DTC 475 Blog #2

Well, I chose the 2nd option for this week's blog post:

" If you chose Age and Tech: Cooking with Bubby, I want you to first make a list of a words and ideas to describe technology and people associated with technology. Next use that list of words to create a wordcloud (http://www.wordle.net/; make sure to put this in your response). After that, watch an episode of Feed Me Bubbe.  Now reflect on your list/wordcloud and how it differs from the interview given by Bubbe in the documentary.  How does culture/age/technology intersect to create our understanding and expectations of 'appropriate' (read as expected or target) users? What about race/gender and sexuality? Do you think the internet is an equalizing place or not? What would our authors for this week say?"

Well, I started out by making my list of words I associate with technology. I thought of a few words to describe technology itself, and then I also came up with a list of names I associate with technology (in this case, the names of people I associate with technology. Some of the names, however, were also used for the business that person started). Here's the word cloud I created: 

Now, I realize a lot of people will not recognize a number of the names in this word cloud, and they'll be wondering why the ones they do recognize were included (okay, I understand Gates and Jobs, but Ford? And who the heck is Daugerre?)

The people behind each of these names had important connections to the changes in technology over the years (and yes, "Diesel" is name here, not just a fuel).

In "Race is a Technology", John Streamas identifies a problem we tned to have with understanding technology. He argues that we tend to believe "that the new is better than the old and that the new is faster, stronger, and more precise only because it is mechanical (101)." I think we suffer from another malady;  thinking that "technology" means "new" or "cutting edge". It doesn't. See here for the full etymology of "technology".

    To simplify it, technology comes from the Greek for an art or craft. It involves the process of making, creating, or building. Cultures, societies, civilizations are always making, creating, and building, and we're always using a set of tools to do it. It just so happens that those sets of tools have changed more and more quickly over the past 200 years than ever before. Certain types of people prefer different types of tools. Some like older tools because of their looks, their antiquity, or their simplicity. Others prefer tools on the cutting edge of technological development. They don't care what the tool is or does, as long as it's new.
  
   Over time, for better or for worse, certain stereotypes have been associated with certain technologies. The stereotype of the geek/nerd with big glasses and a nasal voice has been associated with computer coding. The modern, hip graphic designer uses Illustrator and Photoshop on a sleek Apple laptop. In the 80's, cassette-playing boomboxes were known as "ghettoblasters". Now, this is not to say that these categories are strict. In fact, the word "stereotype" is a technological term itself.

   “Stereotype” comes from the letterpress printing industry. Print shops received special paper plates with images pressed into them. These plates were fitted into a casting machine that covered the plate in a thin sheet of molten lead. When the lead cooled, it was removed from the plate, revealing a lead “cut”, a mirror image of the image on the paper plate. This “cut” was called a “stereotype”, which, over time, has come to mean “a fixed, unalterable image”.

 

 "Stereotype" Plates and "Cuts" for Letterpress Printing as seen at the Newspaper & Printing Museum in Palouse, WA.

  
 Of course, stereotypes can be and do change. We all know that social stereotypes are the result of “painting with a broad brush” and don't usually line up with reality. The video of “Bubbe” proves exactly this point. Very few people would expect grandma to make cooking videos for Youtube, but “Bubbe” does, and appears, at this time, to have finished her 38th video. She defies the stereotype. Anyone can be famous on the internet, but this does not drastically increase anyone's chance of becoming famous at all. I think my word cloud is a fairly accurate representation of technological history. It's not polarized towards digital or analog. It is merely a representation of what has happened and who became famous because if it.

   Finally, there comes the question of whether or not the internet is equalizing. Though Streamas seems to hope so, I must argue that it will only be an equalizing place if that is what we make it. Technology is a set of tools which we must decide how to use. Technology itself cannot save us. We have seen this happen time and again throughout history. But, history can only help us if we learn it and then learn from it. Technologies are made of people, by people, and for people. They will, naturally, reflect the people who are creating, building, and using them.

On this note, I leave you with a little comic I found the other day:

--Drew Black

You Need the Content AND the Context.

When history is preserved, archived, shared, etc., there always comes the debate between saving just the content and also saving the context. Imagine you are at, say, a museum. This particular museum preserves railway history. It's house in a clean, modern building with fancily lit displays and exhibits. All of the old steam locomotives have gleaming paint, their headlights are on, a couple mannequins are displayed in the cabs as the engine crew, etc. Everything looks perfect. But they just sit there. The paint is shinier than it was when these engines were brand-new. The content has been preserved, but most of the context has been lost.

On the other hand, consider a heritage railway operation. This outfit has several miles of historic railway, which allows them to give train rides to the public behind antique steam locomotives. There is the locomotive shop, filled with antique lathes, drill presses, forges, and other machinery for maintaining the locomotives. One locomotive is disassembled in the back of the shop for rebuilding. Out front, another locomotive is getting ready for the day's work. There is dirt, grease, oil, grime, soot, and smoke everywhere. The locomotive sounds like it is breathing as the steam pressure builds. The scene is alive with energy. I

In this scenario, the context of the historic locomotives has been preserved. You can't take the railroad out of the locomotive, but is taking the locomotive out of the railroad (to be preserved elsewhere) always the best idea? What is lost in terms of context when the locomotive is “stuffed and mounted”? How much of the story do we lose?

This same argument pertains to Foot's article. If we are to preserve the content, we also need to preserve the context. If we are to preserve a chunk(s) of Web 2.0 for the future, we need to preserve it in situ. Yes, we can (and likely should) apply preservation measures to the world of online social networking. But we can't just save individual texts, tweets, or posts. We also need the comments associated with those posts. We need the meme someone shared as a response. We need the ads on the sidebar to let us know what world these folks were operating in. It is pointless to preserve posts if we aren't also preserving the whole conversation, the whole story. The graphic design of the website being operated in has just as much to do with experience as the content posted on the site. Merely using an SNS feed would leave the content “stuffed and mounted”, divorced from all sense of context.

As for how things have evolved since Foot's “Table 1” in “Web Sphere Analysis”, I think there's a good chance that news media sites and personal sites (I'll include company-owned “personal” sites here, like Facebook) is where most of the online discussion takes place. Topic oriented forums (V-Bulletin, anyone?) would also make a large chunk of discussion concerning the 2013 bombing. In 2011, many different types of websites owned by various organizations set forth their views on the 9/11 tragedy, and many allowed some sort of user/viewer response. I think that more and more “viewer participation” is limited to the comments sections of media-sharing sites, be they the New York Times website, Youtube, etc., along with your own Facebook wall or that forum that you're a member of.  Perhaps this is because of the problem of flame wars requiring a large task force to keep under control. No comments section on your website? No maintenance-intensive flame wars. Problem solved.

Well, I don't usually blog very often, but I had this blog left over from a class I took last semester, so I'll be using it again this semester, but this time for DTC 475.

I suppose now would be the time to introduce myself. Fortunately, I have link to my brand-new "About" page in the right-hand sidebar. Just click on that for more information.

--Drew Black