ARTS2090: Essay-in-lieu-of-examination

Question 2: ‘But what's happening today – the mass ability to communicate with each other, without having to go through a traditional intermediary – is truly transformative.’

(Alan Rusbridger, Editor of The Guardian newspaper, ‘The splintering of the fourth estate’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/19/open-collaborative-futurejournalism/print .. via http://www.fglaysher.com/Post_Gutenberg_Publishing.html). How is the diminution of traditional, and often hierarchical, “authoritative” intermediaries changing the role of publishing in social life? You should choose one broad area of publishing, such as, for example, journalism or music publishing.

Video and Images: My own

Music and Sound: iMovie '11 (vers. 9.0.2). Video editing software, Apple Inc. 2010. Mac OS X 10.6.

Software: iMovie '11 (vers. 9.0.2). Video editing software, Apple Inc. 2010. Mac OS X 10.6

Reference List:

Banks, D. 2011, ‘A Brief Summary of Actor-Network Theory’, Cyborgology,

November 2, last accessed 5 November 2014, <http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/12/02/a-brief-summary-ofactor-network-theory/>.

Bartlett, T. 2007, ‘Archive fever’, The Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. 53, no. 46, pp. A8-A13.

Moreley, D. 1993, ‘Active audience theory: Pendulums and pitfalls’, Journal of Communication, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 13-19.

Ng, S. 2012, ‘A brief history of entertainment technologies’, Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 100, pp. 1386-1390.

Parikka, J. 2013, ‘Archival media theory: An introduction to Wolfgang Ernst’s media archaeology’ in Ernst, W., Digital Memory and the Archive, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp. 1-22.

Rosen, J. 2013, ‘The changing seasons: digital catalogues, the 24/7 news cycle, and new rep roles threaten to make traditional publishing seasons outdated’, Publishers Weekly, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 4-6.

Silverstein, P. A. 2001, ‘Rethinking comparative cultural sociology (book)’, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 107, no. 2, pp. 529-531.

Surin, J. A. 2010, ‘Occupying the internet: Responding to the shifting power balance’, The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, vol. 99, no. 407, pp. 195-209.

Week XII – Distribution, Aggregation & The Social

There is an inordinate amount of data that is constantly analysed, aggregated and recorded and yet the majority of this information goes unobserved by people going about their everyday lives. Despite this, data plays an integral role in society because it reflects society itself. Data provides an understanding of our collective past, present and projected future trends and patterns. I personally find storytelling as a way of establishing history and culture to be an interesting form of publishing. While this predominantly brings to mind book publishing, in this case I am using a broader scope to include more recent e-book publishing as well as different forms of early historical recordings.

The most fascinating aspect of published stories, created usually for entertainment purposes, is how the stories convey universal truisms; the ancient stories that remain popular today reflect their environment while simultaneously connecting with publics across diverging social, cultural, historical and political contexts. The earliest recorded forms of storytelling include cave paintings, oral tradition and stone carvings (BrandJuice, 2012). Book publishing has occurred for thousands of years – and will hopefully remain so despite the rise of digital ebooks, self-published blogs and vlogs. According to Springett (2014), digital platforms have developed an imagined state without geopolitical borders, thus allowing publishing to reach a global audience like never before.

The act of storytelling has existed for eons and finding ways to publish these stories followed not long afterwards, thus creating several possible complications. Data friction refers to the effort required to gather historical records and information on a global scale (Edwards 2010, p. xiv). In regards to data friction, incomplete or damaged records of these stories prevent us from knowing the original stories. Also, the number of sources over the years that have adapted, embellished or unknowingly erred in the telling/recording of these stories further muddy the waters. Additionally, the distribution and copyright laws of more contemporary novels can often inhibit the ethical aggregation of stories and therefore the data and knowledge that can be obtained from them.

Infrastructural globalism is defined by Edwards (2010, p. xviii) as ‘the building of technical systems for gathering global data helped to create global institutions and ways of thinking globally’. The main archives or systems created for the collection and distribution of stories are bookstores and libraries, whether they are physical or digital. By collecting stories from the same genre or contextual period, we can come to understand what society valued and thus we can hopefully learn from any mistakes of the past and highlight future sociocultural trends.

Therefore, as long as the exchange of ideas between the composer and audience can be effectively communicated, the potential for a story to comment on society itself defies all local and global boundaries.

 This short and comprehensive video by BrandJuice, particularly the first half, was the inspiration behind my choice to apply this week's concepts of data friction and infrastructural globalism to different forms of story publishing.

References:

BrandJuice 2012, A Whiteboard History of Storytelling, online video, accessed 18 October 2014, < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6E8jpFasR0>.

Edwards, P. N. 2010, ‘Introduction’, A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, xiii-xvii.

Springett, J. 2014, ’Colonising the Clouds—Infrastructure Territory and The Geopolitics of The Stacks’, Medium.com, July 8, <https://medium.com/@thejaymo/colonising-the-clouds-4405d2d590b5>.

 

Visualisation Project Presentation (15%)

Reference List

Bonnie, E. 2014, Top 10 Work Skills You’ll Need in 2020 (Infographic), Wrike, accessed 17 September 2014, <https://www.wrike.com/blog/08/08/2014/Top-10-Work-Skills-2020-Infographic>.

Covert, A. 2013, A decade of iTunes singles killed the music industry, CNN Money, accessed 28 September 2014, <http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/25/technology/itunes-music-decline/index.html>.

Dredge, S. 2013, Get Lucky Spotify Plays – First Four Weeks, Scribd, accessed September 29 2014, <https://www.scribd.com/doc/143240162/Get-Lucky-Spotify-Plays-First-Four-Weeks>.

Ferenstein, G. 2014, Data is beautiful is a hidden gem for gorgeous data visualizations, VentureBeat, accessed 16 September 2014, <http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/09/data-is-beautiful-is-a-hidden-gem-for-gorgeous-data-visualizations/>.

Flaticon 2014, Graphic Resources, accessed 4 October 2014, <http://www.flaticon.com/>.

Global Statistics 2014, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, accessed 29 September 2014, <http://www.ifpi.org/global-statistics.php>.

Iconfinder 2014, accessed 4 October 2014, <https://www.iconfinder.com/>.

Kaye, B. 2014, The 20 Most Pirated Musicians of 2013, Consequence of Sound, accessed 5 October 2014, <http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/12/the-20-most-pirated-musicians-of-2013/>.

Lynch, G. 2013, Stream Daft Punk’s new ‘Random Access Memories’ album for free on iTunes now, Tech Digest, accessed 5 October 2014, <http://www.techdigest.tv/2013/05/stream_daft_pun.html>.

Music Industry Reports 2014, Recording Industry Association of America, accessed 6 October 2014, <https://www.riaa.com/keystatistics.php?content_selector=research-report-industry-reports>.

Pepitone, J. & Goldman, D. 2013, The evolution of iTunes, CNN Money, accessed 28 September 2014, <http://money.cnn.com/interactive/technology/itunes-music-decline/?iid=EL>.

Pietrowski, A. 2014, Research mapping human emotions shows strong mind body connections, The Mind Unleashed, accessed 16 September 2014, <http://themindunleashed.org/2014/01/research-mapping-human-emotions-shows-strong-mind-body-connection.html>.

Sisario, B. 2014, U.S. Music Sales Drop 5%, as Habits Shift Online, New York Times, accessed 28 September 2014, <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/business/media/music-sales-drop-5-as-habits-shift-online.html?_r=1>.

Smith, P. 2013, Spotify defends itself against charge of ripping off musicians, Australian Financial Review, accessed 5 October 2014, <http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/12/the-20-most-pirated-musicians-of-2013/>.

Statistics 2014, Australian Recording Industry Association Ltd., accessed 6 October 2014, <http://www.aria.com.au/pages/statistics.htm>.

van den Broek, W. 2013, The Art of Data Visualization, Walter van den Broek, accessed 16 September 2014, <http://www.waltervandenbroek.info/the-art-of-data-visualization/>.

Week VIII: Forms of Expression/Forms of Content - What is Visualisation?

Considering the sheer number of information that people in our contemporary society consume, there has never been a better time to exercise our visual literacy. It would be almost impossible to fully process all of the data that we receive on our various mobile devices (phone, tablet, radio, laptop, etc.) in our everyday lives and this is causing publishers to constantly try to find new ways to disseminate information quickly and memorably. Thus visualisations have a prominent and practical role in the future.

Before beginning the readings for this week, I wasn’t aware of the many fields where visualisations could prove useful and the extent to which visualisations have filtered into several publishing platforms. As evidenced by Prismatic (2014), uses for visualisation range from accompanying journalistic stories by the New York Times and Wired to computer science to mapping public trends to psychology and neuroscience. Bonnie (2014) claims that understanding infographics will be a key skill for everyone in the workforce by 2020. I think some of these qualities are necessary and present today and will only become more pronounced as time passes.

Visualisations themselves come in many different shapes and forms. The use of line (Arnell, 2006) and colour seem to be the most popular way to represent data. Using these visual elements allows ideas to be communicated without fear of language barriers. Bick (2014) states that an individual’s interpretation of this data can be biased due to personal experiences and culture, yet that is the very nature of visualisation – absorbing information from data at an immediate, almost subconscious level.

I particularly enjoyed seeing the calorie equivalents (Wynn, 2007) because it helped me to realise that visualisations can showcase information in interesting and truthful ways. It would be interesting to see how infographics could be further applied to humanitarian issues or documenting changes in publishing (where is technology adoption booming? Which areas still prefer paperback novels?).

But what distinguishes visualisations from simple images or diagrams or models? I think the key lies in the visual metaphor and its abstract representation of data; what is being described is more specific than these other representations. Here are some examples of what I believe are visualisations:

Accompanying visuals to music played on Windows Media Player, thus creating visualisations of sound. Source: http://www.filewin.net/images/wmp24.jpg

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics as an example of early visualisations of lanugage and historical events. In saying this, does this mean that written alphabets as symbols could be visualisations? Source: CJ Photo, https://www.flickr.com/photos/cjphoto/2833668951/sizes/l

Screenshot of a visualisation of bushfires in Australia from 1997 to 2008, allowing us to see which areas are more susceptible to bushfires, Source: Romsey Australia, http://home.iprimus.com.au/foo7/f1997-08.gif

References:

30 thought leaders in Data Visualisation 2014, Prismatic, accessed 13 September 2014, <http://getprismatic.com/story/1405797029064?utm_medium=email>.

Arnell, T. 2006, ‘the dashed line in use’, nearfield.org, accessed 12 September 2014, <http://www.nearfield.org/2006/09/the-dashed-line-in-use>.

Bick, E. 2014, ‘Emily Bick: Never mind the Quantitative’, The Wire, accessed 13 September 2014, <http://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/columns/emily-bick_never-mind-the-quantitative>.

Bonnie, E. 2014, ‘Top 10 Work Skills You’ll Need in 2020 (Infographic)’, Wrike, accessed 12 September 2014, <https://www.wrike.com/blog/08/08/2014/Top-10-Work-Skills-2020-Infographic>.

CJ Photo n.d., Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, photograph, Flickr, accessed 15 September 2014, <https://www.flickr.com/photos/cjphoto/2833668951/sizes/l>.

filewin n.d., Windows Media Player 11, screenshot image, filewin: download software, accessed 15 September 2014, <http://www.filewin.net/images/wmp24.jpg>.

Romsey Australia 2012, Australian bushfire history 1997 to 2008, graphic image, accessed 15 September 2014, <http://home.iprimus.com.au/foo7/f1997-08.gif>.

Wynn, L. S. 2007, ‘What Does 200 Calories Look Like?’, wiseGEEK, accessed 12 September 2014, <http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-200-calories-look-like.htm>.