Brief: The New Media Embed Program Manual + Ubicomp
We will now embark on the last assignment of the semester:
During the next two weeks we will gather our knowledge and compose a collective manual for the New Media traveler. It will include some lessons you gathered both about your own travelogues and about others, browse your author pages to recap the semester and the three travelogues for that matter. Other notes and tips will be about your own ideas of how to publish, when to publish, how to compose a post, what will users read? what would they comment on? Does or how do rating works? How does chat works? How does it fail? The importance of context, image vs. video, on participation vs. authorship… Moreover, each one of you presented a reading in class, try to contribute your takes from that reading into the NMEP manual. We will try together to finish the class with the essence of what should an embedded reporter consider while exploring new media environments.
Reference: military journalism, travel guides, tutorials, cooking recipes…
Like many other things in this class, this is an experiment… It will become what you make of it, and it starts right now. Please point your browsers at http://www.mushon.com/spr08/nmrs/wiki/
Before you do anything, please log in and provide your real name (or something we can cross reference with the blog). Now you are welcomed to start editing.
You are welcomed to propose some structure on the wiki discussion pages, here on our blog, or on Max’s weird chat thingie…
Please make sure to each make at least 4 edits this week (from creation of full pages to typo corrections
Recommended Reading:
Required Reading:
Brian Holmes - Drifting Through the Grid: Psychogeography and Imperial Infrastructure
Required Viewing:
- Bruce Sterling’s presentation in the Innovation Forum:
Bruce Sterling from Innovationsforum on Vimeo.
For Patty & a volunteer:
- Read the two articles and watch the presentation
- Summarize it for us in a nicely accessible post to be published by Sunday (the 20th), ideally running some threads between them.
- Be prepared to present the article and lead the discussion in class
- Post to del.icio.us some links that expand the discussion either about the text or about key themes in it.
Brief: Interventions & Interfaces
Hi Class,
We discussed a bit of it today, but we’ll be diving deeper into interface next week with an article by… me. We will also make some more progress on the travelogue and start raising the pace of it towards its conclusion in three weeks.
The coming week is the intervention week, we want to get the full documentation of your action now:
- If you haven’t started your intervention, post about your plan, your objectives and your expectations.
- Try to document your intervention as much as you can. Use links, images, audio, video, screenshots, screencasts. This time, it’s not going meta on that other media environment. This time you’ll be documenting your own travel in the context of that environment–In that sense, you are stepping in front of the camera.
Recommended Reading:
- Mushon Zer-Aviv, “Interface as a Conflict of Ideologiesâ€
Required watching:
For Kati & Max:
- Read the article and watch the introduction
- Summarize it for us in a nicely accessible post to be published by Sunday (the 23rd), ideally running some threads between them.
- Be prepared to present the article and lead the discussion in class
- Post to del.icio.us some links that expand the discussion either about the text or about key themes in it.
Travelogue interventions through the brake & the Cult of Wikipedia
Hi Class,
Next week we’re braking but we’ll be back in two weeks with much more development on your travelogues and a serious critique of Wikipedia.
The main goal of your travelogues over these coming two weeks will be:
- Define the nature and social norms of the media environment you are traveling through
- Try to study and expose to us previous interventions in the environment, were they led by individuals? (Google Adwords Happening) by groups? (WoW Funeral Raid) or by those in control of the environment itself? (ebay’s change of terms)
- Try to asses what type of intervention would help you better understand the environment, or maybe even make that environment better understand itself. Maybe your experiment will even change the nature of the environment or disrupt it in an illuminating sense.
- Start your intervention, if it fits, let us know about it.
Recommended Reading:
- Jaron Lanier - Digital Maoism
Required reading / watching:
- Choose one of the responses to Jaron Lanier’s Digital Maoism
- Write your own response to the response
- Watch the very short film from (good old) Adam Curtis - The Rise and Fall of the TV Journalist
For Karina:
- Read the article and watch the short film
- Summarize it for us in a nicely accessible post to be published by Sunday (the 23rd), ideally running some threads between them.
- Be prepared to present the article and lead the discussion in class
- Post to del.icio.us some links that expand the discussion either about the text or about key themes in it.
Brief: Third Travelogue - first report
Hi Class,
I hope & believe my absence from today’s class has not stopped you from getting some ‘Free Culture’ today.
For next week I will be back with you in full force, charging directly into the third travelogue. What I want you to do for next week is the following:
- Present your new media environment destination through a post. Include your initial assumptions for the nature of this environment and its culture. Try to define what norms are officially or unofficially defined within this environment and what possible practices might be used to work with or against these practices to learn more about their nature.
- Comment on at least three posts. If you think your post is worth reading, rate it, if you think others are too, rate them too.
Recommended Reading:
- Commons-based Peer Production and Virtue* by Yochai Benkler * Helen Nissenbaum
- The Wealth of Networks - A presentation by Yochai Benkler.
Next Class discussion on CBPP will be lead by Ana & Jill which is required to:
- Read the article and watch the presentation
- Summarize it for us in a nicely accessible post to be published by Sunday, ideally running some threads between them.
- Be prepared to present the articles in class
- Post to del.icio.us some links that expand the discussion either about the text or about key themes in it.
Looking forward to seeing you next week and reading you through the week.
good luck!
Brief: Free Media, Free Class & the 2nd & 3rd travelogue
The Second Travelogue
As todays class was burned by ConEd (though 9 of us met and had a good class with some interesting discussion)
- For next week, finish your travelogue. If you are done, focus on the next one, if not, you have an opportunity to further investigate.
- Comment on and rate posts.
The Third Travelogue
while we’re still working on the 2nd, it’s time to start thinking of our 3rd travelogue.
This time we will go on a third travelogue and raise the ante one notch further. While the third travelogue will be similar in approach to the second one, this time you will do more than research, you will become involved, and to a large extent document your own actions within the media environment of your choice. Some of you have started your travelogue with a specific premise and have ended much further from there. This is a good process that we would like to see more in the upcoming travelogue. This time you will navigate your own path through this media environment, attempting through your action, to achieve insights otherwise unavailable to a passive outsider.
For next week:
- Choose a couple of options for a new media environment to explore through your third (more involved) travelogue. Post briefly about your ideas so we might help you decide.
* I permit working in pairs on this one, but this means the expectations from your shared travelogue will be twice as high as we would expect from you individually. - Post 3 comments (or more) to your fellow students posts.
Next Week’s Class - Free Class
Meaning - you are free from my presence but the class goes on as usual. The agenda for next week is:
- Required viewing: Lawrence Lessig’s “Free Culture†presentation
- Recommended reading: Lawrence Lessig’s “Free Culture†afterword (pp 273-306)
- Discussion of Steal This Film & Taking the You out of YouTube led by Gavriela and of Free Culture / Creative Commons reading / viewing led by Harold and Jakob.
- Selection of a default license to our blog based on discussion in class.
- The first introduction of your 2nd travelogues through the commentator > author procedure.
- Reading together of the brief for the following week which will be published on the blog
Some House Cleaning
- Go through your posts to the blog so far and make sure non of them is filed under the Uncatagorized category. Add tags to your posts for better archiving and make sure your contributions to the blog are satisfactory.
Brief: concluding the 2nd Travelogue
In next week we will conclude the journy we started two weeks ago, each of you with her own brave path through different media environments. We have started some very interesting journeys here, but there is still a long week ahead of us. This is what you should expect to achieve during this week:
By Friday Night:
- Post at least one report from your journey.
- Comments at least twice to other posts on the blog
By Monday Night (preferably earlier):
- Publish your concluding post and try to look back at your journey and the path you’ve gone through. Try to situate your experience within this media environment and ask some questions about its own culture.
- Post at least another two comments on other travelogues, mark posts with hearts, so we know what you guys want to talk about next week.
Required Viewing:
Recommended Reading:
- Jenkins, Henry “Taking the You Out of YouTube?â€
Gavriella:
- Read the article and watch the documentary
- Summarize it for us in a nicely accessible post to be published by Sunday, ideally running some threads between them.
- Be prepared to present the articles in class
- Post to del.icio.us some links that expand the discussion either about the text or about key themes in it.
- Enjoy.
Brief: Travelers Log #2 - Feb19th
I have decided to change the rules of the game but keep the main principle the same. For now lets put the two groups idea aside and try to all manage our group attention. For next week you are all getting the same assignment and as a group we will try to decide together which posts to discuss. The new rating module I added might help us (and it might as well stand in our way, we’ll have to see).
Anyway…
- During this week post at least once to the blog reporting from the new media environment you have embedded yourself in. Please be sure to format your posts in a way that would make it accessible to scan through before reading or would make it inviting enough for the rest of the students to read and hopefully comment. Use images, titles, block-quotes, links, video embeds, audio or whatever you think might make your post more appealing to read and provoking to discuss. Foster the discussion on your post and try to learn from it. These post should be mainly reporting on your experience from within the environment you chose. No conclusions are necessary yet.
- Comment on at least 3 times posts (at least).
* You are welcomed to post and comment whenever, it will be up to your strategic decision, depending on your reading of the blog’s dynamics (with the obvious goal of having your posts and comments contribute to a live discussion on the blog and in class)
Recommended Reading for next week:
- Clay Shirkey: “A Group is it’s Own Worst Enemy“
- Dana Boyd: “Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?†(available as audio as well on the same link)
Doron & Eric:
- Read the three articles
- Summarize it for us in a nicely accessible post to be published by Sunday, ideally running some threads between them.
- Be prepared to present the articles in class
- Post to del.icio.us some links that expand the discussion either about the text or about key themes in it.
- Enjoy.
Brief: New Media Traveler’s Log (2)
For next week:
- Come up with a subject for your second log, the first chapter in MCC’s Media embed program or The New Media Traveler’s Log.
- This time you will embed yourself as an agent in a media environment you are familiar with. It can be a web service you use, a cellphone application, a media phenomena you are familiar with (telephony hacking, or Google Bombing for example), a social networking site, a media art movement, a mailing list, an audiovisual music scene you’re involved with, whatever, in or out of the web.
- You will develop a networked research, consisting of a thread running through different parts of your chosen environment. You will have to develop your own process of travel and navigation on one hand and log and report on the other.
- We will continue with the process of reports & comments (group1/group2)
- You are getting an open ticket with a know first stop, and a known return address (grp1: Feb 19th, grp2 Feb: 26th)
- For next week we will just write one short post introducing your desired ‘travel destination’. You will present it by yourself, you are encouraged to comment on one another.
- Feel free to explore and surprise yourselves.
- Check my email exchange with Stephanie for more clarification.
- Post a short (~2 paragraphs) description of your chosen topic (no need to comment, but feel free to feedback on each other’s posts)
- Follow the rules for the class challenge - A week without Google
- Suggested reading:
Alexandro Ludovico, “Interview with Christophe Brunoâ€, Neural Magazine
Cory Doctorow “Scroogled”
Tom Owad “Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists†- David:
- Read the three articles
- Summarize it for us in a nicely accessible post to be published by Sunday, ideally running some threads between them.
- Be prepared to present the articles in class
- Post to del.icio.us some links that expand the discussion either about the text or about key themes in it.
- Enjoy.
Remember! You’re not allowed to Google it!
Assignments for Jan 5th
Great, nice work on the trap. Next week:
- Group 2: continue your journal, and go further into the web, expanding the media environment around ‘The Trap’.
- Group 1: feel free to continue your journal beyond the first week and be sure to follow group 2 as you will need to comment on their writing by Monday and present it in class next week.
- All: post to our del.icio.us tag some references that expand the discussion about the trap in the context of new media.
- Recommended reading for next week: Anna Notaro, “The Lo(n)g Revolution: The Blogosphere as an Alternative Public Sphere?â€`
- Ashely & Sheila:
- Read Anna Notero’s text
- summarize it for us in a nicely accessible post to be published by Sunday
- be prepared to present the article in class
- Post to del.icio.us some links that expand the discussion either about the text or about key themes in it.
- Enjoy.
See you all next week.
cheers,
Mushon
Assignments for Jan 29th
Next week we will start our first NMRS journal series. Please follow these instructions:
- Watch Adam Curtis’s The Trap: What Happened To Our Dream Of Freedom
- Each choose 1 topic that stood out, intrigued , irritated, disturbed or made you tick in any way and try to discover the discourse around it through research.
- Individual members of Group 1 - Post at least two posts to the class blog before the end of Sunday. Make sure to include references and links where needed and to expose the discussion in n enticing post that would make the members of Group 2 interested enough to discuss it.
- Individual members of Group 2 - Your assignment will be broken to three parts:
- Choose two of the journals published by the other group’s members and comment on them using the blog’s commenting interface.
- Post at least least one post to the class blog before next week’s class. Make sure to include references and links where needed and to expose the discussion in n enticing post that would make the members of the other group interested enough to discuss it in the following week.
- Be prepared to present the posts you chose to react to next week to the class. Yes, the students presenting the journals will not be the ones who wrote it.
- For all the class - Write a short post about how do you see the relevancy of the trap to the new media discourse.
