Labels like “age of AI” simplify complex issues, overshadowing individual experiences and who defines them.More
Tag Archives: media
2011 and all that
I am reviewing my early blog posts on technology, media and culture. The compilation here includes weekly posts between 9 April and 31 December 2011. The posts make reference to “actual events” that year. These include: Apple’s iPad 2 release; the impact of social media in the January “Arab Spring”; Osama Bin Laden’s death; the…More
Cities as media
I’ve been searching for a way to transition from alien communications (as an exercise in cryptography) back to earth-bound cities. (See previous post.) Shannon Mattern’s interesting book Code and Clay, Data and Dirt: Five Thousand Years of Urban Media helps. It includes an aerial image of a geoglyph figure in the Nazca Desert (Peru) of…More
Offensive media
Television started to make its way into people’s homes in the 1950s. There were very few channels. Audiences shared roughly the same news, commentary and entertainment outlets. By most accounts such unitary media sources helped reinforce social habits and opinions. Amongst its many effects, mass media tended to put citizens on the same page, with…More
Secret listening: Private, personal, portable podcasts
Podcast listening is a personal and private matter, especially if the listener wears headphones. No one need know what you are listening to. That’s not to say that privacy and secrecy are the same. I’ve been listening to the Podcast Radio Hour published by the BBC. In the 19 October 2018 edition Stephen Fry speaks about…More
You can fool all the people some of the time
The theories about metaphor of the American cognitive linguist George Lakoff have long informed my understanding of language and of design. Lakoff also weighs in on US politics (to use a sporting metaphor). His recent interview on a podcast and his opinion piece in the Guardian are of the moment. I’ll quote a passage about…More
The Internet as research tool
Good research draws on evidence — at the very least a body of literature that supports the answer to a research question. Can you draw on the Internet for evidence? As well as a body of literature most researchers would admit as evidence the results of experiments, observations, surveys, interviews, and questionnaires. In architecture, the arts and some other fields (engineering,…More
Against empathy
“The term ’empathy,’ has provided a guiding thread for a whole range of fundamentally mistaken theories concerning man’s relationship to other human beings and to other beings in general, theories that we are only gradually beginning to overcome today” (203). That’s a quote from Martin Heidegger’s book of 1929-30 based on a lecture series bearing the…More
Digital mood modifiers
Apparently botox helps you feel better. I’m researching mood, so I’ve skimmed through a recent book called The Face of Emotion: How Botox Affects Our Moods and Relationships, in which the author says, “If you smile broadly, at that moment you will feel happier. You need your smile to help you ‘feel’ the emotion.” Conversely, frowning…More
Your inner child
Older people like to watch children’s television, according to the TV licensing study that came out this week: “Older people found the most enjoyment in children’s television, with 80% of respondents aged 65 and above agreeing children’s shows make them happy.” It’s surprising that older people watch children’s TV, but so is the idea of using happiness as…More