My feed - the end

I'll have to go to the forum now - to get some shopping information, because, I have to...

My feed 3

I'm still resisting the temptation, though it's pretty hard.

My feed 2

I did it. I haven't been there for 2 days. Let's see whether I can persist.

My feed

I decide to be disconnected one of my feed: MIT BBS, which is a big forum of and for Chinese students studying in the United States. I'm quite addicted to it recently. Especially, I got a lot of deal information from that, which is really really bad for me, such a poor poor international students. So, no BBS, no line shopping, as long as possible.

Feed

If I live in the world that the fiction describes, what will it be like? I keep asking about this question when I read the novel. I also keep fill in these details that the author does not talk about. For example, what is it like when people are face to face while chatting without really speaking? It must be really really cool. :P Another example, do people get to talk to each person that he/she wants to? Or is there something like MSN id and password? Another big qestion is, how can people prevent themselves from addiction if they can connect to all the entertainment and shopping information all the time? I tried so hard every day just to stop myself from fooling around on the Internet, even though I just have two computers. I can't imagine what I can do if a computer and internet connection is built in my body. Although what in the book is not really what's happening in real life, if we think seriously, those things are not really far from our lives...

Chapter 29 The future looms (Sadie Plant)

This is another feminist work besides Balsamo's article (Chapter 16). Cyberfeminist is the new word here. It is interesting in that it tries to reveal the female elements in technology, which has been largely overlooked by almost everyone. The story of Ada reflects many of the female stories in the academia and industy. The other day I was talking with my friends about the increasing number of female computer programmers, the new blue collars. An example is that a lot of female Chinese students came to the States and finally became computer programmers, no matter what their former majors are. As more and more women come into this profession, it's time to think about this gender and technology. Maybe not only the creation of technology, but also the use, needs, and dissemination of technology.

Chapter 28 For a cultural future by Eric Michaels

The story of introducing TV and TV making into Australian Aborigines is fascinating. Nowadays few researchers can have the chance to do such a cultural, social and media experiment. I remember seeing the Australian Aboriginal paintings, sculpture and other art products in Australia three years ago. At that time, the Australian government was trying to protect and promote the Aboriginal cultures - a different story than I read about in this article which is written in 1987. I wonder how exactly hi tech has been intertwined in their lives, and what the aboriginal cultures are like today. When we think about our own cultures and technology, this story really tells us something.

Chapter 27 The mode of info and postmodernity by Mark Poster

OK, in the print culture, there is a distance (gap) between the speaker and the listener, and the principle of language is to extend the human voice while permitting individuals to think. In the electronic culture, the gap still exists, but the interpretation is a different: the electronic communication both broadens the gap (allowing enlarged space between the speaker and the listener), and bring them together. Therefore, language in the electronic culture in no longer "objective" and "neutral", instead, it "becomes or better reconfigures reality". Well, first, I don't quite get the meanings and implications of the term "the mode of information". Second, I think that Poster describes language and interactivity is a highly sophisticated manner. Maybe too sophisticated. Is there really such a huge difference in lanuage itself made by the electronic communications? I don't really think so. To me, language is far from objective or neutral even in the so called print culture. The electronic communication does, to a large extent, change the way people communicate. The communication has become highly interactive. However, it does not seem to me that the essence of language itself is changed as well. The author's arguments are intriguing, but might be a little overstated.

Information and American Democracy (by B. Bimber) the second half

On Tuesday's class we talked about how our identities/affiliations affect our political decisions. I think it's a very interesting topic. For persons like me, who don't have a lot of opinions of their own (for politics...) or are not very involved in political activities, who they are, where they are, and who they think they are really important factors for them to make a decision. Of course, these factor also affect what they hear. Can WEB 2.0 make a big difference? Information is more affluent, it is more convenient for people to interact and cooperate. But does it affect what they listen to? There are so many blogs, wikis, podcast, etc., but how many of them really reached out instead of sharing information in a small circle? Today I went to a webcast on new information technologies and libraries. The speaker talked a lot about the new and exciting stuff. But they also emphasized that don't use a technology because it's cool, use it when you really wanna serve certain purposes. Libraries have always been engaging in user's participation, so these new techs can enhance that function. So does election or other political activities. But what if there are just too many feeds, podcasts, blogs, or simply too much information?

Information and American Democracy (by B. Bimber)

This book is interesting, but I have an impression that Bimber is trying to include too many perspectives and issues in this book. It is understandable because politics is a very complicated topic, IT or information is also complicated, so the relationship between them must be even complicated. Anyhow, this first chapter does a good job laying out the whole book, and I expect to see more about the things that he mentions but does not explain explicitly at the beginning (for example, digital divide and citizen engagement). Another issue about this book is the author's position. At the beginning (p12-p15), he seems to be planning to seek a kind of causal relationship or machenism. It looks like information is at least an important causing factor (maybe one of the factors) of democracy. But later on, he seems to give up this piont. Instead, he claims himself to be neither technological determinism nor social constructionism, which makes me a little confused...