Marginal notes on Martin Gurri’s The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium (2014) Most Westerners would be surprised to learn that many Easterners consider Tahrir-type protests to be cunning plots by the West… Read More ›
Digital Environment
Lenin and billions of man-hours of free time. From passivity of TV consumption to activity of social media contribution
Television swallowed up millions of man-hours of free time by drawing people into a shared passive addiction. Prior to the age of TV, never before had such a large number of people done the same thing at the same time…. Read More ›
The next Big Thing: simulation of mind or replacement of body?
Efficient simulation of mind will win the technological race with efficient replacement of body Space transportation, teleportation, human resettlement into a better body – all these things are both too primitive and too complicated. They are going to disturb the… Read More ›
Text? No longer
Some thoughts on possible obsolescence in the Media Studies Triangle, Ontario Media Literacy Program “In 1988, Ontario became the first educational jurisdiction in the world to mandate media literacy as part of the English curriculum”, reports the “Media Education: Make… Read More ›
Content marketing: How companies are turning into media. Case studies
Brands are engaged in a media arms race. Creating relevant and valuable content is no longer an option, but a necessity. Traditional marketing boils down to managing brand information distribution, while content marketing strives to create conditions in which information… Read More ›
Trees die twice: the beautiful end of the book era
A library in Picton organized the DiscARTed Art show It was a cozy evening event organized by a local library in a small town. Anyone who wished to participate had been encouraged to pick up discarded books from one of… Read More ›
Tickling a touchscreen. Grabbing information. Resettling a human being.
As Gigaom informs, touch screen devices will soon learn new finger movements. We still have so few options for interactions with gadgets, experts complain. (“How to take mobile gestures to the next level: use pitch, yaw and “the claw””, by… Read More ›
Clay Shirky, devices and the brain’s weathering
Why the Internet guru Clay Shirky eventually banned the Internet in class. (A distorted precis, comments, and notes on the margins of Shirky’s reflection.) New media evangelist Clay Shirky has recently prohibited students’ use of digital devices in his class…. Read More ›
Self-organisation at the Institutions and on the Net: Orchestra vs. Ensemble
An orchestra differs from an ensemble in that it includes a management function – the conductor. Members of a small ensemble consisting of two or three people tune up by reacting to each other directly. As the ensemble grows in… Read More ›
Extension, amputation, alienation… Copying!
McLuhan wrote that the tools shape not only users and their needs, but the entire environment as well. Thus, the automobile has given rise to several industries, and a network of highways and roadside infrastructure, including motels, supermarkets, etc. Arguably,… Read More ›