Salman Rushdie, StoryCorps, and SMARTech: Adventures in Digital Archiving

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My class this semester revolved around the idea of people, material artifacts, and information that are “born digital.”  As my class blurb explains, “for people, this means that they are born into, and have only ever known, a world that prioritizes all forms of digitization; for materials and information, it… Continue reading

Feed: Texting, Twitter, and the Student 2.0

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On November 18, the Georgia Tech Writing and Communication Program hosted the Fall Communication Colloquium in which two Brittain Fellows presented on work their students have been doing in class this semester.  The presenters did such a wonderful job generating discussion during the sessions (a link to an archive of… Continue reading

Cyber Creole? Tweeting and Texting in the Caribbean Creates a New Digital Second Language

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Last month, while attending a Caribbean Island Cultures conference held at the University of Guyana in Georgetown, Guyana, I was jolted out of my usual polite conference attentiveness when a series of papers suddenly shifted away from the usual focus on such traditional island cultures as Storytelling, Carnival or post-colonial… Continue reading

Teaching in Real Time

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On November 18, the Georgia Tech Writing and Communication Program hosted the Fall Communication Colloquium in which two Brittain Fellows presented on work their students have been doing in class this semester.  The presenters did such a wonderful job generating discussion during the sessions (a link to an archive of… Continue reading

5 Things Everyone Should Know About Copyright and Open Access

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To mark Open Access week, on Thursday, October 21, Georgia Tech’s Library and Information Center sponsored a panel, “Expanding the Reach of Your Research: An Open Forum on Authorship and Your Intellectual Property.” Evans Harrell (School of Sciences, Mathematics) facilitated, and TyAnna Herrington Continue reading

Zotero in the Classroom

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Zach Whalen is Assistant Professor in the English, Linguistics and Communication Department at the University of Mary Washington, where he teaches courses in video games, the graphic novel, media studies, and electronic literature. He is co-editor (with Laurie Taylor) of Playing the Past: History and Nostalgia in Video Games. I… Continue reading

Future Media Fest: Recap – Public, Private, or Corporate?

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The Future Media Fest emphasized, for me, the increasing tension between the public sphere and private enterprise or, in other words, the struggle between corporate profit and public good over the move to more collective forms of identity. In my first post, on the Startup Technology Showcase, I looked at… Continue reading

Future Media Fest: What Does Camouflage Sound Like?

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Last week, I found it difficult to relate to the other attendees of Georgia Tech’s FutureMedia Fest 2010; in fact, I failed to connect with them rather spectacularly on many levels. Moving back and forth between academia and a considerably more commercial environment is jarring. I failed to share the… Continue reading

Future Media Fest: Digital Media Skills for Citizens? Workers?

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The Digital Media Skills panel underlined the importance of communication skills for all students looking to get jobs in media and technology. Eric Berger argued in his introduction that, in the future, communication will be the skill employers will look for when hiring. Most of the panel agreed. Rebecca Burnett… Continue reading

Future Media Fest: Who's Afraid of Collective Intelligence?

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The afternoon panel on “Social Media for Collective Intelligence” emphasized some of the benefits and challenges of the emerging form of collective intelligence to marketing and journalism. Collective Intelligence or “the wisdom of the crowds” depends upon a group of people providing collective answers to questions or problems. David Clinch,… Continue reading

FutureMedia Fest: In Defense of Cookies

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At today’s panel on the Future of Advertising and Marketing at FutureMedia Fest, panelists noted some public confusion about the infringement of privacy that is incurred when personal information is tracked through cookies and sold to advertisers for marketing purposes. In the long run, they argued, targeted marketing will enhance… Continue reading

Future Media Fest: Brief Thoughts About the Consumer Experience

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All of the members of Future of Advertising and Marketing panel were in absolute agreement: targeted online advertising is not “Big Brother.” Tracking cookies and other technologies that allow for online ads to be customized for individual users, like the stuff that tells your browser to show you car ads… Continue reading

Future Media Fest: The Rhetorics of the Information Society – Michael Jones

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24 hours of video per minute That’s the rate at which digital footage is being uploaded to YouTube, according to Michael Jones’ opening keynote presentation at Future Media Fest. Jones, who is Chief Technology Advocate at Google, cited the number as part of his argument that digital communication technology is… Continue reading

Future Media Fest: General Introduction

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During the week of October 4, Georgia Tech will play host to Future Media Fest, a conference that bills itself as “an interactive mash-up of talent, ideas, trends and technology.” This event promises to provide a glimpse at some emerging technologies and social formations involving digital media, including social media,… Continue reading

Wikileaks: A Teachable Moment?

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A persistent challenge I face when teaching my course “Media, Culture, Society” is talking to students about “bias”. Students are routinely taught that bias is fundamentally a bad thing; it’s associated with illicit behavior, with secret motivations, hidden agendas, an invidious ideology. Its typical counterpoint–and one that is imbued with… Continue reading

How to Annotate Digital Texts

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In a recent discussion on “The Real Cost of College Textbooks” in the New York Times, Anya Kamenetz, author of DYI U, suggests that professors abandon print textbooks in favor of eBooks and online resources. In “Get Rid of Print and Go Digital,” Kamenetz asks: Why should we be content… Continue reading