"'Blogs bring on decay. Each new blog is supposed to add to the fall of the media system that once dominated the twentieth century' Do you think that this is a true statement, that blogs have contributed to the erosion of mass media or are they the second step in the progression of mass media in people's lives?"
This is the question I focused on predominantly in my first blog post, but I'd like to elaborate on this point...I think blogs definitely are bringing on decay as far as the fall of the media system that dominated the twentieth century goes. Throughout the twentieth century people relying heavily if not solely upon print media sources as well as radio and television to receive news and now as people look to the internet to see what's happening around the world and get their news faster, we are seeing newspapers and other print mediums take a dive.
However, I also feel that they are also considered the second step in the progession of mass media in people's lives. Blogs give people the chance to be citizen journalists and to post their opinions on news and broadcast it to thousands or millions of people. While I believe this is a great thing, I also think it's sad that print media is dying out because of it and I feel that people can't completely turn to blogs to receive news, they are simply a supplement to online news media sources since blogs have no journalistic standards to uphold.
As far as Facebook and Twitter go, they also provide citizen journalists an outlet to broadcast to other users news and opinions, though just as a blog, they cannot always be trusted. A lot of journalists I know are utilizing tools like Twitter and Facebook to find story ideas, and to post links to relevant news stories or their own stories. I think that once you realize what a great tool Facebook or Twitter can be and learn how to use it to fully benefit the sending the receiving of news, it's great.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Blogging
Thank God blogs are "more precisely described as 'feedback channels'" rather than alternatives to mainstream media. I am majoring in communication with a journalism concentration and am not as up to date on the internet media phenomenon as I should be. I'm kind of old-fashioned when it comes to "new media," in that I'd rather just work for print journalism, going out writing stories and not have to deal with all the new ways of getting news out via blogs, Web sites, etc. Unfortunately I definitely need to.
Citizen journalism is great, but I definitely agree it is more feedback than anything else, especially since bloggers don't have to deal with things like censorship and repression, there is still a place for legit journalists to create and post information online in the typical article format with all the facts.
I slightly disagree however with the statement that newspapers and radio stations have failed to integrate open, interactive messages from their constituencies. Most radio stations and newspapers have online sites where readers are invited to post comments, links, etc. While this is usually completed one-sided I think that newspapers and radio stations have attempted to facilitate messages from their readers, bloggers just take it one step further.
While I am torn over the issues with blogs and internet media and how they relate to journalism, I definitely do love blogs. I constantly find myself checking up on Perezhilton.com, fmylife and other funny blog sites where blog entries are "hastily written personal musings, sculptured around a link or event."
Citizen journalism is great, but I definitely agree it is more feedback than anything else, especially since bloggers don't have to deal with things like censorship and repression, there is still a place for legit journalists to create and post information online in the typical article format with all the facts.
I slightly disagree however with the statement that newspapers and radio stations have failed to integrate open, interactive messages from their constituencies. Most radio stations and newspapers have online sites where readers are invited to post comments, links, etc. While this is usually completed one-sided I think that newspapers and radio stations have attempted to facilitate messages from their readers, bloggers just take it one step further.
While I am torn over the issues with blogs and internet media and how they relate to journalism, I definitely do love blogs. I constantly find myself checking up on Perezhilton.com, fmylife and other funny blog sites where blog entries are "hastily written personal musings, sculptured around a link or event."
Monday, April 20, 2009
Technotext
http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/poundstone__project_for_tachistoscope_bottomless_pit/Tachistoscope.html
William Poundstone’s “Project for Tachistoscope (Bottomless Pit)” is a great example of technotext. Single words are flashed to readers in a subliminal way with pictures depicting the words behind them. According to the site, “Poundstone's project also opens a quiet assault of, and perhaps on, icons. Engineered to make subliminal statements and incorporating effective sound, this piece also makes the reader highly conscious of how texts and images are read together and how a reader's attention is parceled out in time-based media.” The words keep coming at you and looping back around to start over again in a different place.
William Poundstone’s “Project for Tachistoscope (Bottomless Pit)” is a great example of technotext. Single words are flashed to readers in a subliminal way with pictures depicting the words behind them. According to the site, “Poundstone's project also opens a quiet assault of, and perhaps on, icons. Engineered to make subliminal statements and incorporating effective sound, this piece also makes the reader highly conscious of how texts and images are read together and how a reader's attention is parceled out in time-based media.” The words keep coming at you and looping back around to start over again in a different place.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Book Arts
I didn't know that book arts were so philosophical and complicated. For something to be considered book art, does the artist have to do everything involved in making the book, i.e. binding, printing, etc.? Are book arts a form of uncreative writing? What is a book? When does a book stop being a book and become something else, like a sculpture? I think book arts and uncreative writing go hand in hand and that there are strong arguments on both sides if book arts are or are not a form of creative or uncreative writing.
I enjoyed reading Johanna Drucker's book about artist's books, it introduced me to a lot of questions that I never would have asked about artist's books if I hadn't read it. I think that book arts, just like a dance performance that uses somebody else's music is considered creative and not uncreative writing. By altering a book's appearance I feel you are making something entirely new and drawing inspiration from already existing texts to create your own piece of work--which is why at times, I got a little bored with Drucker's really in depth questions about the technicalities of what consitutes a book and if book arts are in fact art.
This week, for our group presentation I had a blast making humuments. While I do think that altered books are a form of creative art, I can see the argument for why something like a humument or a book art that uses somebody else's words could cross the line into uncreative writing. Even so, the words are rearranged in a different way to create new thoughts and ideas, which technically is what authors do when creating books. The words don't belong to anybody, and using them in the same space that they are already in, though picking and choosing which to use is a form of creative expression.
I enjoyed reading Johanna Drucker's book about artist's books, it introduced me to a lot of questions that I never would have asked about artist's books if I hadn't read it. I think that book arts, just like a dance performance that uses somebody else's music is considered creative and not uncreative writing. By altering a book's appearance I feel you are making something entirely new and drawing inspiration from already existing texts to create your own piece of work--which is why at times, I got a little bored with Drucker's really in depth questions about the technicalities of what consitutes a book and if book arts are in fact art.
This week, for our group presentation I had a blast making humuments. While I do think that altered books are a form of creative art, I can see the argument for why something like a humument or a book art that uses somebody else's words could cross the line into uncreative writing. Even so, the words are rearranged in a different way to create new thoughts and ideas, which technically is what authors do when creating books. The words don't belong to anybody, and using them in the same space that they are already in, though picking and choosing which to use is a form of creative expression.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Uncreative Freewrite
"Basically, his[Kenny G's] premise is that the author is dead, originality is dead, and all that authors can do now is rearrange texts that have already been written."
This is my main problem with Kenneth Goldsmith's logic behind uncreative writing. While I will agree that originality is pretty much dead, the way to remedy the repetition we see in movies, music and writing today is not to just stop trying. That is a surefire way to make sure that from here on out no more creative and original works of writing are ever made. I understand Goldsmith's frustration, watching a movie with a premise about another coming of age love story or another Halloween remake can be exhausting, and perhaps the problem with the writers of those works is that they have given up, which is exactly what Goldsmith wants them to do. It seems that the opposite of what Goldsmith says would be true: if we just keep rearranging texts, it is naturally going to be uncreative because somebody else has written it, whereas if writers keep striving to come up with a new story, plot twist and characters there is at least a chance for something positive to come out of it. We all know that the act of writing has changed dramatically from the time of Shakespeare, but that doesn't mean that writing is dead. Societal changes overtime are enough to create new ideas and space for new writing so to give up on it would ruin any chance to document current history through writing. While it's hard to find a new plot when so many have been written, other aspects of writing have improved; technology has improved the way we print, read and receive books and as long as authors at least attempt to be creative, not everything that comes out of it can be bad.
This is my main problem with Kenneth Goldsmith's logic behind uncreative writing. While I will agree that originality is pretty much dead, the way to remedy the repetition we see in movies, music and writing today is not to just stop trying. That is a surefire way to make sure that from here on out no more creative and original works of writing are ever made. I understand Goldsmith's frustration, watching a movie with a premise about another coming of age love story or another Halloween remake can be exhausting, and perhaps the problem with the writers of those works is that they have given up, which is exactly what Goldsmith wants them to do. It seems that the opposite of what Goldsmith says would be true: if we just keep rearranging texts, it is naturally going to be uncreative because somebody else has written it, whereas if writers keep striving to come up with a new story, plot twist and characters there is at least a chance for something positive to come out of it. We all know that the act of writing has changed dramatically from the time of Shakespeare, but that doesn't mean that writing is dead. Societal changes overtime are enough to create new ideas and space for new writing so to give up on it would ruin any chance to document current history through writing. While it's hard to find a new plot when so many have been written, other aspects of writing have improved; technology has improved the way we print, read and receive books and as long as authors at least attempt to be creative, not everything that comes out of it can be bad.
Uncreative Writing
One quote that was most interesting to me from this week's readings was in "Petty Theft" when Kenneth Goldsmith answered the question "what's wrong with creativity?"
Goldsmith says that "Creativity as we've come to know it is bankrupt. What passes for creativity in our culture is actually vastly uncreative. Think of the flood of worn-out narratives, passing for originality, be it novels, films or music, and you'll find that what we term creative is nothing more than repetitious formulas, spun over and over. Should something appear that's truly "creative" it doesn't stand a chance of selling and as such, is rendered culturally insignificant and marginalized to the point of invisibility. By opposing creativity as commonly accepted -- in a sense by constructing a negative notion of creativity -- perhaps we can breathe new life into this practice. Hence, my concept of the uncreative."
I get what Goldsmith is trying to do with uncreative writing and I agree that often times the writing, films and music we see and hear today are made from repetitious formulas, but to me this is no reason to turn to the uncreative. Goldsmith says we need to not try as hard to be creative since our own voice shows up in what we write inevitably. It seems Goldsmith has seen other things which he has deemed original and creative go unappreciated by the general public so his philosophy is to stop trying. It's a great way to get people to notice what message you're trying to get across, but if everybody followed Goldsmith's theory, all creative endeavors would be forever doomed. If we simply stop trying to be creative all togehter there will never be an original work again, rather than there being a handful of good original creations in a sea of unoriginal repeats. It seems downright pessimistic.
Goldsmith says that "Creativity as we've come to know it is bankrupt. What passes for creativity in our culture is actually vastly uncreative. Think of the flood of worn-out narratives, passing for originality, be it novels, films or music, and you'll find that what we term creative is nothing more than repetitious formulas, spun over and over. Should something appear that's truly "creative" it doesn't stand a chance of selling and as such, is rendered culturally insignificant and marginalized to the point of invisibility. By opposing creativity as commonly accepted -- in a sense by constructing a negative notion of creativity -- perhaps we can breathe new life into this practice. Hence, my concept of the uncreative."
I get what Goldsmith is trying to do with uncreative writing and I agree that often times the writing, films and music we see and hear today are made from repetitious formulas, but to me this is no reason to turn to the uncreative. Goldsmith says we need to not try as hard to be creative since our own voice shows up in what we write inevitably. It seems Goldsmith has seen other things which he has deemed original and creative go unappreciated by the general public so his philosophy is to stop trying. It's a great way to get people to notice what message you're trying to get across, but if everybody followed Goldsmith's theory, all creative endeavors would be forever doomed. If we simply stop trying to be creative all togehter there will never be an original work again, rather than there being a handful of good original creations in a sea of unoriginal repeats. It seems downright pessimistic.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Mobile Writing
Generally texting and talking on Twitter, Facebook or via instant message is very limiting. There have been countless times that meanings have gotten lost in translation causing me to come off like a complete jerk since when texting you lose all the important parts of a conversation that you get face to face--nonverbal cues like facial expressions, body language, tone, etc. So, to me, it's sad that the internet is becoming the chief mode of communication between people. It is also disappointing that more and more young people are employing acronyms and abbreviations for words, which generally also dumbs down communication. Sometimes, holding a conversation over text or IM is necessary, but other times I get really frustrated when people can't just pick up the phone and call me. At least over the phone, tone isn't lost or misunderstood, though it seems texting culture has even seeped into the way we talk.
Numerous times I have heard people add acronyms into conversations where they just flat out don't make sense. Acronyms like BTW, LOL and TTYL are everywhere in speech, which is a signal to me that we've just gotten plain old lazy. When we have to use an abbreviation to avoid saying two more syllables, something is a little off. And using LOL in conversation makes zero sense. If you're laughing out loud, then you would be doing it, not saying "LOL."
I don't have any actual facts about how chat terms have dumbed down society, but I can bet that younger generations that have grown up in this texting culture, have started to transfer Web lingo to things like papers and assignments. I can't imagine that learning how to text and shorten everything has actually benefited the way young people write or communicate.
Numerous times I have heard people add acronyms into conversations where they just flat out don't make sense. Acronyms like BTW, LOL and TTYL are everywhere in speech, which is a signal to me that we've just gotten plain old lazy. When we have to use an abbreviation to avoid saying two more syllables, something is a little off. And using LOL in conversation makes zero sense. If you're laughing out loud, then you would be doing it, not saying "LOL."
I don't have any actual facts about how chat terms have dumbed down society, but I can bet that younger generations that have grown up in this texting culture, have started to transfer Web lingo to things like papers and assignments. I can't imagine that learning how to text and shorten everything has actually benefited the way young people write or communicate.
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