Blogging: A Case Study in Excellence

"Blogs bring on decay. Each new blog is supposed to add to the fall of the media system that once dominated the twentieth century.

Though I know my last blog post was on a similar topic, I have spent the last twenty-four hours immersed in studying the media industry (as it is the subject of my research paper), thus I feel naturally inclined to respond to this question.

I feel that blogs walk a fine line between erosion and progression of the transmission of news. Of course, I expanded upon this idea in a general way in my last blog post, thus I would like to take this opportunity to offer a case study.

Currently, I work for an organization called Bureaucrash in Washington D.C. Though we've been described alternatively in major publications as "a gang of libertarian college kids who prank leftists at major international events by taking the implications of their policies to absurd extremes, which the lefties tend not to even notice" and "where punk rock meets the gold standard," our stated mission is to increase personal freedoms while decreasing the scope of government. One major issue we stress is transparency in government, and though the United States claims to have free and open press, it is often the case that fear of lawsuits keeps journalists and other writers from publishing what they really know about events in the government.

While the press claims to be free, in actuality, it is still relatively restricted. Yet the blogosphere is truly a place in which the free market for ideas can flourish. Thus (until our current "crasher-in-chief" left), we had arguably the best freedom-oriented blog on the web. The aim of our bloggers was, and still is, to alert the public to things the government doesn't want us to know, thus enabling individuals to attempt to keep their personal freedoms.

Blogging: Phenomenon and Danger

“There is a presumption that blogs have a symbiotic relationship with the news industry. This thesis is not uncontested.“

“It is not easy to answer the question of whether blogs operate inside or outside the media industry.“

”Bloggers rarely add new facts to a news story. They find bugs in products and news reports but rarely "unmask" spin, let alone come up with well-researched reports.“

Considering my paper is on the decline of the print newspaper industry and technological responses to this decline, these readings on blogging struck several different chords with me. Quite honestly, up until now, I’ve only been examining the formal response of news agencies to attempt to re-capture readership in this highly technological age. Yet after reading about these bloggers, it occurs to me that I’ve left out a very important technological response to the decline of print media if I ignore the blogosphere.

Above, I have listed three quotations that I find particulary interesting from Lovink’s article “Blogging, the nihilist impulse.“ Though I currently lack any empirical data to back up my impressions of these claims, from the other research I’ve done concerning online news sources, I see the institution of blogging as both a valuable and a dangerous resource for the transmission of information.
Blogs serve a valuable purpose in the transportation of information by virtue that they help to reduce individual transaction costs of wading through the vast amounts of information on the web in order to find articles of personal interest. With the explosion of online news sources, many that are updated several times per day, finding information of relative importance can be a daunting task for a person. However, by subscribing to a blog that represents one’s interests, a person can effectively avoid personally wading through this sea of information and simply click on a blog and either find links to articles of interest, or read summaries of the day’s news. In this regard, blogs seem to be an indispensable resource for linking individuals to articles and websites that interest them, thus facilitating a more rapid flow of ideas.

However, this ease of information sharing doesn’t come without costs. According to Lovink’s article, the Blog Herald estimates that about 100 million blogs exist worldwide – and hundreds of new blogs are created every week. This ease of allowing individual voices to be heard naturally allows not only well -informed and well- intentioned individuals to have their voice heard, but also individuals of the opposite types. Now, more than ever, it’s exceedingly easy to spread mis-information at lightning speed – be it subconsciously and maliciously or by a subconscious or unintended slip-up.

Though formal journalism isn’t always completely informed and objective, at least there are some informal (as well as formal) rules which govern the behavior of professional journalists. On the web, however, there exists basically a writing free-for-all. In all honesty, I’ve seen some blogs that I feel are better than most newspapers – but on the flip side, I’ve seen blogs that make me want to e-mail their listservs and expose the bloggers as uninformed lunatics.

Don’t misunderstand me: I fully support a free market in the sharing of ideas. However, I also feel that it is important to the survival of a nation to have a well-educated public. True, these two are not mutually exclusive – but I feel that the former could potentially pose a threat to the latter. Thus, it seems that individuals should be taught from a very young age (in school would be an optimal setting) to be responsible researchers and to read everything – both internet and non-internet sources – with a skeptical eye.

The Pandemic Flu: Revolutionary Technotext

Get infected...with the Pandemic Flu!

Self described “artist/writer/coder” Jason Nelson has created a work of virtual text/poetry that is simultaneously intriguing and terrifying. Clicking on the first page, the user of this virtual text is invited to “get the flu,” and once infected, is guided through a process leading from affliction to cleansing. In each stage of the “flu,” the participant is encouraged to interact with the piece, allowing the viewer to really feel a connection with this work of art.

I call it a “work of art” because it is more than poetry, more than video, more than sound – it is an all-encompassing, interactive piece of, well…of technotext! Comparable to no other form of art, this technotext is a revolutionary culmination of technology leading from the literary all the way to complex code. Beautiful!

Get infected here...

Definitional Confusion

I would like to contest the use of the word “poems” in Ana Maria Uribe’s Anipoems, for this would imply that they are poetry. I would not rationally classify them as such.
It is true, a few weeks ago, I stood in front of the class and with all my might defended flarf as a legitimate form of poetry. However, while Uribe’s Anipoems are entertaining, I don’t think they fall under the same heading as poetry. Artistic and creative: sure. Poetry: no.
Throughout high school, it was drilled into our heads that we were not to begin our essays with dictionary definitions, nor was it advisable to include them in the body of the paper, as a definition tends to be viewed as generally argument-weakening. However, since I’m trying to de-classify an artist’s work from the poetry genre, I felt it was appropriate here to consult my friend the lexicon. He (who has now taken on human characteristics, you’ll notice) seemed to agree with me that Uribe’s Anipoems were not, in fact, poems at all. The main emphasis in several of the definitions was its characteristic opposition to prose, yet the Anipoems aren’t an alternative to prose – they actually seem to fall into a category of their own.
Were I to categorize the Anipoems, I believe I would use a phrase like “performance art” or “acting texts”, but to call them poems is simply a leap I’m not willing to make.
In My Mother is a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts, N. Katherine Hayles explores how code has evolved to exhibit extreme similarities to other texts (and languages). Even her title suggests the connection between code and other forms of literature. However, with the rapid technological expanse of the last 30 years or so, which has accelerated over the past ten, it seems more important than ever to work actively to maintain certain intellectual boundaries. I feel that the boundary between what does and does not constitute poetry is one such crucial example.
Perhaps I am mis-interpreting Uribe’s choice of wording. It is possible that her Anipoems contain some grand joke that I’m missing. However, if she is legitimately trying to classify them as poetry, I believe she should be called to task on this classification.

Amazon's Kindle and the Physicality of Text

Though admittedly much of this class has been devoted to a discussion of the physicality of text, Hayles’ Writing Machines really takes the concept to a whole new level. Each time we’ve been asked to read selections from this text (granted this is only the second time, but I’ve never yet sat down and read what’s assigned in one sitting), my mind has been overcome with an array of different subjects related to the physicality of text. Having just finished reading some Goethe on my Kindle (the new Amazon digital book device) before beginning my reading of Hayles, it was this device that I would like to discuss, for if it takes off, it will certainly be revolutionary for the world of physical text.
In her book, Hayles says “Literature was never only words, never merely immaterial verbal constructions. Literary texts, like us, have bodies, an actuality necessitating that their materialities and meanings are deeply interwoven with each other.” With the Kindle, however, since all of the text is the same, no matter what book you’re reading, much of the physical aspect of the text is taken away. With the Kindle, the size of the text may be changed (there are five different sizes from which to choose), but the type of text itself is programmed to always be this same simple sans-serif font – no matter whether you’re reading the Wall Street Journal or Augustine’s Confessions.
To an extent, I suppose this lack of variation amongst different texts is freeing in the sense that it allows the reader to focus (almost) entirely on the words themselves. Without any variation amongst fonts or line spacing, along with standardized margins and no gutter space, the Kindle allows a reader to soon forget about these physical aspects completely, since the reader already subconsciously knows what to expect to see on the page before even turning on the device. Furthermore, while a huge criticism of the Kindle has been that it seems too much like reading on a computer screen, these complainers have apparently never touched a Kindle; the device uses an electronic-ink display technology that simulates actual ink on a page, and the screen itself simulates real paper – thus is not shiny like a computer screen, but has the matte characteristics of actual pages.
That having been said, I feel the Kindle has a long way to go in the world of text in general. With real books, it’s often really exciting to open up the cover and see differences in the physical text from one book to the next. There’s a subconscious aesthetic element to most books which is not addressed by the Kindle. When I open up Atlas Shrugged and see tightly-packed size 10 Times New Roman font, my mind perceives the text differently from when I crack the cover of my sans-serif size 12 copy of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. When I dive into Hayles’ book, many of my preconceived notions about the physicality of text are completely abandoned.
Though these differences may seem insignificant to Amazon’s engineers, I think these aesthetic elements have more bearing on a reader’s literary brain than the Kindle proponents take into account. Perhaps in future versions of the Kindle, these details regarding the physicality of text will be addressed. However, the question of whether or not this device can even come close to taking the place of physical books is one that deserves some serious consideration.

On Boredom

"[Boredom] can always be used productively as a precious symptom of our own existential, ideological, and cultural limits.” -Fredric Jameson

Did you ever wonder why Buddhists meditate? Honestly, I didn't until I read a book on Buddhism in general and found the reason to be quite fascinating.

Buddhists have a unique spin on this phenomenon which we call "interspace." They detest the notion that time can be wasted, so if they end up with any downtime in their schedules, they won't just lounge around, but instead will find some way to use it productively. Meditating, therefore, is a practice they've developed in order to deal with this interspace time. This time can be used in a multiplicity of ways - to take a break from reality, to ponder questions, or to think deeply on subjects of interest to themselves. Absent of the influence of other people, they can reflect wholly on themselves and their interests, then jump back to reality when it is beneficial for them to do so.

Also, I've always subscribed to the notion that only boring people allow themselves to be bored.

Unoriginal Uncreativity

In his interview with 34th Street magazine, Kenny Goldsmith mentions that he switched over from the visual arts to literary arts because uncreativity, while it had been practiced in the visual for years, hadn’t quite infiltrated the literary arts yet. I wholly disagree with the assertion that he’s the founder of the “uncreative” movement in the literary genre. Uncreative literature has been practiced as far back as at least the Renaissance (perhaps earlier – this is as far back as I have some familiarity).
Emulato non imitato, meaning emulate, don’t imitate, is a mantra which was embodied by many artists of the Renaissance –including painters, sculptors, musicians, and yes, even writers. Yet it was a common practice for even the best writers to copy the manuscripts of other writers (normally either their colleagues or the masters) in order to physically connect with the writing process of another: complete imitation. In this same vein, I think it could be argued that scribes (who date back even before the Renaissance) were actually the originators of the uncreative writing genre.
The world of text was revolutionized in 1440 with the invention of the printing press, which was arguably also a revolutionary device in the field of uncreative writing. Now, no longer did scribes have to physically write out each letter, meaning that connection with the text was lost to a large extent. What the printing press did, essentially, was to impersonalize the act of textual reproduction – which not only put innumerable scribes out of work, but also caused them to lose the physical connection they had with text in general.
However, the printing press made uncreative writing a process which was quicker and more efficient than it had ever been. Now, rather than copies of text taking days or months to reproduce, the process took much less time, meaning non-original works could be transmitted much more rapidly (meaning: though text may have been somewhat original at the time of conception, only the manuscript itself could be considered original – the copies from the printing press were merely non-original reproductions). Thus, uncreative writing became ever more pervasive in a rapidly changing world.
Since the invention of the printing press almost six hundred years ago, writing and text-reproducing technologies have expanded at an unprecedented pace. Over the past two-hundred years especially, innovations in text-reproduction have been profound. The early 1800s saw the invention of the typewriter, which was subsequently revamped and updated for the next two centuries until it gave way to the word processor. This latter invention was rather short-lived, however, due to its quick obsolescence once the computer was introduced. With computers came such text tools as scanning, copy and pasting, and most recently, OCR (short for optical character recognition) which have allowed individuals more efficiently explore their uncreative sides.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding Goldsmith’s definition of “uncreative writing;” however, given what he said in his 34th Street interview, I cannot with good conscience categorize his version of uncreative writing as something new and revolutionary.