Your reading of "The Medium as the Message" seems to connect well with something Jim Gee discusses in an interview published in Kairos http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/17.1/interviews/benedicks-et-al/index.html
He says the technology we work/live within has "affordances" that our content and intentions have little to do with.
"When we say a technology (like print, video games, television, and so forth) have affordances, we mean that they tend to have certain effects, not that they actually will. It all depends on context. One affordance of print literacy was for building institutions. Print allows language to travel far and wide and allows large groups of people within institutional structures to be coordinated. However, literacy cannot help create stable institutions unless there is a large amount of trust in a society, trust in things like law and contracts. Even today when societies are low in such trust, their institutions are weak. Such trust is not created by literacy, but by other sorts of social, historical, and cultural factors. But such trust (a form of “social capital”) is required for one affordance of literacy—namely complex institutions—to be realized. Such institutions have, of course, been a mixed bag in history. They have done much good and much harm.
Digital media have as one of their affordances the disruption of institutions. People can use digital and social media to organize themselves for certain endeavors without needing a formal institution to create and sustain that organization. Historically, institutions came to exist because there was no other good way to organize large groups of people. But now there are other ways, ways underpinned by fast digital media and not a slow medium like print. People can engage in joint design work on the Internet or organize a revolution via social media. Organization can arise quickly and disappear quickly. One other affordance of digital media is for customizing and adapting what we hear and experience to our own individual interests, tastes, values, and political views. We can each live in our own “bubble” with people who see the world as we do. We can cease to experience things that challenge and unsettle us. We can cease to interact with people who are quite different from us. This affordance requires (and then increases) a deterioration of the public sphere, that is, the space in which people feel commitment to others as fellow citizens and not because of shared class backgrounds or shared ideologies in any narrow sense. Such a deterioration of the public sphere has been readily apparent in the United States for some years now. We are a polarized society, with little feeling of shared commitment to others who are not like us."
Which leaves me wondering, how much does it matter that the presentation of Gee's interview is done as a navigated space within an old style video game centering on objects you find (or don't)? I must admit being quite impatient with its media presentation and quickly found the PDF linear copy to read.
Your reading of "The Medium as the Message" seems to connect well with something Jim Gee discusses in an interview published in Kairos http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/17.1/interviews/benedicks-et-al/index.html
ReplyDeleteHe says the technology we work/live within has "affordances" that our content and intentions have little to do with.
"When we say a technology (like print, video games, television, and so forth) have affordances, we mean that they tend to have certain effects, not that they actually
will. It all depends on context. One affordance of print literacy was for building
institutions. Print allows language to travel far and wide and allows large groups of people
within institutional structures to be coordinated. However, literacy cannot help create stable institutions unless there is a large amount of trust in a society, trust in things like law and contracts. Even today when societies are low in such trust, their institutions are weak. Such trust is not created by literacy, but by other sorts of social, historical, and cultural factors.
But such trust (a form of “social capital”) is required for one affordance of literacy—namely
complex institutions—to be realized. Such institutions have, of course, been a mixed bag in history. They have done much good and much harm.
Digital media have as one of their affordances the disruption of institutions. People can use
digital and social media to organize themselves for certain endeavors without needing a
formal institution to create and sustain that organization. Historically, institutions came to exist because there was no other good way to organize large groups of people. But now
there are other ways, ways underpinned by fast digital media and not a slow medium like
print. People can engage in joint design work on the Internet or organize a revolution via
social media. Organization can arise quickly and disappear quickly. One other affordance of digital media is for customizing and adapting what we hear and experience to our own individual interests, tastes, values, and political views. We can each live in our own “bubble” with people who see the world as we do. We can cease to experience things that challenge and unsettle us. We can cease to interact with people who are quite different from us. This affordance requires (and then increases) a deterioration of the public sphere, that is, the space in which people feel commitment to others as fellow citizens and not because of shared class backgrounds or shared ideologies in any narrow sense. Such a deterioration of the public sphere has been readily apparent in the United States for some years now. We are a polarized society, with little feeling of shared commitment to others who are not like us."
Which leaves me wondering, how much does it matter that the presentation of Gee's interview is done as a navigated space within an old style video game centering on objects you find (or don't)? I must admit being quite impatient with its media presentation and quickly found the PDF linear copy to read.