Jerz's Literacy Weblog

There's a dissertation in here. All I have the energy to do today is imply a connection.

Using a police state to market technology in 1984:


Using a police state to market technology in 2010:

None of this is a surprise to me, but I'm glad to have statistics to back up my impressions. A very small handful of students whose first introduction to online social networking was the SHU blogosphere, before blogs went really mainstream around 2005, are still blogging here, after they have graduated. 

In 2003-2005 it was fairly common for students to post jokes, spread memes, and keep up with each other on the SHU weblogs. Once students started arriving at SHU with a rich and full social network (first via LiveJournal, then Facebook), their expectations of what to do on the SHU blogs changed.  Blogging became much more like homework, and I developed a rubric that tried to preserve the gift economy of posting comments, and that also gave students permission to post short, matter-of-fact entries if they didn't have anything in particular to say -- with the expectation that at least some of their entries should show depth, and a higher level of peer interaction.

As with any homework assignment, there's a percentage of every class where the students will go above and beyond my expectations; there's a percentage that will do decent work and then stop once they meet the requirements; there's a percentage that will do the bare minimum, and there's a percentage that just doesn't get around to doing it.

I'll be digging more into this subject in a paper for Computers and Writing, so I'm glad I came across these figures.

Blogging has declined in popularity among both teens and young adults since 2006. Blog commenting has also dropped among teens.

• 14% of online teens now say they blog, down from 28% of teen internet users in 2006.
• This decline is also reflected in the lower incidence of teen commenting on blogs within social networking websites; 52% of teen social network users report commenting on friends' blogs, down from the 76% who did so in 2006.
• By comparison, the prevalence of blogging within the overall adult internet population has remained steady in recent years. Pew Internet surveys since 2005 have consistently found that roughly one in ten online adults maintain a personal online journal or blog.

While blogging among adults as a whole has remained steady, the prevalence of blogging within specific age groups has changed dramatically in recent years. Specifically, a sharp decline in blogging by young adults has been tempered by a corresponding increase in blogging among older adults.

• In December 2007, 24% of online 18-29 year olds reported blogging, compared with 7% of those thirty and older.
• By 2009, just 15% of internet users ages 18-29 maintain a blog--a nine percentage point drop in two years. However, 11% of internet users ages thirty and older now maintain a personal blog.

Both teen and adult use of social networking sites has risen significantly, yet there are shifts and some drops in the proportion of teens using several social networking site features. --Pew

I didn't watch the game, but I did catch the buzz about this ad. Yes, I did tear up. (Wired has details.)

It is dangerous to use local weather events (such as a heavy or light winter) to make judgments about global climate.

With that caveat, I'm blogging the following because I've noted a shift in the online discussion about "global warming," or the more general "climate change". This essay does a good job exploring the events driving what seems to be a populist pushback.

"The global warming movement as we have known it is dead," the brilliant analyst Walter Russell Mead says in his blog on The American Interest. It was done in by a combination of bad science and bad politics.

[...]

Until now, anyone who questioned the credibility of the IPCC was labelled as a climate skeptic, or worse. But many climate scientists now sense a sinking ship, and they're bailing out. Among them is Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the University of Victoria who acknowledges that the climate body has crossed the line into advocacy. Even Britain's Greenpeace has called for Mr. Pachauri's resignation. India says it will establish its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it "cannot rely" on the IPCC.

None of this is to say that global warming isn't real, or that human activity doesn't play a role, or that the IPCC is entirely wrong, or that measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions aren't valid. But the strategy pursued by activists (including scientists who have crossed the line into advocacy) has turned out to be fatally flawed. --Margaret Wente, Globe and Mail

Coming up... we'll tell you whether you'll be impaled by sharp, radioactive icicles hurled by mobs of rampaging robots in your neighborhood.  But first, people panicking, filling up three shopping carts of toilet paper and canned food.  Hear the techno-pop pulse of our theme music, and know that you're being conditioned to think of us as your only source of comfort in times of uncertainty.  Remember, newspapers make you read, and teh interweb will steal your kids, but your StormTV FearCast NewsFriends love you.

"When I was growing up, we had snow constantly, and no one seemed to mind or panic," said Sutton, 48, a mother of three. "I don't know what happened. People get fixated on what the TV forecasters are saying."

Weather forecasters provide crucial predictions to help people prepare, not to grab ratings, said Anthony Moretti, an assistant professor in the School of Communication at Point Park University, Downtown.

"The No. 1 reason why people watch local news is for weather," said Moretti, a former associate producer for two Columbus, Ohio, TV stations. "I don't think there is a conscious effort to pander to the ratings. It's about their responsibility to tell you about the most important thing that is happening in your town. Weather cuts across all of us." -- Post-Gazette

Update: Case in point...

Weatherman Freaking Out Over DC Snowpocalypse
Uploaded by TheDlisted. - Full seasons and entire episodes online.

Here's hoping I left gas in the snow-thrower.

Fascinating software study of the Doom iPhone port.

http://fabiensanglard.net/doomIphone/index.php

Our first few readings in my freshman writing course were personal essays, with a clear narrative.  We read an academic paper today, and there's another assigned for Friday.  A few students are already reporting feeling a little lost in the detail.

I gather this is because they are used to reading textbooks, where all the important terms are set in bold, the important topics are illustrated in colored boxes that break up the text.  Since the scholarship they'll need to look at for their research papers isn't pre-digested to that degree, I'm hoping to help them develop strategies for analyzing texts that come to them as paragraph after paragraph of plain text. 

Here is a reflection on an assignment that asked students to use MS-Word to annotate a text in the student's field.  I'll probably adopt something like this for a later assignment.

Via

I wish I'd seen this a few weeks ago, before my Video Game Culture and Theory class ended, but it's still a welcome find.

"One of the deepest questions in this field," Nass says, "is whether media multitasking is driven by a desire for new information or by an avoidance of existing information. Are people in these settings multitasking because the other media are alluring--that is, they're really dying to play Freecell or read Facebook or shop on eBay--or is it just an aversion to the task at hand?" --Chronicle

I know, I know: Amazon relied on those $9.99 prices to give it a head start in the digital books market. And raising prices to the $12.99 to $14.99 being talked about could certainly slow sales if consumers don't bite. But here's the thing: it's not as if Macmillan is only raising prices for Kindle. All its digital books will be the same price. It's not as if Kindle users are somehow being punished. The books will cost as much on the Nook from Barnes & Noble and iPad from Apple as they will on the Kindle.

What's bad for consumers may not necessarily be bad for investors.

And for some reason, this is all Steve Jobs' fault. -- Jim Goldman, CNBC

I usually carry a digital voice recorder with me.  In most states it's legal to record a conversation if all parties consent, although Pennsylvania law requires that all parties to a conversation be notified that a conversation is being recorded. "It is always legal to tape or film a face-to-face interview when your recorder or camera is in plain view" (RCFP, "Consent and Its Limits"). When I worked for a radio station, the first thing I would say after pushing the record button was, "The tape is rolling. I'm speaking to [so-and-so] for a story on [topic]."  If the person kept talking, the assumption is the subject consented to the interview.

It is a felony of the third degree to intentionally intercept, endeavor to intercept, or get any other person to intercept any wire, electronic, or oral communication without the consent of all the parties. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5703(1).

The statute is set to expire in December 2008, but could be amended and remain on the books. [Note -- it still seems to be on the books. --DGJ]  Under the current statutory language, consent of all parties is required to tape a conversation. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5704. Consent is not required of any parties if the parties do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy for their non-electronic communication. See definition of "oral communication," 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5702.

Anyone whose communication has been unlawfully intercepted can recover actual damages in the amount of $100 per day of violation or $1,000, whichever is greater, and also can recover punitive damages litigation costs, and attorney fees. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5725.

A person commits a misdemeanor if he views, photographs or films another person in a state of full or partial nudity without consent, under circumstances where the nude person has an expectation of privacy. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 7507.1.  --Reporters Committee on the Freedom of the Press, "Pennsylvania"

What are the laws about recording interviews where you live? (Here's a list that outlines the recording laws for each US state. Wikipedia has an article on "Wiretapping.") 

See also "Photographer's Rights," and this:

The law in the United States of America is pretty simple. You are allowed to photograph anything with the following exceptions:

• Certain military installations or operations.

• People who have a reasonable expectation of privacy. That is, people who are some place that's not easily visible to the general public, e.g., if you shoot through someone's window with a telephoto lens.

That's it.

You can shoot pictures of children; your rights don't change because of their age or where they are, as long as they're visible from a place that's open to the public. (So no sneaking into schools or climbing fences.)

Video taping has some more gray areas because of copyright issues, but in general the same rules apply. If anyone can see it, you can shoot it.

And yes, you can shoot on private property if it's open to the public. That includes malls, retails stores, Starbucks, banks, and office-building lobbies. If you're asked to stop and refuse, you run the risk of being charged with trespassing, but your pictures are yours. No one can legally take your camera or your memory card without a court order.

You can also shoot in subways and at airports. Check your local laws about the subway, but in New York, Washington, and San Francisco it's perfectly legal. Airport security is regulated by the Transportation Security Administration, and it's quite clear: Photography is A-OK at any commercial airport in the U.S. as long as you're in an area open to the public.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. --Andrew Kantor

For the one-credit journalism class that I teach every semester, I'm teaching a unit on editorial writing. Students will take a leisurely 10-chapter journey through Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace.  It's the first time I've taught a whole unit focusing on sentence-level phrasing.  The class meets once a week, for just one hour, and the students taking the course are expected to be actively involved in the production of the student paper, so there's only so much work I can expect them to write; still, I am looking forward to the idea of reading through each chapter one week at a time, without the pressure of having to build up to a big research paper.

I don't usually have that kind of luxury to focus on phrasing in my freshman writing courses.  Basic Comp focuses on paragraphs and grammar, and Seminar in Thinking and Writing involves the discussion of readings in cultural identity, in a process that leads up to a researched term paper.  These are the classes where students face the uncomfortable fact that even the bright students -- the ones who pay attention in class, and take good notes, and know how to spot the main ideas they'll be asked to echo back on a quiz -- have to work hard in college. 

This realization is a ritual.  Not a series or random actions devoid of meaning; not a pattern to memorize in order to avoid deeper thought.  Like any ritual, it cannot be summarized, or transmitted through a lecture or book. The learning happens only after we try, measure how far we fall short of our goal, and try again.

I've sometimes pointed out to my students that in my generation, graduating from high school and leaving your peers behind to go to college mostly meant that you were saying goodbye.  Since then, I have gotten back in touch with a couple dozen high school friends, and even some elementary school friends (including the smartest girl in my fourth grade class, whom I longed to befriend at the time).  We didn't bring a whole online social network with us, it was pretty much a clean break.

The students I teach now are still in regular contact with their high school friends, and I'm sure they expect to be, at least in the superficial "Facebook friend" way, for the foreseeable future.  I'm not really surprised that they don't feel the need to buy a yearbook to memorialize the way things were.

My undergraduate school has discontinued its yearbook, due in no small part to lack of interest.

They seemed to care about the yearbook back in 1888, when the first issue was published, and the name-- originally chosen at random-- was ascribed an arcane meaning via a contest won by med student Leander Fogg, who reasoned that "corks" were students who didn't know what to say when called upon in class (like corks silently plugging a bottle), whereas "curls" were students who knew all the answers, as one who "curleth his tail for delight." A few years later, the student publishers-- all men in a pre-coeducation UVA-- described their book:

"A monument raised by the students, to be a memorial to them of each other, of the University, and of all things common to them and to the University."

In effect, it was a 19th Century version of social media, something that allowed students to preserve a shared experience. Ironically, the 21st Century's version, Facebook, appears to have been a contributing factor in the demise of the storied yearbook. --Dave McNair, The Hook

Personal comment, with embedded links to recent postings indicating that I've actually had independent thoughts about this issue and I really do have something to contribute other than just reposting something that I found on BoingBoing.

A brief quote from something noteworthy or controversial, offering an opinion and inviting readers to comment.

Studying the faked predictions was more fun than finding out the actual gadget. I'm very interested in seeing how this shakes up the competition, but I'm not going to be one of the early adopters.

Plato's Phaedrus tells the story of Theuth, inventor of the alphabet. The god Thamos said, "O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utiliy or the inutility of his own inventions to the users of them."  (An early reference to the Lake Wobegone Effect?)

As a kid growing up in Fairfax County, just a commute away from Washington D.C., I remember often looking out the window of the family car and seeing a statute of a huge dog cocking its head at a phonograph machine.

Here we see the sculpture on top of a museum roof in Baltimore, but when I knew it, it was set fairly far back in the front yard of someone with a sense of humor (or a desire to collect 15-foot fiberglass monuments to kitsch).  I remember my mother telling me that the dog's name was Nipper, and that he was listening to his master's voice.

A 2D version of this logo appeared on RCA records; it was the iPod dancing silhouette of its day -- a visual icon used to market an audio technology.

I must have heard the story behind the scene -- that the dog's master is dead -- because I remember imagining how big the master's coffin would be in order to match the scale of these figures.

Exhaustive research led to me to some choice historical factoids about the RCA icon, including the story that a dog and a cylinder phonograph machine that belonged to a British man had both come into the possession of the man's brother, after the man died. The inheritor was a British artist, who noticed the dog showed much interest in recordings of his late master, got the idea to sell the image to phonograph companies (under the original title, "His Late Master's Voice"). 

The manufacturers of the cylinder machines didn't bite, but a phonograph company eventually built an advertising campaign around the image, and the artist updated it to feature the more modern machine. His Master's Voice (Wikipedia)

A bit more Googling led to an entry in the Art Inventories Catalog, that gives the location I remember as 8731 Lee Highway, Fairfax, Virginia.



 

Interesting use of pseudo-Arabian exotica that Edison used in order to communicate to the public of 1905 just what his cylinder phonographs could do, likening them to rings to place on the finger of a musical genie. "Wouldst thou have melody? Place thy ring upon my finger and I will sing for thee a tender song of love... I can lull the babe to sweet repose, or waken in the aged heart the soft memories of youthful days." --Nipperhead

I have not been ravenously following the streamed coverage of the iPad release, but I did note that the NYT was the first site Jobs presented during the demo.

I really hope someone from Improv Everywhere runs up the center aisle, whirling a hammer around her head. It's very significant, of course, that Apple is counting on bloggers to drive the media coverage of the unveiling.. Leveraging the devotion of the Apple fans who tend the online "garden of pure ideology" is lots cheaper than buying a Superbowl ad.

Of course, the iPad name has a bit of history, courtesy of MadTV. ("Please don't make us explain how it works.')