Issues:

• What is New Media?

Media that have emerged recently. Remediation of old analog forms. Media are not systems of representation, they are systems for social ordering wikis, forums, mmorpg, virtual worlds, commerce systems material dimensions of media - servers, infrastructure, screens, ubiquitous tangible computing boundary breaking - mixing of media formats Functionality - entertainment, utility, imagination, community

Different frames: 'the box' institutions experience symbolic

• Where is the cutoff for "New"; do we mean the introduction of new media into society in general, or specific forms of recent media?

Newness of technology, issues surrounding this.

• When we make claims about New Media what are our standards of evidence? Where do we think positivist accounts fit? Where are interpretivist accounts more useful? Phenomenology? Pragmatism? Social constructionism? Can these be usefully bridged in our discussions?

• What role does futurism (prediction of the future) have in our discussions?

Techniques of argumentation, rhetoric, how do you tell stories about the future? Where do dystopian accounts lie?

• How do we account for the newness of New Media? Are the new media forms we are discussing so new as to preclude generalization about use patterns (this goes back to literacy and mastery)?

• In line with the previous question, how do we account for the impact and explanatory value of lead users?

• How does structure vs. agency fit in with our discussions? To what degree can we attribute behavior to preference? To the medium? To historical contingency?

• Who are the 'prominent' (i.e. cross disciplinary) social theorists that best inform our study of New Media?

Terms to define:

• presence

Associated with the body Memory Being present; power determines who is present Performance of presence Behavior through which one reveals one's personality Consumption, participation, identity Public Fred: "Having the power to shape one's representation within the representation system one comes in contact with."

• media

• mediation

Filtering mechanism; way of translating between A and B; process, not medium Saying the everything mediates is a historically contextual claim; a product of our moment in time How do symbols get attached to commodities; symbols gesture to things that we imagine Gestural; media gestures Power in mediation; is it useful to think of power apart from context (like institutions)

Other points:

Geneology of perspectives on media; 'taken for granted';

There are definitions of these terms on the home page for the workshop (and some of the same questions raised above). We should revisit those.

It might be interesting also to try to talk across disciplines regarding these key terms: what do they mean in the context of performance art, archaeology, communications, politics? What does it mean when an archaeologist uses new technologies to record her engagement with archaeological materials, as opposed to a high school student playing mmorpgs, or an investigative journalist publishing her work in real-time through a blog? Are there differences? Do they matter?

This is a working list...feel free to add.

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Posted at Oct 25/2006 03:35PM:
MS: I prefer the second half of this Ralph - the terms for definition and then their application to specific disciplines - and there it would be good, in turn, to explore specific issues and materials.

I think this would be a fruitful way of addressing the broader issues with which you begin.

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Posted at Oct 25/2006 03:47PM:
MS: I do also think the stress we have made on ideology/politics is a usefaul way to address structure and agency - it is a useful critical perspective with which to begin thinking about new media.