Tuesday, July 22, 2003
Kevin. WHOA. You are turning into me with dreams about blogging.. or waking up sweating over blogging. Now you know what I went through on a smaller scale two springs ago. Isn't it FUN?
BUT you are on the right track. I concur completely with the numbered list. I have kind of thought that having more aspects to go by (four vs. two) is better which is why I'd like to cover the pedagogical aspects of blogging, creative, personality (psychological), etc... Why not cover a few in some detail while giving some BIG PICTURE ideas about other aspects.
As a blogger and writer, I'd rather have tons to say about a lot of things.. then have to b.s. my way through a smaller chunk of stuff. "Write what you know." I know blogging. <--- two more lines for my thesis!?
BUT you are on the right track. I concur completely with the numbered list. I have kind of thought that having more aspects to go by (four vs. two) is better which is why I'd like to cover the pedagogical aspects of blogging, creative, personality (psychological), etc... Why not cover a few in some detail while giving some BIG PICTURE ideas about other aspects.
As a blogger and writer, I'd rather have tons to say about a lot of things.. then have to b.s. my way through a smaller chunk of stuff. "Write what you know." I know blogging. <--- two more lines for my thesis!?
Monday, July 21, 2003
I just read a little piece on blogging: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3078541.stm
The most relevant point: blogging is for people who want to communicate with 5-500 people. Email is 1:1, and ads/TV are for millions. And blogs create a visible, public, record in a way that email does not.
Obviously we can quibble about email as 1:1, but generally, this piece seems on track. Interesting reader comments, too.
The most relevant point: blogging is for people who want to communicate with 5-500 people. Email is 1:1, and ads/TV are for millions. And blogs create a visible, public, record in a way that email does not.
Obviously we can quibble about email as 1:1, but generally, this piece seems on track. Interesting reader comments, too.
I woke up in the middle of the night and asked myself: why are we using a tetradic analysis of weblogging, and why are we using McLuhan, rather than Bolter and Grusin's remediation? Manovich's language of new media? Anybody else's theory. In other words, I woke up with a "so what?" bolt.
So, what do we tell our many readers? The tetrad is cooler? The tetrad is more dynamic? is anybody really ready for a poetic science?
This last one intrigues me: does it make sense to say that we are using a tetradic analysis of weblogging because the tetrad is dynamic, poetic, open to revision, flexible, comprehensive, and generative, rather than static, grid like (despite its box-like appearance), exhaustive . . . .
Let's see if I can approach this another way. Andreas Kitzmann's essay wanted to argue against remediation and use Lyotard's materialist analysis, instead. But ultimately, he ended up asking two of the tetradic questions, and missed two others, while totally trying to exclude remediation, rather than including that within his piece. In other words, he got elaborate about a few things instead of being able to balance a larger picture. He makes some good points, but misses a lot.
part of what drives people crazy about McLuhan is his "big picture" perspective, his lack of concern for the little details. The tetrad is a heuristic for looking at the big picture--based on fairly specific, localized observations. So, in answering "so what" to the tetrad, I guess we are saying we value the big picture because getting lost in the details is not helpful in a period of rapid change. Can we say, do we want to say, we value the tetrad because one does not have to read lyotard (which isn't bad, just time consuming), and one does not have to use words like "complexification" (although "obsolescence" might not work for everyone).
let me come back to B&G, because their remediation is the closest thing to McLuhan's tetrad. They say that new media is either moving towards immediacy or hypermediacy, and those terms have both formal and psychological definitions. WEblogs stylistically embody hypermedia: lots of potential media, text-heavy rather than visually rich, a site of navigation rather than immersion. Psychologically, they are all about immediacy: here is what I did today, here is my heart or brain or libido or all three on the screen. What does a tetrad add to this analysis? Or, how can we get out of hermenutics? I guess that is one thing the tetrad sort of does for us: gets us part way out of hermeneutics, and into invention (tetrad as poem).
Okay, overloading the system, but I think I have it:
1. I do think the tetrad gives us more than immediacy and hypermediacy: gives us four terms instead of two, and gives us the formal and psychological dimensions, I think.
2. Gives us poetic science instead of scientific science: can we convince anyone that poetic science is more (equally?) important in an age / area in flux than is scientific science? McLuhan actually is fond of quoting the scientists who are more comfortable with poetic science than science science.
3. Gives us hermeneutics (interpretation) to a certain degree, but also gives us invention (making something new) from, or in response to, the thing we are trying to understand. This kind of invention is Ulmer's territory.
4. Gives us a big-picture perspective.
5. Gives us density of insight (this might be 4b).
6. Encourages participation and revision: closely connected to point 2. In terms of understanding media, participation, revision, openness to change is central. The theory machines of modernism lead to dead ends. Base-superstructure-dead-end.
What d'yall think?
So, what do we tell our many readers? The tetrad is cooler? The tetrad is more dynamic? is anybody really ready for a poetic science?
This last one intrigues me: does it make sense to say that we are using a tetradic analysis of weblogging because the tetrad is dynamic, poetic, open to revision, flexible, comprehensive, and generative, rather than static, grid like (despite its box-like appearance), exhaustive . . . .
Let's see if I can approach this another way. Andreas Kitzmann's essay wanted to argue against remediation and use Lyotard's materialist analysis, instead. But ultimately, he ended up asking two of the tetradic questions, and missed two others, while totally trying to exclude remediation, rather than including that within his piece. In other words, he got elaborate about a few things instead of being able to balance a larger picture. He makes some good points, but misses a lot.
part of what drives people crazy about McLuhan is his "big picture" perspective, his lack of concern for the little details. The tetrad is a heuristic for looking at the big picture--based on fairly specific, localized observations. So, in answering "so what" to the tetrad, I guess we are saying we value the big picture because getting lost in the details is not helpful in a period of rapid change. Can we say, do we want to say, we value the tetrad because one does not have to read lyotard (which isn't bad, just time consuming), and one does not have to use words like "complexification" (although "obsolescence" might not work for everyone).
let me come back to B&G, because their remediation is the closest thing to McLuhan's tetrad. They say that new media is either moving towards immediacy or hypermediacy, and those terms have both formal and psychological definitions. WEblogs stylistically embody hypermedia: lots of potential media, text-heavy rather than visually rich, a site of navigation rather than immersion. Psychologically, they are all about immediacy: here is what I did today, here is my heart or brain or libido or all three on the screen. What does a tetrad add to this analysis? Or, how can we get out of hermenutics? I guess that is one thing the tetrad sort of does for us: gets us part way out of hermeneutics, and into invention (tetrad as poem).
Okay, overloading the system, but I think I have it:
1. I do think the tetrad gives us more than immediacy and hypermediacy: gives us four terms instead of two, and gives us the formal and psychological dimensions, I think.
2. Gives us poetic science instead of scientific science: can we convince anyone that poetic science is more (equally?) important in an age / area in flux than is scientific science? McLuhan actually is fond of quoting the scientists who are more comfortable with poetic science than science science.
3. Gives us hermeneutics (interpretation) to a certain degree, but also gives us invention (making something new) from, or in response to, the thing we are trying to understand. This kind of invention is Ulmer's territory.
4. Gives us a big-picture perspective.
5. Gives us density of insight (this might be 4b).
6. Encourages participation and revision: closely connected to point 2. In terms of understanding media, participation, revision, openness to change is central. The theory machines of modernism lead to dead ends. Base-superstructure-dead-end.
What d'yall think?
Friday, July 18, 2003
Sybil (and Cindy), you should definitely check out the U of M whitepaper on Blogging (or did one of you originally send it to me?).
Considering the TechTransfer stipend, and considering your desire to be a professional blogger, Sybil, I think you should think about ways to do research, and write a paper, that would be the first step towards being an education technology consultant, with a specialization is blogging.
Considering the TechTransfer stipend, and considering your desire to be a professional blogger, Sybil, I think you should think about ways to do research, and write a paper, that would be the first step towards being an education technology consultant, with a specialization is blogging.
Thursday, July 17, 2003
The Neilsen family carries over its TV tendency: how many people "watch" the web?
having a hard time finding how many people are estimated to have home pages. Help....
having a hard time finding how many people are estimated to have home pages. Help....
Useful site called "How Much Information?" . Blogging not accounted for at the time of the study, but the numbers and analysis provided will help us put blogging in context. I 've been re-reading older material about blogging, and noticing the rhetoric of "explosion" and "massive trend," but if there are only 600,000 bloggers and over 600 million web users, it has only been the rapid growth that is explosive, not the overall impact. There is no reason to think that all 600 million and growing are eventually going to blog, is there?
Does that make sense?
I'm trying to think of analogies. If 98% of homes in America have at least one television set, I wonder how many people are involved in community television? Miniscule numbers, I imagine. TV does not encourage production. Web browsing/surfing/Iming etc prompts more response, more DIY activities.
Does that make sense?
I'm trying to think of analogies. If 98% of homes in America have at least one television set, I wonder how many people are involved in community television? Miniscule numbers, I imagine. TV does not encourage production. Web browsing/surfing/Iming etc prompts more response, more DIY activities.
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
I KNEW you were going to use the word "formal" on me.. Like a blog in a tuxedo... see, if my blog were human (another good opening line for a thesis??) she would be in jeans that are fraying and a hippie/linen top. I don't do nylons, but I will try to formalize my shtuff.. I am only blogging like I am right now to get things OUT OF ME. Be gone you blogging demons! :-)
P.S. I DID have an extra $200 on me today, but I bought a trail-lovin' bike today at Islands Park. Oh well. You know, I could always copy my Xanga blog onto something more... cleaner later on.. plus won't I have to put all that into a crazy MLA format somehow anyway?
P.P.S. I do like having holes in my writing.
P.P.P.S. I think my lot in life is to be the professor that hates everything academia stands for. Is that so bad?
P.S. I DID have an extra $200 on me today, but I bought a trail-lovin' bike today at Islands Park. Oh well. You know, I could always copy my Xanga blog onto something more... cleaner later on.. plus won't I have to put all that into a crazy MLA format somehow anyway?
P.P.S. I do like having holes in my writing.
P.P.P.S. I think my lot in life is to be the professor that hates everything academia stands for. Is that so bad?
Monday, July 14, 2003
Team, I have been working on the tetrad essay most of the day, and will try to pull elements together by this evening to send out. If either of you have suggestions or inclusions, and you read this before this (Monday) evening, send material my way.
One link leads to another.
Cindy's weblog census lead me to the organization that is supporting the research, The National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education. I like their work--too bad we aren't at a Liberal Arts school.
Their weblog led me to the latest Pew Report about Gaming and College Students. While I have been reading McLuhan, I have been thinking about the need to look at video gaming--now that it is a bigger industry than Hollywood.
Cindy's weblog census lead me to the organization that is supporting the research, The National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education. I like their work--too bad we aren't at a Liberal Arts school.
Their weblog led me to the latest Pew Report about Gaming and College Students. While I have been reading McLuhan, I have been thinking about the need to look at video gaming--now that it is a bigger industry than Hollywood.
Sybil,
i responded to your ideas about MA paper on your blog--let me know if they didn't post. In short, I might ask you to be a bit more formal, a bit more finished, than you want to be, but overall, I like the idea for a blog structure. Paul Levinson says that McLuhan's Gutenberg Galaxy is like a proto-website, but it is really a proto weblog.
if you've got a little cash (like an extra $200) you might check out a full tinderbox purchase -- I think it would be a better tool for thesis blog writing than xanga. Plus, I think it can be easily exported to text (I simply haven't done that yet, so I am only guessing).
people, why are we willing to conduct our business in public? What's going on here? What is the technology doing to us? Why is it turning us inside out? Making our private business public?
i responded to your ideas about MA paper on your blog--let me know if they didn't post. In short, I might ask you to be a bit more formal, a bit more finished, than you want to be, but overall, I like the idea for a blog structure. Paul Levinson says that McLuhan's Gutenberg Galaxy is like a proto-website, but it is really a proto weblog.
if you've got a little cash (like an extra $200) you might check out a full tinderbox purchase -- I think it would be a better tool for thesis blog writing than xanga. Plus, I think it can be easily exported to text (I simply haven't done that yet, so I am only guessing).
people, why are we willing to conduct our business in public? What's going on here? What is the technology doing to us? Why is it turning us inside out? Making our private business public?
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Kevin (Cindy, you can look too since I value your opinion VERY much) ---> Here's my most recent brain chunk about my blog thesis. I think I am getting somewhere.
And An intriguing entry from a blogger named slug that could be used in class to figure out the questions WHO ARE WE? or WHO AM I?... etc.
And An intriguing entry from a blogger named slug that could be used in class to figure out the questions WHO ARE WE? or WHO AM I?... etc.
My last day with Corporateland will be tomorrow. I'll work after the Tech Orientation until 6 and be done. Done done done. THEN I will devote my time to tetrads, looking at a computer screen with a smiling face, and reading/commenting more on my assigned essay. I have a busy week next week because my fabulous friend Fran will be in town staying with me... she's from WA state.
Should we meet sometime the week after to talk tetradically? July 21-25 ish??
Should we meet sometime the week after to talk tetradically? July 21-25 ish??
Cindy, the revised tetrads are stunning! More later.
Tuesday, July 08, 2003
Kevin, I played with our template too. Did you know that I am using this very same template for this coming fall's class blog? So I just copied over some of the things I changed. Made the font a little smaller... fit more on the page. Also- I like Georgia as a font much more.
Whoa. I have been a lazy 4th of July blogger. Wasn't even within 10 feet of a computer all weekend. So sorry. Will blog to my heart's content tonight. Have-to catch up with what you've both been writin'! Sheesh... Hadn't written in my personal one for a week. Today's entry is scattered and frayed.
Hope you both had fun at my place on Thursday. Doyle, our black scare-D-cat, made his appearance RIGHT after you two left. What a character!
Hope you both had fun at my place on Thursday. Doyle, our black scare-D-cat, made his appearance RIGHT after you two left. What a character!
Monday, July 07, 2003
Cindy,
The issue of Biography can be found at project muse. Check my teaching blog for a link, i think.
The issue of Biography can be found at project muse. Check my teaching blog for a link, i think.
Sunday, July 06, 2003
Cindy, the Gibson blog is really good, and comes at a good time for me. I want to write an essay about Neuromancer and David Byrne's True Stories. See my teaching blog for details.
Your latest tetrad is sweet and stunning. Your design instincts are phenomenonal. Quit wasting your time teaching comp! Pull together, if you haven't already, your book of technopoetry, and go get a real job.
One question: why do you see pleasure and liscence as the reversal of weblogging. Taken to its extreme, weblogging becomes pleasurable? Aren't we having fun yet?
I read one of the essays from the special issue of Biography about online diaries: THAT DIFFERENT PLACE: DOCUMENTING THE SELF
WITHIN ONLINE ENVIRONMENTS
ANDREAS KITZMANN
Biography 26.1 (Winter 2003) : 48-65.
Kitzman rejections analysis of online diaries as remediation or adaptation, but I am not sure why his notions aren’t compatible with bolter and grusin—plus his notion of technology as a “thing in itself” is very Kantian. His language is actually pretty close to McLuhan’s in various ways, and he brings out the notion of medium as material in effective ways. I think he might have fallen into the trap of finding “adaptations” to be deterministic, when in fact the medium is the massage very much acknowledges the material conditions of web-based self-documentation, even to the point where the generic differences (diary versus moo) makes a significant difference. The essay does make an interesting point about how bloggers and diarists are expected to present their real selves (this will interest you, sybil!), whereas people who go to MOOs, chat rooms, etc, are expected to create an online identity separate from them selves.
Blogging retrieves "authentic lives" ? I can share more on this piece later if you are interested, but in a nutshell, he makes some interesting observations, but takes a completely different (and to my mind, mistaken) theoretical - poetical approach than the one(s) we are working through.
Your latest tetrad is sweet and stunning. Your design instincts are phenomenonal. Quit wasting your time teaching comp! Pull together, if you haven't already, your book of technopoetry, and go get a real job.
One question: why do you see pleasure and liscence as the reversal of weblogging. Taken to its extreme, weblogging becomes pleasurable? Aren't we having fun yet?
I read one of the essays from the special issue of Biography about online diaries: THAT DIFFERENT PLACE: DOCUMENTING THE SELF
WITHIN ONLINE ENVIRONMENTS
ANDREAS KITZMANN
Biography 26.1 (Winter 2003) : 48-65.
Kitzman rejections analysis of online diaries as remediation or adaptation, but I am not sure why his notions aren’t compatible with bolter and grusin—plus his notion of technology as a “thing in itself” is very Kantian. His language is actually pretty close to McLuhan’s in various ways, and he brings out the notion of medium as material in effective ways. I think he might have fallen into the trap of finding “adaptations” to be deterministic, when in fact the medium is the massage very much acknowledges the material conditions of web-based self-documentation, even to the point where the generic differences (diary versus moo) makes a significant difference. The essay does make an interesting point about how bloggers and diarists are expected to present their real selves (this will interest you, sybil!), whereas people who go to MOOs, chat rooms, etc, are expected to create an online identity separate from them selves.
Blogging retrieves "authentic lives" ? I can share more on this piece later if you are interested, but in a nutshell, he makes some interesting observations, but takes a completely different (and to my mind, mistaken) theoretical - poetical approach than the one(s) we are working through.
Friday, July 04, 2003
see if this works...
still monkeying with the archives...
Am I caught up yet? I added a comments link, I think.
Okay, the template is less funky but more functional (what a surprise, coming from me). I've added our teaching blogs. Feel free to add more links!
I am going to try to change the template--I messed up a few things with the old one, and can't seem to get it back to "normal." Sorry for acting unilaterally. I've been in the States too long.
Cindy, your creative tetrad, especially the reading tetrad, pushes the anti-tetrad even further away from the rhetorical-poetical into, would you say, the lyrical and mystical? lyrical and metaphorical? lyrical and mythical? I don't know what to do with you -- I am not many, I can not contain multitudes!
Your tetrad about personal weblogging is less personal than you tetrad about creative weblogging--are you more personal in your writing than in your everyday being? But you more or less play the game with this pair ; )
You've presented us with quite a challenge to respond to!
Your tetrad about personal weblogging is less personal than you tetrad about creative weblogging--are you more personal in your writing than in your everyday being? But you more or less play the game with this pair ; )
You've presented us with quite a challenge to respond to!
Thoughts on Cindy's tetrads:
I love your reworking of the icon with the words crossing the "borders". I think the McLuhans would love it too.
Academic: cool anti-tetrad for writing--writing is so pervasive, writing is so us, that weblogging can only enhance writing, can only become one more kind of writing, and doing that writing will not reverse into anything else, obsolesce anything else. This anti-tetrad is another way to think of the tetrads spiraling. This anti-tetrad could be juxtaposed with my straight tetrad: I think weblogging is enhancing, reversing, obsolescing, retrieving, but for you, it is just still writing.
Reading seems less of an anti-tetrad, but you simply can't use anyone else's terminology, can you? You won't just play along and identify what has been reversed or obsolesced, you have have to be so demanding " If only something could be obsolesced." I really like all of your quadrants, but "retrieval" floored me--I think you nailed that one!
I love your reworking of the icon with the words crossing the "borders". I think the McLuhans would love it too.
Academic: cool anti-tetrad for writing--writing is so pervasive, writing is so us, that weblogging can only enhance writing, can only become one more kind of writing, and doing that writing will not reverse into anything else, obsolesce anything else. This anti-tetrad is another way to think of the tetrads spiraling. This anti-tetrad could be juxtaposed with my straight tetrad: I think weblogging is enhancing, reversing, obsolescing, retrieving, but for you, it is just still writing.
Reading seems less of an anti-tetrad, but you simply can't use anyone else's terminology, can you? You won't just play along and identify what has been reversed or obsolesced, you have have to be so demanding " If only something could be obsolesced." I really like all of your quadrants, but "retrieval" floored me--I think you nailed that one!
Whoa, I am slightly overwhelmed, but in a good way. So overwhelmed I have nothing intelligent to write, except to remind us that this weblog has been linked to from the online essay "The Year of the Blog," so let's tidy the place up, okay? I'm going to go read Cindy's tetrads, then i will come back.
Tuesday, July 01, 2003
Hey kids!
Where's Kevin at?
Maybe I will just e-mail you two about meeting on Thursday. I still haven't READ the stuff you sent us, Kevin. I need to go somewhere where I can print off stuff. My brother's computer crashed on him (those darn non-Macs! I gave him some crap over that...) so I have no printer at home. Luckily for ME; however, is that I have tomorrow off from work (we don't come back until next week- YAY!) so I'll run to the IACC.
PLUS, I should brainfart out some stuff that I kind of want to do with my thesis. You two can be my filters on what to pursue and what not to pursue.
Where's Kevin at?
Maybe I will just e-mail you two about meeting on Thursday. I still haven't READ the stuff you sent us, Kevin. I need to go somewhere where I can print off stuff. My brother's computer crashed on him (those darn non-Macs! I gave him some crap over that...) so I have no printer at home. Luckily for ME; however, is that I have tomorrow off from work (we don't come back until next week- YAY!) so I'll run to the IACC.
PLUS, I should brainfart out some stuff that I kind of want to do with my thesis. You two can be my filters on what to pursue and what not to pursue.
