infobong.com

responsible use of technology

As someone who requires his students to blog, I find this story about a high school principal who says blogging is not educational a little troubling. I could understand if he thought students were misusing the technology and disrupting learning by spread gossip and whatnot, but, instead, he cites generalized anxieties about Internet use. He told the Rutland Herald, "As soon as someone has a name and a general geographic location, it can take an Internet predator 20 minutes to find their address and directions to their house." Obviously, I think that any project that makes writing fun for students and gives them practice using technology to make media is educational.

Re-reading the story (which I first saw on bOINGbOING), it could be the case that the principal only banned MySpace.com, so this could be more of an issue about digital literacy - how and when to share personal information - rather than the full spectrum of blogging. I get the impression that the reporter might have a limited understanding of blogging and the MySpace site. Also, I share the principal's concern about sharing information online. Many of my students use a site called The Face Book, which is a social networking application designed for college students. In the site specifically set up for UT-Austin, many students list their phone numbers and physical campus addresses, which concerns me, since it seems like an invitiation to stalking. However, the principal should have chosen his words more carefully before declaring blogging uneducational.

not manipulated

The "transparent screens," which use desktop images for a neat trompe l'oeil effect, are pretty darn neat, but they're no match for Tano's transparent parking signs.

In other brain-busting developments, I'm not sure what to make of this quote from a Dover, PA parent and pastor related to science education in public schools, "We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture." When you're debating educational practices, vilifying educated people seems to be a rhetorical minefield.

body of falsehoods

Juan Cole has a post describing a political tactic called a "GoogleSmear," where right-wing commentators use the Google search engine as a means of authenticating data. It strikes me as a little funny to think that the reliance on Google and the Internet more generally is one of the issues librarians and teachers frequently complain about when working with students new to research, yet political types with vast social capital can promote this fallacy.

In one form, the GoogleSmear makes the argument that if information is not indexed by Google, it is a lie. Cole describes the experience of UC-Irvine history professor Mark Levine, where " a radio talk show host called him a liar because he referred to an incident that the host could not find on Google." Cole himself is frequently the target of right-wing attacks, where his credibility is attacked on the basis of his job; the reasoning seems to go, "Professors, who spend much of their lives collecting and analyzing information about a topic, have no credibility on that topic because they're professors."

Cole also describes a second instantiation of the GoogleSmear, where right-wing commentators:

Considering the way that Google is increasingly used as an arbiter of political debates or as an infallible source of information, it would be nice to develop some kind of campaign to educate the public on how Google works and what are appropriate and inappropriate uses of the tool. I suspect some librarian has a page somewhere describing what we know about Google, but, given Google's lack of transparency and alleged bias, it seems like we need a more broad-based effort to debunk myths about the search engine.

inspirational feeding tube

In light of the number of folks I've shown the latest version of "Get Your War On," which deals with the Terry Schiavo case, I should probably post it here. I think my favorite quote is "Glassy-eyed, no cognitive ability, persistent vegitative state, poor Terry Schiavo - the unwitting personification of the Christian right. Except she's not a disgusting hypocrite."

cyberspace is a superset

Over on the Association of Internet Researchers mailing list, there's a long, multi-threaded discussion of what to call the range of communication practices they study, including email, USENET, the Web, SMS messaging, and chat. As these technologies have been in mainstream use for about a decade, the term "New Media" seems obsolete and "Internet" doesn't quite address the fact that many of these practices like SMS or Intranets don't necessarily occur on the Internet. Some have suggested that the existing terms like "CMC" (computer-mediated communication) and the particularly loathesome "ICTs" (Interactive Communications Technologies) are adequate to describe this range of topics, but I suspect only communication and information studies scholars understand and tolerate these acronyms. Someone even suggested "Cyberspace" is the proper name of the field. Naming a domain that studies rapidly changing technology (Radio-TV-Film?), so it is easy to understand how this exercize is both contentious and incomplete. Therefore I suggest we call it "Interweb Studies" or perhaps "Intarweb Studies," so suggest the silliness of this project.

praising the fruit

John Darnielle has a really interesting post on Fiona Apple's new record Extraordinary Machine, which her label decided not to release, but found an audience and acclaim after it leaked to the Internet. He compares the record to Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which found an audience in the same way, after the label decided the record was too uncommericial for release.

Darnielle doesn't speculate on whether Sony will eventually release the record, but he does scold fans who villify record companies for privileging sales over artistry, saying " To be angry about the way the major labels do business while simultenously patronizing (for example) McDonald's, or Verizon, or Mobil Oil... is hypocrisy of a rather high order." I suppose there are indie rockers out there that have ambivalent attitudes toward corporate power. I like to think that I avoid giving my money to the really evil überconglomerates - choosing to eat at the co-op over fast food or running in American-made New Balances instead of Nikes - yet I still put gas in my truck and I'm enamored with my new iBook. Still - and I suppose I'm speaking as a Media Studies guy - in many ways I think corporate dominance of culture is one of the most pernicious ways corporations can exert their power, since it narrows the discourse to what media outlets will allow. Moreover, while there is certainly a broad degree of elite connoisseurship* among many indie rock fans, my knowledge of punk/indie history reminds me that music emerged as a site of contestation of corporate power because it is relatively inexpensive to independently produce records (as opposed to gasoline or even movies) and find a receptive audience.

In one passage, Darnielle also attempts to demythologize the role of record labels in earlier eras of rock:

Its somewhat interesting to contrast this myth with the parallel myth of the label exec as fly-by-night huckster. One label I thought was notably absent was Elektra, which introduced proto-punk bands like Love, The Stooges, the MC5, and, sigh, The Doors to a national audience. I suppose it would be easy to mythologize it as a visionary label, but I suppose the narrative of a folk label switching gears and signing Love could be as much about sacrificing ideals to turn a quick buck as updating values for a changing culture. I suppose I could do my own research, but does anyone know of work that's been done on the history of Elektra?

*dang, I had nearly forgotten about indie-rock snobbery until being confronted by it at some South By Southwest shows this week.

free by free beer

Its been Spring Break at UT, and SXSW time in Austin, so I haven't been blogging much. I've been having a good time at free day shows and catching up on movies at night. Vietnam played the KVRX showcase on Wednesday, and I suppose they'd be my "discovery" of the week. I enjoyed their set quite a bit; they have an interesting blend of boogie-rock and Flaming Lips-style sweeping bombast.

I finally got to meet Edith before her set this afternoon. Having talked to her on the Interweb for a couple years, it was great to talk to her face to face. Here's a shot of Edith playing her fancy blue Gibson:

Unfortunately, I couldn't hold my hands steady enough to get a good shot without flash, so you'll have to suffer my cliched digital-camera-in-a-dark-club shot.

penitentiary trained man-criminal

I don't follow right-wing political blogs too closely, but I happened on a post by Michelle Malkin which uses an image of blonde woman police officer escorting a black suspect to raise questions about the role of women in law enforcement. One of her readers writes, "I wonder when or if anyone will have the guts to point out that it's not in the public's best interest to have a woman, escorting a penitentiary trained man-criminal, even with help!" Granted, the suspect is Brian Nichols, who is being charged with going on a killing spree in an Atlanta courtroom, but the readers seem to be more concerned about the big, black man overpowering the pretty blonde lady.

I suppose there's a segment of the right which lacks an appreciation for subtlety or an awareness of just how racist and sexist their discourse really is. But this is clearly a shot staged for media, a "perp walk," where there's little chance for the unexpected. I wonder why these commentators on the right would even bother to comment on the photo, since it makes them look so foolish.

everything that happens

Via Neal Pollack, I learned of Austinist, the Austin version of the Gothamist family of for-profit local blogs. It looks like it launched in time for the start of South By Southwest. Its edited by local media personality Ben Brown.

I'm not entire sure why we need Austinist when we already have AustinBloggers.org; it seems like communities like Norman, which don't already have a promotion machine, would be better served by a blog that lists interesting events around town. I can check AustinBloggers or the Chronicle for cool stuff, but there's nothing like Normanist for tips on what's going on.

open source fact checking

It's late, and I have better thing to be doing, but I have to post a link to a silly blog entry about "the dearth of academic bloggers." The post doesn't really cite any evidence that academics blog at a lower rate than other professions, but it does cite a comment on another post with an interesting line of reasoning:

So academics are still fighting for a Soviet-style command economy, and therefore avoid grassroots media projects like blogs? Maybe in the sciences academics are still drawn to positivist notions like "perfect, complete knowledge," but hasn't this guy heard of what's popularly known as "postmodernism"?

I still don't buy the assertion that the academy is resistant to blogs. Juan Cole and Larry Lessig are high-profile academic bloggers, and there's even an upcoming conference on the academy and social software like blogs. If anything, it's a generation gap driving the lack of professors blogging. Off the top of my head, I can think of grad students in Anthropology, Information Studies, Rhetoric and Composition, and, um, Media Studies with relatively active blogs, so once we chase down that tenure-track job, perhaps the academy will be rife with blogging professors.

long path to nowhere

The New York Times has a story that asks, "Is a Cinema Studies Degree the New M.B.A.?" While I doubt many employers will have an immediate recognition of the value of a Film degree, I tell production students that they learn a lot of skills - teamwork, time management, and basic equipment competence - that are critical in nearly every job setting. Similarly, a degree in Media Studes, gets students writing, thinking critically about sources of information, and interrogating social power. I do wish that the article had distinguished between production programs and Media Studies, since it seems like production students are often less critical about issues of of social power and the like, while most Media Studies folks don't come out with a repertoire of technical skills.

knee-deep in the mocha

A while back, I watched a special on VH1 that proclaimed Starship's "We Built This City" the worst song ever recorded. You'll get no argument from me, but apparently the news didn't make it to Starbucks upper management. Jefferson Starbucks recorded "We Built This Starbucks [on Heart and Soul]" for its Starbucks Licensed Stores Awards ceremony. I learned about this from the Stay Free! blog, and, like them, I exhort you to download and listen to this crime against music immediately.

In related news, all of the coffee kiosks on the UT campus have been converted to Seattle's Best outlets, which itself was purchased by Starbucks last year. Of, I would prefer a locally owned business operate the campus kiosks, so I hereby call on The University to require the kiosks to play "We Built This Starbucks" as customers wait for their mochas.

catch me if u can

It looks like the rumors about the Young Conservatives of Texas plans for an "immigrant hunt" were a hoax. I was forwarded an email from the president of the chapter who said they were simply planning a celebration of Texas' independence from Mexico. Despite the racial overtones of that celebration, it doesn't quite match the sheer shamefulness of the "immigrant hunt" held by the YCT chapter at the University of North Texas. Regardless, I decided to email the chairman of the UT-Austin YCT after her email suggested people should do their research before forwarding emails about their events. I've pasted my message to her below.

Hi Lauren,

I understand that your chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas is holding a celebration of Texas’s independence from Mexico tomorrow and not, as widely reported, an “immigrant hunt” in the style of the action produced by the YCT chapter in Denton. According to a widely distributed email, you are unhappy with the suggestion that your group would be putting on one of these events, and asked senders “to research their information before they sent it ALL OVER THE UNITED STATES!!!” Because of your angry and somewhat condescending tone, I’ll ask you precisely how one would research this information, particularly if the email is coming from a reputable source. (In my case, I received it from another doctoral student in my department.) A Google search – which is the way most people casually begin research – for “Young Conservatives of Texas results in this page (http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~yct/) for the Austin chapter. A search from the utexas.edu home page gives the same results. This page has nothing but dead links for your upcoming events and contact information, so a casual searcher would be unable to see what events you have planned or find an email address for your officers. Casual fact checking would be pretty difficult for someone with relatively little knowledge about your organization.

I did see this URL (http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/yct/) in your email, but this is not among Google’s top results. Additionally, there is no mention of either your planned picnic or an “immigrant hunt” on the events page. If someone was able to find this page, they would still not have information debunking the “immigrant hunt” claim. If you are going to make flip remarks about research, your organization needs to make information about their activities as accessible as possible.

If you are angry about the widespread negative response to a YCT-sponsored “immigrant hunt,” you and your chapter should publicly denounce the actions by the Denton chapter, so the campus and Austin community knows that your group does not condone these events.

-Chris

men in animal suit

I just caught the end of a master class with Bradley Beesley, the director of Okie Noodlin' and Hill Stomp Holler and an OU alumnus. He showed us clips of his latest movie, Fearless Freaks, a documentary about the Flaming Lips that will be premiering at the South By Southwest film festival. The Flaming Lips often make me nostalgic for my days in the Norman-OKC metropolitan axis, and I was feeling wistful until he showed us a longer scene of one of the members cooking up, which reminded me of not-so-pleasant days in Norman. I'll probably have to wait until May, when it comes out on DVD, to watch the whole thing, but it looks like it will be an awesome flick.

One thing that was kind of funny about the class was the Chainsaw Kittens' Tyson Meade was in the audience, and he sort of looked at me with that don't-I-recognize-you look. I'd only talked to him a couple of times at parties in Norman (althought I saw him at parties a lot) so I didn't go over and introduce myself, but it was one of those moments when you realize that you might be more of a scenester than you admit to yourself.