Book Report - Delete: The Virtue Of Forgetting in the Digital Age

For this assignment, I chose to read Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger because it addresses an intriguing topic – the importance of forgetting. In the past, it was easy, even normal, for people to forget details over time, but in today’s digital age, it’s nearly impossible due to these four factors: digitization, cheap storage, easy retrieval, and global reach. But even though it’s easy and cheap to remember, it’s necessary to forget because people and their views change over time. It’s not fair that information, whether offered voluntarily or not, can follow a person for their lifetime. Of course, there are some steps that people can take to protect their personal privacy, such as digital abstinence, but not even this response is foolproof.

One person who especially wishes that the Internet could forget is Stacy Snyder, who in 2006 was looking forward to starting her teaching career. She had satisfactorily completed all of her coursework when she was told by her university that her teaching certificate would be denied due to her inappropriate behavior. It turns out that a teacher, who worked at the school where Stacy was interning discovered that Stacey, like 110 million people, had a MySpace page, and on this page, she had posted a picture of herself dressed as a pirate drinking from a cup with the caption, “Drunken Pirate.” Although Stacy was over the legal drinking age, the teacher argued that students could potentially find this picture of her consuming alcohol. Perhaps Stacey should have shown better judgment and not posted the questionable picture, but the author cautions, “Should everyone who self-discloses information lose control over that information forever, and have no say about whether and when the Internet forgets this information (4)?”

Similarly, Canadian psychotherapist, Andrew Feldmar, wishes that some of his personal information could be forgotten. In 2006, he was attempting to cross the U.S./Canadian border when a guard decided to enter his name into an Internet search engine. The guard found an article that the respected psychotherapist had written for a 2001 journal, in which he admitted taking LSD in the 1960s and because of this article, Feldmar was denied further entry to the United States (4).

In these two cases, personal information was volunteered, but in most instances people provide information about themselves without realizing it. For example, in 2007 Google reported that it had a record of every query that every user had entered, and it knew whether that user clicked on one of the results that it had returned or not. It would seem that Google remembers more details about us than we remember about ourselves. Other organizations, such as travel Web sites, doctor’s offices, credit bureaus, and law enforcement agencies, keep digitized records that contain our personal information too (6-9).

Mayer-Schonberger concedes that there are some benefits to a digital comprehensive memory, but the cons outweigh them. Since the Internet and other digital devices, like camera memory cards and USB storage devices, keep a perfect memory of the information that people provide (knowingly or not) people will not only be judged by their present peers, but also their future peers (11). In the past, when a teenager wrote an article for a school newspaper, she didn’t have to worry about that article following her around for her entire career. Today, it is more likely that the article would remain attached to her long after her views have potentially changed over the years. As people are becoming more aware of the Internet’s ability to remember them and negative cases, such as Snyder and Feldmar’s are becoming more common, people are becoming more hesitant to express their true beliefs. The author smartly concludes that, “the future has a chilling effect on what we do in the present (12).”

Human memory is complex, and for thousands of years, our ancestors have been looking for ways to increase it. Remembering consists of two parts: storing information and later being able to retrieve that information. Early humans realized that if they repeated an act, like sewing, that they would be able to commit it to their memory, and this is known as procedural memory. Another type, declarative memory, is when “recall from procedural memory is automatic (19).” For instance, remembering a special occasion would fall into the latter category. One simply searches their brain for this information and they can remember it. Scientists are also unsure of what it means to forget. Many believe that information can’t be erased from the brain unless if psychological damage occurs. Rather the information is still stored in the brain, but there is no link to it (16-19).

Throughout the years, remembering was made easier for humans by language and other media, such as paintings and script. Language made it easier for people to communicate information to one another, and it also allowed for information to be spread geographically and for it to be passed from generation to generation. However, it took a lot of time and effort to communicate via language. Likely, information had to be repeated numerous times for the other person to remember it accurately. People soon realized that it would be easier to remember by using external memory. During the Renaissance, it was chic for families to hire a painter to capture a moment in time by painting a family portrait. This, however, was time-consuming and expensive. Writing was another means that our ancestors used to preserve memories, but this too was costly. Even with Johannes Guttenberg’s printing press, books were still a novelty until the 20th century. Similarly, film and photography were expensive ways of creating memories. In the 1850s, it cost 50¢ - $10 to develop a photo, which was the equivalent of $100 - $2,000 in 2006. Furthermore, a negative of the image wasn’t produced (23-46).

Now, however, it’s much easier and cheaper to remember because of digitization, cheap storage, easy retrieval, and global reach. Many media today are kept in a digital format: music, photography, video, and newsletters; even personal files, such as letters and journals are stored digitally. And unlike analog media, digital media withstands time and perfect copies of digital files can be made. Furthermore, it’s cheap to store these digital files. Consider that “in 2008, the cost of storage for one megabyte of information had been reduced to one hundredth of a cent (63).” If a person runs out of room on their storage device, they can simply purchase another one rather inexpensively. Digital storage in most cases is even cheaper than keeping an analog version. For example, a laser-printed piece of paper costs around 10¢, and a megabyte worth of text would cost around $50, whereas a megabyte of digital storage costs around one hundredth of a cent. It’s also easier to retrieve information when it exists digitally. One simply has to type a few words into a search box to find the relevant information, opposed to searching an index. Finally, a person can access stored information regardless of their location, as long as they are connected to that network (52-79).

“Until a few decades ago…to remember was the exception; to forget, the default (92).” But now, it’s costly to forget, and as a result we will all pay a price. In the past, people had more control over the information that they shared with others. For example, Stacy Snyder may have only intended for her friends to view the “drunken pirate” picture, but her supervisors also viewed it. Furthermore, a perfect copy of this photo could be redistributed to anyone without Stacy’s knowledge. There is also a comprehensive amount of information that is collected on individuals in various databases over time. It’s truly frightening that some information providers collect this information and create bundles that include a person’s interests, friends, and beliefs, and they will sell this information to anyone for a relatively small sum. In the past, a person had the opportunity of creating a fresh start in a new location, but not so much anymore (97-104).

There are some steps that people can take to protect themselves, but the effectiveness is questionable. Perhaps the most obvious action is digital abstinence. It would seem that if people avoid providing their information to a digital memory, they could easily be forgotten. However, they would also have to avoid search engines, like Google, and other ecommerce sites, such as Amazon. A major problem with giving all of this up is that a person wouldn’t receive the benefits of these sites. They make browsing easy. Another solution would be to enforce stricter information privacy rights. This would be tricky though. In theory, a person would give a company, such as the Post Office, a property right to her personal information, and she would relinquish control. However, what if she wanted the Post Office to have her new address, but she didn’t want to allow them to provide this information to a third party? These laws would have to be carefully crafted to work. The author also proposes an information ecology, in which digital files can only be kept for a certain time period. For example, DNA collected from witnesses and cleared suspects is deleted from databases in some U.S. states. Another “possible response aimed at preventing or mitigating the challenges of power and time posed by digital memory (128)” is perfect contextualization. In this case, people would have to evaluate the various information that is collected on a person and come to their own conclusions. This policy would create “a transparent society, in which comprehensive information about everything is available to everyone, and individual information control would be replaced by general transparency (164).” This system, too, has flaws. In this type of society, people would feel as though they were constantly being watched, and they would act with that in mind (128-165).

I really enjoyed this book because I agree with the author, Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, that our privacy rights are severely compromised in the digital age, and that we all have “the right to be forgotten (ix).” It’s tough because I, like many people, want to provide some personal information to various sites for different reasons. For example, I upload some personal details to my Facebook profile because it’s a way of socializing and keeping my friends updated on my life. I also use Google religiously. Before this book, I knew that it kept a record of searches, but I was shocked by the accuracy and details of their records. It’s truly frightening that they could tell me what I searched for in 2002 – something that I have clearly forgotten. Furthermore, it’s unsettling that some companies collect information about me that is stored in several databases, and this information is for sale. As the book details, until recent years, it was normal for humans to forget, and this allowed for people to act in the present. Now, however, it’s more expensive and difficult to forget, due to digitization, cheap storage, easy retrieval, and global reach. After reading this book, I’m going to limit the amount of personal information, in the form of pictures, videos, and blogs that I post online. I’m not scared of being judged by my peers now, but I don’t want to be judged by future peers. I also hope that we as a society will take careful consideration before judging others based on ideas that they express in a digital environment.

Works Cited

Mayer-Schonberger, Viktor. Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009.

"An Interview with Andrew Feenberg," by Mark Zachry

In 2007, Mark Zachry interviewed Andrew Feenberg - a leader in the philosophy of technology, whose work deals with the relationship between technology and society, for Technical Communication Quarterly. Zachry explains that before Feenberg’s work, “technology was treated as an irresistible or deterministic force (453).” Since then, it is accepted that people play a key role in the evolution of technology, and society’s actions determine technology’s course. (It seems that Feenberg and Marshall McLuhan are on opposite ends of the spectrum here).

One of the first questions that Zachry asks Feenberg is, “How did you get interested in computers?” and the answer contains an interesting history lesson. He was working at the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute in the early 1980s when he received his first computer. At this time computers were rare, and a personal computer cost around $5,000! Also, in these early days, computers were used primarily for filing and calculating, but he and his colleagues used them for communicating. He refers to this as “computer-mediated communication (456).”

He continued to study computer-mediated communication through his work with the Minitel, which was “a domestic computing network with a very simple interface that anyone could learn to use (457).” The Minitel was intended as a means for people to access information, such as, train schedules and phone listings, but hackers figured out how to instant message via the technology. (Wouldn’t this be an example of remediation?)

Throughout the interview it is obvious that Feenberg, like Donald Norman, is very interested in the influence that user’s have on the redesign of technology. He explains that the design of the Internet changed because it’s more commonly used as a communications device opposed to an information device. Another interesting detail that he provides is that computer companies used to think that they were connecting people to machines, but there came a time when they realized that they were rather connecting people to people. This observation lead them to design a program that allowed people to communicate with one another (458).

Zachry also asks about the relationship between critical theory and the design process. As Feenberg explains, critical theory “is a critique of domination exercised through the organization of technically mediated institutions (459).” I’m still not sure that I understand this term, but I think that it refers to a generalization of the characteristics of society, and companies design products with these characteristics in mind.

Towards the end of the article, they discuss online communities and education, and I thought that this section was particularly interesting. In the 1980s, Feenberg spent years experimenting with online education, but it never really went anywhere until years later when this technology became all the rage. All of a sudden, the president of the state college and university system in California decided to put the equipment into the classrooms for online education, even though nobody knew how they were supposed to use this technology to teach (468). This reminds me of the Norman reading, when he discusses the implementation of the university’s phone system. They spent millions of dollars installing these fancy phones without trying them out, and unfortunately most of the staff dislikes the phones (Norman 19). In both cases, the ideal would be to test the equipment and work out the kinks before installing such expensive equipment.

Click here to view the entire Interview.

Works Cited

Norman, Donald A. The Design of Everyday Things. Basic Books, 1988.

Zachry, Mark. "An Interview with Andrew Feenberg." Technical Communications Quarterly, 16.4 (2007): 453-472.

The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman

Preface to the 2002 Edition

Donald A. Norman’s goal with his book, The Design of Everyday Things (DOET), is to encourage designers to employ good designs when it comes to everyday items so that these items can be used easily, efficiently, and enjoyably by the consumer. He explains that too many objects, such as, doors, telephones, and automobiles are designed poorly, and in effect bring frustration to the user.

Through his work as a cognitive scientist, Norman became especially interested in human error. At first, he focused his work on finding ways to help people avoid making mistakes. His interests shifted though after he participated on a team that was supposed to investigate the mistakes of control-room operators at a nuclear power plant accident. Instead, he and the team found that the errors were caused by the design of the room and not the operators (viii).

Similarly, he began to notice that the designs of everyday items were designed poorly. For instance, during his time at the Applied Psychology unit in Cambridge, England, he was puzzled by the doors; some slid open, while others required a push or pull. In any case, there were no visual clues that indicated which method to use. His annoyance with the complexity of these types of items inspired him to write this book, which was originally titled, The Psychology of Everyday Things (POET). He later switched the title to DOET after learning that the book was being shelved in the psychology section of the bookstore opposed to the design section because of the word “psychology” (viii-x).

The three main topics that DOET covers are:

1. It’s not your fault: I feel so much better about myself after reading this selection because there are a few common items that I occasionally have trouble with, such as, the DVD player, oven stove, and telephone at work. It’s good to hear that many people have similar issues with appliances that should be simple to use. However, they aren’t because of poor design (x).


2. Design principles: Principles (a short list follows) are discussed so that designers can create easy-to-use products. (a.) Conceptual models – Items should explain how they work through their appearance. There should be “an obvious and natural relationship between the location and operation of the controls, so you always know what does what (xi-xii),” and Norman refers to this as “natural mapping.” (b.) Feedback – It’s important for a person to receive feedback so that they know the effect of their action. For example, at work I have to submit various requests online and after I submit them, I receive an e-mail, which tells me that my request was successfully submitted. Without that, I wouldn’t know whether my request was received or not. (c.) Constraints – Designers should create a product so that it can only be used one way. For instance, batteries should only be able to be inserted into a device one way, or if there are multiple ways, each way should work. (d.) Affordances – The proper actions of an item should be obvious to a person, while the improper actions shouldn’t (xi-xii).


3. The power of observation: Learn to watch people and the way that they use objects. This, according to Norman, is the most important advice to take away from the book (xii).

Successful Designs take all of these items into account, in addition to cost and aesthetics. And although this book debuted in 1988, these design principles are still critical when it comes to newer technologies, like cell phones and computers. Norman writes that “high technology changes rapidly, but everyday life changes slowly (xiv).” Therefore the design of these items needs to be intuitive to a user so that they can understand how to use them properly and easily.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

The first chapter continues to explain that the difference between easy and hard-to-use items is their design. “Well-designed objects are easy to interpret and contain visible clues to their operation (2),” whereas poorly-designed objects are difficult to use and contain false, or no visible clues.

Two pieces of advice that Norman provides for creating good designs are:

1. “Provide a good conceptual model,” and
2. “make things visible (13).”

He acknowledges that some tasks, such as flying an airplane, would be difficult to the average person, even if the airplane was designed well. However, turning on light switches and faucets, and opening doors should be easy. He provides an example about one of his friends who was temporarily trapped in a post office in Europe. While the typical door has a hinge on one side, and to open it, one must pull or push on the opposite side, the doors to the post office didn’t have any visible hinges or pillars. The friend was trapped between two sets of doors because it turned out that he was unknowingly pushing on the hinged side of the door, and he didn’t escape until another group passed through. This was a frustrating situation that happened because the necessary parts of the object were invisible to the user, and the function of the object was unclear. The designer could have created visibility by including a flat plate on the doors so that people would naturally know to push on that spot to open them. This concept would refer to natural design (3-4).

I have another example of a design that has poor visibility. A few weeks ago, I bought a Honda Civic, and when I went to fill it up with gas for the first time, I spent nearly 10 minutes figuring out how to open the gas casket. In my previous car and the other cars that I’m familiar with, there’s a visible ridge on the casket that naturally tells you to lift up. Since this ridge doesn’t exist on my new car, I tried to push the casket and then I tried to pry it open. Neither of these actions worked, and embarrassed, I got into my car and started to read the manual. It turns out that there is a button on the floor by the door that you need to push in to open the gas casket. This button isn’t visible or obvious to a person who has never had a Honda.

Another principle that Norman discusses in detail is mapping, which means “the relationship between two things (23),” and I think that I can illustrate this term by explaining an everyday item that I occasionally have problems with - the stove. There is nothing special about my stove – it has two back burners, two front burners, and four knobs that control the burners, which run left to right. The problem is that I’ll sometimes intend to turn on the back burner, and I realize minutes later that I actually turned on the front burner. Why are the knobs in a horizontal line? I would understand which knob is associated with which burner better if two knobs were on the left in a vertical line and two knobs were on the right in a vertical line. This mapping would be more natural for me.

Other devices, like telephones, can be difficult to use because they have the ability to perform so many functions (assuming that the user can correctly execute them) and coincidentally have too many controls. Why add 50 functions to a telephone when the average user only knows how to perform a handful of them? A few days ago at work, I spent nearly 20 minutes trying to change my voicemail. (I checked the manual, and there were no instructions). I had to dial my number, login with my password, and skip through all of my voicemails before I got to a recording that went something like this, “You have finished playing all of your voicemails. For more options press 7*.” Then, I had the option of pressing one, for more voicemail commands or two, for mailbox commands. After several menus and selecting random numbers, I did finally get to change my voicemail, but why couldn’t I get to my greeting right away? Why did I have to listen to all of my saved voicemails first? Perhaps if I pressed 7* in the beginning I would have been able to get to the proper menu faster, but why did the designer choose an arbitrary number like 7*?

Works Cited

Norman, Donald A. The Design of Everyday Things. Basic Books, 1988.

"Social Media Revolution" (YouTube video)

The video “Social Media Revolution” opens with the question, “Is social media a fad?” and according to the multitude of information that it provides, the answer is an overwhelming “No.” The statistic in it that really blows my mind is the time that it took older media to reach 50 million users opposed to newer media. For the radio it was 38 years and for TV it took 13 years; whereas the Internet only took four years and Facebook had 100 million people create an account in less than 9 months!

It’s an interesting time right now because so many people are now turning to the Web and social networking sites for news. It’s exciting because a plethora of information is available instantly, and users can also receive input from “word of mouth.” For instance, if a person is interested in trying a new restaurant, they can easily find a review for it on the Web. On the other hand, this could be bad for advertisers because if somebody has a bad experience with their company, that person can tell virtually everybody about it.

This digital shift has other cons. One of the points in the video is that 24 of the 25 biggest newspapers are suffering record losses in circulation. Not only am I concerned for those who work in the newspaper industry, but I’m also fearful that print media will disappear altogether. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I think that the experience of reading a hard copy is much more enjoyable than reading online – when I have the time.

Another thing that worries me is the amount of information that people make about themselves available online. I think that it was cute that the video made this point by saying, “What happens in Vegas stays on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.” It’s obvious that the amount of privacy that an individual has is much less in this environment. In the past, if somebody made a mistake, they could forget about it and move one, but now their digital footprint follows them throughout their lifetime.

For some reason it also unsettles me that Ashton Kutcher and Ellen DeGenres have so many followers on Twitter. Obviously the Internet contains an infinite amount of information, but how much of it is relative or helpful? Are we just filling ourselves up with useless information?

I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression. I love the Internet and social networking sites, but I feel like everyone is always such a cheerleader for it, and they don’t pause to think of the negatives (hmm…that sounds awfully McLuhanesque). Anyways, here are some of the other facts that surprised me in the video:

• Facebook has a large enough population that it could be the fourth largest country;
• the fastest growing sector on Facebook is 55-65 year-old ladies;
• 1.5 million pieces of information (pictures, videos, blogs, status updates, etc.) are shared on Facebook everyday.

Works Cited

"Social Media Revolution" YouTubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twwURpa52ho>

Pew Internet Report - "Digital Footprints"

The Pew Internet Report, Digital Footprints, by Mary Madden, Susannah Fox, Aaron Smith, and Jessica Vitak discusses how personal information is changing due to the popularity of the Web and social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. Virtually everybody has a digital footprint, or a trail of online information, whether it is personal details that are entered intentionally or information that is uploaded by another party, and it’s important to understand that this information can be searchable by anyone, and furthermore, that it’s attached to an individual forever.

Although most online adults are aware that the information that they make available is open to the world, they don’t take steps to protect this information. I’m surprised by this because I, like 21% of adult Internet users, am cautious about the information that I post online (ii). Usually, I don’t even update my status on Facebook because I don’t necessarily want everybody to know what I’m doing or what I’m thinking.

I do regulate the amount and type of personal details that I post on the Web, but I don’t often search for information about myself. I fortunately and unfortunately have a very common name. In addition to the 4,500 Jessica Moore’s with a Facebook account, there is a Jessica Moore porn star, WNBA player, and Australian tennis player. It disappoints me because I don’t want a potential employer or an acquaintance to think that I’m one of these other girls (especially the porn star), but it’s also comforting because although I don’t post negative information online, I do like privacy. However, I fall into the minority - 87% of individuals who search for information about themselves online say that the information is accurate (iii).

Like most Internet users, I’m not sure how much of my personal information is available online, aside from the information that I actively provide on Facebook. On my profile, I list my political affiliation, who I date, my favorite TV shows, what I like to do in my spare time, and I occasionally post photos. I’m not sure, however, about my passive digital footprint, which is “personal data made accessible online with no deliberate intervention from an individual (3).” I’m sure that my e-mail address, home address, and employer are somewhere on the open Web, but I didn’t find them through a simple Google search.

Even though I don’t Google my own name all that often, I do regularly use a search engine to find information on other people, and in fact more than 50% of online adults have also done this. Usually, I (and the others) am searching for contact information or we are searching for somebody from our past that we lost contact with (iv).

Before the reading, I knew that a digital footprint follows every Internet user around, but this article made me think. I’ve come to expect that an individual’s personal and basic information is available; I didn’t consider that this sort of information used to take professional investigators months to find. Even though I consider myself to be cautious of the material that I post online, I don’t like the idea that a random person could potentially find out where I work, who my friends are, and where I live.

Works Cited

Madden, Mary, Susannah Fox, Aaron Smith, Jessica Vitak. "Digital Footprints." Pew Internet & American Life Project. 16 Dec. 2007. 17 Oct. 2009 http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2007/Digital-Footprints.aspx>

“What value do users derive from social networking applications?” by Rebekah Russell-Bennett & Larry Neale

This article by Rebekah Russell-Bennett and Larry Neale examines the qualities that online applications, such as “Scrabble,” “Which Sex and the City Character are You?” and “Green Patch,” must possess for users of a social networking site (SNS) to recommend them to their friends. This study is relevant because advertisers are turning to SNS to reach Generation Y consumers, and since advertising on these sites is expensive, they are creating applications, which are cheap to develop and free to distribute. The success of these applications depends on users recommending them to their friends, and for this to happen, an application must offer the user value (2).

According to the authors, “value is relevant to social networking where the exchange between customer and organization is not currency, but time and information (3).” The four categories of value that Facebook applications provide are emotional, functional, social, and altruistic. Emotional value refers to the enjoyment one gets by using an application; functional value applies to the performance; social value is created when people connect to one another; and altruistic value is gained when an application can help society (3).

To answer the key questions, “What value do users get from applications?” and “What qualities of an application encourage or discourage somebody from passing them on to friends?” this study asked these questions in an anonymous online survey:

• What makes an application cool?
• What would encourage or discourage you from passing an application on to a friend?

Some of the answers to the first question are the application’s allowance for self-categorization and interactivity, as well as, novelty and rarity. The next question isn’t as easy to answer because it varies from user to user. For instance, some people recommend an application because it wastes time. For those who have time to waste, they might recommend, but for those who find wasting time pointless, they would not. Another example to prove this point is competition. Some people (more men than women) like applications that rank them among their peers, whereas others find this to be judgmental (4-7).

While men tend to like applications that promote competition, women prefer features that allow them to express themselves. I don’t regularly do applications on Facebook because I don’t have a lot of time, but I have done “Which Sex and the City Character are You?” and a few others that would fall into the social category. In every case, the applications that I have recommended to a friend have been applications that didn’t take up too much time and didn’t feature competition.

I think it’s interesting that the applications that a user spends time on are another piece that shapes their digital footprint. For example, if you know nothing about a person, but you see on their profile that they are most like the character Samantha from Sex and the City, that tells you something about them. Or, if somebody takes a quiz and it turns out that they are funnier than their friends, an aspect of their personality is revealed. Before reading this article and the Pew Internet Report, Digital Footprints, I hadn’t considered this.

Works Cited

Neale, Larry & Rebekah Russell-Bennett. "What value do users derive from social networking applications?" First Monday, Volume 14. 17 Oct. 2009 http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2506/2278>

Professional Investigation

The programs that complement the New Media Studies Program at DePaul are Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse (WRD); Art, Media, and Design; Communication; and Computing and Digital Media (CDM). Below is some information that I found useful regarding each discipline:

Department of Writing, Rhetoric, & Discourse

I'm really interested in the professional and technical writing aspect of this program, and I think that these courses look really exciting:

• WRD 520 Computers and Writing
• WRD 523 Editing (will be taught Spring 2009-2010)
• WRD 524 Document Design (will be taught Winter 2009-2010)
• WRD 525 Writing for the Web

Another thing that caught my eye was Instructor Antonio Ceraso's specialty, which is issues of intellectual property in the digital age.

Department of Art, Media, and Design

The Department of Art, Media, and Design has three concentrations: media arts, art and design, and fine art. There are some classes that I think that I'd really enjoy under the media arts sector, like ART 329 Digital Photography, ART 364 Computer Applications in Art, and ART 332 Special Topics in Photographic Practice. However, I'm not sure that I'll be able to fit these into my schedule since there are so many other courses that I'd rather take.

College of Communication

The College of Communicatin offers four M.A. programs: Organizational and Multicutural Communication, Journalism, Media Culture and Society, and Public Relations and Advertising. Of all the academic disciplines, I'd probably least likely take courses from this discipline because the courses don't look very stimulating. Perhaps this is because my undergraduate degree was in Communications, and these courses seem familiar.

One thing that I am happy to learn about this program is that it is one of the top three communication programs in Illinois.

College of Computing and Digital Media (CDM)

Before this assignment, I didn't know that CDM offers 17 different master's programs. The one that particularly interests me is Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and I'm surprised that this degree can be fully completed online. Two other things that really impress me are the number of computer labs and the faculty's research and creative activity. A few of the topics that I think are really cool are artificial intelligence, animation, computer game development, documentary filmmaking, graphics, and human-computer interaction.

Some of the courses in this program that I'd like to take are:

• HCI 402 Foundations of Digital Design (was taught Fall 2009-2010)
• HCI 470 Digital Page Formatting I (will be taught Winter 2009-2010)
• HCI 440 Usability Engineering (will be taught Winter 2009-2010)
• and HCI 454 Interaction Design

This assignment is useful because I got a chance to see what all is out there. Although there are so many interesting courses that are being offered, I'm especially attracted to courses in the Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse and the HCI Program. Aside from the five NMS core courses, I'd like to take Web Design I & II, and I'd like for the remaining five courses to be some combination of the WRD and HCI courses that I specified above. My immediate plan is to take NMS 503 Principles of Graphic Design this winter and WRD 523 Editing this spring.

Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication, by Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeuwen

I initially found the introduction to Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication a bit challenging, but it made a lot more sense after our class discussion. It started off simple enough (I think). Until recently, society preferred monomodality, or using one media, when it came to the arts, whether it was writings, paintings, or concert performances. In the various genres everything was done in the same way. However, now there is more of a variety in the design and a “desire for crossing boundaries (1),” or multimodality. For instance, a great example of multimodal media would be a university Web site, such as www.midwestern.edu. It uses text, pictures, graphics, videos, blogs, sound, etc. to communicate a message to the audience.

I thought that the rest of the introduction was a bit muddy so please bear with me. From what I understand, Kress and Van Leeuwen are particularly concerned with the meanings that are made from media, and they created four strata, or dimensions, where meanings are made: discourse, design, production, and distribution (4).

Discourses are “socially constructed knowledges of reality (5)” that develop from various media (newspaper articles, TV documentaries), conversations, or ideologies, and design is necessary to help people see discourses. These two terms became a bit clearer to me with the example of the architect on page six. The architect designs a house based on the way that he/she believes people live in a house and what they do in their living space.

Production refers to executing a design, and technical skills in a medium are necessary to produce. Distribution is the process of packaging something up and disbursing it to the public. With these latter strata, it helps me to think of the example of music. Musicians play, or produce, music and technicians or sound engineers record the music, to the best possible quality, for mass distribution (7).

However, these strata made the most sense to me in the article about Stephanie’s room in House Beautiful (1996). Via text and pictures, the article tells what three-year-old Stephanie does in her room: she reads, sings and dances with friends, and plays dress-up. Through these details, the magazine provides a discourse of what children do in their bedrooms, and it suggests how their rooms should be designed (13-15). According to Kress and Van Leeuwen, the bedroom is “a medium for communicating to the child, in the language of interior design, the qualities, the pleasures, the duties, and the kind of future her parents desire for her (15).”

Before the parents produced the room (painting, furniture selection, and arrangement) they thought of the design based on how they wanted their daughter to utilize the space. Unfortunately, in this example, distribution, doesn’t really fit in, since there’s only one bedroom. However, designers could produce a model or virtual tour of Stephanie’s room for people to view, and this would fall under distribution (19).

Works Cited

Kress, Gunther and Theo Van Leeuwen, eds. Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2001.

Remediation: Understanding New Media, by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin

The introduction and first chapter of Remediation: Understanding New Media discusses how media technologies attempt to provide authentic, live experiences to viewers, and that a medium’s value depends on immediacy and hyperimmediacy. According to the authors, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, “our culture wants both to multiply its media and to erase all traces of mediation: ideally, it wants to erase its media in the very act of multiplying them (5).” This is an interesting and seemingly obvious observation, yet something that I hadn’t thought of before.

For instance, when people go to the movies they want to feel like they are actually there, in the story; they don’t want to be reminded that they are sitting in a theatre watching a film. The article frequently uses the example of virtual reality, which allows the viewer to experience situations live and from their point-of-view. However, the clunky head gear the viewer is required to wear prevents them from truly feeling that they are taking part in an actual experience. People want the medium (clunky headgear) to disappear (21-22).

Older, more traditional media, such as television and print media are revamping to fit into this climate of immediacy, or transparency. For example the television show, Cops, allows the viewer to experience first-hand what it’s like to be a police officer by providing them with the police officer’s live account. Also, I’ve noticed that a new trend in sitcoms, such as, The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Modern Family, is for the characters to speak directly to the camera and tell the audience what they’re thinking during a situation. It makes the viewer feel that they know the character, and for a minute, the medium disappears because the viewer feels that they are listening to a friend opposed to watching TV. (In class we decided that the character speaking to the camera is a content decision, and immediacy doesn't quite cover content. I decided to leave this point in though because I think that it's an interesting argument).

News programs are also changing. They are more interactive and “feature multiple video streams, split-screen displays, composites of graphics and text (6).” The article doesn’t mention that these programs also rely more on first-hand accounts from amateur’s blogs, tweets, and videos. All of these strategies aim to make the audience feel as if they are there and that they are receiving up-to-the-minute news. Furthermore, newscasts such as CNN are starting to mimic Web pages, where hyperimmediacy is the goal (9).

Web cams provide another example of immediacy. They allow the viewer to experience different environments as they are at a particular point in time. The Web site at the university that I work for has a Web cam, and I just recently heard from a parent who goes to our site everyday because her son waves to her on his way to class. For her, she is seeing her son everyday, not watching him through a Web cam that is mounted on our Bell Tower. It is only when the technology is down, or not working properly, that the medium is noticed.

I mentioned hyperimmediacy earlier, and this refers to being there +. I understand the term best when I think of the example, the Internet. With the Internet you can have multiple pages open at once, and the pages can consist of sound, images, video, and text – in any combination. There’s an infinite amount of information available. For instance if you visit cnn.com, there are multiple channels to gather information: videos, links, graphics, banners. Another note regarding hyperimmediacy - the interface tends to surface more, whereas it disappears for immediacy.

Another way to think of hyperimmediacy: you're at a sport's bar during March Madness, simultaneously monitoring several games at once and listening to commentary. You're "living" March Madness more than a person who's at an actual game, since they are only viewing one game.

Throughout this article, I kept thinking of the Melinda Turnley article, “Towards a Mediological Method: A Framework for Critically Engaging Dimensions of a Medium.” On page two, she says that new media won’t replace old media, but rather new and old media “will interact in ever more complex ways.” For instance, it’s possible to view images and watch videos on the Web. Another illustration of how old and new media interact is the example that CNN newscasts resemble Web pages. In each of these instances, the goal of new and old media is to provide the audience with a more authentic, immediate experience.

Works Cited

Bolter, Jay David and Richard Grusin, eds. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1999.

Turnley, Melinda. "Towards a Mediological Method: A Framework for Critically Engaging Dimensions of a Medium." (2009).

"Hey Unemployed Media Professionals! Read This Post Before You Apply For An Online Media Job!"

I don’t anticipate launching a job search after graduating from the New Media Studies (NMS) program since I’m happy with my current position, but the article “Hey Unemployed Media Professionals! Read This Post Before You Apply For An Online Media Job!” does provide some valuable advice. The main thing that I took away from it is that I should constantly be reading, whether it’s blogs, Web sites, or books. I’m embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t heard of Mediabistro, Mashable, or Poynter prior to this reading. (I have since subscribed to all three).

The article points out that you don’t have to attend a pricey conference to stay abreast in your field. It suggests that you read the above-mentioned Web sites everyday and also the following books: Don’t Make Me Think, by Steve Krug; The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson; Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide, by Amy Shuen; and Writing for Multimedia and The Web: A Practical Guide to Content Development for Interactive Media, by Timothy Garrand.

It also states that you have to partake in social media to understand it. This is something that I’m struggling with. I would prefer to not have a Twitter account, and it’s sometimes a pain to update, but I do it because I need to understand how Twitter works and what the benefits are. Similarly, it’s important to be Internet savvy. Prior to this class, I had heard of RSS feeds, but I had no idea what they were or what they did - and I didn’t bother to investigate either. Now, I subscribe to multiple blogs and news Web sites, and I love Google Reader. In the future, if I don’t know what something is, I plan on researching it instead of ignoring it.

But, I think that the most important information from the article is the point that online media is constantly changing. It’s scary that a lot of media professionals with years worth of experience are getting laid off right now because that could happen to me in 10 years when the environment changes. That’s why it’s beneficial to read as much as possible; it’s important to know “what’s next.”

In the NMS program, I plan to take several courses that will help me to get ahead in my current position. I would especially like to become more involved in the management and creation of content for my organization’s Web site, and there are several courses in the Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse program that are appealing to me: Computers and Writing, Writing for the Web, and Technical Writing. I’d also like to learn how to create my own Web sites, and I plan on taking the courses Web Design I and II.

Likewise, I want to become proficient in Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Flash, and Adobe Dreamweaver, whether it’s through a class at DePaul or online tutorials. I only have a limited knowledge of these programs, and there have been several instances in my current position where a broader understanding would have been a tremendous benefit to me.

In summary, my professional plan for the future is to read as much about online media as possible, practice social networking, and take several courses at DePaul that teach the technical side of media and the creation of content. I believe that these three actions along with the experience at my current position will provide me with the necessary tools to succeed, whether I stay put or decide to pursue a new job.

Works Cited

"Hey Unemployed Media Professionals! Read This Post Before You Apply For An Online Media Job!" The Learned Fangirl. 30 August 2008. 10 October 2009. http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=826262932273032597&postID=5907985649645881250>.

Pew Internet Report - "The Strength of Internet Ties"

The 2006 report, “The Strength of Internet Ties,” by Jeffrey Boase, John B. Horrigan, Danny Wellman, and Lee Rainie examines the Internet’s impact on people’s social networks and relationships. It addresses the question, “Does the Internet strengthen or impair communities?” and the answer is that it’s transforming communities. There is little debate that connecting via the Web has become a part of daily life, but people also continue to communicate by landline phone, cell phone, and in-person. In fact, “the more that people see each other in person and talk on the phone, the more they use the Internet (Boase, Horrigan, Wellman, & Rainie i).”

The Internet and e-mail allow for people to stay connected with diverse networks of people from various locations. It’s as easy and cheap to e-mail or instant message (IM) somebody overseas as the next-door neighbor. Many individuals also use the Internet to get advice from various people within their networks; they don't have to rely on resources from one community, and this refers to “networked individualism (ii).”

The 2004 Social Ties survey, a study which this report is largely based on, classifies people in a person’s network as either a core tie or a significant tie. The core ties category consists of people who are very close to the individual. Also, the individual has frequent contact with the core ties and would seek their advice. The significant ties category is made up of people who fall between acquaintances and core ties. The individual has occasional contact with these people and would also ask them for help with an issue. People in this category are important because they often have more specialized roles. In either case, people communicate with these networks in several ways: in-person, landline phone, cell phone, IM, and e-mail (iii).

However, e-mail does play a more significant role for those who have large networks. As a person’s network grows, the percentage of people in the network who are contacted weekly via e-mail stays steady at 20%. All other forms of communication decline. This isn’t surprising because it’s easy to send a message to multiple people at the same time. Also, e-mail can be sent at anytime from almost anywhere (iii).

One of the key aspects of the 2004 Social Ties survey involved how people used the Internet to get help on major issues in their lives. It asked respondents if they received advice from a core or significant tie on any of these eight issues: moving, changing careers, purchasing a computer, making a financial decision, looking for information pertaining to a medical condition, caring for somebody with an illness, installing drywall in the home, and deciding on a political candidate. The results were that 85% of Internet users received help with an issue from a core tie, while 72% of non-Internet users received help from a core tie. The percentages decreased with significant ties – 49% of users received assistance on an issue and 40 % of non-users received assistance. Those who used the Internet most likely received help more often because they generally have larger social networks (iv–v).

This article was very interesting, but it was packed with statistics. Here are some additional facts from the reading that I thought were noteworthy:

• Internet users and non-users have the same median # of core ties (15), but Internet users have more significant ties (pg. 9).
  
• Generally women, those who are well-educated, and older people have more core ties; people who are well-educated and those who have professional occupations tend to have more significant ties (9).


• On average, Americans have “weekly in-person contact with a median of five core ties and four significant ties (13);” they have a landline phone conversation with five core ties and two significant ties; they have a cell phone conversation with two core ties and zero significant ties (13);

Perhaps I found this article so interesting because it surprised me. Going into the reading, my hypothesis was that the more people use e-mail and IM, the less that they have face-to-face and phone conversations. In fact, it’s the opposite. These online communication devices simply supplement the more traditional forms of human interaction, and in result it’s easier to communicate effectively with more people (Thank you Facebook). The article also points out that the time people spend online typically takes the place of sleeping and watching TV, and not more social activities (3).

Last week, when I read Todd Kappelman’s article, I thought of the Internet when he explained Marshall McLuhan’s theory of extensions and amputations. I assumed that although the Internet does extend social networks, it takes away the relationship with a real person. The evidence from this report actually shows that the more that people see each other, the more likely they are to e-mail one another. At first, this fact surprised me, but then I thought of many of my personal conversations that usually end up with me saying something like, “Let me e-mail you those pictures,” or “I’ll have to send you that link.” The Internet makes it easy to share random information that you don’t always have at your fingertips.

Another great thing about online communication is that it helps me to stay connected to my standard ties. Actually, I probably wouldn’t have any contact with 90% of my standard ties without it. For me, those who fall under this category are the people who I lived with in the dorms my freshman year at the University of Toledo, the dozens of co-workers that I had throughout college, my childhood friend who moved away when I was in the first grade, etc. Now that I think about it, most of my standard ties were core ties at one point in my life, but for whatever reason we lost touch. Thanks to Facebook and e-mail, I’ve been able to reconnect with many of these types of people. A few of my standard ties have even moved to the Chicago-area recently. Prior to their move, they contacted me online, and now that they are here, we have scheduled to meet in-person.

One other thought regarding core and significant ties – I typically ask my core ties for advice on an issue in-person or over the phone first. Usually, I will then seek a second opinion from one of my standard ties via e-mail or IM (since most do not live in the Chicago-area). There are a variety of people in my standard ties category: a pharmacist, mechanic, lawyer, etc., and I’m able to receive more specific information on an issue from one of them.

After examining my personal life, I now see that I integrate e-mail, IM, phone conversations, and in-person encounters to manage what I consider to be a large social network. However, I’m more likely to use phone and in-person conversations with my core ties and e-mail and IM with my standard ties.

Works Cited

Boase, Jeffrey, John B. Horrigan, Barry Wellman, and Lee Rainie. "The Strength of Internet Ties." Pew Internet & American Life Project. 25 Jan. 2006. 2 Oct. 2009. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2006/The-Strength-of-Internet-Ties.aspx>.