Blog 6: Convergence & Control

In the beginning of the article, Jenkins discusses the spread of the Bert/Bin Laden image and says "This circulation of media content —across different media systems, competing media economies, and national borders—depends heavily on consumers’ active participation." I think that quote epitomizes the similarities between our previous readings because Jenkins is essentially saying that media depends so much upon the use of its users. Weinberger talked about this as well. If a website cannot engage its users then it cannot succeed on the web today.


Another point Jenkins brought up repeatedly is the idea of convergence. Converging the new and old media together to create a sort of super media. In the section "The Prophet of Convergence" Jenkins explains that it used to be that companies only did one thing because they were each regulated under different rules and such. But now, with the spread of media, the lines between separate types of media are being blurred. You can read your newspaper stories on your phone, computer or in the copy you pick up in the CUB. There is no longer separate mediums for everything - you can get your news on TV, in print, on the web, on the go, at home, at work, at school, at the doctor's office - virtually anywhere. However, Jenkins doesn't believe that convergence is necessarily going to lead to some sort of "world peace" of media. 


He quotes Ithiel de Sola Pool several times, and one quote that particularly stood out to me was this: "we are in an age of media transition, one marked by tactical decisions and unintended consequences, mixed signals and competing interests, and most of all, unclear directions and unpredictable outcomes." I connected with this quote because it's so incredibly true. Everything we interact with today, from e-mail to Facebook, to our class website, to playing Angry Birds on our cell phones while waiting to go into the dentist was completely unexpected at one point. Today, things happen so quickly that it's practically impossible to predict what will happen as a result. I think this idea also connects to Weinberger because Weinberger discussed the idea of metadata over and over and metadata is really what controls the web and that is ALWAYS changing. The web is constantly converging new ideas to create something new and those new ideas come directly from the ever changing metadata provided by the users.

Blog #5: Implicit vs. Explicit Meaning

 "the meaning of a particular thing is enabled by the web of implicit meanings we call the world"

In saying this, Heidegger and Weinberger are saying that without implicit meanings, all the world is just definitions. Specific objects can mean different things to different people based off of their experiences with the object. For example, when I see my dog I don't think 'a domesticated candid, Canis familiaris, bred in many varieties.' And chances are, no one else thinks that. They think about their own dog, or experience with a similar breed. The same goes for nearly every object surrounding us. We apply our own knowledge to an object or idea to give it a meaning, we rarely look up the dictionary (explicit) meaning. I think Weinberger sums the point up really well later in the page after the aforementioned quote when he says "That implicit web of relationships gives the things of our world their meaning."


This is relevant to the third order of order because when we order things now, we can add several tags to things - including implicit definitions. We're giving things more than one definition. We're able to define things in more than one way. We can define things based off of images, articles, videos, dictionary definitions, blogs, etc. There are so many different methods of defining things that we are able to gain an even greater understanding of the world around us.

The song I chose is Three Little Birds by Bob Marley. This song is important to me because I listened to it as a child so it brings me joy to think about my childhood. I also listen to it a lot in the summer when it's sunny out and it brings me happiness year round. It's also very inspiring to me so I like to listen to it when I am doing art or when I want to chill out and relax. My friends and I also listen to it so I have a lot of fond memories of times we've had. A computer could know it is important to me through adding tags like "summertime classic", "childhood" and "inspiring." It would then categorize this song into those tags so when I want to listen to songs from my childhood, this song would come up with other songs I deem memorable from my childhood. 


It all comes back to the implicit meaning being important to the third order of order - by adding tags, we're organizing it in the third order of order as well as making the implicit meaning explicit so as to be understood by machines and other people.