Class Journal: March 5th, 2015 Rachel Haas

We started class with a visit from Megan Keaton, a Digital Studio consultant, who came to talk to us about designing our professional eportfolios (Re: Major Project 3).

·      Useful website builders: Wix, Weebly, Wordpress

o   “cheat sheets” found in class folder

o   Folder location: goo.gl/Lq9dkk

General consensus: Wix is easiest for first timers – most customizable and intuitive

Definitions:

Medium: A social and technological method of composing, storing, and transmitting information.

Hypermediacy: à looking through à glance

            e.g. CNN coverage of The Royal Wedding

Immediacy: à looking through à gaze

            e.g. Memoir; painting in an art gallery

(Hypermediacy and Immediacy are strategies/ways of looking remediation)

Thoughts on Digital Media: Howard Rheingold vs. Sherry Turkle

Rheingold (enthusiastic about digital media):

·      Digital media can be used to self organize

·      “Smart mob” – mob made smarter by technology

Turkle (apprehensive/concerned):

·      Digital media changes our capacity of self reflection

·      We can keep people at distances we can control

·      We sacrifice conversation for connection

Constellations of media: meaningful grouping of media

            e.g. Walking Dead Story sync

Every medium relies on another medium for meaning – if nothing else than for structure

            e.g. TV episodes borrow format from radio shows

Reform: (can be good or bad)

·      Media – improve media

·      Society – reform in social or political sense