Hard Times and Our Collaborative Writing Project

I've started re-reading Hard Times by Dickens.  Some of the main issues I'm finding in the book are mechanization, the loss of imagination, and the loss of identity. 

First, in the second chapter, we see the idea of mechanized humans.  The schoolmaster, Mr. MChoakumchild, is introduced in this way: "He and some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters, had been lately turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte legs."  He has become the product of a factory, churned out to act just the same as all the other products, and to raise up and make more products just like himself.  The reasoning adults see this as a good thing; making everything standardized, including people, is efficient.

However, the individual is lost in this standardization, along with imagination. For example, after giving her name, Sissy Jupe is told she shouldn't go by Sissy because it isn't a name, and she should call herself Cecilia.  Later, Mr. Bounderby asks if Sissy would carpet a room with pictures of flowers on it, and she says she would.  He asks why and she says, "If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers."  Mr. Bounderby asks, "And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots?"  She says, "It wouldn't hurt them sir.  They wouldn't crush and wither if you please, sir.  They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy--" "Ay, ay, ay!  But you mustn't fancy."  Not only is Sissy renamed, she is told she must not imagine things.  The name of this chapter is Murdering the Innocents.  Of course the adults are not literally killing the children, but they are destroying their individualism.  They are making them into mechanized products without identity, and without imagination.


In our digital culture, we similarly have a crisis of identity.  Our education doesn't center on destroying fancy, but online avatars and the way we interact in social media do not necessarily reflect who we are in real life.  The anonymity we find online allows us to act differently than we normally would. 

While I am reading Hard Times, I'm also starting a collaborative writing project.  Several other students and I are going to write a book based on a plot outline.  So far, the main idea of our book centers around a Second Life kind of social networking site that is modeled to look like the world of Jane Austen.  Also, when you enter this world, you are completely immersed in it, like in The Matrix.  Our main character is a spy, and is constantly having to changer her identity, but online she actually feels like herself.  Her real life and her virtual life will collide when she discovers the man she's fallen in love with online is the man she's been hunting for years.  She will have to find a balance between what she wants, and what is right.

In Hard Times, everyone is standardized and losing themselves to industrialization.  In the book we'll be writing, our main character is trying to find out who she really is and who everyone else is, too.

Digital Dependency: Reporting on My Media Diet

The media fast is finished.

Okay, maybe my media diet wasn't that bad, especially when you compare it to what other people went without this weekend during their media fasts.

One thing I learned during my diet is that I really do waste a lot of time with digital media.  Here's what I got done in 24 hours when electronic distractions were removed:


1. Laundry--I haven't done any laundry in about a month, so I got three loads in and out yesterday.  Don't judge, just be happy for me.  I once again have clean pants to wear.
2. Medical school applications--I filled out and submitted a full secondary application, and started on a second one.  Ironically, both of these were online (remember, mine was a media diet, not a fast).
3. My honors thesis--My goal is to finish my creative writing thesis by the end of this month.  I got about four pages done yesterday, which means I only have a few chapters left.
4. Chemistry homework--I have a huge report due on Tuesday, with lots of calculations involving Excel.  Amazingly, I nearly finished all of it.

It was a productive day, though I certainly had many temptations to cheat on my diet.  Several people invited me to go watch a movie and I had to refuse.  Saturdays are also one of the few days I get to play computer and video games, and there were a couple of times that I really wanted to just give up on the diet.  But I stayed strong... for the most part.

Okay, here's where I confess: I didn't quite follow the diet completely.  Early in the day my roommates started listening to music and I thought, "Well, it's their music.  It would be rude to make them turn it off for me."  And then I got in the car and after listening to the radio for about five minutes I suddenly realized a radio might count as a digital music player.  Then, later that night, my roommate and I were singing Les Miserable songs, and we decided we just couldn't remember enough of the words on our own, so we pulled the music up on Spotify.  We reenacted most of the musical.  It was a lot of fun.  I regret nothing.

If I learned one thing this weekend, it is that I depend on digital media, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.  I needed the internet, a word processor, and Excel to do homework, applications, and my thesis.  Our culture requires that we use electronic media in order to survive.  Although I enjoy playing computer and video games, watching YouTube videos and movies, and checking Facebook and other websites, those are just for fun.  If I didn't use a computer at all, however, I would not be able to do homework or apply to schools, which are more essential tasks.  And, apparently, I really need music in my life to be happy, and the only way to get it is by using a digital device.

Now, being dependent on digital media doesn't mean I'm addicted to it (although I'm not ruling that out).  It just means that's where our culture is.  Technology has always been important to human life to accomplish things.  Our technology involves ones and zeros and is more immediate than previous technologies, and it is just as necessary for us to get on in our civilization.  Progress is not bad.  We have to be careful with the way we use technology, and how much time we devote to certain activities, but we have to accept that digital media allows us to do great things we couldn't do any other way.

My Media Diet Pledge

There's a media fast going on this weekend, but I just don't think I'll be able to do it.  I'm currently writing my honors thesis, and it pretty much requires that I use my laptop every day.  Also, most of my homework is online, I'm applying to medical schools online, and I need to use my cell phone because someone is contacting me about an interview in Texas.  So a total media fast just isn't possible.

But, I still want to take part.  So, I'm going to go on a media diet during all of Saturday.  I tried to think of ways I waste time with media, and I came up with a couple of ideas.

1. Websites not related to school (the list is too extensive to put here).

2. Computer games.
3. Facebook (especially BYU memes on Facebook.  Oy).
4. YouTube in general

These are the main things I will be avoiding tomorrow.  It's not a full fast, but it will be hard, and it will be good for me to get away from the things that eat up my time unnecessarily.  I don't watch TV normally, but I won't use that, use a music player, or watch movies during the 24 hours either.

Now that it's down, hopefully I'll be more dedicated to it.  I expect to be a little more productive this weekend, though I may also lose my mind.  Find out which next week!

Focus--Ooh, Something Shiny!

So, I'm trying to come up with something I really want to focus on for this class, my blog, and my Google+ feed.  I've mentioned on Google+ that I have an interest in television, but I'm not really sure where I would go with that (though I am currently waiting to hear back from Nielsen Media Research about how they take internet video views into account).  I also said I might take a deeper look at how the world needs to catch up with digital media.  There are laws, rules, and traditions that we have from previous eras that need to be updated or changed altogether in order to fit into our new way of life.  However, that honestly doesn't sound like something I'd enjoy week after week.

The easy thing for me to do would be study video games, not because that's an easy topic, but because my sister is going into video game animation and would be able to give me lots of feedback.  But I feel like so many other members of our class are already looking into that, each with a deeper, more interesting emphasis than just, "I want to learn about video games."

I was basically at a loss.  There were so many topics I could pursue, yet none of them held my attention.  While trying to find a focus I felt like I was back in Fourth Grade and the teacher wanted to have me tested for ADD.

And then a revelation came from above--or at least from my right.  Today in class the person next to me mentioned creative writing.  Suddenly it was obvious.  Literature!  That's my true love!  Writing it, reading it, that's my passion.  I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it sooner.  Maybe that's why I didn't think of it, though: it was so obvious it seemed wrong.  But if I'm going to enjoy this class, I need to do something that I enjoy.

So, literature in the digital age.  I'm talking ebooks, science fiction, fan fiction, blogs turning into published novels, collaborative creative writing, and whatever else it implies.  I'm going to find criticism for it, and I might even dabble in writing some digital literature myself.

I'm going to study literature in the digital world, and I'm going to love it.  I hope you do, too.

Television on Television: Why the Rating System Needs to Change

A week ago on Google+ and in a few in-class group discussions, several class members were talking about television ratings.  Shelby Boyer mentioned that "smart" shows like Community and 30 Rock never seem to get the ratings they deserve, while shows that get a cheap laugh like The Office do well.  She said, "I think TV has become a sort of go-with-the-crowd thing. There's kind of an emptiness and it is dangerous: if we don't stop to ask what we're laughing at, then we're letting TV writers dictate our morality/intelligence/whatever while the TV writers are just churning out scripts with baseless humor because even they don't have to think about it anymore."

While it may be true that Americans prefer to laugh at the quick jokes, and thus the cheap-shot shows do well in the ratings, I would like to propose one other reason why certain quality shows struggle.  The answer is in how shows are rated, how they are watched, and who watches.

 First, you have to understand how television shows are rated.  Nielsen Media Research is the authority in TV ratings.  The company selects a sampling of about 5,000 homes and installs a meter that tracks when televisions are on, and what channel is being watched.  Also, household members can press a button coded for each person on a small box near the TV to let the meter know who is watching and when they stop watching.  Thus, the company can also tell what ages are interested in which shows.  These ratings are important because companies want their ads to be seen, and if a show isn't watched enough, these companies won't pay to have their ads put on television during the commercial breaks in that show.  Therefore, the television network loses money, and decide to get a new show that will bring in more viewers, and thus more revenue from advertising companies.

How do you watch TV?

The problem here is that television isn't just watched on television anymore.  In a report by the NPD Group, it was shown that across the globe, more and more people are watching television using tablet devices.  Only 30% of consumers say they only watch TV on their television.  Another report in the Wall Street Journal noted 62.4 million viewers watch internet videos during primetime. 

And who is watching television on the computer or mobile device?  12-24 year-olds.  Older, married people who are financially stable, and who have more time for sitting down to watch hours of TV instead of short videos, are the ones who watch television on television sets.

Now, that's not across the board, but my point is this: many great shows struggle because of who is watching them and how.  Nielsen doesn't get ratings for shows that are being watched on tablets or on the internet by 12-24 year-olds. Thus, only the shows that the older people are watching on their television sets are doing well in the ratings.  If they prefer the cheap-shot shows Shelby Boyer mentioned, those of us watching Community on our computers have to bow to their discretion when it comes to who gets canceled.

This is not yet proven, but this is my theory.  And it brings up another point; in our digital culture, we have to adjust what has always been in order to accommodate those who are more digitally civilized than others, while still pleasing the masses.  Nielsen Media Ratings are one of many old, leftover traditions that need to be changed or perhaps even discarded completely in the digital world.  Otherwise, only those still subscribing to the old way of doing things benefit from it.

For more information:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question433.htm

http://www.cultofmac.com/176135/almost-twice-as-many-people-watch-tv-on-ipads-worldwide/

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-06-09/entertainment/30023006_1_internet-video-online-video-hulu

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/how-teens-watch-the-future-of-media-is-in-their-hands/

These Hard Times

I'm about to begin re-reading Charles Dickens' Hard Times.  I read it before in a Victorian Literature class, and I felt it was a perfect way to introduce the subject of the early Victorian era, as well as industrialization. 

 In this book, Dickens explored the affect industrialization had on society, physically (as in the slums), spiritually (as in Utilitarianism), mentally ("Facts, facts, facts") and emotionally (as in Louisa's apathy).  We deal with a similar change in technology that affects all aspects of society.  As the Victorian Era was exposed to rapid industrialization, we are exposed to rapid digitalization. 

As I head into re-reading the book, I'm going to be thinking a lot about how the characters adjust to their new industrial world.  There are those that thrive, though at the expense of others, those that suffer and are trodden down because they are at the bottom of the social ladder, and those that reject the utilitarian ways.  I'm trying to think of a character that does well in the industrial age, fully accepting it, while also not becoming a kind of machine emotionally.  Hopefully I can find that character, because that is the person who will tell us how to truly adjust to digitalization.

Sissy Jupe is a problematic character in a way, because she is the romantic person living in an industrial age, yet she is the heroine in the end.  As much as you may like her, and as much as she is a kind of angel that saves the hardened, mechanistic people around her, she does not quite fit into industrial society.  Maybe I'll change my mind as I re-read it, but right now, I believe Sissy Jupe would be the modern equivalent of an old woman who can't figure out how to use a computer.  Yet in the book she actually guides the characters in their brave new world. That doesn't seem right; how could someone who doesn't understand the new age teach us how to live in it better?  Perhaps today this would be someone who simply remembers the past and uses that knowledge to help us with new problems we face in the Web 2.0 era?  Or maybe it's someone who simply holds to a moral center, as "backward" as it may seem.

It should be exciting to re-read this book with a new objective.  I hope that in the end, I find that Dickens did believe men and women could live happily and morally in the Victorian era, because I believe that there is a way for us to do the same in our new digital age.  Further, I hope to find answers to how we can adjust well to rapid digitalization, and also to show how we should not react to it.

Amateur Business

I have a confession: I waste a lot of time online.  As soon as I turn my computer on, I begin my internet "rounds" where I go through a list of sites that I enjoy and check for any updates.  One of my favorite places to check is Charlie McDonnell's YouTube channel.  Here is one of his better videos (in my opinion).

The thing I find fascinating about Charlie (besides his wit, nerdy knowledge, and British accent) is that he does this for a living.  His vlog is not just something he does for fun on the side, but his actual job.

He's not the only one.  ShayCarl and recently 14-year old Olivia Ford are also famous vloggers who make money off of their YouTube channels.  After a vlogger gets popular, with lots of views and subscribers, they can sell advertising space and/or join the YouTube Partner Program.  The latter gives the vlogger 50% of the revenue from regular ads run on their channel.  The more hits your channel gets, the more money you'll make.  Just as an example, Charlie has over 1.5 million subscribers, and many of his videos get more than a million views each.  I don't know exactly how much money he makes, but Yahoo! Answers reports that YouTube partners make between $2.5 to $5 every thousand views your videos get.  If you're getting the same number of hits as Charlie, you're doing pretty well for yourself.

The point of this post is not necessarily to encourage the reader to start a vlog and get rich off of it (though I have to say I've been thinking of starting my own).  Rather, I want to point out the changing face of business in our digital culture.  Obviously many people use the internet for profit; it's an easy way for customers to shop and buy online, advertising is made even more effective through things like Facebook, and companies use the web for all sorts of functions.  But non-professionals are also cashing in due to Web 2.0.

In our digital world, anything and everything can be shared with anyone and everyone.  That means if you have something interesting to say, you can put it in a blog and possibly become a sensation for telling the world what you think.  If you have a talent, you can get noticed.  And if you're funny, you can get paid for posting videos of yourself being funny.  It doesn't necessarily require a ton of thought or even time.  You just need to have something people want to see/read/listen to.  You might actually be a complete amateur, but if people like what you have to offer online, it can become your job.

There are pros and cons to this.  You can be paid to do what you love.  In a struggling economy, starving artists can make a comeback through the internet.  However, there's also the argument that you could post something absolutely awful, but as long as people watch it, you could get rich while high art suffers.  *Cough* Rebecca Black *Cough*  I'm also slightly concerned over what happens in a few years when these internet sensations stop bringing in the viewers.  If they don't have the money to retire, they may have to get "real jobs," and after relying on their wit or artistic talents to get by for so long, will they have any marketable skills?

Still, as one website pointed out, starting a vlog is a great way for students to make a little money on the side (if you can network enough to gain popularity).  I think if you can do something you enjoy, which will benefit others, and get paid to do it, more power to you.  Web 2.0 has opened all sorts of avenues for anyone with something to share.

For more information, visit

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110104140728AAT11OG

http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/campus/cash-and-careers/student-money/vlogging-an-alternative-way-to-make-money

http://www.ehow.com/how_5026759_make-money-vlogging.html

Review of Bolter and Grusin's Remediation: Understanding New Media

In Remediation: Understanding New Media, authors Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin argue that new media is only new in the way it presents old media.  They use the terms immediacy, hypermediacy, and remediation often throughout the book, and despite their claim that you don't have to read the book front to back, you absolutely have to read the chapter that defines said terms or you'll be very lost. 

Immediacy refers to media that immerse you so much in the media that it feels like real life.  You forget that you are using the media.  One example is virtual reality.  The user is so immersed in the media, interacting with it in a such life-like way, that the interface is forgotten, becoming "transparent."  It is difficult to have complete immediacy, but in the end it is what all media strives for: to transport us into the world of the media and give a sense of verisimilitude.

Hypermediacy refers to media where you are constantly brought back into contact with the interface.  You cannot forget that you are using the media, and it feels less real.  Windows on a computer screen are a great example of this.  The experience feels less real because the user sees frames, a multiplicity of images, and interacts with a keyboard or mouse. However, this form of media is no less important than transparent immediacy.  As the authors note, "Transparent digital applications seek to get to the real by bravely denying the fact of mediation; digital hypermedia seek the real by multiplying mediation so as to create a feeling of fullness, a satiety of experience, which can be taken as reality" (53).  The user can have many windows open, and this kind of multitasking creates a sense of immediacy because the user is doing and seeing and hearing so much at once.

Remediation takes one medium and represents it in another.  Photography on a computer screen is one example.  Although the medium of a digital image may seem new, in fact it is only representing an old media (that is, the photograph) in a new way.

The authors take a good section of the book examining various forms of remediation and demonstrating how all "new" media "are doing exactly what their predecessors have done: presenting themselves as refashioned and improved versions of other media" (14-15).  As I read the book, I came to realize that all media is just that: mediation.  A painting mediates between reality and the viewer; the viewer sees a market or a beach or a dog, etc., and the painting is merely trying to represent the truth.  It is trying to be immediate.  However, this does not change the fact that the viewer is not really seeing a market or beach or dog.  The media is mediating the experience for them.

Therefore, because media has only ever been mediation, digital media should not make us feel that we are becoming less connected to reality just because digital media seeks to represent that very reality.  That is all media has ever tried to do.  Digital media just does it better than any previous kind, whether through immediacy or hypermediacy.

Bolter and Grusin take a very objective voice in the book, which I like.  They don't seek to convince that digital media is good or bad, immoral or not.  They only argue that digital media is doing the same thing that previous media have done, which is to represent old media in a new, improved way.  Despite their objective view, however, I came away feeling much better about my digital culture.

Hacktivism

In class, someone mentioned the word, "Hacktivists."  I had never heard the word, and so did some research.  Basically, hactivism is civil disobedience/activism in digital culture.  Like normal civil disobedience, it can be violent or non-violent.

For example, in 2011 a bunch of hacktivists leaked the password lists and credit card information of Stratfor Security clients.  The hacktivist group, called Anonymous, also used this information to make unauthorized charitable donations.  Anonymous has a long history, and its motives were not entirely understood, though they generally have it out for security companies and those who oppose sites like WikiLeaks.  They feel the condemnation of Private Bradley Manning, who published diplomatic documents and war zone field reports to WikiLeaks, was wrong. 

On the other hand, hacktivism can also include something as innocent as anonymous blogging, wherein writers speak to a wide audience about human rights and political issues using free e-mail accounts, IP masking, and blogging software to provide anonymity.  I'm about a step away from being a hacktivist in that regard.

There are many forms of hacktivism, including e-mail bombing, where hacktivists send tons of e-mails to the target; web page defacing; and web sit-ins, where hacktivists send so much traffic to a site it becomes inaccessible to other users.  Hacktivism can be on an individual or larger group level.


Civil disobedience of the past and hacktivism obviously have many similarities.  There are varying degrees of involvement and victimization in both, and both seek to somehow change the world.  As our culture becomes more and more digitized, even our revolutions are moving online.  That does not make them any less effective, however.  They can lead to as much change as a physical protest.  The effort involved is different, though.  Instead of having to commit one's body to a cause, as in the civil rights movement where sit-ins and marches were used as demonstrations, one's mind must be committed.  The hacktivist must use their intellect to hack the target.  They can destroy a website and therefore someone's revenue or privacy from their own homes.  It's an interesting development in our culture that seems only natural.  As our world moves online, so do our rebellions.