Ulmer

There was so much in the readings this week so I provide a list of the terms Ulmer presented and his definitions.

egents- "the nature of 'agency' (both individual and collective) is undergoing mutation in electracy" (18).

inventio- "the stage of gathering the materials with which to work" (21).

Popcycle- "refers to the ensemble of discourses into which members of a society are 'interpellated'"(24).

Dike- justice (29).

Definition- "establishes essence"(33).

Formless- "a term serving to declassify, requiring in general that every thing should have a form" (40).

Discipline- "specialized knowledge" (41).

Image- "refers to verbal as well as pictorial practices" (46).

Shiori- "referring to language that is flexible, supporting productive ambiguity" (51).

Wabi-sabi- "cultural mood of Japan" (52).
"a guide to the elements of the wide image" (52-55).
The Material Register
Things
Material attributes
Atmosphere

The Spiritual Register
Feeling
Worldview
Morality

Middle voice- "based on the reflexive, self-conscious nature of modernist writing that claimed to be knowledge only of language, not of life" (57).

Stimmung- "as one of the existentials grounding one's being in the world" (59).

Disaster- "is important in evoking the dimension of 'disaster' that the EmerAgency is designed to address" (63).

Ulmer discusses Aristotle's Topics and the concept of a definition. Although this seems to be basic common knowledge I acknowledge the significance of a definition and the "essence" it creates. In undergrad, I was on the intercollegiate debate team and had instances where the definition in the case won or lost rounds. My coach would highlight the importance of not only finding a suitable definition, but the academic nature of the source for the definition. The definition always came first because it does "establish essence," content, or meaning and is the way in which we can judge the nature of the case or way the claims.

Rettburg

In last week's reading Rettberg mentioned the shift that occurred when society was able to individually read texts. "With silent reading, reading changed from a communal to a personal act, and it has been argued that this new solitary relationship between an individual and a text was a significant reason for the development of the notion of a separation between private and public (Chartier)" (40). It seems as though blogging is another shift from public to private. Individuals no longer have to rely on the media to receive the news. Readers can go to various blogs to obtain information. Another facet of this shift is the authoring of information. Rettberg states, "Bloggers have seen themselves as an alternative to mainstream media, as a force that can reform and change the ways we conceive of media: today, anybody can own a press. Anybody can be the media" (108). The idea that anyone can contribute information is a driving force for not only blogs but also Twitter. An average person now feels comfortable and almost driven to let the world know they are taking their dog for a walk or any other mundane piece of information. I find it interesting to see how companies integrate this media into its daily communication. This incredibly individual media in a large company compromises the individual nature of the media.

As part of the shift from public to private there is an emphasis on trust and authenticity in blogging. Rettburg provided multiple examples of blogs that gave off the appearance of an individual's personal thoughts and composition, but the individual was either a fake person or a person paid by a company. "When Kaycee and lonelygirl15 were revealed to be hoaxes, readers and viewers were furious" (125). Because of the perceived personal component to blogging, society expects the same level of integrity from those who blog as those they interact with face-to-face.

Rettberg and Ulmer Week 1

I started reading Rettberg and after reading the first paragraph I had a question about her view on technological determinism. In a book about blogging, I was wondering how technological determinism would factor into her writings about digital media. I read fifty pages and finally found what I was looking for--on page 53 she states that the "moderate viewpoint referred to as co-construction, a term that emphasizes the mutual dependencies between technology and culture." The idea that culture and society is shaped by technology is rather extreme. I wonder about the inventors of major technologies and speculate if they anticipated the massive response to their products. Did cell phone inventors ever think that not only would one household own one but every member in the household? Or that there would be laws passed to ban the use of cellphones while driving? Technological co-construction does address the fact that technology has an impact on our culture while avoiding the extreme views of technological determinism.

Throughout the Rettberg reading I tried to make note of the way in which she classified or described blogs. One aspect that I though could relate to Ulmer was the cumulative nature of blogs. Rettberg says, "because blogging is a cumulative process, most posts presuppose some knowledge of the history of the blog, and the they fit into a larger story" (4). The cumulative nature of a personal blog can aid in the retention of events and ideas. A narrative is built through the posts and topics discussed in the blog. Another characteristic is the dynamic nature of blogs. Rettberg highlights that "today's blogs are expected to change regularly--indeed, their chief defining feature is that they are frequently updated and that the content does not stay the same" (23). I must say there are a couple of blogs that I follow and I am disappointed when the author does not update them on a consistent and frequent basis. This idea of blogs being a dynamic and possibly two-way communication medium relies on the characteristic that the content constantly changes and is reciprocal.

In the Ulmer reading I was looking for a clearer idea of what a Mystory is and all that is involved in this project. I googled Mystory and Bystory and had a few good hits but still had some questions. In Ulmer's book on page 6 under the Make a Mystory I was struck by the statement "Memory is crucial since we are testing the power of the punctum (Barthes) or memory sting as the connection bet ween personal organic memory (living) and the artificial memory of computing and the web" (7). In undergrad I did my final senior project on the public or collective memory in regards to the memorials in Washington D.C.. I compared and contrasted the Vietnam and World War II memorials and how the designs are indicative of society's memory of the wars. I thought of this in comparison to Ulmer's emphasis on memory but in a "personal organic" manner. Mystory is the personal counterpart to public memory.