Symposium Week 10

Barabási:

Nature normally hates power laws. In ordinary systems all quantities follow bell curves, and correlations decay rapidly, obeying exponential laws. But all that changes if the system is forced to undergo a phase transition. Then power laws emerge-nature’s unmistakable sign that chaos is departing in favour of order. The theory of phase transitions told us loud and clear that the road from disorder to order is maintained by the powerful forces of self-organisation and is paved by power laws. It told us that power laws are not just another way of characterising a system’s behaviour. They are the patent signatures of self-organisation in complex systems.

This unique and deep meaning of power laws perhaps explains our excitement when we first spotted them on the Web. It wasn’t only that they were unprecedented and unexpected in the context of networks. It was that they lifted complex networks out of the jungle of randomness where Erdős and Rényi had placed them forty years earlier and dropped them in the colorful and conceptually rich arena of self-organization. (p77)

The power law distribution thus forces us to abandon the idea of a scale, or a characteristic node. In a continuous hierarchy there is no single node which we could pic out and claim to be characteristic of all the nodes. There is no intrinsic scale in these networks. (p.70.)

Power laws rarely emerge in systems complete dominated by a roll of the dice. Physicists have learned that most often they signal a transition from disorder to order.

Anderson:

People get Vann-Adib’s question wrong because the answer is counterintuitive in two ways. The first is we forget that the 20 percent rule in the entertainment industry is about hits, not sales of any sort. We’re stuck in a hit-driven mindset – we think that if something isn’t a hit, it won’t make money and so won’t return the cost of its production. We assume, in other words, that only hits deserve to exist. But Vann-Adib, like executives at iTunes, Amazon, and Netflix, has discovered that the “misses” usually make money, too. And because there are so many more of them, that money can add up quickly to a huge new market.

For too long we’ve been suffering the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching – a market response to inefficient distribution.

For too long we’ve been suffering the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching – a market response to inefficient distribution. [Scarcity versus abundance.]

We are stuck in a hit driven mindset – we thnk that if something isn’t a hit, it won’t make money and so won’t return the cost of its production.

The three rules:

  1. make everything available
  2. cut the price in half, now lower it
  3. help me find it

Tactics & Strategies

There’s nothing quite like going above and beyond the scope of what’s required.  With that in mind, I’m recommending that you read chapter 3.2 of Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life, entitled ‘Strategies and tactics’.  Perhaps not now with your current workload but definitely something you should come back to and look over in future.

All Readings for the Course

Here are ALL of the readings for the course.  Keep in mind that the “x readings” denotes the class by which the readings should be completed.  For example, the week 1.2 readings should be completed by week 1.2, etc.

1.2 Readings

Key Readings:

Smith, M. K. (2001) ‘Chris Argyris: theories of action, double-loop learning and organizational learning’, the encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/argyris.htm. Last update: May 29, 2012. (PDF copy)

Miles, Adrian. “Blogs in Media Education: A Beginning.” Australian Screen Ed 41 (2006): 66–9. Print. (http://vogmae.net.au/vlog/research/network-literacies/blogs-in-media-education/) (PDF copy)

Bonus Reading:

Mason, John. Researching Your Own Practice: The Discipline of Noticing. London: Routledge, 2002. Print. (PDF copy)

2.1 Readings

Key Readings:

Bosch, Torie. “Sci-Fi Writer Bruce Sterling Explains the Intriguing New Concept of Design Fiction.” Slate. Web. 29 July 2013. (PDF)

Ward,, Matthew. “Design Fiction as Pedagogic Practice.” Medium. Web. 29 July 2013. (PDF)

Bonus Readings:

Grand, Simon, and Martin Wiedmer. “Design Fiction: A Method Toolbox for Design Research in a Complex World.” Proceedings of the Design Research Society Conference. 2010. (PDF)

KNUTZ, EVA, THOMAS MARKUSSEN, and POUL RIND CHRISTENSEN. “The Role of Fiction in Experiments Within Design, Art & Architecture.” n. pag. Print. (PDF)

Week 2.2

Key Readings:

Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think.” The Atlantic July 1945. The Atlantic. Web. 19 July 2013. (LINK)

Nelson, Theodor Holm. Literary Machines 91.1: The Report on, and of, Project Xanadu Concerning Word Processing, Electronic Publishing, Hypertext, Thinkertoys, Tomorrow’s Intellectual Revolution, And Certain Other Topics Including Knowledge, Education and Freedom. Sausalito: Mindful Press, 1992. Print. (Apologies for the strange scan, the scanner freaked out a bit – PDF)

Bonus Reading:

Weinberger, David. Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web. New York: Perseus Books, 2002. Print. (PDF)

Week 3.1

Key Readings:

Landow, George. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. Print. (extracts, PDF)

Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Hillsdale (N.J.): Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991. Print. (extract, PDF)

Bonus Readings:

Graham, Paul. “The Age of the Essay.” Paul Graham. Sept. 2004. Web. 11 Aug. 2013. (PDF)

Week 3.2

Key Readings:

Extracts from Landow, George. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. Print. (PDF)

Extract from Douglas, J. Yellowlees. The End of Books — Or Books Without End?: Reading Interactive Narratives. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Print. (PDF)

Bonus Readings:

Extract from Douglas, J. Yellowlees. The End of Books — Or Books Without End?: Reading Interactive Narratives. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Print. (PDF)

Extract from Ryan, Marie-Laure. Avatars of Story. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. Open WorldCat. Web. 15 Aug. 2013. (PDF)

Week 4.1

Key Readings:

Watts, Duncan J. Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. London: Vintage, 2003. Print. (Extract, PDF)

Anderson, Chris. “The Long Tail.” Wired. Oct. 2004. Web. 23 Aug. 2013. (PDF)

Week 4.2

Key Readings:

Barabási, Albert-László. “The 80/20 Rule”. Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life. New York, NY: A plume book, 2003. Print. (PDF)

Barabási, Albert-László. “Rich Get Richer”. Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life. New York, NY: A plume book, 2003. Print. (PDF)

Bonus Readings:

Barabási, Albert-László. Extracts Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life. New York, NY: A plume book, 2003. Print. (PDF)

Week 5.1

Key Readings:

Murphie, Andrew, and John Potts. Culture and Technology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print. This is the introduction from this book. Short, very general but lays out some important general ideas and terms. (PDF)

Galloway, Alexander R. Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization. The MIT Press, 2006. Print. (PDF).

Bonus Readings:

Murphie, Andrew, and John Potts. Culture and Technology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print. “Theoretical Frameworks” (PDF)

Week 5.2

Key Readings:

Manovich, Lev. “Database as Symbolic Form”. Database Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Information Overflow. Vesna, Victoria, ed. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press, 2007. Print. 39-60. (PDF)

Bonus Readings:

Seaman, Bill. “Recombinant Poetics and Related Database Aesthetics”. Database Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Information Overflow. Vesna, Victoria, ed. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press, 2007. Print. 121-140. (PDF)

Week 6.1

Key Reading:

Schultz, Pit. Latour, Bruno: On Actor Network Theory: A Few Clarifications 1/2. 11 Jan. 1998. E-mail. (PDF)

Week 6.2

Key Readings:

Dietz, Steve. “Ten Dreams of Technology.” Leonardo 35.5 (2002): 509–522. MIT Press Journals. Web. 7 Oct. 2013. (PDF)

Readings for Monday (Week 3.1)

Here are the readings for Monday providing you with a strong grounding in hypertext from renown theorist George Landow as well as following on from our discussions this week with Jay Bolter’s Writing Space and Paul Graham’s The Age of the Essay.  I’ll be uploading Wednesday’s readings tomorrow along with all of the remaining readings for the course so you can get a head start on those if you feel so inclined.

Key Readings:

Landow, George. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. Print. (extracts, PDF)

Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Hillsdale (N.J.): Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991. Print. (extract, PDF)

Bonus Reading:

Graham, Paul. “The Age of the Essay.” Paul Graham. Sept. 2004. Web. 11 Aug. 2013. (PDF)

The week that was

Off to a flying start this week with a focus on practical skills in the workshop and more on the theoretical side in our first symposium.  The symposium was a little bit explanatory rather than analytical though hopefully as we progress through semester the nature of the readings will mean that we can start discussing the expanded discourse in more depth.

Important Notes

All of the participation diaries are now available under the ‘Assessment‘ tab.  If you need to access a copy in advance or due to absence, you can find them there.

We start work on the wiki tomorrow, so please check that out if you have a chance to see some of the previous entries from last semester.  It’s available at www.mediafactory.org.au/niki.  I’ve also added your blogs to a new blog roll that you can find over there –> and then down a bit.  Check out each other’s blogs and see what your peers are up to.

Doing

We’ve got a few “how-to” posts already, so keep these coming.  Helping out your peers with technical skills will be vital to getting the most out of this course as they’ll surely reciprocate in kind and we haven’t a whole lot of time with the length of this semester.  Bryan talks about how to create a link list that can be added to, say, a sidebar, while Daniel makes sure everyone knows how to include a link in their posts.  We’ve also got some multimedia aficionados keen to get A/V content into their blogs, such as Tim walking you through how to upload content (do this if you own the content) and Dana on how to embed content (do this if you do not own the content).

Thinking

Esther provides an excellent explanation of double-loop learning, while Kim L. thinks about how it applies to her own experiences.  A few posts are cropping up about design fiction that are starting to posit the role of design fiction in the development of new technologies, such as Dana pointing towards things like Google Glass.  Meanwhile, Mardy reflects on Blogs in Media Education and the rationale of their use in this course.

Spreading Out

It’s also good to see people starting to branch out into related ideas on their blogs.  Vanessa thinks about the integration of blogs and SEO, while Mishell ponders networked dependency in the workplace.  Kim O. looks at the significance of one’s virtual presence and the importance of maintaining a positive reputation, and of course Daniel wins hearts and minds with a video of a puppy.

Readings for Wednesday (Week 2.2)

This week there are two key readings by Vannevar Bush and Ted Nelson, both of which in some way speculate on technological futures by extrapolating the affordances of current technologies.  ‘Literary Machines’ is structured in such a way as to emulate hypertext navigation through information, so it will be beneficial to think about how you are absorbing its contents as you read it.

Key Readings

Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think.” The Atlantic July 1945. The Atlantic. Web. 19 July 2013. (Link)

Nelson, Theodor Holm. Literary Machines 91.1: The Report on, and of, Project Xanadu Concerning Word Processing, Electronic Publishing, Hypertext, Thinkertoys, Tomorrow’s Intellectual Revolution, And Certain Other Topics Including Knowledge, Education and Freedom. Sausalito: Mindful Press, 1992. Print. (PDF)

Recommended Reading

The recommended reading comes from David Weinberger and contains some relevant take-away ideas that are applicable to today’s technological landscape.  Try thinking about what kind of principles are universally applicable to interactions with types of technology and how these can apply to your own potential futures.

Weinberger, David. Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web. New York: Perseus Books, 2002. Print. (PDF)

 

Readings for Monday (Week 2.1)

The readings for the coming class are all about design fiction.  Everything you create is designed to participate in a potential future, so logically it stands that being able to anticipate potentialities will inform your approach to both creative and professional practice.  The process of envisioning imagined futures and responding to them preemptively is a key concern of design fiction and may be something that our symposium participants may consider looking into before next class.

Essential Readings

Bosch, Torie. “Sci-Fi Writer Bruce Sterling Explains the Intriguing New Concept of Design Fiction.” Slate. Web. 29 July 2013. (PDF)

Ward,, Matthew. “Design Fiction as Pedagogic Practice.” Medium. Web. 29 July 2013. (PDF)

Bonus Readings

Grand, Simon, and Martin Wiedmer. “Design Fiction: A Method Toolbox for Design Research in a Complex World.” Proceedings of the Design Research Society Conference. 2010. (PDF)

EVA KNUTZ, THOMAS MARKUSSEN, and POUL RIND CHRISTENSEN. “The Role of Fiction in Experiments Within Design, Art & Architecture.” (PDF)

These are both very dense readings, so for your participation requirement (I know it says both) but you can check the box if you read only one.  If you do go for this option I’d like you to have a look at an extra reading that should be completed before class 2.2 a bit earlier.  It’s an extraordinarily influential mediation on the role of science both at the time when it was written and speculating on into the future.  Written in 1945 by Vannevar Bush (one of the key administrators of the Manhattan project, hence the somewhat melancholic tone) it should give you some indication of the value of design fiction.

Optional Reading (from 2.2)

Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think.” The Atlantic July 1945. The Atlantic. Web. 19 July 2013. (PDF)

 

Paul Revere, Social Graph, Speculative Writing

The readings about networks and graphs. Facebook has what it calls a social graph, which is the data it maps about all our connections. I can’t do the mathematics behind it, but it is potentially very powerful, as this post from Ditte shows. In a similar vein when the Snowden story broke recently there were arguments that if the government harvested all this information about you, and you weren’t doing anything wrong, then what was the issue. (We’ll put to one side questions about sovereignty, privacy, the assumption of privacy and so on.) Sociologist Kieran Healy, using a social graph, wrote an extraordinary (speculative – note it is framed as if written from London in 1772, calls its data set Bigge Data – as in ‘olde worlde’ – and mentions an upcoming EDWARDx – TedX – talk) blog post that used this same mathematics and theory to ‘prove’ that Paul Revere was a terrorist. For those that don’t know, Paul Revere was the person who rode through Boston (there is literally a line painted on the road, in Boston today, so you can retrace his famous ride) yelling that the “British are coming!” and alerting the American patriots to the oncoming British soldiers in the American Revolution. He essentially set up an intelligence unit. He is the American hero (patriot, solider, prosperous silversmith, Bostonian, subject of a famous poem), and as Healy shows, by using the social graph (nodes and links) you can demonstrate that Revere was a hub, and therefore a terrorist. As Healy writes:

What a nice picture! The analytical engine has arranged everyone neatly, picking out clusters of individuals and also showing both peripheral individuals and—more intriguingly—people who seem to bridge various groups in ways that might perhaps be relevant to national security. Look at that person right in the middle there. Zoom in if you wish. He seems to bridge several groups in an unusual (though perhaps not unique) way. His name is Paul Revere.

Once again, I remind you that I know nothing of Mr Revere, or his conversations, or his habits or beliefs, his writings (if he has any) or his personal life. All I know is this bit of metadata, based on membership in some organizations.

The point he is making is that just based on social links a lot of information is known, but then add one or two assumptions (as he points out, he knows nothing about these people) and it is easy for this information to shift from being information, to knowledge, to an exercise of unreasonable power.