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Location: Question Formation and Analysis 7
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| Olympiakos | Questions | 1 | Mar 26 2008, 2:36 PM EDT by Olympiakos | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 26 2008, 2:34 PM EDT
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1.While Turner was mentioning “universal rhetorical loops” as well as networked learning systems, I immediately reminded myself a rather new “genre” of interdisciplinary scholarship. Last January, for example, some academics from diverse disciplines met to collectively study a show (fortieth annual Consumer Electronics Show which took place in Las Vegas) using a methodological style called “Swarm.” The concept behind “Swarm” was that events such as the CES could be studied by different scholars who, then, would combine their accounts toward a collective analysis. How much of those attempts are “the future,” and how much do they owe to the blending of cyberculture with counterculture would potentially suggest an interesting issue to pursue.
2. I would have to admit that I still tend to relate ethos with charisma. I wonder though how much of an “intellectual determinist” does this make me. I am not saying that if it weren’t for Brandt nothing of all this would have happened; rather I am expressing a concern on the circumstance that we crudely label as “the right man at the right time and the right place” (small wonder it is “man” and not “woman”.
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| jcover | Naming the Hacker | 2 | Mar 26 2008, 2:13 PM EDT by amyr6531 | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 24 2008, 11:23 AM EDT
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Turner quotes Brand who states that "when computers become available to everybody, the hackers take over" (117). When Felsenstein says "Don't avoid the word Hackers, Don't let somebody else define you," I thought of Bulter's concept in Excitable Speech of naming and the injury that it does. To what extent does naming oneself as a hacker resignify the term?
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| KaraLa | Attempts to Legitimate Work | 2 | Mar 25 2008, 1:07 PM EDT by aspatriarca | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 24 2008, 10:59 AM EDT
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On pp. 112-114, Turner notes that early network visionaries at PARC and other computer laboratories saw the Whole Earth Catalog as a “legitimator of their own work” (112). Ideologically, is it wise to attempt to legitimate one’s own work so early on in the development process? Does this act result, necessarily, in positive or negative outcomes? Why? Is the attempt to legitimize one’s work a natural tendency among scientists and scholars? Can individuals escape this tendency?
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| Megfish | Free Access? | 1 | Mar 25 2008, 11:50 AM EDT by grete | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 24 2008, 2:22 PM EDT
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On 112, Turner quotes Kay as saying, “we thought of the Whole Earth Catalog as a print version of what the internet was going to be.” Later Turner reemphasizes that the content of the catalog had already been browsed and selected (i.e. selectively chosen) by Brand. How might this idea of selective access inform Kay’s understanding of the future internet?
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| gogan | Captions and Plate 15 | 0 | Mar 24 2008, 2:15 PM EDT by gogan | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 24 2008, 2:15 PM EDT
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Plate 15—a 1994 image from Wired magazine—functions as a visual citation. In “Rhetoric of the Image,” Roland Barthes describes the concept of anchorage as the ability of words to hold “the connoted meanings from proliferating” (39). In other words, captions anchor the meaning of an image. In plate 15, we are given captions such as “a musician an pioneer of the virtual reality industry” and “one of the few futurists who saw the feminist revolution coming” (plate 15). How do these captions work with or against the images presented in plate 15? How do these captions function with regards to the caption that Turner provides us with?
Barthes, Roland “Rhetoric of the Image.” Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. 32-51. |
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| gogan | Print & Cyber Texts | 0 | Mar 24 2008, 2:14 PM EDT by gogan | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 24 2008, 2:14 PM EDT
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Turner spends a significant amount of time describing various publications in chapter four. For instance, we receive a description of the People’s Computer Company which was “[l]aid-out in blocky letterpress text and ilustrated with neo-Victorian borders and funky line drawings” (113). Turner even compares the PCC to “an underground newspaper” (114). Similarly, Turner notes that the quality of paper on which the Whole Earth Software Catalog was to be printed would depart from the type of paper on which the Whole Earth Catalog was printed (130-1). How do does Turner describe the relationship between printed texts and cyber texts? What is the rhetorical significance of such a description? How would you describe the relationship between printed texts and cyber texts?
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| gogan | Metaphor | 0 | Mar 24 2008, 2:14 PM EDT by gogan | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 24 2008, 2:14 PM EDT
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On page 121, Turner notes that Brand’s metaphor relating ecological theory to cybernetics “depended not so much on Brand’s reading of contemporary biology as it did on his reading of the mystical cybernetics of a former anthropologist, psychiatrist, and biological researcher, Gregory Bateson.” Turner, himself, appropriates this metaphor in his own prose, referring, for instance, to “a system that would use cybernetic processes of communication and control to facilitate not only better office communication, but even the evolution of human beings” (108). A few weeks ago, Bateson’s daughter the linguist Mary Catherine Bateson spoke at the GLC and even referenced her parents’ involvement with cybernetics. In “We Are Our Own Metaphor,” Mary Catherine Bateson claims that “[a] metaphor can obscure as well as reveal” (229). What information is obscured and what information is revealed by Brand’s use of Gregory Bateson’s ecological metaphor?
Bateson, Mary Catherine. “We Are Our Own Metaphor.” Critical Literacies. Ed. Krista Ratcliffe. Boston: Pearson, 2006. 229-232. |
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| mvbutera | Transferring Ethos | 0 | Mar 24 2008, 1:45 PM EDT by mvbutera | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 24 2008, 1:45 PM EDT
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Referring to the Farm, "its ethos of disembodied community found a home on the WELL" (pg. 147). Is this rhetorical transference justified? In the title and throughout the text, Turner grounds his analysis on this transition. He does this through personal interviews, material data, and theoretical continuations (references to Bateson, ex. pg. 160). Perhaps this is a question for the end of the book: what does this connection between seemingly disparate subcultures accomplish? Who does it privilege, and what does it enable (theoretically, practically, rhetorically....)?
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| mvbutera | paradox? | 0 | Mar 24 2008, 1:33 PM EDT by mvbutera | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 24 2008, 1:33 PM EDT
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On pg. 145, Turner directly states that the non-hierarchical community form is combined with cybernetic visions to produce a "technocentric form of management." How much is Turner following the explicit statements of the individuals that he profiles, and how much is he adding narrative continuity to his story? Also, it seems that there is an inherent contradiction here in allowing these two sentiments to combine in one form, that of the online space, unless each is reconceived. Is it possible to realize non-hierarchy through technological coding of space? Does this really escape the bureaucratic structures, or does it put participants under even more hegemonic control?
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| jcover | Commodity and Consumers | 0 | Mar 24 2008, 11:19 AM EDT by jcover | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 24 2008, 11:19 AM EDT
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One of the users of WELL is quoted as saying, "I created my interior thoughts as a means of production for the corporation that owned the board I was posting to, and that commodity was being sold to other commodity/consumer entities as entertainment" (qtd. 155). This reminded me of Siva's idea of "googalization" and that companies construct us as the commodity in digital environments. To what extent do you see this as a shift in the consumer/company relationship and is that shift necessarily tied only to digital environments?
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| jcover | Ethos | 0 | Mar 24 2008, 11:15 AM EDT by jcover | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 24 2008, 11:15 AM EDT
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Turner talks about the "ethos of personalness" (105) that was an important shift toward computers meant for individual use, but he also talks about the "ethos of information sharing" (106) and the significance of computers as a means of networking. He also states that Brand helped both imagine this as a "personal technology" (118) and helped make the connections between this and "The Whole Earth Catalog." So, do these two different ethos act in concert or are they at odds? How does this fit into the distinction between the private and the personal sphere that seems to be complicated by digital environments?
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| KaraLa | Trickle-Down Information Access | 0 | Mar 24 2008, 10:59 AM EDT by KaraLa | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 24 2008, 10:59 AM EDT
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On page 108, Turner notes that “Like the Memex, [the NLS] terminal served as a tool that would allow the person it served to call up and manage information. Beyond that, it would recursively leverage the knowledge of other workers in the system. In Engelbart’s view, each individual’s comprehension would be increased by the participation of others through a process of collective feedback facilitated by the computer”. Englebart’s schema for information dissemination seems to adopt a trickle-down approach. Has the system functioned as Englebart envisioned, both upon implementation and over the long term? How? If the system has failed—or functioned in an alternative way—what might be a more accurate description of technology-based information dissemination? Does Turner offer a description of what this alternate model might entail? Where else can we find evidence of an alternate model?
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| KaraLa | Evolution of Terminology: "Hacker" and "Planner" | 0 | Mar 24 2008, 10:57 AM EDT by KaraLa | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 24 2008, 10:57 AM EDT
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Turner offers an account of the evolution of the terms “hacker” and “planner” as used within computer networking circles. Divergent definitions are offered on pages 117 and later, from pages 128 to 140. How might early networking nomenclature have influenced the behavior, self-identification, and outward representation of these groups? Can the use of such terms account for any distrust and tension between and within groups? How do we use both “planner” and “hacker” within general and computer-related conversations today? Are modern definitions representative of early definitions? How or how not?
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| KaraLa | Networking & Alternate Histories | 0 | Mar 24 2008, 10:56 AM EDT by KaraLa | ||||
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Thread started: Mar 24 2008, 10:56 AM EDT
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Turner attributes the development of computer and networking technology directly to countercultural “hippies” of the 1960s. “ ‘…The real legacy of the sixties generation is the computer revolution.’ According to Brand, and to popular legend then and since, Bay area computer programmers had imbibed the countercultural ideals of decentralization and personalization, along with a keen sense of information transformative potential, and had built those into a new kind of machine” (Turner 103). Yet we must acknowledge that correlation of socio-historical events and technological advances does not necessitate causation. What other histories—though ignored by Turner or Brand—exist that might explain the type of technological developments outlined in the text? What other socio-historical events have influenced belief systems or networking attempts? How can we, as (somewhat) objective outsiders determine the accuracy and influence of each history or socio-historical force?
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