Creativity, Technology and Social Change

RESHAPING THE MAINSTREAM

2006-05-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

Reshaping the Mainstream- Online Social Networking and Aboriginal Traditions of Knowledge
By Mark Greenspan, Outline of Adult Education, AEC 1100, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

This paper was inspired by an article published by Marlene Brant Castellano (2000) called “Updating Aboriginal Traditions of Knowledge” In this article Castellano deconstructs the main characteristics of aboriginal knowledge and calls for an updating of traditional forms of knowledge in order to integrate into the practices of contemporary society more readily. I heard this call by first becoming intrigued between the similarities of the characteristics of aboriginal knowledge and the characteristics of how knowledge is formed online. I then began to question how marginalized forms of knowledge production are related to online social networking tools such as My Space (http://myspace.com/) and Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/). This paper will demonstrate how online knowledge production is related to indigenous forms of knowledge creation. This relationship provides an opportunity for marginalized cultures to meaningfully engage in mainstream culture. Where the role of adult education comes into play is ensuring the level of quality of this engagement. This paper hears Castellano’s call to update traditional forms of knowledge to integrate into the practices of contemporary society and calls on adult educators to help facilitate this.

As I entered the library to write this paper, I passed a graduation ceremony here on the campus of the University of Toronto. Adorned with caps and gowns, professors and newly graduated students mingled with colleagues and family members. The various degrees acquired though the university system are a valuable currency within our society. The rules on how these degrees are obtained, which subjects are taught, how they are taught and who teaches them are set by rigid guidelines. This is an excellent example of a controlled and hierarchal system of knowledge. In the first page of ‘Indigenous Knowledge in Global Contexts’ Dr. Vandana Shiva (2000) writes:
The priorities of scientific development and R&D efforts, guided by a Western bias, transformed the plurality of knowledge systems into a hierarchy of knowledge systems. When knowledge plurality mutated into knowledge hierarchy, the horizontal ordering of diverse but equally valid systems was converted into a vertical ordering of unequal systems, and the epistemological foundations of Western knowledge were imposed on non-Western knowledge systems with the result that the latter were invalidated. (Shiva, 2000, Foreward)

Not surprisingly this knowledge hierarchy that Dr. Vandana Shiva refers to can also be found online. Google is the world’s most popular search engine and thus, for the majority of the online population, a first stop in acquiring information. At first glance, it would appear that Google preserves the notion of knowledge plurality by providing an endless amount of searchable and contextualized information. However, due to the vast amount of information, it becomes difficult and time consuming to search through all the results generated and typically the first few results that appear in a search are the ones that are viewed the most. To be ranked high in Google means that your piece of information will come up first in a search and be detectable by the most amount of readers. The biggest contributing factor to ranking high in Google is to have the largest number of different sites linked to yours. Most recently, information ranking in Google is also predicated on the social political context of the area in which you are accessing your information. Google has been supporting the Chinese government in blocking information pertaining particularly to the Tibetan indigenous culture. Although Google supports multiple sources of knowledge it inherently ranks this knowledge reflecting the hierarchal systems of knowledge familiar to contemporary society.

What is interesting is that while online production of knowledge can be hierarchal, it can also be collaboratively generated through consensus building. For an example of a more collaborative form of online knowledge production let us turn to wikis. A wiki is a type of website that allows users to easily add, remove or otherwise edit all content,
quickly and easily. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative writing and knowledge creation (Wikipedia search on Wikipedia, 2006). Wikis are more and more readily on the Internet the first one was developed in 1995. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org) is the biggest multilingual open access encyclopedia on the internet. It contains over 500,000 articles and is constantly in a state of change and growth making it a very open system of knowledge (Wikipedia search on Wikipedia, 2006). This form of knowledge production is more closely related to what
Sefa, Hall and Rosenberg (2000) claim in the introduction to ‘Indigenous Knowledges in Global contexts’.

Knowledge is produced and acquired through collaborative processes. No individual group. Community, or nation can justifiably claim ownership of all knowledge. What constitutes valid knowledge, and how such knowledge should be produced and shared internally and globally, is still a subject of intense debate. It is important that there be no academic closure on this subject. Unfortunately, far too many educators privilege certain ways of knowing and interpreting the world over other ways. (Sefa, Hall, Rosenberg, 2000, pg. 1)

The intention of this paper is not to advocate for one sole method of knowledge production and sharing. The intention of this paper is to add to the debate on the subject matter by drawing attention to the relationships between indigenous forms of knowledge production and online forms of knowledge production such as the wiki tool mentioned above. Apparently, not coincidentally, the term wiki is a shortened form of wiki wiki (weekie, weekie) which is from the native language of Hawaii (Hawaiian), where it is commonly used as an adjective to denote something "quick" or "fast" (Hawaiian dictionary). Wiki is sometimes interpreted as the backronym for "What I know is", which describes the knowledge contribution, storage and exchange function. (Wikipedia Search on Wikipedia, 2006).
In her article, Castellano (2000) writes that ‘Aboriginal knowledge is rooted in personal experience and lays no claim to universality' (pg. 26). She goes on to state that ‘Aboriginal societies make a distinction between perceptions, which are personal, and wisdom, which has social validity and can serve as a basis for common action. Knowledge is validated through collective analysis and consensus building' (pg. 26). Through this lense, the act of Blogging is very much related to the aboriginal recognition of personal perception. Blogging refers to the updating of a website or a web-log, typically with subjective information and links to other blogs. Blogging is both a technology and a trend that has risen to dramatic importance over the past four years, reflective and affecting social and political change. Technorati, (http://www.technorati.com/) a search engine which tracks web logs, now lists over 37.3 Million blogs which has been doubling every 6 months. On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day. The blogosphere is multilingual, and deeply international. Japanese, Chinese, English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and German are the languages with the greatest number of posts (Sifry, 2006)

Through an aboriginal lense I would consider blogging to be a form of personal knowledge sharing conveyed in a narrative and metaphorical language. I would also consider the rise of online social networking another closely related and similar form. Online social networking refers to a category of Internet applications created to connect individuals together (Social Networking Search, Wikipedia, 2006). These connections are made via a set of tools that allow for individuals to express themselves through the written word, spoken word, visually and audio-visually. Currently, online social networking sites like Youtube and MySpace have become incredible hubs of activity amongst its users who are primarily contemporary youth. YouTube claims 40 million short-form pieces of audio-visual content are played from it’s site a day and My Space reports it has 32 million monthly users with an average user spending 78 minutes per visit (Boutin, 2006).
In her article ‘Updating traditional forms of Aboriginal Traditions’ Castellano (2000) defines the five characteristics of aboriginal knowledge as personal, oral, experiential, holistic and conveyed in narrative or metaphorical language. Online knowledge production is personal, conveyed in a narrative or metaphorical language, contextual and to a certain degree holistic.

In 1982 Walter J. Ong in ‘Orality and Literacy’ spoke of the emergence, through electronic media such as telephone, radio and television, of what he calls the secondary orality. Much like primary orality, secondary orality fosters a strong sense of membership in a group (Bingham, chp 5, para 2). Unlike primary orality, however, secondary orality is ‘essentially a more deliberate and self-conscious orality, based permanently on the use of writing and print" and the groups produced by secondary orality are much larger than any produced by primary orality (Ong, 1982, pg. 136).

Ong’s idea of secondary orality strongly linked indigenous oral traditions to emerging electronic media long before social networking tools were introduced to the mainstream. However, Mark Federman(2006), former Chief Strategist and head of McLuhan Management Studies at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto, makes an insightful point when he comments:

Primary Orality had as its dominant characteristic preservation and
conservation of knowledge. Literacy's dominant characteristic was linear extension of knowledge. Both could allow for only one way of knowing (that is, one way of constructing what was valued as knowledge), and one source of authority of knowledge within a given culture. In the contemporary conditions of UCAPP (ubiquitous connectivity and pervasive proximity), we are seeing an emergent collaborative production of knowledge with a distributed construction of knowledge authority, and a complex construction of "meaning" that is at once paradoxical and mutually consistent. It is not post-modern in the sense of abolishing the contextual ground and dealing only with the "text." In fact it is quite the opposite - context is crucial. But it is
multiple simultaneous contexts that creates complex emergent meaning. The term "secondary orality" cannot begin to cope with this. (Mark Federman, personal communication, May 5, 2006)

Federman describes a condition by which a plurality of meanings can be held together. I’ve illustrated a number of different technical tools that provide for this condition. If the conditions currently exist for non-hierarchal forms of knowledge production between individuals across the globe, then should this not be reflected in the manner in which these tools are used? To answer this question, let us now turn to a brief analysis of how users are utilizing the tools outlined above. As previously mentioned blogging presents an opportunity to connect with millions of others through the personalization of contextualized information. The amount of political and social agency bloggers have commanded has never been higher. Political organizations from the entire spectrum, along with the mainstream media, have legitimized the form of knowledge production. As an example of the influence bloggers can have over mainstream media, let us look to the "Rathergate" scandal (Blogging Search, Wikipedia, 2006).

Television presenter Dan Rather presented documents (on the CBS show 60 Minutes) that conflicted with accepted accounts of President Bush's military service record. Conservative bloggers declared the documents to be forgeries and presented arguments in support of that view, and CBS apologized for what it said were inadequate reporting techniques. Many bloggers view this scandal as the advent of blogs' acceptance by the mass media, both as a source of news and opinion and as means of applying political pressure. (Blogging Search, Wikipedia, 2006).

With that said, at the time of writing this paper the top searches on technocrati, which documents over 39 million blogs, were two television shows: American Idol and Lost, the My Space social networking site and three political topics; Immigration, Bush and James Gomez. (Boutin, 2006). Conversely, Google Canada recorded the following most popular searches in February 2006 in order of popularity; Nexopia (social software site), Air Canada, CBC (media outlet), Lavalife (social software site), Family Guy (television show), Love, Britney Spears (entertainment personality), 50 Cent (entertainment personality), Naruto (entertainment property), Westjet (commercial property), Angelina Jolie (entertainment personality), Carmen Electra (entertainment personality), Inuyasha (entertainment personality), Sudoku (game) and Canadian Tire (retail outlet) (Google Zeitgesit, 2006).

It’s unnerving to report that the opportunity presented by online technologies for alternative forms of knowledge creation is being filled with North American and Western European consumer culture production and re-production. If we look at this fact in relationship to the composition of the online population, it becomes more apparent why this is the case. As of March 31, 2006, 15% of the world has access to the Internet. 68.6% of North America’s audience had access to the Internet, 36% of Europeans, 2.6% of Africa’s population had access and 9.9% of Asia population (Internet World Stats Website, 2006). This figure also does not take into consideration the urban rural split as urban centers are far more likely to have higher levels of Internet penetration then rural areas.
Apart from advocating that a higher percentage of our global population should have access to new forms of communication and knowledge production, this paper advocates for the constructive use of the opportunity which available. It would seem that although the tools and context exist to update and integrate aboriginal ways of knowing, in contemporary mainstream online culture the online population is busy engaging with contemporary North American popular culture reproducing the cultural norms on the offline world around them. I see this trend play itself out in the majority of youth and young adult new media instruction programmes that I am involved in. As a recent volunteer instructor at Regent Park Focus, a media centre set up in Regent’s Park - Canada’s largest social housing project, I worked with a group of dynamic, engaged and creative youth around capacity building for new forms of online communication and knowledge production tools such as the ones described above. What I found was that the youth I was working with were more interested in reproducing popular culture rather then challenging it in order to have an original voice heard. It is apparent to me that just learning the mechanics and skill set needed to capitalize on online technologies is hardly sufficient when it comes to integrating aboriginal forms of knowledge within contemporary online culture. A paradigm shift must occur amongst users to approach these tools in a skillful manner. This, I believe, is where the role of adult education most strongly intersects with what we’ve been discussing to date. In her article, ‘A Four Worlds Approach to Transformative Learning.’ Anne Goodman (2005) states ‘We educate about transformation by talking about paradigms, worldviews and self-locations; we educate for transformation by developing the necessary capacities and attitudes and by being involved in transformative practices and movements; and that we educate through transformation by all the ways we learn and teach; act and live; relate and interact together (Goodman, pg 2).
As adult educators there is a need to challenge ourselves to not only skillfully approach, but also leverage online communication technologies. As part of my research for this paper, I did a postal code search on My Space to see how many people within 250 miles of Iqaluit, Nunavut were registered on the social networking tool. The search returned with 132 seemingly actively engaged individuals. What was also interesting to note was that I could easily trace the networking that had been done between the members and the community ties were apparent right away. They had been adding each other as friends, making comments back and forth to each other that referenced real time events that had transpired. I was intrigued at how accessible this online community was and also at the same time how it provided minimal reflection of the depth of cultural traditions that it encompassed. If such a globally accessible, dynamic, communicatory means of community representation exists, should we not challenge ourselves to find ways on capitalizing on this access? Especially considering some of the basic characteristics of the tools used for this access are related to traditional indigenous ways of knowing. I, for one, would like to see online representation of aboriginal elders from around the world, have instantaneous access to their perceptions and experiences and contribute to a manner of metaphorical representation which does justice to traditional ways of knowing and telling but also provides enough accessibility for a contemporary audience. This is only one suggestion and is very much limited to my experience and perception of aboriginal forms of knowledge. I believe stronger ties amongst aboriginal communities and technical communities are needed to facilitate engaging ways to use co-opt online tools for the furthering of alternative forms of knowing, interacting and challenging the world around us. I believe that adult education is the glue which binds these ties together and there is a strong role for programme design and implementation that draws from the paradigms of adult education while still catering to basic skill development and self-expression.

This paper does not provide any answers, but outlines the opportunity available to those interested attempting to reframe the main narratives currently adopted by mainstream society. With any transformational phase there comes with it opportunity for change. From the advent of language, from the telegraph to the online world, the rapid development of communication technologies has greatly affected how we relate to one another as humans and how we construct knowledge and meaning. We live in a time of great change and upheaval and as adult educators it’s imperative that we harness all the tools and opportunities that are at our disposal to shape the change that will allow for a plurality of opinions and the de-marginalization of the oppressed population in our world. I believe online communication and social networking tools has a large role to play in this as it offers a viable platform in which to integrate marginalized ways of knowing into the mainstream.

REFERENCES

Bingham, Art. Review of Walter J. Ong’s Orality and Literacy. Retrieved Thursday, May 11th 2006 from http://www.engl.niu.edu/wac/ong_rvw.html

Boutin, Paul. (2006, April 28). A Grand Unified Theory of YouTube and MySpace Point-and-click sites that don't tell you what to do. Slate. Retrieved Wednesday, May 3th, 2006 from http://www.slate.com/id/2140635/

Castellano, Marlene Brant (2000) “Updating Aboriginal Traditions of Knowledge” in George Dei et al (eds). Indigenous Knowledges in Global Contexts: Multiple Readings of Our World. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000

Goodman, Anne (2005) “A Four Worlds Approach to Transformative Learning” in Anne Goodman. Outline of Adult Education AEC 1100 course handbook, Winter, 2006. Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.

Google Zeitgesit. Retrieved Thursday, May 11th, 2006 from
http://www.google.co.uk/press/zeitgeist.html

Dei, George J. Sefa, Hall, Budd L. Rosenberg, Dorothy Goldin (2000) Indigenous Knowledges in Global Contexts: Multiple Readings of our World. Toronto : OISE/UT book published in association with University of Toronto Press

Internet World Stats Website. Retrieved Thursday, May 11th, 2006 from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Ong,Walter J. (1982) Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London and New York: Meuthen & Co. Ltd

Sifry, Dave (2006, May 1). State of the Blogoshphere, April 2006 Part 2: On Language and Tagging. Sifry’s Alerts David Sifry’s musings. Search Retrieved Thursday, May 11th, 2006 from http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000433.html

Search results from Wikipedia website. Retrieved Thursday, May 11th, 2006 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Search results from Wikipedia website. Retrieved Thursday, May 11th, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking

Search results from Wikipedia website. Retrieved Thursday, May 11th, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogging

Technocrati website. Retrieved Thursday, May 11th, 2006 from http://www.technocratic.org

NEW MEDIA - AN INTERACTIVE MEDIUM OF CULTURAL EXPRESSION

2006-03-12T16:15:00.000-08:00

Research Paper
AEC 3179H – FALL 2005
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
Written by: Mark Greenspan (mark@markgreenspan.com)

Abstract
This paper is an exploration of new media through its theoretical roots. It defines new media as a medium of cultural expression and assesses the impacts of the interactive nature of the medium. This paper also explores the current stage of development of this medium and makes recommendations on furthering its development.

Just by its title new media appears to be a nebulous, dynamic and wide-ranging field of study. The term ‘new’ is tied to progress while the term ‘media’ reflects the wide scope of disciplines it embodies. This paper begins with a contextualization of my role in the new media industry and how this has affected me to frame my perception of the field. After recent career and academic developments and a survey of the leading new media theorists I have reframed my perception of the field. In this paper you will join me on my exploratory research of leading new media theorists Lev Manovich and Janet Murray. I also briefly touch upon the writings of game theorists Eric Zimmerman, Katie Salen and Brenda Laurel. Not to mention the media theory incantations of Marshall McLuhan. In this paper I will illustrate that new media is a medium of cultural expression of great importance due to its interactive and widespread nature. I believe that this medium is currently being misused and we must step back and take a more theoretical approach to its possible applications to realize its full potential. I now look to experimental new media art, theory and research as a fertile ground for ideas that could see this medium realize its full potential.

For the better part of the past ten years I’ve identified myself as a new media producer. Almost invariably it’s greeted with confused looks and subsequent questions. What is new media? What do you produce? Over the past ten years the slue of pre-prepared answers I have to choose from has changed considerably. I’d like to think that these changing answers have more to do with the ever-evolving field of new media rather then a tendency towards misrepresentation. In the span of ten years I have produced countless number of new media projects and upon reflection the only aspects they have in common are the following; they combined various forms of media such as images, text and audio. A computer was used to create them and in most of the cases I was producing them for commercial reasons. I am a new media producer who is predominately situated in the commercial realm of the industry, producing projects for the purpose of marketing products or services. This is much different than experimental and research driven new media art projects. As Lev Manovich (2003) points out there is a rich tradition of new media art dating back to the 1970’s with SIGGRAPH in the United States and Ars Electornic in Austria acting as annual gathering places of artists working with computers (pg. 13). It has not been until the past year that I have discovered the rich tradition of new media theory, art and experimentation. This discovery has reframed my view of the field of new media and this paper attempts to express this reframing.

In the past I had always defined new media through two related terms ‘interactive’ and ‘multimedia’. Multimedia, I explained, represented the combination of various different types of media primarily text, audio, and images, much like any standard advertisement on television. If we look to Manovich (2001) we can see that the roots of multimedia extend back much further than the development of television.

Before computer multimedia became commonplace around 1990, filmmakers were already combining moving images, sound and text (be it inter-titles of the silent era or the title sequences of the later period) for a whole century. Cinema thus was the original modern "multimedia." We can also much earlier? examples of multiple-media displays, such as medieval illuminated manuscripts, which combined text, graphics and representational images (pg. 67)

What occurs to me now is that in my definition of multimedia I would neglect to touch on the representational nature of the medium. It is more obvious to me now that by combining text, graphics and images you are putting together a particular representation of the world. Janet Murrary (2003) does a wonderful job of summarizing why the computer and new media is an effective medium for cultural representation.
The awe-inspiring representation power of the computer derives from its four defining qualities: its procedural, participatory, encyclopedic, and spatial properties(pg. 6).

Manovich (2001) describes the rise of new-media based arts as follows:
The fact that aspects of sensible reality can be recorded and that these recordings can be later combined, re-shaped and manipulated — in short, edited — made possible the new media-based arts which were soon to dominate the twentieth century: fiction films, radio concerts and music programs, television serials and news programs (pg. 151).

It is evident that new media is a compelling form of representation because of its incredible capacity to store, deliver and create representations of reality.

However, multimedia alone did not adequately fulfill my description of new media. I would have to follow with the term ‘interactivity’. Interactivity, I would go on, allowed someone to manipulate the combinations of media that were presented. Again, this straightforward technical description might work well at cocktail parties but it does not serve to speak to the type of interaction, its quality or its impact. I should have heeded Manovich’s (2001) warning when he wrote:

When we use the concept of “interactive media” exclusively in relation to computer-based media, there is danger that we interpret "interaction" literally, equating it with physical interaction between a user and a media object (pressing a button, choosing a link, moving the body), at the sake of psychological interaction. The psychological processes of filling-in, hypothesis forming, recall and identification, which are required for us to comprehend any text or image at all, are mistakenly identified with an objectively existing structure of interactive links (pg. 71).

There is a rich theoretical framework for the definition of ‘interactivity’ that I will draw on below. In his book, ‘Rules of Play’ gaming theorists Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen (2003) position interaction with the creation of meaning. ‘The careful crafting of player experience through a system of interaction is critical to the design of meaningful play’(pg. 58). Although Zimmerman and Salen’s definition stems from a design perspective it illustrates the agency inherent in interactivity. That interacting with a system can act to create meaning. Media theorist Brenda Laurel (1993) continues with the notion of agency and brings the concept of representation to the understanding of the term interactivity when she states ”…..something is interactive when people can participate as agents within a representational context. An agent is ‘one who initiates actions’” (pg. 112). Laurel’s model emphasizes the interpretive component of interactive experiences, framing an interactive system as a representational. My take on interactivity is that it involves the ability to make choices and with choices comes agency, responsibility and morality. Choice can be equated to participation and participation can be equated with democracy. Therefore the interactive quality of the medium of new media characterizes it as a participatory medium and potentially democratic medium. New media can also be characterized as a digital medium of expression, a representational space. It is in Janet Murray’s words (2003), ‘how we see the world and how we communicate the world to the rest of the world’ (pg. 6). As a medium, new media is ‘a means to convey ideas or information’. (Encarta, 1999). Renowned media theorist, Marshall McLuhan (1964) would agree with the importance of this focus as he notably argues, ‘The medium is the message because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action’ (pg. 203). Murray (2003) would agree with McLuhan when she states ‘The right instruments organize not just the outer world but consciousness itself’ (pg. 6). Murray (2003) goes on to say:
We are drawn to a new medium of representation because we are pattern makers who are thinking beyond our old tools. We cannot rewind our collective cognitive effort, since the digital medium is as much a pattern of thinking and perceiving as it is a pattern of making things. We are drawn to this medium because we need it to understand the world and our place in it (pg. 8).

In her description Murray eloquently illustrates the relationship between our patterns of thinking, perceiving and new media. As a digital medium of expression the main tools and instruments of new media are the computer, the computer interface and the Internet. These tools are of vast significance because they shape the manner in which we interact with the cultural forms of expression that are delivered to us. It is also important to consider the proliferation of these tools in order to effectively consider their current and potential impacts. Manovich (2001) does an incredible job of summarizing these impacts in the following paragraph.

What had also come by 1995 was Internet—the most material and visible sign of globalization. And, by the end of the decade, it has also become clear that the gradual computerization of culture will eventually transform all of it. So, to invoke the old Marxist model of base and superstructure, if the economic base of modern society from the 1950s onward started to shift toward a service and information economy, becoming by the 1970s a so-called “post-industrial society” (Daniel Bell), and then later a “network society” (Manual Castells), by the 1990s the superstructure started to feel the full impact of this change. If the “postmodernism” of the 1980s was the first, preliminary echo of this shift still to come—still weak, still possible to ignore—the 1990s’ rapid transformation of culture into e-culture, of computers into universal culture carriers, of media into new media, demanded that we rethink our categories and models (pg. 32).

The models and categories? that I would like to consider are: what are the implications of the notion that computers are not only culture carriers but also tools that can interact with culture on a global scale. At first thought you would think that radical new forms of cultural expression and participation would be produced. Also, given the current rates of proliferation of computers and the Internet it also would seem to offer great promises in shaping not only the representations of our world but our world itself. A highly democratic tool which would enable everyone to participate in cultural expression on a global scale. However, upon reflection and researching of the social trends and cultural developments of the past ten years, I am convinced that on a societal level new media has not delivered on this lofty potential. We have seen very few original creative movements in the 90’s and 00’s, primarily just the repurposing of existing material and ideas. We have also seen the rapid and extensive proliferation of western European ideologies across the globe. The global resurgence of the eighties movement, the remixing and re-sampling involved in the hip-hop culture, the rise of the DJ as a master sampler. It’s as if we are so pre-occupied with using the capabilities of this new digital medium to re-sort and re-combine everything that has been created before and distributing it widely across the globe. Manovich (2001) suggests we look to the fundamental forms and operations of a computer to explain this phenomenon, the Graphical User Interface (GUI).

It is not accidental that the development of GUI which legitimized “cut and paste” logic as well as media manipulation software such as Photoshop, which popularized plug-in architecture, took place during the 1980s — the same decade when contemporary culture became “post-modern.” In evoking this term I follow Fredric Jameson’s usage of post-modernism as “a periodizing concept whose function is to correlate the emergence of new formal features in culture with the emergence of a new type of social life and a new economic order.” As it became apparent by the early 1980s for critics such as Jameson, culture no longer tried to “make it new.” Rather, endless recycling and quoting of the past media content, artistic styles and forms became the new “international style” and the new cultural logic of modern society (pg. 126).

Manovich (2001) goes on to say.

Rather than assembling more media recordings of reality, culture is now busy re-working, recombining and analyzing the already accumulated media material. Invoking the metaphor of Plato’s cave, Jameson writes that post-modern cultural production “can no longer look directly out of its eyes at the real word but must, as in Plato’s cave, trace its mental images of the world on its confining walls.” In my view, this new cultural condition found its perfect reflection in the emerging computer software of the 1980s which privileged the selection from already existing media elements over creating them from scratch. And at the same time, to a large extent it is this software which made post-modernism possible (pg. 126).

While Manovich privileges the basic structures of the medium such as the software I would go further to suggest that it is because of the rapid pace of adoption of technology combined with the lack of wide spread theoretical training we find ourselves in this stage of development. To Manovich’s (2001) credit he would agree with this assumption and writes, ‘the speed with which new technologies are assimilated in the United States makes them ‘invisible’ almost overnight: they become an assumed part of the everyday existence, something which does not seem to require much reflection’ (pg. 13). Apart from being a new media producer I’m also a new media educator and I have developed and taught new media curriculum in both developed and non-developed countries at the college level. These courses have all been skill-based courses and have contained minimal amounts of theoretical training. What I’ve noticed is that when it comes to technology training there is a focus on skill transfer. I would consider this to be because it provides easily quantifiable results. However, it is extremely important, especially a this stage of the development of new media that we take a step back and consider not only the impacts of this medium but how to best approach it. Perhaps, Marshal McLuhan (1964) would answer my call with the following quote.
Our conventional response to all media, namely that is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the ‘content’ of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind’ (pg. 207)

However he does go on to say that ‘the serious artist is the only person able to encounter technology with impunity, just because he is an expert aware of the changes in sense perception. (McLuhan, pg. 208, 1964) What I’m calling for is that all users of new media approach it like the serious artist that McLuhan describes. If we are to participate fully in shaping this new medium it is essential that we become experts in our approach to it.

References

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Laurel, Brenda. (1993). Computers as Theatre. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

McLuhan, Marhsall. (1964). The Medium is the Message. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort, The New Media Reader (pp. 203 – 209). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Manovich, Lev. (2001). The Language of New Media. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Manovich, Lev. (2003). New Media from Borges to HTML. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort, The New Media Reader (pp. 13 – 25). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Murray, Janet. H. (2003). Inventing the Medium. In Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort, The New Media Reader (pp. 3 – 11). Cambridge, MIT Press.

Salen, Katie & Zimmerman, Eric. (2003). Rules of Play. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

ABORIGINAL WAYS OF KNOWING

2006-03-12T16:13:00.000-08:00

AEC 1100: Outline Of Adult Education
WINTER 2006

ABORIGINAL WAYS OF KNOWING

In August of 2005, I spent three days camping on the first nations reserve in Moosonee, Ontario. From an aboriginal perspective, I did this because I wanted to walk the land in order to begin to better understand the plight of the first nations people in Canada.
As stated in the 1996 Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, ‘Persons schooled in a literate culture are accustomed to having all the context they need to understand a communication embedded in the text before them….persons taught to use all their senses to absorb every clue to interpreting a complete, dynamic reality may well smile at the illusion that words alone, stripped of complementary sound and colour and texture, can convey meaning adequately.' (Canada 1999, 1:622 -3).

From a literate culture perspective, the purpose of reviewing Marlene Brant Castellano's article ‘Updating Aboriginal Traditional of Knowledge’ is to continue to increase awareness for the plight of the first nations people of Canada; to gain more exposure to aboriginal forms of knowledge; and to be able to better integrate them into my life and practice as and educator. In the examples illustrated above, the purpose of forming knowledge is the same but the means are strikingly different. Does this imply that one way of forming knowledge is more valid then the other? Unfortunately, as Castellano points out in her article, this seems to be the case when comparing aboriginal traditions of knowledge and contemporary forms of knowledge. Castellano’s purpose in writing the article was to affirm and define aboriginal traditions of knowledge while calling for the need to integrate and adapt these traditions with contemporary society. In Castellano’s own words:

‘Aboriginal knowledge has been under assault for many years. In residential schools and other educational institutions, in the workplace, in social relations, and in political forum, aboriginal people have been bombarded with the message that what they know from their culture is of no value. Intergenerational transmission of ancient knowledge has been disrupted, and the damage has not been limited to the loss of what once was known: the process of knowledge creation – that is the use of cultural resources to refine knowledge in the laboratory of daily living – has also been disrupted. As aboriginal people reassert their right to practise their cultures in a somewhat more hospitable social environment, they will have to decide how to adapt their tradition to a contemporary environment' (pg. 25)

This article is an accessible point for a detailed understanding of aboriginal traditional knowledge due to the fact that Castellano skillfully deconstructs the major sources and characteristics of aboriginal knowledge. Castellano defines the five characteristics of aboriginal knowledge as personal, oral, experiential, holistic and conveyed in narrative or metaphorical language. She identifies the main sources of aboriginal knowledge as traditional teachings, empirical observations and revelation. Through this description, it becomes easier to see the challenges faced in preserving and integrating a predominantly oral culture of knowledge in a world which functions through a literate culture of knowledge. In the context of Habermas’ paradigms of education I found aboriginal traditions of knowledge to be more closely related with the humanist paradigm - built collaboratively through consensus and valuing the potential of the individual. However, in contemporary society, knowledge is transferred primarily through what Paulo Freire described as the "banking model of education". Knowledge quantified and transferred to learners en masse. This is more related to Habermas’s technical paradigm of adult education and is relatively at odds with aboriginal traditions of knowledge.

What I found to be extremely interesting is the correlation between aboriginal traditions of knowledge and how knowledge is created in cyberspace. In Castenello’s words ‘Aboriginal knowledge is rooted in personal experience and lays no claim to universality' (pg. 26). She goes on to state that ‘Aboriginal societies make a distinction between perceptions, which are personal, and wisdom, which has social validity and can serve as a basis for common action. Knowledge is validated through collective analysis and consensus building.' (pg. 26).

Knowledge in cyberspace inherently lays no claim to universality and is validated through collective analysis and consensus building. An illustration of an active and dynamic knowledge building community is Wikipedia, a multilingual content encyclopedia on the Internet that contains over two million articles posted by users from around the world.

In the article, Castellano poses three important questions: Can the integrity of aboriginal knowledge survive the transition to a literate form? What are the tests of authenticity? Who has the authority to represent aboriginal knowledge? (pg. 31). I would argue that new forms of knowledge construction in cyberspace will not only support the integrity of aboriginal knowledge but influence our literate society to adapt a more diverse and collaborative model of knowledge creation. Where the challenge and the hard work lay is in the integration of emerging forms of knowledge construction into the daily practice of transmitting knowledge from Aboriginal elders to both aboriginal and non-aboriginal youth.

References

Canada. 1996. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples: Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Volume 1, Looking Forward, Looking Back; Volume 2, Restructuring the Relationship; Volume 3, Gathering Strength; Volume 4, Perspectives and Realities; and Volume 5, Renewal: A Twenty-Year Commitment. Ottawa: Canada Communications Group. (Also available with related documentation on CD-ROM under the title For Seven Generations; An Information Legacy of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Ottawa, Libraxus, 1997.)

Castellano, Marlene Brant “Updating Aboriginal Traditions of Knowledge” in George Dei et al (eds). Indigenous Knowledges in Global Contexts: Multiple Readings of Our World. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000

BASECAMP ONE SHEET

2006-03-07T17:49:00.000-08:00

Basecamp
http://www.basecamphq.com/

"We have this big thing about embracing constraints. When you have constraints -- less time, less money -- people care about every dollar they spend”

-Jason Fried, Founder of 37Signals creator of Basecamp

What is Basecamp?

Basecamp is a simple-to- use web-based tool for managing and collaborating on projects.

Basecamp is an example of a new wave of Internet applications that promote collaboration through effective interface design, leveraging cost effective online digital storage space and the functionality broadband networks are able to deliver.

Why is Basecamp useful?

-It is a simple and clever way to manage the sharing of information regarding a project across multiple locations and team members

-It consolidates all project information into one accessible location online

-It’s free if you require only limited functionality, but there is a monthly fee if you want to be able to upload files.

What are Basecamp’s drawbacks?

-It requires members of your project team to learn how to use a web based utility and track a username and password

-It requires members of your project team to modify their existing workflow processes

-It requires a minimum level of technical ability for all team members

How do I try Basecamp out for myself?

1. Log onto http://www.basecamphq.com/
2. Set up a trial project
3. Add members of your project team
4. Create your first message
5. Create your first milestone
6. Create your first to-do list
7. Create your first write-board

BASECAMP

2006-03-07T17:25:00.000-08:00

The following is a paper about one of the best online project management and collaboration tools available right now (March 2006)

Basecamp
http://www.basecamphq.com/
AEC 1100: OUTLINE OF ADULT EDUCATION
Mark Greenspan

What is Basecamp?

Basecamp is a simple-to-use web-based tool for managing and collaborating on projects.

Basecamp is an example of a new wave of Internet applications that promote collaboration through effective interface design, leveraging cost effective online digital storage space and the functionality broadband networks are able to deliver.

Basecamp serves as an excellent example of a Web 2.0 application.

Web 2.0

According to Wikipedia’s definition (copied directly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0)

Web 2.0 is a term popularized by O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International as the name for a series of Web development conferences that started in October 2004. This term has since become what some people see as a second phase of architecture and application development for the World Wide Web

As used by its proponents, the phrase "Web 2.0" refers to one or more of the following:

-The transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming a computing platform serving web applications to end users.

-A social phenomenon referring to an approach to creating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, de-centralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and "the market as a conversation".

-A more organized and categorized type of content, with a far more developed deep-linking web architecture.

-A shift in the economic value of the web, possibly surpassing the dot com boom of the late 1990s.

-A marketing term to differentiate new web businesses from those of the dot com boom, which, due to the bust, now seem discredited

-The resurgence of excitement around the possibilities of innovative web applications and service that gained a lot of momentum around mid 2005.

Basecamp is an excellent example of a Web 2.0 application as it is a website that is more like a computer application then a static source of information. It facilitates collaboration and the sharing of information and is created by a next generation web company called 37signals.

Basecamp Functionality

Basecamp’s main pieces of functionality consist of messages, milestones, to-do lists and write boards.

MESSAGES

Messages are the foundation of Basecamp. Messages can be text based, contain files and link to specific websites.

Multiple comments can be added to each message. This functionality allows for threads of conversation around topics and/or files.

Messages can also be directed to an entire project team or directly emailed to select members of a team.

Messages appear in reverse chronological order so the latest information is always at the top of the screen.

MILESTONES

Basecamp lets you track important project milestones and note who is responsible for each one. Basecamp automatically categorizes your milestones into late (shown in red), upcoming (shown in yellow) or completed (shown in green) milestones. You can add new milestones one at a time, or up to 10 at a time.

TO-DO LISTS

Basecamp allows you to create a detailed and hierarchical categorization of activities that need to be accomplished on your project. Each To-Do list can contain up to a 1000 items that can be assigned to members of your project team and tracked accordingly.

WRITEBOARDS

Writeboards are sharable, web-based text documents that let you save every edit, roll back to any version, and easily compare changes. Writeboards allow you to work collaboratively on text documents and you can compare different versions of a document, be automatically notified of changes and have your text hosted in one location.

Drawbacks to Basecamp include:

-Requiring members of your project team to learn how to use a web based utility and track a username and password.

-Requiring members of your project team to modify their existing workflow processes.

-Requiring a minimum level of technical ability for all team members.

-The to-do lists are only limited to a two-tiered hierarchy.

-The milestone feature allows for input of one deadline at a time.

Who developed Basecamp?

A 5-person company which was founded in Chicago in 1999 called 37signals designed Basecamp. In his article in salon.com, Farhad Manjoo does a wonderful job of describing how 37signals evolved and Basecamp came to being.

"The story of how 37 Signals morphed from a Web design firm that built sites for businesses into a Web software company that builds applications for regular people is reminiscent of the Native American legend about Indian tribes who found a use for every part of the slain buffalo." (Manjoo)

"We have this big thing about embracing constraints," says Jason Fried, the company's founder. "When you have constraints -- less time, less money -- people care about every dollar they spend. Customers ask us, 'How does Basecamp compare with other project-management tools?' We say it does less. Our products do less, and that's why they're successful. People don't want bloated products, and constraints force us to keep our products small, and to keep them valuable." (Manjoo)

REFERENCES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/08/10/37signals/print.html

http://www.basecamphq.com/