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February 14, 2007

Lecture: Lecture Cancelled (readings still due)

This lecture was not held due to the cancellation of all classes at the University of Illinois at Urana-Champaign. The assigned readings are still due.

Announcement: 2/14 lecture cancelled due to blizzard

Announcement: Third assignment deadline extended 1 day

Announcement: Readings are still due for 2/14

Textbook: portions of 1: The Changing Media

Read ONLY pp. 4-16 in Chapter 1, The Changing Media, from Media Now (start reading at "Media in a Changing World" and stop at "Changing Media Throughout History") Key concepts: analog vs. digital

Class Reader: Numerical Representation

Manovich, L. (2001). The Language of New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (pp. 27-30, "Principles of New Media #1: Numerical Representation.") Password Protected Online Full-Text (PDF) [Get Password Help]

Assignment: BLOG POST: Judge a Communication Technology

Imagine you are a judge on a television show based on American Idol called Communication Technology Idol. Your job as a judge is to decide which technologies go on to the next round and are adopted in a society. (You don't need to have seen American Idol to do this assignment, but you should know that the judges have a reputation for cruelty and wit.)

First, choose two communication technologies that can be compared. These will be your "contestants". Each one could be historical or modern. You may have personal experience with them, or not. The technologies you choose must have been mentioned in a lecture or a reading for the course. Identify which reading/lecture mentions the technologies in parentheses.

Second, post pictures of the "contestant" technologies within the text of your blog entry. If you don't want to take these pictures yourself, you may find pictures on the Web as long as you attribute the source of the picture according to course writing requirements.

Third, write your judge's comments to the contestants, making serious judgements about what is good or bad, just as King Thamus did in the Postman reading.

Finally, use at least two direct quotations from two different readings on this list to support your case. To successfully "use" a quotation it must be clear to the reader that you understand the material you are quoting. (Citing well-known facts or very short phrases will probably not work.)

The Reading List:

• In the Postman reading The Judgment of Thamus, King Thamus considers the implications of writing. Thamus concludes that writing should not be implemented because it will eventually discourage people from remembering (and about this, he is correct).


• In a section of the Rhodes Visions of Technology reading, Norbert Wiener describes why considering the future of technology is an important moral problem.


• In a section of the Rhodes Visions of Technology reading, Thomas P. Hughes describes how societies have consiously shaped technology for specific purposes (in this case, World War II).


• In a section of the Rhodes Visions of Technology reading, Lewis Mumford examines the fallacy that all new technologies must be adopted.

Post an answer of at least 250 words to your blog. DEADLINE: 11 a.m. -- one hour before class begins. Deadline extended one day due to blizzard. The new deadline is Thursday, 2/15 at 11 a.m.