Friday, February 5, 2010

Windows and Mirrors

Hello class:

Windows and Mirrors is filled with multiple ideals discussing the relationship between technological advancement and users’ dependence on information.

Bolter and Gromala present a thorough examination of the influence exerted on the public when surrounded by a continuous incorporation of tools. The authors analyze various innovative practices which are developed to serve the public’s needs while creating an endless appetite for consumption. The modification of media has been a steady process of encouraging people to “find themselves through the tools they use.”

The examples of the artistic expressions were inspired by the effort to make the audience part of the experience of receiving and processing information. The unsettling ways in which artists interpreted the world generate an eccentric, yet concerning, view of how much reality has been manipulated digitally. Change cannot be avoided, however, the excessive alteration of the physical world is distressing.

The medium is indeed the message, but what medium are we talking about? The collection of numerous applications into one single device may bring one to wonder what that message may be. How can the message be interpreted when the medium cannot be defined?

Margaret M. Roidi

2 comments:

  1. Margaret, first off, we can define the medium as characterized by change. But more to the point, what really counts is the process of mediation. Rather than worry, for example, whether hi-definition TV is the same medium as TV used to be, we can ask what is changed by going to hi-def, and what remains the same. Each application, and each combination of applications, represents a particular form of mediation.

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  2. The amount of information will continue to increase and news can change instantaneously. With printed media, the reader would have to wait until the next day to get more information. Now with electronic media (TV, Internet, e-mail), news can be updated within a few seconds. Each medium delivers information to the user, whether in print or visual. With printed media, you see words and photographs. Whereas electronic media delivers live action.

    Freddie

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