Lister 66-73

Ok, this continues to be an interesting read. Lister is still talking about the cultural shaping and framing of new and old media based on our desires and insecurities.  He is also talking about how some media inherent traditions of past and under what conditions it was birthed.

Is new media always better than old? I think there will always be people that hope for the best, in a new technology, while some will cling to what they know. And some will use new technology to cover up things they perceive as weaknesses in themselves. I have done that…

Media is a tool. Technology is a tool. People will shape and bend those tools for both good and bad. These tools can carry political messages and agendas (both purposefully and accidentally) buy the ways they were created and for what group’s interest they were created for.  They can take on power by where and when they were created and by what nitch they fill. And the effects of people, in time, can change a tool to be used beyond its original purpose.  Media and people are connected…

The case studies were interesting. Overall, it was an interesting look at influence, framing, sheeple, and “ground well-trodden.”

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Lister 60-65

Lister 60-65

Not sure where Lister was driving in this one because I am from the camp that people build on what they know. Even a “new media” idea has to carry some affordance for it to have any adoption. With-out adoption… the idea sits dead. People draw on what they understand to perceive their world around them. This does tend to shackle new media to its connection of the past.

An example of this is when I showed my pinball skirts to Kevin. They had drawings of spaceships fighting each other. Kevin correctly guessed, “Are they fighter jets? Or maybe space ships?” I assume that when Gottlieb’s team decided to draw those ships, they drew on what they knew of modern day fighter jets. This gave them a template to draw them and it helped build in some affordance for the masses to be able to easily and quickly recognize them. They have the same basic shape of air-fighter jets and they even have wings. Are wings needed on a ship in space… no… but they were accepted as standard “idealized” equipment in the 1980’s by most people.

It is a neat idea about new media transporting people to a new view of the past. When a picture is worth a thousand words, so neat would it be… to be as I could see and walk the streets of Rome. But there is a devil in the details. And that devil is called “our lens of focus.” An example of this is in how stories of Saints, Knights, and thieves have changed through the ages. Most of these stories have changed because of the wants, needs, and cultures of the audiences have warped the details of their stories.  Culture shapes… and some things that were once very important can become not as significant. Even the “Experience Machine” with its full ability to make things seem real, would not be able to get me past my own “lens of focus” and the expectations I carry with me. I cannot… truly… walk in your shoes because I perceive things as I am… nor could I ever fully walk the streets of ancient Rome with-out walking in my American shoes.

Neat read! Though, I am probably way out of whack here.     😉