All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.
Marshall McLuhan
I think that media is a form of entertainment (which, yes, as Mcluhan states is intrinisically linked to education), and as such, it is valued differently than the founding principles upon which we are raised. What role does religion play in this? Our religion does teach us the binary of right and wrong, and it is often through television and movies that the gray is filled in. Therefore, we are educated through media, but is this education a bad thing?
12.17.2009
12.15.2009
New SyFy Show
Has anyone seen this? Caprica is a new SyFy show and the personalities of the robots is created through search engines so that they are copies of real people created from all information found online!
12.14.2009
100 Sites to Download Everything
100 Sites to Download Everything
List includes free audiobooks, emagazines, sheet music, clip art....
List includes free audiobooks, emagazines, sheet music, clip art....
Social Etiquette
What I think is most interesting about social media is all of the new rules of social etiquette that have come with it.
Writing a letter is no longer a casual thing to do. It has been redefined.
Facebook friending means something between real world individuals. It has definitely evolved in its meaning as Facebook has evolved. I think this is a large reason why people are nervous about it. They don't understand the ramifications of their actions or how to control it.
For example, in my last post, I shared an article about viral crooks and how they can take over your online identity creating a social faux pas. However, if I had received that email/message, I would have known immediately that it was spam. Also, I know how to avoid getting spammed because I have learned how to control my profile. If you are going to interact with social media, it is imperative that you know this. Otherwise it is just as scary as people say.
For example, I would never allow my photos or cellphone number to be open on Facebook. I have it open to my friends. I am incredibly careful about my privacy settings and have created groups to limit what those who I know really well can know about me versus those I do not know well vs employers and my grandparents etc.
Writing a letter is no longer a casual thing to do. It has been redefined.
Facebook friending means something between real world individuals. It has definitely evolved in its meaning as Facebook has evolved. I think this is a large reason why people are nervous about it. They don't understand the ramifications of their actions or how to control it.
For example, in my last post, I shared an article about viral crooks and how they can take over your online identity creating a social faux pas. However, if I had received that email/message, I would have known immediately that it was spam. Also, I know how to avoid getting spammed because I have learned how to control my profile. If you are going to interact with social media, it is imperative that you know this. Otherwise it is just as scary as people say.
For example, I would never allow my photos or cellphone number to be open on Facebook. I have it open to my friends. I am incredibly careful about my privacy settings and have created groups to limit what those who I know really well can know about me versus those I do not know well vs employers and my grandparents etc.
Twitter/Facebook Pirates
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/technology/internet/14virus.html?_r=2&em
“I wonder what people are thinking of me right now?” said Matt Marquess, an employee at a public relations firm in San Francisco whose Twitter account was recently hijacked, showering his followers with messages that appeared to offer a $500 gift card to Victoria’s Secret.
Mr. Marquess was clueless about the offers until a professional acquaintance asked him about them via e-mail. Confused, he logged in to his account and noticed he had been promoting lingerie for five days.
“No one had said anything to me,” he said. “I thought, how long have I been Twittering about underwear?”
12.07.2009
McLuhan Link
CBC on Marshall McLuhan: The Man and the Message -- 10 tv clips, 8 radio clips
This helped me understand the distinction between "hot" and "cold" media.
Also, the direct reference to high definition vs low definition points to the question of the accuracy of his categorization of television, now that it is high definition.
This helped me understand the distinction between "hot" and "cold" media.
Marshall McLuhan adapted these references from the TV jargon "high" and "low definition." High definition means well-defined, sharp and detailed visually, such as a map. Low definition refers to indistinct images scanned by the eye, with which the viewer is left to fill in the blanks, such as a sketch.
McLuhan says television is a cool or low definition medium, offering little information but the user participates with most of his senses. He explains that a book is a hot or high definition medium, presenting the user with lots of information at a level of lower sensory participation.
McLuhan
After reading the blog post about McLuhan and reading the first part of Understanding Media, I am still fairly confused. Radio is hot because there is not a lot of participation, high deterioration in one mode... focused sound...
Technologies are anything that allows your person to have more capacity.
I read Mcluhan Reconsidered which offers this quote:
So, it is not hard to see why McLuhan would have so accurately predicted the evolution of media -- he used a technologically determinist perspective, and thus he was stating what would ultimately be produced by the evolution of technology over time - he wrote about the ways that culture and history have been and will be affected by technological advances.
Definitely makes sense that he was in a Woody Allen movie. I think I will write more after today's discussion when I have a better idea of what to take away from his ramblings.
Technologies are anything that allows your person to have more capacity.
I read Mcluhan Reconsidered which offers this quote:
"...those who offer technologically determinist analyses of the history of western cultures--the Havelocks, Ongs, McLuhans, and their followers--remain marginalized.... The determinists see culture as a series of behaviours determined by the powers and limits of each generation's "hardware", that is, the technologies of communication..."[1]
So, it is not hard to see why McLuhan would have so accurately predicted the evolution of media -- he used a technologically determinist perspective, and thus he was stating what would ultimately be produced by the evolution of technology over time - he wrote about the ways that culture and history have been and will be affected by technological advances.
Definitely makes sense that he was in a Woody Allen movie. I think I will write more after today's discussion when I have a better idea of what to take away from his ramblings.
12.03.2009
EPIC 2014
Watching Epic 2014 .
(I feel like I'm in watching one of those creepy museum videos. And then Google conquered the Macedonian Empire....)
I don't see The New York Times going offline, especially because if they ever did, people would just begin to type up the articles or scan them onto computers. That is why I imagine newspapers went online in the first place -- to control access to their own content online. By requiring a username and password to access its site, The New York Times is able to keep its full articles from coming up in Google searches.
I think that this video is an overreaction. If print media fails, it will be because the newspapers realized the amount of money they could save by becoming exclusively online organizations.
Also, newspapers are just as capable of printing false facts or stories skewed by special-interests as any citizen journalist. The same people who police the facts of the media now will be policing the facts of citizen journalists. We do not implicitly trust what we read but have been taught to question its veracity and motives. A more trusted journalist gets more hits and more hits means more advertising revenue. The same systems in place today to police the media will continue to police online media.
(I feel like I'm in watching one of those creepy museum videos. And then Google conquered the Macedonian Empire....)
I don't see The New York Times going offline, especially because if they ever did, people would just begin to type up the articles or scan them onto computers. That is why I imagine newspapers went online in the first place -- to control access to their own content online. By requiring a username and password to access its site, The New York Times is able to keep its full articles from coming up in Google searches.
I think that this video is an overreaction. If print media fails, it will be because the newspapers realized the amount of money they could save by becoming exclusively online organizations.
Also, newspapers are just as capable of printing false facts or stories skewed by special-interests as any citizen journalist. The same people who police the facts of the media now will be policing the facts of citizen journalists. We do not implicitly trust what we read but have been taught to question its veracity and motives. A more trusted journalist gets more hits and more hits means more advertising revenue. The same systems in place today to police the media will continue to police online media.
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