Sunday, February 9, 2014

Leah Johnson-Blog #2


“The Varieties of Cyberspace: Problems in Definition and Delimitation,” and “Cybertime,” were interconnected because of their emphasis on Cyber and all its many contents. Cyberspace is absolutely a highly favored phenomenon right now and will continue to be in the future. Because of its prevalence, I believe cybertime, and a special analysis of time and space have become important. I relate the theories discussed in these articles to Harold Innis’s, This Bias of Communication. In Innis’ book, he spoke about the bias of time and space, which is a direct translation to media and society. As cyberspace is a huge topic, we do find it hard to find balances between the cyber world and our actual lives. A variety of technologies have shaped our culture, and I believe this is why cybertime or cyberspace is ambiguous. They both are consistently evolving, and society contributes to the evolution of this phenomena because of the huge role we play in enabling this to be essential to societal culture. These articles gave me an extended view and perspective to Innis’ theories on space and time.
“McLuhan and New Media,” is an article that galvanizes one to dissect media and new media technologies in an innovative way. Media is constantly evolving, and it is often hard to follow or understand each media technology or environment. I agree that when interpreting or analyzing new media, one must do so with an open mind that is free of bias, societal norms, or general beliefs that are socially constructed. When doing this, I believe one will find information or a truth within these new media that you can make better sense of with your own thoughts rather than society’s presumption. Each media has different biases that come along with it, but how do you separate this bias? Even with my knowledge on how media technologies work, it is still sometimes difficult for me to eliminate my biases sometimes and interpret things consciously. However, I am excited to continue learning and finding ways to interpret and understand new media. 

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