New Technologies and Domestic Consumptions

According to Eric Hirsch, there is a distinct connection between new technologies and domestic consumption. In addition, domestic consumption has been both sustained and threatened by new technologies" (Hirsch 158). He uses the example of the television and the computer when used in a domestic setting. The television, which was once "new media" is being rivaled by the Internet as the main source of broadcasting. His central argument in is essay "is that an explicit emphasis on domestic consumption...has been a project of domestic self-sufficiency" (Hirsch 159).

This argument is an echo of a theory we have discussed over and over again this semester....the medium is the message. For example, before communication devices such as radio, television, the phone, the marketing of products was drastically different. However, once this "new media" found its place within the domestic settings, items such as soap, perfume, furniture, lights (just look around you right now) were marketed in more efficient ways which allowed more of them to sell. The higher the demand, the fancier these products became. Soon, well years and years later, there was the emergence of even new "new media," such as the computer and the Internet. The essay stops here with the land line modem.

Hirsch uses a family that he knows for his study. They purchase a modem so they can connect to the Internet, but it doesn't work in quite the way the want it to. First, it is in the way, and second it ties up the phone line. These were common consumer complaints at that time. However it wasn't long, before better and faster models came about. Hirsch ends his essay, restating McLuhan's theory that the medium is the message. Hirsch states that "what is new and what is old or established are alway co-existent, always define each other. This is only made so by how what is old and what is new are utilized to reshape culture and its needs.

Works Cited

Hirsch, Eric. The Television Studies Book. 2nd. London: 1998.

The Future Coming Fast

I chose to focus on 2009 for this blog. I read most of the other readings, but this is the one that I feel that I can talk about the best. Perhaps this is because not only is 2009 just a couple of years away, but we are started to see some of the technology described in 2009. We have computers in watches, picture frames and even rings even though they are watch-rings. I find it fascinating what is being done with digital technology. The section of Communication for instance. While we cannot see the other person as of yet as a 3-D image, and I doubt that we will in the next couple of years, there is technology used now that has the potential of heading that way. I'm not talking about video conferencing or web chat, interesting though they might be, I am speaking more specifically about the hearing impaired. Not only can they now text message via cell phones, but the phone service called Voice Relay, which uses a third party that acts as a phone line between you and the other person has changed. The person who can hear still has to pretend that the person who is speaking is not really there, but the hearing impaired person instead of the old text box on their end, they now have boxes that have graphical capabilities. When you laugh and the operator types that in along with your response, your response shows up as text along side an image of a laughing face. It really is neat, but unfortunately costly.

Haraway: Cyborgs Are Here

When we first read Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto, I was confused by what the ending meant, I'd rather be a cyborg than a machine, and it wasn't until today that I believe I understand it. Since people have been shaped by myths, such as one gender is better than another or race for that matter, they have become machines. Machines don't question, don't think. For the most part, machines simply do what they are programmed to do. They cyborg on the other hand has the intelligence to step outside of the myths, in essence, to throw them out and reshape its own culture and politics. Unlike the simple machine, the cyborg has the intelligence to say, "nope, sorry but that's archaic." Haraway described the cyborg as "a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction” (Haraway 516). Which would you rather be...a cyborg or a machine?

Current Study on Web Memorialization - Research Essay # 3

“In fact our lives are “tapestries,” and the death of a loved one is a ripping, gaping, bleeding hole in the very midst of that tapestry of our life. How, then, is the tapestry rewoven? It does not, with the mere passage of time, magically pull itself back together. Rather, it is rewoven only with the initiative, energy, and strength of the survivor reaching in and grasping the torn ends of threads, painfully pulling them back and tying them together. And it is rewoven only with those persons around the survivor cutting threads from their own tapestries and bringing them to the survivor, with love and support and caring and tears and strength, helping to further tie the threads and fill in the gaping hole.”

— Charles Meyer, in Surviving Death

People who are grieving are overloaded with emotions that need to be expressed in some shape, form, or fashion. According to Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, “People need to be encouraged to talk about the person who died, to remember him, to share about him, yes, perhaps to even talk to the person who is now dead” (93). Online memorials are one way in which the bereft have found a creative outlet in which they can strengthen existing bonds and create precious new ones by creating online communities, and working through the grieving process in a more effectual and creative way.

In a study about online memorials conducted by Pamala Roberts and Lourdes A.Vidal in 2000, they found “that the typical memorial was to a mid-life male. The typical author was a child, although authors also included, in large proportion, parents and friends. In 1998, a study was conducted to analyze memorial sites created to commemorate the death of a cherished pet. The study concluded that “although most memorials are written by a single person, a significantly greater number of companion animal memorials list multiple authors” ( De Vries & Rutherford 9-10). Even though the authorship is slightly different than sites created for human loss, the content is surprisingly similar. The lengths of the pet sites are about the same as those for people, as well as the messages left on the sites.

The most current study on web memorials was done by Brian De Vries and Judy Rutherford. In the study they analyzed most of the same aspects as the previous studies that had already been completed years earlier, such as “the characterization of these memorials: who writes these memorials and about whom are they written? What forms do these memorials take and what themes are contained therein” (DeVries and Rutherford 9)? In short, who are the authors and what aspect of the grieving process motivated them to create the sites (memorials). For their study they used the web cemetery named Virtual Memorial Garden (VGM). This is the largest free, text based, web cemetery currently in use on the Internet.

VGM “contains over 6700 memorials to people and over 4000 memorials to pets” (DeVries and Rutherford 10). DeVries and Rutherford randomly selected five percent of the memorials that were posted since 1999. They studied these sites based on various variables, which included the gender and age of the deceased, the gender of the author and his or her relationship to the deceased, length of entry, cause of death, the expression of sadness over the death or missing the deceased, and the types of memorials (letter to the deceased, eulogy, tribute).

When the study was concluded they found that the majority of authors’, similar to the findings of the earlier studies, "experiences that promote emotional expression, including grief, tend to be more characteristic of women than of men” (Sanders 121). In addition to the majority of authors being women, the most frequent authors were children of the deceased. This may be because, for one, women traditionally were the ones who participated in mourning rituals, and secondly, children are growing up in a technologically savvy time.

The Internet, the computer, and many other forms of technology are as common to the children of today, as the Atari was to children twenty years ago, and it is because of these new forms of media that society, mainly the children, have been made to be more receptive of death. Information is not only easier to access, but easier to distribute as well. Violence and death are everywhere. No longer is death something that happens elsewhere. So “perhaps this reflects the search for the opportunity to express grief in a societal context in which the death of a parent is seen as expected, timely, fair, and less tragic” (Moss and Moss 92-93).

The second largest group of web memorial authors, found during the study, was not direct relatives, rather they were friends. People such as friends or perhaps lovers are often called disenfranchised grievers, which mean it is not commonly accepted that they grieve as family members do and so are often overlooked. They are given no concrete outlet in which to ease their pain, but through the use of web memorials they “may find a valued and rare place to articulate their grief in cyberspace” (De Vries and Rutherford 19). The same notion may be said of relatives and friends who are grieving because of a disenfranchised death, such as a death caused by suicide or AIDs. However fascinating the authorship of the memorials is, the content found within the memorials is more intriguing. The content found gives even more insight as to how the bereft use web memorials, no matter what type of site is used, to aid them in passing through the Five Stages of Grief.

In the memorials that were studied by DeVries and Rutherford, “more than one-half of the memorials on the site …assumed the form of a letter to the deceased” (DeVries and Rutherford 20). Not surprisingly they too were mostly from women writers. However, out of the one-half, most of the grieving authors were parents. The letters themselves expressed profound emotion states. Most of the parents it seemed were trying to find some sort of meaning for the deaths of their children. The initial expression of grief is more than likely not the only reason these web memorials were in the form of letters. They may have been a way in which the living is trying to hold on to the bonds that they shared with the deceased, “an important aspect of this form of memorialization unavailable elsewhere. The inclusion of updates in some of the letters further supports this interpretation and assumes an active listener who keeps up the day-to-day comings and goings of the living” (DeVries and Rutherford 21).

Eulogies or obituaries were also used on the sites that were studied by DeVries and Rutherford. This feature is typically associated with traditional funeral practices. The eulogies, which were generally longer then the letters, “enabled the authors to tell stories and give examples to illustrate the character of the deceased and how he or she related to others. Again, the authors of the eulogies were children, who would more often than not share some happy memory. It is thought that perhaps the death of an older person is not as traumatic for the bereft as in the majority of the cases in which letters were used. In comparison, the content of the eulogies as well as their authors’ genders and ages versus the authors and content of the letters, it seems that the less traumatic the death the easier it is to pass through the grieving process.

Tributes were the least common method used to commemorate the dead on the web memorials. Out of the three methods, tributes “are the most formal (i.e., somewhat less personal) of the memorials and were, concomitantly, written by in greater proportion by groups of authors” (DeVries and Rutherford 22). They resembled gravestone writings in that they contained little information about the deceased and they were short.

Web memorials, whether they are web cemeteries, blogs, freestanding web pages or part of a web ring, combine elements of traditional funeral practices with elements that emerge with new technologies. They are used as a way to “celebrate a private mourning in a public place…offer unobtrusive access to very personal and private mourning rituals and are inclusive of all who have access to a computer” (DeVries & Rutherford 23). Web memorials help the bereft through the grieving process, known as the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), in several ways.

First of which, web memorials allow the bereft a creative outlet that does not completely take over their lives, whereby they can hold on to and maintain the bonds, or attachments, they formed with the deceased prior to the death. Secondly, web memorials often create vast support groups known as web communities. These web communities are extremely important to the bereft in that they provide the grievers with access to many individuals who are experiencing or have experienced similar emotions. This allows the bereft to form new bonds or build on existing ones while coming to terms with the bonds that were just lost. Third, “the content of the memorials reflects the many process of coping with bereavement, from expressing deep loss to (re)construction of the meaning of life after death of a loved one” (Stroebe and Schut 401).

Works Cited

De Vries, Rutherford, Brian, Judy. "Memorializing Loved Ones on the World Wide Web." Omega 49(2004): 5-26.

Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth. Death: The Final Stage of Growth. 1st. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1986.

Moss, Miriam S., and Sidney Z. Moss. The Death of A Parent. 3rd. Newbury Park: Sage, 1989.

Sanders, Cathrine M.. Living with grief: Who we are, and how we grieve?. Bristol, PA: Taylor and Francis, 1998.

Stroebe , Margaret , and Henk Schut. Models of Coping With Bereavement: A review. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 2001.

Is Piracy Good or Bad?

Is piracy good or bad? It seems a simple enough question, but I was unable to answer it with a definite yes or no. I needed to know more about the issue. I decided to scour the internet myself and see what others had to say about this issue of piracy. Almost all of the sites, essays, and the one study I read started off saying the same thing. That stealing is fundamentally wrong, and no one should do it. However, piracy, no matter of its negative effects, has some positive outcomes that should not be overlooked. These positives ranged from software being improved to increased sales due to word of mouth. All of this made me think about what was discussed in class. If it is on the internet, where access to it is simply a click away, can anyone lay legitimate claim to it? Can anyone say, "That belongs to me, don't touch it, unless you pay for it first."

Among the most interesting essays I read was one that was written by Mark Pesce, Lecturer in Interactive Media from the Australian Film Television and Radio School. In his essay, Piracy is Good?, he uses the network premier of Battlestar Galatica. It aired in Britian three months before it was scheduled to air in the United States on the SciFi channel. The night that the first episode aired, it was available for download and thus pirated by thousands of people, most of which were American SciFi channel fans, who according to Pesce, are "...young and decidedly geeky. They are masters of media; they can find ways to get things they shouldn’t have" (Pesce, par. 2). By the time that the first episode aired on the SciFi channel that January, a good number of people had already seen the entire season, thirteen episodes in all. But according to Pesce, this didn't hurt the show's popularity at all. That in fact, "it appears to have had the reverse effect: the series is so good that the few tens of thousands of people who watched downloaded versions told their friends to tune in on 14 January, and see for themselves" (Pesce, par. 6). From there the show only increased in popularity.

Mark Pesce goes one to argue that it is naive to think that viewers are going to stop illegally downloading television programs just because they are told to. However, he does recognize that there is a problem with letting it continue happening as it is now, and that a new solution needs to be implemented so that, once again, everyone is happy.

Works Cited

Pesce, Mark. "Piracy is Good? New Models for the Distribution of Television Programming." Mindjack. 13 May 2005. 10 Apr 2007.

* I am not done going through his economic plan, and will add that when I have completed going through it. I am also trying to find a full copy of Information Systems Research - International Software Piracy: Analysis of Key Issues and Impacts.

Holodeck - Fantasy or Reality?

I am an avid reader, and one of the reasons I love to do it is that I become lost in story. I am able to shut out the outside world for awhile, but, as pointed out in class on several occasions, I am always able to shut the book at any point and return to reality. Janet Murray describes the holodeck as a sophisticated book that the user can immerse her or himself in, but like the book, it can be turned off or shut by the user at any point. But could it really? Is it that cut and dry? I don't think so.


One of the reasons I can stop reading a book at any point, whether I want to or not, is that I still am conscious of where I actually am, and it is those outside influences that keep me grounded and enable me to separate fantasy from reality. However, if there are no outside influences then how are people supposed to stay grounded without the contrast? How are they to keep their fantasies from becoming their realities? In the example that Murray used, Janeway becomes engrossed in the created world of the holodeck. While in the holodeck she becomes part of the story. The characters become real, her character becomes real, and just when she is in the thick of the story, a voice interrupts her and she freezes the holodeck program. Would she have been able to freeze the program without being reminded, by the outside source, that her story world is nothing but a complex illusion?

Another reason that I can stop reading a book or watching a movie is that it ends. Murray's holodeck programs are potentially unending. After a period of time, could it be possible to separate one created world from another? Would the lines of fantasy and reality blur until the user can no longer differentiate between them? I saw on a T.V. show a woman who has what is termed as an obsession with The Lord of the Rings. To her the characters are real, and they are her friends. She has the cardboard cut outs that they use as promotional displays in movie theaters of all the main characters in the movie trilogy. She does everything with them. She takes them out to eat with her family, a husband and two children, and even orders for them speaking in there voices, such as a child playing with a toy making it talk. She even places them around her kitchen table and plays cards with them. When it is a character's turn she picks up their cards and plays for them as if the cardboard cutout is really the one playing. She has taken her fantasy, her story and blended it with her reality. Another example is the video game World of War Craft.

My younger brother and his friends constantly play this game. When talking about the characters they control in the game, they speak in terms of I, my and me. "I am a level 60 wizard," or sum such. They have become so involved in the game that the characters and the virtual world have become extensions of themselves. About two months ago, my brother and one of his friends were telling me about a guy, an avid WOW player, who had died. The guild that he was a part of had all of their characters meet at a certain location within the game, without armor and whatnot, and held a funeral to commemorate their friend. During the WOW funeral, a rival guild who new about the funeral, had their characters hidden and ambushed the funeral, killing all of the players' characters. What I thought most interesting about this was the reactions of my brother and his friend. My brother thought it was funny as hell, but his friend on the other hand was seriously angered by the actions of the rival guild. Again fantasy is blended with reality. In reality no one was hurt, except the guy who had died, but in the virtual world of WOW, a heinous crime was committed, that to my brother's friend should be avenged not only in the game but in reality too.

Research Essay #2

After reading the entire book, and discussing it in class, I have realized that O'Gorman was leading his readers by the hand and guiding them, with baby steps, through his theory. I thought this was funny, since the book was written for scholars, but O'Gorman knew that some scholars could not be trusted to make it to the end of the book with an open mind. So instead of presenting his theory outright, he hid it in the chapters, only allowing it to be shown a little at a time. However, this approach made reading E-Crit more enjoyable for me, because it isn't an easy read, and the baby steps allowed me to follow along with his theory by taking in a little at a time and understand it.



In Chapters 1, which was one of the hardest chapters for me, O'Gorman talks about the repressed remainder. In this sense, "the remainder is the 'other' of academic or scholarly language. It is deemed as nonsense or rubbish, classified as cute or juvenile, the stuff of children's literature, fantasy, and folklore, and, lately, unstylish poststructural writing" (O'Gorman 4). The remainder that O'Gorman is talking about here are words and phrases that evoke textual imagery. Words that are often seen as frivolous by the Republic of Scholars, and therefore not recognized, but in his opinion they shouldn't be and can't be ignored anymore. He described these types of imagery as hypericons, which he describes in further detail in Chapter 2.



Chapter 2 was another confusing chapter for me, but not as confusing as Chapter1. In this chapter of E-Crit, O'Gorman talks about the hypericon. A mental image, both visual and textual, that encompasses more than one idea. Here is where O'Gorman really starts making his case about academics needing to change. He is posing the theory that what was once just a pretty image is a whole world in and upon itself, and that this world does indeed have a place inside the University, and its high time that was recognized.



Now for my favorite chapter, Chapter 4. I was able to follow along with this chapter much more than the previous chapters. Perhaps this is because the information itself was not entirely new. We have talked about what effects New Media has on society in several classes, and I have watched T.V. shows, an influence in and of itself, about just this. When I read this chapter, I was aware that the idea of how New Media is changing society and therefore needs to academics was the crux of what O'Gorman is writing about in E-Crit, but to take this theory out of general society and resettle it inside the classroom is not a notion that I feel has been discussed in as much detail before. Sure, I have used New Media techniques inside the classroom, much as I am now, but I have never really thought about how it has changed the way in which I learn. For instance, right now I am sitting on my couch typing this blog. Sure it is a research paper, but its not the typical research paper. There are as many strict guidelines that my blog has to be constrained by. This allows more creative freedom which makes it more enjoyable to do. The more enjoyable something is, the more I want to do it, and the more I'll remember it.



In the last chapter, O'Gorman pulls together all of the baby steps that he has uses to bring the readers to the end into one hop. Here O'Gorman proposes that there should be a happy medium between New Media techniques inside the classroom and traditional teaching methods, such as the essay. It wasn't until it was pointed out to me that this is what, as seniors, we are doing. We have to write a twenty page essay that follows strict guidelines, but we also get to use our skills in a practical way too. We get to create some sort of technical aspect that represents or sums up what we have chosen as a topic. In the paper I have limited creative leeway, but with the technical aspect, which I have chosen to do a film that is riddled with hypericons, we get almost total creative reign. Which do I like better? Why the technical aspect of course, but I don't completely not like the essay portion either.



My film is visually representation of the five stages of grief. Without the research, I can't represent it accurately. So do I necessarily need to write a paper? I think that I do. If I wasn't writing the paper, I wouldn't have stumbled across the five stages of grief in the first place. To me essay writing is not so much busy work, but rather a way to get students to think and to expose them to new ideas. So perhaps a balance between New Media and tradition is a good idea.

Works Cited

O, Marcel. E-Crit: Digital Media, Critical Theory, and the Humanities. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press Incorporated, 2006.

Note: I have not finished with this yet. I know it was due today, but I really don't like the way it flows and so I will be changing it on Friday.