In case you missed it in our class on the “Fundamentals of Digital Media,” take a half-hour to watch this 1993 episode of the public-television series, Computer Chronicles. Episodes are available at the Internet Archive.
As you watch, I wanted to point out that you didn’t need a beard to be on the Internet back then, but it helped.
One of the things that might not be apparent is that this was the landscape of the Internet before the explosion of the World Wide Web. That was to come in the next year. Consider the differences the purpose of the Internet then and now, given that the most popular use of it had not yet become mainstream.
Queens College students, are you looking for an additional class?
Media Studies 265: Producing Independent Movies is about to be cancelled. It meets on Wednesdays from 1:40 – 4:20. It a class about how movies, TV and all of filmed entertainment is actually made.
Liz Foley, the instructor, offers the following pitch:
The class is a lot of fun and a provides hands on knowledge of how things get done in the business, including business planning, casting, putting together a team and much more. I love teaching it and I’d really like to save it. If three people register today or tomorrow, I can probably stave off it’s execution.
The survey also found that viewers are largely uninterested in online discussions about the shows they watch. Most of the survey was split between TiVo users and non-TiVo users, and 55 percent of the latter agreed with the statement: “I only want to discuss TV with people I know, not with Internet strangers.”
Although this study was commissioned by TiVo, which begs us to question their biases and motivations, it is goes against what we read in our textbook this week.
Now with the proliferation of social media, and in particular Twitter, we can discuss that program with our friends—and with strangers—as we watch the show. Many TV shows now gauge their popularity with audiences by how many people are “live-tweeting” it, and by how many related trending topics they have on Twitter.[1]
Do you have any ideas why this study would contradict conventional wisdom about the way we watch?
Due to the storm and the attendant class cancellation, I have updated our syllabus. Basically, everything is now happening a week later. The two exceptions are the final paper, due April 30, and the final exam, on May 7.
As I mentioned at our first meeting, for some reason, we had fifteen weekly meetings scheduled this semester instead of the usual fourteen. Even with the cancellation, we will still have a full semester experience.
In our introductory class on Wednesday, I mentioned that we will be critically engaging with and debating contemporary thinking about digital media, which scholars once called “new media” but changed the phrasing to make it more precise.
This class will not teach you how to do effective social media campaigns. Honestly, you can learn that from this Vice article on how to talk down to your audience. Or you can go straight to the source of this criticism.
Instead of teaching you how to “do digital media,” I hope to teach you this semester how to think about digital media.
On December 9, 1968, Douglas Engelbart, who died earlier this year, demonstrated, for the first time, a few computer technologies that we take for granted today. The Atlantic’s Megan Garber writes:
Engelbart and his team presented for about an hour and 40 minutes. The talk consisted of, among other things, the first public demonstration of a computer mouse. It introduced WYSIWYG editing. It showed off hypertext. It demonstrated the graphical user interface. Engelbart and his colleagues explained these new technologies; they also employed many of them as part of their presentation. (A young Steward Brand acted as one of their camera operators.) For people who had been used to thinking of computers as little more than fancy calculators, the whole thing was fairly mind-blowing.
Although most people probably use a touch screen to interact with computers, such as smartphones, we still rely heavily on a graphical interface. I would guess that fewer than 5% of current computer users have ever dealt with a command line. We have also adopted navigating from one page to another as an everyday part of our computing experience. The web as we know it wouldn’t be a reality for another twenty-two years.
In today’s class, I announced that the final exam is now a take home. Here’s how it will go down:
At our last class on December 9, I will distribute the final exam questions. The questions will consist of identification and short essay questions. The questions will be based on the material we’ve covered during the entire course with an emphasis on the material we covered in the second-half of the course, corresponding to the American film industry after the advent of television.
Take the exam home and answer all of the questions, as directed on the exam.
Email your responses in a PDF document to juan.monroy@qc.cuny.edu by Tuesday, December 17, 8:00 PM. Late exams will be subject to 10% penalty each day it is late.
You should receive your final grade within three days.
Don’t forget that the Final Paper is due on December 6. (No, I didn’t specify a time.) To make it easier for me to process your paper, please follow these three steps:
