Reading: The Military-Entertainment Complex
This paper discusses war and the use of propaganda in America. It shows how they use the media to manipulate and misinform the population about military decision for the war by giving false justifications. Manipulation of information is the key to divulgate the ‘truth’. By changing the information, new perspectives can be created to achieve a specific objective. It is said in the paper that it is common that military use directors or screenwriters to write fictional terrorist scenarios to ‘prepare’ them to any eventual attack. The use of media is also discussed as an ‘entertaining way’ of keeping the population interested in militaries operations. . It gives evidence on how military and entertainment have always been interlinked. The overall theme of this paper for me is how the media controls and manipulates the population in showing them what they should or should not believe through TV, Radio etc…
Lecture:
In this week’s lecture we watched eXistenZ, directed by David Cronenberg made in 1999. The film is about Allegra Geller, a passionate and really talented video game designer. Allegra has designed a new game called eXsitenZ. As they are about to play, she is taken away with her game. After some time Ted (a man who appears like her bodyguard in the film) and Allegra finally get to play to her new designed game for the first time. This let them experience some really intense things, from terribly bad to terribly good. This movie looks at the idea of a virtual reality. This let us think about where the line is between real and virtual?
No tutorial this week.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
WEEK 6: a brief history of the computer and internet
Reading:
This week’s reading was called: “What's new about 'new media'?” From the article I found out that the new media is always changing. There are always improvements on technology even though it is called new media is it in fact always in improvement and reevaluate. The most predominant example of ‘new’ media is the internet. When we consider the implication of the World Wide Web, the internet has developed and created new media stream. This shows the evolution of the media. The internet has taken a dramatic change and has grown massively over the decades. The improvement of the internet has permitted new ways of communication to merge, like computing and new media telecommunication or new media; all of these are considered as one unique stream of communication.
Lecture:
This week’s lecture was about the history of the computer and the Internet. The first basic form of a computer was the Abacus, used c 3000BC. In the 19th century Charles Babbage created the ‘Difference Engine’ which allowed engineers to calculate and print mathematical tables. Alan Turing made the first working computer to break German codes in World War Two. The first PC was released in 1975. Bill Gates developed a ‘computer language’ for people to understand the computing process. We then had a discussion about the internet during the lecture; the internet is a network of networks and the Web is a component of the internet. It is only a feature of it.
Tutorial:
Choose an article on Wikipedia and show its accuracy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Caledonia
At first I went to read the article and found that it was quite accurate for everything that it says about New-Caledonia. I decided to read it another time to make sure everything was right. While reading I was taking to my friend from New-Caledonia telling her about what I was doing, we arrived to the geographical part of the article and that is when we read that the Island was 350 kilometers long whereas New-Caledonia is about 500 kilometers from south to north. It was a great example of how Wikipedia can be a bad reference. It was not the first time that I was using Wikipedia but it was the first time I was looking for inaccurate information and I am very surprised on how easy it is to get false references.
This week’s reading was called: “What's new about 'new media'?” From the article I found out that the new media is always changing. There are always improvements on technology even though it is called new media is it in fact always in improvement and reevaluate. The most predominant example of ‘new’ media is the internet. When we consider the implication of the World Wide Web, the internet has developed and created new media stream. This shows the evolution of the media. The internet has taken a dramatic change and has grown massively over the decades. The improvement of the internet has permitted new ways of communication to merge, like computing and new media telecommunication or new media; all of these are considered as one unique stream of communication.
Lecture:
This week’s lecture was about the history of the computer and the Internet. The first basic form of a computer was the Abacus, used c 3000BC. In the 19th century Charles Babbage created the ‘Difference Engine’ which allowed engineers to calculate and print mathematical tables. Alan Turing made the first working computer to break German codes in World War Two. The first PC was released in 1975. Bill Gates developed a ‘computer language’ for people to understand the computing process. We then had a discussion about the internet during the lecture; the internet is a network of networks and the Web is a component of the internet. It is only a feature of it.
Tutorial:
Choose an article on Wikipedia and show its accuracy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Caledonia
At first I went to read the article and found that it was quite accurate for everything that it says about New-Caledonia. I decided to read it another time to make sure everything was right. While reading I was taking to my friend from New-Caledonia telling her about what I was doing, we arrived to the geographical part of the article and that is when we read that the Island was 350 kilometers long whereas New-Caledonia is about 500 kilometers from south to north. It was a great example of how Wikipedia can be a bad reference. It was not the first time that I was using Wikipedia but it was the first time I was looking for inaccurate information and I am very surprised on how easy it is to get false references.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Week 5: Why I hate Wikipedia
Reading:
Spanish writer Jorge Luis Borges shows in his text Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940) how the truth and our perceptions are manipulated to become more material under the pressure of the society. The author is mixing elements of reality and fiction which gives the text an original dimension; it makes us think about what is real and what isn’t. The story shows us the notion of manipulation that occurs and how people are ‘happily’ leaving in material world. Overall it’s about what makes the truth the truth.
Lecture:
We discussed the use of Wikipedia and its reliability because everyone and anyone can add what they want and edit the articles post on Wikipedia.
I used to use Wikipedia as a source for my assignments but since I know that the article can sometimes be edited and changed I don’t use it the same way, I still go on Wikipedia but it won’t be my only source I will have to go and check on other more reliable sites.
Tutorial task:
-There was a time when "Art" was made by artists who were skilled professionals. Now that anyone with a computer can create things digitally (music, images, videos, etc), what does that mean for "art"?
Definition of Art:
The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colours, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
Like everything Art evolve and we have to evolve with it. I don’t think that everyone and anyone could pretend to be an artist because it needs more than a program to make Art. Now there are many kinds of Art, what I mean is that you will recognise a good art form from a bad one; it has a notion of aestheticism.
If the aesthetic is not present in the work then it is not Art, so you can use as many programs as you want you wont ‘become’ an artist so I think that with computers arts evolve but the essence of Art is still there.
-Is a photoshopped image "authentic"?
Definition of Authentic:
Not false or copied; genuine; real.
By now knowing the definition, we can say that a photoshopped image isn’t an authentic image. Photoshop is a program that modifies the image, so by customising it, it removes the authenticity of the photo/image.
-Do digital "things" have an "aura" (in Benjamin's terms)?
Aura is explained in analogy with the experience of nature superseded in the experience of mechanically reproduced images/things, for which, however perfect they are as images/things, are missing the point of presence—the presence of the object—that gives it its aura. So taking Benjamin’s terms, digitals things don’t have an aura because they are missing the natural presence.
Spanish writer Jorge Luis Borges shows in his text Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940) how the truth and our perceptions are manipulated to become more material under the pressure of the society. The author is mixing elements of reality and fiction which gives the text an original dimension; it makes us think about what is real and what isn’t. The story shows us the notion of manipulation that occurs and how people are ‘happily’ leaving in material world. Overall it’s about what makes the truth the truth.
Lecture:
We discussed the use of Wikipedia and its reliability because everyone and anyone can add what they want and edit the articles post on Wikipedia.
I used to use Wikipedia as a source for my assignments but since I know that the article can sometimes be edited and changed I don’t use it the same way, I still go on Wikipedia but it won’t be my only source I will have to go and check on other more reliable sites.
Tutorial task:
-There was a time when "Art" was made by artists who were skilled professionals. Now that anyone with a computer can create things digitally (music, images, videos, etc), what does that mean for "art"?
Definition of Art:
The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colours, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
Like everything Art evolve and we have to evolve with it. I don’t think that everyone and anyone could pretend to be an artist because it needs more than a program to make Art. Now there are many kinds of Art, what I mean is that you will recognise a good art form from a bad one; it has a notion of aestheticism.
If the aesthetic is not present in the work then it is not Art, so you can use as many programs as you want you wont ‘become’ an artist so I think that with computers arts evolve but the essence of Art is still there.
-Is a photoshopped image "authentic"?
Definition of Authentic:
Not false or copied; genuine; real.
By now knowing the definition, we can say that a photoshopped image isn’t an authentic image. Photoshop is a program that modifies the image, so by customising it, it removes the authenticity of the photo/image.
-Do digital "things" have an "aura" (in Benjamin's terms)?
Aura is explained in analogy with the experience of nature superseded in the experience of mechanically reproduced images/things, for which, however perfect they are as images/things, are missing the point of presence—the presence of the object—that gives it its aura. So taking Benjamin’s terms, digitals things don’t have an aura because they are missing the natural presence.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Week 4: Old communication Technologies.
Readings:
Walter Benjamin, the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction:
Benjamin was attempting to put his finger on the liberating aspect of mass media like posters, magazines with photography, radio and cinema.
History of communication:
Tribal practices
-developments in manual and facial expression Art and religion assist the group in changing conditions
-the tribe created costumes, paintings, dances, stories and songs that represented deeper, mythological meanings
The ancient text and the transmission of knowledge:
first texts were copied, shared and copied again, this is how knowledge was transmited in ancient time, then the print appeared and then the telegraph and the telephone, phonograph, the radio, the cinema, the television and the video.
Semiotic:
Elements of a semiotic approach:
Semantics: the relationship of signs to what they stand for
Syntactics (or syntax): the formal or structural relations between signs
Pragmatics: the relation of signs to interpreters
The 20th century saw a massive increase in communication technologies
Communication studies:
1920: The mass media is a vehicle through which selected content could shape opinion and belief, change habits of life, actively mould behaviour and impose political systems.
1930: statistical method: small but random samples could predict social effects
1940: exposure to propaganda communicated through the mass media had only minimal effects on citizens.
1950: connections to psychology
1960: Marshall McLuhan: technologies are extension of human body. The medium in which the communication occurs is the message.
1970: mixed effects: perceptions of problem were shaped by the media and the way they portray them.
1980: how mass media operates to empty the deliberative domain by the ‘manufacture of consent’
1990: cybernetic influences
Culture studies:
1930: Walter Benjamin: reproductions in film or photography have a liberating potential because of the destruction of the traditional value of the cultural heritage while reproducting the listener in his own situation.
1940: real life is becoming indistinguishable from the movies.
1950: the society of the spectacle
1960: Habermas: that the public sphere was the domain of social life in which 'public opinion'
forms.
1970: Louis Althusser: the media produce and reproduce the”imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence”
1980: Baudrillard: the real was a representation more human than human
1990: Fraser: Subaltern counterpublics
Lecture:
In this week lecture we discussed the evolution of communication technologies. We talked about previous way of communication used by humans and the steps by which communication became more efficient in today’s world.
We also talked about Walter Benjamin and his thoughts; we had an overview of his life and his work on communication technologies. The subject of semiotic was also raised in the lecture and Stephen explained its meaning and gave us some examples.
This lecture gave us the opportunity to see where communication technologies were coming from and that ancient communications are still to consider in modern time as we still use some of them.
Walter Benjamin, the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction:
Benjamin was attempting to put his finger on the liberating aspect of mass media like posters, magazines with photography, radio and cinema.
History of communication:
Tribal practices
-developments in manual and facial expression Art and religion assist the group in changing conditions
-the tribe created costumes, paintings, dances, stories and songs that represented deeper, mythological meanings
The ancient text and the transmission of knowledge:
first texts were copied, shared and copied again, this is how knowledge was transmited in ancient time, then the print appeared and then the telegraph and the telephone, phonograph, the radio, the cinema, the television and the video.
Semiotic:
Elements of a semiotic approach:
Semantics: the relationship of signs to what they stand for
Syntactics (or syntax): the formal or structural relations between signs
Pragmatics: the relation of signs to interpreters
The 20th century saw a massive increase in communication technologies
Communication studies:
1920: The mass media is a vehicle through which selected content could shape opinion and belief, change habits of life, actively mould behaviour and impose political systems.
1930: statistical method: small but random samples could predict social effects
1940: exposure to propaganda communicated through the mass media had only minimal effects on citizens.
1950: connections to psychology
1960: Marshall McLuhan: technologies are extension of human body. The medium in which the communication occurs is the message.
1970: mixed effects: perceptions of problem were shaped by the media and the way they portray them.
1980: how mass media operates to empty the deliberative domain by the ‘manufacture of consent’
1990: cybernetic influences
Culture studies:
1930: Walter Benjamin: reproductions in film or photography have a liberating potential because of the destruction of the traditional value of the cultural heritage while reproducting the listener in his own situation.
1940: real life is becoming indistinguishable from the movies.
1950: the society of the spectacle
1960: Habermas: that the public sphere was the domain of social life in which 'public opinion'
forms.
1970: Louis Althusser: the media produce and reproduce the”imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence”
1980: Baudrillard: the real was a representation more human than human
1990: Fraser: Subaltern counterpublics
Lecture:
In this week lecture we discussed the evolution of communication technologies. We talked about previous way of communication used by humans and the steps by which communication became more efficient in today’s world.
We also talked about Walter Benjamin and his thoughts; we had an overview of his life and his work on communication technologies. The subject of semiotic was also raised in the lecture and Stephen explained its meaning and gave us some examples.
This lecture gave us the opportunity to see where communication technologies were coming from and that ancient communications are still to consider in modern time as we still use some of them.
Week 3: Alphaville and New Wave Cinema
Readings:
The Fench New Wave was the introduction of a new form of film proclaming the rejection of a traditional french commercial cinema.
A group of conventions were consistently used in the French New Wave films like, for example: Jump cuts, shooting on location, natural lighting, improvised dialogue and plotting, direct sound recording and long take.
The French New Wave seemed to have an interest in deconstructing (gangster, romance, musical) while ultimately ending up in tragedy-land.
Many of the film from the New French Wave became popular and critically acclaimed worldwide.
The five filmmakers who came from the Cahiers du cinema (Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rivette and Rohmer) were prolific: in the years between 1959 and 1966, the peak of the New Wave, they made 32 films.
The three initial films of the new wave:
Truffaut: The 400 Blows: semi-autobiographical film: unsentimental but poetic story of a teenage delinquent who runs away from home and finds life on the streets a rough challenge.
Godard: Breathless: Godard has been the most influential and remembered director of the new wave.Many of his films still hold up today.
Apparition of the dziga vertov group the films then started to become increasingly inaccessible most of them remained unfinished or were refused showings
Godard - simultaneously exasperating and brilliant, self-important and important.
Resnais: Hiroshima, Mon Amour: the most inventive of all early New Wave works in terms of structure. What was different with Resnais was his use of a strong screenplay using less improvisation and working closely with a separate writer.
Lecture:
Alphaville
Tutorial:
at the begining of the tutorial we spent time talking about what hapened during the lecture and what we thought about the movie A lphaville. Alphaville is a pretty strong movie about the use of mind control with the intentions of creating a utopian society.After that we improved our blog by adding some more options; like for example we added a contact list. So at first we had to go around the room to get to know one another and get their adresses but at the end it has been decided that it would be easier to create a page on the discussion board to get blog’s addresses. It’s giving us the opprotunity to check what other people are doing and where they are standing compare to me. During the class we had time to customise a litlle more our blog so I spent the rest of the class time doing some work on my blog trying to make it more interesting and easy to read and use.
The Fench New Wave was the introduction of a new form of film proclaming the rejection of a traditional french commercial cinema.
A group of conventions were consistently used in the French New Wave films like, for example: Jump cuts, shooting on location, natural lighting, improvised dialogue and plotting, direct sound recording and long take.
The French New Wave seemed to have an interest in deconstructing (gangster, romance, musical) while ultimately ending up in tragedy-land.
Many of the film from the New French Wave became popular and critically acclaimed worldwide.
The five filmmakers who came from the Cahiers du cinema (Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rivette and Rohmer) were prolific: in the years between 1959 and 1966, the peak of the New Wave, they made 32 films.
The three initial films of the new wave:
Truffaut: The 400 Blows: semi-autobiographical film: unsentimental but poetic story of a teenage delinquent who runs away from home and finds life on the streets a rough challenge.
Godard: Breathless: Godard has been the most influential and remembered director of the new wave.Many of his films still hold up today.
Apparition of the dziga vertov group the films then started to become increasingly inaccessible most of them remained unfinished or were refused showings
Godard - simultaneously exasperating and brilliant, self-important and important.
Resnais: Hiroshima, Mon Amour: the most inventive of all early New Wave works in terms of structure. What was different with Resnais was his use of a strong screenplay using less improvisation and working closely with a separate writer.
Lecture:
Alphaville
Tutorial:
at the begining of the tutorial we spent time talking about what hapened during the lecture and what we thought about the movie A lphaville. Alphaville is a pretty strong movie about the use of mind control with the intentions of creating a utopian society.After that we improved our blog by adding some more options; like for example we added a contact list. So at first we had to go around the room to get to know one another and get their adresses but at the end it has been decided that it would be easier to create a page on the discussion board to get blog’s addresses. It’s giving us the opprotunity to check what other people are doing and where they are standing compare to me. During the class we had time to customise a litlle more our blog so I spent the rest of the class time doing some work on my blog trying to make it more interesting and easy to read and use.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
week two tutorial
Week two tutorial was dedicated to the conception of our blog. Everyone had to find the way through the site and start to create their own blog.
For that we mostly had to come with a name and fill out some details on line about us; in a general and then in a more personal way.
What is good in this sort of cyber blog is that you choose what you want to put on line; you decide what is worth writing and what is not.
It was interesting to see the different level of knowledge in this sort of new technology.
While some of the members of the class were struggling getting on the 'learning @ Griffith", others were already customising their blogs with pictures and different background.
It wasn't new for me to create my own blog but it is different in the way that it is more academic so if it's different, then I will surely get something out of it.
For that we mostly had to come with a name and fill out some details on line about us; in a general and then in a more personal way.
What is good in this sort of cyber blog is that you choose what you want to put on line; you decide what is worth writing and what is not.
It was interesting to see the different level of knowledge in this sort of new technology.
While some of the members of the class were struggling getting on the 'learning @ Griffith", others were already customising their blogs with pictures and different background.
It wasn't new for me to create my own blog but it is different in the way that it is more academic so if it's different, then I will surely get something out of it.
week two lecture and readings notes
Is e-mail dead?
History of new media studies:
-Popular cyberculture:
Apparition of the internet in the early 90's:
Feedbacks about the net and its interest were pretty negative when it was first introduced. It was seen as a 'new communication frontier' rather than as a 'toy'.
-Cyberculture studies:
By the end of the 90's, people were treating and seeing the internet differently taking this new communication technology more seriously
Different area were looked at with varying successes; for example-- technological determinists; meta-physicians; gender theorists, racial interests; post-humanists; AI experts; VR researchers
-Critical cybercultural studies:
Explore:
"-the social, cultural and economic interactions that take place online;
-the stories we tell about such interactions;
-analyses a range of social, political and economic considerations that encourage, make possible and/or thwart individual and group access to such interactions;
-assesses the deliberate, accidental and alternative technological decision- and design-processes which, when implemented, form the interface between the network and its users."
The rising of 'new media':
-It is distinguished by its heterogeneity, characterised by its diversity
-It is driven by an imperative to trace productive critical trajectories into the most compelling and specific spaces of contemporary techno-cultural change.' (Chris Chesher)
but new media is a distinct entity separate from media studies.
History of new media studies:
-Popular cyberculture:
Apparition of the internet in the early 90's:
Feedbacks about the net and its interest were pretty negative when it was first introduced. It was seen as a 'new communication frontier' rather than as a 'toy'.
-Cyberculture studies:
By the end of the 90's, people were treating and seeing the internet differently taking this new communication technology more seriously
Different area were looked at with varying successes; for example-- technological determinists; meta-physicians; gender theorists, racial interests; post-humanists; AI experts; VR researchers
-Critical cybercultural studies:
Explore:
"-the social, cultural and economic interactions that take place online;
-the stories we tell about such interactions;
-analyses a range of social, political and economic considerations that encourage, make possible and/or thwart individual and group access to such interactions;
-assesses the deliberate, accidental and alternative technological decision- and design-processes which, when implemented, form the interface between the network and its users."
The rising of 'new media':
-It is distinguished by its heterogeneity, characterised by its diversity
-It is driven by an imperative to trace productive critical trajectories into the most compelling and specific spaces of contemporary techno-cultural change.' (Chris Chesher)
but new media is a distinct entity separate from media studies.
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