User: Reflections on the narrativization of self within social networking sites: A presentation and discussion of the processes involved in the development of a creative work-in-progress

This article explores the subject of narrative and self within social media contexts through a presentation and discussion of the project and processes involved in the development of creative writing work-in-progress. The activity has taken place over an eighteen-month period from February 2009–September 2010 with support from the National Lottery Fund through Arts Council East, Arc Digital, CODE and the new writing development scheme Gold Dust. The work undertaken so far consists of the completion of a novel manuscript entitled User and preliminary investigations into how elements of the novel could be extended online. The work aims to be a dual platform in both subject and form; offering a traditionally authored text about where our online and offline worlds intersect as well as a meaningful intertextual digital experience that invites readers to respond to the work in critical and creative ways

The Making of a Social Librarian: How Blogs, Wikis and Facebook Have Changed One Librarian and Her Job

This paper explores the evolution of the author’s identity as a librarian, from a tech-ignorant/tech-phobic library school graduate to a librarian teaching faculty, staff, students, community members and administrators the value of collaborative software. According to Technorati, the blog search engine, there are 244 blogs that primarily concern themselves with libraries and so-called 2.0 technologies. The blogs range from the well known Tame the Web and Shifted Librarian to library students attempting to sort out the deluge of information on blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, social networking services and how these applications and services help, hinder, harm or haunt libraries and librarians. As libraries and librarians make decisions about how to reach out to patrons and communities, increasingly, the decisions we make involve social software applications. In 2006, the author graduated from library school with an under-used laptop and the ability to create static HTML documents, but with a strong aversion to all things “computer-y” and little interest in or understanding of technology and its relationship to libraries. A two-year residency at a community college, free range to explore any and all avenues of librarianship and the pressing need to create a final “project”, however, created the opportunity for her to explore social software in its many variations and applications. With an introduction to creating wiki research guides, free posting reign on the library blog and chances to create workshops on any subject of her choosing, the newly tech-dorked librarian jumped head-first into what has widely touted as Library 2.0. She now subscribes to technology blogs, teaches workshops on using wikis in the classroom, instructs colleagues on establishing del.icio.us accounts and has dozens of other social software projects going at once

Hyperconnectivity, Transhumanism, and Chesterton’s “Want of Wonder”

Connecting a general want of wonder with the reality that there is neither the time nor the need to wonder about anything, when the answer to any query is constantly in our back pocket, waiting to be looked up on our smart phones. There is no space between the initial itch of a question and the satisfaction of learning its answer--that space between question and answer being a crucial element in wondering. Since the tools we use do shape us, it is important that we notice how we are being shaped. Here’s what I think is at stake—in having such instant access to the internet, promising to let us know everything about the world in a glance, what if we’re getting bored with it? If we no longer have to work for knowledge, will we value it as much? And if we are being freed up, as proponents of more and more technology say, to think about higher issues, are we really doing that—or are we becoming more concerned with the trivial

Information overload in literature

AHR

Rating the revolution: Silicon Valley in normative perspective

Silicon Valley, California – home of Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and so on – is widely regarded as the epicentre of the information revolution. However, it is not just a technical or economic phenomenon; it has also made a social revolution. The article evaluates Silicon Valley from a normative perspective, seeking toidentify its real societal impact, negative as well as positive. A select review of significant literature is followed by exposition of primary data, based on in situ face-to-face interviews with Valley occupants; these range from the chief technology officer of a global brand to a homeless, unemployed Vietnam War veteran.The article organises its findings under three headings: the nature of information revolution; iCapitalism as a new technoeconomic synthesis; and the normative crisis of the information society. It concludes with a warning about ongoing attempts to clone Silicon Valley around the world

Culture Vulture: Navigating the Art of Storytelling in Textual Studies

The following portfolio contains four original essays that explore storytelling across multiple media, ranging from radio to literature to film & television. The first essay explores queer representation during the Golden Age of Radio in the United States. Following that, the next project explores the adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods from novel to TV miniseries, specifically in the development of one of its primary characters. The third essay is a discussion of two Palestinian films that share commonalities as part of a larger culture, and the fourth is an exploration of the Internet using Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death as dual guides. All four of these essays emphasize the ways in which storytelling can inform the culture in which stories take place

The Free Press Vol. 47, Issue No. 11, 12-07-2015

Holiday celebrations in other cultures and religions -- Psychology department chair stepping down at end of semester -- Acclaimed author speaks at USM on the ethics of food workers -- Students and Recovery seeks to establish center on campus -- USM’s leaves don’t enter landfills, staying true to their environmental mission -- USM students stand in solidarity with Mizzouhttps://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/free_press/1150/thumbnail.jp

Strategies of Narrative Disclosure in the Rhetoric of Anti-Corporate Campaigns

In the years following World War II social activists learned to refine rhetorical techniques for gaining the attention of the new global mass media and developed anti-corporate campaigns to convince some of the world’s largest companies to concede to their demands. Despite these developments, rhetorical critics have tended to overlook anti-corporate campaigns as objects of study in their own right. One can account for the remarkable success of anti-corporate campaigns by understanding how activists have practiced prospective narrative disclosure, a calculated rhetorical wager that, through the public circulation of stories and texts disclosing problematic practices and answerable decision makers, activists can influence the policies and practices of prominent corporations. In support of this thesis, I provide case studies of two anti-corporate campaigns: the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union vs. J. P. Stevens (1976 – 1980) and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers vs. Taco Bell (2001—2005). Each campaign represents a typology of practice within prospective narrative disclosure: martial (instrumental emphasis) and confrontation/alliance (popular, constitutive emphasis) respectively. The former is more likely to spark defensive responses and public backlash, and the latter is more likely to sway entire market sectors and produce lasting changes in the de facto corporate social responsibility standards of global markets

Neil Postman\u27s Loving Resistance Fighter: A Philosophy of Communication in the Age of Technopoly

This project walks the work of Neil Postman (1931-2003) into the philosophy of communication. Traditional conceptions of Neil Postman’s body of work position his ideas within the traditions of media ecology, general semantics, or, more broadly, as a form of media studies and criticism. In addition, others label Postman’s work, especially in Technopoly (1992), as pessimistic, deterministic, and/or imbibed with Luddite tendencies. This project articulates a different view and contends that Postman’s scholarship, in particular his articulation of the loving resistance fighter in the final chapter of Technopoly, is committed to resisting the nefarious forces embedded in both technology and modernity. It shows that Postman’s loving resistance fighter provides meaningful communicative practices that prevent one from falling into existential despair or acquiescing to the demands of technopoly. The loving resistance fighter’s emphasis on creating social and psychic distance from technology allows one to view technology with unclouded judgment and to see how technology becomes intertwined with the goods of modernity (progress, efficiency, and individual autonomy). Therefore, this project shows that the loving resistance fighter offers hope and the narrative ground to refuse both technology and modernity