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>.