88-131

Not being a "gamer" or anything of the such, I found the first chapter of the reading selection very enlightening. The remediation of video games ranges from board games, televised sports, arcade games, and even wars. Also, I know that there are communities online, but until reading this section I had no idea what exactly those communities permitted you to do. Basically, such programs/games "divorce us from the physical world." The last two chapters in the reading state that computer graphics and digitally enhanced photos have become a norm in today's society. Unless a picture is completely distorted, most the time people assume that nothing has been tamped with in the picture. Usually, people are unable to notice anything in a picture that has been changed with the help of a computer. These computer graphics and photos drive for immediacy and eventually achieve hypermediacy.

b&g (87-131)

Bolter and Grusin suggest that digital photography disturbs our faith in the transparency of the photograph, its representation of reality: “We are disturbed because we must now acknowledge that any photograph might be digitally altered. Digital technology may succeed—where combination printing and other analog techniques have not succeeded in the past—in shaking our culture’s faith in the transparency of the photograph” (110). While I agree that we have become more aware of the possibility that images may have been digitally altered, I think we are also still quick to accept images as we see them. It is much easier to look at text with a critical eye than to look at an image with a critical eye because language filters “reality” more obviously than an image does. In other words, using words and symbols to represent reality necessarily distances us from that reality—it is clearly an interpretation of reality. And while images do the same thing, they are seemingly more transparent, less obviously a representation of reality rather than reality itself. This seems especially true for images (and video) found on the internet. Many people fail to discern reliable information—in the form of both text and images—from that which lacks credibility. Whether or not people have the ability to make this distinction, awareness that the distinction exists is an important aspect of digital literacy.

Bolter & Grusin, pages 88-131

This reading takes us to computer games and photography, and their relationship with society. The section on the computer games was the most interesting to me. As we know, many of today’s computer games “promise transparent immediacy through real-time interactive graphics or text” (103). My twelve-year-old son plays an on-line game called Room Scape. This game allows hundreds of people to exist at the same time in the same fantasy game over the Internet. These types of games provide a socially shared space, in that the gamer can add, or change to the narrative structure of the game each time he logs on. While this game is played primarily by tweens, and young teens, there are other games, such as Second Life, that have a strong adult content. These role playing games may offer transparent immediacy, but are they allowing some of the players to disconnect themselves from the physical world? Are some individuals becoming so immersed in this transparent immediacy that it is harmful both mentally and physically? Should these games be censored? It is difficult to censor these types of games because they are available through the Internet. Yes, it is the parent’s responsibility to monitor their children’s activities, but Internet access is everywhere. I suppose it is the future that will determine how (if) these types of games can, will, or need to be censored.

Bolter and Grusin 88-131

I found the section about computer games especially interesting. As far as sex and violence, I immediately thought of The Sims and Second Life. In both you can create a character, build things, get a job, and have sex. In The Sims, if you get enough "happy" points with another character by talking to them, you can eventually flirt and kiss them and after doing those things for awhile the game asks you if you want to have a baby. But before having a baby, if you have a bed or a hot tub, you can get into both naked and do "the nasty". This scenario almost seems more realistic to me then what happens in Second Life. I feel this way because in The Sims it seems like the characters are in some way "getting to know" each other before hopping into bed and having children, which is more or less the way real life works. In Second Life, there are different places where you can go and see just about anything. You can also have sex with just about anyone. Although the game is called Second Life, it does not necessarily mirror "real life". I assume some people go around having random sex, but I do not this is the way most people carry on their relationships.

Bolter & Grusin- Take 3

I found these chapters, where the authors show examples of their theories, more interesting. I think they did a good job (and thorough!) of finding information that the reader could relate to and/or easily understand. However, because this book was published in 1999, I can't help but wonder what the authors would have to say about the Nintendo Wii:



Wouldn't this be a step toward a more immediate experience?

While reading the chapter on digital photography, I am reminded of all of the bogus pictures forwarded in emails, especially the one of the tourist on top of the World Trade Center. We all have seen bogus pictures and unfortunately, they are perpetuated by the immediacy of email. In this age where photo manipulating software is readily available, most of us have learned to be more discerning about the images we see. Some people, however, believe anything that is sent to them in an email.

Bolter and Grusin go on to describe the remediation of photorealistic graphics. When reading this chapter, the example that came to my mind (incidentally- through email as well) is of the amazing chalk art:



More can be seen here.

Post 1 B&G pp. 88-130

These chapters covered quite a bit of information. Hopefully, I will be able to do it justice during my presentation. However, out of all the reading points, I learned the most about remediation in regards to pictures and computer graphics and the arcade and video games. I never thought of video games as the remediated version of pinball machines, but it works. I guess in a way, any type of technological progress can be constituted as remediation.

Progress Report & Remediation

Overview

The subject of our collaborative project is digital romance; more specifically, digital romance on dating sites such as e-Harmony. The focus of our project will be on how accurately or inaccurately people represent themselves on dating sites such as e-Harmony and how accurately members are able to correctly categorize their prospective love interest.

We are making a mock e-Harmony commercial that satirizes everyone’s biggest fears regarding digital romances.

Progress

We have completed the research needed to produce a proposal. The proposal was submitted and approved. We were then able to move forward with our project and begin/complete the casting and the writing of the script.

Next Steps

With a February 14th deadline, the next task on our to do list is the actual filming of our story board. We decided that by acting out our story board ourselves in our film draft we can save the actors/actresses time and show them a digital representation of what we are looking for. Hopefully, this will make the filming of the actual commercial go forward without a hitch.

Brief Conclusion

This project so far has been all about planning and now we are at a point where we can FINALLY start implementing. That being said, we have a lot of work to do but we’re optimistic that we’ll get the job done.

Remediation

As I mentioned in class, our project is all about remediation (after all, most films are). More specifically, our group will be using remediation from the brainstorming process to the filming to the execution of the final product itself. We will be utilizing and playing off of numerous e-Harmony commercials, the music played in the background during these commericals, and the actual testimonies from their members' success stories.

we're good

We don't need any other resources!

Update on Project and Remediation

Our project (Mackenzie, Mike, Meredith, and Jenny) uses several different types of media, but we present it differently than it was originally presented. For example, the focus of our film is Middle Eastern women's blogs--but the goal of our film is to give those women an actual voice. Therefore, the only audio, besides music, will be their blogs read verbatim. This is a type of remediation because we are taking something that was online text to audio on a film.

We are also using quotes by famous figures, statistics, and facts--but all as written text on the screen for our audience to observe.

We are using images and video clips of the events the women are talking about in order to give our audience images of the world these women are describing.

Post 2 - Remediation and project update

Our project, which will focus on the effect of Facebook on one's life, is starting to move in the right direction. While our topic is interesting, we found that it is quite difficult to pinpoint a specific topic on a phenomenon that has so many interrelated subject matters. We have chosen to split our film into four topics that pertain to Facebook: job hunt, stalkers, addicts, and politics. Making an informal script and illustration of the scenes will undoubtedly enable us to better focus on the layout and content of the film.

Our project will effectively illustrate the concept of remediation on all levels. Even the concept of Facebook itself is remediation because it has given people another means to communicate. This point is not to say that the site has made the telephone obsolete, but it has certainly altered or refashioned the way people keep in touch with one another.

Tonality and intonation

Re: my previous reaction to Kress, I wanted to explore some of the issues further, and have discovered what "tonal" truly means. English is indeed not a tonal language (in which the tone of a word can change its meaning significantly), however, in this language, intonation is critical to meaning, and that was my mistake. I learned something important! But now I have to wonder how tonal languages avoid mass confusion in a written context. Obviously, I will never be a linguist!

Literacy ... (Kress)

I begin my reaction to Kress with a subject of primacy and recency in the actual reading: the example of "Bill and Mary married" vs. "Mary and Bill married." I consider this a poorly chosen example, because to me, the two mean exactly the same thing. I wouldn't necessarily consider that the former meant the speaker was closer to Bill, or vice versa. As with Bolter and Grusin's irritating habit of using feminine pronouns exclusively: Have they changed the gender power structure by doing so? Of course not. Have they even made a dent? Not likely. But have they served to annoy and alienate some readers by not using a mix of feminine and masculine? In my case, definitely.

But on to more important issues ... given that Kress is an experienced linguist, he has a MUCH more comprehensive view of language than I, but I hardly consider it fair to call language an abstraction; in many cases, it's the most concrete tool we have. That's why I also take issue with Kress largely excluding the English language from the ranks of the tonal. I think English is a very tonal language. This can be evidenced by the artful use of sarcasm ... and by my very use of italics in the previous "very." One message board I sometimes read will ban members for use of the word "um" as a written utterance, simply because it contributes such a snotty tone to the messages, and the moderaters want to avoid that.

One more observation: I think that scrutinizing a tool (in this case, language) to death can strip it of its expressive qualities. Kress can ruminate on and attempt to deconstruct the implications of new media until the cows come home, but how many people have read his book and understood his ideas in relation to the number of people exposed to the sentiment of basement-dwelling teenager Chris Crocker, who set up a videocamera and implored the world to "leave Britney alooooooooooone!!!!"? Sometimes pure expression is the best way to shape messages, meaning and media and to understand their impact.

Example of a rough draft of a storyboard

http://www.rollins.edu/it/video/storyboard2.jpg

First Update on Project

Our project on the One Laptop Per Child Project has gotten underway with research on the project and the laptops themselves. Since a description of the project and the laptops will be the first scenes in our movie, this was a good place to start. I have also been thinking about music that could potentially fit in with various scenes. We have also found information on those who do not think this project is a good idea and those who stand behind it 100 percent. We are currently working on gathering media, especially since we have begun work on a storyboard, it will be a little easier to know exactly what we are looking for. Kerry has found some clips on YouTube, which will work great, but we are unsure of how to get the clips into iMovie. If anyone knows how to do this we would greatly appreciate some help!
Our next steps will include finishing the rough draft of the storyboard, gathering the rest of our media, and begin putting everything together, which we hope to have started by the beginning of next week since the rough draft of our project is due next Thursday, February 14
As far as remediation is concerned, everything we are going to use will be remediated in our movie. We plan on using pictures, video clips, text, graphics, and music to create a digital movie. We have also discussed hypermediacy and have decided that since our movie is going to go from pictures to video clips to text, our audience will be aware of the changing formats, therefore making our movie hypermidated.

Showing vs. Telling

SInce we are not taking a stance on whether the OLPC is good or bad, we will be showing the possibilities. By using audio and pictures we hope to demonstrate the possibilities of this project. The only telling that we will be doing is explanations of the project and the laptop itself. The videos we will incorporate will be mostly informational.

B&G Response Ch. 2-3

One line really jumped out at me while I was reading: "The assumption of reform is so strong that a new medium is now expected to justify itself by improving on a predecessor...." But it makes me wonder about what this is doing to literacy and formal writing. As a teacher, I feel like my students' abilities to write a good email have deteriorated. This semester, I finally put a section about email etiquette in my syllabus because I was tired of getting emails with no greeting, no signatures, and fragmented messages that I rarely could understand. So, as technology like email "improves" over it's predecessor, that doesn't necessarily mean it's improving the people who use it. If a student was required to sit down and write a letter on paper to her professor, they would probably take a lot more time with it and be more inclined to stick with the conventions of formal letter writing. Now, email is too conversational, and I feel that often times the email writers forget to think about who their audience is and then compose their emails accordingly.

Bolter and Grusin

This reading was a lot easier to understand than the last assigned reading. In this reading remediation was fleshed out even more as it related to Mediation. Understanding that all mediation is remediation and that no medium can function independently were important concepts.

Bolter and Grusin, 52-87

I also found the material covering "Remediation and Reform" to be revealing. The example that jumped to mind was the online newspaper.

Newspapers, facing declining circulation even before the ushering-in of the digital age, realized they'd be unable to avoid the remediation process, and started to learn about and create an online presence. Now, the grizzled newshound, perhaps a pure caricature of his stereotype, chomping on a cigar and with a press pass stuck into the band of his fedora, might well be -- and probably IS -- filing stories by e-mail, scanning PDFs and capturing audio or shooting video for a multimedia presentation of a story.

In fact, those are new aspects to a modern digital newspaper; a story might be supplemented by a hyperlink to a PDF of a police report, for example, and video is now no longer the purview of TV news, but a common component of newspapers, too. This also opens up the opportunity to sell full-on commercials to what had formerly been print-ad clients.

It is, indeed, a brand-new day in the field of journalism.

Literacy (1-34)

Sorry for doing the wrong assignment previously!

I thought Kress had some very interesting things to say. Much of what he touched on was incredibly philosophical in reference to language, speech, meaning, and an assortment of other things. There is one thing that I particularly want some clarification on. The passage on the bottom of 24 to the top of 25 says "The danger of... for it to exist." This passage is utterly confusing. He explains to the reader the myriad of applications that the term literacy can mean, but says that literacy should not go into these domains. Why not? If literacy is an all-encompassing term especially socially, economically, and politically, then why ask for its exclusion from certain social aspects of life?

Another interesting question that came up while I was reading this was if the author is claiming that image and text are the best form of mediation, then why is the author strictly adherring to the book form? He goes on and on about the decline of the book as the main form of receiving information, yet procedes to use the form anyways.

Another interesting aspect of Kress's chapter was his passage about returning to visuals. On page 7, he writes "It is possible to see writing once again moving back in the direction of visuality." This reminded me of cave paintings, or pictures that people used to use centuries ago because a majority could not read. I found it very thought provoking that it seems like we are moving BACK in history in regards to mediation.

Response 52-87

These two chapters were very confusing to me, but as I read on there were some points that stood out to me. Prior to reading this text I really could not even tell you what the words hypermediacy or immediacy meant. Botler and Grusin managed to put it into a little bit of perspective. I realize now that both are outlets of digital literacy that deal with the notion of reality. One deals with a perceived notion of reality and another deals with the concept of achieving reality. The chapter also helped me to get a better grasp on remediation. The first chapter served as more of an introduction and these following chapters made the definition a little clearer. Remediation ties in with the notion of reality through hypermediacy or immediacy. I was also drawn to the fact that it is referred to as being the inseparable link in between mediation and reality. I think after reading these chapters more ineptly a second time they will come in very useful in preparing the media outlets for our group project.