Post #10

For my final paper, I want to argue that the Information Age, though it is seemingly thriving in our digital culture, is coming to an end. With the invention of the internet, information became increasingly easy to access from an assortment of devices. The ways in which it has changed our society will not become irrelevant as we transition to a new age. Instead, these advancements are the building blocks upon which people will utilize in the goal of furthering human knowledge. Following the profound changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution, machine-operated labor became commonplace in business and helped usher in the Atomic Age. Today, machines are assisted by the technology we've developed in this era. Tomorrow, the internet will be a catalyst for what's next, which I believe will be a variation of some type of "connected" age, relating to how people communicate with one another.

An article titled "From The Information Age To The Connected Age" by Anne Zelenka sparked my interest in this topic. Zelenka observes differences in the types of priorities (forms of currency, styles of work, etc.) between the two eras which got me thinking about how the transition will occur, or how it currently is occurring. I believe that, with the evolution of the internet to web 3.0, which is said to be a more high-quality presentation of web 2.0 materials, connectivity will continue to grow and consequently this transformation will change the way in which we view our culture.

My paper will argue the end of the Information Age and the beginning of the Connected Age, as well as examining the changes observed during this growth period in history. We are not the same types of people we were during the Industrial Age. Our values, social structures, politics and more have all been affected by the ease with which we can obtain information. In the near future, possible even now, we will begin to see changes from our more recent era to ones that reflect how we communicate with one another and what value these relationships have in our society.

Post #9- Interactive Fiction

Using the readings, describe "interactive fiction." How does the ability of the user to play a role in understanding the literature enhance or evolve the way we interpret literary artifacts? What disctinctions are there between playing video games and engaging in interactive fiction?

Interactive fiction is a type of literature that depends on the user's input to create meaning. Whereas a standard book will have writing from page one till the final page, interactive fiction is categorized beneath electronic literature and utilizes technology to encourage the viewer to take action in order to continue the narrative. The distinction here is that this new form of literary expression is designed to be dependent on the viewer's interpretation of the medium. For example, visual cues throughout a story on the web may require action to continue, such as clicking on an object or typing in a response. These coded actions then progress the story to the next step, where continued interaction ultimately rewards the viewer with a resolution of some sort.
Much like those children's books which had multiple endings and making descisions on what to do at the end of a chapter would lead to a different outcome, interactive fiction lets the reader become a player in the story. Though the literature most likely already has defined endings, it is the illusion that any given choice will affect a change in the story itself that makes the interactivity so enticing. I can't begin to count the number of times I've read a book or seen a movie and thought "That character should've done something else, I never would've made that decision." Here, the narrativer offers an opportunity to at least feel some sort of control in the action and direct it to a pre-determined end. Similar to a maze, the interactivity is undoubtedly limited to the constraints of the where the story will resolve itself, however it is the twists and turns along the way that bring the reader into the narrative and make them feel like they have a choice.
The difference between a video game and interactive fiction is that video games let the viewer interpret in order to configure actions, while with this type of fiction the viewer configures in order to interpret meaning. This is to say that, in any given video game, narrative cues are provided for the purpose of leading the user to configure some sort of action and progress in the goal of finishing the game. However, interactive fiction provides the opportunity to configure, by means of making choices, investigating objects, talking to someone, etc. which ultimately leads to the end goal of resolving the narrative. Though both mediums take aspects of one another to engage the user, its the emphasis on narrative that makes interactivity more of a literary artifact than video games.

Assignment #6: Map Distortions

While I found both readings to be quite interesting in their analysis of how maps are distorted by their creators and for what purposes, Jason Farman's discussion of postmodern cartography really made me think about how the "digital empire" plays a role in what people see on maps. With the expansive technology at hand today, it seems entirely possible to create a digital replication of any area down to the square inch without distorting it. However, the motives behind who is creating the map tend to change it in a way that emphasizes certain points of interests and leaves others incomplete or missing entirely. This is similar to Harley's claim that maps were "weapons of imperialism" and  "tools of exploitation" used to create empires. The ability of the map creator to define boundaries and emphasize land control is seemingly more powerful than actually controlling the land itself. In our society, companies can impose their dominance by making their own maps and changing them in a pleasing way for their business. For example, I remember being in Portland last summer and a small stand had free maps of the city that showed businesses and restaurants. However, many of the small-scale local businesses were not shown and instead an overwhelming number of Starbucks took up much of the map. It seemed clear that Starbucks had played some role in this map development and therefore made it appear to tourists that there were no other coffee shops in Portland besides the ones owned by this major franchise.

In the digital world, maps can be graphically reproduced or they may utilize real, satellite images such as with Google Earth, who Farman argues does have some misconceptions surrounding it. The reason this program has not faced many critiques about its attempt to "represent reality" is that real images are often thought to be valid and free from questioning, whereas drawn maps are believed to be inherently faulted. This discussion on Google Earth made me think of a new application I've noticed on Facebook called "Places" which allows users to "check-in" at specific locations and let their friends know where they are throughout the day. Businesses are getting involved in this application for the obvious reasons that exposure on the Facebook app will bring more consumers to their stores. Invasion of privacy aside, this app has the possibly even more serious threat of skewing our views of the world around us. If we look at our phones and see that the street we're on has two McDonald's and seven Starbucks coming up in the next three blocks, but then drive those same three blocks only to find that several local coffee stands and burger joints also exist, it would seem that the application has lied to us by limiting our options to those businesses that could afford to get their name in Facebook's app. This type of distortion is based on the difference between major and local businesses, who have varying abilities to access consumers. I feel like digital map distortion is the current problem we're facing and we can learn a great deal from past empire's who have distorted maps to steal and claim land that didn't belong to them.

Post 4: Pictographs & Writing

I chose to discuss the National Park Service pictographs which depicts different areas and activities associated with the outdoors. These images are not limited to one language but rather are universally understood, which is one of the benefits pictographs have over written text. As Ignace Gelb states, the writing system is capable of transcribing linguistic statements while other types of graphic notation allow people to communicate through a widely recognized set of marks or signs. No matter what cultural background a person may have, they will still see the restroom sign and be able to distinguish which one is for men and which one is for women. However, without a pictograph to display this information, the language barrier may prevent someone from understanding which gender is being discussed.

A true pictograph is an image that conveys meaning by displaying the action, place or object mind. Though it does not use text, pictographs can be considered a form of writing because they create such meaning in the way the images are presented and combined with one another. For example, if someone was at a beach and saw two signs next two each other, one that showed a person swimming with a red line through it and another with a shark fin, that person would know not to swim in this area because of the risk of being attacked by a shark. These two pictographs replace the need for "Don't swim here or sharks will eat you" to be written on a sign in several different languages.

Drucker and McGann, authors of "Images as the Text", begin their argument by addressing the concept of pictographic logic, which is made up of elements such as organization as well as the medium through which the images are displayed. They state that it is founded on two principles: "the  description of an entity and the articulation of relations among entities." Furthermore, these principles can be used to transform written texts into their visual, pictographic state. The authors believe that pictographic logic is a way of understanding the abstract ordering of texts and images.

The example of the Sumer tablets displays an instance when image and quantity worked together to create meaning. The first sign, being a true pictograph, served to depict the actual item while the second sign operated as part of an abstract code which tells the viewer how much of the item there was. This combination of pictographs and a form of writing is an example of how the two mediums aid in each other's overall meaning.

Noegel's article on the relationship between ancient forms of writing and our current cyber-culture makes a few interesting connections. One in specific is the Mesopotamians who drove clay cones with prayers inscribed on them into buildings, believing the words would hold it up. Similar concepts such as building a web site to set the foundation for a career exist in our culture today, which shows how many of our associations with writing have not changed over time.

Post #3: Reading Revolutions

The shift from "intensive" reading and re-reading of very few texts to "extensive" reading of many that was observed in the 18th century restructured how people relied on information and utilized books. Instead of reading one text so many times that a person could recite its lines and remember every detail, readers diversified their intake of text and therefore no longer spent time analyzing specific details and concepts from a particular book. This led to an increased reliance on books for information enforcing Socrates' opinion that writing destroys memory. Since people weren't re-reading one book over and over, their memory of any specific text wasn't as strong. I believe that this shift in reading trends affected the consciousness of the average reader by diversifying thought due to all the different ideas presented in the many texts that were read. Instead of just one opinion being heard again and again, people were exposed to all kinds of writing that promoted new ways of thinking and allowed discussion between two readers that went beyond the limits of a single text.

Post #2: The Greeks Begin Writing

During Plato's time, the Greeks effectively interiorized writing and, in doing so, a remediation of orality occurred. Instead of using mnemonic formulas, poets could utilize written text which in turn freed the mind for more original and abstract thought. Plato himself noticed that the formula poets had been following now had become counterproductive with the introduction of writing. Therefore, this moment in history describes a remediation as reform because it makes something that is already good better. It identifies a problem, in this case a dependency on memorization, that the society was unaware of and solves it by allowing poems and other narratives to have a permanent existence without relying on a person's memory. Plato's reservations about writing and its destructive threat to our memories ironically would not be here today without its development in ancient Greece. Still, he does make a valid point which is that today's society doesn't posses nearly as great of an ability to remember and recite information due to the fact that much of it is readily available in text somewhere.

Remediation of books

In an increasingly paperless world, digital forms of books on devices such as the Kindle or iPad have become popular not only for their ability to store hundreds of texts but also because of the widespread desire to "go green" and use less in order to help the planet. This process is a form of remediation on physical books, changing the medium through which readers utilize their favorite novels. As is described in the chapter on remediation as reform, digital books repaired a fault with the books that previous generations weren't even aware was an issue, that being the overuse of paper products and the effects its production has on the environment.

This chapter discusses several different meanings of reform, one being that the media reforms reality itself and another implying a change in a social or political sense. The idea of media changing our sense of reality can be seen most evidently with the evolution of virtual reality, which presents an alternate world which the media insists has meaning for us. The social and political sense in which reform has meaning stems from the digital world in which everyone has a voice and information is always close by, therefore giving each citizen the chance to inform themselves and communicate with their peers.

Perhaps the most applicable meaning of reform for the remediation of books is the idea that it serves to make a good thing better, improving on a previous model by fixing a fault or adding something that was lacking. It's not as if readers didn't know that books used paper and paper comes from trees, which leads to pollution in the process of cutting them down and processing them. However, the problem became more apparent when a solution was presented. Digital libraries are a remediation of books because they solve the issue of over-pollution and make carrying thousands of books everywhere you go an actual possibility.