needs to create a better way to communicate: conceptually and practically.

Bush has already realized that technology would be the foremost leading industry of the society. He showed the “Memex” using the combination technology of television and microfilm to control and save information from a remote place. His thought was I think basically freely associated ideas could produce unlimited possiblities.

Englebart’s article was more technical explanations how human would get along with computerized devices. He thought a network that all the information would be centered and electronized, so we could access everywhere(?).

McLuhan said in his article, “Our humans senses, of which all media are extensions.” All human cultures are the refelection of human body. Audio and video media are related to our ears and eys, and just like that a computer is is an extension of human brain.

Williams focused on that the recent inventions of media technology are the series of cause and effect how we need them in our lives. (That’s all I understood from this article so far)

Anyway, my conclusion is all four guys had a common, “Human.” They wanted a better life, and the technology is the key. The unlimited possibilities!

Jan. 29 Post by Marc

Whew! That was a lot of contemplation. The one thing I noticed that was similar in all articles was a unifying theme of the way humans work collectively through our intellectual processes and our technologies. Williams said that television unifies us as a culture and goes into a historical breakdown of its impact and criticisms of TV including passivity, diminished human contact social conflict, commentary, expectations and profit-driven forces. 

McCluhen says that media is collective and provides us the power to engage or disengage as much as possible, claiming that what we invest is the extent to which we are affected. He goes on to illustrate how bewildering it would be to be without such a constant barrage of media as it would be to discover it for the first time. Towards the end, his criticisms lean on negative human traits of bias and even the loss of freedoms. I have to highly agree with his last point - make no mistake, we are definitely influenced - there is no "third person."

Bush addresses the unifying and good that has helped us as a collective and the destructive and bad that has separated us in the technology of the sciences. The most interesting part of his paper is the warning at the end. The idea of being "plugged into" learning electronically opens up too many ethical dilemmas and leaves us with a stern warning to not advance to the point of killing each other off before learning how to live in peace.

Englebart adds on to Bush's work and tackles a unified process of thinking in humankind in an attempt to augment the thinking person's sum of knowledge. Some of the attempts at looking at learning symbolically are compelling and highlight the seen, unseen and yet-to-be-seen powers in computer technology, lest we get too lazy. This article reminded me of a great NPR story that reported that computers can be used to make incredible symphonies that used to take years to compose in a matter of minutes. That is incredible...and likely to piss off a lot of musicians and composers.

Post number 2

These were a lot of thick readings. They made sense in the end, but were pretty rough getting started.

 

I bet VANNEVAR BUSH would have truly enjoyed the Internet and I wonder if he would still argue that there needs to be better ways to document and record knowledge. Englebart… I agree? This was a thick article. From the words I recognized and could form into sentences I mostly understood, I gathered that Engelbart’s work was building upon the ideas of Bush. Intellectual augmentation sounds like a term a scientist in the 60s would come up with… a mad scientist.

I definitely agree with Engelbart’s “bootstrapping” stance of users being “continually involved in the ongoing definition and construction of the tools that they as a community will use”

 

Dear Marshall McLuhan,

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for beginning your book with the phrase, “After three thousand years of explosion”.

Your newest fan,

Chris 

 

Aside from the medium being the message, I liked his discussion of hot and cold media. I wonder how McLuhan would describe the convergence of media we see today? Would his bi-polar hot and cold approach still fit?

Williams’ work poses a “will history repeat itself?” question when read in conjunction with Rogers’ statements about diffusion. I believe that it took a few years for the current new media to diffuse to the general populace, but now that it is (and with a lot of the new media being software and mostly free with Internet access) I think we might be/become a society that is defined and directed by the media.

 

Mr. Jobs, can we expect an iMemex soon?

 

 

 

Compare and Contrast

After doing the readings from Bush, Englebart , McLuhan and Williams, I think that the central theme that links the articles together is that each article seeks to find the most efficient way that media can be stored, transmitted and viewed.  Society, in turn, then will decide how that medium will fit in, and what place in society it will take.  In the article Augmenting Human Intellect, Englebart describes how the augmented system would accelerate the process of storing media.  " Our view of the interaction of human and computer in the future augmented system sees a large number of relatively simple processes being preformed by the computer for the human-processes which often will require only a few thousandths of a second of actual computer manipulation." Which is basically just taking a new and efficient method to improving the "intellectual efficiency of the human being".  Englebart and Bush's systems essentially preform the same function however Englebart's system of indexing requires simple note cards, while Bush's system looks at a memex as an efficient way of indexing.  Bush describes his memex as a "sort of mechanized private file and library".  The purpose of the memex will be to "observe the power of the associative recall which human memory exhibits, and proposes that a mechanization of selection by association could be realized to considerable advantage".  In McLuhan's "The Medium is the Message" the medium is anything from TV to radio to telephone to the telegraph.  McLuhan says these medias are "extensions of ourselves".  McLuhan also believes that technological media are as essential to our society as cotton or coal is.  He believes that because society is so reliant on these technological media they create a sort of social bond that everyone can relate to.  William's article seems to add onto McLuhan's, he speaks of how the medium of television brought about a new society.  Williams believes that cause and effect in technology is the key to understanding it.  By answering the questions that come along with it we "form and increasingly important part of our social and cultural arguments." As you can see there are many differences in each of the articles, however the central theme remains constant throughout, which is to find the most efficient way the media can be stored, transmitted and viewed and how society will decide how the medium will fit in.

Forget the Abacus, I want a Memex!

So the first thing I did was get on my “Memex” and Google “origin and properties of the bow and arrow,” how many results do you think I got? Yep, 78,900 results in less than a second!

All four authors were interested in how technology will affect information - storage, organization or dissemination. Although, Bush and Englebert, both subscribed to the central idea that we can augment human memory and intellect with what has come to be known as the computer, they also differ and are limited in their foresight based on the time of writing and what information was available to extrapolate from. McluLan and Williams both wrote more specifically on dissemination of information in a new mass media age.

Bush writing in 1945 as the second world war was winding down is most fascinating, visionary and inspiring. He was quick to realize that when the war is over, physicists would be needed to use their skills in something else (well someone should have told him about a little episode in history called the Cold War). Bush foresaw what would be cameras, automated and vastly improved automobiles, but his greatest prediction was the Computer - a machine that would be needed to store, organize and expand the vast amount of information that humans were creating on a daily basis.

Engelbert writing in 1962 and having been privy to research information on one of the earliest computers, was the first to be able to test Bush’s predictions and hypotheses. With the improved information (at the time) available to Engelbert, his paper is not so much a futuristic one as Bush’s but one that would use new information to “find factors that limit individual’s basic information handling capacities” and how to “develop new techniques, procedures and systems” to solve these problems. Yet, the central goal remained what to do with the information that we are accumulating at a rapid pace? In summary, while Bush could only fascinate about a Memex, almost twenty years later, Engelbert’s work asked the questions, What would computers be able to do? How much will they be able to do and what will limit them?

McLuhan, although also concerned with information, was more focused on the media. He looked at the transfer of information, not so much on storage and organization. He noted that the “medium is the message,” and thus “content of any medium is always another medium.” McLuhan looked historically at how the available technology (medium) have affected information (mass media) - Print, Radio, then Television. If his essay had been a futuristic one like those of Bush and Engelbert, McLuhan would have explored how the new technology of storing and disseminating information (electric media) would affect the media in the form of computers and the Internet. Along the lines of McLuhan, Williams writing in 1972, took the cultural view of technology and its effect on society but with a narrower focus on mostly the television. Williams posited that “if the technology is a cause, we can at best modify or seek to control its effects.”

Evolution, Innovation, Media

In Technology and Society, Williams outlines the basic premises of two alternative opinions on technology and society. The first, technological determinism, states that technology, and following, its consequences, are accidental. This view states that there is no reason why any particular invention should have come about. The second, and less deterministic view, overlaps the first in the accident of the emerged technology but differs in that its uses are symptomatic of some order of society of qualities of human nature. Essentially, technology is a participant in a change occurring in any case. Williams himself subscribes to the second view. One of the examples he provides discusses the only use of the radio as a mass medium by Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. This also illustrates his point that technological inventions are not single events but a series of events that are modern day incarnations of their technological predecessors. He goes on to discuss that in the field of communication, the means preceded the inventions’ available content (ie. The radio, television). This is a life cycle very apparent with the internet today, as we are learning, and as Williams states “new relations between men, and between men and things” are being intensely experienced much like in the industrial revolution.

Alternately, McLuhan sides more towards technological determinism, suggesting that the medium is the message, or that “the message of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.” According to McLuhan, even though most people would be inclined to say that it was the outcome of the machine and not the machine itself that was its meaning or message, one must consider the technology itself if wanting a clear picture of “the ways in which the machine altered our relations to one another and to ourselves.” He goes on to state that it “mattered not in the least whether it turned out cornflakes or cadillacs.” McLuhan also goes on to state that technology has made us “act without reacting” and that in this electric age, our “central nervous system is extended to involve us in the whole of mankind and to incorporate the whole of mankind in us.” Both Williams and McLuhan see media as extensions of man as opposed to merely just forces of causality.

The overall message of the Diffusion of Innovations goes back to Williams’ point that technological inventions are not single events but a series of events based on their previous incarnations. They key here is that innovations should not be considered “equivalent units of analysis.” Innovations each experience their own time frames of consumer adoption. This perspective creates a detailed outline of the processes involved between invention and human need. It examines the complexities of the relationship McLuhan discusses between technology, society and ourselves.

Engelbart examines the logic involved in our thought and looks at the evolution of innovations based on these thoughts. He examines Bush’s “memex” example and discusses how our innovations succeed when they allow us to access computers for manipulation, thereby resulting in newer technologies. Like the previous readings, Engelbart looks at relationships between technology and society and how these relationships cause technology and society to continually evolve.

Bush’s main theme focuses on the speed of technological advances and the implications of this speed. The article talks about the development of several innovations in the context of a give and take relationship with man. It goes on to call these innovations “our civilization’s artifacts” and surmises that perhaps they are indeed proof of our species’ sophistication.

After this reading, I noted the similarity of the value of speed in all the other readings. Williams, McLuhan, Englebart and the Diffusion reading all discuss the importance of speed as a central component of technological advancement along with the ability of society to not only imagine beyond but demand more than the technology’s original intent. Again, this theme applies in every way to the internet and of course all its ancestors (electricity, telecommunications to name a few). Another overlapping theme was the look at technology as a process as opposed to just appearing out of thin air.

Technology has too much going on...

After reading the article by Bush, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that he was truly a visionary. Bush had an idea of a machine he called “memex,” that would ultimately improve our processes. He described it as a “device in which an individual stores all his books, records….so that it may be consulted with speed and flexibility.” He recognized that our culture was moving forward with great speed and he was able to envision a machine that would use microfilm to store and retrieve information. He saw what has ultimately come to pass, an influx in information, which without ways to store and retrieve, would possibly be lost.

Like Bush, Engelbart realized that we were moving into a society where urgency and complexity would require improved techniques to aid in our day-to-day operations. Engelbart believed that it was necessary to come up with a way to increase comprehension and improve efficiency in a society that was increasing in complexity and urgency.

McLuhan discussed the notion, “the medium is the message”. According to McLuhan, TV, radio and print all have content. For example, print has sentences and paragraphs, but it is the actual medium (radio) that has an affect on human consciousness.

All of the authors seemed to have technology in common. They all recognized that these media forms would have an affect on our society. Williams discussed in great detail the power of the television. According to Williams, as our societal needs increase, technology improves. He gave the example of military technology, the weaponry used in previous wars are by no means in the same category as what we are using today. The same can be said for the different media forms.

A little off, but just a thought…….Maybe it’s just me !
As times change technology is going to continue to become more advanced. My only question is when do we stop? When do we say that this is as good as it gets. I’m not interested in riding in a car that drives by its self or driving a car in the sky like the Jetsons, this is my opinion, but I just can’t imagine why any sane person would want to.

'Technology' the virus

I am not a biologist, please forgive me if my analogy falls short, it is all off the cuff, as they say.

Technology is nothing more than a man made viral parasite. We can trace its steps, and watch it mutate from a pencil to iphone. The dilemma and catalyst for watching technology invade every aspect of our lives is stems from our cultural connection to progress and development. Much like the chicken pox, or the flu, technology weaves in and out our daily routines seamlessly. These readings all seem to infer that technology is as much a part of our culture as we are a part of technology.

In Burnett's and Marshall's book, Web Theory, they expressed this as an ideology of technology. Which they say is "a framework or representations that makes whatever is current appears to be completely normal, natural and appropriate. The ideology that is concerned with technology therefore makes a new technology not only natural and normal for the culture but also what is needed to make a society better". Although it is easy to agree with this statement the only real questions that arises is : How do they know that this technology makes society better? If ignorance is bliss, and owning and ipone is bliss - how can we possible compare the two? They go on to explain technological determinism and how technology directly effects our social and cultural processes. Yet, how might our lives and culture be different if we never invented the Internet, the Radio, the Television, the telephone, and for that matter a pencil? We would still desire to communicate across boarders instantly, and we would still have a desire to search and learn about far off exotic countries. Yet as we have seen with evolution and necessity as invention, we can only imagine how humans might have evolved differently to achieve these same intricate functions.

I don't really believe that humans could evolve as fast as we created technology, but the possibility that technology burdens and inevitably shifts our natural evolution is food for thought. So, their idea that technology determines our social and cultural processes is a grim reminder that I need to breathe deeply and take my dog for a long walk.

In Bush's article, As We May Think, from 1945 I was absolutely blown way by the insight and foresight he had into the development of technology in general and specifically. Overall he had more than a basic grasp of how deep rooted technology already had on our society. His predictions of digital cameras, fax machines, computers, and social networking literally made my jaw drop in amazement. This guy would have loved the iphone.

Raymond Williams shows the parallels between human and technology through their intimate connection with the television. He claims that the effects of technologies, whether direct or indirect, foreseen or unforeseen, are as it were the rest of history - they (technologies) have made modern man the modern condition. Technological determinism at its finest.

In Roger's Diffusion of Innovation, he outlines how technologies spreads or diffuses across societies. He proclaims that a final way a social system influences diffusion concerns consequences, the changes that occur to an individual or a social system as a result of the adoption or rejection of an innovation. The key word here is consequences. He seems to acknowledge that technology is as much a consequence as it is a catalyst.

In both McLuhan's and Engelbart's readings they traced and identified a path to Technological Determinism Avenue. To deny that technology has not been an integral part of ever aspect of our life is simply insane. As Engelbart compared the path as augmenting human intellect, we can began to realize just how intimate technology and human culture is. Without one there is not the other as we know it today.

'Technology' the virus

I am not a biologist, please forgive me if my analogy falls short, it is all off the cuff, as they say.

Technology is nothing more than a man made viral parasite. We can trace its steps, and watch it mutate from a pencil to iphone. The dilemma and catalyst for watching technology invade every aspect of our lives is stems from our cultural connection to progress and development. Much like the chicken pox, or the flu, technology weaves in and out our daily routines seamlessly. These readings all seem to infer that technology is as much a part of our culture as we are a part of technology.

In Burnett's and Marshall's book, Web Theory, they expressed this as an ideology of technology. Which they say is "a framework or representations that makes whatever is current appears to be completely normal, natural and appropriate. The ideology that is concerned with technology therefore makes a new technology not only natural and normal for the culture but also what is needed to make a society better". Although it is easy to agree with this statement the only real questions that arises is : How do they know that this technology makes society better? If ignorance is bliss, and owning and ipone is bliss - how can we possible compare the two? They go on to explain technological determinism and how technology directly effects our social and cultural processes. Yet, how might our lives and culture be different if we never invented the Internet, the Radio, the Television, the telephone, and for that matter a pencil? We would still desire to communicate across boarders instantly, and we would still have a desire to search and learn about far off exotic countries. Yet as we have seen with evolution and necessity as invention, we can only imagine how humans might have evolved differently to achieve these same intricate functions.

I don't really believe that humans could evolve as fast as we created technology, but the possibility that technology burdens and inevitably shifts our natural evolution is food for thought. So, their idea that technology determines our social and cultural processes is a grim reminder that I need to breathe deeply and take my dog for a long walk.

In Bush's article, As We May Think, from 1945 I was absolutely blown way by the insight and foresight he had into the development of technology in general and specifically. Overall he had more than a basic grasp of how deep rooted technology already had on our society. His predictions of digital cameras, fax machines, computers, and social networking literally made my jaw drop in amazement. This guy would have loved the iphone.

Raymond Williams shows the parallels between human and technology through their intimate connection with the television. He claims that the effects of technologies, whether direct or indirect, foreseen or unforeseen, are as it were the rest of history - they (technologies) have made modern man the modern condition. Technological determinism at its finest.

In Roger's Diffusion of Innovation, he outlines how technologies spreads or diffuses across societies. He proclaims that a final way a social system influences diffusion concerns consequences, the changes that occur to an individual or a social system as a result of the adoption or rejection of an innovation. The key word here is consequences. He seems to acknowledge that technology is as much a consequence as it is a catalyst.

In both McLuhan's and Engelbart's readings they traced and identified a path to Technological Determinism Avenue. To deny that technology has not been an integral part of ever aspect of our life is simply insane. As Engelbart compared the path as augmenting human intellect, we can began to realize just how intimate technology and human culture is. Without one there is not the other as we know it today.

Making sense of the technological world

I would like to preface my blog with the fact that these readings were difficult for me to comprehend. Every sentence seemed to be exploding with elaborate words that did not make sense in my mind. I'm am not going to lie and sugar coat my blog by saying that I completely understood this material. The honest truth is that I would have to read each piece at least five times to comprehend the theories of new media that were discussed in great detail and in a week I have not the time nor the patience to do that. No matter how overwhelming the readings were for me, I did come up with some sort of underlying theme between all of them and that is the fact that they all try to make sense of the technological world that was developing in their respective time periods. All of the authors try to explain the phenomena of the new technology that was being developed in their time. I liked the readings in chronological order, my least favorite being Bush's "As we may think" and my favorite being "Elements of Diffusion." It seemed to me that the more technologically advanced the author's were, the better they were at explaining their theories. Or maybe the more diffused the media became, the more the authors wrote in more simple terms. In Rogers' "Elements of Diffusion" he explains the phenomena of the dispersion and diffusion of technology along with the stages that society goes through to adapt to new innovations. This theory has occured over and over again with each new innovation that is introduced to the world and the cycle of diffusion will continue to occur today and into tomorrow. Raymond explained the difference between technological determinism and symptomatic technology and how the two theories are viewed in his world where the television was the new medium. The other readings besides chapter one of the book were all about science and explained in depth the science of new media and I really shouldn't try to explain what I didn't understand. I hope this made sense to you at least a little more than the readings made to me. I look forward to reading your blogs and listening to discussion in class, so that I can make better sense of what each author had to say.

Technology in Society

These readings by Bush, Englebart, McLuhan, and Williams all have a central theme of technology being a forefront of society, as in it is society that transforms technology.
In a much older context, Bush explains different technologies and even offers a futuristic view of how computers came into being as databases for records. It was fascinating to read this 1945 article about the pending future of computing. His view coincides with Williams in that much of Bush’s foreshadowing is connected in some way to Williams’ article. The “needs” of both Bush and Williams are very different, but also very similar in that they are looking at technology through the lens of society and how it affects the final product of technologies. This is showing that culture creates the technology, in that the need for simpler ways to carry out meaningless tasks can be simplified with technology.
Williams declares that needs create technology. His quote “Some people spoke the new machines as gadgets, but they were always much more than this. They were the applied technology of a set of emphases and responses within the determining limits and pressures of industrial capitalist society,” rang true to me because the radio, television, etc. was not invented as just “gadgets”; they are carefully thought about inventions that help society with a certain need.
McLuhan explains that the “medium is the message”. McLuhan states, “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.” (McLuhan) The author explains and reiterates the central themes to which all the authors allude to in that technologies didn’t introduce certain aspects of life, but it did accelerate it. Mediums are accelerated through human involvement. It is the society that determines what technology they will “pick up” through their cultural principles.
Englebart explains that augmenting human intellect is to make it thinking much speedier. This greatly mirrors all of the other authors, in that society creates technology for it’s own good use. He uses Bush as an example of how to augment human intellect and how it can help the everyday human.
The theme that binds these authors is that technology is used to make the human race much more effective in doing tasks. Even though they may word this very differently, they are trying to emphasize the role of technology in society and how it has come about as a need first, then went on to evolve into other facets of life.

This Week's Readings

This week's readings were so similar, that by the time I was done with them it was really hard for me to remember who said what. Many of the authors looked at new media as just an extension of old media. An "upgrade" you could say. They also discuss how these extensions impact a persons life and the culture of a community. Bush uses the statement "inventions have extended man's physical powers rather than the powers of his mind." With this remark, Bush is saying that new inventions are changing man's culture, the way we think, the things we do and how we do them. To the same degree Engelbart states ""means" can include many things -- all of which appear to be but extensions of means developed and used in the past to help man."

All the authors also talk about media in a more complex manor than usually thought of. They look at the medium in pieces and look at every piece that makes up that medium as just as important if not more important than the medium itself. Engelbart talks about the architect and the architects finished work. But instead of just looking at the picture as a whole, he outlines every single small detail that went into the final drawing. Something most of us would overlook. McLuhan uses the light bulb as his example. Many of the things we take for granted - like a lighted sign - would not be possible without every single light bulb. He looks at the light bulb as being the message. He sees both the light bulb and the sign as a medium. Not as the light bulb being just a part of the message. It is as important as the sign in his analogy. Williams also talks about the media in this way. He talks about the concept of "flow" and says that the components put together are more important than the end result. This compares to the light bulb analogy showing that every light is just as important if not more so than the board itself.

Technology + Society = (answer possibly below)

First off, I agree with everyone on here who has commented on the difficulty of these readings (let alone the zombie-like gaze one inherits from it when done).

Starting with Bush, we are given the interesting experience of reading an article by a man who has used and coordinated his scientific talent for warfare. The article is from 1945 so warfare is about to be a less prosperous business for a little while. Bush talks of progress in certain areas including photography and goes into the realm of "what if." Bush's article praises science for its advancements at that time and its possibilities for the future but acknowledges that man may destroy itself with its weapons before truly coming into their own wisdom.

Marshall McLuhan has the chapter title of "The Medium is the Message," which states that personal and social consequences of any medium results from the new scale introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves or by any new technology. McLuhan has the stance that our developed technology affects culture and the society as a whole. Through his little tour down history lane and a clever relation between Shakespeare and media, the reader is made aware of "staples to society" and how mediums becomes "fixed charges" on the entire psychic life of a community.

Williams focuses on the notions of cause and effect for technologies and their impacts on society. He goes into the invention of television and how "the technology is in effect accidental. Beyond the strictly internal development of the technology there is no reason why any particular invention should have come about." He makes the argument though that if television had not been invented then we as people would find another way to be mindlessly entertained. Williams' article was interesting to me in the fact that he believes media institutions need to be aware of the social problems that each new technical phase will bring. Society is affected in its own way by each new invention changing a medium (or creating one), and our life as we know it is possibly forever altered (as with the case of the television) as a new technology becomes an important part of our current human existence.

Englebart's article discusses the idea of augmenting human intellect and goes into great detail on the topic with direct quotes from our old friend Dr. Bush. The quotes from Bush are used to backup his ideas on how augmenting people may cause a cooperative intellectual effort that brings positive change.

In conclusion, all four of the authors have similar thoughts on technology and its ability to drive and change a society. While Williams article seems to focus more on the television and its negative effects on society, Bush and Englebart (buddies I'm sure) write about the possibilities that each new technology brings. Society is affected and then the technology is built upon. I see McLuhan more on page with Williams as technologies become staples on our lives that we quickly become dependent on, an extension of ourselves. While the authors each take their own approach to the idea of technology and its impact on society, they agree on the fact that it is built upon making our lives easier while creating a dependency.

Technology or Society

I'll have to admit, as others have, that these readings were very difficult for me. In my best effort, I tried to figure out the bottom line for each and I did see a theme between Bush, McLuhan, and Engelbart. Williams, on the other hand seemed to be discussing something different but there were a few similiarities to the others.

Bush, McLuhan, and Engelbart all used similar words to describe the function of new technology. They used examples to illustrate that technology was extending or modifying what humans could already do. Bush describes better, faster, and more permanent ways of using photography, telegrapy, and calculations to aid society in keeping up with all the information they receive and process. He describes his idea of the "memex" which (although I am not positive if I understood) details what a modern day computer and scanner might do. It basically condenses and databases written information that can be accessed at any time in the future.

McLuhan focuses his discussion on the technology itself and argues that not every technology contains content or a message, but it still functions to "add itself on to what we already do." He also believes that certain technology becomes like staples in our lives and our society functions the way that it does because of these staples. He calls this an "extension of human senses" because we are dependant upon the technology we are used to having to aid our daily lives.

Engelbart's examples of how technology can develop human intellect mirrors McLuhan but on a different level. He uses basic tasks of individuals and groups and then introduces technology that makes their lives easier and gives the ability to do these tasks much faster. He believes that human intelligence can be supplemented by using technology and; therefore, the technology is just enhancing what humans can currently achieve.

Williams' writing focuses on the societal function that automatically comes with new technology being introduced. He deals with the argument that television has caused bad habits and qualities among society. While McLuhan would focus on the technology of the television itself, Williams believes that with any technology, society takes on the responsibility of choosing what societal implication that technology will have. I like his point that the television had unforeseen consequences as it was not invented to function the way it has turned out. It was a modification, enhancement, and innovation of older media such as telegraphy, photography, radio, and motion pictures. The invention did not come from societal need, but from opportunity and possibility provided by enhancing technology that already existed.

I mostly agree with Williams in that I think technology itself holds some responsibility because it creates a function for a human, but I also believe that society makes a technology what it is to become by its interaction with it. It is the "chicken and egg" cliche we hear so much about. Technology drives society while society drives technology. I don't think one would advance without the other. And what good would technology be if it didn't give us the ability to enhance what we could do before it?

-theresa

He's Our Einstein

Okay, before I really expound upon the articles, ya have to understand: V. Bush serves to technical communication the role of Orson Wells to film. That is if Orson Wells had been born 30 years before the first film and suggested you use a flip book of photographs to perform his cinematic visions. Bush envisions hypertext, tags, electronic shopping, and digital scholarship from Victorian Web to Perseus. If you work in computers and rhetoric, you owe him a debt akin to what English literature owes Chaucer and Milton, combined.

From Bush:

Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified. The lawyer has at his touch the associated opinions and decisions of his whole experience, and of the experience of friends and authorities.

Replace memex with net and you have the most brazen prediction of a wiki pre-1994.

Englebart focuses on another revelation by Bush, the concept of what we now call tags, electronic codes that identify associated groups of discrete bits of knowledge. Englebart seems to conceptualize the collaborative uses of Bush from memex to database. He offers less speculation than Bush because he has better technology, but he also seems to settle for human to computer production with limited sharing capabilities (advanced for the time, but limited by Bush's view). There's a slight failure to embrace the human collaborative and sharing available in the furthest extent of Bush's ideas. However, he does comment upon associative 'linking' that will eventual suggest how we shape the interactive method of the early web. I think Englebart did wonders in moving Bush's theory to a working concept, even if his practical answers (limited by the card technology of his time) somewhat slowed the full promise of Bush's memex goal. However, he makes up for this by almost exactly predicting a type of HTML, though his HTML concept is too visible to the average user. The beauty of HTML is that Joe wouldn't have been puzzled after two minutes surfing the web revealed via clandestine code.

While I have fond hopes for many types of technology, I largely reject technological determinism, have for many years. So it likely isn't a huge surprise that I have issues with McLuhan. Consider this statement:

Consequently, he had nothing to report. Had his methods been employed in 1500 AD to discover the effects of the printed book in the lives of children or adults, he could have found out nothing of the changes in human and social psychology resulting from typography. Print created individualism and nationalism in the sixteenth century. Program and "content" analysis offer no clues to the magic of these media or to their subliminal charge.

Now, I believe print drastically affected global culture, but Kuhn, Hobbes, Kant, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, and a hundred others helped create many of the systems McLuhan attributes simply to print. They would have done so as orators, like Cicero and Plato before them, without it.

Form is important to understand, but McLuhan's argument of content having no place in understanding the affect of a form in the arena of social sciences lacks logical historical awareness, and uses anecdote in its place. The irony of McLuhan's strong Classical education in this fact does amuse me, however.

It is also important to note that people have always possessed some level of speciality(Farmers, Smiths, Tanners, and other Anglican surnames show this); even the invoked warrior class is a speciality, as was the ruling orator of classical times. Some hold more prestige than others, but specialization alone does not make one a slave.

I enjoyed Williams spelling out the history of invention with few value judgments. Saving the argument for later, after the facts are on the table, always promotes a more convincing case to me. I also tend to see social and technological evolution in resource and demand terms. Technology generally solves a problem, and the use of that technology might enhance the positive and/or negative aspects of any communal grouping. The society must own the purpose of the technology, actively and with great awareness.

Better Living Through Technology

Where to begin? There was a lot here for me to chew on, particularly with the Chapter reading from Web Theory. I took a lot of notes on that one. (Trying to get into the habit of annotating whatever I read and getting it into Endnotes.)

I thought that Web Theory gave a good introduction to the, conscious or unconscious, theoretical positions of the rest of the readings. The key idea was the technological determinist perspective, i.e. that technology has the capacity to fundamentally transform the society. Certainly this was a part of the perspective of early theorists of the history of human development (i.e. Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, etc.). This perspective sees a natural progress and evolutionary development for culture and society based on technical achievements that take us to the next level. (Sounds a bit like a video game, doesn't it?)

To be honest, I was a bit surprised that they found such a positive twist early on. Much of my reading on technology prior to 1995 is decidedly pessimistic about the advance of technology, and it seems that popular culture reflected this, from Star Wars (the heros were more “natural” and used less advanced technology) to Wars Games (the hero must save the world from technology run amuk). People seemed to fear that the machines would take us over and we would become the cyborg. Feminist nightmares had men turning women into robots in Stepford, and even technology-friendly popular culture had androids dreaming of being human on the bridge of a starship while menaced by a collective of cyborgs. This was supported by articles I’d read in the popular press that seemed to say users of the technology were social misfits doing dangerous things.

Perhaps though, I wasn't looking far enough back. The readings begin in the 1940's and do seem to reflect the overall positive view of science (Better Living Through Chemistry!) and technical progress.

Bush points out that science has enabled our society to extend our physical effect on the world and control the material environment. In this article he argues that we should turn that same innovative effort towards improving the capture and taming of a growing body of knowledge - the material products of the mind. He makes the case for this by pointing out how Mendel's work was lost for so long because the methods by which to disseminate it to those who could build upon it were imperfect and then takes us on a tour of the kinds of innovations of science that might be able to achieve this goal. (Interestingly, it seem to me that he focuses on film, and the products of photography as a storage medium for this knowledge; his mention of computers seems to relegate them to mere mechanical input device that will eventually be able to read the film and do calculations.) I was rather impressed by how close his vision of the "mechanized private file and library" is to the environment in which we now exchange information on the Internet as was his vision of association of information to linking and searching online.

The key here however, is that Bush's perspective is an example of technological determinist one. He argues that technology, when properly applied, will have the capacity to fundamentally transform society by giving us "access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages". It is certainly a positive one as well. There are no pessimistic visions or dire warnings over the use of any technology (not even when he mentions the physicists role in producing "strange destructive gadgets" (what an euphemism for the atomic bomb!).

The Menlo Park report by D.C. Engelbart takes Bush's challenge and run with it. He envisions the solution as an improved interface between man and the machine, one that connect the individual in every direction (networks) to information and communication possibilities.
I have to mention that the first line of the abstract seems a bit grandiose to me, "an project taking a new and systematic approach to improvin[g] the intellectual effectiveness of the individual human being." But Engelbart is a pioneer in the world of computing and much of what we use today began at Menlo park. The results were networked computers, graphical user interfaces and the mouse we use everyday to navigate our screens. He was involved early on with ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet. I found this article fascinating to read, knowing what would follow from this project. Again, this article highlights a technological deterministic approach - the power of technology over culture.

I'll have to stop here, since I'm still reading McLuhan, Rodgers and Williams.

To be honest, the readings assigned for this section were hard for me to get through. I had to read over a couple of them more than once to understand what was being said. And I'm not quite sure if I understand it now!

In "As We May Think" Bush begins by talking about different technological devices of the past such as wet photography and the photocell. He goes into great detail to describe technology used in each device and offer thoughts on what will happen in the future, including a machine called the Memex. It was really interesting to read his description of the Memex and think about the modern computer. I wonder what Bush would think of today's computers...I also feel like he believes more in the technology than the human interaction with the product. He also discusses how we use technology to make things easier and how technology is evolving to become more efficient and easier to operate.

Engelbart discusses Buh in his article, in fact, he quote him directly throughout most of the article when discussing technology and human intellect. He seems to suggest that advances in technology will advance human intellect. Engelbart states that one of the quickest gains in increased intellectual effectiveness is "developing new methods of thinking and working that allow the human to capitalize upon the computer's help". I feel like Engelbart and Bush see computers and technology as a way to make things easier.

McLuhan makes the case that the medium is the message. He states, "the 'content' of any medium is always another medium". He also says that the message of any technology is the "change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces to human affairs". From what I gather he, like Bush and Engelbart, see technology as an aide to humans and intellect.

In "The Technology and the Society" Williams uses the television to discuss the effects of technology on society. He presents a history of television and how society has been affected by it and other innovations. In Diffusion of Innovation, Rogers discusses how technology has trickled down through society. 

All of these articles seem to discuss the effect of technology on society and how different innovations have affected us as a society. Each author took a different approach to get to that point. 

Necessity is the mother of invention

The key issue that jumps out from the readings is the question of technological determinism. In other words, does the technology determine culture, or does culture determine how we use technology? McLuhan, obviously, was a large proponent of the idea of technological determinism. The media is the message basically means that the technology creates a social change. The technology we use influences every aspect of our lives and, in turn, influences our culture.

In The Technology and the Society, the author states that the idea of technological determinism has been mostly dispelled or quantified. The author talks about the idea of "cultural determinism," or the idea that our culture leads to new technology. Technology exists because of either a cultural proclivity towards that particular technology or a cultural need for that technology.

In his writings from 1945, Bush seems to embrace what Williams called "cultural determinism." Bush talks at length of the need of for a system of "storage, retrieval, and manipulation of information. Bush focuses on a problem in scientific research that could be solved by enhanced technology. From this perspective, it is the culture that is in effect creating the technology. The question can be posed: would anyone develop a technology for the storage and retrieval of data if there was not a proven use for the technology?

The Diffusion of Innovation Theory talks about innovators creating a technology, early adopters come next and eventually the technology reaches a certain point of saturation in the culture and it is adopted by the masses. There are many examples throughout history of technologies that are created, deemed innovative, and are never fully adopted by the culture for some reason. Looking at the idea of technological determinism from this perspective, it seems less likely that research and development can take place within an independent sphere. If the general population has no use for the technology, it will not be adopted. Laser discs, the BetaMax and now, HD DVDs come to mind.

The readings are basically asking us to think about the question; which came first the chicken or the egg? Doe technology determine culture or does culture determine technology. It seems at times that there is a very fuzzy line between the two. I personally like to think back to the old adage "Necessity is the mother of invention."

Where's My "Stuff"

I think it was George Carlin back in the 70s that did a routine about people’s stuff, how we describe our stuff, what we do with our stuff, where we put our stuff and how are stuff defines us as individuals. One overlying theme that I seemed to detect in the writings of Bush, Williams, McLuhan and Englebart was how media systems have interacted with society and developed into the systems that they eventually evolved into. Our collective “stuff” as a society of information and data, images and sounds shaped and molded media systems to determine how they would be used by society.

 McLuhan after all says the medium is the message. He states that the personal and social consequences of any medium, that is, 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 (McLuhan). I took that to be that as new technologies come along we as a society decide how or if we will interact and develop these technologies to better serve us.

 Williams article entitled The Technology and the Society does a good job at briefly documenting the course of history for such technologies as electricity, telegraphy, photography, television and radio. He describes how over the course of time these new technologies interacted with society and even sometimes with each other to develop into social icons. He states that the “effects” of these technologies remains superficial if we don’t look at the notions of cause and effect, as between a technology and a society, a technology and a culture, a technology and a psychology, which underlie our questions and may determine our answers (Williams).  Once again pointing out the connection between how society determines the uses of media. Williams also points to the history of these technologies as were no one simple event or even series of events, but rather they depended on a complex of inventions and developments in electricity, television, photography, telegraphy and radio.

 Bush also deals with the elements of processing data and our desire or need for these processes to work faster. Some of the concepts and ideas that he was talking about in 1945 were an almost dead on look into the future. Science has provided the swiftest communication between individuals; it has provided a record of ideas and has enabled man to manipulate and to extract ideas from that record so that knowledge evolves and endures throughout the life of a race rather than that of an individual (Bush). This seems to put the idea of society and our collective “stuff” on the shoulders of new media, how we as a society interpret and manipulate these technologies not at the individual level, but rather on the entire race. And how over time we determine or create how they will be used.

 Engelbart in fact uses Bush’s ideas as a jumping off point for his Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework article. In his file system he refers to his “stuff,” thought, fact, consideration concepts, ideas, worries, etc., that are relevant to a given problem area in his professional life as “kernels” of data (Engelbart). He goes on to talk about how and where he can store and arrange these “kernals” to maximize his ability to sort through and index his “stuff.”

 So one theme I found throughout the readings was that of information and data and how it’s ability to be disseminated by society is for the most part shaped by society. And in another theme, but maybe not as prevalent, was that of speed. How can we sort and manage this “stuff” faster and more efficiently. McLuhan refers to it as “electric speed” and Bush states the cathode ray tube rendering visible an occurrence so brief that by comparison a microsecond is a long time. Engelbart also has issues with his file system through trial and error to make his side notched cards faster and more efficient to better serve his needs.

 In my opinion Bush, Williams and Engelbart appeared to be referring more about the content of our collective “stuff” and how we as a society have manipulated the storing, moving, viewing and listening of our “stuff” to better serve our needs. While McLuhan reminds us that it is not the content of our stuff that shapes those needs but rather the medium itself. 

New Mediums, Connections, Predictions.

Marshall McLuhan’s “Understanding Media, The Extension of Man” was about countless historic details, anecdotes, and praises to “The medium” which the article defined as the “message.”
Since I am relatively new to the whole word of new media, its context, tools, goals, and the direction it is going, I will admit that I was more than confused by the information presented in the pages. I do understand that McLuhan gathered a collection of different cultures by applying different values of globalization, which were written by writers, theorist and people from different backgrounds.
McLuhan is very analytical to each medium form and how they change societies and the world with the informational content transmitted through each. The only thing that I was somewhat confused about was his definition on “Hot and Cold mediums.” I didn’t know if that was by popularity or usage. I kind of got the feeling it was more about usage?
I believe that McLuhan differs from the other authors because he believes that the message is exemplified by the usage of the medium and what is transmitted. “Understanding Media, The Extension of Man,” came across that no matter how much work we put into the mediums all the work is still the same, as McLuhan used “mechanization” to describe in many anecdotes. If there was one thing that I did understand, it was the simple characteristics of what new media was, which is the manifestation of all other mediums, that is why we cannot define it sometimes because we don’t really know where to start, but where it ends, if it ever does, shapes the form of human association.
‘As We May Think’ by Vannevar Bush gives insight to his argument about scientist making efforts to collections of accessible knowledge.
His perspective is that scientist should turn to the pursuit of more knowledge and attempt tasks worthy of their best production. The article talks about the benefits of that science has produced such as ‘giving control of the material environment to man,’ vast knowledge of his genetic process so that he has freedom from disease and an increased span of life’ and ‘science has provided the swiftest communication between individuals.’
The article then leads into conventional record keeping to store data by using film, photography, printing, wax disks and magnetic wires and that these items are in the process of modification and extension.
Bush believes man must elevate his work and finding if he wishes to better understand and analyze the complex society in which he created, so that he can come to a logical conclusion.
Bush credits science on being so beneficial since it has helped man “build a well-shaped house, and is teaching him to live healthy therein.” Because of its date, the central theme of this article is safe to say that it is a prediction of many tools of technology that were on the path or soon to be invented.
Raymond William’s approach to television was interesting, especially his concept of “flow” which is the primary or gaining principle of television. It is a compilation of program segments, commercials and other materials that make up the existence.
I was intrigued by Williams’ attempts to discuss the effect of television on social behavior and the effects of the relationship between technology and psychology.
He analyzes uses of technology being a cause and the usage of its control effects or its modification. He presents a synopsis of different causes and effects and whether we should relate our experience of its uses, therefore social and cultural arguments are presented.
He hit three points in his chapter, 1) cause and effects in technology, 2) the social history of television as a technology, 3) and its uses. The general statement is television has altered the world. This article illustrates the significance of its effects in the societal standards and morals, which we created the accidental dilemmas.
Our values make things (mediums) powerful or weak, not the technology. “Its significance lies in its uses, which are held to be symptomatic of some order of society or some qualities of human nature which are otherwise determined.”
To me, the debate seems to be how to categorize the medium that changes lives, but it is so abstract when processing it through a scientific standpoint. That is why each view is sterile and it is left with a theoretical assumption or consequential interpretation. Therefore, a cooperative intellectual effort is required. I think breaking it down through this scientific process would agree to Williams' way of furthering it from technological deterism.
In conclusion, the author’s are fascinating because they basically predicted the future and where digitalization was going. After warfare, scientists challenged themselves, it is one thing to produce new inventions but prediction is phenomenal.
They articles connect because the ideas are influential by change, therefore technology, science and mass communication have created the extension which scientists aimed for, it’s called the media.
Just to add something extra, with the magic bullet theory (or hypodermic needle theory) declining in the early 1970s, a new theory sought to be developed so that there could be an emergence of a new perspective on media’s effect on society. One of the most popular theories to arise was the cultivation theory.
Theorist George Gerbner developed the cultivation theory around 1976. Gerbner’s theory contends that the mass medium of television has become the present day storyteller. The theory started with the cultivation hypothesis, which attempted to understand how heavy exposure to cultural imagery could shape a viewer’s concept of reality. Even though Williams' article was written in 1972 and Gerbner’s theory was erected in 1976, it was in works of publication in the early 1960’s. It was in his publication of Toward a General Theory of Communication, under Professor James D. Finn, that Gerbner’s cultivation theory began. Gerbner initiated extensive research on the “Cultural Indicators Project” in the early 1960s. Stemming from the work and information on the “Cultural Indicators Research Project,” Gerbner was able to facilitate the cultural analysis research strategy to back his theory on television’s cultivation on societal minds. I listed this because Williams' information sounded inaccurate about there not being any works of this medium when there was.

The Media: Cause or Effect?

The Technology and the Society by Raymond Williams really seems to link each of these articles together. In his discussion of whether technology (television in this instance) can be seen as a cause of society, an effect of society, or both, he cites both Engelbart and McLuhan while alluding to many of Bush's main tenets. The overriding theme of each of these pieces is the idea that since the media are influenced by society (a changing and evolving force), the media should be seen not necessarily as a tool but as an extension of society. Similarly, Marshall points out that in today's "Age of Anxiety," a medium may control the way we associate and act, but it does not control society as a whole. According to Bush, even in 1945, "new and powerful instrumentalities" are coming into play and it is important to understand that society and the media operate hand-in-hand.

Bush's speculations on future technology along with Engelbart's concept of human intellect augmentation illustrate how we may use technology to solve problems and make human life easier. In Engelbart's "bootstrapping" idea, "users are continually involved in the ongoing definition and construction of the tools that they as a community will use" (Williams). Each of these texts link our interaction with technology as primarily user-generated and directly related to human evolution. Similarly, "new media" and the internet "was created and is still being created by social processes interacting with scientific/technical processes" (Williams).  It is interesting to see even today how much easier and efficient it is to see a weather forecast or discover new recipes than it may have been 10 years ago.

While each of these texts are similar, several key differences set them each apart.  For example, it seems that Bush's text viewed technology as more mechanical than humanity-driven.  Whille proving that the mechanics follow some form of human thought, he also goes into detail of each medium's technical inter-workings and points out differences between the human mind and machines, mentioning that "memory is transitory" and "items are not fully permanent."  This shows less of a cause/effect relationship and more of an "extension" concept.  Meanwhile, McLuhan links automation with the thought process and shows how the "medium is the message" - "it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action."  In this way, his "technical determinist" viewpoint illustrates the concept that technology affects culture.  Raymond Williams' views compare and contrast each viewpoint, providing ample reasoning for each and exploring thought-provoking questions on the matter.  Finally, Engelbart proves that humans have a direct causal relationship with the media.  He writes how computers are used to solve human problems and augment human thought.  This makes the media more of a "tool" (though not completely) and an effect of humankind.

Importance of the social in technology and its diffusion

Raymond Williams recognized the often taken for granted power that communication between individuals has on the diffusion of any innovation. Understanding interpersonal communication, which is just transmission of ideas between individuals is requisite to the process of diffusion. Appeals to logic and reason are less important than who the agent for change communicates with. Focusing too much on the technology will harm its potential for diffusion. One must study the cultural/societal system in order to understand how best to market an object of diffusion. Williams' example of water boiling in a Peruvian village is the clearest model for how not to approach diffusion. This approach is very much tied to McLuhan's ideas about tribal and literate cultures. This is ironic in that McLuhan comes across as more of a technological determinist and positivist, but nevertheless, his arguments about how tribal and literate cultures communicate differently could not be more accurate. As McLuhan states, "the latest approach to media study considers not only the content, but the medium and the cultural matrix within which the particular medium operates."

McLuhan's notion that the medium is the message is often misunderstood. What McLuhan means by this is that the medium creates and introduces a new dimension that alters human relations. McLuhan's best example is " For the "message" of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs. The railway did not introduce movement or transportation or wheel or road into human society, but it accelerated and enlarged the scale of previous human functions, creating totally new kinds of cities and new kinds of work and leisure. This happened whether the railway functioned in a tropical or a northern environment, and is quite independent of the freight or content of the railway medium. The airplane, on the other hand, by accelerating the rate of transportation, tends to dissolve the railway form of city, politics, and association, quite independently of what the airplane is used for." The medium's importance and influence are often taken for granted, while message content usually gets the lion's share of analysis.

Williams further illustrates this point by stating "what many cultural determinists are in danger of missing: the things themselves matter." This is just another way of saying that the medium is the message. He goes on to state that "technologies aren't invented from thin air.:

Bush outlines the description of a device that resembles a modern computer equipped with the high-speed internet and the latest gui operating system, quite an innovation. His predictions are somewhat remarkable. What must be realized is that innovations do not occur in a cultural vacuum. No doubt, Bush's vision was influenced by what was happening during the time he wrote this article, and no doubt that he influenced in some way the technology as it exists today.

Englebart thoroughly discusses the conceptual framework of augmenting human capabilities, which are of course related to the diffusion of innovation. He even directly quotes Bush's article as an example of how we can augment our capabilities.

Now we are in an age of technoculture, but interpersonal communication is still central in propagating innovations, which increasingly augment human capacity to produce and destroy. The importance of the medium in this process cannot be underestimated.

Coming to terms with the fact that, yes, I am falling for new media

Hi everyone. I'm Maira Garcia. I graduated from Texas State this past December with a BA in print journalism and political science. Currently, I am the editor in chief of The University Star, which explains why I post stuff at 3 a.m. I also work with MTV's Choose or Lose campaign creating multimedia on youth and the 2008 elections for think.mtv.com, which is very exciting. Check out my Think profile and see my latest video. It just got featured on the front page.

Anyway, I felt I didn't have enough real-world experience to jump into a career after graduation, so I decided graduate school would be a good thing to pursue because I am interested in research, learning more about mass communication and honing my skills overall so I can be competitive in the job market. Considering all these things, I realized how important it is for mass communicators to understand new media, especially those in the print field. Until recently, I thought print journalism was the avenue I wanted to pursue, but I know the industry is changing and not know what new media and how to use it could hurt my chances of being a successful journalist.

So finally, my definition of new media is simply written media as we know it, digitized and "glammed up" for faster processing and reception. I felt Dennis Baron's examination of writing techonology explained it best. Writing techonologies and attitudes toward them change over time, with each new techonology becoming more acceptable and desired than the previous. The pencil is to the telegraph as the telephone is to the television and the television to the computer. We are trying to accomplish the same purpose with each technology, receiving information. It's just one does it faster and perhaps better than the one before it.

What's most fascinating about new media to me is, as Manovich states, is the variability. Variability also indicates it can be customized to a person's taste, which is what Web 2.0 has afforded us. Not only are we able to receive information when we want it, but how we want it as well.

New media? Help, please!

Good evening, all!

Heather, here. I’m an analyst in the Advertising department at the Statesman. While my degree is in advertising from Texas State, the work I do is more on the business side than creative. Put simply, I play with numbers and make spreadsheets pretty all day.

For me, new media is any technological advancement (whether it be current, or slightly less than) affecting communication that I don’t yet understand . . . which includes most things these days. Lately I feel that I’m not as technologically savvy as I should be. I work in a traditional media environment, so I feel like my exposure to new technology is limited. While the paper does have an amazing assortment of online products for readers and advertisers, I feel like I’m definitely falling behind the herd in the rush to play with all the new toys.

iPhone? MacBook? Eeeeek!! I’m clueless. And don’t even get me started on the whole BluRay business. It doesn’t matter how many times the nice man at Best Buy explains it to me. I just don’t get it. If you can give it to me in layman’s terms (and it doesn’t include an example of how the porn industry dictates video technology), I’m all ears!!

As for the reading, what struck me most was something simple Negroponte said in the handout. “Computing is not about computers anymore . . . it’s about living.” Talk about a true statement. I cannot function at school, home, or work without my laptop or desktop. So I’m certain now that I definitely need to know more about new media!

Defining New Media

Hi, my name is Cherie Rivero. I graduated from UT Austin last May with a B.S. in radio-television-film and this is my second semester at Texas State. I have been fascinated with the Internet and new media since I was a thirteen year old girl talking to my little girlfriends on AOL's instant messaging system. Since then I've been fascinated with the web and the social aspect of chatrooms, instant messaging and now the social networking sites. I, like some of my colleagues, also feel that studying new media will give us a leg up in any career that we choose, because it is the future of communications. My definition of new media is the cutting edge technology that is being thought of at this very moment. The definition of new media is constantly changing because there will always be something new in technology and especially in this time of rapidly changing technology, new media is redefined everyday. Lev Manovich says that new media are characterized by variability. New media are the applications used in our digital world today with many choices, tailored to our every need, as opposed to the analog applications made for homogeneous audiences. The concept that I saw in most of the articles was the change from analog to digital, pencils to pixles, atoms to bits. This is the overarching theme of new media and its definition. Today the new medium is the digital world that we are living in.

New to me now, old to me tomorrow

Hi All,
My name is Dee Kapila. Here are the essentials:
-Moved to the US from Curacao, Netherlands Antilles in 2001 to go to UT.
-Graduated in 2005, BS in Creative Advertising (copywriting sequence) and minor in Business Foundations.
- Worked for a 1-1.5 years, the most depressing time in my life thus far, but did discover a slew of amazing takeout restaurants, most of which Chinese, so all was not in vain
-Came to Texas State in '07, this is my last semester!
-I live in Hyde Park, in central Austin, same neighborhood as Cindy, and I bet we're both pretty proud of it-its really great and I don't ever want to move.
-I speak 4 languages, just purchased some French cds from half price to listen to on my commute, so hopefully will soon speak 5.
-Love videogames, dogs, guacamole, fashion, music
-Am addicted to internet
-Favorite band: Hot Chip Favorite movie: Mirrormask, featuring the art of my favorite artist, Dave Mckean Favorite show: Lost Favorite color: Red Favorite author: Kurt Vonnegut

Now, the educational stuff:

Before doing the assigned reading:

Before I attempt the assigned readings, I’d like to define “new media” and what it means to me. Currently, when I think of new media, the first thing that pops into my head is social networking sites- I think of myspace, facebook, all those sites we all deny we spend way too much time on. I think of blogging as probably the eldest sibling of new media. It’s taking media as being this sort of vehicle that others feed to US, and making it into something we not only consume but can potentially feed to OTHERS. I think today’s new media is tomorrow’s slightly older media, but whatever it is, it will be a two-way system of communication that allows us to much more conveniently, efficiently, and frequently communicate with one another. I also associate new media with being paperless. Now, let me do some reading and see what I think after.

After doing the assigned reading:

According to Manovich, my previous definition is more cyberculture than new media. He defines cyberculture as the “study of various social phenomena associated with Internet and other new forms of network communication.” He goes on to define new media as “computer technology used as a distribution platform.” His definition is a lot broader than mine, because it includes advertising and film, whereas mine did not. A prime example of Manovich’s broader definition would be the recent promotions for the new Batman film, The Dark Knight. The studios have invested in loads of viral marketing, which would fall under Manovich’s definition of new media, and not my previous one. I previously simply considered that Alternative advertising. To read more about the Dark Knight’s marketing/new media efforts, you may check out http://www.firstshowing.net/2007/12/05/the-dark-knights-viral-marketing-gets-very-real-cakes-cell-phones-and-all/

(p.s. is anyone else shocked by the random death of actor Heath Ledger, who is the Batman franchise’s new Joker today? Well they just released an article that said his family found out about his death from the media. The quickest media vehicles today are blogs, and they were quicker than mainstream news outlets to report his death, so there’s another example of new media at work for you, in a sort of heart-breaking way. )

Back to the point: Manovich seems to crave a broader definition for new media because he doesn’t want it to “lose any specificity.” Manovich also considers computer/video games as part of new media. This excites me because perhaps in the future, children will be required to take video gaming classes in school. You laugh at me, but I cannot tell you how much I have learned about myself and life from video games. Go on, laugh. We’ll see which one of our kids gets straight As in Texas State’s future VIDEO GAME concentration in the department of Mass Comm. Or CommDes. Or wherever it ends up. Anyway, this is pleasantly surprising. I accept your definition Mr. Manovich!

Manovich also looks at software such as Final Cut Pro and Photoshop as being part of new media. This is something I would not have thought to include in my definition although it is definitely entrenched in much of the internet based information we consume. This technology is constantly developing and coming out with new versions, and these new versions become new versions of new media. However, this means we should probably consider Microsoft office new media, and I just don’t think the definition should apply to EVERYTHING computer related. This sort of seems to be the way Manovich is heading.