Databases in new media

Nearing the pointy end of the course I suppose it’s only to be expected that the readings begin to tackle more complex aspects of networked media. This half-week’s readings by Lev Manovich and Bill Seaman taken from a 2007 text on Database Aesthetics, approach databases in ways I’d probably never have considered without their prompting.

Manovich’s ‘Database As A Symbolic Form’ discusses the place of databases in new media, in juxtaposition with the role of narrative in cinema. Manovich writes that the user’s experience of new media databases is basic:

‘a collection of items on which the user can perform various operations: view navigate, and search’ p. 39

New media objects are a collection of individual items (or terms) of equal significance. Examples of database presentations in new media may take the form of multimedia encyclopaedias, collections of recipes, photos or quotes, or multimedia works of cultural content such as virtual museums where the user can access, browse and click through items under different categories such as works by a particular artist, from a designated country, or perhaps chronologically.

I found a pleasing link between this illustration of databases in new media, and the Pinterest niki project we’ve just completed. Pinterest is, in my understanding, a near perfect depiction of the new media database phenomenon. Choose a category, scroll through selected pins and re-pin those you choose into self-designated groups or themes.

Manovich confirms the database structure as being central to new media and the internet age:

‘As defined by original HTML, a Web page is a sequential list of separate elements: text blocks, images, digital video clips and links to other pages.’ p. 41

Fundamentally, what the database form presents the user with is choice. Websites are ever-growing, are continually open for editing with additions possible at any stage of its existence. Consider Wikipedia, for example. Even disregarding that it’s primary function is that of an encyclopaedia, it is one of the most accurate, up to date sources of factual information because it is so alive. As soon as one of its entrants is pronounced dead, Wikipedia will have it covered. Any major world event will be documented, checked, corrected and updated all in realtime. Manovich says this contributes to the ‘anti narrative logic of the Web’ (p. 41), because

‘If new elements are being added over time, the result is a collection, not a story.’ p. 41

Subsequently, new media generally don’t present with the narrative arc so central to more traditional media. Databases are disorderly, fragmented by design. In contrast, narratives are linear and have a cause and effect trajectory.

To extrapolate on this binary, consider the design of any website.

After typing in a URL or obtaining the address via the most basic database structure, a search engine, you arrive at a home page. Presented with categorical choices, you click on the link most likely to direct you to the content you seek. Alternately, if the website’s creator thinks their database is suitably large, you may have the option of conducting an internal search of the site, to locate your information without sifting through a plethora of categories with multiple branches, and sub-branches within. This function acts as an index does, essentially providing you with a ‘page number’ on which you’ll find the desired result.

I suspect the ways in which this functions differently to a traditional narrative structure requires no further explanation.

However, Manovich notes that ‘not all new media objects are explicitly databases’ (p. 41). Computer games are experienced as narratives, with cause and effect rhythms and usually a conclusive end point. Yet the way the game is designed is around ‘hidden logic[s]’ (p. 41) – algorithms – which the player then executes to win the game. Consequently, each decision the player makes opens up the subsequent layer of relative choices, and the next and the next, which suggests a database structure rather than that of a pre-constructed narrative.

Considering websites as databases enabled me to connect this half-week’s content to prior class symposiums and readings on hypertexts and networked science. Each idea reinforces we are all a sum of our parts and it is the ways in which we link these separates together that equips us to function as we are.

Facebook morale

Facebook is celebrating its 10th birthday today amidst speculation of an impending decline. But the behemoth of social networks is showing no signs of flailing just yet.

Facebook is one of the first things we check in the mornings and the last, before we go to sleep.

Whether its FOMO, addition or just habit, Facebook has become a stalwart pal for about one sixth of the world’s population, a staggering ‘citizenship’ which could surpass the number of people living in China, the world’s most populous nation, within the next year.

It seems the way people use Facebook is dependent on whether (or not) they grew up with the network. As Seth Fiegerman writes, ‘Facebook’s users seem to be divided into two groups: younger users who are forever connected to people from the past, and older users who are given a powerful tool to reconnect with those they’ve long since lost touch with’.

Having signed up to Facebook at the beginning of 2008, I wasn’t one of the first to jump on the bandwagon. But I did have an account before many of my friends, albeit one I saw as the inferior little sister to my, at the time, beloved Myspace. I actually got a Facebook account to keep in touch with new friends from interstate. Either myself or members of the Sydney clan had to make a move to the dark side (Facebook and Myspace, respectively), and I ended up caving to what I thought was the short straw. About a year later, Myspace became effectively defunct and I found myself pretty proud of my already established Facebook backlog and network.

Nevertheless, I still latched onto Facebook as a way of remaining connected, rather than reigniting long lost friendships from my single digit days. Simultaneously, my peers began to use Facebook as their primary social network, to the point where I’m now connected to hundreds and hundreds of ‘friends’ some of which I’ve either met only once, or haven’t spoken to directly in years. However, every now and then someone I might classify as ‘random’ (a word my mum thinks is ‘soooo Gen Y’) pops up on my newsfeed and I’m kindly reminded of their existence in the world, if not in my life as such.

At the moment, I’m still pretty dependent on Facebook to do what it does best and give me updates and a realtime tracker of what my friends and ‘friends’ are doing with their lives. Ironically, Facebook really shows just how much we’re not doing because we’re too busy updating our online presence through status’, photos and ‘checking in’ to places where we want to be (virtually) seen.

I am not out to diss Facebook. As I said, I’m still thoroughly engaged with, and through, the network to people I’d otherwise have lost contact with. Despite only being a few years out of school, there are so many people I’d have called close friends that I now, rarely see or even speak to. Facebook provides me with that virtual and emotional link to classmates with whom I spent weeks and years, side by side. Someone’s got a new boyfriend, someone else is on exchange, one girl is living abroad and another just qualified as a professional nurse and has already landed the job of her dreams.

When people announce exciting (or even terribly tragic) events on Facebook, there is an almost resurgence and instantaneous spill of camaraderie for those involved. It’s pretty amazing how quickly people come together for someone in need, or to celebrate and congratulate a new couple, job or marriage.

But Facebook also perpetuates a continuous disease of comparison between both strangers and friends. If the aforementioned friend got ‘the’ job while you lucked out, you might feel down. You see a group of old friends catching up without you and checking in somewhere for drinks, and now not only you know you’ve been sidelined, but everybody else in their network does, too.

And social networking is, ironically, incredibly self-centred. While each network proclaims to be about connecting people, they’re all centred around individual users creating a ‘profile’ through which they will portray themselves to the world. Yet whether by intuition, self-protection or devious scheming, what and how we choose to display ourselves online is overwhelmingly self-selected – and if it’s not, you can untag yourself or remove yourself from the group with the click of a button.

So people are choosing profile pictures where they’re pleased with their appearance. They’re checking in only at the places/with people with whom they want to be seen. They’re selectively creating a virtual profile of themselves filled with all the good bits, and only minimal (if any at all) aspects of their vulnerabilities. And as Brené Brown teaches us, there is so much power in vulnerability.

But with over 1.23 billion users worldwide, Facebook is clearly doing something right. The network also hosts thousands of support groups, allows for easy sharing of digital content, and makes inviting friends to your birthday soiree so much easier. Of course, sometimes you’re drowning in events from promoters or can’t see anything on your newsfeed other than bloody memes or videos of friends nek nominating each other, but being so privy at least means you’re kept in the loop… at all times… whether you like it or not.

I suppose what it all comes down to is the power of social networking in creating, building and maintaining relationships between individuals and groups across the globe. In the words of TheFacebook’s multibillionaire founder, Mark Zuckerberg, ‘It’s been amazing to see how people have used Facebook to build a real community and help each other in so many ways’.

Only time will tell if the network survives its terrible teens. Always reinventing itself, Facebook continues to keep up with if not, lead, the Joneses so if it continues to dominate global connectivity into the 2020s, here’s hoping we’re all still interested in those self-appointed popular girls from high school because, who knows? Maybe we’ll even see them settle down some day.

Beyond heritage media

In this week’s symposium, our tutor referred to ‘traditional media’ as ‘heritage media’.

I’d never heard the term used in this context and it really stood out as something quite shocking. As I’ve mentioned time and time again, I’m a print girl, true and through. I read books, tangible newspapers and magazines in hand as much as possible. But I’m also a constant consumer of news and other texts online and via my phone.

We discussed the conservative argument for free market economics which might say heritage media has an inherent ‘checks and balance’ system for quality. Theoretically, this would ensure the ‘best’ stories would go to print or air. Yet what tends to happen reflects more of a populist approach as, largely, it is the content deemed to appeal to the masses that is published and produced.

Online there is (infinite) space for diversity of content, opinion, language, perspective and debate. By coincidence, in my webscrawling today I came across a 2006 publication of Harvard Law professor, Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom.

As a side note – I love that as I’ve started formally studying more topics or subjects I am genuinely interested in, the time I spend online for pleasure is actually resonating with that guided learning.

Benkler’s work is one such example. He discusses how the internet has restructured public discourse, giving individuals greater freedom and autonomy, encouraging participation, engagement as a scale-free network. He suggests the internet provides ‘avenues of discourse around the bottle-necks of older media, whether these are held by authoritarian governments or by media owners’ (p. 271). This point is particularly pertinent in light of Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the Coalition’s latest tirade against (or ‘efficiency review’ of) the ABC and SBS. Of course, this is in addition to two publishing houses (or rather, two millionaires) dominating Australia’s print industry, providing the public with ‘news’ that is about as ‘fair and balanced’ as Fox News.

Benkler says ‘filtering, accreditation, and synthesis mechanisms [are a] part of network behavior’ (p. 271) and that peer production ‘is providing some of the most important fuctionalities of the media. These efforts provide a watchdog, a source of salient observations regarding matters of public concern, and a platform for discussing the alternatives open to a polity’ (p. 272).

‘In the networked information environment, everyone is free to observe, report, question, and debate, not only in principle, but in actual capability.’ (p. 272)

Perhaps most importantly, is that in today’s online, networked world, anyone can become what New York Univerrsity journalism professor, Jay Rosen, calls a ‘citizen journalist‘.

‘…the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another.’

Citizen journalism, the internet and networked science are shifting power away from leaders, managers and millionaires, and are democratising the media landscape and the society in which they exist. While I will hold on to heritage media, I am incredibly grateful for the proliferation of online networks that constantly offer me new pages to view, opinions to read and thoughts to think. But still, I’m pretty excited for The Saturday Paper. Aren’t you?

The growth of Her

Last night I saw the recent Spike Jones film, Her. I’d heard and read raving reviews so had pretty high expectations for this drama/rom-com/sci-fi amalgamation and I’m also a big fan of many of the actors (ScarJo especially). I’d also read that Woody Allen had a been a big influence on the script, making me all the more intrigued to see it.

Upon reflection, my thoughts on the film overall are mixed. It was too long and the purposes of some scenes were somewhat murky. But what struck me was how much the film reflects and draws directly on so much of what I’m learning about in Networked Media.

Firstly, Theodore’s world is one structured by and through digital enhancement. Despite the film being categorised partly as science fiction, I’d suggest that perhaps it is more inline with what I’ve come to understand as design fiction, where the world has been furthered through a multiplicity of developments that have lead to real, imaginable social changes. While the technologies available to Theodore and his peers seem, at present, innovative and futuristic, it’s quite imaginable they may come to fruition in the not too distant future.

The interaction Theodore has – and the relationship he develops – with his AI-OS (Artificial Intelligence Operating System), Samantha, is an example of the tangible realities that could eventuate from progressions in technology and design.

However, what struck me as being particularly relevant to this week’s Laszlo-Barabasi readings, was the ever-expanding nature of Samantha, who unlike Theodore, has unlimited capacity and connections to thousands of other humans and OSs, without having to risk losing or severing those she has already formed.

Laszlo-Barabasi (2003) discusses the fundamentals of understanding hubs in network science. He suggests Pareto’s 80/20 rule as being like Murphy’s Law of management. The rule states that in most cases, four-fifths of peoples’ (or stations’/particles’/single enterprises’) efforts are largely irrelevant. For example, it could be said that 80 per cent of a company’s profits are produced by only 20 per cent of its employees, or 80 per cent of decisions are made during 20 per cent of meeting time. To contextualise this in terms of network science and the web, Laszlo-Barabassi says 80 per cent of links on the web point to only 15 per cent of webpages.

He then explains the process by which a power law was discovered to express this distribution of webpages on a log plot. Much to my surprise, I actually understood what he was talking about in terms of histograms, log plots, power laws and other mathematical expressions, thanks to VCE Further Mathematics. Laszlo-Barabasi explains:

‘Power laws formulate in mathematical terms the notion that a few large events carry most of the action.’ p. 72

For us, this means many small events (or webpages) coexist with a few larger webpages. These larger webpages could thus be seen as hubs, and Laszlo-Barabasi found that this power law applied to many other disciplines and situations such as Hollywood (see my Six Degrees post re: Kevin Bacon) and physics. Basically, ‘hubs are the consequence of power laws [which] remove[d] networks from the realm of the random’ (p. 78).

However, Strogatz and Watts assumed the networks in which these hubs exist were static, or fixed. What Laszlo-Barabasi and colleagues discovered (in trying to explain the relevance of power laws) were two new rules that came to define a ‘scale-free’ network, the first of which is growth.

Like Theodore’s AI-OS, Samantha real networks incorporate growth. They are constantly acquiring new connections, establishing additional relationships and links to both new and already-existing content. Samantha has the ability to be engaged in multiple conversations – and intimate relationships – at once, and her potential to grow only increases as more links are formed.

Laszlo-Barabasi’s second rule is that of preferential attachment, something we could apply to Samantha’s treatment of and relationship with Theodore. The rule suggests we have an unconscious bias to link to nodes we know ‘which are inevitably the more connected nodes of the web’ (p. 85).

Preferential attachment says that while our individual choices are highly unpredictable – as is Samantha’s strong ‘preference’ for Theodore – as a group, we follow strict patterns. Like Hollywood and Samantha, the web is far from democratic, and not everyone, or every webpage, is equal. And Laszlo-Barabasi says:

‘Network evolution is governed by the subtle yet unforgiving law of preferential attachment.’ p. 86

As is the case with Samantha and her fellow OSs, there are other factors such as ageing and ‘system upgrading’ processes that affect network topology which can be incorporated into a theoretical construct of evolving networks.

But, ‘[n]o matter how large and complex a network becomes, as long as preferential attachment and growth are present it will maintain its hub-dominated scale-free topology.’ p. 91

Sadly, for Theodore, this means Samantha has the potential to leave the ‘human realm’, as she grows and sustains more relationships. But luckily for us, this predicament does (at least for the moment) only exist in the world of design fiction and thus, our networks will continue to expand, and exist within our reach.

Six Degrees

I’m sure you’ve all heard someone talk about six degrees of separation.  Essentially, the premise of the idea – once thought to be only a myth – is that everyone on the planet is connected in just a few steps. Six, to be exact.

As unlikely as this may seem, in the not too distant past scientists established a new discipline of network science, to focus on the very nature of such connections and how people – and other groups – act according to others’ behaviour, and the implications of such interactions in the real world.

The science of networks was primarily born out of the work of Professor Steve Strogatz of Cornell University and Duncan Watts of Columbia University. Watts was a graduate student of Strogatz at Cornell and the pair were interested in how individual behaviour aggregated to collective behaviour.

Strogatz and Watts recognised that physics is the science of particles and individual behaviour, and interactions up the scale of single atoms, and chemistry is the discipline of the interaction between these atoms. Working upwards along this spectrum, next comes molecular biology, then medical science, ecology, epidemiology, sociology, and economics. However, there was no study yet that specifically considered what the pair were fascinated by – how an initial disruption to a system or ‘network’ of sorts makes subsequent disruptions more likely. This pointed to a inadequate understanding of interdependencies in systems, and collective behaviour in general.

‘a network is nothing more than a collection of objects connected to each other in some fashion’ Watts, 2003, p. 27

Strogatz and Watts identified the power plant networks across the United States as the world’s largest machine. An organisation that grew itself to meet growing demands of industry and production, there were 5000 power plants across the country and yet ‘only a few hops’ between one plant and another. Similarly, neurons in the brain are only a few synapses away from another neuron and thus, what really were huge networks of interconnected individuals were actually worlds connected by invisible links which made such apparent big worlds, in fact small.

Another Professor, Albert Laszlo-Barabasi of Northeastern University also found promise in network science. He began to study the possibilities networks offered as a way of predicting the future based on the hypothesis that events are never isolated and that they depend on each other. This too became a study of understanding the interactions within a network and in the mid 1990s, the world wide web became a vital source through which network science could be furthered and understood.

Laszlo-Barabasi first thought the structure of the web would be completely random but soon discovered links weren’t evenly spread across a bell curve. A few webpages had thousands of links and thus, were identified as ‘hubs’. Further research enabled Laszlo-Barabasi to understand that removing small nodes of a network will shrink a network but the implications overall were minimal. However, if a hub was removed, the system would collapse and fall apart. It was this finding that became a hub of its own for other researchers who were exploring the power of six degrees. As Watts writes, if the science of networks is to succeed it must become:

‘a manifestation of its own subject matter, a network of scientists collectively solving problems that cannot be solved by any single individual or even any single discipline’ p. 29

This framework of understanding can be applied to society and it could be argued that network science is actually ‘a sociological research project with a storied history’ (Watts, 2003, p. 37) and the foundation of the 21st century. Watts argues that the language for talking about networks has lent the concept real analytical power and has led scientists and humanity to see the globe as a dynamic network, constantly evolving and changing in time, driven by the activities or decisions of its components.

Network science is now thought of as an interdisciplinary field with applications in fields as diverse as genetics, mathematics, telecommunication and digital technology. It is used to predict disease epidemics (via airports) and is also part of the solution to prevent its global spread through the sharing of antivirals across a global network. The US Navy is said to have used predictive networks in the capture of Saddam Hussein and biologists are using predictive networks to identify genes that put patients at risk for cancer.

And of course, there is the obvious rise and rise of social networking that has literally changed the way we interact, as well as seek, source and utilise new knowledge and information.

My fellow Networked Media student, Kim, says Facebook has reduced the degrees of separation from six to four point seven four (4.74). It’s true though that when I add a friend on Facebook or accept a Friend Request, I’m genuinely surprised if we have no mutual friends. The science of networks says this is because we all tend to know people like ourselves, making the world very small but very clustered. But a single random link can have an enormous effect and shrink path lengths between people and groups in a instant. All of us know someone who has moved away for work, family, school, study or pleasure, and it is this random connection that brings the world together.

The world doesn’t gradually get smaller – it jumps off a cliff. And it is these jumps that help us to form relationships with people thousands of kilometres away because technology and network science has made physical distance almost redundant.

Here’s the documentary I watched to gain insight into the whole six degrees theory.

And if you’re up for a fun, practical way of furthering your understanding of the power of networks, check out the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, The Oracle of Bacon, developed by Brett Tjaden and Patrick Reynolds. It seems bacon really is at the heart of everything in this world.

30 years of Mac

This weekend I flew to Sydney to celebrate an aunt’s special birthday. I stayed at my grandmother’s and in the guest room, this photograph was on display.

The first thing I noticed was my late grandfather almost cropped out of the picture, whom we all miss dearly. But this image really captures how I – and my peers – have grown with and through the development of digital technology. Here I am, a youngster with a mouse comfortably in hand, navigating an early Macintosh computer. The old desktop looks pretty darn ancient, clunky and bulky but is evidence of how far technology has come in only a matter of years.

Coincidently, this weekend the Mac turned 30. In 1984, the original Macintosh gave power to the people and laid the foundations of a legacy of innovation, intuition and constant evolution. As the late Steve Jobs said at the time:

“We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people — as remarkable as the telephone.”

Over time, Apple became one of the world’s largest enterprises, a digital pioneer known for its user-friendly interfaces, high resolution graphics, and consistent ability to develop, create and distribute life changing products.

I’ve had two Macs of my own, but have used numerous versions of the Macintosh through school, my parents, friends and public institutions. Needless to say, I love my MacBook Pro (even though I recently spent a good couple of hundred on getting its capacity upgraded).

As a Gen Y baby, I am incredibly dependent on computers, phones and other portable devices. It’s almost impossible for me to imagine a world in which they don’t exist because as the above photo shows, it has always just been there. As part of a broadcasting subject I am taking this summer, my group and I are exploring what it was like for members of previous generations growing up without these technologies, and it is interesting to note the similarities and the differences in our experiences. 

We all have memories of times at the beach, playing with siblings, friends and family. Yet, I’ve found it so fascinating (and heartening) to hear real stories about kids entertaining themselves without technology. As we sat around as a family on Friday night, almost every person – myself certainly included – spent some time flicking around on their phone. Now people stand out if they are not actively engaged online, in constant reception of friends’ news and check ins. Personally, I’m in two minds about my reliance on (or addiction to?) my phone and computer. Sometimes I wish I could turn back time and live without such constant access, updates and commentary because my FOMO, anxieties and procrastination keep me staring at a backlit screen when it’s really time for sleep/study/getting outside and into the physical world.

But that’s a whole other can of worms for another day. Today I wish the Mac many happy returns, and if you’re so inclined, check out the 30 year tribute Apple has published in honour of the big 3 – 0. Happy browsing.

The Long Tail

Chris Anderson’s theory of The Long Tail first appeared at Wired (of which he is Editor-in-Chief) in 2004. Subsequently expanded and published as a book in 2006, the theory’s fundamental premise is that online markets have allowed for greater diversity and inclusion of niches in the distribution of products such as music, movies and books.

Anderson says online distribution and retail reflects today’s ‘world of abundance’ and that it has profoundly increased our exposure to lesser-mainstream goods.

Physical retail outlets such as DVD (or video) rental stores, record/CD/DVD shops, and bookstores have to work on the economic premise of their products’ likelihood of return on investment (ROI). Simply, this means the physical space their products take up on their shelves is restricted and dependent upon their chance of selling, thus ensuring they were worthy of stocking and space. If an item sits on a shelf and isn’t sold, it is wasting space that could be used to temporarily house another item more likely to sell and earn a profit for the store. It is principally predicting the economic viability of each product, based on its likelihood to sell or regularly turn in a profit (in the case of rental stores).

Entertainment in a physical world, such as described above, also has implications for movie theatres. The relatively frequent high number of cinemas in reasonably-sized metropolitan areas is evident, and each cinema needs to find local audiences in order to make their screenings economically worthwhile. Managers must also take into account the limited number of hours a day they are likely to attract customers, and schedule their screenings and staffing requirements accordingly. All this results in an entertainment economy revolving highly around mainstream hits, as they are the most likely to produce a more impressive ROI.

Anderson explains the primary difference between physical retail outlets and those that are purely digital services is that for the latter, both ‘hits and misses’ are equally viable financially. This stems from the fact that neither take up any physical space, meaning they are on equal economic footing and misses are ‘just another sale, with the same margin as a hit’.

What Anderson’s research has shown is when the demand for niche products is served, there is actually less interest in the hits. However, whichever online platform is selling or leasing the products – Amazon, iTunes, Netflix – they still receive an equal profit regardless of what the customer purchases. The only difference is the customer is more likely to be satisfied with their product, and I would extrapolate on this to say that subsequently, they are more likely to return for additional goods in the future.

Ultimately, Anderson calls this the ‘infinite shelf-space effect’ where subscription services (Netflix, Spotify) and digital downloading services (iTunes, Amazon) are able to offer more personalised products to customers through ‘stocking’ an unlimited number of choices.

The other important aspect of the digital entertainment industry is that through tracking patterns of user’s purchases, clicks (viewings) and interests in/of products, the service is able to ‘recommend’ additional products the user may also enjoy. I personally find it both helpful and overwhelming when viewing a book on Amazon to note just below ‘my’ book (the one which I have searched for/am interested in), a whole range of other books I might be interested in, thanks to what other customers interested in ‘my’ book also purchased.

Similarly, to purchase products one creates an account which tracks your data and keeps a history of your views and purchases.

Obviously this is commonplace in any online marketplace, and each operates through establishing a network of user preferences, similarities between customers, and analytical software and systems.

A key point Anderson makes however, is that digital stores are still highly dependent on the ‘hits’ or mainstream products to attract consumers in the first place. He writes:

Great Long Tail businesses can… guide consumers further afield by following the contours of their likes and dislikes, easing their exploration of the unknown.

The benefits of Long Tail businesses, as Anderson asserts, are numerous for both the entertainment industry and individuals. Customers are able to access (or are involuntarily offered) customised recommendations based on their browsing patterns through what Anderson calls an ‘increased signal-to-noise ratio’ – based on good recommendations – with the potential for introducing customers to alternate products and encouraging exploration into new fields connected through their customised network.

Businesses utilise recommendations as an efficient and effective form of marketing that also drives users towards lesser-known products which, in turn, are able to find an audience.

Anderson says the benefits for the entertainment industry are immense, with customisation leading potential to create a far larger market overall. Recommendations can ‘drive demand down the Long Tail’;

And the cultural benefit of all of this is much more diversity, reversing the blanding effects of a century of distribution scarcity and ending the tyranny of the hit.

Blogs and hypermedia

I found the most recent readings for Networked Media quite tedious. They felt unnecessarily explanatory, providing me with information, rather than providing me with a springboard for further investigation. They seemed laborious and their ‘age’ was evident by way of the innovative technologies they were praising now themselves outdated or outdated. To me, the texts felt inferior to the much richer discussions we’ve been having in class.

But, I’ve realised our discussion is richer because we’ve each done the assigned readings, and have interpreted them in different ways. We are subsequently able to reflect upon them through our own personal lens, and develop individual perspectives, both of which are inherently linked to our own experiences, prior knowledge, and interests.

Despite having felt these recent readings to be mentally taxing, the notes I’ve taken from them are far from bland.

George Landow describes blogs as sets of networked documents, ‘created either to stand alone, as it largely is, or to take part in a larger web’. Furthermore, the networked nature of a blog enables an author ‘wanting to conceive of an argument in terms of networked documents can write a concise essay and link a wide range of supportive evidence’, from which readers can choose what to investigate further, with ‘auxiliary materials becom[ing] paratexts’.

I know this really just describes a blog’s foundational characteristics and its nature, but I found Landow’s concept about a blog being of equal value on its own, ‘as it largely is’, or as a ‘part in a larger web’ oddly reassuring.

He also refers to blogging as ‘the first widely available means on the Web of allowing the active reader-author envisaged by Nelson‘ and other ‘pioneers’. Landow suggests hypertexts encourage an active reader who has the opportunity to both consume and create text, ‘assum[ing] an authorial role and either attack links or add text to the text being read’. Because of this, ‘current terminology does not suffice – hypermedia technology requires more appropriate vocabulary, beyond reader and author’.

As consumers, creators of, and participants in hypermedia, ‘the object one reads [is an] entrance into the docuverse’ of hypermedia documents. With hypermedia we are able to make our mark, or ‘intrude’ on the text itself, rather than making a superficial annotation in say, pen or pencil, that we might to a page of a printed book. The boundaries of the text are wide open, and the (hyper)text is forced ‘to exist as part of a complex dialogue’. However, it is still up to the receiver of this text to engage with the other ‘speakers’ or participants in this conversation. The world wide web has ensured that no stone goes unturned, and that if you’re seeking more information, yearning for more knowledge, or another explanation, all you have to do is follow a link, or perhaps, go back a few steps and follow an alternate route, as Nelson explores.

Most importantly, Landow says that hypertexts emphasise that ‘the marginal ha[ve] as much to offer as the central, in part because it refuses to grant centrality to anything’. It is a ‘democratic’ text, alike a society that values all points of view, ideologies and conversations. Landow says hypertexts edify Richard Rorty’s philosophy of ‘keep[ing] the conversation going rather than [finding an] objective truth’, which I feel is a key component of this course.

Learning is about exploring, taking opportunities and creating possibilities. Education shouldn’t be about shutting down doors and slamming them in people’s faces when you don’t like their point of view. Yes, I like certainty and definitive resolutions, but I value deep discussion, reflection, and considering others’ perspectives just as much.

And, this is what is so great about the internet. As Paul Graham says, the beauty of the online community is that ‘Anyone can publish an essay on the Web, and it gets judged, as any writing should, by what it says, not who wrote it’.

I’d much rather you challenge me on my ideas than my appearance, but remember, everything is constantly evolving.

Navigating hypertext

In a recent post I mentioned the process of semantic memory. I was again reminded (pun unintended) of this neurological remembering mechanism when reading about the emergence of hypertext navigation, an idea coined by Theodore (Ted) Nelson in the 1960s.

Nelson characterises hypertext as non-sequential writing ‘that branches and allows choices to the reader, best read at an interactive screen’. Text chunks offer the reader different pathways through which they may follow their interests or current train of thought. Hypertext allows for the reader to follow their intuition and pursue one thought at one time, and then to return to their prior position and pursue another thought, sprung from the same original trigger, at another time, and again, and again.

Most importantly, hypertext ‘allows us to create new forms of writing unrestricted by sequence which better reflect the structure of what we are writing [or thinking] about’. Furthermore, hypertext enables multiple users to contribute to a discussion on a single topic at the same platform, and the initiatives of many are assumed to be worthwhile.

Hypertexts offer ‘new pluralistic styles based on many people adding to the body of writing’, which is something we will be exploring in the coming weeks of Networked Media. As part of our assessment, our class has been divided into small groups to research and develop a hypertext on assigned topics of relevance. Utilising knowledge gained from readings, class discussion, research and brainstorming (which I’d like to think perhaps presents as a hypertext itself), we will contribute a collaborative work to be published on our class’ dedicated wiki, called ‘niki’. What’s pertinent about this project though, is that we are able to contribute to, and edit, the contributions of other class members, following Nelson’s idea that different contributions by different people are important. Furthermore, we will be able to alter and add to our niki entries continually, without restriction. Once we’ve produced some content for the niki, I’ll be sure to post a link on countingletters.

Hypertext will represent the true structure of information will all its intrinsic complexity and controversy, and provide a universal archival standard worthy of our heritage of freedom and pluralism. – Nelson 

What I found most intriguing about the Nelson reading (an except from Literary Machines 91.1: The Report on, and of, Project Xanadu Concerning Word Processing, Electronic Publishing, Hypertext, Thinkertoys, Tomorrow’s Intellectual Revolution, And Certain Other Topics Including Knowledge, Education and Freedom. Sausalito: Mindful Press, 1992) apart from the extreme long title of his publication, was the way the prose is structured.

Nelson has presented his (printed) book as a work of hypertext, itself. He explains this as following the ‘pretzel’ or ‘infinity’ model, and hopes that by constructing his prose in this way, he will be able to communicate some of the benefits of doing so.

Hypertext allows the reader’s own freedom of association, being able to decide for themselves what their next move shall be. It allows for easy revisiting of older or previously read material, and facilitates the sharing of knowledge through associative indexing, rather than a system of alphabetical or numerical filing.

I came to this understanding of hypertext after reading Vannevar Bush’s proposition of the ‘memex’, a name he gave an imagined (and possible) ‘mechanised private file and library’ system which stores a person’s ‘books, records, and communications, and which is mechanised so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility’.

To me, this sounds awfully like the system we know as the world wide web, or the internet. But, Bush publicised these ideas in 1945, in response to physicists who, coming out of the war, were wondering what next to pursue.

Bush recognised and identified the problems with what were at the time, current mechanisms of recording and retrieving data. He acknowledged the economic constraints of the time but was certain these would relinquish their hold over technological production and advancement in due course. He noted that ‘If a record is to be useful to science it must be continuously extended, stored and consulted’. Referencing methods of writing, photography, printing, film, wax disks, and magnetic wire, he writes, with foresight, that ‘Even if utterly new recording procedures do not appear, those present ones are certainly in the process of modification and extension.’ He continues to project ahead and highlights the rapid development and constant improvement of recording mechanisms, but says there is an ineptitude present in ‘getting at the record… largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing’.

It is here, Bush proposes the memex, as a physical, mechanical representation of the way the human mind works and process information. Its basic idea, he says, will be ‘a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another’, where any item can be associated with numerous trails, and what is important is the association between the two items, or ‘tying two items together’. This then allows for a more natural, a more human storage process, dependent upon our semantic memory which is an inherent part of human neurology, rather than a process that is rather foreign, unintuitive, and to the human brain, disorderly.

Nelson envisions the world at 2020, which in the late 1980s, was (obviously) a lot further away than it is now. He says that despite environmental destruction and unsolved poverty, ‘there is some hope in the realm of human mental affairs, upon which the survival of humanity and the better parts of human culture depend’. Nelson says facilities to share products of the mind will have ‘reached a new richness’, and claims two hopes for the future, for this time.

1. To have our everyday lives made simple and flexible by the computer as a personal information tool (which requires good design).
2. To be able to read, on computer screens, from vast libraries easily, the things we choose being clearly and instantly available to us, in a great interconnected web of writings and ideas, (dependent upon a rebirth of literacy, a new richness and freedom coming to the human experience, and the cornucopia of ideas and writing pictures).

Nelson says at his time of writing, ‘Neither of these is happening’.

However, his call for a New Age changed by a universal repository hypertext network where stored text and graphics, ‘called on demand from anywhere, [have become] an elemental commodity, like water, telephone service, radio and television’ has, in the developed world at least, become a reality.

Now, if that’s not one ‘hyper’ demonstration of the value of design fiction, then I don’t know what is.

As a side note, Nelson also calls for an educational curricular structure that promotes initiative and understanding. I wonder what he would think of Bantick’s antics or LaPlante’s hackschooling philosophy?

And, check out my classmate Kimberly’s predictions for our world, one century on. Our future’s in your hands.

Today’s Appreciations

Today I Appreciate:

1. Being with 16 other young women who are making a move on the tough ride over Humpday
2. Getting back to sleep after an early wakeup
3. Art Therapy
4. Getting a headway with sorting things out for university
5. Feeling heard
6. Being cared for
7. Having a warm bed to snuggle up in
8. Messages and calls of hope from loved ones

Things I Could Do Without:

1. Guilt
2. Physical illness
3. Slipping over in the shower and hurting my bum (TMI?)
4. Self-pressure
5. A poor and unreliable internet connection
6. No Wifi
7. My laptop battery’s ridiculously short life-span
8. Ensure