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FCJ-011 Textual Dreaming: Dis-Ease in the Interface
Phillip Roe Central Queensland University New media presents us with a diverse range of texts which tend to manifest through the centrality of the interface. The interface is often argued as the most important part of any digital application (i.e. Bolter and Gromala 2003: 11). It becomes the surface upon, or perhaps through, which a range of forces and discourses converge and intersect. It can also be argued that these discourses are subsumed within a particular idea of the interface, and in some instances can efface what is at stake in new media texts. In particular, and what this paper investigates, is the question of textuality itself, the limits and liberties of textual models. This paper problematises the notion of the interface with a notion of models of textuality, and considers some of the implications for the future of reading. A model of textuality is not a natural thing; it…
FCJ-010 Email and Epistolary technologies: Presence, Intimacy, Disembodiment
Esther Milne Media and Communications, Swinburne University of Technology Introduction “Presence” is a major focus for researchers and artists of digital culture, computer networks and new medical, communication and entertainment technologies (Donati and Prado, 2001; Lombard and Ditton, 1997; Mitchell, 1999; Murphy, 2000; Ryan, 1999; Sheridan, 1992). Presence refers to the degree to which geographically dispersed agents experience a sense of physical and/or psychological proximity through the use of particular communication technologies. In areas as diverse as virtual reality, video conferencing, MUDs (multi-user domain), newsgroups, electronic discussion lists, telemedicine, web-based education, flight simulation software and computer gaming, a sense of presence is vital for the success of the particular application. It ought to be noted that the term “telepresence” has been used both interchangeably with and in opposition to the term presence. Jonathan Steuer, for example, adopts the latter use arguing that the point of departure between the two terms…
FCJ-009 That-which-new media studies-will-become
Phillip Roe Central Queensland University The terms new media, new media studies and new media research are being taken up in a number of ways with different traditions, methodologies, and ways of constituting object(s) of study. In an article entitled ‘What is New Media Research?’ (2001), Chris Chesher has considered what distinguishes the research on new media amongst this proliferation of approaches and methodologies. He notes that many in these traditions just get on with producing new media without engaging with the question of how these media are new. Yet his concern is with a more critical and theoretical New Media Studies, and he has continued to articulate and advocate the kind (brand) of new media studies and new media research paradigm that he would identify with. It is also this kind of new media studies that I identify with. Chesher’s intervention opens up the question of the research paradigm…
FCJ-008 WebCT: Will the Future of Online Education be User-friendly?
Tama Leaver English, Communication and Cultural Studies, University of Western Australia The impetus for this paper comes from two related events: the first is my initial contact with the online education ‘courseware’ package or Managed Learning Environment (MLE) called Web Course Tools (commonly abbreviated as WebCT); and the other is the University of Western Australia’s (UWA’s) purchase of a campus-wide site license for WebCT and the resulting expectation that all e-learning at UWA will be standardised via WebCT mediated delivery. There are a number of reasons for the decision to manage all course content using WebCT and the IT policy section of the UWA website illuminates some of these: The future of online learning at UWA is towards [sic] an enterprise-wide approach and away from a “cottage industry” approach, whilst retaining and harnessing the considerable skills and enthusiasm demonstrated in the relatively high level of use of online materials achieved…
FCJ-007 Learning through New Media Objects
Karen Woo University of New South Wales Learning objects sneaked into educational technology vernacular in the latter half of the 1990s. [1] Its origin can be traced back to military training, where the Sharable Content Object Reference Model was invented (ADL 2003). Through workplace training and learning/ content management systems, these obscure objects have recently made their way into higher and K-12 education. At the time of writing, various Australian projects have started involving educational institutions in higher education (COLIS), K-12 (Learning Federation, EduNet) as well as vocational education and training (OTEN-DE). Despite their popularity in e-learning, no one has a definitive answer to the question of what learning objects are, though a range of opinions have been expressed. Some answers are intuitive while others are more technically sophisticated. In the introductory chapter of The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, David Wiley gives an exemplary introduction to these objects: Learning…
FCJ-006 Halflives, A Mystory: Writing Hypertext to Learn
Lisa Gye Media and Communications, Swinburne University of Technology In what ways do electronic media, and, in particular, online media or hypertext, have the potential to change the ways in which we acquire and generate knowledge? How does writing hypertextually transform the learner’s experience of the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in contrast to the kinds of learning that takes place when students engage with the proprietary systems used for online course delivery in universities. While online learning systems are believed by many in higher education to be a viable alternative to face to face teaching, many proprietary delivery systems neglect the role of the student as learner, emphasising instead the student as a consumer of course materials. Halflives: A Mystory (https://halflives.adc.rmit.edu.au) was and continues to be a research project that has enabled me to consider these questions from the perspective of a learner engaged in constructing knowledge hypertextually. [1]…
FCJ-005 The Erasure of Technology in Cultural Critique
Belinda Barnet University of New South Wales Isaac Asimov once suggested that it would make far more difference in our everyday lives if the automobile had not been invented than if Einstein had failed to formulate the theory of relativity (Hansen, 2003: 1). Theory and technology are very different things. Likewise, language and technology are very different things. According to US critic Mark Hansen, technology should be assessed according to its concrete experiential effects, not just its symbolic or cultural significance; it is more than just an effect of language. This is a tall order, because we have little to draw upon in taking such an approach: contemporary critical theory treats technology as a trope or representation rather than a physical reality in the world. The “machine” is not just a metaphor for a particular technology, but for technology itself. And at a deeper level, this metaphor enframes technology within…
FCJ-004 The Military-Entertainment Complex: A New Facet of Information Warfare
Stephen Stockwell and Adam Muir Griffith University All by itself, a Go piece can destroy an entire constellation synchronically; a chess piece cannot…Chess is indeed a war but an institutionalized, regulated, coded war… Go is war without battle lines, with neither confrontation nor retreat, without battles even: pure strategy, whereas Chess is a semiology. (Deleuze and Guattari, 1989: 353) A revolution in military affairs (RMA) has taken place in the US since the first Gulf War as the data-processing power of the computer has been applied not only to the strategic complexities that had prompted the development of the computer in the first place but, now, to the systematic operations of small units and individuals. The ability to micro-manage the organisation of logistics has raised the possibility of micro-managing the organization of information to target particular audiences among both the enemy and one’s own populations to produce close control of…
FCJ-003 Internet Politics in an Information economy
Jon Marshall University of Technology, Sydney Introduction The Internet, and information technology generally, is not separate from the social world in which it is embedded, neither does it fully determine that world. It may, however, allow modifications, intensifications or even subversions to occur. This paper will discuss some of the problems and paradoxes of the “Information economy” and its regimes of property; issues around the so-called hacker ethic and open source software; and some of the expectations which have been held for the Internet’s role in fostering democratic politics. It is possible the idea of the “information economy” itself has a negative effect by suggesting a whole new range of property to be appropriated and kept from common use. The term “information” is not a concept which links things together because they are similar in the same way. It is an open and magical term, which may hide as much…
FCJ-002 Perfect Match: Biometrics and Body Patterning in a Networked World
Gillian Fuller School of Media and Communications, UNSW Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness. (Benjamin, 1992: 217) When a body is in motion, it does not coincide with itself. It coincides with its own transition: its own variation. (Massumi, 2002: 4) Life is increasingly concerned with traffic management. Home-work-play *.* life fractures in multiple directions and dimensions as we simultaneously move or wait in various queues in different modalities. Through this constant movement, this endless folding and unfolding into and out of various assemblages, movement happens at innumerable speeds and lives as many lives. These lives of constant transit invoke different infrastructures for their own distinct functionalities. More highways, more airports, more servers, more nodes on the global network of flows, we always need more, and it needs to be faster. As writers like Paul…
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