Flaneurial

I've had a few days of boxing in piping, boring holes into walls and fitting doorhandles. In between times I've been reading 'The Hare with Amber Eyes', which is OK ... but the author is clearly in love with words. One of his favourites is flaneurial which makes me laugh out loud each time I read it. I've never seen it as an adjective before, so that's a first. Also, in my spare time, I've been thinking about thinking. It came to mind how Borges in that wonderful story 'Funes, his memory' says that 'to think is to ignore (or forget) differences....' Now there's a thought!

Raw or cooked?

I finally managed to finish writing about SNSs. Towards the end I started dwelling on the network metaphor itself. It's a distinctly 20th century metaphor which easily connects with the idea of networked computers and the world of digital connection even though social networking is itself a broader concept in the social sciences. In some ways the concept of a social network reduces the human social actor to a point, not even a point of view, but a point that connects in various ways to other points. Reading Wilcken's fascinating biography of Levi-Strauss made me see it as a structuralist concept, one that in extreme leads to an erasing of subjectivity and a reification of abstraction. Interestingly the small stuff, the detail in SNSs, maybe banal and largely regulated but the grander aspirations of the social graph pull in another direction altogether.

New media news

I missed my blog’s anniversary. It’s not that I’m sentimental or anything, but I’ve been writing here for 7 years and that seems quite a long time for a blog that deals with new media. In a week in which the news has been dominated by the Wikileaks affair, in which Twitter was reported as being worth $3.7BN, and in which Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was named Time magazine’s person of the year it seems that small niche interests have quickly become important features of the social, cultural and political landscape. Wikileaks was founded 4 years ago, Twitter 4 years ago and Facebook 6 years ago. So what’s new? Maybe it’s the level of over-exaggeration and misunderstanding. Time commended Zuckerberg on connecting the world. ‘In less than 7 years’ they said he has ‘wired together a twelfth of humanity into a single network, thereby creating a social entity almost twice as large as the US.’ Facebook’s success should not be under-played, but to claim that it has created a ‘single network’ or, for that matter, ‘a social entity’ is simply wrong. Perhaps underneath it all is the simple fact that old media types, in their attempt to understand what’s going on and play it to their advantage, have fallen under the spell of new media.

Social networking and protest

Ever since Howard Rheingold wrote about smart mobs we have been aware of the potential of social media to mobilise people in acts of resistance. In the UK the history of flashmobs has been limited to leisure spectacles such as iPod parties and the occasional activities of technology-enabled eco-protest. Things have changed with the latest round of mass student disturbances. Opinion is divided on the impact of SNSs in mobilising activists, but as this enthusiastic reportage from the BBC illustrates, old media are clearly excited by the possibilities of harvesting citizen journalism to present breaking news.

Networks and silos

I liberated this fabulous image from the great information silo of the university's VLE. I thought that was quite appropriate since nothing else seems to be able to get in or out on account of severe weather. Snow to be precise. Last week saw large-scale disruption to the transport network. Most academics were virtually working at home and managed desktops were groaning under the strain. I eased that particular burden by reading Gillian Tett on data silos, and in so doing confronted the irony of living in a highly connected world which is at the same time deeply segmented (I mean what exactly do I know about banking?). So while I'm chewing over some theoretical issues about networking, and online social networking in particular, I started to wonder just how much a space like Facebook has its users locked-in, generating a rather large data silo which can be partially explored from within but not from outside. It's networking, Jim but not as we know it!

Taking my turn

Belated congratulations to Dr Tamara Jones whose thesis looked at power and the patterning of spoken interaction in a reality TV show!! Bouncing from that to a bit of online teaching using Adobe Connect made me acutely aware that online interaction (can we still call it CMC?) is not the real world. And even though it's generally pretty smooth and quite immersive, it's virtual after all. Tamara's work reminded me how the old-school world of Conversational Analysis in which speakers were supposed to take polite turns, stay on topic and repair any hitches or perturbations is now about as idealistic as attempts to apply written grammar to speech. In other words most everyday conversations are littered with overlaps, as well as being punctuated by attempts to take the floor or change the topic. On the other hand conversational interaction in Connect cannot proceed in that way, because it's stripped down, with only the video feed of a talking head for a listener cue. Our best solution is to do turn-taking, and of course the environment encourages that in its design (mikes on or off, and onscreen icons to flag one's intention to speak). I think the upshot is that the conversational flow is different, turns are longer, collaborative meaning making as well its opposite, disputation, is harder to achieve. It's my sense that individuals talk for longer periods of time than they do in most face-to-face encounters and that they may be more measured in what they say. Certainly it's another of those instances of virtuality in which it seems deceptivley like RL, particularly as the technology gets better and the connection less vulnerable to glitches; deceptively like RL, but nothing like it!

Easy reader

Last night I bought 'You are not a Gadget'. It was one of the simplest bits of shopping I've ever done. First of all I was just curious to see if they had it in the Kindle bookstore. Less than 20 seconds later I saw that they had, and by exerting some gentle pressure with my thumb on the choose button my bank account was lighter by just over £10:00 and I was reading Jaron Lanier's book, still not quite sure whether I really wanted to or not. You could say I was curious. It has a lite style but a strong message, and one that fits the idea of technological determinism like a kid glove. But it made me think about how easily Amazon had relieved me of £10.00. Now I like the Kindle. I like the easy reading that it enables, and I don't have a problem with easy shopping. But the thing is that these things are seemlessly bundled together and I suppose that's where markets and meaning meet. And when all is said and done, I am what I consume.

Multiple threads

I've got multiple threads going at the moment and I'm beginning to wonder if they'll coalesce into a single theme. So I'm half way through writing a theoretical piece on the relationship between SNSs and wider social networks and really enjoying some of the reading I've been doing, and at the same time I've been hot on the trail of pinning down my ideas on critical media literacies. So here's a big shoutout to Colin and Michele for pointing me to the book Digital Content Creation (in their series). In particular, the debate set up between David Buckingham's cautious offering and John Hartley's digital optimism is really interesting. More on this when I've got the time, but for now this is just a strong recommendation!

The Social Network

At first sight the film version of Mark Zuckerberg is an unlikely hero. Depicted as emotionally-driven, at times bewildered and at times bewildering, he appears to have a strong sense of vision. Exactly what that vision is, is only ever hinted at. Facebook should connect people; Facebook should be free; and at all costs it should remain 'cool' - whatever that means. Zuckerberg's narrative actually turns on a familiar trope. Individualism operating outside of social structures in the business of carving out new terrain. It's the Wild West, it's the American Dream. You just have to replace rugged individualism with geeky individualism. That's not to say it's not a good film, and a great story. I left the cinema wondering whether and how Facebook is cool. It's as cool as warm beer in Britain. Not particularly cool but nearly everybody seems to drink it! Here' another review.

Material meaning

For a long time I've been thinking (and sometimes arguing with Richard) about meaning and material objects. In the highly entertaining book 'What Goood Are The Arts', John Carey describes this great thought experiment in which an established artist paints a tie with blue paint, and completely by chance and more or less at the same time, a child performs the same act, perhaps for very different reasons. Is the first one, because it is self-conciously part of the work of the artist, any different to the child's version? Carey succinctly expresses the point of view I have been taking. 'Meanings are not inherent in objects. They are supplied by those who interpret them.' (2005:20). Enter Bruno Latour as the door swings closed behind him (or was that Jim Johnson?).

Do I have some principles?

Well yes I do. But these are principles that guide my interest in literacy. I feel a list coming on. Here goes: 1. What children and young people produce/consume or read/write is an important starting point for those who work with, care for and educate them. 2. An important function of education has always been (and continues to be) concerned with encouraging learners to read and write (produce/consume) the 'right sort' of things in the 'right sort' of ways. 3. Whether as moral correction, or for intellectual development or to prepare them as future (present?) citizens literacies matter. 4. Children and young people engage in a whole range of literacy practices that are not always recognised by adults and by the education system and often meet with their disapproval. 5. The boundary between informal/formal and vernacular/official literacies is becoming increasingly blurred, particularly as we recognise its permeability and the importance of building upon what learners already know and do. 6. Meaning-making in digital environments is at the frontier of these new configurations. Mmm...are they principles?

Technology and early childhood literacy

We have a really great Special Issue of JECL just out which brings readers the cutting edge research on literacy and technology in the early years. It's co-edited by Victoria Carrington, Vivian Vasquez and myself. You can see the contents here. It's got a great international feel to it and it was very rewarding working with colleagues on this edition. Of course, as always, the finished product is just the tip of the iceberg so thanks to all involved in the process from the contributors to the reviewers, to the admin support and to the publishers. Happy reading!

Network mapping

I've just started writing a piece on social networking. The provisional title is 'Unravelling the social network' and I reserve the right to use that! Having a title I like helps me get started even if I drop it later on. Visualizing social networks needs to have some sort of focus so I had a look around at what's out there. There are reasonable free tools for visualizing web sites (not quite the same thing) and some work on Flickr. But the Neuroproductions Twitter Friends visualizer wins the day for me. I'll probably use it as an illustration. I suppose all it does really is to feed off your Twitter stream and the Twitter streams of your friends, and the downside is that it doesn't show linkages. But it's playful and attractive and works well and hey that's me right in the middle!

e-reading the news

The newspaper is delivered silently in the dead of night. There is no rattle of the letterbox, no picking up, no folding and refolding. I can't use it to swat flies with or stuff into my wet boots as they dry. There's no stack of yesterdays in the living room to raid for wrapping broken glass in, or for laying a fire or helping it draw. It's wirelessly delivered to my e-reader. And yes, it's because of all this I recommend a 10 day free subscription to any student of literacy in order to better understand how habits and material affordances interweave with our nostalgia for certain media. The expeience is qualitatively different. It has to be. But the news is arguably the same. Navigation requires a different logic and one in which I'm still a novice, shaving doesn't interupt my reading (I just turn it on voice) and if I'm reading outside a gust of wind is not a problem. I can check the details online at a single click. Yet for all its newness I'm disappointed with the reduced depth of modality. The colour supplements are grey and the illustrative content paired to the linguistic bone. So e-readers represent an interesting moment in technoliteracy, one in which convergence is always a promise and divergence a commercial reality. Ergonomically well honed, easily portable and with glare reduction to die for the Kindle has so much going for it. But then it's not particularly versatile. Although our technology is getting light and more mobile, you still need to pack your bag with all sorts of devices each one of which probably has the computing power to manage all those separate functions.

DJs go digital

töken experience from yöyen munchausen on Vimeo.

Well of course they went digital years ago - at least as soon as CD-Js took over from turntables. I first saw this when Shuiab Meacham and his kids rocked the Crucible in Sheffield. Apart from obligatory glances in the rearwiew mirror (making CDs sound like scratched and pitted vinyl) and nostalgia in the form of the decks-are-best crew, DJs have moved on with the technology using what the boffins come up with and the sound companies can sell. DJEmmaLou told me about the touchscreen interface in the video which takes DJ-ing into a new space. There is some talk of gestural music interfaces, but at the moment all we have is haptics (here). In my imagination the truly gestural DJ will also be a dancer whose movement in space triggers the sound we hear. Now that would be a hard act to follow!

The book is dead

Philip Dodd's radio debate on the future of the book in the era of e-readers holds no surprises. But it's still entertaining to listen to an exploration of familiar positions. From print nostalgia to digital utopia the viewpoints are clearly presented. David Almond is the most plausable as he acknowledges that the significance or pleasure of the book is distinct or deeper than its material form. He also recognises the creative possibilities of new kinds of writing and reading without being too quick to claim that the book is dead. On the other side of the fence, the print nostalgics feel they have history on their side and their arguments are based on the materiality of the book. The fixity and durability of print text is seasoned with plenty of reference to the aesthetic and multisensory qualities of bundles of inked paper that have been glued together. Perhaps for now the both/and arguments are the most sensible. I was interested in an audience contribution on how e-readers might be used as part of a lending library services. Perhaps Amazon's aggressive marketing of the Kindle is poised to challenge the nature of everyday reading.

Social rituals

Weddings, blessings and civil partnerships are significant social rituals and ones in which new and old textual practices play an important role. Oral recitation, repetition and the signing of official texts are often the centrepiece. But official practices sit alongside very important unofficial ones. So whilst some sort of professional photography seems necessary in order to keep a record of the event, these images jostle against the Facebook sets and the casual snaps and short movies captured by the guests. New and old ways of mediating the event comfortably co-exist and hardly raise comment. this is my contribution!

Daily blog?

At yesterday's ELMAC conference we played a bingo-style icebreaker with each item related to some sort of digital literacy. I got quite a lot of hits as someone who keeps a daily blog. I was rather aware of the irony, since it's over a week since I posted anything. What with a family wedding in Cyprus and an evaluation of BBC's Talkie Time to write up, life's been pretty full-on. So I kicked back on Friday night and watched the film adaptation of The Reader. It's a while since I've read the book but I was struck by the emphasis on the redemptive power of literacy. I'm not sure that it's a message I'm too happy with it. Nevertheless it's a good story - am I reading too much into it?

Are all texts virtual?

Looking at books on an e-reader certainly makes you question the nature of the text. Changing the font, adjusting the size and flipping across pages on a handheld device makes you realize that the text isn't the same thing as its material form. What's true for the e-reader is true for the book. The material form and the place of its appearance are the medium which carries the message but not the text itself. In a sense you could argue that the text is virtual and only becomes recognisable at its point of contact with the material world. Pixels on a screen, ink shapes on paper are the result of technological processes that convey textual meaning. To make-meaning we have to see through these processes. I've been arguing that a sort of believing has to take place. Something rather similar happens in dramatic and filmic texts: for most of the time we have to look beyond the artifice. If that's true, are all texts virtual?

Computer head

Reading Katherine Hayles helps you to reflect on the relationship between bodies and technology. One theme she doesn't address though is how moral panics about new media often revolve around how our bodies are changed: corrupted from their natural state by our unnatural inventions. From the jokes about square eyes and playstation thumbs to the more real sounding fears that mobiles fry our brains, computers ruin our posture (and our memory) and too much time online makes us obese, the idea that we are being changed, and changed for the worse, propels these narratives. The poster in the picture is an advertisement for mental healthcare and although there's no caption the message is clear. Technology is doing our heads in (as well as our bodies)! But is there any evidence to support this? All right, let's be critical for a moment, there isn't a shred of evidence. Yet, wait a minute, the latest idea that working on screen is leading to my premature ageing must be true. I look in the mirror and I see hard evidence of COMPUTER FACE. Yes, it's true because the Daily Mail says it is. The story is syndicated around the world thanks to new technology and Dr Michael Prager's homepage climbs Google rankings. Now who would believe a cosmetic surgeon? Me. Pass the botox, I think I'm ageing.