Caitlin's+Wiki

Caitlin James Last Wiki Project

1). The techno-literacy memoir was indeed a challenge! For me personally, I learned that reading (reciting) your own writing proves more difficult that one would assume. I chose to create a podcast. By Wikipedia definition a podcast is “A podcast is a series of digital media files, usually digital audio or video that is made available for download via web syndication.” I then composed my actual written draft and then recorded it via several sound devices on the web and on my computer. When I finished the visual aspects of the video and added my voice-over I realized my writing style was much too linear for this type of medium. By linear I mean the writing was still too essay-esque. I needed something more bouncy- for lack of a better word. However, it was not until I played the podcast for the class I had the epiphany that my words were droning on an on. It seems as if I had not edited enough, spoken loud enough through the microphone and not catered to the audience quite enough. Even if the speakers in our media room had been up to par I think these problems would still be apparent. I realize now how vastly different plain writing is from online and electronic media. I needed to alter my craft and cultivate an online voice- a media friendly sound that didn’t sound like someone reading a document. Media is exciting, mysterious, and bolts into unfamiliar territory; the podcast would have been much different had I understood these things from the beginning. 2.) I think the new media has already propelled writing into a whole new realm. We were discussing in class the disappearance of newspapers all over the country; this is just one example of the changing times. Is it cataclysmic? Probably not, though newspapers are one of the oldest forms of communication so I cannot help but find this fact a little disturbing. But the flip side of that is the implementation of the //new media//. Our universe has become intensely //immediate//. Data and information is transferred at the speed of light and every bit of it is available to any human who can access a computer or cell phone (I’m not even counting the television). Honestly, the whole thing is flabbergasting. I predict we will transfer ourselves into a black hole and all noise will cease. I predict that our machines will either take over or destroy our humanity or they will implode and leave us in the second version of the Dark Ages. We are moving too fast post haste. We have become arrogant and irresponsible in our search for pseudo-science, we have begun the journey into the end of certainty and tradition. 3.) The idea of “noise” in cyberspace remains a fabulous metaphor. The web-text project allowed for the class to not only reflect on their own writing but also try their hand at a new approach. Because the web is an intangible medium the lines of typical human sensory become muddied. Suddenly concepts we think of as stationary become mobile and chameleon in form. The web-text was a great way to understand the creative possibilities of hypertextual information. It was a lesson in the art of hypertext. Before posting the pre-written text online it was a paper collecting dust. The project allowed us to re-invent our voice with the words we had already discovered. Turning an old paper into online media with links and website templates was probably one of the best examples of the inner workings of this class, Media Literacy. Stylistically the choices were left up to the individual. The idea was to take the paper and bend it to the reality of technology and online communication. Bend, fold, manipulate. The web-texts came out great. They had the intellectual air of a college paper nicely meshed with the choppy and chaotic labyrinth of online information. 4.) I am a changeling! My writing style in my blogs was an interesting paradox of personal thought patterns and audience based prose. I realize how vast the realm of the internet is- especially for writers. We are not doomed just challenged by the new medium. I will continue to blog, I think. It was a delightful way to see the progression of ones own voice. We were cultivating ourselves as cyber plants, feeding on each other and sprouting into the unknown. Not only has my writing style changed to format itself to online media but I have gathered a plethora of knowledge pertaining //to this media// as well as computers. I delved into dark waters only to emerge a slick eel swollen with the ability to navigate my own websites. As writer we will always be comfortable in our previous space of shelved books and essays; yet as media literate individuals we will be able to traverse the scary and looming world of the internet. 5.) I find Bolter to be an essential theorist for understanding digital media. He oscillates his reader back and forth of old and new ways of writing. By incorporating our past he made it easier to understand our pending future. His use and explanation of terminology was also very helpful. The realm of literary criticism is a complex world. Yet Bolter has successfully taken these literary tools and divided amongst the new concepts of technology, online media, and re-inventing print. To understand literary theory the reader must be made of aware of all pathways that were created in the invention of the theory itself. Digital media is just the newest route to be taken and explored in the case of both literature and digital writing. I believe Bolter also did his fair share of research as well. He is not naïve to other authors such as Haraway and Hales, etc. He is also keen to ancient philosophers. The writing style was succinct and the transitions were meaningful. Bolter realizes that in order to faction a new literary theory- we’ll call it Hypertextualism- we must look to our predecessors. I will relish keeping Bolter on my shelf and guarantee his later use in my own quest for interesting critical theory.