Eric's Seminar Blog

In addition to being cross-cutting and non-exhaustive, these four dynamics also overlap. For example, take a look at how you could analyze Trinidadians' quotes about their internet relationships, both with family and with friends (56 - 68). In one view, the quotes exhibit the qualities of expansive realization. Miller and Slater point out in Chapter 1 that internet allows some Trinidadians to "live in families they see as natural" (11). At the same time, you could view this through the lens of mediation. Take, for example, the memorable story of the young man tracking down his estranged father in Canada (60). The evident lack of trust on both sides came, in my opinion, as a result of the medium. I wonder how different the reunion would have been had it happened over the phone, or in person.

The Dynamic of Objectification has been useful to other researchers analyzing how people represent themselves online. For example, researchers have analyzed how people project identities in MUDs (when they were still in widespread use). More recently, researchers have looked at identity in Second Life. While I am no expert in massive online games like SL, this book made me wonder whether games like SL are inherently local. Would the approach used in this book apply there? Would the techniques and framework (the four dynamics, for example) still be useful there?

Posted by egilber2 at 11:41 AM | Permalink

Proposal in PDF

Posted by egilber2 at 03:33 PM | Permalink

As I see it, Fischer would have misled us by not explaining the dip in the adoption graph. The deviation from the (mostly exponential) upward trend is very interesting, and I'm glad that he examined it. However, the period of decline does not make the telephone a technological failure. The telephone is clearly a successful technology: it found a place in almost every American home by the 1970s. I wish I had a similar graph for radio during the same period, to see if a similar decline happened during the Depression.

Mengxiao Zhu's argument that Depression made farmers choose among competing technologies is compelling. I recently read the book Consumers In The Country. It argued that rural consumers (specifically) re-appropriated the telephone, automobile, electricity and housecleaning appliances in new ways. While I believed in most of Fischer's analysis, I was surprised that he did not talk about re-appropriation. Rural consumers could tinker with the car much more easily than the phone, finding new uses for it. The phone was largely a black box to a rural consumer, with the exception of the farmer running the coop. Rural consumers could and did find new uses for the automobile, like hooking a washing machine to the car's axle. So, I would speculate that since farmers had to choose between technologies, the car looked more attractive since it could be taken apart and put to new uses.

Posted by egilber2 at 11:54 AM | Permalink

Before I tell a story about an alternate development of radio, I would like to preface it. A number of (relatively) unchangeable realities impact any reinterpretation of radio's history. First, broadcasting is the natural application of one of radio's intrinsic "flaws." Waves go in every direction to everyone. We still struggle with this problem today, and a number of recent inventors have worked hard to overcome it. Second, the United States patent system encourages monopolies in the early stages of any technology. This is especially true in a case like radio where the technology depends on difficult physical inventions, like the vacuum tube. Third, broadcasting requires much more power than receiving. This is a natural limitation, evidenced in Inventing by the story about the amateur broadcaster tapping into streetcar power. Any alternate story has to acknowledge these built-in limitations.

Yet, radio clearly could have developed differently. For example, if the press had blamed Marconi instead of radio amateurs after the Titanic disaster, amateurs may have fared better in the first Radio Act. Consequently, their numbers may have grown before the war. If the war had not intervened, perhaps De Forest would have created an alternate system to cater to amateurs on the West Coast. A system designed around amateurs could have been interactive, with listeners transmitting feedback to the local broadcaster in near real-time.

What if amateurs had never discovered that crystals could detect radio waves? Individual amateurs could never have afforded to build their own sets, forcing them to work together. Perhaps towns would have constructed sets, like a barn raising. Imagine leaving your home to listen to a radio program with your neighbors.

Posted by egilber2 at 09:33 AM | Permalink