theories of media + tech exam

What evidence does Barthes use?

personal observations, posing, actual photographs, analysis of the photograph of the bombing victims,

What is Heidegger's argument?

questioning technology is essential, technology is not merely the essence of technology, technology is a means to an end, enframing means that many individual parts that make up the technological are technological but the functioning whole is more of an activity

What evidence does Kittler use?

radio did these changes or made these changes in society

What methodology does Wark use?

observational

What methodology does Baraka use?

observational, cultural

What methodology does Williams use?

observational, economic, linguistic, historical

What methodology does Checetto use?

observational, experimental

What methodology does Baudrillard use?

observational, historical

What methodology does Peters use?

observational, historical, scientific

What methodology does Hall use in his argument about popular images?

observational, linguistic, historical

What methodology does Galloway use?

observational, sociological

What methods does Nakamura use?

observational, sociological

What methodology do Horkheimer and Adorno use?

observational. Anecdotal, historical

What evidence does Benjamin use?

cinema, how the camera is surgery, how war is associated with the form of the film

What evidence does Wark use?

cites Benjamin, uses idea of allegory/allegorithm

What evidence does Peters use in Elemental Media?

cites McLuhan, Innis (on infrastructure)

What evidence does Galloway use?

civilizations game, not that they have racist sterotypes about different people are like, but the idea that humans are rated on a scale for aggression, something we learn through the game about the world. A sliding scale for aggression. We start to learn about our lives, alters our thinking

What evidence does Bratton use?

classifies different layers of the stack - the cloud = the layer of the stack that governs, establishes jurisdiction, etc, the user, mentions Digital Bill of Rights as protection for users, the Black Stack - the future of the stack

What does Baudrillard argue about simulation and simulacra?

concepts of simulation and spectacle, have now arrived in age of the hyperreality, real things through things that are simulated, understand america through disneyland. Big Spectacle, Matrix. Index reflect and simulation.

Is Marx a media determinist?

no

What evidence does Peters use?

home addresses, biological cycles, astronomical cycles, first printed item by Gutenberg is almanac (calendar), the establishment of various liturgical calendars, religious origins of clocks, towers being used for surveillance, sonic ease of communication with towers, religious implications of towers

What is Innis' argument about parchment and paper?

how changes in parchment affect societies, relationship between religion and material flows of things

What is the Matrix's argument about spectacles and simulations?

Matrix allegory for tech work in late 20th century america. Memes, through political unconscious, at any particular time in history or location, the political economy beocmes unconcsious and seeps into the things we produce and consume. People all together losing faith in progessivist history, political conditions can sink into particular time

What are McLuhan's extensions of man?

media can be seen as extensions of man because it extends the capabilities of humankind

What is the argument of Williams' "Entries on 'Media' and 'Mediation'?"

Media came to be understood as mass media, communication media, radio, television, film, and so on. Mediation is the act of being in the middle and therefore having some influence. Mediation is the act of being in the middle and therefore having some influence.

What is Nakamura's argument?

Nakamura argues that there are varying levels of difficulty for different types of people which parallels the gaming world and the way this reveals certain things about actual society

What evidence does Chiang use?

metaphors about media and stuff

What is Thompson's argument about logistical media?

more granular view of how time changed, time used to be varied- and was a local thing, not generalized across, time was also perceived differently, trains moved across the country.

What is Winner's argument?

objects can have politics

What methodology does Barthes use?

observational

What does Anderson argue about newspapers?

his idea of temporality between novels and newspapers, the rise of the nation state lead to an imagined community, this imagined community comes to be in part of print capitalism - newspapers and novels. Vernacular language, allow us to image ourselves as part of community (Americans). How media systems gives rise to new type of relationships to land and to people

What methodology does Innis use?

historical

What methodology does Virilio use?

historical

What methodology does Anderson use?

historical, cultural

What methodology does McLuhan use?

historical, cultural, anthropological, literary

What methodology does Browne use?

historical, cultural, observational

What methodology does Winner use?

historical, cultural, observational

What methodology does Marx use?

historical, etymological, literary, observational

What methodology does Le Guin use?

historical, literary

What methodology does Benjamin use?

historical, observational

What methodology does Bratton use?

observational

What methodology does Mattern use?

historical, observational

What methodology does McGann use?

historical, observational

What is Hall's argument about popular images?

The work of representation, is a textbook, which compresses a lot of years of work. Trying to understand how meaning is constructed, reflexive views of language- we make meaning because things already exist. We are talking to each other trying to decide what is. We are all trying to do things (intention)- what are our intentions. Finally, the constructionist approach; argues that meaning is made by construction. 1) implies a number of things may go into it, a number of materials, many things in the puzzle, not necessarily intended, but created by people who create, design, and consume the content. Questions of readership and consumption - eventually author does not matter...about the text and what it means.

What is entailed in a constructionist approach to meaning in language?

A constructionist approach to meaning in language says that meanings are constructed; in other words, meaning depends on both the writer's experience/thoughts, and the reader's experience/thoughts.

What is a cyborg and what is Donna Haraway's relationship to the term?

A cyborg is a being from science fiction that is part human, part machine. Donna Haraway wrote the Cyborg Manifesto, and she takes the cyborg as an indication of where the world is going. She calls for feminism to embrace the cyborg and not deny the artificiality that is becoming more important in our daily lives.

What are some distinct approaches to studying video games?

A few approaches to studying video games are ludology (the study of the play; mechanics, how you play, etc), narratology (looking at video games as narratives, the story of the game), and media archaeology (the physical technology needed to create games; television, wires, cables, controllers, etc).

What methodology does Schivelbusch use?

historical, observational

Expand the notion of allegorithm in your own words.

Allegorithm is a combination of the words "allegory" and "algorithm". It occurs when algorithms (in video games) act as an allegory for real life - this is discussed by Galloway and Wark.

Describe the relationship, per Benedict Anderson, between newspapers and nationalism.

Among other answers, newspapers created an imagined community (people who didn't know each other personally but were aware of the existence of others), they were written in the vernacular and homogenized language, and required temporal uniformity (for example, this paper contains the news that occurred on March 3, etc).

Recount Baudrillard's observations about Disneyland.

Baudrillard observes that Disneyland is a spectacle that is "hyperreal" - it is a simulation that is created in order to show that the outside world (Los Angeles and beyond) is the real world, and that the real world is not a simulation. It's meant to contrast.

Why, as per Adorno and Horkheimer, should we consider culture as an industry?

Because there are similarities between culture and industry; both produce things for consumption, and there tends to be a cycle leading to the production of similar things. Culture has industrial roots.

Briefly explain Benjamin Bratton's concept of the stack.

Bratton uses the technical term for "stack" in his concept. He describes a stack as a map of the world, an accidental megastructure that disrupts geopolitics as we know it.

What evidence does Berger use?

Children experiment viewing the Caravaggio painting and determining principal figure's gender (children can interpret without knowing background), Goya example flipping back and forth between various imagery to change the tone of the Goya painting, analysis of nude paintings (positioning of female bodies), comparison between figures in nude paintings and photographed nude models, interview with women about nude paintings, analysis of oil paintings - improvement in realism, better depicts and signifies European wealth, juxtaposition of displays of wealth in oil paintings and imagery of wealth and flourishing in ads.

Briefly explain Stuart Hall's Encoding/Decoding model for media discourse.

Encoding is the creation of messages within a work (Hall is discussing film media specifically, but in any media) that you know and understand. Decoding is taking ideas/messages from media based on your experiences and thoughts. What is encoded by one person is highly unlikely to be exactly what is decoded by another.

What methodology do Herman and Chomsky use?

historical, observational, empirical

What is Marx's argument in "Technology?"

How technology as a word comes to be, need engineers to make these tools, also about the social, economic, and political system around the tools

What happens to aura, per Walter Benjamin, in an age of technological reproducibility?

In an age of technological reproducibility, the "aura" (similar to authenticity) reduces over time.

What is Galloway's argument about video games?

Interested in algorithms, how games provide us with new form of allegory, or allegorithm, how game works behind the scenes, to understand this - see game as allegory for the world.

What does Benjamin argue about technological reproducibility?

Large argument, but he is interested in the relationship between aesthetics and politics, changes and reproduction in meaning - technological reproducibility, images can be mass printed, images mass printed, what that does to auroa, things being here and now. At a particular point in time and place in history, the aura is in the painting, over time it starts to diminish. Cult value with use and exchange value. States relationship where there are politics in aesthetics than uncritically having aesthetics in our politics, Facism is happening because politics have been aestheticized. If we are all open about the fact that art is political to being with, we wouldnt be deluded into thinking politicis isnt about art/ aesthetics. Speeches, dress, fashion, placement of guards. Art we consume is and can be political

Describe, in your own words, 'logistical media' as a concept.

Logistical media is media of logistics (acceptable answer); or, in other words, media that orients in time and space. For example, we discussed clocks, calendars, towers, trains, etc.

What is punctum according to Barthes?

Punctum is the thing that "pierces" your imagination - a detail that you especially notice, one that stays with you

What is studium according to Barthes?

Studium is the content of the photograph - what you see, what messages you may take from it, etc.

What are studium and punctum?

Studium is the content of the photograph - what you see, what messages you may take from it, etc. Punctum is the thing that "pierces" your imagination - a detail that you especially notice, one that stays with you.

Recount Ursula K LeGuin's carrier bag theory of fiction.

The carrier bag theory of fiction discusses the stories that we tell as humans, and what they say about our past. She discusses that because our stories are about conflict, that tells us that human history is violent. She pushes for stories that center the "carrier bag", or the gatherer mindset - collecting and gathering information as the primordial human activity, rather than conflict.

What is McLuhan's argument in "Understanding Media?"

The media is the message. medium determines the scale and the form of the message

Why does Leo Marx consider technology a hazardous concept?

The term technology reduces human culpability from the tools themselves; it promotes technological determinism (which Marx is against). Technology does not drive history - humans do. It's too vague and encompassing of a term.

What does Barthes argue about photography?

The three key points from this reading are that photography is related to/about death; the concept of indexicality; and the studium (the subject) and punctum (what "pierces", or captures your attention) of photographs. One of Barthes' points is also that the camera creates performance - it encourages those being captured to "act" for the photograph. All about photography, he is a philosopher, indexicality=photograph captures time as it freezes Thinks photography is all about death, captures death of instance, and more generally about death, first uses of photogrpahy was cultural. Portraits initially made to save your image after you were dead Operator = photographer, spectator = ourselves

What methodology does Heidegger use?

historical, observational, linguistic

What, per E P Thompson, is the relationship between watches, clocks, and work-discipline?

Work-discipline requires the prevalence and absence of watches and clocks to keep people working the hours of the industrial revolution. Clocks also helped to create the distinction between work-time and leisure-time that hadn't existed before.

Give three kinds of evidence used by Paul Virilio as he equates war and cinema. (1-3 sentences)

You could discuss the structure of films, his use of archival materials (the testimony of soldiers), the vocabulary shared between war and cinema, and the people that appear in both war and cinema.

What methodology does Haraway use?

allegorical, scientific, observational

What is Wark's argument?

allegory/allegorithm can explain why we come home from a day of work and choose to relive our lives in a game, reveals certain things about society

What evidence does Virilio use?

analysis of co-production of war and cinematic technologies, draws parallels between directors and dictators

What evidence does Mattern use?

analysis of the Futurist movement aiming to diminish the power of machines

What evidence does Nakamura use?

analyzes other papers such as Straight White Male, analyzes certain types of games

What does Chun argue about technologies of difference?

argued that we should see race as a technology, this is insuffient approach, but thought this could then be applied differently

What does Terranova argue about digital mediations?

asking how is it that we are all convinced in these busy days to spend so much time on the internet essentially doing nothing, because of how big these companies get, that the laborers they are using are all of us, reproductive and household labor, when we are online, we are contributing to free labor for someone else, concept of free labor, integral to producing culture, we decide what is cool and what is cringe online. We do the labor of creating culture

What does Mattern argue about books?

basic short essay, how books are considered as bibliographical machines, the physical more than words,

What evidence does McGann use?

became a commodified object, a book is more than just its word, how it is produced and the paper it is produced on. The william blake prints - didnt mean to write the tiger just as words, produced lush images on metal (these are now detached from the poem). Analysis of images alongside the word

What evidence does Chun use?

biological definition of race, encoding/decoding of race, historical analysis of slavery

What methodology does Chun use?

biological, observational, historical

What evidence does Marx use?

building roads, bridges, trains, finance, skilled labor (encapsualted and replaced by one word; technology), 19th century America it is developed.

What does Peters argue about logistical media?

calendar, clock, tower are three forms (time and space) these media set the stage for other things around them, how other technologies and people move.

What does Le Guin argue about books?

carrier bag theory, male dominated version of technology, the form of our narrative relates to how we see the history, rather than inherently violent, wants science fiction to consider stories as a vehicle for gathering, of nourishment as primordial instinct, carrying goods and food around, narrative is the message

What evidence do Herman and Chomsky use?

defines propaganda systems in four parts: (1) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation ofthe dominant mass-media firms (2) advertising as the primary income source ofthe mass media; (3) the reliance ofthe media on information provided by government, business, and "experts" funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power (4) "flak" as a means of disciplining the media; and (5) "anticommunism" as a national religion and control mechanism. Financial data, coverage stats of worthy vs unworthy murder victims

What evidence does Baraka use?

direct address, personal experience, typewriter as an example of Western technology should not diminish our curiosity

What evidence do Horkheimer and Adorno use?

economic analysis of various industries ranging from the car industry to film and television industries, classical musicians "naturally" syncopating in uniform rhythm, the way consumer power over time has molded culture into a sea of sameness,

What methodology does Terranova use?

economic, historical

What is Hall's argument in decoding/encoding?

example of mediation (encoding and decoding), justify and explain why we cannot just make films and have people get the message. Not that simple, the technologies and frameworks go into the construction and development of media. If you make a film about racism, there is media in the middle, by the time the message gets decorded, there has been enough information that has changed from the original encoding.

What evidence does Checetto use?

examples of sonic experiments, fathead theory, the notion of sound sweeping across a stage, sound being more pervasive than other senses

What evidence does Schivelbusch use?

expansion of French railroads diminishes geography, increased tourism diminishes aura (cites Benjamin and technological reproducibility)

What is Berger's methodology?

experimental, observational, historical

What is Berger's argument about paintings?

four part series; 1) visual representation of benjamin's work 2) section on nudes, with gender and images relate to each other 3) advertisements-idea of luxury 4) oil painting as a commodity -representation of commodity and self-representing commodities. How the media can represent sparkle and shine very well, colonialism and expansion. Water colors, graphite, why did oil painting rule?? The Oil painting - the west, 2) question of the gaze, berger studies how is it that there is always a look out at the perceived male observer, helpless inviting and invited woman in the nudes, why has this remained popular in history. Losing battle, can restore masculininity by looking at the submissiveness, patriarchy Women artists may reconceive the nude - some make portraits of themselves, comment on opulence Critique consumed by the system of commodification

What evidence does Baudrillard use?

four stages of simulation, Disneyworld representing the hyperreal

What methodology does Thompson use?

historical, observational, literary, economic, empirical

What methodology does Hall use in his argument about encoding/decoding?

observational

What evidence does McLuhan use?

how evolution led to the extensions of man, presents the Western dilemma of being interconnected, even though our culture has a tendency to subdivide and fragment things to better our understanding, medium and message are inextricably linked, automation has altered humankind, electric light is medium without a message, railroads transform understanding of time and leisure, gives examples from Shakespeare of how his lines could be written about modern technology

What does Schivelbusch argue about logistical media?

how the understanding of space changed when trains came in. Space was changing, spaces became closer, the country shrank, ability to travel, places next to each other, "on the next stop", train is the medium changing our understanding of space and time.

What evidence does Anderson use?

imagined communities, analysis of religious group, communities formed by language, newpapers determining what stories are current and important

What evidence does Hall use for his argument about popular images?

introduces the idea of conceptual maps that help us to understand things without them being physically present, linguistic analysis of how we convey and understand meaning, Saussure and semiotics, analysis of Velasquez's Las Meninas first part saussure and second part foucault Uses images, sign, signifer, signified (pulls from saussure) Myths being sold, the myth of italy and italian cuisine Dinosaur; fossils, fossil fuels, materials at our disposal

What evidence does Innis use?

kings and administrative territories, how different media enable record keeping practices, how large a kingdom can be, goes back to clay tablets.

What evidence dos Williams use?

linguistic evolution of media/mediation over time, historical uses of the words, examples of economic and political impact on understanding of media/mediation

What methodology does Chiang use?

literary, metaphorical

What does Browne argue about technologies of difference?

long historical arc of branding from slavery to branding today, surveillance (facial recognition) is an after effect of a long history of surveilling the black body, began on plantations, contemporary modes of recognition and a long term effect of history of surveillance. Brands try to commodify bodies, nike logos on body,

What evidence does Winner use?

lowhanging overpass, tomato sorting machine

What do Herman and Chomsky argue about journalism and mass media?

many mechanisms that lead to things more dangerous than propaganda, even without dictator, can still have propaganda system in place, advertisement models, cutting off access to information, American media still does propaganda even though it may no longer feel like it to us, manufacturing concepts. Changing of language - shaped in different ways giving responsibility to different actors. Manufacturing consent (to go to war)

What is Chiang's argument in Exhalation?

rich text exemplifying elemental media thoughts, showing that conclusions about the world can happen through thought and poety, allegory for not noticing climate change because what sustains our life is the air around us, we forget life is the physicality of trying to survive as world moves forward.

What methodology does Peters use in Elemental Media?

scientific, historical

What evidence does Hall use to support his argument about encoding/decoding?

semiotic analysis of encoding/decoding in television, analysis of meaning adhering to television genres

What is Virilio's argument about cinema?

takes one section from benjamin and writes a book about it; cinema is war and war is cinema, looks at form, how words transition across (shoot), how people moved early on between these two spheres, film directors in war and then soliders formed in war for cinema. Nazi and american film and war practices

What is McGann's argument about books?

textual studies, texts are socialized - authors write manuscripts and everyone else makes the books, editors, book cover designers, book sellers, etc. Pay attention to the books themselves, we can see different conceptions

What is Bratton's argument about digital mediations?

the black stack, an infrastructuralist, all hardware and software arranged like a stack, the graphics and user interface. Our whole tech world now arranged like a stack, an accidental mega srtcuture, undersea cables, and cell towers, and billions of lines of code, and languages, and this starts disrupting how we know political geographies in the world. Treaty lines made on the ground, the mega globe stack disrupts this, date flows wherever whenever, changes how we imagine global politics, google v china, russia cutting off access

What evidence does Browne use?

the branding of black skin, the origins of branding and the way it encodes/decodes, examples of anti-Islamic racial prejudice

What evidence does Heidegger use?

the concept of techne, the idea of Gestell (enframing)

What do Horkheimer and Adorno argue about the culture industry?

the culture industry, we should consider our culture not just as simple productions of themselves, but as industrial systems, we are all benefitting disney when watching television, rise of franchises, similarity across culture, across industry, the economy drives cultural production. interesting commentary on work/leisure time on p 109 - entertainment industry emerges to help people escape the stress of the work day, but the industry mechanizes entertainment thus creating more labor

What is Peters' argument about elemental media?

the elemental media, caps our chronological move from origins of media stufdies, to studying infrascture and physical environments, air and pollution, soil, and sand, and oceans

What evidence does Terranova use?

the idea of free labor in the digital age, cites Haraway, constructs concept of digital economy

What is the digital economy?

the intersection of the economy and the information industry

What is Kittler's argument in his text?

the media determines our situation, media determinist ("x" determinists). Argue that the history of the world looks like the history of the media. Technology determininist, tech takes center stage in the world

What is Winner's argument about technologies having politics?

the passover low enough that people couldn't pass to get to the beach, needed to have a car, trains and buses were restricted from beach access, racist infrastructure

What evidence does Le Guin use?

the story of evolution to better understand the way that containing and carrying things was an origin for all tools that followed

What is Checetto's argument about sonic mediations?

thinking about sound as a medium, distinct from vision, experimenting with sound tells us different things, about things we take for granted, sound as physical medium

How does Marx feel about the term technology?

too broad, obscures details and generalizes

What is Haraway's argument about feminist technologies?

took concept of cyborg, in science fiction and in reality, how we get integrated into technology both inside our bodies or on the factory floor, use concept of cyborg and make it do different things, wanting some kind of fantastical return, use the bastard figure of the cyborg and make it revolt against it's origins, lets tell different stories, science fiction as theoretical method, all encourage being one with the technologies, not try to purify ourselves, things are always partial cyborg allegories, establishes boundary between human and animals, establishes boundary between humans and machines, establishes boundary between physical and nonphysical, establishes distinctions between identity and affinity, invokes Baudrillard (simulations and simulacra), invokes Winner (politics of objects), and invokes Marx (technological determinism)

What does Baraka argue about technologies of difference?

trying to image was views for technology would be, theory and liberation , tech.

What evidence does Thompson use?

wage labor, boss time v. my time, brought about by clocks and time-pieces, markers of knowledge and the lack thereof; good employees were given watches as gift to mark you own incorporation into work discipline, tax records, diary entries, legal documents