Textual Media

With the abundance usage and reliance on internet material comes the problem of organizing and preserving the data as noted by Roy Rosenzwieg’s in "Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era".  Rosenzwieg raised a genuine concern for historians and many other scholars such as librarians, curator, and archivist.  There are disadvantages and advantages in preserving information in digital form.  One of the disadvantages are the ephemeral quality of digital information.  In under 50 years the form or instrument used to preserve the digital information may become obsolete in light of the rapid technological advancement.  Another disadvantage is if there is one tiny problem or corruption with the diskes or files in which it is saved the entire work might be lost completely.  Also there is the issue of who will continue to fund the continuation of the archive after the originator is gone?  How can one assure that the site will continue to exist?  There are many issue that arise with the idea of how best to deal with internet materials and abundance of things online, but with all the problems, Rosenzwieg argues that it is necessary to start an attempt to preserve the information.  Even though he recognizes that it is impossible to create a flawless retainment of documents or the "perfect plan" of implementation, it is better to save some then none. The advantage about placing things on internet archive and digitizing materials is so that many people can access the infomation with more efficiency and convinence.  Information can be made readily available to the public.  There can be an availablity of numerous perspectives on one single issues that can complicate and enrich historical perspectives. 

 On a personal level, the essay brought to mind the idea of perserving emails.  Emails are regarded as a quick form of memo and is not appear to be on the fore front of the need to put email in preservation as mentioned in Rosenzweig’s essay.  Nonetheless, with the recent emergence of google email, the idea of the site is so that the users will have enough space in the mailbox so that they will not have the need to delete a single email.  Also google brought the idea of facilitating searching mechanism through your emails.  Just to think, many years in the future, instead of going through paper bound diaries and letters, people can find ways to access online journals and emails of an important character.  If only there are ways to continue preserving emails sites and some ways to posthumously make public emails account in an archival forms. 

I think the assigned article that we had to read brought up many good arguments about why ‘preserving the past’ digitally is – and isn’t – a good idea.

Many of us have probably run into the same problem with preserving content on the Internet – you may be working on a web page, writing an e-mail to a friend, writing a post for class – you click the button to transmit the information, and then find that the information did not go through, and everything that you had written is lost and unable to be retrieved. Web pages can be easily "lost" due to bad code, a bad server, a bad host…. numerous reasons, and all of the information stored on it is usually lost for good.

I can see why this author is worried about how we are increasingly turning towards the Internet to preserve our information and how unreliable the Internet is for storing information. Most pages are not backlogged, so if they are lost, they are lost forever.

I also found some valid arguments in his ideas about copyrights… it is easy to find information and "steal" it off the internet without giving the person proper credit. The Internet is just not as organized as literary sources such as books and magazines, and it is harder to cite information that you use off of there than from a book.

  On the topic of American memory, I would have to agree with Jackie about it’s disorganization.  Even after discussing the search engine in class I had trouble finding what I wanted to find. Although, i found the image format TIFF and it’s possible uses intriguing.  It is a good idea to digitize these documents if only for preservation purposes.  It is also nice to have access to these original images and enabled to utilize the enhanced information they allow.

   The discussion we had for the project got me thinking but I’m still in abstract stages.  It will take some investigation, I am thinking along the lines of film or photography archives.  If anyone finds anything interesting or useful to get me thinking let me know! Either on here, in class or my email is jparker6@gmu.edu.  Or even any interesting directional ideas would be greatly appreciated!  Thanks, and everyone have a great thanksgiving break!! -Jen-

I found the American Memory site to be interesting, but not all that user-friendly. Maybe it’s a work in progress. I tried to browse through the different categories (ex. War and Military, Women’s History) and found myself losing attention – there are so many links on this site bunched together that it is overwhelming. I was most surprised when I tried to research the Vietnam War and found that under "War and Military", there is no specific category for the Vietnam War, although it lists just about every other war that the United States has been involved in. It does, however, pull up some finds under the search engine query, but not too many. I was definitely disappointed to see this, especially since Vietnam is so recent – isn’t it more pertinant to the American history today than say, the Spanish-American War?

While I would probably find this site useful to search information on these various topics, I think that this doesn’t provide me with more, or better, information than I could find by using a Google search. The one good thing about this site is that it presents the information in an organized manner, and the site also provides you with its own search engine.

After watching Red vs Blue in class the other day, I have to say my interest was definetly awoken.  Later that night I went home and watched some more episodes.  Isn’t it ironic how movies became video games in the beginning, for example: Medal of Honor is a spin off of Saving Private Ryan and numerous Batman video games were made.  This followed the trend of popular movies become sitcoms.  But now the role has been reversed of video games becoming blockbuster movies.  Here are few, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, and Doom.  So it is only a matter of time before video games become sitcoms as well?  NOT taking a stance on this, but how indoctrinated will today’s youth be with violence and gaming? Not a sermon, just a thought.

Lexia to Perplexia

            This site’s lexia entrance pages consisted of black background that gave the impression of hidden secrets.  The index page consisted of a boarded frame that focused the reader’s attention to the story within it.  On the page, the only linked text was the header text of the title and the subheading text of the author’s name.  There was a half visible image of a persona’s face that gave the illusion of someone peering from the shadows. When I begin to click the links I notice that the author discreetly direct the readers direction through the lexia and presented the text for a full comprehension to the subject matter.  The pages were not chaotic but well designed and the layout presented the information in a thought provoking format.  The author designed the pages where not all text or links on the lexia had a connecting link and the hyperactivity had simple progressions that relate the message.  The graphic image on the index lexia took the reader to a page that had graphic representation of their linked text.      

 

The Bomar Gene

On the other hand, begin it index page with a linear story that had a gradient background of different shade of gray with white writing.  The only color on the page was the blue hyperlink at the bottom of the page.  The page had only three links and the lead the clicker to certain pages.  When the visitor clicked on the index text, the link too you to a page where the text above the blank information box that changed colors when you moved over it.  The text above the box changed it position as the box changed its color as the visitor moved over the box as if they both were caught in a matrix grid.

 

Both    

However, I did click though both site and saw that they both used the styles that were outline in the reading material that was presented in the course reader and the other material that was used in class. They were different in their presentation lexia to Perplexia was orderly in their presentation with graphic that represent the textual ideas.  Plus, Mammoth was discreet in how he made the lexia flow with the links.  While, The Bomar Gene was present in a bolder format that was chaotic as the reader interacted on the lexia pages.  A hidden message scrolled at the bottom of the page a poetic message that the readers would miss unless they played around with the scroll bar on the side of the page to activate it.  Both author presented their pages with subtle similarities.  They both had only three links from the index page, two of the links took you to the same lexia, and the guided the visitor in a direction they choose to release the content that was most relevant to the story.  The both allow the clicker an opportunity to interact before freeing them to exit the lexia starting gates as a thoroughbred running a race. 

When did New Media emerge? And what is its precise definition? In attempts to answer these questions, as well as others, Lev Manovich investigates the terms and the placing and origins of such terms of their definitions, in regards to the world of new and old media. Images and textual images, such as photographs, illustrations, layouts and ads, find their way in the pool of possible new media. According to Manovich, “The popular understanding of new media identifies it with the use of a computer for distribution and exhibition rather than production. … Similarly, photographs that are put on a CD-ROM are considered new media….” However, also told by Manovich, “If we want to understand the effects of computerization on [the] culture as a whole, I think it is too limiting.”

 

The definition, in essence, of new media is not as one or two dimensional as some scholars would deem it to be. There exists a three dimensional element to it- a realm that cannot trap its capabilities and characteristics in the lines of a flat definition. Computers are no longer viewed as the stale use of calculations and formulas; it is, however, merely the mark of a new device, a new form of communication, just as linear texts as always been.

 

Unique characteristics of new media, do separate it from old methods of communication. A mode of hyper-linking, and the ability to do so places the ‘wiring’ of particular objects to others within the text or lexia. “Hyper-linking creates a connection between two elements, for example, between two words in two different pages or a sentence on one page and an image in another, or tow different places within the same page.” This element of interactivity distinguishes new media form the old, holding it characteristics in a level that is neither one nor two dimensional- but rather, in a level of three.

 

“New media is interactive. In contrast to old media where the order of presentation is fixed, the user can now interact with a media object. In the process of interaction the user can choose which elements to display or which paths to follow, thus genereating a unique work. In this way the user becomes the co-author of the work.”