Lecture 15: I and We:

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Lecture 15:Lecture 15: I and We:I and We:

Professor Victoria Meng

How do digital mediaHow do digital mediasituate us in space and time?situate us in space and time?

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Lecture PurposeLecture Purpose

1. Course review and conclusion

2. How emerging digital media are shaping and being shaped by us as individuals and societies.

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Review: McLuhanReview: McLuhan

• Media extend human abilities

• Media change the scale and scope of human interactions

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• Media extend human abilities

• Media change the scale and scope of human interactions

Digital media have changed1. what we can do and2. how we can interact with other

people.

Reading: FlewReading: Flew

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Digital Media,Digital Media,Identity and CommunityIdentity and Community

• DM makes it possible to access more information about ourselves and other people than ever before.

• DM also makes it possible to simulate and falsify information about ourselves and other people than ever before. (Baudrillard!)

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Consider Post Secret as a Virtual Community using Flew’s ideas.

• On one hand, it exposes secrets. It unites people who want to tell and learn secrets.

• On the other hand, it hides the senders’ identities and motivations.


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Digital Media,Digital Media,Identity and CommunityIdentity and Community

Consider the ways that you have used DM in the last 5 years. How has it made you:

• Better connected?• More isolated?• More exposed?• More unlike your “physical” self?

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Key Point: Our digital “selves” and experiences are continuous with our physical identities in “real life.” The conditions in one affect the conditions in the other.

(Cross-reference concepts by Murray, Sobchack, and Friedberg)


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How can we relate the Key Point to representations of media in Ararat?

1. There is no single ultimate authority on what is true or authentic. There are multiple points of view. (More Friedberg)

Screening: Screening: AraratArarat

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2. What we believe is true or right depends on our relationships with our communities (consider the conflict between the Armenian and Turkish characters).


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3. Different media (traditional film, DM, painting, etc.) have different strengths and limitations in representing experiences and expressing ideas (Unit II).


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Let’s now relate Flew’s ideas about Virtual Communities, Ararat, and Kivikuru’s article on DM and crisis by asking this question: How does news turn into history?• Why was the Armenian genocide under-reported? (Remember to avoid technological determinism; it’s not just about technology, there are other factors.)

Reading: KivikuruReading: Kivikuru

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Let’s now relate Flew’s ideas about Virtual Communities, Ararat, and Kivikuru’s article on DM and crisis by asking this question: How does news turn into history?• What happened during the aftermath of the Tsunami in 2004? How did new kinds of news change our sense of time, space, and who/what is important? (Remediation, hypermediation)


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Let’s now relate Flew’s ideas about Virtual Communities, Ararat, and Kivikuru’s article on DM and crisis by asking this question: How does news turn into history?• Refer to Flew’s figures on world access to the Internet. What kinds of news are we not getting now? Where are our blind spots?


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Course ConclusionCourse Conclusion

Key Question 1:

How does the emergence of DM challenge our old blind spots and create new ones? (Ihde, media is not neutral; McClean; Lax)

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Key Question 2:

How does the emergence of DM change the way we think of who we are and what we want? (Turing, Rokeby, Lury)

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Key Question 3:

How does the emergence of DM change the way we behave in our societies? (Gurak, Jenkins, Miller, Kutritz)

End of Lecture 15End of Lecture 15

Thank you for making thisa great class.

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Documents

Lecture 15: I and We: