In concluding his essay "Webs as Pegs", David Bell states that he is inclined to believe that attempts to define community should not be limited to what others say it is (pg 261). That is, everyone has their own definition and experience of what community means to them, virtual or not, and attempts to segregate, integrate, or castigate these meanings are essentially a waste of time.
I, for one, wholeheartedly agree with Bell's conclusion. Everyone has their own definition of community and what works for one person, simply doesn't work for another. Their are too many variables involved, such as cultural identity and literacy, (digital or otherwise) to lay claim to any single definition.
To illustrate this point, I'd like to use my loving wife, Brenda, as an example. Having been married for a few years, and sharing the same socio-economic background, one would think that we'd have similar views on this subject. After all, living in the same household and having unfettered access to the same technologies, wouldn't it stand to reason? The truth is, we couldn't have different definitions of community if we had come from different planets.
Brenda feels that community, or at least her understanding of community, has everything to do with emotion and physicality. That is, the physical emotion of human beings engaged in social interaction, in the flesh. Tools of communication such as phones, email, and facebook are a means to the ends of communication. They enable her to engage with her community, but they are not part of her community. No one she doesn't know in meet space would ever be welcomed into her definition of community. I'm just saying...
Myself, on the other hand, have a vastly different definition of community. For me, virtual and meet space are one in the same. I see technology as a tool to augment my ability to communicate in my communities. Foursquare? New community? Nope. It's a new tool to interact with people in a different manner. Put another way, my definition of community is essentially any relationships I have. I may engage in them using different tools and technology, or none at all. I have friends that I see in person and those that I have never met in the flesh. They are all part of my community.
If the definition and understanding is so different in one household, where all things are essentially equal (literacy, social standing, economics etc.), it stands to reason that this is just the tip of iceberg. Do women view community differently that men? Do hunter-gathers in Africa feel the same way about community as I do? What about Eskimos living in igloos? How about the person sitting next to you in class?
I think that community has always been a matter of perspective. You make of it what you will, and technology, for better or worse, will either change that perspective or it won't. Bell has the right idea when he says "Stop worring! Get over it!."
Friday, January 29, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Things Fall Apart - Part 2
Looking at how the native Africans and the English dealt with each other, I couldn't help but start to think about the "digital divide". Isn't this really an example of what we deal with today in terms of how there are those of us who have literacy and those that do not?
Those that possess the information, wield the power and control those who do not. In "Things Fall Apart", it was the English that possessed the ability to read and write, build weapons, and sail across the world. This knowledge allowed them to overcome the Africans with ease. It wasn't called a "digital divide", but it's really the same thing. In the world of colonialism and globalization, literacy trumps illiteracy every single time.
In today's world, we still deal with the same concepts. We call it the "digital divide", because we assume that everyone at this point is literate. Now that we have literacy (yes I know there are many who aren't literate), the playing field still isn't level. With digital technology, we're seeing a brand new type of literacy... a digital one.
Those that understand, use, and even control digital technology have infinitely more power over those that don't. To underscore this point, just look at the music industry. At one time, it was all about records and CD's. As technology progressed, music was digitized and became a cheap commodity, leading to a world of digital music that is owned and controlled by technology companies (Apple anyone?). Record companies failed to embrace technology and were eventually "owned" by technologically superior people.
So, in a nutshell, the gap between those who are literate and those who are not has always existed. We coin the terms in any way we want, but it still comes down to literacy.
Those that possess the information, wield the power and control those who do not. In "Things Fall Apart", it was the English that possessed the ability to read and write, build weapons, and sail across the world. This knowledge allowed them to overcome the Africans with ease. It wasn't called a "digital divide", but it's really the same thing. In the world of colonialism and globalization, literacy trumps illiteracy every single time.
In today's world, we still deal with the same concepts. We call it the "digital divide", because we assume that everyone at this point is literate. Now that we have literacy (yes I know there are many who aren't literate), the playing field still isn't level. With digital technology, we're seeing a brand new type of literacy... a digital one.
Those that understand, use, and even control digital technology have infinitely more power over those that don't. To underscore this point, just look at the music industry. At one time, it was all about records and CD's. As technology progressed, music was digitized and became a cheap commodity, leading to a world of digital music that is owned and controlled by technology companies (Apple anyone?). Record companies failed to embrace technology and were eventually "owned" by technologically superior people.
So, in a nutshell, the gap between those who are literate and those who are not has always existed. We coin the terms in any way we want, but it still comes down to literacy.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Things Fall Apart - Part 1
It's hard to read "Things Fall Apart" and not talk about colonialism. However, the story is ripe with examples of how an orally based society communicates not only with each other individually, but collectively as a society including it's unique social structure and hierarchy.
In revisiting this story with a lens on the language only, it's evident that they place a lot of emphasis on the elders of their community to interpret law and maintain order within the community. They have strong customs and rules that are relayed through the elders and oracles of their communities.
This suggests that tribal knowledge is passed down from the elders to the younger members of the community. As younger members grow older they participate in tribal affairs (assuming they are worthy of course) and the community perpetuates it laws and traditions.
The interesting thing about this is how they convey this knowledge to the people of the tribe. By wearing costumes and portraying the role of gods, they act as conduits from the spirit world to the real world. This allows their leaders to pass judgment and make rulings with an "air" of officialness. Since they are conduits for the gods to speak, they in essence are the gods.
All in all, a pretty good example of how non-writing societies maintain order and peace while passing on the history and tradition of the tribe.
In revisiting this story with a lens on the language only, it's evident that they place a lot of emphasis on the elders of their community to interpret law and maintain order within the community. They have strong customs and rules that are relayed through the elders and oracles of their communities.
This suggests that tribal knowledge is passed down from the elders to the younger members of the community. As younger members grow older they participate in tribal affairs (assuming they are worthy of course) and the community perpetuates it laws and traditions.
The interesting thing about this is how they convey this knowledge to the people of the tribe. By wearing costumes and portraying the role of gods, they act as conduits from the spirit world to the real world. This allows their leaders to pass judgment and make rulings with an "air" of officialness. Since they are conduits for the gods to speak, they in essence are the gods.
All in all, a pretty good example of how non-writing societies maintain order and peace while passing on the history and tradition of the tribe.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Virtual Communities
For the sake of this blog post, I'd like to suggest that there are ostensibly two types of virtual communities, open and closed. Closed communities are those that require an invitation of some sort to be able to participate as an active member. Open communities are those that allow everyone to participate (at least on some level) provided they act accordingly within the scope of the community's standards.
I'm a member of many closed virtual communities, such as Facebook (recent privacy issues notwithstanding), and various Instant Messaging services (both public and private). The barriers to entry into these communities by and large are the simple fact that you must be invited or given permission to enter the community. For example, within my company's internal Jabber IM service, everyone who wishes to participate must request authorization to first use the service (gain initial admission into the community). Subsequently, once given permission to join the community, you must ask individuals within the community for permission to establish a direct relationship (add someone to your buddy list).
Similarly, Facebook, email, and even text messaging all require, to some extent, permission from others to be allowed into the community. Sure, you can text or email anyone you want if you know their address or phone number, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll answer you, or allow you to join their community. You must be given express permission, usually in the form of a return "like" communication, for membership to be activated. We can generally assume that if someone lets you "friend" them in Facebook, you have been invited into their community (and likewise). Subsequently, if you text someone and they reply back, engaging in conversation, then you have effectively been invited into their community.
Open communities don't necessarily require permission to join. Instead, these communities are largely established for the purposes of getting like-minded individuals to share information about various subject matter. In these open communities, there are generally two categories of membership. Those who actively engage and participate within the community (established members) and those that wish to simply observe and occasionally engage in conversation (such as ask a question). Membership within these communities typically only requires that individuals agree to and abide by the rules of the community. Non members, who can still participate within the community are usually restricted in their level of participation. For example, members of a community are allowed to post comments, files, and images to the community, while non-members are allowed to lurk and post limited information.
One open virtual community that I've been associated with for a long time (10+ years), is Slashdot. The Slashdot community is devoted to all types of technology discussions. Article submissions are posted by established members, moderated, and then, if deemed "worthy" of appropriateness are posted to the community pages. Fellow members of the community are allowed to post comments, participate in moderating, and even rank fellow member posts for relativeness (distinguishing useful comments from others). Individuals who aren't members of the community are allowed to read articles and post comments in an anonymous fashion. That is, all community members can distinguish with ease, who is an active participant and who isn't. In the case of Slashdot, all non-member contributions to subject matter are relegated to the status of "anonymous coward".
In a nutshell, closed communities require direct invitations or allowance from peers to be invited into their virtual community. Open communities generally allow access to everyone to read and comment in limited fashions. Within these open communities, there are typically two types of members, those who actively participate and those that don't. Active participants are given usernames and allowed higher levels of interaction within the community, such as post moderation, file submission, and in some cases, community management responsibilities. Non-active participants, are given limited membership in the sense that they are usually allowed to read comments and ask questions only.
Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the extreme. Within any of these virtual communities, open or closed, it's possible and even likely that there are a subset of members who, for whatever reason, exist and participate within these communities in a manner very different from how they'd interact in real space. Others simply can't relate their virtual communities to their real communities and have a hard time understanding the difference. They live in two different worlds.
Is this good or bad? Who knows... I suppose that if it allows you to express yourself and interact with others on some level, that it might actually be beneficial. If, however, you find yourself constantly sitting in front of a computer (phones included), haven't showered and slept in days, and live and breathe by the discussion board's next posting or Justin Timberlake's tweet, you might need professional help.
I'm a member of many closed virtual communities, such as Facebook (recent privacy issues notwithstanding), and various Instant Messaging services (both public and private). The barriers to entry into these communities by and large are the simple fact that you must be invited or given permission to enter the community. For example, within my company's internal Jabber IM service, everyone who wishes to participate must request authorization to first use the service (gain initial admission into the community). Subsequently, once given permission to join the community, you must ask individuals within the community for permission to establish a direct relationship (add someone to your buddy list).
Similarly, Facebook, email, and even text messaging all require, to some extent, permission from others to be allowed into the community. Sure, you can text or email anyone you want if you know their address or phone number, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll answer you, or allow you to join their community. You must be given express permission, usually in the form of a return "like" communication, for membership to be activated. We can generally assume that if someone lets you "friend" them in Facebook, you have been invited into their community (and likewise). Subsequently, if you text someone and they reply back, engaging in conversation, then you have effectively been invited into their community.
Open communities don't necessarily require permission to join. Instead, these communities are largely established for the purposes of getting like-minded individuals to share information about various subject matter. In these open communities, there are generally two categories of membership. Those who actively engage and participate within the community (established members) and those that wish to simply observe and occasionally engage in conversation (such as ask a question). Membership within these communities typically only requires that individuals agree to and abide by the rules of the community. Non members, who can still participate within the community are usually restricted in their level of participation. For example, members of a community are allowed to post comments, files, and images to the community, while non-members are allowed to lurk and post limited information.
One open virtual community that I've been associated with for a long time (10+ years), is Slashdot. The Slashdot community is devoted to all types of technology discussions. Article submissions are posted by established members, moderated, and then, if deemed "worthy" of appropriateness are posted to the community pages. Fellow members of the community are allowed to post comments, participate in moderating, and even rank fellow member posts for relativeness (distinguishing useful comments from others). Individuals who aren't members of the community are allowed to read articles and post comments in an anonymous fashion. That is, all community members can distinguish with ease, who is an active participant and who isn't. In the case of Slashdot, all non-member contributions to subject matter are relegated to the status of "anonymous coward".
In a nutshell, closed communities require direct invitations or allowance from peers to be invited into their virtual community. Open communities generally allow access to everyone to read and comment in limited fashions. Within these open communities, there are typically two types of members, those who actively participate and those that don't. Active participants are given usernames and allowed higher levels of interaction within the community, such as post moderation, file submission, and in some cases, community management responsibilities. Non-active participants, are given limited membership in the sense that they are usually allowed to read comments and ask questions only.
Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the extreme. Within any of these virtual communities, open or closed, it's possible and even likely that there are a subset of members who, for whatever reason, exist and participate within these communities in a manner very different from how they'd interact in real space. Others simply can't relate their virtual communities to their real communities and have a hard time understanding the difference. They live in two different worlds.
Is this good or bad? Who knows... I suppose that if it allows you to express yourself and interact with others on some level, that it might actually be beneficial. If, however, you find yourself constantly sitting in front of a computer (phones included), haven't showered and slept in days, and live and breathe by the discussion board's next posting or Justin Timberlake's tweet, you might need professional help.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Written vs Oral Language - Part 2
I'd like to start out by saying this is definitely on the "heavy" reading side of things. After sifting through the extremely long sentence-paragraphs, it's clear that Ong is able to draw a (clear?) picture of what writing has done for humanity. It made language "personal" and intimate.
While the world owes a huge debt to the semitic languages that first invented writing, it was the Greeks who kicked it up a notch by adding vowels, making reading and writing much more phonetic. This invention or adaptation of writing paved the way for everything since. Although I disagree with his concept of democratizing language (just ask the peasants in the middle ages), it did indeed take us, as a world, to the next level.
Ong discusses how written language has allowed us to privatize language and make it our own. Over time, we shifted from reading aloud to reading alone. What was once a communal language shifted to an individual language that was shared through writing.
Fast forward to modern society today. Ong writes about the benefits, which are many, including this blog post. However, I believe that writing might actually have a few downsides. If the saying, "ignorance is bliss" has any truthful connotations, is it possible that we're actually moving towards information overload? What about how, as a society, people feel more distanced and isolated than ever before? Let me explain.
First, with our constant technological advances, we find ourselves (at least those with the means to do so) barraged with information. Newspapers, text messages, chatrooms, web pages, television, radio... it goes on and on. It is almost impossible in today's technologically oriented world to not be fully inundated from morning until night. Is it possible to get too much? Is it possible that in our constant struggle to improve our efficiency in communication, that we've overexposed ourselves?
Second, if, information and communications are at an all-time high (and they are), then how can people, with technology that allows anyone to connect to anyone else in at least 5 different ways instantly, feel so isolated and lonely?
I don't have the answers, and in fact, the more I think about it, the more questions I have. Perhaps we'll delve into this in class at some point.
While the world owes a huge debt to the semitic languages that first invented writing, it was the Greeks who kicked it up a notch by adding vowels, making reading and writing much more phonetic. This invention or adaptation of writing paved the way for everything since. Although I disagree with his concept of democratizing language (just ask the peasants in the middle ages), it did indeed take us, as a world, to the next level.
Ong discusses how written language has allowed us to privatize language and make it our own. Over time, we shifted from reading aloud to reading alone. What was once a communal language shifted to an individual language that was shared through writing.
Fast forward to modern society today. Ong writes about the benefits, which are many, including this blog post. However, I believe that writing might actually have a few downsides. If the saying, "ignorance is bliss" has any truthful connotations, is it possible that we're actually moving towards information overload? What about how, as a society, people feel more distanced and isolated than ever before? Let me explain.
First, with our constant technological advances, we find ourselves (at least those with the means to do so) barraged with information. Newspapers, text messages, chatrooms, web pages, television, radio... it goes on and on. It is almost impossible in today's technologically oriented world to not be fully inundated from morning until night. Is it possible to get too much? Is it possible that in our constant struggle to improve our efficiency in communication, that we've overexposed ourselves?
Second, if, information and communications are at an all-time high (and they are), then how can people, with technology that allows anyone to connect to anyone else in at least 5 different ways instantly, feel so isolated and lonely?
I don't have the answers, and in fact, the more I think about it, the more questions I have. Perhaps we'll delve into this in class at some point.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Written vs. Oral Language
So far, this reading has blown my mind to an extent. That is to say that I hadn't given a single CPU cycle to the concept of what it is to recall information in an oral society versus what we take for granted in a written language society.
This gives me quite a bit of food for thought and has actually raised more questions (to be answered later in class?) than I have answers for. For example, if oral tradition relies on patterns of stories and memorization to recontruct history, and we learned that they often never tell the same story the same way twice, how is it even remotely possibly for their history to be true?
This is troubling to me in many ways because we tend to have an idea of ancient history which comes from these primarily oral societies. Since we know that they often change the story or omit details that no longer suit their audience, are we to understand that what we currently know (or think we know) is merely the story that best fit the circumstances of their telling at the time written language was first introduced?
This gives me quite a bit of food for thought and has actually raised more questions (to be answered later in class?) than I have answers for. For example, if oral tradition relies on patterns of stories and memorization to recontruct history, and we learned that they often never tell the same story the same way twice, how is it even remotely possibly for their history to be true?
This is troubling to me in many ways because we tend to have an idea of ancient history which comes from these primarily oral societies. Since we know that they often change the story or omit details that no longer suit their audience, are we to understand that what we currently know (or think we know) is merely the story that best fit the circumstances of their telling at the time written language was first introduced?
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Cyberspace
I had originally posted a blog entry prior to the class which amounted to what now seems to be complete gibberish. So... away it went. With that said, I think today's class gave me a bit more ammunition for being able to succinctly sum up what I think of Cyberspace.
Having been around long enough to witness the (r)evolution of Cyberspace and computer technology in general, I would have say that Benedikt was right on target in every description he provided. Cyberspace is a constantly evolving set of technologies that mash themselves together in order to facilitate human communication in all of its various forms.
To that end, Cyberspace is a metaphorical digital highway made up of coaxial, fiber, and wireless communications networks upon which all modern communication technologies strive to hitch a ride on. It is Cyberspace that allows individual communications "vehicles" such as email, instant messaging, and even cellular phones to deliver their content payloads.
As our technology improves, we strive to increase the amount of information we can deliver in various vehicles (email, IM, etc) requiring larger and larger network infrastructure to support the amount of traffic from these "vehicles" riding on it.
What Benedikt was saying (at least I think so), is that humans have always had an idea of Cyberspace, although it wasn't always digital or even thought of the same way it is today. The invention of writing, arguably the first component of Cyberspace, gave rise to the need to transmit that information. Since digital technology didn't exist at that time, the original information highway was on the feet of men and the backs of animals. Over time, collections of written documents gave rise to the necessity of storing these documents, leading to the creation of libraries.
As technology evolved, humans have simply continued their quest to communicate and store information in faster ways. Digital technology has facilitated this in an amazing array of ways, but the concept has remained the same. Instead of building libraries to store documents, we use databases. Instead of using hand written documents to deliver messages, we use phones, email, and IM.
The only real difference in Cyberspace since the dawn of written language is what we humans invent to speed up and increase our capacity for communicating and storing information.
This is what Cyberspace is.
Having been around long enough to witness the (r)evolution of Cyberspace and computer technology in general, I would have say that Benedikt was right on target in every description he provided. Cyberspace is a constantly evolving set of technologies that mash themselves together in order to facilitate human communication in all of its various forms.
To that end, Cyberspace is a metaphorical digital highway made up of coaxial, fiber, and wireless communications networks upon which all modern communication technologies strive to hitch a ride on. It is Cyberspace that allows individual communications "vehicles" such as email, instant messaging, and even cellular phones to deliver their content payloads.
As our technology improves, we strive to increase the amount of information we can deliver in various vehicles (email, IM, etc) requiring larger and larger network infrastructure to support the amount of traffic from these "vehicles" riding on it.
What Benedikt was saying (at least I think so), is that humans have always had an idea of Cyberspace, although it wasn't always digital or even thought of the same way it is today. The invention of writing, arguably the first component of Cyberspace, gave rise to the need to transmit that information. Since digital technology didn't exist at that time, the original information highway was on the feet of men and the backs of animals. Over time, collections of written documents gave rise to the necessity of storing these documents, leading to the creation of libraries.
As technology evolved, humans have simply continued their quest to communicate and store information in faster ways. Digital technology has facilitated this in an amazing array of ways, but the concept has remained the same. Instead of building libraries to store documents, we use databases. Instead of using hand written documents to deliver messages, we use phones, email, and IM.
The only real difference in Cyberspace since the dawn of written language is what we humans invent to speed up and increase our capacity for communicating and storing information.
This is what Cyberspace is.
DTC 475 Introduction
Hello all, I'm Maurice Smiley.
With 9 classes left to own my DTC degree, I guess I'm somewhere between a Junior and Senior here as WSU. I own a small business in Richland, have a wonderful wife and 3 awesome kids. My oldest is enrolled at CBC and we have contests to see who has the highest GPA. I haven't been beat yet ;-)
With 9 classes left to own my DTC degree, I guess I'm somewhere between a Junior and Senior here as WSU. I own a small business in Richland, have a wonderful wife and 3 awesome kids. My oldest is enrolled at CBC and we have contests to see who has the highest GPA. I haven't been beat yet ;-)
As a veteran of Julie's ENG373 class, I'm excited to take DTC475 and have little doubt I'll learn a ton of information. Last semester, I started this blog with the intent of keeping track of various readings, and of course, posting blog assignments from ENG373. I didn't make as much use of it as I could have and hope to improve upon that this semester.
I look forward to blogging with you throughout the semester.
Cheers!
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