Jekyll2018-09-07T04:19:24+00:00/engl3490/Technology in the Popular Imagination, Digital Feelings | ENGL 3490 | Spring 2015This archived site is a migration of an old Wordpress site. Some things
may be broken. Made with Jekyll using the default Minima theme.Lindsay ThomasFinal Project2015-05-01T22:27:51+00:002015-05-01T22:27:51+00:00/engl3490/2015/05/01/final-project<p>For my final project I decided to compare Danielewski’s <em>The Familiar</em> and the Word Press social blog site. I chose three things that the novel and Word Press blog had in common and elaborated on them. The three things that I thought were important: pictures or visual aids, time stamps, and elaborated on the text (words) whether large or small and the emotional connection each had in common. My argument encompassed the emotional side of the pictures that I included in my final project.</p>
<p>For pictures or visual aids, I felt that the novel has used pictures to show more emotion. For example: the text from rawgirl. We all use text these days and for Danielewski to include this visual, it gives the reader a closer emotional feel with the text.</p>
<p>For time stamps I felt that each story was linked in some way and the time stamps proved so. That is my opinion but we will never truly know the truth of it. I used Luther and Xanther as an example because they both had the same type of time stamp (location/day). I found that to be an interesting clue. Maybe in volume 2 the individual stories will be combined. Just a thought.</p>
<p>Last but not least I felt that the size of the text was important. When Xanther’s raindrops visual aid text was sideways it reminded me as if it were tears. This is another emotional aspect of the novel. Plus how some text was larger (may mean the emotion was stronger) and some text was smaller (like a secret or not of much importance as the larger text)</p>
<p>I added pictures to my word document that coincided with the text. I felt that this would give a clue to the emotion that Danielewski shows in his novels.</p>
<p>I would have liked to discuss more about social media and the changes in literature since the internet has become too important, rather, I had to narrow down my project in fear of it becoming a mess. My works cited that I used was Katherine Hayles, Garrett Stuart, and excerpts from _The Familiar. _I also included how code was extremely important in the novel and in Word Press. Katherine Hayles article definitely helped to explain how code is a subconscious, delicate way of reading.</p>
<p>This project was definitely the hardest by far but I had fun with it!</p>hilarycaldwellFor my final project I decided to compare Danielewski’s The Familiar and the Word Press social blog site. I chose three things that the novel and Word Press blog had in common and elaborated on them. The three things that I thought were important: pictures or visual aids, time stamps, and elaborated on the text (words) whether large or small and the emotional connection each had in common. My argument encompassed the emotional side of the pictures that I included in my final project.Scholar Statement2015-05-01T21:59:49+00:002015-05-01T21:59:49+00:00/engl3490/2015/05/01/scholar-statement<p>For my final project I compared Blackboard to the Center for American Progress’s report entitled Disrupting College. I wanted to cover another topic, but the mediums didn’t match what was required. So, I settled for one of the suggested artifact pairs listed in the project instructions. The despicable state our education system is in, which is only reinforced by Clemson being ranked a top 20 public school, is a topic which I am passionate about, but also one that’s frustrating at the same time. People just aren’t going to stop going to school as long as society requires a fancy embossed piece of paper to vouch for them; no matter how unnecessary or irrelevant it becomes. It’s a shame as you pretty much already have to learn and research everything on your own, so why give away all your money for someone else to tell you to do it all yourself? ISPs were cheaper than universities last time I checked. Let me stop my rant before it starts again…</p>
<p>My project takes the form it does because a video, song, or blog about Blackboard would have been boring and/or inappropriate. Honestly, I couldn’t really think of any medium that would be meaningful to my argument except text and a picture or two; so that’s what I used. I don’t believe a medium could actually be meaningful in any way to my argument, except for maybe if I had the ability to write it in Chinese and charge $100,000 for you to read it while a free copy in English resided elsewhere on the Internet. But we both know that wasn’t going to happen.</p>beaumitchellFor my final project I compared Blackboard to the Center for American Progress’s report entitled Disrupting College. I wanted to cover another topic, but the mediums didn’t match what was required. So, I settled for one of the suggested artifact pairs listed in the project instructions. The despicable state our education system is in, which is only reinforced by Clemson being ranked a top 20 public school, is a topic which I am passionate about, but also one that’s frustrating at the same time. People just aren’t going to stop going to school as long as society requires a fancy embossed piece of paper to vouch for them; no matter how unnecessary or irrelevant it becomes. It’s a shame as you pretty much already have to learn and research everything on your own, so why give away all your money for someone else to tell you to do it all yourself? ISPs were cheaper than universities last time I checked. Let me stop my rant before it starts again…The Near and Far2015-05-01T15:13:29+00:002015-05-01T15:13:29+00:00/engl3490/2015/05/01/the-near-and-far<p><a href="http://thenearandfar.wordpress.com"><strong>TheNearandFar.wordpress.com</strong></a></p>
<p>For my final project, I created a blog on which I posted in different pages the different sections of my multimodal analysis. The project itself was a mammoth of a deed, because I wanted to get the tone of a blog just informal enough so that it fit that intended definition, but I did not want that to come at the expense of the caliber of analysis.</p>
<p>I chose to present it as a blog, because I specifically enjoy the presentation freedom that a blog gives — for this, I really chose a theme that was fitting. Its presentation just in this theme is reminiscent in font-choice and header-image filter of the 70s and the invention of the personal computer, which is the first device that connects a general public together with the invention of the internet and that very fundamentally digital historicizing relates to my artifacts: <em>The Familiar</em> because of my discussion of Hayles’ “digital born” truth of literature and the Guardian article because it is the internet connection between people which brings about the controversy of surveillance in the digital age.</p>
<p>The reason, though, that I specifically chose to present it as a blog as opposed to just as a paper or image with specific fonts and an image was because my project seeks to argue that the way an artifact appeals to emotional connection or perception means it can create an affect of closeness <em>and</em> distance simultaneously (and in a way paradoxically) to ultimately prove that reading in itself is experiential. So, that being said, I wanted a way to show that. A blog shows emotional connection to our reader base because of its often informal tone and in a brief presentation method—like how Buzzfeed does listicles. This emotional connection enables my readers to connect with the familiarity and colloquium of its presentation. Further, the blog creates a sense of distance, too, because of its lack of physical existence. This paper is not printed out and does not exist in physical form, which means for most readers that it is in a bit of a different world—the world of the internet, of computer memory or connection. This is also paradoxical in a way, too, because despite being “in a different world” it is still able to be printed out and is still readable as a blog and is therefore not necessarily other-worldly or without the possibility of physical existence.</p>
<p>In the blog itself, I used several images from the Guardian article, for example, in that section and other images I found online that artistically represent the points I make about the emotional connection to create closeness and distance and the experience of reading. The relevance of these images vary depending on their application to each point; but, for example, I use an Escher drawing of a hand drawing a hand which is drawing a hand. Much like a lot his drawings, this Escher drawing is paradoxical and a comment on the nature of meta-expression. I use it at the beginning of my Narcon section because my argument in that section is about the meta-fictive levels of power in <em>The Familiar</em> creating both closeness and distance. All of the images I chose are an attempt to visually illustrate my points, ultimately also illustrating that the relation to my blog is an experience in itself.</p>prestontaylorstoneTheNearandFar.wordpress.comScholar’s Statement (2nd Try)2015-05-01T14:41:10+00:002015-05-01T14:41:10+00:00/engl3490/2015/05/01/scholars-statement-2nd-try<p>For my final project I decided to present my argument and my findings in the form of a blog post on the Word Press site. I decided that the bulk of my blog would be the actual writing itself and it ended up being quite similar to a standard essay. I thought that something along the lines of a standard essay would be beneficial to help me explain my argument. By my own admittance, my topic for this final project was somewhat “out-there.” The explanation of how authors can give their works a sense of self-awareness and why they created these books that essentially know themselves seems very meta and difficult to explain. That being said, I wanted to make sure that readers could clearly follow my thought process and I thought that that could most easily be done in a flushed out written argument. However, I still wanted to incorporate technological elements into my project rather than writing a standard essay. It was because of this that I decided to format this project as a blog. I thought that as a blog this information could be more accessible and I could also discuss my information in a more personable way. Furthermore, the blog allowed my project to contain more elements of multimedia. In the section of my project where I discuss <em>The Familiar</em>, I spend a great deal of time analyzing and going over the visual elements of the section that contains the narcons. I describe the bracketed sections of text that are marked in the parenthetical dots that we thought was reminiscent of brail, as well as the various blacked out or censored words and phrases. This is an accurate description for those of us who have read the book and are familiar with these aspects, however this would be quite confusing for someone who had never seen these things before. To eliminate confusion and provide clarity, I included picture of pages in the book as a hopefully helpful visual element. Later, when I discussed <em>Agrippa</em>, I focused predominantly on the poem that exists on the diskette within the book. While I could describe what the simulation of the diskette looked like, it would not be as helpful as it would be for someone to experience that themselves, so I included a link to a video that emulates the content of the original floppy disks. The form itself was important to the argument that I was making because I did discuss form a great deal in my argument. Because of this, I wanted my project to be experiential for the readers, and allow the readers to be involved and draw their own conclusions based on the arguments that I was making within the project. Overall, I think that by formatting my project as a blog that included multimedia aspects such as pictures and videos, I was able to accurately share and explain my argument. By having a written out argument along with the visuals for clarification, I hope that someone reading my blog post could clearly follow along and get something out of it.</p>katyhintonFor my final project I decided to present my argument and my findings in the form of a blog post on the Word Press site. I decided that the bulk of my blog would be the actual writing itself and it ended up being quite similar to a standard essay. I thought that something along the lines of a standard essay would be beneficial to help me explain my argument. By my own admittance, my topic for this final project was somewhat “out-there.” The explanation of how authors can give their works a sense of self-awareness and why they created these books that essentially know themselves seems very meta and difficult to explain. That being said, I wanted to make sure that readers could clearly follow my thought process and I thought that that could most easily be done in a flushed out written argument. However, I still wanted to incorporate technological elements into my project rather than writing a standard essay. It was because of this that I decided to format this project as a blog. I thought that as a blog this information could be more accessible and I could also discuss my information in a more personable way. Furthermore, the blog allowed my project to contain more elements of multimedia. In the section of my project where I discuss The Familiar, I spend a great deal of time analyzing and going over the visual elements of the section that contains the narcons. I describe the bracketed sections of text that are marked in the parenthetical dots that we thought was reminiscent of brail, as well as the various blacked out or censored words and phrases. This is an accurate description for those of us who have read the book and are familiar with these aspects, however this would be quite confusing for someone who had never seen these things before. To eliminate confusion and provide clarity, I included picture of pages in the book as a hopefully helpful visual element. Later, when I discussed Agrippa, I focused predominantly on the poem that exists on the diskette within the book. While I could describe what the simulation of the diskette looked like, it would not be as helpful as it would be for someone to experience that themselves, so I included a link to a video that emulates the content of the original floppy disks. The form itself was important to the argument that I was making because I did discuss form a great deal in my argument. Because of this, I wanted my project to be experiential for the readers, and allow the readers to be involved and draw their own conclusions based on the arguments that I was making within the project. Overall, I think that by formatting my project as a blog that included multimedia aspects such as pictures and videos, I was able to accurately share and explain my argument. By having a written out argument along with the visuals for clarification, I hope that someone reading my blog post could clearly follow along and get something out of it.Memory as the Focal Point of Control2015-05-01T14:17:00+00:002015-05-01T14:17:00+00:00/engl3490/2015/05/01/memory-as-the-focal-point-of-control<p>I chose to argue that memory is the focal point of control by using <em>Understand</em> by Ted Chaing and <em>Agrippa: A Book of the Dead</em> by William Gibson. While this control can cause certain effects on readers and how a text or character within a text is perceived, it is ultimately overcome by memory. Memory is the focal point of control, and it is even responsible for the breaking the hold that control can create. While these two works of literature are very different from one another, they are both able to successfully prove this argument.</p>
<p>As the main character within Chiang’s work, Leon, experiences life after injecting himself with a powerful hormone, he perception of reality changes. Leon develops throughout the story, and he is engulfed with an infatuation of control. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Chiang is making a clear connection between control and memory through Leon’s peak and intense demise. Leon reaches the peak of control through the medicine he is being injected with, and then he quickly faces his tremendous demise because of the power of memory. Leon’s treatments of the hormone K therapy begin because of a traumatic accident he experiences prior to the start of the story. Chiang’s work proves that memory is a specific aspect of control as Leon’s life is ended by his memory of his past perceptions and understanding of the world.</p>
<p><em>Agrippa</em> also makes this connection as it controls its readers through its aesthetics and content. As readers approach this text, it quickly reveals itself to be atypical. The way the reader is able to read and comprehend the information it is presented is completely controlled and not interactive. The reader is trapped and is only able to see the poem through a single, limited lens. Therefore, the reader’s memory and perception of the poem is controlled by this specific video delivery. Memory of the poem will always be directly correlated with how it is shown to the world: in a very limited and secured environment of a black and white, outdated, and not interactive computer screen. In addition, the poem itself presents a relationship between memory and control. As the narrator explains each picture as he/she is creating a scrapbook, the reader is given one lens in which to view these scenes: through the memory of the narrator. The reader is controlled in its view of the past, and the narrator holds that power. The poem is about material objects and how they slowly are destroyed throughout time, affecting how the world is perceived and remembered.</p>
<p>I chose to create this project through the forms of a paper and a Prezi. With my paper, I was able to articulate what I needed to convey about my argument of memory and control, and i was able to analyze certain aspects of the texts through my writing. This mode of communication was necessary to my argument because I had to be able to point our specific wording of both texts in order to be as clear as possible. In addition, I created a Prezi to further some of the ideas in my paper. The 6 context sections of the Prezi highlight certain quotes I used in my paper. Each has a correlating picture that is able to expound upon the significance of each quote. This was a crucial aspect of my argument because both texts are centered around the idea of physical perception in relation to control and memory.</p>
<p>http://prezi.com/2g0o9es00l0n/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy</p>tlbenneI chose to argue that memory is the focal point of control by using Understand by Ted Chaing and Agrippa: A Book of the Dead by William Gibson. While this control can cause certain effects on readers and how a text or character within a text is perceived, it is ultimately overcome by memory. Memory is the focal point of control, and it is even responsible for the breaking the hold that control can create. While these two works of literature are very different from one another, they are both able to successfully prove this argument.Graduation here I come2015-05-01T13:59:30+00:002015-05-01T13:59:30+00:00/engl3490/2015/05/01/graduation-here-i-come-2<p>My project incorporates the same modes of media as the pieces I used in the creation of my argument: <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Familiar</span> and “Dakota.” I wrote a paper and I presented the same words in my paper in a video of my reciting the paper. I presented my thoughts in a paper, allowing the reader to engage in deep attention if they so choose. The Familiar is a written text, so I wanted at least one of my chosen forms of media to be a straight up written text as well. For my other form of media, I chose to try to recreate an experience similar to that one may have when watching “Dakota.” When you watch Dakota, there is little you are able to control and the information is thrown right at you from the very beginning. I began my video kind of explaining what I was going to do as far as reading my paper aloud, but I neglected to share just how quickly I was about to speak. I naturally speak at definitely above average speeds and can amp that up pretty quickly if need be. I pushed right on talking a mile a minute until the end of the paper where I wrap it up because I wanted that part to be well understood. I also took a break before that final part to clarify that I knew I was in fact talking at speeds of the side effects at the end of a prescription drug commercial. I chose to take away the viewer’s ability to see the words on the screen like “Dakota” has because I gave the viewer the ability to start, stop, and rewind the video. I don’t possess the technological know-how to create a video like “Dakota” so I had to take away another element of control, that of sight.</p>
<p>These modes of media that I used in my project are important to the argument because my argument concerns the amount of control we have in interactions, so I presented the same information two different ways to allow the viewer control over how they want to consume. Ultimately I talked about the level of control in interactions leading to our overall satisfaction with how we think that interaction went. I wanted to allow people the ability to choose how they consumed my final project. I am a big fan of choice and wanted to make a statement about what I mentioned in my paper as is pertains to choice through the forms of media my project ended up taking. I think my allowing the viewer to choose what they did with my project shows the argument I made about choice.</p>lindsayheymanMy project incorporates the same modes of media as the pieces I used in the creation of my argument: The Familiar and “Dakota.” I wrote a paper and I presented the same words in my paper in a video of my reciting the paper. I presented my thoughts in a paper, allowing the reader to engage in deep attention if they so choose. The Familiar is a written text, so I wanted at least one of my chosen forms of media to be a straight up written text as well. For my other form of media, I chose to try to recreate an experience similar to that one may have when watching “Dakota.” When you watch Dakota, there is little you are able to control and the information is thrown right at you from the very beginning. I began my video kind of explaining what I was going to do as far as reading my paper aloud, but I neglected to share just how quickly I was about to speak. I naturally speak at definitely above average speeds and can amp that up pretty quickly if need be. I pushed right on talking a mile a minute until the end of the paper where I wrap it up because I wanted that part to be well understood. I also took a break before that final part to clarify that I knew I was in fact talking at speeds of the side effects at the end of a prescription drug commercial. I chose to take away the viewer’s ability to see the words on the screen like “Dakota” has because I gave the viewer the ability to start, stop, and rewind the video. I don’t possess the technological know-how to create a video like “Dakota” so I had to take away another element of control, that of sight.Under the Shroud of Internet and Intelligence Secrecy2015-05-01T13:57:29+00:002015-05-01T13:57:29+00:00/engl3490/2015/05/01/under-the-shroud-of-internet-and-intelligence-secrecy<p>The current flow of society shifts towards the cyber society has shifted to a public, paranoid mood with the expansion of the internet, growing threats to the US, and improper use of checks and balances. The current culture has led the US to become a near totalitarian cyber state. Through The Guardian and Edward Snowden’s revelations of this and exposition of mountains of data collected and distributed among public and private organizations. The notion of privacy or our ability to keep computer information private is a thing of the past. Gibson’s Pattern Recognition paints a consistent picture incorporating government and private corporations’ (like Google) involvement with surveillance and data mining combined with the political motivations and some of the revelations learned in Snowden’s leak of the NSA. Obviously one account of something doesn’t make claims or conspiracies true so the more evidence of such datavalence is encouraging towards its validity. All artifacts tell the political story of the current climate, this technology boom is no different, and the internet and social media’s ability to connect and share/access instantly does benefit consumers. Likely its original intention, but it has been altered to fit the authoritative needs to regulate the wave of societal involvement with the internet in this new cyber state.</p>
<p>Cayce delivers an inspiring story for those who are terrified by the NSA, government surveillance, or diminishing privacy in Gibson’s Pattern Recognition. The story centers on her pursuit of these untraceable video leakers but it obviously turns out to be more deep and centered around her and her past. Much like another actual United States reporter mentioned later, Cayce must travel around the world in her search of these leakers and as a result she comes up in other countries datavalence. Snooping around in other countries problems usually results in some trouble, coupled with the fact that every agency and major telecom or internet company is already watching her with vested interests. The black veil that the CIA, Bigend, Blue Ant, and other various foreign government agencies cast over their cyber defense and surveillance teams eerily resembles the actual practices of their nonfictional counterparts.</p>
<p>This consistency in stories about datavalence with private companies and government agencies alike paints a clear image of this fact of life, anything on your computer is public. The more digging that is done into these operations, the more dirt that is revealed. Gibson describes a world very similar to ours, he undoubtedly based these practices off of the current trends of the government and private companies. This darkness he creates over the datavalence game, created a sub culture of paranoia, deceit, secret trading, and wide scale stalking that seemed to go unnoticed in the real world too.</p>
<p>Society has evolved new ways of thinking, communicating, and interacting. The addition of the internet and other media combined with the accessibility of such technology has created a cultural change. In 05-06 study conducted consisting of 8-18 year old kids displayed averages of 6.5 hours on media or 8.5 when on multiples counted separately. Undoubtedly this number has skyrocketed over ten years and is even more instrumental evidence of society’s dependence on media. Uses term, “Google jockeying – while a speaker is making a presentation, participants search the Web for appropriate content to display on the screens – for example sites with examples, definitions, images, or opposing views” (Hayles 196). Artifacts and the new technologies that shape cultures for generations have had their purposes, their pitfalls, and progresses, but they each tell a story about the society and its winners and losers. Lewis Mumford, author of Technology and Culture, explains the two styles that create and run new technologies that rule our culture. The first is the authoritarian, a strong and systematic unit that fails more often than it succeeds. The second is the democratic, concentrates on the individual but is often split in its direction but is the way of the people. Mumford argues that new technologies often make great strides in human progression in one area but they also bring about great struggle in other areas. The technology itself is made to serve the system so its use shouldn’t be the main concern, its impact on the culture and society should. Winner suggests that we, “Notice the social circumstances of their development, deployment, and use”(Winner 122). The suggestion is that technology does not mold to fit society’s patterns, rather society molds to fit technologies pattern.</p>
<p>The social media campaign President Obama used in his first campaign, collecting and using of person data to predict social media campaigns outcome and finances gained per email or message or status etc. is an example of using popular technology to complete a political agenda. This was major factor in his election to the presidency as he was finally able to connect with so many younger American voters. Although this was a success and a brilliant strategy by Obama, but it does demonstrate how politicians and government agencies are using data-mining. There’s almost no way to commonly use the internet or social media without somehow donating our data to one of these major companies like Experian, Epsilon, or Acxiom. All the small personal apps about health, counting calories or steps, pictures of food, and other random bits of your personal file are recorded and stored in your personal file creating a large collection of data. One major issue with this profiling is people are discriminated based upon data. This may go totally unnoticed, as the person who is categorized as a low value customer could be missing out on the latest deals and other first rate marketing strategies used by these major companies. The same companies that own these mountains of personal data such as criminal reports, credit scores, and Social Security numbers, will then sell this data to government agencies on federal, state, and local levels.</p>
<p>The fictional aspect of Cayce’s litmus gift does a great job of simplifying her objective and making it easily relatable. She doesn’t participate and isn’t affected by the advanced marketing strategies and corporate trends rather she interprets and reacts to these techniques aiding them in their vast distribution. She stands right next to the shadow of this subculture but doesn’t think she is too engulfed by it until she starts to dig deeper. Her exposing of the patterns in this tech wild goose chase eventually set her and this enslaved subculture free but it took a lot of trust and revelation to create change in this vicious cycle of cyber surveillance. Perhaps Gibson is writing another code for us to decipher in order to crack our own subculture shadowed by the ever watching big brother.</p>
<p>The NSA has complete access to and monitors our cell phones, laptops, Facebook, Skype, chatrooms, etc., builds “Pattern of Life – profile of target/non-target and known associates”(Guardian). The agency uses three hop system with targets, discerning three levels of communication. They expand the networks of regular people and triple all their contacts to further expanded networks that can equate to whole states of people. NSA says it needs this access and database to prevent terrorist attacks (9/11). Snowden believes NSA far overreaches its uses in national security, as the NSA claims to only collect metadata of phone calls and messages. The term “metadata” is coined through Snowden’s report referring to info on time and location of phone calls, emails etc. not just content of messages. They obviously don’t just collect and keep the files in a “Do Not Touch” folder. This allows for NSA to literally build profile of your search history, preferences, personal information, personal conversations, places visited, times of events, etc. also known as upstream program. Claiming to use this data to defend nation from cyber-attacks, watch over drug cartels, and break up fraud gangs involved with credit cards and identity theft the NSA justifies all of this data mining. The Federal Government claims that this access to info has been instrumental in defending US from counter-terrorism, and even claimed 54 plots discovered or diffused but evidence only shows four plots.</p>
<p>The Special Source Operations (division of NSA) partners with major telecom/internet companies to gain access to fiber optic cables and run easy surveillance through whole countries and major private companies. The US is connected to 63 countries currently via fiber optic cables but that list surely can’t be complete. “Leverage unique key corporate partnerships to gain access to high-capacity international fiber-optic cables, switches and/or routes throughout the world.” (Guardian). The NSA uses Prisim which is downstream program that taps into data from Google, Facebook, etc. This brings the personal details that are shared on emails, conversations, and searches that are accessed and saved through companies like Facebook, Google, or Yahoo. Each person has their own profile that compiles much of the data off of these sites with other public records and datavalence.</p>
<p>Easily accessible, the Google Dashboard gives a detailed account of my own information. Personally, I was intrigued at the twelve categories, and their varying amounts of detail and data about my personal life. The first category on my Google Account displayed my apps and sites I had viewed, the locations of my logins and the service provider, browsers used and devices I had used in the last month. For my devices included, only my Android phone from 2013, odd to still included that. The contacts really surprised me, my girlfriend was the first one, which I expected, but the others listed were random and not at all my most contacted. The Google docs were very specific but I expected to see a good bit of information but didn’t expect the most recent documents to be highlighted. I was startled to see my trash conversations show up on my Gmail category. The saved drafts and conversations appearing also surprised me because I thought they would not be registered since they were temporary. The recent apps downloaded were not current but I suppose that was from my android phone. I’m glad my search history was disabled just because that would be a bit privacy breaching. The other categories were kind of irrelevant besides the Groups description which read, “Nothing interesting here”. That was very strange and seemed rather weird. As the internet’s relevance and our dependence on it continue to rise, our public information will become more accessible as we type our freedoms away. One very interesting grouping of settings on the Google ads setting was the interests, advertisers’ campaigns you’ve blocked, and opt-out settings. These are interesting because they are extremely labeling in their content, the interest’s column is empty for me but it’s not like that for everyone. The more interests that Google aligns you with, the more predictable for private companies and advertising you are and you are extremely accessible to the NSA based on topic they are searching for. Another interesting category if you block a certain campaign you obviously stand against that campaign and you are labeled. This only applies to if you are against the government in a major, dangerous way or it is for the NSA targeting certain stereotypes like the IRS targeting Tea Party members, just unnecessary information that the NSA and other government agencies should not be able to use against us for our personal decisions and opinions. Opt out settings also touches on interest based ads on Google further classifying the individual in a security type of prioritizing method.</p>
<p>Monitoring individuals as well as partnering with major and minor advertising, marketing and data mining firms, The NSA aims to collect as much info as possible. Using techniques like loyalty cards, targeted advertisement, and smaller companies give up very personal info. There are two types of data collected; involuntary/passive collection of data by private companies and active, voluntary collection and stashing of personal data. “Database Marketing – fairly common term of collecting aggregating and brokering personal data, this contributes to one’s online buying behavior”(Marwick 2). This in and of itself seems harmless, this is good business techniques of reaching your customer, it can sometimes overstep its boundaries and get to personal. This is just the modern form of advertising, include behavioral targeting/predictive targeting. Companies like Acxiom creates profiles for people on all these different topics and sells these profiles to credit card issuers, retail banks, telecom/media companies, as well as property and casualty insurers. Major data collection falls under the term Big Data, and big data is made of little data that may be loads of personal info.</p>
<p>Another major problem with these companies distributing this information is when it gets sold to the wrong person or company. Experian sold a sleuth of personal information to a Vietnamese hacker accidentally and the repercussions were drastic. All the while these people whose info is being tossed around don’t know they are being monitored and they certainly don’t realize their info is being traded like currency. The heart of the issue is technology develops at such a faster pace than our consumer protection laws, there will always be a disadvantage for the consumer in this regard. New applications and social media apps are developed every day and the methods of datavalence to monitor these new forms of communication and compression develop with the apps. The laws will always be archaic relative to the technology, but private companies need to be held to a higher privacy standard too, just as the government should.</p>
<p>The only law to originally contain the power of the NSA was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). But FISA continues to allow for increased, warrantless surveillance and has relaxed more and more to allow national defense. Before Snowden, FISA was secret and nearly impossible to challenge these laws, almost nobody besides the government knew of or had advocates in this realm. Courts have allowed for NSA to collect metadata but use honor code and not use it? What a joke. Info is supposed to delete after a period, but that’s unlikely. NSA given extremely vague and unclear amount of power, with little to no checks or balances, definitely oversteps its authority and uses major incidents to justify widespread datavalence. The courts have approved nearly every government surveillance request in last 35 years. Journalists are directly affected by this datavalence especially those who issues in national security. Journalist and his contacts communicated with by phone, text, email, location all negatively impact journalists, their safety, and ability to do job. What professions are also being destroyed by this type of breach in security? People’s monitored search history is even blowing up with increased searches of privacy and government pitfalls in their dealing with of internet security. A Pew Poll near end of July (2013) suggested that first time since the 90’s that people were more concerned with government stepping on civil liberties rather than a terrorist attack (Guardian). There is a significant difference among the rapid increase of watched persons by the NSA in as little as two years.</p>
<p>(Read up on your rights)</p>
<p>Even the creators of Silicon Valley products, Google, Facebook, and Yahoo are retaliating at NSA due to outcries of privacy from users. These companies are trying to appear more transparent about their involvement with intelligence agencies. Congress has even managed to create bipartisanship as it builds a defense against the NSA and invasion of privacy. The Intelligence Oversight and Reform Act is up for vote to try and limit some of the unchecked power of the NSA and close up some loopholes used by government.</p>
<p>The general public often doesn’t take notice, as it is enthralled with the new technology and its updated uses, but these technologies often have uses that are politically driven and are motivated by political relations. One example would be the television and its possible application to promote a politician, originally it could be used for entertainment or other news but its existence certainly had a political goal. “If our moral and political language for evaluating technology includes only categories having to do with tools and uses, if it does not include attention to the meaning of the designs and arrangements of our artifacts, then we will be blinded to much that is intellectually and practically crucial.” (Winner 125). Basically Winner suggests that we are distracted by the bells and whistles of a new technology and we are blind to its true political motives. Some of these motives are intended others unintended but none the less it is an example of governing bodies taking advantage of their power and influence. Think about Facebook for a minute, it began as a college social site for computer oriented communicators to talk to girls near them. Seems plenty legitimate and harmless but it has become a massive personal database that encases our personal information, updated jobs, relationships, locations, interests, and regular behavior with updated pictures and other media all in one file. For a government organization it is widely voluntary publicizing of ourselves and an easy access, high-tech phonebook. But the public is partly responsible too, when you deal with any field of study or area of interest you will get the most intense of their kind. Investing so much of our time and person in the internet brings the hackers, whiz kids, and otherwise computer geniuses that will use their skills for personal and business uses good and bad alike. This culture will continue for generations as it is engrained in our society for the foreseeable future. But the array of uses for entities like Facebook and Google and their wide ranging connecting abilities needs to be noted for its personal reasons and political applications. The overall message serves to keep yourself informed on your rights and information you are dolling out, there’s almost no way to completely avoid being the subject of datavalence. Simply watch who you communicate with and what you put on your computer because someone else can definitely see it, all we can do is fight for transparency and the upholding of our civil liberties.</p>
<p>(Abuse Causes That Cause Datavalence)</p>
<p>(Are YOU A Threat?)</p>
<p>Final Scholarly Statement</p>
<p>My project aims to inform the public of the type of surveillance we encounter on a daily basis through our dependency on the internet and social media as a society. I want people to realize that your computer emails, contacts, credit card numbers, etc. are all accessible and are traded like livestock. Understanding that this information trading exists is part of the battle of securing some of our civil rights. The government and its numerous agencies certainly are using the technology available to advance and push their own political agendas. The public is not, simply using the apps and internet for their consumer purposes as they are systematically categorized and handled accordingly. My project gives some visual aid of how the NSA works with Prism to collect our personal data from the Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc. private companies. Also included are links to Prism dealings, the law on our civil liberties and the internet, former threats, and levels of threat. These are meant to inform people of their own status with the NSA and to evaluate their online self. The point of my project is much like Snowden’s revelations, to expose the powers abused by those in power. A simple concept of whistleblowing is always taken with mixed results, some call him a traitor, others a hero but he is neither. He is a reporter, a journalist, a teller of truths. Telling the truth about a system that has operated unknowing to the public it monitors, giving up the details that the government has purposefully hidden and locked away. My project seeks to speak to the audience through suggestive evidence that exposes a topic that has very little literature or documentation of. I also aim to give a litany of resources that range in opinion, topic, timeframe, and overall purpose to construct a developed yet diversified argument. Using pictures that show processes of the NSA, articles discussing threats, current laws, and other relevant information to look in one’s own personal profile. This information needs to be shouted from a mountain, or shared from a computer way up high. Either way the whole issue here is not that the NSA watches everyone and keeps details because many people figured that, but the real problem is their discretion in their datavalence and their willy-nilly use of trading personal info of millions of people. The manipulation of public entities and information for political gain is pathetic and needs to end. Hopefully the spread of information with this technology that we knowingly give ourselves away on will save us from totalitarian like cyber security going forward. Changes need to be made before this concepts and practices become standard in our generation and those future generations to come. The dependence on the internet and our publication of ourselves will only continue and magnify, we need to put proper checks and balances on our leaders as we enter this unknown realm. The time is now, if you’re reading this NSA, things will change soon, I hope.</p>
<p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_%28surveillance_program%29</p>
<p>http://www.wired.com/category/security/threatlevel/</p>
<p>http://etutorials.org/Networking/Router+firewall+security/Part+I+Security+Overview+and+Firewalls/Chapter+1.+Security+Threats/Categories+of+Threats/</p>
<p>https://www.nsa.gov/civil_liberties/_files/nsa_report_on_section_702_program.pdf</p>
<p>http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jan/09/how-your-data-are-being-deeply-mined/</p>
<p>http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/snowden-nsa-files-surveillance-revelations-decoded#section/1</p>robsnyderThe current flow of society shifts towards the cyber society has shifted to a public, paranoid mood with the expansion of the internet, growing threats to the US, and improper use of checks and balances. The current culture has led the US to become a near totalitarian cyber state. Through The Guardian and Edward Snowden’s revelations of this and exposition of mountains of data collected and distributed among public and private organizations. The notion of privacy or our ability to keep computer information private is a thing of the past. Gibson’s Pattern Recognition paints a consistent picture incorporating government and private corporations’ (like Google) involvement with surveillance and data mining combined with the political motivations and some of the revelations learned in Snowden’s leak of the NSA. Obviously one account of something doesn’t make claims or conspiracies true so the more evidence of such datavalence is encouraging towards its validity. All artifacts tell the political story of the current climate, this technology boom is no different, and the internet and social media’s ability to connect and share/access instantly does benefit consumers. Likely its original intention, but it has been altered to fit the authoritative needs to regulate the wave of societal involvement with the internet in this new cyber state. Cayce delivers an inspiring story for those who are terrified by the NSA, government surveillance, or diminishing privacy in Gibson’s Pattern Recognition. The story centers on her pursuit of these untraceable video leakers but it obviously turns out to be more deep and centered around her and her past. Much like another actual United States reporter mentioned later, Cayce must travel around the world in her search of these leakers and as a result she comes up in other countries datavalence. Snooping around in other countries problems usually results in some trouble, coupled with the fact that every agency and major telecom or internet company is already watching her with vested interests. The black veil that the CIA, Bigend, Blue Ant, and other various foreign government agencies cast over their cyber defense and surveillance teams eerily resembles the actual practices of their nonfictional counterparts. This consistency in stories about datavalence with private companies and government agencies alike paints a clear image of this fact of life, anything on your computer is public. The more digging that is done into these operations, the more dirt that is revealed. Gibson describes a world very similar to ours, he undoubtedly based these practices off of the current trends of the government and private companies. This darkness he creates over the datavalence game, created a sub culture of paranoia, deceit, secret trading, and wide scale stalking that seemed to go unnoticed in the real world too.Self Awareness as a Formal Concept2015-05-01T13:26:00+00:002015-05-01T13:26:00+00:00/engl3490/2015/05/01/self-awareness-as-a-formal-concept<p>Section 1: Introduction to Self-Awareness</p>
<p>Throughout this semester we have studied several different concepts, and at the end of the year we started discussing this idea of self-awareness. We discussed in depth this sort of Meta idea about self-awareness and the limit that confines our own self-awareness. We discussed this specifically as a result of the short story that we read, “Understand” by Ted Chiang. I was very intrigued by this concept of self-awareness and when it came time to begin work on our final projects I wanted to delve more specifically into this idea. I began to comb over books and other works that we had read throughout the semester to find other examples of characters or plot points that dealt with or were related to self-awareness. It was during this examination that I came across the term “meta-fiction.” Meta-fiction can be defined as the term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality. (Birgit Neumann & Ansgar Nünning)<em> _Rereading this definition the word “self-consciously” stood out to me and I began to think that if a book had an ability to be self-conscious, then, in a way, the book or work itself was self-aware – it was aware, in a sense, of the fact that it was indeed a book. This concept seems somewhat far-fetched, given that works of literature do not _actually</em> have a consciousness or sense of self, but the more I thought about it the more I was absorbed in this concept of authors choosing to give their books a sense of self-awareness and how and why this happened. Although self-awareness is not considered a formal concept when discussing literature it is a prominent aspect of both print and digital artifacts. In this blog post I will discuss how self-awareness is used in print media through the novel <em>The Familiar</em> by Mark Danielewski as well as in digital media through the work <em>Agrippa (A Book of the Dead)</em> by William Gibson. In addition to detailing how each respective author implements techniques to give their works a sense of self-awareness I will also be exploring the reasons for making works self-aware and why these authors choose to pull the readers out of the fictional worlds that they have created. Based on what I have gathered from these two specific works that we have researched in class, it is my belief that Danielewski and Gibson choose to give their works a sense of self-awareness in order to force their readers to connect the content and themes of the story to their own life and to the real world. Furthermore, because I think this concept of self-awareness is so prominent I would like to argue that the self-awareness of books be explored as a formal concept rather than simply as a far-fetched idea.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Section 2: Self-Awareness in Mark Danielewski’s <em>The Familiar</em></p>
<p>It was in my notes on <em>The Familiar</em> where I came across the term meta-fiction and truly began to explore the notion of books essentially having a sense of self. Although we are all individuals with different experiences in some capacity we have done a lot of reading. That being said, it is very rare that we read a work that draws attention the type of artifact that it is, a poem does not let us know that it is a poem, a book does not tell us that it is a book. However when reading <em>The Familiar,</em> the reader quickly realizes that this is not a standard or in any way typical novel. For starters, the book is not set up in a standard way physically. There are many sections within the book that Danielewski differentiates through different visual elements including the font and the layout of words on a page. Furthermore something unusual about the novel, but not anything unheard of, is the fact that it is broken up into different storylines. This would be relatively insignificant in the argument that Danielewski gives the book a sense of self-awareness except for one specific section of the book. Throughout the novel there are several parenthetical statements that appear between shapes that look to be parentheses made from dots. These statements often added clarity to a situation so it seemed like it could have been Danielewski directly addressing the reader or potentially some sort of figure representative of a narrator that we as readers had not been directly introduced to yet.* However, on page 563 of <em>The Familiar</em> the reader enters a section of the novel unlike any of the previous sections and is introduced to a new sort of “character,” the narcons. The section dealing with the narcons is different from the other sections for several different reasons. Firstly, there are differences in the physical way that the pages are set up. The pages in the narcon section are framed by blank pages with a think black vertical line that are placed before and after the content of the section. Other differences include the lack of page numbers in this section and all the various sections and paragraphs are bracketed off in the same way that the narcons interjections are formatted throughout the novel. Perhaps the most interesting aspects however are the various blacked-out words and phrases that show up from time to time and take up the majority of what would be page 570. These different visual aspects of this section of the novel contribute to the establishment of a sense of self-awareness within the novel. By using these blank pages with bars and by not numbering the pages within this section Danielewski is making a separation between this section and the rest of the book. Although Danielewski uses other visual elements including font choices and the physical set up of the page to differentiate between other sections throughout the novel this seems to physically take the reader out of the section. Not only is this done visually, but the content of this section of the novel also strongly gives this novel a sense of self-awareness. In the narcon section, Danielewski describes how essentially there are several different narcons that are in control of the various characters in the book. The fact that the narcons are in control of the characters takes the readers out of the story that they have previously been completely immersed in. By pulling the readers out of the story one becomes aware of the fact that they are reading a book (not that they were under some illusion that they were doing something else but that they begin to think of the story in the context of it being something that someone has written and is fictional.) Another aspect of this section that takes the reader out of the story is the part where many of the words on the page have been blacked-out or censored. This is something interesting that Danielewski does because if he as an author truly wanted to withhold information from the readers he would simply have left it out of the book. However in this section of <em>The Familiar</em>, he shows that there is information that the readers could potentially access but something is being withheld from them. Finally, on what would be page 575 the narcons directly address the reader “You, for example, are a one-persona subset in an unnamed superset.” This direct address of the readers fully pulls away from the story and breaks the fourth wall of the book, which demonstrates the idea of meta-fiction and ultimately gives the novel a sense of self-awareness.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0538.jpg"><img class="alignnone wp-image-737 size-medium" src="http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0538-e1430500301918-225x300.jpg" alt="IMG_0538" width="225" height="300" srcset="http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0538-e1430500301918-225x300.jpg 225w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0538-e1430500301918-768x1024.jpg 768w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0538-e1430500301918-100x133.jpg 100w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0538-e1430500301918-150x200.jpg 150w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0538-e1430500301918-200x267.jpg 200w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0538-e1430500301918-300x400.jpg 300w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0538-e1430500301918-450x600.jpg 450w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0538-e1430500301918-600x800.jpg 600w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0538-e1430500301918-900x1200.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" /></a> <a href="http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0539.jpg"><img class="alignnone wp-image-738 size-medium" src="http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0539-e1430500358671-225x300.jpg" alt="IMG_0539" width="225" height="300" srcset="http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0539-e1430500358671-225x300.jpg 225w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0539-e1430500358671-768x1024.jpg 768w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0539-e1430500358671-100x133.jpg 100w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0539-e1430500358671-150x200.jpg 150w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0539-e1430500358671-200x267.jpg 200w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0539-e1430500358671-300x400.jpg 300w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0539-e1430500358671-450x600.jpg 450w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0539-e1430500358671-600x800.jpg 600w, http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/05/IMG_0539-e1430500358671-900x1200.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" /></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>These pictures show some examples of the bracketed and censored sections within the narcon section of <em>The Familiar</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Section Three: Self-Awareness in William Gibson’s <em>Agrippa</em></p>
<p>Having a piece of print media that is aware of itself and reveals itself to its readers as an artifact is something that is strange to us but this is still not the only place where this occurs, digital artifacts also can achieve a sense of self-awareness. The artistic book <em>Agrippa</em> has several different aspects that culminate in this strange work of literature. One piece of it in particular that lends itself to a realization of self is a poem that is part of the book. The reason the poem lends the work to self-awareness is because of the form it takes within the book. If readers were looking through the book they would be going through the pages and reading it normally as if it were a typical book however the poem is not just printed in the book on one of the pages but rather, it exists digitally on a floppy disk that is embedded into the book. At this point of the novel the readers must take the disk out of the book and put it into the computer to view the contents of the disk. The disk contains the poem but it is not simply a digital copy of this poem. The disk plays like a video with the poem scrolling slowly through so the readers can follow along, afterward the poem disappears and the disk is essentially wiped clean. This encryption-like effect on the diskette made it nearly impossible to retrieve the content in any capacity. At this point, computer experts working on investigating the disk have come to the realization that there was not actually an encryption of the disk but rather that it was the simulation of an encryption. Furthermore, at the point in time computer experts and hackers alike have been able to leak the poem and it now exists on the Internet in a form where it cannot be permanently deleted. This transformation from a physical text to a digital text existing on a diskette provides <em>Agrippa</em> with a sense of self-awareness. If readers were meant to be fully immersed in the text they were experiencing the form would not change; to move on to the next section of the book the reader would not be forced to step away from the book and use their computer to access this section. In traditional fictional literature, the authors do not want to interrupt the readers’ immersion in anyway, the goal is ultimately to keep the readers’ attention through various means including cliffhangers and other forms of suspense. However this is clearly not the case with <em>Agrippa.</em> Because the readers get this disjointed experience in which the physical form of the work changes, they are forced back into their own life and their own reality and thus are reminded of the fact that they are, in fact, reading a created work. Gibson uses the change in the physical form of <em>Agrippa</em> to pull his readers out in a similar way to what Danielewski does in <em>The Familiar</em> through the use of the narcons. Another aspect of <em>Agrippa</em>’s digital form is the way in which the poem disappears and the diskette essentially “eats itself” this is also, in a sense, giving the poem this concept of self-awareness because it is drawing attention to and emphasizing its limitation and even going on to giving it a sort of morality. This sense that the poem can only exist for a prescribed amount of time is directly reflective of and related to the content and themes within the poem. The poem deals with loss and memory, by existing in this digital form the poem is showing its readers that everything is mortal and that everything will eventually be a memory, including the poem itself. Thus, overall the various physical forms that work together in this book of the dead give it a sense of self-awareness.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This is a video simulation of the contents of the diskette within <em>Agrippa</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Section Four: Why Self-Awareness?</p>
<p>At this point I have spent the majority of this blog post explaining to you two different examples of texts that are very aware of the fact that they are texts, but the next question that this begs is why do the authors of these texts do this? Why would an author of a work of fiction rebel against the traditional notions of fiction where readers fully immerse themselves in a story? I believe that these writers choose to give their books self-awareness for a very specific reason; I do not think that it is to be trendy or edgy or even to break boundaries from an artistic perspective, rather I think that this self-awareness is directly related to the readers. When reading a work of literature that is self-aware it reminds us exactly what it is, it is a work of literature. So often literature, especially fiction, is an entire other world for the readers, no matter how connected to the story the readers are, how much they connect to the characters, or how much they value and understand the themes that the author is portraying, the book eventually ends. No matter what form it takes, whether it be print or digital, it ends. It is not something that is connected to the readers’ lives, it still physically exists and it can be revisited but the fictional story that the author wrote remains just that, a story that is a separate entity from the readers’ lives. I think that self-awareness is a key to breaking down this barrier and that authors use it to do so. By writing a book that is self-aware and through that, reminding the readers that it is a book, the readers are forced back into their own lives while still in the context of the book. This draws a stronger relationship between the themes of the book and the readers’ own reality, whether that is in their personal life or in their society and the world around them. By writing a poem that consummates on this idea of mortality and the preservation of experiences through memory, and giving this poem self-awareness through a temporary physical form, Gibson is giving the readers exactly what he talks about in his poem. He gives the readers an excellent example of something that will only be a memory, this all but forces the reader to hold onto and ponder these themes. It makes the readers tie back this theme to their own lives, it makes the theme more real, it gives it realist context. This is the same in <em>The Familiar.</em> It is much harder to see clear decided themes in <em>The Familiar</em> given the various storylines and the fact that this is simply volume one out of what will eventually be 27 complete volumes, but Danielewski does not leave us scrounging for themes in this first volume. The novel deals greatly with the relationship between people and code and the control that code has. Readers do not really question the characters’ control over their own lives, emotions, and actions until we enter the section on the narcons. By pulling out of the story and showing that there is something else controlling these characters, something reminiscent of a code or a program, Danielewski inexplicably lends the reader to question their own control (not that I think Danielewski is suggesting that we each have our own personal narcon controlling our lives.) But, by giving his novel a sense of self-awareness he again shows how the themes of this novel are directly related to the readers’ lives and the world around them in general. I also think that this remains true for all works of literature and art in general that have this concept of self-awareness and make the reader or viewer step out from this other world they’ve been taken into and relate what they are experiencing back to their own realities. In conclusion, I believe that self-awareness is an aspect of both print and digital novels that gives the artifacts a sense of self and is done to engage more directly with the readers. I also can go on to say that this aspect of self-awareness could be defined and analyzed as a formal concept because of the objects’ relationship to itself as well as its relationship to the readers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sources Used:</p>
<p>A Study of Self-Awareness, Self-Efficacy and Sojourner Adjustment Over time by Bradley R. Brenner</p>
<p>Rhetorical Analysis by Lindsay Short</p>
<p>Metanarration and Metafiction by Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nunning</p>katyhintonSection 1: Introduction to Self-AwarenessScholar’s Statement2015-05-01T12:37:08+00:002015-05-01T12:37:08+00:00/engl3490/2015/05/01/reddit-and-the-familiar-and-a-podcast<p>My project is a combination of a paper, accompanied by a short podcast that compares the form of Reddit.com, as well as the feelings created but it, to the form of and feelings created by Mark Danielewski’s <em>The Familiar</em>. The podcast, the “other” mode of my multimodal final project, (Working Ttitle: The Fi-Pro-Podcast with Griffin Day, college student) uses a variety of different techniques to analyze some similarities between Reddit and <em>The Familiar</em> that are difficult to articulate in an academic paper. For example, one segment of the podcast involves comparing a result from the “random” Reddit button (which brings me to a random subreddit), with a random page of <em>The Familiar.</em></p>
<p>In other words, the podcast offers a different type of analysis and experience but contributes to the arguments that I make in the paper. In another segment of the podcast, I compare positive and negative reviews of <em>The Familiar,</em> culled from goodreads.com, to positive and negative reviews of Reddit.com to explore ways that people interact with websites and books besides visiting or reading them. I think that the podcast, being of a more informal nature than the academic paper, adds to the comparative analysis of Reddit.com and <em>The Familiar</em> in an accessible and entertaining way.</p>
<p>Another reason that I decided to do a podcast is because I wanted to further explore the idea of “hyper attention” as it relates to Reddit.com and <em>The Familiar,</em> something discussed in the paper, further and I thought a podcast would be a good way to achieve this “hyper attention” because I think it’s easier to switch between topics in podcast format, and podcasts are more engaging than blogs and (for this purpose) more entertaining than videos because it’s not very interesting to watch a video of someone on the computer. I wanted the podcast to be a kind of “variety” or “late-night” type show with lots of different segments covering lots of different topics because of the nature of the artifacts that I analyzed. Both Reddit.com and <em>The Familiar</em> consist of multiple information streams and require a reader to “switch” attention rapidly. An experience of reading the paper while listening to the podcast would be similar to Reddit, <em>The Familiar</em>, and even our “wasting time on the internet” class day in the way that it immersed the reader in order to create a unique experience.</p>
<p>I was thinking that maybe to maximize the hyper-attention made possible by a podcast, a reader of the paper could listen to the podcast at the same time and see what they could absorb. It might be difficult to focus on the podcast and the paper at the same time, but since both explore the same theme (that <em>The Familiar</em> is similar to the website Reddit.com because both Reddit and The Familiar are collages of different media, viewpoints, cultures, and people from different countries of origin put together into one eclectic package for analysis by a reader) parts of the podcast will inform an understanding of some parts of the paper and vice versa.</p>
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<p>Here is a link to my podcast, hosted on YouTube.com:</p>
<p> </p>griffindayMy project is a combination of a paper, accompanied by a short podcast that compares the form of Reddit.com, as well as the feelings created but it, to the form of and feelings created by Mark Danielewski’s The Familiar. The podcast, the “other” mode of my multimodal final project, (Working Ttitle: The Fi-Pro-Podcast with Griffin Day, college student) uses a variety of different techniques to analyze some similarities between Reddit and The Familiar that are difficult to articulate in an academic paper. For example, one segment of the podcast involves comparing a result from the “random” Reddit button (which brings me to a random subreddit), with a random page of The Familiar.Scholar’s Statement2015-05-01T10:25:46+00:002015-05-01T10:25:46+00:00/engl3490/2015/05/01/scholars-statement-3<p>My project focuses on <em>Pattern Recognition</em> by William Gibson, specifically how Cayce’s “allergies” change throughout the novel, and I compared this to Immersion, a digital platform that analyzes Gmail accounts in order produce relationship webs based on the user’s data. I used the concept of targeted advertising to weave these two subjects together. Each artifact has an underlying message that revolves around this method of collecting patterns, analyzing information, and storing data. The idea of targeted advertising has consumers threatening to stop using the Internet all together; however, my purpose for this comparison was to prove that technology empowers humans with control and emphasizes the importance of human interaction. After proving Cayce’s humanness, my analysis dives into illustrating ways in which technology, like Immersion, gives humans control over emotions, self-awareness, and choices. As I continued on with my research, it became more and more evident how much technology revolves around human interaction. First of all, technology is created, designed, and developed by humans. Secondly, humans are needed in order to give technological outputs meanings. Technology has no emotions and its data would be meaningless if not interpreted by humans.</p>
<p>My project takes the form of a paper that contains my primary argument and then an online post provides supplemental charts and videos. I created this online post on the course website, and I submitted my paper on BlackBoard. My online post can be found here: <a href="http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/2015/04/30/digital-portion-targeted-advertising-and-control-across-digital-and-print-media/">http://lindsaythomas.net/engl3490/2015/04/30/digital-portion-targeted-advertising-and-control-across-digital-and-print-media/</a>.</p>
<p>I chose this type of media for my multimodal analysis to reiterate my main argument. I could not have created this project without technology, and technology empowered me with knowledge about myself and control over my choices. I chose to allow Immersion access to my Gmail account for the purpose of this project, and I posted these results in my online post. Because of certain settings in technology, I was able to edit these documents to erase any personal information, such as names, before posting them online. I was also able to revoke Immersion’s access to my Gmail account after completing the project, giving myself complete control over my privacy. By posting these results online, I was allowing the public to access them; however, they are meaningless art projects to everyone except me. When I saw them, I immediately began to construct stories about my email usage and interpret these pictures. In order to create meaning for other viewers, I provided brief descriptions of each chart in order to clarify their purpose, and I pointed out specific relationships within these charts. This technology allowed me to gain more self-awareness about my email relationships.</p>
<p>Since technology relies on humans to create meaning through interaction, these charts will sit meaninglessly on the Internet waiting for humans to interact with them to give them life. The video I included on my post explicitly show the founders of Immersion interacting with the technology and explaining the purpose and ideas behind it. Among other things, this shows how technology is a product of the human mind. I also included a direct link to the Immersion website so others can “immerse” themselves in this technology. The same video can also be found on this website; however, I included directly into my post to encourage users interact with my post.</p>
<p>For both modes of media I used, I had to interact with technology. I relied on this technology in order for me to type my paper and create my digital post, and both modes empowered me with the ability to encourage future interaction between humans and technology. These interactions need to be embraced, and they show that although technology is a component of targeted adverting, it is not something to be afraid of–it is simply an interaction between humans and technology.</p>michalvanmeterMy project focuses on Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, specifically how Cayce’s “allergies” change throughout the novel, and I compared this to Immersion, a digital platform that analyzes Gmail accounts in order produce relationship webs based on the user’s data. I used the concept of targeted advertising to weave these two subjects together. Each artifact has an underlying message that revolves around this method of collecting patterns, analyzing information, and storing data. The idea of targeted advertising has consumers threatening to stop using the Internet all together; however, my purpose for this comparison was to prove that technology empowers humans with control and emphasizes the importance of human interaction. After proving Cayce’s humanness, my analysis dives into illustrating ways in which technology, like Immersion, gives humans control over emotions, self-awareness, and choices. As I continued on with my research, it became more and more evident how much technology revolves around human interaction. First of all, technology is created, designed, and developed by humans. Secondly, humans are needed in order to give technological outputs meanings. Technology has no emotions and its data would be meaningless if not interpreted by humans.