The End

image by Speg of the Pigs, used under Creative Commons license

The assignments are in, the modules complete, and (par for the course) I’m rushing towards deadline; the final deadline in which I pause and reflect about my COMM 555 experience.

So what did I learn?

Module 10: Kickstart Me Up

The post in which I felt like a member of the “Dragons’ Den”.

Next nature: ‘nature caused by people’

Here is the wordle for Sue Thomas’ piece “Next nature: ‘nature caused by people’”. I’ve made all the words lowercase and applied the ‘moss’ colour scheme, lending a more ‘organic’ feel to the graphic. Nature dominates, but the eye is drawn to mishmash of the natural and the (human) constructed: world, science, design, technology, meat, plants, grow, etc. as well as the ambiguous and intriguing ‘next’. Looking deeper, the pattern continues with more specific language. It’s our natural environment and human activity all mashed up, big and small. Nature dominates, but human activity surrounds it, filling every nook and cranny.

I guess I’d better read the article.

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Reference


Thomas,  S. (2013). “Next nature: ‘nature caused by people’,” Journal of Professional Communication, 3.2, Article 5, http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/jpc/vol3/iss2/5

I was an Online Activist

It has never been easier to create a petition. Platforms such as Avaaz.com and Change.org make it drop dead simple to assemble the basic components of a petition and to create a ready-made product that is shareable and interactive (to the extent that adding your name and allowing for comments is interactive). The technology is easy. The other stuff is hard.

In Summary

What follows are summaries for Kreiss (2012) and Christensen (2011). Enjoy.

Into the Ecobiotic Milieu!

“Selfie noun, informal (also selfy; plural selfies): a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.” (OED, 2014)

Each day 93 million selfies (photos taken using a forward facing lens) are taken with Android devices (Kennemer, 2014). The portion posted online is hard to pinpoint exactly, but even a small percentage represents large numbers. In aggregate, the number is staggering. Anecdotally, a search for #selfie on Instagram produces over 270 million results and this is but one of many social network outlets for selfies.

To channel Adam Levin in “The Selfie in the Age of Digital Recursion” (2014), there are a half a billion* stories in the ecobiotic milieu. Here are five of them:

A Pound of Curation

“[B]andaging a wound doesn’t make you a doctor. Snapping non-digital photos of empty train tracks doesn’t make you a photographer. So, guess what? Assembling a group of tangentially related things and publishing them online does not make you a curator. So what does it make you? A blogger? A list-maker? An arbiter of taste? Sure, I’ll take any one of those. Just stop calling yourself a curator.” (2011, Hermitage Museum) 

Dear anonymous curator. Take a deep breath. Your job is safe. Have confidence. You’ll be ok.

The Great American Tweet

Twitter Fiction, if it can be described as a single entity, derives its uniqueness as being a subset of electronic literature delivered specifically via the Twitter platform. It affords the author the advantage of the platform: an opportunity to connect with some of the 330 million users who visit monthly and (presumably? hopefully? potentially?) consume content.

Alice 2016

Inanimate Alice

Episode 7: Turkey

This story uses images, text, and sound; turn on the sound on your computer.

Use your mouse and click on the arrows >> to move forward.

Sometimes you may need to perform an action for the story to continue.

You can also use the icons on the right-hand side to return to earlier sections.

The story takes about 37 hours to view.

The Same as it Ever Was

The Same As it Ever Was: Permanence in Technological Chaos

Good golly, it's like it's actually happening to me!

Sheldon is battling Trolls and solving puzzles on an 80s era text-based adventure game. Though he initially frames it as nostalgia to his roommate, it quickly escalates to engagement that is immediate, urgent, and authentic. The game is old and outdated, but it still has impact. Decades after its creation it remains a perfect manifestation of its original intent. Form and function are in balance and are able to provoke response.

Though the scenario is sitcom fiction, the complex and confounding interplay between technology, text, and what it means to be outmoded or obsolete seem to ring true. Which brings us to the book.

Digital Literacy & Me