Self Assessment

Understanding the necessity of technology whether it be for capitalistic reasons or for reasons we cannot evade easily, the pervasiveness of it is undoubtably all encompassing.
Having had the opportunity by way of this course and degree, to deconstruct the facets of this realm, I feel little bit more prepared to converse with confidence on the topic of new media and the extent to which it is rife.
My propensity to merge existing contexts with those that I find can be related to and associated with are fundamental to my thought process and I have enjoyed making those seemingly unrelated parallels. I also understand that focus is paramount to my quest for an education that I can avail of and approach in an organized way at any given point in time.

Information Guide - Methods of Resource Management

Routes to Resource Management and Methods of Accessing Information

INTRODUCTION

Determining required Information

Identifying Information Particulars

Processing of Data Bytes 

Application of Information

AVAILABILITY OF INFORMATION 

Speed and Coverage 

Pervasiveness of Specificities

ACCESSEBILITY CRITERIA

Knowledge and Grasp

Extent of Upkeep and Technological Advancement

AMENITIES SAVVY

Keenness for Data Research

Focus of Topic

DEMOGRAPHY AND DIASPORA

Cultural Tendencies

Code Switching

PURCHASING POWER

Communication Standards

Conspicuous Advantage

BROADBAND AND NET NEUTRALITY

Individuality

Privacy and Motives

PERSONAL SETTINGS

Quick Access

Preferential Updates

PREFERENCES AND VALUES

Code of Conduct

Language and Dissemination

  

IDEOSYNCRACIES

Choice and Decision

Viral and Rogue Formulae

Quest for Love

Interviewee 1 - Sahana - 13 yrs
Interviewee 2 - Craig - 13 yrs
Interviewer - Niranjana Shankar

Q - Do you have phones and how necessary is that to your lives and your guardian's life?
A - S - My mother really wants to us to have a phone so that she could call us when we're at a birthday party or late from school.  Our care taker has one too.
A- C- A phone makes me feel older and mature and also I like to be cutting edge  - especially because I know that some kids dont have the money to pay for telephone bills and video games.
Q - How often do you get to play video games?
S - I dont like them that much - I like to spend time with my friends on the stoop or at home watching a movie or listening to music or making a fun dinner...but I have played, I used to like "world of zoo" - that was fun, because I like animals - but I dont like animals in captivity in real life.
(I realized that the children had recognized the topic as that which was possibly looked at microscopically for its pros and cons but more cons and than pro -  and that there was also a need to emphasize the aspect of philanthropy and humanity in all of this - thus reinstating an existence with a dose of ethics and morality -  seen as part of the whole. Although whether this was as a result of my own personality, that they tapped into while in response, is truly the fascinating advantage we all have while meeting face to face).
C - On the weekends - but my parents trust us and its ok to play sometimes when I have finished my homework, when I dont have plans with friends.
Q - How do you usually spend time with friends? Do you think our lives are getting more and more technologically influenced?
(There was a long pause at this point and I realized it was as a result of the question being from the perspective of someone who has the option of seeing the scenario from both sides where as these children havent experienced a world without the movement of technology)
Q - Let me rephrase the question - because you see 20 years ago if you can imagine and have seen pictures or read about that time  -  computers werent really as popular as they are today - do you have any opinions or observations to share or communicate about that time and compare it to the time you live in ?
C - My father is a yoga instructor and we practice at his studio and I know all his students and sometimes I play my guitar in his class. I love music and like to spend my time playing and singing.
(Craig answered the question with such geniality  - seemingly skirting the question at the same time pursuing it knowing that his father and  I are musically and yogically inclined - as if to clarify the difference in ages and the ancient beneficial qualities attached to Yoga and Music in conjunction with the topic at hand)
S - I think we are very lucky that we have technology and we can communicate so easily - in the old days that was not possible easily and it is important to know that and we should not take it for granted.
Q - What new things have come out in music, Craig that you were taught or got to know about recently?
C - I think I am getting better at garage band - I like putting my music there and producing it.
Q - Sahana, do you think we're taking technology for granted - if so, how?
S - I think we 're robotic sometimes and dont think about emotions and thats not good for humans because we are emotional beings and need real love!
Q - Well - one might say that "I love my phone or computer or Ipad or games" - how do you differentiate?
(The kids may not have the vocabulary to express themselves finitely but the grounds that they chose to cover while trying to answer my questions was quite eye opening - and accurate to the fact that compartmentalizing information is a learned attribute and domain of the adult mind)
C  - Its about connecting with people now and with their lives - like grand ma and visit her often so she can teach us about history.
S - Yea - you can love many things - but I feel like love is real when you're real.

Identity and Violence as described by Marshall McLuhan

An Interpretation of -
Identity and Violence as described by Marshall McLuhan;

Ode to the evolution of our nervous system.

Marshall McLuhan spoke of the media and its vast effects in the 1930s and even made all of his postulates intriguingly relevant to his more recent audience inviting them to participate in his uber intellectual and futuristic pronouncements in the 1970s. I find that even though time has learnedly evolved and with it, also has many technologically ordained gadgets, the essence of his dialogue and the presence of mind with which he had foreseen and given time to the inevitable structural changes in societal tendencies, in the aftermath of total endowment of our faculties to artificial intelligence, is germane to any ongoing dialogue about the subject today.

His postulates were conducive to a curious media savvy audience but his teachings and fore sight had also made an impression in the world of science and Psychology. This amalgamation of concepts and paradigms is pertinent to the way I would like to analyze a given subject. For there cannot be a separation of the two if a study ought to be accurate.

 He effortlessly served those who questioned the nature of media as being transient and ethereal and hence less relevant to the more consequentially conferred evidences in real life. He was one of the first to speak freely of the importance of a dialogue about the blatant use of inconspicuous sexuality in the success of media and coined it to be forever the “wedding of sex and media”. While he marveled over the obvious power of the media now and the media he had foreseen as a formulaically accurate arena in which to gauge our evolution as a species as well as the evolution of technology – he also and very rightfully, brought in elements of neuroscience to the fore front and went on to illuminate the receptive public of the connections between the loss of identity and violence as a result of  blindly giving in to  television anarchy.

McLuhanisms, as his maxims were endearingly pegged, were engrained with evidence and thought about how television and technology on the one hand was liberating to a society’s standing and its endeavor to “continue on a higher plane” but on the other was also cumulatively a tactic on the part of capitalists and those that harbored an abrasive mentality towards mankind and all else. To him a “global village” was an open territory for acts of selfishness and humanistic debauchery – explaining the obvious and gradual decline of ethics and the birth of the ferocious and less understood state-of-the-art modern. He qualifies these statements with a direct allusion to the Advertising Industry where he said “ Ad is only a substitute for the product” – meaning what remains to be said about the undefined product will only be inferred through double entendre and mesmerizing latent sexual connotations and subversive imagery. He connected the effects of television to addiction and soporific opiates and the changes that manifest as a result of the instruments people employ and influence others by, during the course of their lives.

Deconstruction of Alcohol Ads - "The Reader"

I am a teetotaler by choice and have wanted to honor those in my life who have struggled with substance and alcoholic addiction. The general air about the ad (Bell's The Reader) which I chose to deconstruct, defies all other ads in its genre and has an innocuous posturing about it. To me the message of literacy is definitely grand in its premeditation but alcohol in any guise is a superiorly dangerous entity. 

The ad although successfully disseminates a feeling of family and togetherness and goals that establish us as citizens first and consumers second. But the consequences of neural loss of control is a topic regardless of its weight, that needs dissemination. Perhaps to have stated the inevitability of over consumption and loss of cognizant control would have taken away from the demure and powerful message of this ad but is utterly indispensable to  the longevity in this new way of conscientious advertisement. 

On another, contradictory plane, the utilization of sexual connotation and sexism in alcohol advertisement is regarded as the most hard-hitting aspect of conditioning and selling a product. The most exploited of our innate and palpable reasoning or association with things that we consider attractive are those that are used against us in such ads. 

The caption “Guys never change, neither do we” –  for Jim Beam – whether it is a play on our emotional vulnerability to want to manipulate to sexually advance and get the attention of the object of our affection or to perpetuate a sexist mentality, the stereo types in accordance with men and boys and girls and women and sex and pornography are ubiquitous, sensationalized and often irrelevant to common causes. But the most formative and impressionable, as a result of our ad culture, are driven by the admiration the ad industry has for their marketing tactics, judging by their healthy sales, to continue to abide by these standards. The ad industry persists on these mental make ups without guilt or culpability.

Jurgen Habermas and Spheres of Public Braodcasting

WEBLOGS AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE

Inspired by article written by Andrew O'Baoill

on Jurgen Habermas’ model of Public Sphere

In choosing Jurgen Habermas' study of the various communications spheres on the web, which further delineates to his audience, a factual yet intrinsic need for more participants and the pooling of variant cultural resources, I have struck upon an intention to acknowledge fully in its structure the parities within this domains and its tributaries. 

Andrew O'Baoill’s layout and explanation of this particular facet in the technological gamut of/for communicative rationality of information is an explicit way of illustrating the need for polarities to be understood let alone unified. The onus of which lies on the user, instead of on advertising or marketing gimmicks.

He says “I will here, however, generally be restricting my examination to those weblogs which deal with issues in the political/legal domain of the public sphere-one of three (along with Art/Culture and Science/Technology) identified by Habermas.”

The all-encompassing dual grounds of art and culture, science and technology, politics and legislation perfunctorily bring out the essence of the timbre with which the O’Baoill’s compartmentalizes Habermas’ tenets and includes his reasoning of resonance in the political realm.

These various socio economic grounds were synonymous with the education that Habermas had growing up in a violently segregated and hierarchically politicized Oligarchy of pre and post war Germany. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why he chose to absolve slightly, the study of ubiquitous Politics, during his life. It may seem ironic but it is also impossible to read between his explanations without giving his background, attention. His political voice was seemingly infused with his outward philosophical one – through which he was able to reach his audience on an even plain – whether European or American, poor or rich.

He chooses philosophy even though his understanding of the breakdown of the means on communication during his life as a young student gave more importance to forced and cruel regimen. Perhaps to perpetuate his critical thinking and improve conditions in society he needed to negate existing abject conditions under the aegis of philosophy.

His stance as a young adult was that of compassion for those who were denied their voices. His desire to integrate society by way of philosophical language and critical technique thus became his instrument of propagation. Even though technology was only a mere twinkle in the mid 1900s when compared to today, needless to say, the ability that Habermas demonstrated in terms of being able to think ahead of his time and era in order to bring about efficiency of thought and language while communicating with a public is astounding and is what is most fascinating to me on a personal and educational level.

Public speeches were considered the most eloquent way of being influenced by a certain culture. The web in similar ways provides a platform for everyone today – to influence and reach out, making the theoretical information the crux of all things tactile and tangible in the communication process.

 O’Baoill goes on to reiterates the importance of sustenance and longevity of this kind of public space giving much weight and importance to accessibility of critical information and language through Habermas’ explanation but because it is a minute fraction of a thought process of the big picture, the fascination hovers over the dialogue yet to be had about the ever pervading changes in these dynamics given that singular boundaries to each of the cultural, political and scientific domains, are constantly being re-imagined.

Network Neutrality and Evolutionary Legilations

#Networked Publics – K. Varnelis

Infrastructure

Chapter 4 – Network Neutrality and Network Futures 

Debate over Network Neutrality Pg 118-123

Neutrality of the net and the amount of key information and secured data within the realm and capacity of a telecommunication company has come under much scrutiny. I have yet to empathize with the desire to own another human being through the ownership of the information he seeks which is considered amenable and proprietarily trafficked by his network provider.

Monsanto comes to mind where they propose owning human beings who have consumed crops of the seeds the company owns. Intellectual Property Rights is another domain – hence can information in compartmentalized ways come under the aegis of various domains and spheres-making it yet another feature of the universe held for business.

This wouldn’t be the first attempt at unctuous mollycoddling of information by marketers only to stimulate an audience’s earnestness for faster and better service. Because faster clarifies being ahead and better expounds self-gratification.

The National Security Agency, in my opinion and understanding will have most of the arena in the game to come in the future.

The government and also its foreign allies are responsible parties currently, which protect the right to analyses of information pertaining to anyone in the rudimentary sense, subversively. But at what point and to whom does information take on a compulsive and martial role -And what bodies of governance determine this at what cost is the burgeoning debate in this field and that is of much interest to me.

We are essentially corroborating fathomable matters around elusive entities such as air, ideas, thought waves and quantum technology. There has got to be fairness or an authority that will speak on behalf of the audience itself that is in danger of being privatized.  Otherwise I see a whole new direction towards dictatorial rulings defining the demise of democracy, in more ways than one.

Organizations of top-secret conduct and pursuit have usually gate-kept information and with regard to what is allowed by the media to show case and introduce a to public. Further it is recommended by those who are schooled and privy to hear say or rumor or memetic, that we ingest with a pinch of salt any bite of information we haven’t experienced or witnessed. For the kind of information served to a certain diaspora and in this day and age is subject to skepticism and open dialogue of course. Beyond which if history does have a way of perpetuating itself even though times are different and constantly evolving then there is much to adhere to and imbibe from the past.

Information either topples at a tipping point to create intended ripples across its audience there by creating wealth for those who are copyrights savvy and persevere for economic results - reveling in a cumulative growth of their share of the ether or information can catch the attention of those who wish to distribute it with caution and encourage room for thought. Either way an audience is proposed and predetermined by their network providers to provide for upkeep and modernization. The economy currently hasn’t yet been able to support a model where the quality of information and its availability is earmarked for a specific echelon depending on brackets that can afford to expend their disposable income on cable companies and their broadband services.

Collaborations have understandably come to the rescue in a state of affairs where consumers and their purchasing powers have been heavily monitored by Capitalists and Conglomerates and those to have access to every move we make on the Internet.  Much to the shock and dismay of the public ideals where today not much is private unless one can afford to keep it that way.

Regulating Neutrality of services in the field of media is proportionate to the character and grit of a dynamic society. A society that will eventually receive and encode, interpret and decode and apportion information.

Online - Reading and New Literacies

The article brings to light the classical modes of learning that have had to evolve either as a result of the more optimistic view points of technological advancement or as a result of ideas that are considered an economic advantage.

This medium that is considered as the new evolved medium is essentially a module of the classical or the traditional. Whether or not we as consumers have a choice in the matter will be a topic of much relevance moving forward. 

Whether or not education and forms of literacies will be up to an informed choice and opinion will be the bench mark of how we perceive all these methods of education - forced or individualized or perfunctory or self-made.

The idea that technology is fleeting is also pertinent to this conversation in that it will define and redefine by nature everything a literarian has known to be a familiar matter.

Perhaps this will also include a desire to keep up with those who are considered up to date and with gadgets that are considered cutting edge.  

Literacy as Social Practice

This statement ""The distinctive contribution of the approach to literacy as social practice lies in the ways in which it involves careful and sensitive attention to what people do with texts, how they make sense of them and use them to further their own purposes in their own learning lives" (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9) reminds me of the umpteen  dialogues the researchers of better educational methods have had, over all my years of reading contextual material, around nature versus nurture.
Concisely and quite inconclusively I strongly suggest a balance of many mediums of literacies today considering there are areas of society that are oblivious to the more primitive ways of literacy let alone the newer more progressive ways of acquiring relevant skills. While this may be the excitable future we see it is also a reason for mass confusion amongst those who are in the midst of learning in the classical way. We are a breed further divided today by those who have access to information and those who rely on its accessibility in a hopeful way.
Those that have had the opportunity to learn to decode information and interpret it by utilizing their experience and ideals and further more have been congratulated by their peers and teachers for it,
have prevailed. They have also been able to perpetuate this cerebral ability for the benefit of their likeminded peers. But if one were to consider a typical form of education under a recognizable  ideal of  sorts, then one would also have to negate the relevance of education and methods of literacy to conform to its candidates needs rather than the other way around. The question then is how much of what we have been able to achieve and correspond as academician and students and teachers has to do with the opportunities we have had to nurture this? 
Personally I cannot  speak for a singular sect of those in society who have been corroborated in numbers as those who are capable of interpreting contextual material and translating it to the world in their own words without thinking about those who have been left behind but are equally viable and crucial to this number. 
The above statement is moot and yet has such relevance and weight to help decipher what it would take to bring this congratulatory high of education to one and all - so that everyone across the globe is rightfully part of the dialogue and of the journey of interpretation of texts at hand.

NMNL

Looking forward to the term.
Thanks.
Niranjana Shankar