Palfrey and Gasser and Blackmon

While chugging my Arizona sweet tea and leafing through my study abroad information books, I decided to take a break and read /post long-winded for class.

What a little smartass. 

I am a digital native. I grew up directly connected to technology. I remember getting a computer and internet and my dad's first cell phone (which  I remember setting up my first email address with Hotmail. I remember having a hard time figuring out what my email address should be. I remember my dad getting a new computer (that came with a demo of the original Sims) and my sister and I wanting to "paint," play solitaire and build houses on Sims on rainy afternoons.

Now, as a student, I use technology during the majority of my day... whether its in class, on campus, or at home. The technologies that I use are part of my childhood and my present day as well as my future, inevitably.

The Palfrey and Gasser reading, where I was introduced to the term "digital native" was powerful. It made me think about the many ways that the current technologies we have really do take over our lives, quickly becoming a way that people define us as people.

With that thought, I realized that we as a society place labels on people depending on the technology they utilize. An example, "He's an iPhone user, she has a Samsung." This classification can also be related to income and financial stability in the world. Citizens of other countries around the world probably cannot afford some of the technologies we have in the US, let alone have the electricity and networks to operate them properly and effectively.

Samantha Blackmon's (Cyber)Conspiracy Theories? African-American Students in the Computerized Writing Environment was also very interesting to me. I never thought I would be one to become interested in gender and racial studies, but this reading was very interesting to me for many reasons.

For the many students who Blackmon spoke with for her article, they all shared one common observance: minority students are both underrepresented and/or misrepresented online. Not all African-Americans are rappers or great at sports. Not all of them even like sports.

As far as internet usage, access and knowledge go, minority groups have less of each of them for a variety of reasons. If you do not have access to the internet, you cannot use it, thus you cannot gain knowledge of its many facets.  Its unfortunate. If, in an education setting, a student fails something because they do not know how to use the program, Blackmon points out that it is usually blamed on the student, when in reality we should all be looking at the cultural and social conventions that put up those road blocks for a minority student to try and hurdle over.

On a final note,  I liked Elspeth Stuckey's definition of literacy:

"Literacy, like communication, is a matter of access, a matter of opportunity, a matter of economic security - a total matter."

Thanks, Elspeth. I agree. Cool name, btw.

 

Banana afternoon

I just wanted to share what I did this afternoon with everyone... My apartment smells amazing!

Online adoption: Internet usage stats

The title of this reading was funny... Online adoption?

Anyway, the Pew Internet reading offered some interesting statistics from recent years about the internet and its usage in homes across America.

Some of the categories include age group, education, income and other demographics.

What I found most interesting was that "A majority of home broadband users see a home high-speed connections as "very important" to at least one dimension of their lives and community..."

Something else they included in the study was reasons why 21% of adults do not have internet access in their homes... the highest percentage of which said they are just not interested in getting online.

My generation grew up with all of this... whereas the Baby Boomers did not... it is foreign to them. In other words, "I survived without the internet this far into my life... why do I need to use it now?" Or, as my Grandpa would say,"I'll look that up in my computer upstairs," in reference to his Encyclopedia collection.

Assignment 1 Draft: ASPCA ad

ASPCA ad featuring Sarah McLachlan and “Angel”

Animal cruelty is wrong. As an avid animal lover, it is hard to understand what could go through someone's mind when they have decided to harm their pets or other animals. With the many hours that we spend watching television each week, it is hard to meet someone who has not seen the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' video featuring Sarah McLachlan and her song "Angel". Because this video gets me every time, I have decided to analyze it as my digital media artifact for this assignment.

The ASPCA, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, was the first humane society to be established in North America. Formed in 1866 by Henry Bergh and headquartered in New York City, the ASPCA is one of the largest humane societies in the world today. According to their website, the nonprofit organization was also the first humane organization to be granted legal authority to investigate, arrest and prosecute those who commit crimes against animals.

In 2006, the ASPCA released one of their most haunting and depressing fundraising ads featuring singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan and her song “Angel.” Although McLachlan only appears for a short amount of time in the video to make the plea for donations in support of the animals that follow, the moving shots of starving cats and injured dogs really hit your heart. As a longtime supporter of the ASPCA, McLachlan’s ad has raised a lot of money for the organization; close to $30 million since it began to air. They were even able to purchase primetime slots on widely watched channels to try and gain even more supporters.  

Because this ad gets me whenever I see it (and because I sometimes even have to change the channel so that I don’t start bawling) I decided to use it as my digital media artifact. I would argue that this ad is a digital media artifact for the following reasons: 1) it is broadcast on national television and uses a “public figure” to persuade you to donate money, and 2) the ad uses visuals of animals to show people that this is a real problem and that people actually treat their pets and animals in this way.

Gitelman: History of the digital media artifact. This ad still airs in its original form from when it first appeared on television in 2006. There have other ads made with McLachlan, using other songs including “Silent Night” in 2008 and “Whisper” (January) 2009. I would argue that a history is being created or already has been created because of the memorability of the ads and the hundreds of times that they have aired on television.

Baudrillard:  Animal cruelty a simulation? These images are successful because they are “reflection of basic reality,” although some hope these horrors aren’t true.

McLuhan: “All media works us over completely.” McLuhan thought that all print and digital media were/are things that affect our society and affect our lives over a long period of time. This video ad would fall into this category because of its quick message to donate, but also because of the images that accompany the words. They are something that isn’t easily erased from memory.

Sources:

1.    aspca.org

2.    Youtube.com (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu_JqNdp2As)

3.    New York Times (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu_JqNdp2As)

4.    Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_McLachlan)

5.    McLuhan

6.    Gitelman

7.    Baudrillard

Digital Media Artifact: ASPCA

Sorry to do this to everyone, but I thought I would share my digital media artifact with you a little early.

This ALWAYS gets me. I literally have to change the channel. :'(

WTF McLuhan

WTF McLuhan.
I found this reading easier that Baudrillard (surprise there), although some concepts took a bit more thought than others.

When he talked about electric circuitry, I literally thought of wires and plugs in the walls. What he meant though was the electric circuitry of the human body and brain and the different ways that we as a society react to situations.

The images he chose throughout the book not only added visual interest but also added another level to think about. Personally, I read the text and then looked at the images and tried to decipher how the image related to what he was talking about on that particular page. Some made more sense than others. For example, I liked he drawing on page 69 of the something century men each looking at the same "diagram", we'll say, from different angles or perspectives, just as people will look at the same piece of media from different angles and perceptions.

McLuhan touches on print and digital media as things that have affected our society and lives over a long period of time and continue to affect our lives. In short, he wanted to get the message across that "All media works us over completely". Our perceptions, decisions and movements change because of what media portrays to us and how we come to understand its many meanings.

Also, check out the link to his website above. Its pretty interesting. The "McLuhanisms" are fun.

Baudrillard Reading

"The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true." -Baudrillard

Much of this reading was confusing as hell, to be honest. 

I do think I understand bits and pieces of it, but I may be wrong. 

When he is talking about dissimulation, he meant faking or copying something you have... with simulate, he meant faking or copying something you wish you had, something you want. Simulation "threatens the difference between "true" and "false" and "real" and "imaginary". 

Baudrillard also looked at the simulators can do... in the military and then on to the idea that a God or other divinity loses authority because its image is produced over and over again to the masses. Is the image/visible "God" as effective as the one you cannot see, but still believe in?

I really liked the section on "Murders of the real" and the "murderous capacity of images". Images can become replacements of the real thing which exists in reality, not on the internet. "To this murderous capacity is opposed the dialectical capacity of representations as a visible and intelligible mediation of the Real. All of Wester Faith and good faith was engaged in this wager on representation : that a sign could refer to the depth of meaning, that a sign could exchange for meaning and that something could guarantee this exchange..."

Baudrillard also touches on the successful phases of the image:

1. it is a reflection of basic reality

2. it masks and perverts a basic reality

3. it masks the absence of basic reality

4. it bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is pure simulacrum

Agree.... some images, like photos for example, are reflections of reality...

Others mask and pervert it. 

Some altered images, such as those manipulated with Photoshop (maybe) show the absence of reality because they have been changed.

And finally, some are totally created in order to be different than the reality we live in...

 

THE DISNEYLAND EXAMPLE

Baudrillard talks about Disneyland because it is a different kind of reality... you enter willingly, have a great time while inside (spending money, mostly) and then are essentially dumped at the door when the park closes to wander back to your car and get back on the freeway. Disneyland is not an imaginary place, it exists, and adults, for example, go there to live out their childishness (or the illusions of their childishness).
Los Angeles is nothing more than a "town of fabulous proportions, but without space and dimensions." It is expansive, although its limits can be seen on road signs. The ideas about Los Angeles and Disneyland, for example, far surpass the amount of space the actual places hold.

Guess what I just got...

Server Error

404 - File or directory not found.

The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

Look what I just got... a 404 error! Thought I would share it's beauty with everyone.

Scoobs

Tonight some friends and I went out to Applebee's (exciting, I know) and participated in Wednesday Night Trivia. It was super fun!! You create a team name and then answer 3 rounds of 20 questions. Our name... Trivia Virgins... it was out first time there for Trivia together. Seemed fitting.

We may make it a weekly thing. Not like there's much else to do on a Wednesday night in Houghton, right? Tonight there were a lot of questions asked about Scooby Doo, which was awesome! Because I like him and he should have been a part of every child's life since 1969 in some capacity... here's a little bit of Scooby for you to take in. :)

Gitelman Reading Response

Sitting here, eating my frozen blueberries blended with orange juice, I decided to get some of my work done "early". This reading and post isn't technically due until Thursday before class, but I'm going to get it done Tuesday night since I have a boatload of other things to do this week. Plus, I want to have time later to Skype with my beloved sister who I miss dearly. Not that she'll ever read this...

So, the Gitelman reading was hard for me to follow at first. I had to go back and reread the beginning to really understand why she was complaining about... something with the Internet and the  "least recently modified web page". Detailing how she believes the "least recently modified" page really HAS changed, such as its location, name/title, context and appearance, she proves her point very well. Gitelman writes that "The least recently modified web page is offered to readers as a historical document within a context that complicates the very grounds of its historicity," meaning since the "least recently modified web page" really IS modified in its name, location, contextual changes, etc, its historical value is invalid. (?)

Gitelman uses some interesting analogies to describe the internet and its many kinds of contents as evidence, such  as art student looking at slides of paintings, knowing they are know the real thing, but also assuming and agreeing with the "computer source" (EVIDENCE) that they actually exist in real, physical form somewhere.

Gitelman also asks some interesting, rhetorical questions which she does her best to answer later on: "How are media the subjects of history when doing history depends on so many tacit conditions of mediation? How might present attempts to historicize the Web be complicated by the users and characteristics of the Web itself?"

I particularly like the second set of questions. It made me think about trying to create a history of the internet and the ways that it could get so very complicated because of the ways it is always evolving and the ways that people use it on a daily basis. How do you chart the history of something when the history is always changing? With the number of records being kept online always growing, how can we ensure that they don't get lost in the translation or moved and forgotten about? What's to say they just happen to disappear all together?

Search engines help to find the information, but where did it first originate on the Web?

Response to Manovich Reading

In the Manovich reading, a lot of information is given about the history of digital media. He talks about and decribes different types of media and their individual histories. He also talks about the change to "new media" and the principles that make up the concept. After a lengthy explanation, he talks about what new media is not. He lists some of the differences between new and old media and criticizes them.
Personally, I found this reading kind of boring. ;( Plus, I am still battling this sinus thing and my head is clogged full of other stuff besides ideas. Bear with me.
Because there was so much information included in the one reading, it was, however, a litte bit hard to follow the flow of information for me. Manovich did have headings to helo guide the reader through his concepts, though, which was helpful.

Response to Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think"

Interesting.

I gather from the comments others had posted at the bottom of the reading online as well as context of his writing that Bush wrote this piece following WWII. (God, I hope that's a correct assumption...) His ideas for the spreading of information at that time really are revolutionary, "futuristic" even.

Scientists doing research at the time of the war, Bush says, are becoming more and more overwhelmed by the amount of discoveries and ideas they are finding. They are in need of a better way to keep that information compiled and together for future reference and use. Bush writes, "The difficulty seems to be, not so much that we publish unduly in view of the extent and variety of present day interests, but rather that publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record. ...the means we use for threading through the consequent maze of the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days if square-rigged ships." (SULLIVAN'S references to SHIP LOGS here PEOPLE!!)

Bush goes on to talk about photography as a ay of gathering information and the many ways that information can be stored (film, wax disks, magnetic wires...) What most grabbed me was this statement: "There are plenty of mechanical aids with which to effect a transformation of scientific records." He's talking about the internet/computers or some other kind of device to help sort through things and to make it easier!

My favorite part of the entire reading, however, was this one: "The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it. A record if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted." MEANING, Bush knew these kinds of technologies would advance and extend, making storing and collecting data and information easier. He know, somehow, that, for example, photography would advance far enough in order to view the photograph immediately following the click of the button.

Interesting.


In other news, I either have killer allergies or a nasty sinus infection raging inside my head... Either way, this sucks.

Why I Blog: A Response to Sullivan

I've often thought about blogging; personally or journalistically. I am writing for the Lode on campus and just think sometimes, "Hey, why don't I get some of my own ideas/activities/interests out there and see what kind of feedback I get?" But hey, the time is now!

Anyway, Sullivan raises some good points, like how, when you're blogging, its instantaneous and absolutely immediate every time you post. You need to be open to criticism since commenters are able to write their feelings towards your posts and any mistakes you made are publicized.

Adding to this, I loved his idea of "writing out loud." Its exactly what you are doing. Your blog reflects your personality and your lifestyle, even if you don't intend it to.

Bringing in a more journalistic aspect, writing for the Lode is completely different than writing on a blog. Article writing facts need to be checked and double checked to be sure this persons name is spelled correctly and that that's the actual date that happened... blogging is all on you, there are not copy editors to watch your back and no editor above saying "Make sure you talk to these people" or "We don't want to piss anyone off because of this." Piss whoever you want to off on your blog, because its your expression and perception of the world. Make it personal, make it yours. Connect with your readers with more than just a "Post By: Katelyn Waara".

2 cents.

HELLO! and username and pic

Helllo!
Since I was having some MAJOR issues with livejournal, I'm switching to blogger (which, for the record, is WAY better in my mind, especially right now)
Since I have to do my posts all over again, here they are:

First, a note of welcome,
HI! I'm Katelyn! This is my blog for class as well as for everything else I come up with I guess. More information about myself will come later... bear with me on this one. :)

Second, a quick summary of my decisions about my name and pic.
The name "two pretty birds" was contributed to by two things: 1) pretty bird is a nickname I was given. And 2) There are two of them because I have a twin sister. Her name is Meredith and she and I have never been apart (distance wise) for longer than a week. She has transferred to Northern. :( I miss her and, since there are two of us, Two Pretty Birds seemed fitting.

The image is of me at the Zoo, that's what google is using for now, but I have another one on my computer at  home that I want to use. See that later. :)

I want to keep posting on here following the class and hope that you find it interesting!

Katelyn