Requiem of for the Media - Jean Baudrillard

Whenever I feel like I've got a handle on a class reading that's usually when I run into trouble.  So let's roll the dice.  

I think Baudrillard's piece is trying to say that there is now a convergence between new media technologies and society needs which could be addressed by them.  But I think he's asking where it goes from there in terms of interactivity.  He states that Marxist theory may not be able to be applied to media in general, although I'm guessing it can still be applied to the mainstream media business.  

Picking up where I left off with my last post:

 "The mass media are anti-mediatory and intransitive.  They  fabricate non-communication - this is what characterizes them, if one agrees to define communication as an exchange, as a reciprocal space of a speech and a response, and thus of a responsibility (not a phychological or moral responsibility, but a personal, mutual correlation in exchange). We must understand communication as something other than the simple transmission-reception of a message, whether or not the latter is considered reversible through feedback.  Now, the totality of the existing architecture of the media founds itself on this latter definition: they are what always prevents response, making all processes of exchange impossible (except in the various forms of response simulation, themselves integrated in the transmission process, thus leaving the unilateral nature of the communication intact).  This is the real abstraction of the media. And the system of social control and power is rooted in it. "

Right on Jean. That was probably true at publication in '72 up until present day, But now Google, 

The poster child of the web, is pushing hard for the alternative, two way communication using print (this blogging platform), interactive video (Youtube)... unfortunately the issue of control has been replaced by ownership. With Google services you are in control of your message (yes even in McLuhan's 

framework, because you can customize the various media platforms with plug-ins and devise your own

delivery methods, i.e. I could project a youtube video on to the side of an elephant if I got tired of my 

17" LCD Fujitsu monitor), but they own the content, which they use to generate contextual PPC 

advertising which they get paid for, handsomely (Google earned $6.67 zillion billion on ads in the 4Q 

'09)

A Theory of the Media - Enzenberger

A Theory of the Media

Enzenberger

Does new media open the door to the possibility of social change?  Can the fragmentation it causes be re-assembled into a collective that overcomes the controlling messages of traditional media?  

I'm thinking about something in political science they call "soft power", that is the ability manipulate a subject not through force but by ideas, most commonly cultural ideas.  Much like factory food production works,  the strategy is usually employed by taking top down created messages, usually starting with an organic seed of an idea, and reformulating and reprocessing it to scale. It is then introduced at the lowest income/education levels of society, in the hope that it mimics the overlying message and creates a mirror image of it.  That is the traditional method of wielding soft power, both domestically and aboard.  

But what if the process of creation, distribution, and promotion of ideas through media was more organic all the way through, organic meaning coming from individuals or groups of individuals who are unmotivated or less motivated by profit or political gain?  This way the stranglehold on the ability to mobilize and influence is loosened and that ability is more democratically available.  This is where I think the concept of new media fits nicely.   

At the time of Enzenberger's writing, new media was either just being birthed or in its infancy stage.  Recording equipment was just becoming available to the consumer after the technology had mostly been exclusively in the hands of large for-profit entities for most of the media age.  At that time media creation was democratized but its distribution potential was extremely limited, exemplified by the popularity of the "home movie".  These home movies were mostly distributed among immediate personal networks.  It took 20-30 years for that new media to further evolve with digital capture, reproduction, and distribution aided by parallel development of augment broadband network capacity.  During this time of market driven development, new media lost significant popular momentum since its original debut, those who historically held the power of media were given time to figure out how to co-opt it as their own and  either hedge against it by dampening its effects or by adopt it into their strategy.  Despite this, when (near) fully democratic access to creation, distribution, and promotion hit the scene, with major money and brand backing from companies such  as"South-East Asia Inc.'s" video recorders ($115),  Google Inc's Youtube ($0), and Facebook Inc's social networking platform ($0), adding the to media conversation became as purely financially expensive as pair of high-tech sneakers.

This wide availability of technology has caught on hugely with a certain segment of the global youth population.  While people who grew up with the old media model have made the transition into this new interactive media environment, this generation has completely embodied it.  The challenge that those of us who still work off a hybrid model mentality see with the new media is preserving quality. Sure there are billions of people creating and uploading videos every day to the internet but most of them lack the insight, experience, and production values to be of lasting cultural value, rather than mere personal/informational/political value. That's the difference between viral video and Kurosawa flicks.  But that is small barrier to overcome and there is anecdotal evidence of progress on that front.   We continue to hold out hope for new media because we know that "the message is the medium" and the new medium is democratically held where the old medium is not.  

The Medium is the Message - Marshall McLuhan

The Medium is the Message

Marshall McLuhan

At first it sounds strange that the medium is the message. This is what it means to me: "Whether you 

broadcast something on TV or screen in a projection theater is more important than what is playing on 

that screen." Sure, new delivery methods change the way we interact (iphone you can play YouTube 

clips to people in a parking lot, while TV or Theater is less passive) but who cares about the technology or dimensions of the screen? It's what's in that magic box that's making me laugh.  

But... judging from how I was forced to throw in the towel on the last post, I'm not sure that McLuhan's 

argument is so simplistic. What I think McLuhan is really getting at is a deeper human order/interaction as a result of the medium. It's easier to understand when you broaden the use of the word medium 

beyond its commonly understood limits. Here, McLuhan uses the examples of the railway and the airplane as a media. He states:

" 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 northern environment, and is quite independent of the freight or content of the railway medium.  The airplane on the other hand tends to dissolve the railway form of city, politics, and association, quite independently of what the airplane is used for.     

But what about other objects besides the TV and transport vehicles which have no "content"?  Like for instance the electric light.  Now first I'll say that this example of an electric light as media seems completely alien.  It can be used as a means for communicating (signal communication, LED matrices) but they also, "...eliminate time and space factors in human association exactly as do radio, telegraph, telephone, and TV, creating involvement in depth."

So before I start to question what functionality has to do with its message and medium, I'll just try this out: A medium can be anything that affects human interaction, and serves as the pivotal point which buttresses activity back and forth.   

The Galaxy Reconfigured - Marshall McLuhan

The Galaxy Reconfigured

Marshall McLuhan

1. It would take me a one whole semester to understand the The Gutenberg Galaxy
2. It would take me two whole semesters to understand all of the additional references (mis-quoted Shakespeare, Joyce's Ulysses, Rimbaud, Ruskin, et. all)
3. It would take me one additional semester to effectively comprehend McLuhan's reconfigured Galaxy. 

Ball-park figure = 2 years

NEXT

P.S.  This helps my feelings of ineptitude Lol     

The Construction of Change - Roy Ascott

The Construction of Change 

 Roy Ascott

The British seem to have the ability to summarize important concepts.  Here, artist/technologist//writer/teacher Roy Ascott does that very well:

Art and Didactics

"

• Culture has been well defined as 'the sum of all the learned behaviors that exist in a given locality.'
• The work of art occupies a pivotal point between the two sets of behavior, the artist's and the spectators.  
• Consequently the artist would do well to examine with some precision the nature of the special activity which gives rise to his own art.
• 'An organism is most efficient when it knows its own internal order.'

• The didactics of art, set against the discoveries of science, have concerned many artists in the past
• All art is, in some sense, didactic: every artist is, in some way, setting out to instruct. For instruction we mean to give direction, and that is precisely what all great art does."
• Art Shapes Life
• Through his work the artist learns to understand his existence
• Through culture it informs, art becomes a force for change in society
• The most extensive changes in our environment can be attributed to science and technology
• The artist's moral responsibility demands that he should attempt to understand these changes.  Some real familiarity with scientific thought is indispensible to him.  It is not enough to accept our condition, or simply enjoy it.

• The artist functions socially on a symbolic level.  He acts out the role of the free man par excellence.
• Creative leaps are taken in science also. Science seeks to reduce the unpredictable to measurable limits.
• While it may have a symbolic or ritualistic function, it is generally see (sic) to operate in the practical works in consort with practical power.
• The culture to which art contributes, although it works without practical power, is responsible to a considerable extent for the director to which society moves
• It stands for that optimum of control and creativity to which man's practical life constantly aspires

"

"Happenings" in the New York Scene - Allan Kaprow

"Happenings" in the New York Scene"

Allan Kaprow

The "Happenings" sound pretty cool.  It would probably be exciting to be a part of one.  I don't think I would contribute much at first, but if I saw some creative stuff "happening" I would probably want to contribute.  It's too bad they don't "happen" any more.  Maybe they outlived their function.  Did their original initiators really think that they would still be popping up  40-50 years later?  I doubt it.  Although the idea of the "happening" is a timeless concept concerning spontaneity, discovery, and social participation, the happenings were very much of the moment, just like a Jackson Pollack painting is cherished today, but not often replicated in its technique.  Or maybe the environment, which Kaprov described as critical, was snatched up from undernear (or above) it.  Just like Kaprov says:

" I think that today this organic connection between art and its environment is so meaningful and necessary that removing own from the other results in abortion.  Yet the artists who have made us aware of this lifeline deny it; for the flattery of being "on show" blinds them to every insensitivity heaped upn their suddenly weakened offerings.  There seems no end to the white walls, the tasteful alluminum frames, the lovely lighting, fawn gray rugs, cocktails, polite conversation.  The attitude, I mean the worldview, conveyed by such fluorescent reception is in itself not "bad".  It is unaware.  And being unaware, it can hardly be responsive to the art it promotes and professes to admire.

 Happenings invite us to cast aside for a moment these proper manners and partake wholly in the real nature of the art and (one hopes) life.  Thus a Happening is rough and sudden and often feels "dirty."  Dirt, we might begin to realize, is also organic and fertile, and everything, including the vistors, can grow a little in such circumstances.

 Now anything can "happen" anywhere.  And according to Kaprov they did, "...Osaka, San Francisco, Chicago, Cologne, Paris, Milan...", but I think the "dirt" or more accurately fertile soil he was talking about, could only come from one place at that time, downtown NewYork, where you not only had a gathering of intellectually aspiring people but also  the cross-currents of money, information, talent, and global participants in the blocks above and below it. These things in concert indirectly or directly helped support the movement or at least propelled it in the opposite direction .  Today that downtown is not just surrounded by those currents, but is in fact drowning in them, displacing the dirt, the seeds, and to a certain extent the record. The question is where will the runoff be deposited ?  ?  ?   

But maybe they're not gone forever, maybe they have simple shifted somewhere where they could find temporary space until it could set up at a more permanent location on terrestrial ground.  Recently we've seen to the closest thing resembling a revival of the happenings in quite a while.  Maybe its a sign of a shell-shocked society peeking out of their shells.  Time will tell if new media ever provides the bridge back to the spirit that inspired original happenings.... despite some peoples' best efforts...      

        

Augmenting Human Intellect - Douglas Engelbart

Augmenting Human Intellect

Douglas Engelbart

I'm going to offer commentary on the Engelbart reading instead of trying to deconstruct it.  The guy is obviously very smart - more than inventing the computer mouse, the word processor, and the document link (not hypertext) (score x 3) - he outlines a conceptual framework for human computer interaction, following up very closely the work of Licklider and Bush.  Extremely impressive stuff.  But here's the comment, and the resulting question.  He describes this system using academic language that drives the reader up a wall.  And we're not talking about comic book readers here, we're talking about college educated students and college graduates who are used to deciphering complex theories, especially people  who've been using "intelligent machines" virtually all their lives.  Personally, reading Engelbart's work makes me feel like I'm trying to squeeze my entire brain through a pin-hole.  Does writing like this serve a functional purpose?  Is it some sort of academic code that must be followed by anyone who wants an academic piece published?  My aim is not to whine and complain, but obviously there's a problem with having to jump through hoops (or pin-holes) to access someone's valuable insight.  I think he might have been better served publishing a "junior edition"  of "Augmenting Human Intellect"  directly to the people in something like Newsweek or Time where it could receive maximum exposure rather than let a few  top scientists pick over it, criticize it, and filter it down to the masses.  Maybe this is why few people remember Engelbart for anything except inventing the mouse (more people credit Apple, who commercialized it).  Contrast that with Vannevar Bush's article "As We May Think", which according to the foreword for that article in the NMR says that Ted Nelson (who took Engelbart's concept of intra-text linking and applied it to inter-document linking with the hyperlink) remembers his grandfather reading it to him aloud at the dinner table from Atlantic Monthly.  Now maybe that's unfair to Engelbart, maybe he couldn't get published by anyone other than the Stanford Research Institute (if that's such a lowly honor), and maybe his work didn't become significant until people realized after the fact how prescient it was.  But idk... it's just wicked hard.  

Man-Computer Symbiosis-J.C.R. Licklider

Man-Computer Symbiosis

J.C.R. Licklider
 

Licklider picks up where Wiener left off with cybernetics. It's a much more optimistic view of technology than Wiener's.  Licklider focuses on how the interaction could benefit not just him personally in his research but all people.  He proposes that we should let computers facilitate formulative thinking as they now facilitate the solution to formulated problems and to enable men and computers to cooperate in making decisions and controlling complex situations without inflexible dependence on predetermined programs.

Where Wiener talks about homeostasis Licklider talks about symbiosis, two similar but unrelated concepts.  From Wiener's reading we learned that homeostasis allows machines to self-regulate and take over jobs from humans.  Licklider introduces symbiosis which is a mutual beneficial exchange- in this case between man and machine.

Licklidder goes through some events in the course of his work day in which he thinks about the potential usefulness of a computer.  He describes how the majority of his time is spent doing administrative tasks and setting himself up to do productive thinking.  He states that the actual productive thinking, analysis and discovery process factors as a very small percent of his time.  He wonders how his productivity would be impacted if he had symbiotic relationship with a machine that would handle the administrative tasks for him.  I think what he's really looking for is Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Edition available at Target for the incredibly low price of $499.99.  

This dream of explosive productivity through software interface is great.  But only if you're conducting ground-breaking autonomous research can you get pleasure from this rewarding form of symbiosis.  If your tied to your office desk performing repetitive tasks with no feedback from the business apparatus then the symbiosis just allows you to perform more work for no apparent reason.  Then your computer becomes less of a larva and fig tree relationship and more of an inmate / bunkie relationship. 

Men, Machines, and the World About - Norbert Wiener

Men, Machines, and the World About
Norbert Wiener

Key Concepts:

• Cybernetics- Communication and control between the animal and machines
• Communication and control- Synonymous with interactivity; one of the core principals of new media
• Homeostasis- The synchronization control system between two forces using a feedback loop

It's the cybernetic function between humans and machines that we can work to understand, with the hope of gaining some element of control over rapidly expanding technology. Wiener touches on some implications of this expansion which he foresees, most of them being negative, some potentially apocalyptic. He cites the possible instance of Cold War conflict as being a potential catalyst for unchecked technological growth. He warns that humans will be unprepared to deal with the after-effects of this kind of growth once the conflicts have finished. He predicts that a few opportunists could take advantage of the technology to control automated systems which could possible put many people out of work very suddenly, and also give the controller excessive money, power, and control over the population.

Outside of this potential he warns that people might eventually become enslaved to their machines. I'm fairly sure he wasn't talking about the relatively benign type of "enslavement" that we have to machines today, particularly communicative machines like computers and smartphones. I believe that type of control is allowed by humans and is symptomatic rather than determinist, but then again it occurs within the framework of economic, cultural, and social forces, so it happens because of collective action rather than individual action. (my client just emailed me and he knows I have a Blackberry. do I have to reply immediately and shift my focus or can I ignore the interruption and continue whatever I was doing without worrying if he is measuring my response time and benchmarking it against other faster firms)

I still think it's interesting how Wiener states, "We shall have to realize that while we may make the machines our gods and sacrifice man to machines (carpel-tunnel syndrome?) we do not have to so."

I'm right there with you Norbert.

Computing Machinery and Intelligence - Allan Turing

Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Allan Turing

Alan Turing, another scientist who rose to prominence during the Second World War (and met a tragic demise), attempts to bring focus to the question of "can machines think?" in his 1950 essay published in Mind magazine. Rather than attempt to answer the question directly (as he admits is an unrealistic task), he instead asks whether a machine could find a solution to a theoretical problem, that a human might have equal or greater difficulty with. Additionally, he describes for the first time a digital computer that follows a program, which reads and writes in alphabetic symbols rather than just numbers. As a demonstration of this he separately developed the Turing Machine.

To set up what he admits is a weak theoretical argument he first works to disarm criticism that he would have faced in his day, regarding the limitations of a discrete-state machines (finite discrete state machines's FSMs- are machines such as digital computers which operate on a principal that they can only be in one state at a time [or access one bit of memory at a time] but can contain capacity for unlimited states or unlimited programming potential, this means that they are universal and can be designed to carry out any pre-programmed function) .

The first two challenges are insignificant, dealing concerns related to theology, and moral consequences. The third anticipated challenge to the notion that "machines can think" is on mathematical grounds, that machines do not possess the same technical capacities of humans. I think neither Turing or his challengers are in a position to decide the question on these grounds because neither at the time knew what the pace of computer capacity would eventually be or exactly what the capacity of the mind is. We still can't exactly quantify how fast the brain works in terms of Hertz or its storage capacity in terms of bites. That machines lack Consciousness is he forth argument he works to disprove. In response he states, "This argument appears to be a denial of the validity of our test. He doesn't believe that the mystery of consciousness must be solved in order to for a mechanical or human entity to solve his problem. The fifth argument is against the machine's general technical limitations. One of these limitation Turing describes is be unrelentingly too perfect. But he counters that a machine could be programed to randomly give the wrong answer to a question as to mask its true nature as a machine. The sixth argument against the machine's ability to meet his test comes from Lady Lovelace a contemporary of Charles Babbage, the inventor of the first theoretical computer. Her argument is that "the Analytical Engine has no pretensions to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform." (her emphasis)

In other words, "The machine can never take us by surprise।" While this is true, Turing argues, machines do surprise us not from their own creativity but from our own inabilities to understand what they are doing. The seventh argument revolves around the comparison of the central nervous system between man and machine. Turning admits, despite the general inclination to compare the electronic device's internal circuitry to the human nervous system, that they are completely different - one a discrete state machine and the other a "continuous machine". (Side note: how the theoretical quantum computer affects this argument I don't know. Quantum computers are supposed to be able to operate in multiple states at once, as a opposed to a digital I/O, on or off states of digital machines.) Turning counters that the nature of the nervous system is inconsequential to meet his test. Th eighth argument which Turning anticipates concerning the ability of machines to adapt to every eventuality. But in the case of the Q&A test it is not necessary because the answers are programmed. The final one deals with extra-sensory perception. It baffles me that in the Western Hemisphere in the mid-20th century he would feel the need to address this.

Finally Turing pivots to his own argument for the machine being "intelligent", he basically defers by saying in effect, "what really is intelligence?". He breaks no real ground on a solution other than giving credit to the legitimacy of Lady Lovelace's argument and saying that we'll have to wait until the end of century to find out the true answer. All honest statements.

He cites the future need of programming capacity over hardware capacity. The reason being is that once again we are seeing how futurists of the mid-20th century are already predicting the advances in hardware technology of the new millennium.

To program the intelligent computers to match the human brain, Turing suggests starting with aiming program at mimicking a child's brain. This way he argues, "If this then were then subjected to an appropriate course of education one would obtain the adult brain." In terms of practically building an AI system this method seems a little presumptuous. But, I think he's on the right track with trying to build human intelligence or "artificial intelligence" from a smaller scale and then trying to grow it into something. Not only do I think it would be more feasible to start small but I think that the growing element is maybe the most important indicator of intelligence.

For more background on the evolution of the field of artificial intelligence, check out this Wired Magazine retrospective

As We May Think - Vannevar Bush

As We May Think

Vannevar Bush

Vannevar Bush coordinated the activities of America's technological development during World War II as the Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. It was a significant role as he had jurisdiction of over 6,000 professional scientists, and also was a key member in assembling the team that created the first atomic bomb.

After the war he returned to a setting that didn't include active U.S. combat, and sought to create something that would do equal benefit to mankind as the atomic bomb did destruction. What he envisioned was a mechanical system that would enable humankind to record, catalog, and recall all information and knowledge being created and share it with the masses (or at least the scientific community for openers). This system would try to harness the perpetual explosion of data and intelligence which he saw as a byproduct of the war effort and the dawn of a new information age.

It is here in this article that I believe he is laying down the declaration for what we have only recently achieved with the internet.

He follows to describe the theoretical machine, he calls the memex, in great detail. In his vision the memex would record using a camera and microphone everything a person said, studied, or wrote while sitting at his or her desk structure (pictured above). For each of these input devices he imagines at least two technologies that wouldn't be perfected and commercially available until at least 50 years later. The first is digital photography, which he describes as "...dry photography, in which the picture is finished as soon as it is taken." He states, "It would be a brave man who would predict that such a process will always remain clumsy, slow, and faulty in detail." Another far-off technology that he envisions being useful in his memex is voice transposed to text (he doesn't quite get to voice recognition which would imply intelligent machines which Turing discusses more).

A summary of Bush's vision for the memex input:

"One can picture a future investigator in his laboratory. His hands are free, and he is not anchored. As he moves about and observes, he photographs and comments. Time is automatically recorded to tie the two records together. If he goes into the field, he may be connected by radio to recorder. As he ponders over his notes in the evening, he again talks his comments into the record. His typed record, as well as his photographs, may both be in miniature, so that he projects them for examination."

But he hinges all of this on "selection". This is where his major concerns come into play regarding the overwhelming amount of data and knowledge being produced every year (and hopefully captured in his memex). On this he states:

"So much for the manipulation of ideas and their insertion into the record. Thus far we seem to be worse off than before- for we can enormously extend the record; yet even in its present bulk we can hardly consult it. This is a much larger matter than merely the extraction of data fro the purposes of scientific researchl it inlolves the entire process by which man profits from his required knowledge. The prime action of use is selection, and here we are halting indeed."

Basically what Bush is saying is that the most important thing about data is the ability to mine it effectively. Once again, he brings up a major touchstone of late 20th century IT more than 50 years later. The explosion of information, especially related to commerce, has made its storage and retrieval a huge area of investment for global corporations and institutions. Walmart knows everything you purchased at their store down to the last carrot (or bullet) for targeted advertising or promotion, as well as selling that data to outside vendors (of say cooking or hunting magazines) for more profit than if sold you the magazine out of their own inventory.

On a more benign and beneficial level Google achieves the remarkable feat of being able to retrieve every piece of democratically uploaded (and indexed) web content, in a fraction of a second using only keyword string queries.

Has Bush's vision been realized? In many technological senses yes. Even the principal that the memex has the ability to act on its own is technology being developed and discussed and is billed as "the semantic web" or "web 3.0". I think regardless of what technology avails its self in the near future, it is the founding vision that Vannevar Bush lays out for computer technology that will stand the test of time and offer amazement to its readers.

Second Post

Just one more set-up post before I start blogging on the reading assignments.

At this point I've read the first 5 assignments in the curriculum. What I can say after reading them is...WOW. I've been reading Wired magazine since the mid-90's when IT was really starting to bubble. I read it all after the stock market crash in '99 (notice how I make the distinction; the innovation never really stopped) and through the web 2.0 years. From the 2.0 period until recently it has really sucked. As a tech magazine that puts out an issue once a month (with paid Condé Naste staff, in a centralized news room) it looked like it might not survive the onslaught blogs that post multiple times each day (with low-overhead). It wasn't until I phoned in my cancellation that it has started to get interesting again.

BUT

Reading from the New Media Reader feels like reading Wired for the first time in that mid to late nineties period. Except in the NMR these are excerpts that predict the future of technology decades before it actually appears AND tries to grapple with its implications; Pro and Con. You just don't see that type of honesty in ad supported Wired.

In short it's been a fascinating re-discovery. For each reading I'll try to first outline the material, then insert my comprehension/interpretation, and finally try to draw in a real life example of a situation or present technology being discussed that either confirms, denies, or is pending on the theories the authors produced.

UPDATE: I'll also try to tag each post with an appropriate theme

yo... First Post.

This is my first blog post for the class of Sociology of New Media and Virtual Communities taught by Professor Haskaj at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

The primary purpose of this blog is to catalog my thoughts and reaction to the assigned class readings. As the course progresses I'm reasonably confident we'll be asked to somehow integrate our blog material with our peers for collaboration and fostering online community.

Anticipating this collaboration, I've entered into contract with Jon Cheeba, of the The Jon Cheeba Show Live to stand in for me as guest blogger during the entire month of March. The segment is tentatively titled March Reefer Madness.

Ok, no. It's not going to be that kind of blog. But I'll try to keep it interesting for whoever is reading this. And while this is an educational blog, it's intended for my education, not yours. So my writing can not, and should not be considered authoritative on the subject of New Media or Sociology or any other academic subject. As a rule thumb anything inside the quote marks is safe, anything outside - beware.

Just a quick personal note on the course topic without laying it on too thick... This course is coming at perfect time for me and anyone else who spends a good deal of their time online. The Blogger platform is what? About 5 years old now? Half a decade of web log publishing for the masses. Doesn't really feel that long. But it's about time that those of us who blog, upload, and use social media start thinking about how all of our user-generated content is being used and interpreted by the masses, and what effect it's having on our development as a society (community/country/world).

6 years ago, when I entered film school I thought TV and studio movies was where it's at. I dumped the program because I was getting nothing of what I wanted from it but was probably getting everything that I needed had I anticipated the wave of new media about to hit. I don't regret the career/edu decisions I made, but I do feel dumb about dissing new media at the time.

Now, TV is a dying and almost dead medium. Creatively it's mostly a wasteland of drug company and dating service spots with minimal programming sprinkled in. Commercially, the broadcast nets are on the verge vanishing of altogether, NBC recently coming under control of Comcast Cabal Cable Corp.

To illustrate this horrible death spiral, I saw a show listing the other day for The Discovery Channel where they explain to people in sound and pictures how hardware nails are made. The Glaxo commercial at least had a narrative: 5 old dudes in a convertible with overactive bladders, make frequent road stops, take a prescribed pill, and drive off into the sunset, comfortable...with everything. It's so bizarre that I recently LOL'd at 5 executive-looking guys piling into a rented sub-compact at a gas station. I instantly thought of the Flomax commercial. (I hope they weren't on their way to a funeral)

We'll be consuming media full time on the internet in about 5 years time I believe. If not then the market has failed completely. We'll be watching (and responding to) professionally made and amateur content on demand with a pricing mix ranging from completely free and released to PPC. I don't think there's another option, just ask Monty Python.