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FCJ-084 Who’s Afraid of Technological Determinism? Another Look at Medium Theory
John PottsMacquarie University, Sydney The model of medium theory, proposing that the most significant cultural and social effects of media derive from the intrinsic properties of the media themselves, has historically been viewed with suspicion within studies of media and technology, especially on the critical Left. An extensive literature drawing on political economy and critical sociology has denounced the technological determinism inherent in medium theory, advancing instead a ‘social shaping of technology’ thesis. However, the impact of digital information and networking provokes a reconsideration of the model of medium theory. Every time it is written or stated that digital convergent technology has re-shaped the use and effects of media forms, then some form of medium theory is being employed. Such widespread informal reference to the tenets of medium theory – including an element of technological determinism – makes a reconsideration of the model timely. In this paper I assess the…
FCJ-083 Tag-elese or The Language of Tags
Jan Simons Universiteit van Amsterdam Folksonomies as chaotic systems The core “meme” of Web 2.0 from which almost all other memes radiated was: ‘You control your own data’ (O’Reilly, 2005, 3).[1] Key instruments for this user control are tagging systems that allow users to freely assign keywords of their own choosing to Internet resources of their own making as well as to documents produced by others. Tags are used for making Internet resources retrievable for personal use, but in so-called social networks tags are also accessible for others. Of course, as freely chosen keywords tags do not necessarily follow prefixed taxonomies or classification systems. But going by the maxim that interaction creates similarity and similarity creates interaction, the idea – or hope – is, however, that the tagging practices of individual users will eventually converge into an emergent common vocabulary or folksonomy. (Merholz, 2004; Shirky, 2005; Vander Wal, 2005b; Mika,…
FCJ-082 The Models and Politics of Mobile Media
Gerard Goggin Journalism and Media Research Centre, University of New South Wales Introduction In this paper I seek to critically evaluate the models at play in an important area of new media cultures — mobile media. By ‘mobile’, I mean the new technologies, cultural practices, and arrangements of production, consumption, and exchange, associated with hand-held, networked devices, especially those based on mobile cellular networks. These mobile phone technologies are now commonly being framed as media (May & Hearn, 2005; Nilsson et al., 2001; Goggin & Hjorth, 2007) — and so we see the appearance of objects such as mobile television, mobile film, mobile games, and mobile Internet. With its large cultural and commercial claims, this much-heralded move raises important theoretical and political questions. There is an extensive literature on various aspects of convergence, including mobiles, however systematic consideration has not been given to mobile media as a development centring on…
FCJ-081 Toward An Ontology of Mutual Recursion: Models, Mind and Media
Mat Wall-Smith English, Media and Performing Arts, University of New South Wales ‘…the ‘axioms of daily life’ stand in the way of the a-signifying function, the degree zero of all possible modelisation.’ (Guattari, 1995 : 63) The ways we conceive of minds, subjects and technics, particularly media technics, are intimately related.[1] This relation is only partly explained by the often-intersecting histories of media technologies with the philosophies of mind and cognitive sciences. On the one hand, different models of mind suggest different approaches to media forms and technologies. On the other hand, there is the ability for those forms and technologies to move the body to think, to evoke novel resonances between body and world, paired with their provision for realising and developing a calculated return to the affordances that these resonances develop. The dynamic of the relation between minds, subjects and technics, and between these and modelisations of the…
FCJ-080 On Transmission: A Metamethodological Analysis (after Régis Debray)
Steven Maras Media and Communications, University of Sydney Enmeshed in technical, logistical and even militaristic concepts, transmission is frequently regarded as an inadequate way to think about communication: merely informational (for the one-way imparting of messages or signals only), or anti-social. This is not to suggest that all critics do this, but traces of a negative and even moral judgement regarding transmission can be evident even in the best analyses. Take James W. Carey’s well-known discussion of the ‘transmission’ and ‘ritual’ views of communication. The former is linked to the ‘extension of messages in space’, the latter to ‘the maintenance of society in time’; the former to ‘imparting information’; the latter to ‘the representation of shared beliefs’ (Carey, 1992: 18). Carey takes steps to recognise transmission as an ancient and legitimate mode, and in fact he situates it as culturally dominant, linked as it is to the ‘transmission of signals…
FCJ-079 Regaining Weaver and Shannon
Gary Genosko Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Canada My claim is that communication considered from the standpoint of how it is modeled must not only reckon with Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver but regain their pioneering efforts in new ways. I want to regain two neglected features. I signal these ends by simply reversing the order in which their names commonly appear. First, the recontextualization of Shannon and Weaver requires an investigation of the technocultural scene of information ‘handling’ embedded in their groundbreaking postwar labours; not incidentally, it was Harold D. Lasswell, whose work in the 1940s is often linked with Shannon and Weaver’s, who made a point of distinguishing between those who affect the content of messages (controllers) as opposed to those who handle without modifying (other than accidentally) such messages. Although it will not be possible to maintain such a hard and fast distinction that ignores scenes of…
FCJ-078 Plastic Super Models: aesthetics, architecture and the model of emergence
Pia Ednie-Brown RMIT University, Melbourne SuperModels What does physical eroticism signify if not violation of the very being of its practitioners? …The whole business of eroticism is to destroy the self-contained character of the participators as they are in their normal lives. (George Bataille, 2001: 17) To become a supermodel is a dream of many young girls, longing for their own bodies to exemplify the image of desire and eroticism. Young women’s bodies provide a framework for the fashionable or, in other words, for the endlessly restless style of contemporary longing. In wanting to be, say, another Elle MacPherson or Christy Turlington, they long for the awkward unfoldings of early womanhood to blossom into the very shapes and forms that collective desires inhabit, or flow through. As they feel the stirrings of their own desire intensify, they want to feel the flow of collective desire turn back to pass through…
FCJ-077 Schizoanalysis as Metamodeling
Janell Watson Virginia Tech, USA Félix Guattari, writing both on his own and with philosopher Gilles Deleuze, developed the notion of schizoanalysis out of his frustration with what he saw as the shortcomings of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, namely the orientation toward neurosis, emphasis on language, and lack of socio-political engagement. Guattari was analyzed by Lacan, attended Lacan’s teaching seminars from the beginning, and remained a member of Lacan’s school until his death in 1992. His unorthodox uses of Lacanism grew out of his clinical work with psychotics and involvement in militant politics. Paradoxically, even as he later rebelled theoretically and practically against Lacan’s ‘mathemes of the unconscious’ and topology of knots, Guattari ceaselessly drew diagrams and models. Deleuze once said of Guattari that ‘His ideas are drawings, or even diagrams’ (Deleuze, 2006: 238). His single-authored books are filled with strange figures which borrow from fields as diverse as linguistics,…
FCJ-076 Continuous Materiality: Through a Hierarchy of Computational Codes
Kenneth J. Knoespe and Jichen Zhu Georgia Institute of Technology Introduction The legacy of Cartesian dualism inherent in linguistic theory deeply influences current views on the relation between natural language, computer code, and the physical world. However, the oversimplified distinction between mind and body falls short of capturing the complex interaction between the material and the immaterial. In this paper, we posit a hierarchy of codes to delineate a wide spectrum of continuous materiality. Our research suggests that diagrams in architecture provide a valuable analog for approaching computer code in emergent digital systems. After commenting on the ways that Cartesian dualism continues to haunt discussions of code, we turn our attention to diagrams and design morphology. Finally we notice the implications that a material understanding of code carries for further research on the relation between human cognition and digital code. Our discussion concludes by discussing several areas that we have…
FCJ-075 The Past as the Future? Nostalgia and Retrogaming in Digital Culture
Jaakko Suominen University of Turku, Finland Introduction Retro games. Simultaneously with the console and computer games becoming increasingly impressive both visually and in their dramatics, the old, simple Super Mario Bros, Pacmans and Donkey Kongs have become hits. In the rush hour buses, teenagers roll their Rubik’s cube – the one and only. Sanna Leskinen, ‘Mikä mahtaa olla in?’ (‘What would be in?’), Yhteishyvä 3/2006. At the end of the year 2005 the Finnish commercial TV channel MTV3 freshened their appearance. The owl logo of the company, which has been in use for a long time, bended again into new shapes. The owl lived on as a animated figure, who offers services and, particularly, as a stylized eye in the channel sign logos. The sign themes marking the beginnings and endings of commercial breaks place the owl eye into new, culturally recognizable situations, which try to achieve comedy and inventiveness….
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