Bolter & Grusin (52-87)

"No medium, it seems, can now function independently and establish its own separate and purified space of cultural meaning." (p. 55)

This was one of the most interesting things that stuck out to me while I was reading in Remediation. It makes me think of how different forms of art bleed into each other and this is true with different kinds of media. In respect to this, media can be considered art in its own form. Another thing that stuck out to me was that each form of mediation depends on other acts of mediation. This couples with the idea that no medium can function independently from another because it needs the bolstering of another medium to support it.

Bolter and Grusin 2 & 3

At the beginning of Chapter 2, Bolter and Grusin further mention that the goal of mediation is to attempt realism be it painting to photo to digital photo to film to virtual reality. They go on to say:

It would seem, then, that all mediation is remediation.

Despite the fact that the rest of the chapter and the following chapter seem to focus on art and film, I couldn't help but tie these concepts again into books. Especially this book. Remediation: Understanding New Media is not exempt from the claim above. Essentially Remediation is remediated. From the way the text and white space are used, to the graphics and pictures, the book is an example of many iterations of changes in publishing and visual display of information. But what I found most interesting and completely unique to any other publications is the way the authors have added what amounts to 'hyperlinks' in the text. I found myself reading the text of the book like I read a website. When I got to a 'link' or a page number with a funny little play symbol, I turned to that page to see what they were referencing. I appreciate the creativity of this remediation and I like the reinforcement of the theme.

Bolter & Grusin- response to pg. 52-87

This section really helped me to better understand the connection between immediacy and hypermediacy : both strive to either reform or create reality. While immediacy, using the example of virtual reality, makes sense, it is the concept of hypermediacy that was difficult for me to grasp at first. However, this section helped me to grasp how hypermediacy creates a "fullness" or a new reality. This leaves a never-ending possibility of adding new layers to a hypermedium.

On the other hand, immediacy is never quite perfected. I found the section about how the flaws of lack of reality in one medium is never realized until it is perfected in a new medium.

I noticed that these authors were already discussing the effect digital media and remediation will have on our political environment. Even though the book was written in 2000, they discussed the way the democratic process will be remediated because of the change in digital medium. This can be seen in the CNN youtube debates we just had a few months ago. Because of remediation, we have come up with ways for our candidates to be approached by college students, mothers, your every day citizen and that changed the nature of our election period this year.

Readings from Remediation

When I first started reading, I was really confused. However, once I was given examples, I was able to understand a little better. What was interesting to me was that in both the chapter about mediation and remediation and the chapter about mediums, it was stated that no medium can function independently. Every medium must be able to "multi-task" if you will. Computer graphics make up films now and actors want to be seen as artists. Multiple mediums are used in everyday life.

Showing and telling

Our project is one of those projects that would just be better if shown rather than told. It is important to show in this project how the digital media is there to help us better understand different aspects of our lives. Online dating is a controversial subject and in order to portray it in the most successful way, we must show it digitally.

In class, we talked about what we read in "Literacy in the New Media Age." After we defined some of the words, it was easier for me to understand the text and how we should use it while working on the project. We talked about how in our group the reading path was important because we want the audience to get the most from our project that they possible can, therefore, the reading path needs to be set up correctly. Multi-modality is going to be an important part of our project because we are going to be using several different modes to help the audience understand our project.

Showing is going to be the most effective way of getting our project point across. It is easier to show a video about this topic rather than tell what we have found. It is more interesting this way too!

53-87

The most interesting piece of information that I gained from reading these two chapters is that new "technologies repairs the inadequacy of the medium or media that is now supersedes."This means that everything has a predecessor and "the only thing that seems impossible is to have no relationship at all." I probably already knew this; however, while reading this chapter, this idea really hit home. Also, the economic dimension of remediation was very interesting. Essentially, people could live the rest of their lives with the computers they currently own, but because industries convince consumers that their product "improves on the experience of older ones" people trade in the old for the new. Because people want transparent immediacy and hypermediacy everything we consider normal today will be outdated in the future.

Bolter and Grusin

This reading was beneficial in helping me understand more fully some of the terminology we have discussed up to this point. Each new media has to be able to “refashion or rehabilitate” existing media (56), and “spread the content over as many markets as possible” (68). How does this happen? The media engages a social class or community that will be trendsetters in the remediation process of that particular medium. After a period of time, the concept (or item) will become more readily available in access and price for the mass markets. The trendsetter group will experience the event as hypermediated, while the remainder of society will opt for immediacy (71).

Remediation (53-87)

First off, I must say that these two chapters helped clear up my confusion of remediation and what that entails. I was intrigued to learn more of the in-depth definition of remediation. The definitions of "remediation as the mediation of mediation," "remediation as the inseparability of mediation and reality," and "remediation as reform," (p. 55) all help to greater explain this idea. It was especially helpful to hear that the goal of remediation is to "refashion or rehabilitate other media (p.56)." This allowed me to understand that remediation is focused mainly on updating/revamping what we already have as our mediums. For example, in order to keep in touch, we used to only have letters and phone calls. Now, email has been created as a form of communication, which in turn is much easier and convenient to use. Remediation has been a path of change that was bound to happen and continue to happen.

Showing vs. Telling

Our project revolves around exposing our classmates to the voices that modern Middle Eastern women have in relation to digital literacy (specifically their blogs). A lot of information will be presented through providing facts. In this way, we will be showing our audience statistics, history, and research. Also the images that we have gathered and incorporated into our film will be another way of showing the information. But, we will also be reading from specific blogs of Middle Eastern women throughout the film. This is an example of our telling the audience the information. I think this presents a well-rounded multiplicity in media. We be incorporating both the showing and telling of information to the audience in order for them to absorb the most information possible.

Remediation, Chapters 2 and 3

I found the section on "Remediation as Reform" interesting because of the definition provided. Bolter adn Grusin say they use the word remediation as "a word to express the way in which one medium is seen by our culture as reforming or improving upon another" (59). What struck me was the word "improving". For some people, remediation may not be improving something at all. For instance, the transition from VHS to DVD. When this media first was introduced, DVD players were expensive and if you were/are not careful, you can ruin a DVD, simply by not putting it away properly. I know a VHS can be damaged, but this is how some people may have thought when DVDs were introduced. These days most homes have DVD players, but waht do people do with all of their VHSs? VCRs have become pretty much obsolete, so if you have one and it breaks or malfunctions, your options are limited. Also, Blockbuster no longer rents VHSs. What if you do not have a DVD player and you want to rent a movie? Your best bet would be to go out and buy it at Walmart, which is one of the only places that still sells them. I personally have both a VCR and a DVD player, but I have had to replace two DVD players and have had my VCR since I was in middle school. So although remediation can be a good thing, sometimes, old technology was not so bad.

B & G Reading (pgs 52 - 87)

“Each new medium has to find its economic place by replacing or supplementing what is already available, and popular acceptance, and therefore economic success, can come only by convincing consumers that the new medium improves on the experience of older ones” (68).

What is Bolter and Grusin saying exactly? The best illustration that I can think of is with the new iphone. Why is it that the day the iphone was released you couldn't drive by a Cingular Wireless store without seeing a line of people waiting to get into the door with hopes of possibly being able to make the $600 purchase. The answer is simple for them. The new iphone has capabilities that far surpasses any other phone on the market to date. They want what's cutting edge. They want to lead others into new technological advances. These are the same people who got Vista for Windows as soon as it came out and could not care less about the problems with incompatibility. So, why is it that other people that are still very interested in technology are still without the iphone and without Vista? It's because of the above statement taken from the Bolter and Grusin reading. These people are waiting for these new mediums to find their economic place. The price for such purchases are too steep and there are no doubt bugs that need to be ironed out. While these are popular items the first "batch" so to speak will be used to iron out any problems with the technology and the next "batch" will have addressed the problems with the first and also be less expensive. In short, more bang for the buck. This idea of getting more for your money plays a substantial role in whether or not a consumer will make a big purchase.

Show vs. Telling

For my group project, my group will be collaborating political commentary and animated cartoons to show the political influences that cartoons these days have on the public. I guess the basic way to describe the difference between show and telling in accordance to our project is to examine the components of the project. The political cartoons will be the 'showing' aspect of the movie. The news commentary will be the 'telling' component of the movie. News are able to relay messages through words, hence the commentary. Cartoons such as Family Guy or Boondocks are able to relay these same messages through visuals such as animated figures. Both aspects will be a contrast/comparison of each other

Literacy in a new era

The reading from the book Literacy in New Media (1-34) really re-emphasized the importance of change and evolution. The reading talked about literacy and how it is soo important to provide this in different formats, especially in this era. I believe that is so true, not only to take advantage of the different technologies and advancements that can apply to it but to make it just that more accessible to people who perceive messages in different ways. The changing times has allowed us to do that. We are able to express ourselves and relay messages through books, songs, movies, weblogs, etc. It also talked about the importance of the actual layout of the message. This can determine how the audience perceives the message, rather it be in a certain numerical order or in a random order.

The reading gave an overview of the type of literacy we should consider when doing our projects this semester.

Showing vs. Telling

Telling is going to be more prominent in our project because it is going
to be a 'commercial' of people telling how people communicate, using words to paint vivid mental images that are more effective than showing actual images or objects. There will be some showing if we use pictures to demonstrate what some of the people are telling.
i.e. if someone shows a picture of the person that they met, they would be showing more than telling. Thus our project will be at least 60-40 in telling and showing.

-Vanessa Reinarz

bolter & grusin

“Each new medium has to find its economic place by replacing or supplementing what is already available, and popular acceptance, and therefore economic success, can come only by convincing consumers that the new medium improves on the experience of older ones” (68).

I found this passage particularly interesting because of an article I read earlier this week for my psychology class. The article discussed a study that examined the way that elderly people perceived benefits and disadvantages of new technologies. Results of the study suggested that older generations who had no experience with cell phones and e-mail correspondence had trouble identifying the benefits of these technologies, and were resistant to adopting them as new and better ways to communicate with their family and friends. Bolter and Grusin’s statement above identifies this as an issue for all audiences of all generations—both experienced and inexperienced users. I think people of all ages often need some convincing about investing in and using new forms of technologies, particularly when people think that the current technology is sufficient for their wants and needs.

Post 1 B&G pp. 53-87

After reading this selection, I am happy to announce that I feel somewhat better about what remediation, hypermediacy, and transparency mean. From what I gather, remediation can indirectly involve the difference between telling and showing. The easiest example, which is used ad nauseum, is a book which tells and a digital medium that shows. The best definition I could find of remediation and its purpose is on page 56. It states, "The goal of remediation is to refashion or rehabilitate other media... all mediations are both real and mediations of the real... (and) can also be understood as a process of reforming reality as well" (56).

Showing v. Telling

As Susan stated, our group had decided to tape Facebook members talking about their experiences with the program and the effect, if any, it has had on their lives. Now that we have decided to do a mockumentary on the topic, we will now show what impact Facebook has on their lives by recording them actually using the website, as opposed to listening to them talk about it. Although I am not necessarily a fan of cliches, there is something to be said about the old "actions speak louder than words" adage. On the other hand, however, the participants will somewhat "tell" the story simply by the actions they exhibit in the video.

showing vs. telling

Before we solidified our project idea (mockumentary showing how facebook affects users’ personal lives) we discussed doing a video in which users talk about their facebook habits by answering interview questions—essentially we would be telling rather than showing. Instead, we decided that it would be more effective to create a mockumentary that shows typical obsessive facebook habits in a comedic way.

Materials We Have

-Internet (YouTube, Journal Articles, OLPC website, iTunes, Google photo search)
-iMovie
-Photoshop
-DVD to put movie on once it is finished

Schedule updates, possible alterations

This is a duplicate of an email post I sent. If you are still not getting the emails, please let me know.

Greetings everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that I posted the discussion leaders' names on the schedule, but there are still some changes possible as far as readings toward the latter half of the semester. Since everyone has chosen to produce videos, I would like to substitute some film and video related readings. I'll check with the class Tuesday to see what you think, and keep you updated as changes occur.

Also, my new copy of _Literacy in the New Media Age_ arrived, so if anyone needs to borrow it to complete this week's reading, I'm happy to loan it out.

Have a great weekend and I'll see you on Tuesday, when our first discussion leaders will be Megan and Kerry!

--T. F.