Every so often I go through these periods of intense verbosity. If I open my mouth to breathe, it is likely that a word or six might slip out. I used to attribute this affliction to sitting quiet and serene all day, vocally isolated in my cube, unable to talk about the things I want to talk about. So, of course, at times like these I tend to write instead. Of course I have to hold off until appropriate times - when I have some sort of union sanctioned break - but when those moments come I dive into the pool of words in my mind and swim furiously through them, slicing through sentences, kicking up a frothy mess of ideas behind me. I think I frighten some people with my verbal onslaught. Not everyone knows what would be an appropriate response. And there is of course no appropriate response. I will keep on writing, I will continue talking, I will be continually processing. I'm not going to pretend to be something I am not.

I read a great article the other day by Sam Anderson in New York Magazine entitled, In Defense of Distraction. One of my dear and darling friends had shared the article on Facebook with a tongue-in-cheek sort of comment asking for a summary of this 8 page piece on how we have short attention spans and don't read long articles anymore. My interest was of course piqued and I was not disappointed. I'm constantly battling my inner demons when it comes to social media and the pull I feel between real life and online interactions. Are new communications technologies hindering our real work or providing new opportunities for both personal and professional growth? Are we being distracted to the point that everything we do is trivial? I liked Anderson's perspective on this challenge of distraction, particularly his introduction.

It's just too late to retreat to a quieter time. Our jobs depend on connectivity. Our pleasure cycles - no trivial matter - are increasingly tied to it. Information rains down faster and thicker every day, and there are plenty of non-moronic reasons for it to do so. The question, now, is how successfully can we adapt.

I like to think I'm a discerning individual. I don't read all of the links that people post on facebook, I may not read every RSS feed that pops up in Google Reader throughout the day. This is no different than my selection of what magazines to read, what tv shows or films I choose to watch, or what I choose to take photographs of. What I do is inherently my choice - and I choose to do things that I feel are of some value to me. I like to create links between the things I am doing, the information I am digesting. I would hope that other people think this way too, because these linkages are fascinating. A teacher of mine once said, everything is interconnected, a statement that has stayed with me for the past ten years. Everything is interconnected is sort of like my pair of rose coloured glasses through which I view the world. I take conversations and connect them with books or articles I've read, videos I've watched. Perhaps this type of thinking is a result of growing up with technology (as John Seeley Brown describes as multi-processors who think in a hyperlinked fashion (not linear)). However, as much as I am willing to attribute the way I think to the technologies I grew up using, I think that my eagerness to draw links between things has always been a part of me. I've always been prone to distraction. Distraction - that is - the ease of which I will take off on some tangent of thought, is part of my creative process. As Anderson writes,

The most famous moment in all of Proust, the moment that launches the entire monumental project, is a moment of pure distraction: when the narrator, Marcel, eats a spoonful of tea-soaked madeline and finds himself instantly transported back to the world of his childhood. Proust makes it clear that conscious focus could never have yielded such profound magic: Marcel has to abandon constraints of what he calls "voluntary memory" - the kind of narrow, purpose-driven attention that Adderall say, might have allowed him to harness - in order to get to the deeper truths available only by distraction. That famous cookie is a kind of hyperlink: a little blip that launches an associative cascade of a million other subjects. This sort of free-associative wandering is essential to the creative process; one moment of judicious unmindfulness can inspire thousands of hours of mindfulness.

Beautiful. I couldn't agree more. I felt somehow vindicated after reading this. As if all my thoughtful wanderings were somehow justified. And so I will continue. Currently I'm processing a fascinating lecture and accompanying paper by the Elizabeth Coleman, President of Bennington College in Vermont, about reforming higher education through a new blend of liberal arts. And how did I get here? Free-associative wandering with some help from the internet but directed by recent conversations I've been having with friends and coworkers. Oh the delights of distraction. Now I've got something else to put my words towards.

documentary © Raffaella Loro

On Friday, after a delightful lunch with my chum-of-all-chums, I rushed to the downtown university campus for a lecture on mediated gossip that was being given as part of the University of Alberta's Communications and Technology Research Symposium. The visiting scholar, Professor Leopoldina Fortunati, from the University of Udine, was to speak about reflections on mediated gossip, particularly, how the use of ICTs (information and communication technologies) has modified one particular register of communication: gossip.

The lecture wasn't exactly what I thought it would be. Although interesting, did not really provide me with the level of depth about how information and communication technologies actually mediate gossip. That's the problem with relatively short lectures... there is much time spent covering the background information about a particular study or subject - and not enough time and depth exploring the real topic. But that disconnect may also be a result of an incorrect description of the scholar's presentation, we're promised more than is actually intended to be delivered due to time constraints or the efforts of the event organizers to make a talk 'fit' both thematically and within an allotted time slot. I've been to a few lectures in the past where the presentation given did not necessarily correlate with the description that had been released to the public. However, despite this minor discrepancy the lecture did still provide me with some points for discussion.

A few months back I wrote a short post about how I sometimes feel that the real me is a hybrid of my physical self and my online self. I was immediately reminded of this post when Dr. Fortunati spoke about the social presentation of self as a combination of the front-stage self and the back-stage self. Basically, we present different parts of our personality depending on our social sphere. We maintain a series of different social spheres with varying levels of proximity. So, if a person is part of a social circle that is closer to us we reveal more about ourselves and so on. Basically we have different types of relationships with people from our various social circles. Our family knows certain things about us, our friends know something different, our coworkers something different once again. There may be some overlapping information (imagine a Venn diagram representing the different social circles we interact with), but generally we try to keep these circles separate and distinct. Our relationships with other people within these groups is based on what we know and what we don't know about each other. This weave of information gives a relationship its tone, amplitude, and depth. However, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a distinction between these social circles in a world where information, both personal and professional, becomes increasingly available on the internet. This blurring of the lines creates a discontinuity of self and makes it difficult for others to decode what what we communicate. Take for instance the overused example of an employer coming across something online about a potential employee and that information changing their perception of that individual. Then of course there is the example of meeting someone new, befriending them on facebook, and through their profile and other assorted links discovering all sorts of information about that individual that you would have never have known before (or at least not known that quickly). So what does this have to do with gossip you might ask... well plenty, if you think of all this information that we share online about ourselves to be gossip - and not necessarily gossip of the malicious kind. Gossip, according to Fortunati, is a communicative game with a strong dimension of amusement and entertainment (but the game can be cruel). Gossip may not advance true knowledge, but it does enhance common thinking and social cohesion. As information and communication technology has developed, particularly in the explosion of social media in the past few years, we have begun to shift our socializing to the digital sphere. We continue to gossip about ourselves, but now we face the challenge of how to deal with increased access to gossip as well as the impact of longevity.

There were a few other key points that I found to be of interest, in particular Fortunati's comment how in a world where neighbours and acquaintances are part of an anonymous crowd, people are turning to their neighbour substitutes. These substitutes could be celebrities, random strangers online, or the profiles of individuals we once knew or people that we've had fleeting contact with in the physical world but have befriended online. This comment is worthy of a post all on its own, but I'm tired and don't think I have it in me to write anymore today. Maybe another day... I don't even know if anyone reads this gossip rag. Say hello in the comments if you do. You can remain anonymous - maybe you can just indicate if we actually know each other in the real world. That would be an interesting experiment...

Update: Just discovered that there is a PDF version of Fortunati's paper that was the basis for her presentation. I'll have to read it.

More musings from my notebook...

What value do we place on information? If information is free are we more willing to filter through junk? Is there an expectation if we are paying for something it will be of a higher quality? I think about this as I ponder about the idea that somehow this new breed of citizen journalists will change the world. Citizens have no obligation to hold themselves to a code of ethics - they can do as they please - they do not need to fact check (but sometimes it seems that journalists feel they don't have to either). This isn't to say that there aren't people out there who hold themselves to a higher standard - there are remarkable people out there who influence and inform without any formal training. But that's just it. They're remarkable people. They will excel no matter what the medium.

My major concern about a major shift to citizen journalism as the main source of information lies in the fragmentation of information - with information becoming so specialized, with the obsession that everything is news and that anyone can be a journalist. Not everyone has the ability to create things of quality. A hammer and chisel do not a skilled carver make. It not just about access to the tools, it's also about ability and talent.

This all seems slightly hypocritical of me. Here I am publishing content to the web with no filters and no (direct) cost. I have access to a seemingly infinite audience, yet there are limits to this audience. Sure, I can write about whatever I please, but at the same time what I please to write about is only so interesting or valuable. I could market or promote my writing more competitively, but for what gain? I may have access to my own publishing channel but I don't have the time or the resources readily available to make it worth the effort. I'm not getting paid to write this - and I don't really have the desire to try to compete with other media outlets. I am supplemental, not a replacement.

Yes, I realize that the real competition for traditional media outlets by citizen journalists comes en masse rather than on an individual basis. But how do we filter through all the noise to find something valuable? How do we wade through all the new channels to increase our knowledge and understanding?

I'm going through some draft posts today and publishing things that may even be incomplete. Sometimes my posts are more polished and coherent than other times. But generally, they are streams of consciousness that I've scribbled down during coffee breaks or during other quiet moments before or after work. Sometimes I want to rework the thoughts into something more substantial, but sometimes I just want them out there.

I started writing this around the 19th of May but I'm actually only posting it on May 24th.

I realize that not everyone takes to readily to the application of theory in their daily lives, but for me, when I am trying to take in the bigger picture, I find theory a helpful way to provide a contextual framework for how things work. I suppose in some ways I should have been an academic, alas I am not. But theory is not limited to the field of academia. Imagine for a moment if the general public were more open to discussing theory. Consider the possibilities of understanding... That, however, is my utopic vision of the world. Instead we go about our everyday lives with an intense fury and don't always leave enough time to think at a deeper level. What concerns me most is not the so much the speed and intensity at which we live (which does still bother me) but the level at which we think. We're not afraid to inundate ourselves with endless reams of superficial data, but when it comes to that theoretical context - we just gloss over it - and provide information in "digestible chunks" as if we're too stupid to work through information presented in great volumes.

I write a lot about my conflict with information technologies - I find the computer a useful tool and I find it exciting that it makes a wealth of information available to us, but what purpose does that wealth of information serve? I think about this after reading up about digital engagement in the UK this morning... lots of things floating about in my head.

I've been indulging my appetite for communications theory recently as I work on this rather ambitious project for work. In particular, I've been considering the ways we can use online tools to encourage civic participation. But I'm conflicted. I've been (re)reading Neil Postman and trying to come to terms with the wise concepts about culture and technological change that he presented time and time again throughout his career.

Postman said that all technological change is a trade-off, what he called a Faustian bargain. Postman felt that culture always paid the price for technology. Technology giveth and technology taketh away, meaning that for every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage. The disadvantage may exceed in importance the advantage, or the advantage may well be worth the cost. He further expressed this idea to say that the question, "What will a new technology do?" is no more important than the question, "What will a new technology undo?" He posited the latter question is more important, precisely because it is asked so infrequently.

So as I work on this project - a project with the lofty goal of using of online tools as part of a solution to break down barriers between governmental departments and help communicate to the community what is happening at a programs level - I have to wonder, what will this new technology undo? How can we achieve a balance between participation online and participation in the physical realm? How can we use these tools to help change attitudes? To what level do we serve to inform? To what degree do we seek to influence?

Interesting post about paying for media from A Photo Editor that deserves some discussion.

I think we will eventually arrive at some kind of micro payment/advertising business model for online media in the not too distant future. Ideally there will be a common payment system on the device I use to access media or some kind of accepted everywhere pass. Either way it only works if the transactions are in the background.

The subscription model for Newspapers and Magazines that I’d like to see would allow me access to all the headlines and blurbs for each story but limit the number of full stories I can see/read each month/week depending on how much I’ve paid.

The cost for these subscription models is critical. I would read 1 story a month from 10 or 20 magazines and several stories a day from a couple different newspapers but not if it costs hundreds of dollars (based on current subscription prices). I think there could easily be ways to lower the subscription cost if I agree to watch and interact with special advertising or allow cookies to be set on my browser so the advertisers can follow me around and gather data. I can also envision a 2 year multiple magazine/newspaper subscription model where just like cell phone companies the media reader is free or significantly discounted.

One concept that publishers will struggle with is how efficient blogs and social networking are at distributing stories and bringing in new readers, because once you put a pay wall up that will end. The key to this is realizing that hits are worthless and loyal readers are valuable. I think there’s a way to allow your paid subscribers the ability to distribute full stories to their friends/audience along with embedded advertising and a pitch to subscribe. This kind of sideways distribution is critical for niche publications and they will need to find the balance point between content that is freely distributable and content you have to pay to see.

Of course none of this addresses the the most critical issue Magazines and Newspapers are facing right now. Most of the content is not worth paying for (bolding my emphasis). Fixing that will require either a heavy investment from publishers or a changing of the guard.

I agree with the key issue presented here - most of the content in magazines and newspapers is not worth paying for. Which is a real shame because if the people who are getting paid to write can't produce good content then we are in a sorry state indeed. But that poses another question - why is content so poor? Surely good content still exists (I know it does), but perhaps our ridiculous need for instant gratification has put the emphasis on trivial information rather than an informed story. Who can we blame for this shift... the audience, the writers, the publishing icons? Is it the technology that is to blame, having made content "free"? Is this technological determinism at play?

I like to think that we're smarter than the technology. Technology is a tool and society can determine how to use that tool - not the other way around (reminder to self - must read more about social construction of technology, seems interesting). However, eventually the use becomes habitual and the distinction between the tool and how we use it becomes blurry. It is our habits that shape society, but when we can no longer distinguish between what we do and the tools we use to do, it is easy to start blaming the technology for changes in society. So when we consider the slow death of newspapers and magazines, it is important that we look at not only the tools for distribution (print vs. online) but also examine audience interaction as well as the expectations of content and quality.

Whenever some new tool for distributing information comes on the scene there are always people who start making proclamations about the death of the last tool. Par example,

Printing Press versus Town Crier - Death Match on Sunday, Sunday, Sunday...
Video kills Radio Star - All the grisly details at 6 (update at 7, YouTube killed the Video Star, Copycat Killer?)
Citizen Bloggers take on Conglomerate Journalists - In this Battle Royale Who will Survive?

Perhaps my examples are a bit hyperbolic, but you get the idea. Competition between communication tools is tough especially when tools from different weight classes are in the ring together.

Over the weekend A. and I saw State of Play at the cinema. It was your typical sort of politico-thriller, full of plot twists involving two investigatory journalists - one from the old guard (the gladiator of print) and new guard (the online notebook blogger) - their regal editor (the Queen herself) and scandal involving a young state senator and to a lesser extent his (princess bride) wife. Having written the majority of this post about a week or so prior to seeing the movie (insert a week or so above this paragraph), it was interesting to watch the movie with these thoughts about the changing nature of information distribution at the back of my mind. I felt this film was in a way a gritty ballad about the newspaper industry. The story focused on how the two journalists - the well seasoned writer (he was suitably peppery with just a touch of grease) and the saucy young ingenue (appropriately costumed in jersey cotton with a slouchy handknit toque) - worked to piece together the real story behind the scandal. There were numerous references to the battle between traditional print and online columnists - the challenges of timeliness of content vs. quality (read - validity) of content. The film on its own was entertaining and it was probably only because I had been musing about newspapers that I left the theatre thinking about how we need to spend more time considering the impact of our decisions to access information using different tools. This does not just apply to the difference where the content is coming from, but also the larger societal implications of our decisions. The film ended with the story of the scandal being sent to print. As the credits were rolling the camera led the audience through the mechanized printing process - and we followed the physical newspaper being developed, moving from giant rolls of paper through massive rollers - being folded and packaged into bundles and then loaded on to delivery trucks waiting outside. Imagine what happens to all those people who are employed once a newspaper goes to print. If we destroy that mode of delivery altogether what happens to them? What happens to the individuals who repair the machinery, work in the warehouse, drive the delivery trucks, manage the newspaper stands, hand deliver the newspapers? Shifting distribution of information online has a greater impact than we tend to realize. There needs to be more recognition of that.

I went to a party on the weekend that was full of avid twitters. Inevitably, after guests had lost interest in talking about renovations, conversation moved in the general direction of twitter. There were the usual jokes about twits and twats... and then of course a lot of eyelash fluttering and glassy eyed faraway looks as people schemed about ways to use twitter to further their own agendas (this of course made me roll my eyes, but reluctantly because I can't ignore the influence of the twitter mob - although that influence is frightening). However something did pique my interest... at one point there was an interesting comment about the difficulty of using twitter as a conversation tool. A woman had been trying to contact her rep to complain about some sort of signage problem. But because of the arbitrary character limit on tweets and the limited context one can provide in a post of that length, it had taken nearly eight back and forth messages to communicate the problem. Whether or not the problem was 'solved' is another issue. I wonder, why would this woman use twitter to communicate this problem when an email would have been much more effective? Clearly, the attempt to have a conversation about this issue using just twitter was frustrating and not effective. While contemplating these questions an imaginary light bulb lit up over my head and I wanted so very badly to discuss the idea below (from the GOOD post I linked to above).
In the summary of the piece, the author goes on to describe the twitter experience as "many arrows pointing one across (not up or down) to the ideas of others, cross-fertilization, and forced attention to the composition of sentences." I think this is brilliant. It identifies the limitations of twitter - where one must consider form and function as one element. I wish all conversation about twitter was like this. Except it wasn't. The debate only existed in my head. I didn't wish to frighten anyone with my heady notions about communication. Not on first meeting anyhow.

Every so often I wonder why I am working full-time when I should be pursuing life as an academic. I think... shouldn't I be completing my masters or PhD by now? Then I look at my assorted bills and other such financial responsibilities and I remember that I am trying to avoid life as a starving student facing life in a debtor's prison (instead I'm a slightly chubby photographer/non-profit employee facing life desperately attempting to improve my money pit through feng shui furniture arrangement). Nevertheless, I am no less interested in the topics related to my past academic pursuits.

This morning I read a rather interesting blog post about the benefits and limitations of walled gardens (online communities like myspace). The author, Dana Boyd, a PhD student in the School of Information at Berkeley and a fellow at USC Annenberg Center poses some compelling questions about the value of walls within the public space of the internet. The whole post is worth a read but the author summarizes her three main points quite nicely. (However, in order for her points to have any relevance you must read her post in it's entirety... don't worry, it's really not that long).

• If walls have value in meatspace, why are they inherently bad in mediated environments? I would argue that walls provide context and allow us to have some control over the distribution of our expressions. Walls should be appreciated, even if they are near impossible to construct.
• If robots can run around grabbing the content of supposed walled gardens, are they really walled? It seems to me that the tizzy around walled gardens fails to recognize that those most interested in caching the data (::cough:: Google) can do precisely that. And those most interested does not seem to include the content producers.
• If the walls come crashing down, what are we actually losing? Walls provide context, context is critical for individuals to properly express themselves in a socially appropriate way. I fear that our loss of walls is resulting in a very confused public space with far more visibility than anyone can actually handle.

(Dana Boyd, about those walled gardens, 02/05/2007)

This gave me much to ponder over yesterday morning. But I wasn't able to finish posting any of my thoughts - and what fleeting bit of insight I might have had yesterday has left me. Instead I am in eagerly anticipating the end of the work day. Tonight I go see the Barenaked Ladies in concert... I have been told repeatedly that they put on a really good show so I am quite excited. Apparently cameras are welcome so hopefully I will get some good shots (we'll be sitting in the 15th row).