The Ideal of Value
On page 278 Ulmer says "Agamben set a test for the egents to separate the body in its linguistic nature from the pornography and commodification that dominate the bourgeois body. In terms of practical consulting this test suggest that the EmerAgency approach policy issues at the level of values that circulate in the culture determining the way the policy makers focalize an issue. One way to approach this call for a paradigm shift in values and identity is to take up the question of the happiness promised through the whatever of the image.
Advertisements appeal to us by presenting emblems of well-being, security, and satisfaction". This introduction to the text sets up the reader for the theme that Ulmer tries to get across.
The Gift of Aporia
On page 299 of Internet invention Ulmer expalains the gift of aporia by saying that "In the emblem we have a magi tool, but have not really attempted to apply it to a policy consultation. An egent is a witness, participating through the connectionist network of the internet in the virtual corporate gaze of a fifth estate".
He continues on page 301 to say that "The aporia in narrative structure maps and sympotomizes the political unconscious a contradiction in the cultural resources of the community. The aporia is not necessarily a bad or negative condition, but a “promise” of an alternative logic.
There is more to say about giving and receiving the gift of the magic tool. no one may reiceve it in the abstract, through an explanation. It happens as an event of recognition, as an experience of tuning. It is uncanny, a surprise, a secret that should or could have remained hidden but now comes to light. The norm, the natural standpoint, dictates a certain way of doing things, a certain attitude, behavior preferences, with which it seems best to conform. What if we enter a time of emergence, a time when human resource is needed? The purpose of the wide site is to prepare the place in which the magic tool may be found as a gift."
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
4/13/2010
The Second Threshold
On page 246 of Internet Invention, Gregory Ulmer says "In terms of the narrative path guiding our quest for the wide image, a great deal happens at this stage of the project. The raw material of the mystory provides the makings of the magic tool that is the immediate “object of the search”. Once we put the mystory into a form, to make it legible and transportable, we will be in a position to consult for the EmerAgency".
Advertising Emblems
The emblem is and crucial part of the Mystory, on page 248 Ulmer says that "The emblem is a mixed form comprising a motto a picture, and an epigram.
The motto introduces the emblem and usually indicates the theme, which is embodied symbolically in the picture that depicts one or more objects, persons, or events. Beneath the picture is printed an epigram or short prose statement that interprets the picture and elucidates the theme".
The Readymade
"The emblem form stripped of both its theological and commercial anagogies is practiced as pure language in the vanguard arts in a way that reveals and codifies its formal properties". Ulmer says on page 251 that the emblem can be boiled down to its basic essence.
On page 246 of Internet Invention, Gregory Ulmer says "In terms of the narrative path guiding our quest for the wide image, a great deal happens at this stage of the project. The raw material of the mystory provides the makings of the magic tool that is the immediate “object of the search”. Once we put the mystory into a form, to make it legible and transportable, we will be in a position to consult for the EmerAgency".
Advertising Emblems
The emblem is and crucial part of the Mystory, on page 248 Ulmer says that "The emblem is a mixed form comprising a motto a picture, and an epigram.
The motto introduces the emblem and usually indicates the theme, which is embodied symbolically in the picture that depicts one or more objects, persons, or events. Beneath the picture is printed an epigram or short prose statement that interprets the picture and elucidates the theme".
The Readymade
"The emblem form stripped of both its theological and commercial anagogies is practiced as pure language in the vanguard arts in a way that reveals and codifies its formal properties". Ulmer says on page 251 that the emblem can be boiled down to its basic essence.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
The Bar (Street)
Ulmer wants us here to look at how we percieve the places around us that we frequently visit, on page 210 "Here we turn our attention to the scene and away from the encounter of donor and hero. The forward progress of narrative development is arrested in this chapter. In turning the focus of our allegory away from the plot line to the atmosphere or mood of the setting we are locating the place of transformation, of transition from literary to electracy. Here Ulmer wants us to not only see the Hero and the Donor, but to recognize the tool that is used. He tries to make us understand that it is as important to understand what the details of the tool are as how to use it. "
The Modernist Brothel
On page 215 Ulmer looks at some other locations that have an impact on different people "One sign of the significance of the bar in our civilization is the prestige and attraction it holds for American youth. The bar is an allegorical place. The value of the bar is its ability to disrupt the body and senses. This is one place where a “rite of passage” is known to occur".
Song
The power of song can be an interesting concept, as we see with Ulmer's views on page 219 "We are building a series, performing the narrative transformation from literacy to electracy. Our narrative quest for the wide image is suspended at the station of the donor – the bar – in which the donor tests the hero and gives the gift of the magic tool. The bar setting often includes a band playing music that helps to set the atmosphere of the scene. We are in transition now from the general environment of the bar continuing the displacement away from the plot to the setting and now within the setting the music played in the bar".
Ulmer wants us here to look at how we percieve the places around us that we frequently visit, on page 210 "Here we turn our attention to the scene and away from the encounter of donor and hero. The forward progress of narrative development is arrested in this chapter. In turning the focus of our allegory away from the plot line to the atmosphere or mood of the setting we are locating the place of transformation, of transition from literary to electracy. Here Ulmer wants us to not only see the Hero and the Donor, but to recognize the tool that is used. He tries to make us understand that it is as important to understand what the details of the tool are as how to use it. "
The Modernist Brothel
On page 215 Ulmer looks at some other locations that have an impact on different people "One sign of the significance of the bar in our civilization is the prestige and attraction it holds for American youth. The bar is an allegorical place. The value of the bar is its ability to disrupt the body and senses. This is one place where a “rite of passage” is known to occur".
Song
The power of song can be an interesting concept, as we see with Ulmer's views on page 219 "We are building a series, performing the narrative transformation from literacy to electracy. Our narrative quest for the wide image is suspended at the station of the donor – the bar – in which the donor tests the hero and gives the gift of the magic tool. The bar setting often includes a band playing music that helps to set the atmosphere of the scene. We are in transition now from the general environment of the bar continuing the displacement away from the plot to the setting and now within the setting the music played in the bar".
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
3/29/2010
The Donor:
There is always someone that donates something to the story that is worked on, Ulmer shows us this on page 180 by saying that "The form and experience of narrative are a relay for understanding the combined tasks of consulting and designing the wide image. The protagonists or heroes of tales or stories cannot solve by themselves the problem or conflict that caused them to leave home and enter the special world of adventure. Invariably they find their way to some gathering place".
The prison-house of language:
Ulmer goes into more detail on the tale on page 184 "The basic tale begins with either injury to a victim or the lack of some important object. Thus, at the very beginning, the end result is given: it will consist in the retribution for the injury or the acquisition of the thing lacked"
The political unconscious:
Ulmer also says on page 184 that "We can better appreciate the usefulness of actanial reduction, if we reflect for instance on the character of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, a figure whose ambiguous nature has remained an enigma for intuitive or impressionizing, essentially representation criticism, which can only seek to resolve the ambiguity in some way"
Ulmer tries to show us how we should instigate these principles on page 186 by saying that "Value: the first insight to be drawn from Jameson’s analysis of the donor “actant” is to look outside any particular narrative and in our context outside the institution of Entertainment, to another dimension of popcycle in order to understand the forces shaping the diegesis or dramatic world of the story"
Ficelle:
"Jameson suggested the strategy of displacement away from the hero to the supporting cast, in order to find an alternative to the ideological or interpolative default mood of a text". Here on page 195 Ulmer shows us the separation of the hero from his support system.
Riddles of Sense:
"The Donor test the hero by posing riddles. The logic of riddles manifest the basic structure of conductive sense through which the hero may receive the magic tool". On page 196 Ulmer shows some insight to the test that the hero will face.
There is always someone that donates something to the story that is worked on, Ulmer shows us this on page 180 by saying that "The form and experience of narrative are a relay for understanding the combined tasks of consulting and designing the wide image. The protagonists or heroes of tales or stories cannot solve by themselves the problem or conflict that caused them to leave home and enter the special world of adventure. Invariably they find their way to some gathering place".
The prison-house of language:
Ulmer goes into more detail on the tale on page 184 "The basic tale begins with either injury to a victim or the lack of some important object. Thus, at the very beginning, the end result is given: it will consist in the retribution for the injury or the acquisition of the thing lacked"
The political unconscious:
Ulmer also says on page 184 that "We can better appreciate the usefulness of actanial reduction, if we reflect for instance on the character of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, a figure whose ambiguous nature has remained an enigma for intuitive or impressionizing, essentially representation criticism, which can only seek to resolve the ambiguity in some way"
Ulmer tries to show us how we should instigate these principles on page 186 by saying that "Value: the first insight to be drawn from Jameson’s analysis of the donor “actant” is to look outside any particular narrative and in our context outside the institution of Entertainment, to another dimension of popcycle in order to understand the forces shaping the diegesis or dramatic world of the story"
Ficelle:
"Jameson suggested the strategy of displacement away from the hero to the supporting cast, in order to find an alternative to the ideological or interpolative default mood of a text". Here on page 195 Ulmer shows us the separation of the hero from his support system.
Riddles of Sense:
"The Donor test the hero by posing riddles. The logic of riddles manifest the basic structure of conductive sense through which the hero may receive the magic tool". On page 196 Ulmer shows some insight to the test that the hero will face.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
3/23/2010
Cyberpidgin
"We are in the special world of enterainmend discourse, scene of the spectacle and of emergent electracy. “Spectacle” names the literate experience of the electrate apparatus. The interbody metaphor must mediate a global encounter among strangers in an atmosphere of compassion fatigue, indifference, or misunderstanding, perhaps even PTSD". This excerpt from page 155 of Ulmers Internet Invention shows that events of our lives affect us in a very dramatic way.
Technology: "The internet as a technology of packet switching, designed to survive a nuclear strike targeting the nation’s communications network" Here on page 155 Ulmer shows the significance of technology on the mystory.
Ulmer conitnues showing us ideas key to the mystroy with Identity on page 155 "The rhetoric of the unconscious as described by psychoanalysis, featuring the devices of figurative language or image making such as condensation, displacement, or secondary elaboration, by means of which a latent thought manifest itself in a fragmentary, encrypted, indirect manner".
Ulmer furthers ideas on the mystory again with Institution on page 156 "The social corollary of these technological and psychological registers is the survival of the African oral culture in the Americas and its syncretism with Western literature institutions: “Voodoo is the African aesthetic shattered and the desperately put back together. More than simply ‘put back together,’ it has been recreated to serve its people under the shattering impact of slavery and poverty”
Pidgin begins as a language for doing business in the absence of a common language among different peoples, and evolves into a creole in the speech of pidgin-speaking children, once the pidgin has become so common that it is spoken in the home"
Fetishturgy
Ulmer speaks about levels of communication on page 159 by saying that "The analogy between the destroyed network of military command still able to function after suffering a first nuclear strike, and the ruined messages of dream work, scrambled into nonsense by repression yet received and understood in a way by the dreamer, is one of the operative “packets” of chorography. The equivalent ruin at the sociohisorical level is the Black Atlantic –the persistence of African culture through the catastrophe of the middle passage, the diaspora of slavery disseminating individuals throughout the Americas".
First Encounters
Ulmer speaks to the importance of meetings by saying "To figure what happens when electrate people meet online, we may call upon the experience of colonial encounters as a relay (to remind ourselves how different electracy is from the experience of School)."
"We are in the special world of enterainmend discourse, scene of the spectacle and of emergent electracy. “Spectacle” names the literate experience of the electrate apparatus. The interbody metaphor must mediate a global encounter among strangers in an atmosphere of compassion fatigue, indifference, or misunderstanding, perhaps even PTSD". This excerpt from page 155 of Ulmers Internet Invention shows that events of our lives affect us in a very dramatic way.
Technology: "The internet as a technology of packet switching, designed to survive a nuclear strike targeting the nation’s communications network" Here on page 155 Ulmer shows the significance of technology on the mystory.
Ulmer conitnues showing us ideas key to the mystroy with Identity on page 155 "The rhetoric of the unconscious as described by psychoanalysis, featuring the devices of figurative language or image making such as condensation, displacement, or secondary elaboration, by means of which a latent thought manifest itself in a fragmentary, encrypted, indirect manner".
Ulmer furthers ideas on the mystory again with Institution on page 156 "The social corollary of these technological and psychological registers is the survival of the African oral culture in the Americas and its syncretism with Western literature institutions: “Voodoo is the African aesthetic shattered and the desperately put back together. More than simply ‘put back together,’ it has been recreated to serve its people under the shattering impact of slavery and poverty”
Pidgin begins as a language for doing business in the absence of a common language among different peoples, and evolves into a creole in the speech of pidgin-speaking children, once the pidgin has become so common that it is spoken in the home"
Fetishturgy
Ulmer speaks about levels of communication on page 159 by saying that "The analogy between the destroyed network of military command still able to function after suffering a first nuclear strike, and the ruined messages of dream work, scrambled into nonsense by repression yet received and understood in a way by the dreamer, is one of the operative “packets” of chorography. The equivalent ruin at the sociohisorical level is the Black Atlantic –the persistence of African culture through the catastrophe of the middle passage, the diaspora of slavery disseminating individuals throughout the Americas".
First Encounters
Ulmer speaks to the importance of meetings by saying "To figure what happens when electrate people meet online, we may call upon the experience of colonial encounters as a relay (to remind ourselves how different electracy is from the experience of School)."
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
3/8/2010
The structure of entertainment narrative provides an allegorical map for becoming an egent.
The template for the entertainment narrative that we are using is based on the patter of the hero’s quest. It shows the motive for leaving home and entering the world of adventure due to a disruption in the family situation.
The mystory can and does follow memorable entertainment issues that arise throughout your life, for example; most of my current taste in television and movies has been influenced by what I remember watching with my father at an early age.
Jean-Paul Sartre, in his study of the psychology of imagination used the phenomenon of a comedian impersonating a famous actor, as a p0iont of departure for understanding the nature of images and imaging. His account clarifies the nature of a felt composition. If photos and stories of events that we browse in newspapers and magazines leave us indifferent, Sartre argues, it is because we fail to fill the sign with our own imagination, pictures, like words, must be actively read.
Plato invented the dialogue sass the basic practice for his institutionalization of alphabetic writing in school. The dialogue is actually part of a collection of interrelated inventions, all of which are designed to take advantage of the material featured in alphabetic writing.
The gram is a correction and 0065tension of the semiotic sign with its metaphor of the signifier and signified connected like two sides of one sheet of paper. The gram deceives the signifier-signified relation as a coupling that allows easy detachment. A better metaphor for the sign than a sheet of paper is a Dremel tool, with the hose extension and a hundred different attachments.
The template for the entertainment narrative that we are using is based on the patter of the hero’s quest. It shows the motive for leaving home and entering the world of adventure due to a disruption in the family situation.
The mystory can and does follow memorable entertainment issues that arise throughout your life, for example; most of my current taste in television and movies has been influenced by what I remember watching with my father at an early age.
Jean-Paul Sartre, in his study of the psychology of imagination used the phenomenon of a comedian impersonating a famous actor, as a p0iont of departure for understanding the nature of images and imaging. His account clarifies the nature of a felt composition. If photos and stories of events that we browse in newspapers and magazines leave us indifferent, Sartre argues, it is because we fail to fill the sign with our own imagination, pictures, like words, must be actively read.
Plato invented the dialogue sass the basic practice for his institutionalization of alphabetic writing in school. The dialogue is actually part of a collection of interrelated inventions, all of which are designed to take advantage of the material featured in alphabetic writing.
The gram is a correction and 0065tension of the semiotic sign with its metaphor of the signifier and signified connected like two sides of one sheet of paper. The gram deceives the signifier-signified relation as a coupling that allows easy detachment. A better metaphor for the sign than a sheet of paper is a Dremel tool, with the hose extension and a hundred different attachments.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
3/2/2010
Xanadu is similar to Hollywood movies; it refers to the imaginary space and time of worlds that are created in a story.
Diegesis names the part of the story that stays the same throughout different translations.
Where is xanadu?
1) It was the capital city of Kubla Khan
2) It was the “holy caves of ice” in Kashmir
3) It was Mount Abora
4) It was Alachua County, in Gainesville, Florida
Chora is a theoretical invention that has been revived in Electasy
Mystory is a personalized, secularized cosmogony
Present location is psycho-geography; it is part physical and part spiritual
The xanadu comsosgram updates the memory palaces of manuscript literacy. The all important difference between manuscript and digital pedagogy is that the memorial practices of the former aided the living memory of orators, while the latter aid the artificial unconscious egents.
The following schemas are listed in the preferred order for literate American culture, passing from most highly controlled to loosest mode of order.
1) Argument
2) Narrative
3) Character
4) Musical
5) Image
Diegesis names the part of the story that stays the same throughout different translations.
Where is xanadu?
1) It was the capital city of Kubla Khan
2) It was the “holy caves of ice” in Kashmir
3) It was Mount Abora
4) It was Alachua County, in Gainesville, Florida
Chora is a theoretical invention that has been revived in Electasy
Mystory is a personalized, secularized cosmogony
Present location is psycho-geography; it is part physical and part spiritual
The xanadu comsosgram updates the memory palaces of manuscript literacy. The all important difference between manuscript and digital pedagogy is that the memorial practices of the former aided the living memory of orators, while the latter aid the artificial unconscious egents.
The following schemas are listed in the preferred order for literate American culture, passing from most highly controlled to loosest mode of order.
1) Argument
2) Narrative
3) Character
4) Musical
5) Image
Thursday, February 25, 2010
2/23/2010
Narrative
Widesite composition is a narrative process.
Mystory in the context of the EmerAgency brings the egent into an explicit relationship with the process of identify formation, both individual and collective.
Home (Page) Sick
Homepage has become an obsolete term. It is essentially the same as calling a car a horseless carriage.
Making a decision is a focused sequence with foru elements recalled by the acrony TOTE:
1) Test or reality check of my desires
2) Operate
3) Test (Repeated)
4) Exist
Students start out in the home and are raised there; they likely stay there as well if it were not for the driving force of society compelling them to a university.
Mystory is working to replace the purpose that allegory has served in the past. It is there to allow people of the modern world to find their place in the world and in history. This similarity between the two has caused many medieval comparison of allegory to mystory.
Allegory popcycle
Literal=School (elementary through secondary levels)
Allegory=Entertainment (commercialized information and story)
Moral=Family (biography of the individual)
Anagogy=Career (disciplinary knowledge)
The mystory of James Joyce was structured as followed
1) History (school, community)
2) Church
3) Family
4) Career
Micro Narratives: No more than 300 words, establishes the key details of a situation, locates and develops the key features of a scene.
Widesite composition is a narrative process.
Mystory in the context of the EmerAgency brings the egent into an explicit relationship with the process of identify formation, both individual and collective.
Home (Page) Sick
Homepage has become an obsolete term. It is essentially the same as calling a car a horseless carriage.
Making a decision is a focused sequence with foru elements recalled by the acrony TOTE:
1) Test or reality check of my desires
2) Operate
3) Test (Repeated)
4) Exist
Students start out in the home and are raised there; they likely stay there as well if it were not for the driving force of society compelling them to a university.
Mystory is working to replace the purpose that allegory has served in the past. It is there to allow people of the modern world to find their place in the world and in history. This similarity between the two has caused many medieval comparison of allegory to mystory.
Allegory popcycle
Literal=School (elementary through secondary levels)
Allegory=Entertainment (commercialized information and story)
Moral=Family (biography of the individual)
Anagogy=Career (disciplinary knowledge)
The mystory of James Joyce was structured as followed
1) History (school, community)
2) Church
3) Family
4) Career
Micro Narratives: No more than 300 words, establishes the key details of a situation, locates and develops the key features of a scene.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
2-16-2010
The transference of information from one medium to another often gives rise to another layer of understanding of that information, neither literal nor figurative. The relationship between otherwise insignificant details and the memories, associations, and emotions of the person viewing this information is what enriches the transfer. A picture can be described in words, but the person doing the describing may miss the one key detail that makes it all click, puts into perspective, for the person hearing the description. It's important to remember that all the information was there from the start; it was simply less visible in one medium than in another. It makes me wonder if, despite this new and rich knowledge coming out of the transfer, there was some other layer of information lost from the original. Putting a spoken tale to print gives the reader the ability to look back to refresh their memory on any part of the story previously told, and it allows for the visual quality of the words to be seen, but is that worth the tradeoff? Speech offers the sound of the language, and while words can be spoken again once they're recorded, those who have not heard the original story may emphasize or emote differently from the original.
Basho's haikus teach us to make use of productive ambiguity, the choice of words through which we may convey a secondary meaning. This is common practice in poetry, but it's only useful in the original language of the poem. Any translations, using a new language, will result in new and different ambiguities, completely apart from anything the author originally intended. This is an interesting parallel to the medium translation - the transference from print to film, spoken word to digital recordings, must be done with great care to ensure translation of intent and meaning as well as literal words. The use of this productive ambiguity can be a great asset or a terrible drawback. Essence is not affected by appearance, but appearance can convey mood, atmosphere, and feeling. There's also this idea of a revelation or epiphany as a device to share mood.
Much of this chapter is dedicated to the discussion of content versus intent - content is a result of and reveals intent. However, intent is widely interpolation from content, which reveals at least as much about the reader (the interpreter) as the writer (the creator, whose intent is being assumed). This raises an interesting question for the mystory: when you are both writer and reader, can you be trusted to find your own intent accurately, or are you reading yourself and your works and guessing at your own motivations?
Basho's haikus teach us to make use of productive ambiguity, the choice of words through which we may convey a secondary meaning. This is common practice in poetry, but it's only useful in the original language of the poem. Any translations, using a new language, will result in new and different ambiguities, completely apart from anything the author originally intended. This is an interesting parallel to the medium translation - the transference from print to film, spoken word to digital recordings, must be done with great care to ensure translation of intent and meaning as well as literal words. The use of this productive ambiguity can be a great asset or a terrible drawback. Essence is not affected by appearance, but appearance can convey mood, atmosphere, and feeling. There's also this idea of a revelation or epiphany as a device to share mood.
Much of this chapter is dedicated to the discussion of content versus intent - content is a result of and reveals intent. However, intent is widely interpolation from content, which reveals at least as much about the reader (the interpreter) as the writer (the creator, whose intent is being assumed). This raises an interesting question for the mystory: when you are both writer and reader, can you be trusted to find your own intent accurately, or are you reading yourself and your works and guessing at your own motivations?
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
2/9/2010
According to Ulmer, the first step in creating a mystory is to create a widesite, or "website version of your image of wide scope." The concept of wide scope was developed by Gerald Holton, who argued that every person possesses a guiding set of images that contribute to the person's state of mind or being. He also argued that this wide scope is developed by the time the person reaches the age of 18.
One of the goals of the EmerAgency is to change the school system so that people are assisted in developing their wide scope before entering the work force so that they can better prepare for their career. TheEmerAgency recommends doing this by way of website: hence, the widesite.
The widesite is made up of a series of websites that are each devoted to different areas of one's life. The person doing the work can then look for connections. The first installment of thewidesite relates to the person's career or field of disciplinary knowledge. The assignment Ulmer suggests doing focuses on gathering detailed (not generalized) information aboutpivotal moments in your career or field. He says that it resembles a research topic, except that instead of forming an argument, you are attempting to identify with the information. The project is meant to be personal, subjective, and related to an individual's specific specializations.
Briggs discusses Gerald Holton’s idea of themata. According to Holton, themata are gut assumptions that scientists have about the universe. He believes that these assumptions about the universe start early in childhood and are fairly consistent over time. Themata are not abstractions, but are perceptions that give the person a concrete feel for the surrounding world. Ulmer notes that themata has been found across professions and isn’t just limited to scientists.
DQ: What do you think could be the ideas that shaped some of
the popular superheroes view of the world? Ex. Batman, Superman,…
Interesting point: Page 24- Ulmer believes that “the proof
of the value of an invented term is its use.” He makes a strong point, but he may lose his overall message using invented terms instead of terms that are familiar to his audience. Ex. Language and grammar
Popcycle- the ensemble of all language or meaning-producing
activities into which members of a society are hailing. Hailing- the social or psychological process by which our identity is constructed. I had a teacher in high school who said that most people identify themselves off of the identity of others. This is probably because it is nearly impossible to identify yourself thoroughly without the involvement of your social surroundings. People see themselves reflected in others. We always see ourselves differently than how others see us.
This reminds me of the importance of society. People on their own are pretty much a blank slate; with people to interact with, personalities develop.
Dominant Institutions of the Popcyle: Family, Community,
Entertainment
The actual popcycle is the way ideas that are important to
the culture arise in the institutions
Note: Hailing needs more explanation
According to Ulmer, every institutional discourse has its
own icons which act as emblems for “scripts of normative behavior.” Pg. 26
DQ: What happens when the emblem doesn’t perform as
expected? Or does this never happen because that it the purpose of the emblem?
Grammatology-In this section, Ulmer forewarns readers that a number people do not agree with the following claims that he makes. Ulmer claims that most books are written in a disciplinary voice, that the internet is a book that is written in first person, and he feels that this allworks together to create a practice of electracy and emergancy. Ulmer provide the following as a backing for his stance. He explains how overtime the simplification of Aristotle's and Plato's discoveries and schools have lead to electracy. Ulmer uses the alphabet as an example, which was invented in the 19th century, and was invented to serve as a new type of recording device. This he says is an example of electracy.
Ulmer claims the goal is not to adapt digital technology to literacy. Instead he states how we should discover a new practice that can adequately develop and display the potential of new technology, and not adapt old practices/literacy to new form of technology.a
One of the goals of the EmerAgency is to change the school system so that people are assisted in developing their wide scope before entering the work force so that they can better prepare for their career. TheEmerAgency recommends doing this by way of website: hence, the widesite.
The widesite is made up of a series of websites that are each devoted to different areas of one's life. The person doing the work can then look for connections. The first installment of thewidesite relates to the person's career or field of disciplinary knowledge. The assignment Ulmer suggests doing focuses on gathering detailed (not generalized) information aboutpivotal moments in your career or field. He says that it resembles a research topic, except that instead of forming an argument, you are attempting to identify with the information. The project is meant to be personal, subjective, and related to an individual's specific specializations.
Briggs discusses Gerald Holton’s idea of themata. According to Holton, themata are gut assumptions that scientists have about the universe. He believes that these assumptions about the universe start early in childhood and are fairly consistent over time. Themata are not abstractions, but are perceptions that give the person a concrete feel for the surrounding world. Ulmer notes that themata has been found across professions and isn’t just limited to scientists.
DQ: What do you think could be the ideas that shaped some of
the popular superheroes view of the world? Ex. Batman, Superman,…
Interesting point: Page 24- Ulmer believes that “the proof
of the value of an invented term is its use.” He makes a strong point, but he may lose his overall message using invented terms instead of terms that are familiar to his audience. Ex. Language and grammar
Popcycle- the ensemble of all language or meaning-producing
activities into which members of a society are hailing. Hailing- the social or psychological process by which our identity is constructed. I had a teacher in high school who said that most people identify themselves off of the identity of others. This is probably because it is nearly impossible to identify yourself thoroughly without the involvement of your social surroundings. People see themselves reflected in others. We always see ourselves differently than how others see us.
This reminds me of the importance of society. People on their own are pretty much a blank slate; with people to interact with, personalities develop.
Dominant Institutions of the Popcyle: Family, Community,
Entertainment
The actual popcycle is the way ideas that are important to
the culture arise in the institutions
Note: Hailing needs more explanation
According to Ulmer, every institutional discourse has its
own icons which act as emblems for “scripts of normative behavior.” Pg. 26
DQ: What happens when the emblem doesn’t perform as
expected? Or does this never happen because that it the purpose of the emblem?
Grammatology-In this section, Ulmer forewarns readers that a number people do not agree with the following claims that he makes. Ulmer claims that most books are written in a disciplinary voice, that the internet is a book that is written in first person, and he feels that this allworks together to create a practice of electracy and emergancy. Ulmer provide the following as a backing for his stance. He explains how overtime the simplification of Aristotle's and Plato's discoveries and schools have lead to electracy. Ulmer uses the alphabet as an example, which was invented in the 19th century, and was invented to serve as a new type of recording device. This he says is an example of electracy.
Ulmer claims the goal is not to adapt digital technology to literacy. Instead he states how we should discover a new practice that can adequately develop and display the potential of new technology, and not adapt old practices/literacy to new form of technology.a
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
2/2/2010
Gregory L. Ulmer's text Internet Invention plans to teach us about Electracy. He explains that "electracy is an image apparatus, keeping in mind that 'images' are made with words as well as with pictures" (page 2). The idea of using the internet for the high held "literature" is still new to us. "Literature" with a capital L is usually still seen in society as a published book. We still have more respect for the quality of those pieces than what we find online. Ulmer tells us that now is the time for change. "We should consider this moment as a time for invention" (page 5) and it is us, the students who are here to help invent the future of writing.
Ulmer proposes a plan of education in which we create a mystory. Here, we wish to say "a plan of education that culminates in a mystory" but it cannot culminate as the creation of the mystory is as much a process of the learning as is reading the text. Through the mystory creation process we are to be learning. In this way, discovery and invention are tied together. He is almost creating a perpetual motion machine of creativity. The idea is one of a self-fueling lesson. He asks only that we suspend our disbelief and participate.
The mystory was motivated by the idea of history history being invented in the 20th century, and that if it had been it would have a different aesthetic, "not positivism but quantum relativity; not realism but surrealism." (page 5). The idea of a mystory starts with students mapping out themselves in relation to "Career field or major; Family, Entertainment; community History" (page 6). It will be interesting to see how each of our mystories come to be.
Ulmer proposes a plan of education in which we create a mystory. Here, we wish to say "a plan of education that culminates in a mystory" but it cannot culminate as the creation of the mystory is as much a process of the learning as is reading the text. Through the mystory creation process we are to be learning. In this way, discovery and invention are tied together. He is almost creating a perpetual motion machine of creativity. The idea is one of a self-fueling lesson. He asks only that we suspend our disbelief and participate.
The mystory was motivated by the idea of history history being invented in the 20th century, and that if it had been it would have a different aesthetic, "not positivism but quantum relativity; not realism but surrealism." (page 5). The idea of a mystory starts with students mapping out themselves in relation to "Career field or major; Family, Entertainment; community History" (page 6). It will be interesting to see how each of our mystories come to be.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
1/26/2010
Blogs as narratives have a unique format because of their structure. Unlike novels, the story of a blog isn’t told all at once. It is episodic. For readers to get the full story, they must read the entire blog post bypost. Each post is simply a fragment, but can offer the reader a view into the blogger’s personal life if the story is pieced together correctly. Rettberg discussed how some blogs have a very clear goal that is stated at the beginning of the creation of the blog. Some examples she discussed were dating blogs and dieting blogs. Each episode or blog post leaves the reader wanting to know what will happen next. The blogger’s struggles with weight or dating become the readers’ struggles and they began to form a connection with the blogger. Unfortunately for the readers, this connection ends when the blogger reaches their goal and ends the blog because he or she no longer has anything to blog about.
Sometimes bloggers who use blogs to tell their story become trapped in the persona that they created for the blog. Rettberg discussed how the author of a blog entitled Chronicles of Dr. Crazy felt limited because she couldn’t discuss her professional
life as much as she wanted, due to the concept of the blog that she had created online. She constantly had to carefully edit her posts. When a blogger feels contained in a space that was originally created for freedom, the end of the blog is near. Dr. Crazy ended up closing that blog and starting a new one where she would feel less constrained.
Dr. Crazy’s blog was a pseudonymous blog. She exposed part of herself, but not enough that anyone would be able to figure out her identity. She was using the blog for self-exploration. Rettberg writes that a reflection of ourselves is created in our blog. Pseudonymous bloggers will expose bits of their personality or crop pictures, only showing the reader what they want the reader to see. However, while Dr. Crazy was using a fake name to keep from being judged for her interests, some pseudonymous bloggers such as Kaycee Nicole create an entire new identity, usually drastically different from their own, as a sort of secret roleplay. The reasons behind this vary, but it seems clear that Kaycee Nicole was an effort for the blogger behind the name to get friends, feeling that her true identity or personality prevented this in some way. However, lonelygirl15's case shows that there are other reasons, such as a team of people experimenting with alternate forms of storytelling.
So far, this book has illustrated several uses for blogs: diary-style recountings of an individual's life, lists of interesting or relevant links, news blogs, a diary for a secretly fictional person, and even an acknowledged fictional diary as a form of storytelling. However, some people use their blogs as a way to make some extra cash or promote their own products. Dooce was presented earlier in the book as an example of a someone making money through advertising on their blog, but now we learn about referral fees, PayPerPost advertising, and spammer accounts. Some bloggers review products and get paid as the agent that referred a customer to the site. Spammer accounts leave links to the product or website being promoted, both in their blog and as comments on other blogs, as an effort to lead readers to the product/website or simply to up the popularity rating of the target site on search engines, which assume that more links means a better site. However, because search engines are becoming more efficient at sorting out spammed links from others, efforts such as PayPerPost, as the name suggests, pays bloggers for each post reviewing a specific product.
While some businesses pay bloggers for advertisement space, others write their own blogs in an effort to gain attention for their products, events, and company. Business blogs are a way for companies to establish, maintain, and grow relationships with their customers. They are also a way for companies to participate in conversations that are taking place online. Corporate blogs allow companies to bypass the traditional media outlets and speak directly to their consumers.
According to Rettberg, businesses try to maintain the personal character of blogs. Very large companies will sometimes try to have separate blogs for different topics, have employees take turns at contributing, or not have an official corporate blog at all, but just encourage their employees to create their own blogs to write about their career experience and interests. Many companies have guidelines for their employees who blog, but sometimes it is the company itself that acts dishonestly. Rettberg discussed the incident the Wal-Mart sponsored blog where neither the couple writing it nor the company sponsoring it disclosed that Wal-Mart was paying this couple to write about them. The lack of transparency shown by Wal-Mart showed the importance of establishing ethical guidelines for employees.
It seems likely that blogging will continue into the future, though the particular mechanisms are likely to change. People seem to enjoy participating in media and sharing their lives and opinions. It is likely that certain trends will continue - diversity is increasing, implicit data collection sites (such as Last.fm) are only beginning to be used to their full potential, and the customizations from search engines such as Google and Amazon are getting more and more accurate and useful.
Sometimes bloggers who use blogs to tell their story become trapped in the persona that they created for the blog. Rettberg discussed how the author of a blog entitled Chronicles of Dr. Crazy felt limited because she couldn’t discuss her professional
life as much as she wanted, due to the concept of the blog that she had created online. She constantly had to carefully edit her posts. When a blogger feels contained in a space that was originally created for freedom, the end of the blog is near. Dr. Crazy ended up closing that blog and starting a new one where she would feel less constrained.
Dr. Crazy’s blog was a pseudonymous blog. She exposed part of herself, but not enough that anyone would be able to figure out her identity. She was using the blog for self-exploration. Rettberg writes that a reflection of ourselves is created in our blog. Pseudonymous bloggers will expose bits of their personality or crop pictures, only showing the reader what they want the reader to see. However, while Dr. Crazy was using a fake name to keep from being judged for her interests, some pseudonymous bloggers such as Kaycee Nicole create an entire new identity, usually drastically different from their own, as a sort of secret roleplay. The reasons behind this vary, but it seems clear that Kaycee Nicole was an effort for the blogger behind the name to get friends, feeling that her true identity or personality prevented this in some way. However, lonelygirl15's case shows that there are other reasons, such as a team of people experimenting with alternate forms of storytelling.
So far, this book has illustrated several uses for blogs: diary-style recountings of an individual's life, lists of interesting or relevant links, news blogs, a diary for a secretly fictional person, and even an acknowledged fictional diary as a form of storytelling. However, some people use their blogs as a way to make some extra cash or promote their own products. Dooce was presented earlier in the book as an example of a someone making money through advertising on their blog, but now we learn about referral fees, PayPerPost advertising, and spammer accounts. Some bloggers review products and get paid as the agent that referred a customer to the site. Spammer accounts leave links to the product or website being promoted, both in their blog and as comments on other blogs, as an effort to lead readers to the product/website or simply to up the popularity rating of the target site on search engines, which assume that more links means a better site. However, because search engines are becoming more efficient at sorting out spammed links from others, efforts such as PayPerPost, as the name suggests, pays bloggers for each post reviewing a specific product.
While some businesses pay bloggers for advertisement space, others write their own blogs in an effort to gain attention for their products, events, and company. Business blogs are a way for companies to establish, maintain, and grow relationships with their customers. They are also a way for companies to participate in conversations that are taking place online. Corporate blogs allow companies to bypass the traditional media outlets and speak directly to their consumers.
According to Rettberg, businesses try to maintain the personal character of blogs. Very large companies will sometimes try to have separate blogs for different topics, have employees take turns at contributing, or not have an official corporate blog at all, but just encourage their employees to create their own blogs to write about their career experience and interests. Many companies have guidelines for their employees who blog, but sometimes it is the company itself that acts dishonestly. Rettberg discussed the incident the Wal-Mart sponsored blog where neither the couple writing it nor the company sponsoring it disclosed that Wal-Mart was paying this couple to write about them. The lack of transparency shown by Wal-Mart showed the importance of establishing ethical guidelines for employees.
It seems likely that blogging will continue into the future, though the particular mechanisms are likely to change. People seem to enjoy participating in media and sharing their lives and opinions. It is likely that certain trends will continue - diversity is increasing, implicit data collection sites (such as Last.fm) are only beginning to be used to their full potential, and the customizations from search engines such as Google and Amazon are getting more and more accurate and useful.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
1/19/2010
While it may seem that bloggers are writing in a diary or personal journal, the reality is that their blogs are a means of social interaction, ranging from large audiences to small networks of friends. Mark Granovetter theorizes that weak ties between individuals are more important than strong ties, because if a blogger posts something that a close friend reposts, approximately the same group of people will see it; if a more distant ("weak tie") friend reposts, a very different group of people will be able to add their opinions. This is most apparent in the number of links leading back to the original blog - with more weak tie friends, the news gets out to a wider variety of people, who are then likely to share the link with their friends. Having more links is commonly equated with being more powerful in the blogosphere.
Because of this system of bloggers linking to one another, it is clear that there is no central hub in the blogging world; this is a distributed network, the category that is becoming more and more popular. An example of the other main category - a centralized network - would be a news body such as CNN, in which all pieces link back to this central hub. With the interlinking in blogging systems, the tendency of a blog to be like a book is minimized. Despite the blogger not being able to have immediate access to his readers and the blog's persistence in archives, linking among blogs reduces the solo feeling of a printed book and allows for a social network to be created.
Some social networks (for example, Myspace and Facebook) include blogging features but place more emphasis on the other parts of their sites, such as photo, video, and music capabilities. Like some blogs, these websites allow for privacy settings so that only mutual friends or even further restrictions of 'custom friend groups' can view certain content. dinah boyd presents four characteristics of online social spaces that differentiate them from offline social spaces:
1. Persistence - Content posted to the internet may stay there even after the author attempts to delete it
2. Searchability - The internet may be searched for people and used to locate what content they have added
3. Replicable - Any photos or writings posted may be modified or copied without the author's knowledge
4. Invisible Audiences - It is never 100% certain who is viewing the blog and its profile.
One danger of online and offline social networking is that when they collide, the effect on a person may be large. For example, some bloggers have been fired for what they have shared online, and many teenagers do not wish for their mothers to use the same sites as them to conceal certain personal information. Many bloggers are familiar with the constant juggling act required to keep on and offline social circles from intersecting painfully. Perhaps more interesting, however, is the theoretical side of the whole issue - where will blogs and other online social networks be ten, twenty, even fifty years from now?
Bloggers are increasingly being seen as similar to journalists, because both tell a story in every piece of writing they compose. However, bloggers often have more freedom in their writings, whereas journalists are restrained in length and subject area. Yet many people find journalists more credible than bloggers who aren't associated with a publishing or news company. One of the most important differences between bloggers and journalists relates to "gatewatching" - the controls that govern journalism and other forms of traditional media to ensure proper research and writing prior to publication. While there are no stringent or official regulations for blogs, Alex Burns explains that an informal gatewatching occurs simply through viewer interest. Bloggers also can sometimes find fault and/or inaccuracy in traditional media reporting, which adds another levelof gatewatching. B logs written by by individuals do often link to more mainstream media, but it is important to also note that they often link to other blogger's sites on these stories instead of the actual mainstream media. Larger sites suchas Slashdot tend to have more "gatewatching" than smaller sites which does cut down on this.
Overall, blogs can often serve much the same purposes as traditional media. They allow citizens to voice their opinions and bring to light controversial subject matters. Both blogs and mainstream media must gauge the responsiveness of their audiences. Rettberg argues that these two forms of media equally need each other to thrive. Yet only 5% of bloggers consider themselves journalists; this is not yet a common issue and has only rarely been a legal problem. Even bloggers who are experiencing an event first-hand (for example, a student at Columbine during the shootings) believe that they are just sharing their life, not reporting on an incident for all the world to read. The future will probably bring a legal definition for which bloggers are and which aren't journalists, but in the meantime, it may be best to refer to these people in the way in which they refer to themselves
Because of this system of bloggers linking to one another, it is clear that there is no central hub in the blogging world; this is a distributed network, the category that is becoming more and more popular. An example of the other main category - a centralized network - would be a news body such as CNN, in which all pieces link back to this central hub. With the interlinking in blogging systems, the tendency of a blog to be like a book is minimized. Despite the blogger not being able to have immediate access to his readers and the blog's persistence in archives, linking among blogs reduces the solo feeling of a printed book and allows for a social network to be created.
Some social networks (for example, Myspace and Facebook) include blogging features but place more emphasis on the other parts of their sites, such as photo, video, and music capabilities. Like some blogs, these websites allow for privacy settings so that only mutual friends or even further restrictions of 'custom friend groups' can view certain content. dinah boyd presents four characteristics of online social spaces that differentiate them from offline social spaces:
1. Persistence - Content posted to the internet may stay there even after the author attempts to delete it
2. Searchability - The internet may be searched for people and used to locate what content they have added
3. Replicable - Any photos or writings posted may be modified or copied without the author's knowledge
4. Invisible Audiences - It is never 100% certain who is viewing the blog and its profile.
One danger of online and offline social networking is that when they collide, the effect on a person may be large. For example, some bloggers have been fired for what they have shared online, and many teenagers do not wish for their mothers to use the same sites as them to conceal certain personal information. Many bloggers are familiar with the constant juggling act required to keep on and offline social circles from intersecting painfully. Perhaps more interesting, however, is the theoretical side of the whole issue - where will blogs and other online social networks be ten, twenty, even fifty years from now?
Bloggers are increasingly being seen as similar to journalists, because both tell a story in every piece of writing they compose. However, bloggers often have more freedom in their writings, whereas journalists are restrained in length and subject area. Yet many people find journalists more credible than bloggers who aren't associated with a publishing or news company. One of the most important differences between bloggers and journalists relates to "gatewatching" - the controls that govern journalism and other forms of traditional media to ensure proper research and writing prior to publication. While there are no stringent or official regulations for blogs, Alex Burns explains that an informal gatewatching occurs simply through viewer interest. Bloggers also can sometimes find fault and/or inaccuracy in traditional media reporting, which adds another levelof gatewatching. B logs written by by individuals do often link to more mainstream media, but it is important to also note that they often link to other blogger's sites on these stories instead of the actual mainstream media. Larger sites suchas Slashdot tend to have more "gatewatching" than smaller sites which does cut down on this.
Overall, blogs can often serve much the same purposes as traditional media. They allow citizens to voice their opinions and bring to light controversial subject matters. Both blogs and mainstream media must gauge the responsiveness of their audiences. Rettberg argues that these two forms of media equally need each other to thrive. Yet only 5% of bloggers consider themselves journalists; this is not yet a common issue and has only rarely been a legal problem. Even bloggers who are experiencing an event first-hand (for example, a student at Columbine during the shootings) believe that they are just sharing their life, not reporting on an incident for all the world to read. The future will probably bring a legal definition for which bloggers are and which aren't journalists, but in the meantime, it may be best to refer to these people in the way in which they refer to themselves
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