Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Network Culture: Chapter 2
Chapter 2 definitely was much easier to follow than chapter 1 was. In chapter 1 it seemed as if Terranova was all over the place in an attempt to set the foundation for what she felt was relevant for the reader to learn. Chapter 2 does a good job of dissecting some of chapter 1's points a little. The part of chapter 2 that really caught my eye was where she goes into the transformation of information. On page 51 she says, "A peice of information spreading throughout the open space of the network is not only a vector in search of a target, it is also a potential transformation of the space crossed that always leaves something behind - a new idea, a new affect, a modification of the overall topology. Information is not simply transmitted from point A to point B: it propagates and by propagation it affects and modifies its milieu." This point goes back to the idea of noise and what becomes information. Everything we hear is this greater noise and we as a listener have to decide what to take in and store as information. As the noise goes from channel to channel, it is modified which makes the next person who grasps onto that information have a different experience than the previous person who evolved the idea. This quote from chapter 2 shows that information is constantly changing which creates and entirely different feel than before. This made me think about how things I believe to be true just via the word of mouth may have been drastically altered from the original true fact.
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I also like her account of the way the movement or transmission of information influences/affects its environment. I think there are different ways to think of her point--we could think of the way that tone of voice affects how a message is heard, we could think of the way a newspaper moves from printing press to seller to buyer to reader to garbage can to blowing around on the street, we could think of the way receiving a text message when one is in the middle of doing something else impacts the something else one is doing. So information is less like a telephone call then is like a flare or jet.
ReplyDeleteI'm sort of confused with your point. So are you saying that if I am writing this response and I receive a text about something completely different and loss my train of thought that it would affect the information you receive from my post?
ReplyDeleteIf so, I agree with that too. Information is affected by all sorts of things. Like I just had someone sit down at the table with me in the library and start talking to me...it paused my response by 5 minutes so there is 5 minutes longer you had to wait for the information.
Is that what your saying?
You make the point really well. The first paragraph seems right on point to me, particularly because it hits on the very formulation of information from the outset.
ReplyDeleteActually, you force me to think more clearly. I'll try to be a little systematic. We can think about via Terranova's use of Shannon's diagram. You are the information source. You are transmitting information to me. You are transmitting it via the comment feature on blogger. Noise can be: the text message that interrupts you, messy fonts, unclear grammar, too long a gap between expressions of ideas, screw ups at Roadrunner, my failure to ever look at your comments, etc. So all these things will affect what I receive.