Pre-Class Poster

I think Poster’s discussion in “Postmodern Virtualities” really helped sum up for me a few ideas concerning society’s recent move into the postmodern world that had previously appeared, to me, to be nothing more than mere fragmented notions which lacked any true sense of collectiveness or collobarativeness. In this piece, Post effectively articulates how all of the diverse themes that are used to describe the postmodern (the micro-narrative, the virtual and multiple realities, the multiple self-identities, the democratization of the Internet, the postmodern man v. the modern man, the information super highway) are women threads of a greater ideological fabric. Along with his ability to “put a face” to this postmodern age, Post’s main argument throughout the piece is also one I find particularly enlightening, in which he expresses the fact that post-modern issues cannot be judged/evaluated/interpreted through a modernist lens but rather a new set of criteria/rules/laws/logic must be established us to be able to fully understand what is occurring socially and culturally without placing any limits on our thought.


Aside from these two points, one quote that I thought was particularly effective in his evaluation of the postmodern age, read a s follows: “The process by which the telephone was instituted as a universally disseminated network in which anyone is able to call anyone else occurred in a complex, multi-leveled historical articulation which the technology, the economic structure, the political institutions, the political culture and the mass of the population each played interacting rules… a similarly complex history will no doubt accompany the institution of the information superhighway and virtual reality” (540). Poster makes the suggestion of the internet being a parallel form of communication to that of the telephone numerous times because of their shared ability to be used by so many at simultaneous times. Both the phone and the internet have mass accessibility and are, thus, places for universal participation that is not only allowed, but promoted. Unlike many forms of culture, these two are not simply within the reach of the few and the powerful, suggesting a decentralized system in which anyone in the system can contact almost everyone else in the system. Because of the massive popularity of the Internet over the last decade, I think this notion of it as a democratizing tool will have powerful consequences for society at large. The Internet allows for an individual participatory, public discourse in which even the softest of voices can be heard and shared among many. There is no ruling authority to monitor what is said or put censorship on what can be heard. I think the Internet is finally the most effective tool we can employ in order for us as a nation to really be able to think of ourselves as a democracy, for we almost all as citizens (because of its cheap cost and massive accessibility) have the ability to use it as a way to connect with one another, communicate ideas, and perhaps initiate change. This notion of community ties being legitimized over the web is one we have heavily discussed in my CMC350 class, “Social Media for Social Change”. The Internet, and its many forms of media based on social networking (particularly, Facebook/Twitter/blogs) has become the new place for public commentary that lacks (for the most part, at least) private interests and has created a new, uncommodified public sphere. The potential these sites have for creating ties between people of all races, all ages, all locations, all beliefs are both endless and great... instead of perpetuating a hierarchy, they constitute a new “reality” based on an ever-changing, fluid process of open relations.

Pre class Poster

In this essay, Poster speaks of new communications in relations to postmodernity. He calls all the new technology the “second media age” and says, “ Subject constitution in the second media age occurs through the mechanism of interactivity. A technical term referring to two-way communications…interactivity has been the most popular application of the Internet.”(541) This is interesting because this was written in the 90s and looking back, he was right. Take a look at our obsessions with AIM, MSNmensenger than came Myspace, Facebook and Facebook chat…We are hooked on this instant interaction with people all around the world, may they be our friends or people we actually do not know. Poster speaks of this as “virtual communities” in opposition to “real communities” like our city, our neighbors and such. He quotes Howard Rheingold “what we are looking for is instant access to ongoing relationships with large number of other people”. Reading this sounded so pathetic. It is clearly our cultural problem of Bigger, Faster, Better. We feel more comfortable speaking with people instantly, right now behind a computer than going out of our way to meet a friend in person. And the issue is we think it is real. It is just a verisimilitude, as Lyotard would put it. A reproduction of the real, therefore connecting this to Benjamin’s theory, by communicating in a reproduction, it loses its essence. Our relationships lose their essence and no longer are authentic, they’re simply margarine.

Problems with Blogger.com

For some reason My postings are acting werid when i copy and paste it into the box from Microsoft Word. Some HTML code appears? Any idea why? An now half my post is in black in and the other half is white ink. Any ideas?

thanks,
Andrew

Postmodern Virtualities, Andrew Wells

In the beginning of his article Poster purpose is stated to bring together cessions of postmodern culture and of changes in our communication system that are in use. The reason for this is that they are connected...

Some quotes or ideas that I felt were important were:

What distinguishes the telephone from the other great media is its decentralized quality and its universal exchangeability of the positions of sender and receiver. Anyone can "produce" and send a message to anyone else in the system and, in the advanced industrial societies, almost everyone is in the system. (MP, 535)

the crucial political question is `Who controls the switches?' There are two extreme choices. Users may have indirect, or limited control over when , what, why, and from whom they get information and to whom they send it. That's the broadcast model today, and its seems to breed consumerism, passivity, crassness, and mediocrity. Or, users may have decentralized, distributed, direct control over when, what, why, and with whom they exchange information. That's the Internet model today, and it seems to breed critical thinking, activism, democracy, and quality. We have an opportunity to choose now. (MP,537) Quote from (Kapor, 1993: 5)

The information superhighway and virtual reality are communications media that enrich existing forms of consumer culture. (MP, 539)

Electronic mail services and bulletin boards are inundated by stories. Individuals appear to enjoy relating narratives to those they have never met and probably never will meet. (MP, 534)

Poster, Pre Class 3/2 Ann

I found that there were many things in this article I would be able to blog about but I chose a quote on page 539 on the subject of virtual reality. Poster argues that, “… the duplication [of virtual reality] incurs an alteration: virtual realities are fanciful imaginings that, in their difference from reality, evoke play and discovery, instituting a new level of imagination.” Poster talks about how the internet creates a new world that didn’t exist prior to the existence of the internet. This is the world of virtual reality. Virtual reality can put its user in a world without them physically being there. There are differences however between the real world and this virtual world. Poster’s thoughts on the virtual world can be related to Walter Benjamin’s ideas in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Benjamin looks at how the use of technology in the reproduction of art causes a difference between the original and the reproduction. By reproducing a piece of art the ora of the artwork is lost. Only the original piece of artwork still upholds authenticity. It seems that Poster is trying to argue a similar case about the real world and the world of virtual reality. He says the virtual world differs from the real world in the sense that the user needs a sense of imagination to be evoked in the world of virtual reality. The participant in the world of virtual reality is not experiences the same ora that he or she would experience if he or she were being emerged in the real world. Poster goes on to talk about how the involvement in video games, a form of virtual reality, may affect its participants. This reminds me of an article we looked at in CMC 200 on ludology, or the study of video games. The article talked about how the gamers emergence into this virtual world may affect the gamers perception of reality. Being constantly exposed to violence in video games may cause the user to be more likely to be violent in real life and see violence as acceptable. I think Poster would agree that the virtual world may give those who are involved in it a skewed sense of reality.

Memento/Truman Show/Other, Pre-class 3-1-10

To start, the only reference I will make to "The Desert of Real" is the fact that they mention the film The Truman Show. Those of us unfamiliar with The Truman Show, it's about a man living in a small town, who, through the coarse of the film, realizes his whole life around him is a gigantic studio set on a show that films and broadcasts his every move. Somewhat creepy, but a creative film nonetheless. Like Memento, the protagonist grapples with doubts of reality and wonders whether he has any control over his own actions. In Memento Leonard depends on personal reminders he does not remember to determine almost all of his future actions, while in The Truman Show, Truman blissfully follows his towns conventions and rules, unaware that all his actions are predetermined by the director of his show. Zizek describes Truman's situation as the "ultimate American paranoiac fantasy" (232) and with good reason - who would want to wake up tomorrow and be told that we are actually living in the Matrix? I wouldn't.

We have studied reality in our media since CMC 100 and have seen/ learned that our media is fairly accountable for skewing reality (with that picture of a skinnier Katie Couric that we saw in class, for example). Our current media is everywhere, even in our pockets on our phones. Call me crazy, but I can imagine a Matrix or Brave New World (for those of us familiar with the novel) in the future. When will "reality" no longer be real? Perhaps we have already passed that point of no return. Cinematic examples like Memento and The Truman Show are pretty drastic, but at some level our reality soon may not be in our control anymore. Just something to think about; if you have feedback, I'm listening.

King Kriggle Poster for 3/2/10

Well this was a reading i could finally really sink my teeth into because it was easy to understand and was about something that I really do care a good deal about. I think it is interesting because communication and postmodernism were not two things that I would readily connect. If people want to call our society postmodern and then look at the way we communicate it is interesting that some more contradictions dont arise. Looking at one aspect of communication alone i look at the verbal face to face communication. I think it is interesting how now when they build homes they rarely put front porches on the houses anymore. In the earlier years, and still in the southern united state (thats why they are the best haha) these porches still exist and people sit on them and talk with their neighbors, their friends, and their families. So i guess what I am getting at is the fact that I think there is a breakdown in the American family itself. There might be an increased amount of communication in our society but is it the right kind? It connects us globally, yes this is for sure, but at the same time with this kind of connectivity there is so many distractions for people that it really does seem counterproductive to not only life itself, but to the idea of postmodernism. I understand that postmodernism believes that there is no one definite truth and it doesnt look at technology as the solution to everything, but once again there is another contradiction because it seems to me that to be this connected and to have this type of communication we have to have technology. You are either on board with it or you are miles behind, there really is no middle ground. this is a very sad fact that most people dont understand, they embrace and share technology but rarely think of the consequences thereof.