MS 111B Final Short Answer and Essay—Chauncey

What material, technological, organizational, and ideological conditions were required for the “wiring of the world”?

-Material: gutta percha to insulate wires, massive ship to lay the wires in the Atlantic, money and investments

-Technological: Companies and staff needed to understand the necessary procedures, specifically the engineers and electricians

-Organizational: Businesses needed to trade with each other, government trade, which leads to a need in communication, and news organization needed information

-Ideological: Globalization, the public had to be in favor due to costs

Where did the "Victorian Internet" spread quickest and why?

-Victorian Internet: the electric telegraph

-Spread fastest in the US due to already established lines (1846:Morse's experimental line, running 40 miles between Washington and Baltimore)

-1848: Two years later, there were approximately 2,000 miles of wire and by 1850 there were over 12,000 miles operated by twenty different companies

-British and French imperial networks enables an expansion and intensification of colonialism

-Connects the US to Europe very quickly on

What kind of coding systems emerged to facilitate telegraphic communications? What new procedures and conflicts did telegraphic coding

give rise to?

-Spelling out every letter took too long, so operators would discuss in morse code, and later developed a language where they would talk to each other through the wires using short abbreviations with letters

-Also utilized numbers for specific phrases—1: "wait a moment"

-Allowed operators to talk and interact like they were together

-Conflicts arose when individuals would mess up a singular letter and the entire message would change

What psychological effects did telegraphic communication produce?

-Telegraphic communication produced lots of confusion among the public, some of which led to frustration

-Individuals were overwhelmed and unsure of how things worked

-People thought that physical messengers were running across the telegraph wires, while others tried to send physical objects through the wires

-An array of information overload

How did Western Union attempt to market the telegram as a commodity?

-WU had opposing marketing messages: 1) businessmen should use it for work communication and 2) normal individuals should utilize it for services (flowers, cards, etc.)

-Marketed it as something that everyone could use, not just in emergencies, but for everyday life and for new ways to connect with people

What new meanings did this marketing attach to telegrams as media messages?

-It confused the purpose of telegrams: was it for enjoyment or for professional use?

-Contradictory results, which simultaneously complicated the messenger boy's role

In what ways was the telegraph messenger boy himself produced and presented as a commodity?

-Messenger boys became a selling point, with the use of uniforms establishing their importance, making them a unique advertising vehicle

-Through "circular service" or as WU called it, "dramatized delivery", messenger boys delivered door-to-door advertisements marking the first direct-marketing service ever

-The image of the messenger boys was further commodified through cardboard cutouts, mannequins, and illustrations

How do webs/networks differ from systems and what role did telegraphic news play in the shift from one to the other?

-Webs/Networks: Diverse, dynamic, multiple, and above all only loosely structured (decentralized network)

-Systems: dominated by a restricted number of powerful organizations, whose interests together dictate more formal, entrenched, and limited patterns of interconnection (hierarchical network)

-Webs/networks allows certain individuals to hold control over telegrams, seen with the Opium War, but systems do not allow this

-With telegraphic news, individuals become connected into one large system that is not standing alone or with a few by its side

How did the absence of telegraphic news affect the prosecution of and British public opinion on the Opium War with the Qing Empire?

-Opium War: British East India Company (EIC) had a lot of control of India and wanted to profit off of China, to do so they sold opium to the Chinese and in response Commissioner Lin Zexu made a strict anti-drug policy which resulted in the dumping of 2.6 million pounds of opium. This action made the British government send troops to "bring the Chinese to their senses"

-Due to a lack of telegraphic news, a large reliance was set on India based newspapers, meaning India-biases held a much larger influence over the Chinese

-Indian-based newspapers unified British opinions through the featuring of captivity stories that featured positive depictions of British heroism contrasting the negative depictions of Chinese stereotypes

-The colonial interests of British in India thus successfully prevailed on British public opinion

What contrast did traditional news sources draw between themselves and telegraphic news agencies? How did the consolidation of communications, transportation, and media industries play a role?

-Telegraphic news did not just harmonize markets by reducing differences between separated actors, but propagated disturbances further and faster. i.e., telegraphic news created new sense of time and place which were crucial in transforming news into a commodity whose value was based on speed and quick obsolescence.

-Telegraphic news were higher cost, which promoted concentration among news agencies and the press unlike the marginalized, slower circulation of traditional news.

In what ways were improvements in communications media and transportation “double-edged swords”? What advantages and disadvantages of market synchronization were identified and debated in the 1870s?

-Double edged sword because advantage was increased speed and connectivity with telegraphs, BUT close connectivity meant that in cases of failure the immediate reaction was panic which led to instability and major losses

-When something fails, all networks hear about it and act quickly

-Rumors are also dangerous now because of the instability

-Without improved communications, a failed market would only affect that singular market

What is the “message” of electrification generally and the electric light specifically (McLuhan’s question)?

-"Electricity was not merely a matter of profits; it helped to define modernity, progress, and physical and social well-being" (Nye 141).

-Electrification even became suggestive of "the transformation of human nature" (Nye 147)

-McLuhan: The medium is the message --> electricity was the message of modernity, social wellbeing, etc.

Why were many Americans ambivalent about electrification? How did this ambivalence manifest in discourses about electricity?

-Ambivalence stemmed from the fear of electricity, as it was unknown whether is was dangerous or tamable

-Individuals could see electricity, but they didn't understand what was happening beneath the surface

-Intellectuals were anti-modernist and preferred the traditional preindustrial past

-Ambivalence is the only capable doing because it requires specific training to fully understand electricity

-Ambivalence was present in debates in newspapers, magazines, and public forums as many individuals communicated their dislike, however, overtime when it became apparent that electricity was safe and soon to be essential, individuals began to accept

-Shown in many metaphors/phrases, such as being "attracted" to someone, or being someone's "polar opposite". these metaphors show it represented dually as lively but also overstimulating, pointing to the deep-seated ambivalence.

How was electricity connected to bodies, in discourse and also in practice?

-In Practice: electricity connected to bodies through many electricity based procedures: electrolysis, electric chair, electrotherapeutic devices, electric belts for restoring mens sexual powers, electric corset which cured fatness, and other electrical medicine forms

-Electricity becomes this cure all and is applied bluntly

-In Discourse: electricity began a topic of commingle, intertwining with conversation: "blow a fuse", "she really got a charge out of you", etc.

-Popular phrases used in discourse called upon the connection between electricity and our bodies

What did each of Nye’s four interest groups believe electricity to signify? How did those business interests seek to advertise the new imagined powers of electricity?

1. Genteel Anti-Modernist Intellectuals: viewed electricity as an ambulant sign of modernity, preferring a preindustrial past due to the distaste for rapid progression

2. The General Public (Urban Middle Class, Working Class, & Rural People): saw electricity as a mysterious force connected to sexuality, nerve force, and the new utopian hopes

3. The New Technical Elite: viewed electricity as an instrument for rationality and social reform, this group formed from the burgeoning ranks of the new professionals (engineers), as they knew the most about electricity and expressed few doubts

4. Businessmen and Corporate Elites: they exercised control over the electrical system and viewed electricity as a commodity that could be sold and profited off of

GE and Westinghouse largely succeeded in selling to Americans electricity as a commodity. What alternatives needed to be first undermined or dismissed?

-In order to succeed in selling electricity as a commodity, both GE and Westinghouse had to eliminate all of their competition, and they did so through horizontal integration

-Had to dismiss the publication of electricity, and fight for the privatization of electricity

-Since electricity was a new popular industry, many smaller companies emerge trying to get involved, however they were absorbed by GE and Westinghouse

-Once they were the dominant powers they needed to shift from selling to large companies (lighting companies and street railways, etc.) and sell to the general public

Why does Kittler claim that typescript amounted to the “desexualization of writing” despite the fact that many women quickly found employment as typists, inaugurating a new era of feminized labor?

-Due to the fact that typescript was neutral compared to male and female handwriting—you couldn't tell which gender typed it, so everyone "looked the same"

-This opened the emerging information economy to all, allowing women to receive the same pay and recognition as men in regards to the role of typists

-From this, the male authorship authority and intimacy of handwriting began to disintegrate

How did the typewriter reveal the structure of language?

-Languages have syntaxes (nouns, verbs) and then these syntaxes are connected to make a framework of language

-Typewriter does first step of mechanizing language, and changes the nature of language—less a communications medium to express yourself but instead a rate at which one individual can type

-Language is tried to be made as precise and efficient as possible (you can type faster than you can write)

-By organizing and structuring language, the very shapes and arrangement of words and sentences into discrete elements, typewriters reduced language to a mechanically reproducible formula

-The typewriter's arrangement of written language into a section from a set of finite options—they were limited to what was provided by the type

-Facilitated the production of linear and uniform text—standardization

In what ways was the typewriter comparable to a gun?

-Typewriter is like a gun because it allows users to "fire off" words at a rapid pace

-It was a modern weapon of language and thought

-It shot projectiles of speed, efficiency, and content

-Allowed ANYONE to use the typewriter as a weapon to target any force through the typing and dissemination of information

How did the development of the typewriter reveal information about the human information machine? What resulted from this information-gathering process?

-Humans are the original machine, and some parts of that machine do not work, but they can be replaced by certain technologies

-The typewriter becomes an extension of the human information machine for deaf and blind individuals whose disabilities affect their speech or writing abilities

-Upon the replacements by mechanics, these individuals disabilities are alleviated

-These disabilities are what first yields information on the human information machine, allowing for its replacement by machines

-What resulted was technology that aided disabilities: Hansen's Writing Ball (for the deaf) and others

-Once individuals are viewed as machines, we can replace them—automation

Why do bureaucracies need paperwork to function? What does bureaucratic paperwork do to information?

-Paperwork provides the space in bureaucracies can type written rational formats, protocols, and rules that are then subjected upon society, further establishing their authority

-Bureaucratic paperwork has the power to influence or shape information, perspectives, or understanding within the general public

-Bureaucratic paperwork takes in information and influences the reality of it through the utilization of their power

How did Karl Marx contrast The Petition with The Report to demonstrate the refractive power of paperwork as the bureaucratic medium?

-The Petition: a biased document that seeks to sell itself as objective fact, seeks to gain relief in areas where relief should not be given

-The Report: an objectively produced document in strict accordance to the rules, depersonalized

-In this case, the bureaucratic medium influences the true reality, changing the way they release their paperwork which underscores their needs

-Bureaucratic paperwork aligns with the report whereas a bureaucracy comes out with the harsh responses that say "NO"

-EX: college applications, you want to fit into the report when writing your petition

What psychological effects does bureaucratic paperwork produce? What did Freud think paperwork could potentially reveal about psychology? Why might Freud be wrong?

-Bureaucratic paperwork can reveal to us what is going on inside our minds (paraplaxis)

-Freud thought that paperwork should be a suspicion always, not because of each others' motives, but simply because of the medium of paperwork: it never rests, so we shouldn't either

-Freud suggests that since the unconscious never rests, then it stands to reason our unconscious may be revealed in our paperwork as errors

-Freud may be wrong because errors present in paperwork may simply be errors and not the slipping of our unconscious

Who or what were primarily responsible for the emergence and development of modern propaganda? In what ways was modern propaganda paired with censorship?

-Very powerful institutions (Ministry of Information, CPI) are primarily responsible

-Propaganda took on its modern meaning in the context of WW1 when governments allied with press institutions to rally the support of their publics and allied countries

-Modern propaganda paired with censorship because the same institutions made responsible for propaganda were granted the power of censorship

-Censorship emerged due to the awareness of the power of propaganda and of the press as an influencer of public opinion

What new forms of mass persuasion emerged after WWI? How was the emerging discipline of public opinion research connected with marketing and advertising?

-Government shifted from overt military and political propaganda to more subtle forms of propaganda

-Documentary film making emerged as a form of true propaganda, as well as radio broadcasting

-Public opinion research allowed for a better understanding of how public opinion worked and what it was, which influenced the forms marketing and advertising took on

How did studies of propaganda contribute to the fields of sociology and mass communications?

-Propaganda drew attention from academics who wanted to understand the communication and control systems of modern societies

-Individuals in the field of mass communications and sociology were curious to identify the ways propaganda influenced individuals and began researching radio programming, public opinion, and consumer behavior

-Propaganda in effect gives birth to mass communications, focused on enhancing the power of propaganda

How did US mass communications researchers respond to the global rise of fascist and Communist propaganda? How might this connect with what we learned about the development and applications of computer science and behavioral science during the Cold War (see Edwards)?

-Developed the concept of psychological warfare, a replacement for the term propaganda, which aims at reducing an opponent's morale

-Mass communications researchers observed the influence and attitudes displayed in psychological warfare

-Considering mass communications is intimately tied to propaganda studies, this provides the basis for behavioral studies, studying the ways in which individuals interact with certain things

-Behavioral studies draws on information through surveys and polling, etc. and then this data is put into computer systems to analyze and reveal trends and relations

Why does rationalization require bureaucracy and vice versa? What did rationalization come to mean during the nineteenth century? How can techniques of rationalization and preprocessing be incorporated into forms and systems of media?

-Rationalization: the destruction of information in order to facilitate its processing

-Can only reduce the amount of information if you have a bureaucratic system, one that has formal rules for how information should be handled

-Information is pre-processed

-Bureaucracy needs a system that will reduce the amount of information because otherwise it would become bloated and its impossible to work with, unless you use rationalization

-EX: if military wore no uniforms, it would be confusing as to who was who and who held authority, this is an example of why bureaucracies need rationalization through things like uniforms

-Mid 19th century, increasing bureaucratization and rationalization meant new information-processing and communications technologies: punch card and time zones

Why were railways one of the first industries to experience crises of control? What solutions were devised to restore control over railway systems?

-Railways were the fastest and in turn they out-ran existing information processing and communications technologies that would normally control the system

-Solutions: distribution of synchronized, programmable decision making technologies, centralized bureaucratic control, telegraphic communication, and formalizing operating procedures (standardized signals, time-tables, synchronized watches aboard each train)

-Needed to create rules and depersonalize bureaucracy

Beniger identifies crises of control in transportation, production, distribution, and consumption, but shows that each crisis required a different form of re-organization and rationalization. What unifying logics did the control revolutions in each of these four sectors of the economy share in common? What special techniques or forms of organization distinguished each uniquely?

-Transportation: appeared first because too fast and out-ran other communication technologies

-Needed distribution of synchronized, programmable decision making technologies, centralized bureaucratic control, telegraphic communication, and formalizing operating procedures (standardized signals, time-tables, synchronized watches aboard each train)

-Production: becoming increasingly complicated and fast with new technologies

-Needed a better flow within factories—formal organization, internal communication systems, and preprocessing

-Distribution: impossible to coordinate and control the movement of commodities on a national/international scale

-Needed new innovations in bureaucratic structure including increasing subdivisions and managerial hierarchies, standardized forms detailing routes/goods/charges, and material infrastructures

-Consumption: increasing efficient production, distribution, and management meant there were more finished goods than ever before, but how was demand meant to be understood

-Needed to understand the consumer demand, advertising allows information to flow from company to customers and feedback technology allows them to understand if their advertising is working

-Unifying Logistic: information processing systems were needed (formal rules and pre-processing information), achieving control of information flow through constant real-time awareness

-What roles did media technologies play in facilitating control over information and material flows? What media technologies and systems were specifically developed to facilitate the flow of information?

-Media technologies were specifically developed to facilitate control over information and material flows which allowed them to manage and coordinate better, increasing the complexity of the materials produced as well as increasing production, distribution, consumption, and feasibility

-They enabled organizations to exert greater control of industries and increased the development of modern societies

-Examples: telephone switchboard, mass mailings by rail, mail order houses and catalogues, and multiple-rotary steam press

What specific needs spurred the innovation of information-processing hardware especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?

-Crisis of control: transportation (railroads safety crisis)

-Flow of information necessitated increasing rationalization (reduction) of information, inaugurating a shift toward quantitative and digital information processing

-A Big problem with distribution of goods as there were so many commodities in diff areas

-So, key innovation = commodity exchange: based on telegraph which allowed for crops to be sold in transit and before harvest, allowed for fast changes in prices of goods

-Then, culture of happy summary:

-In the decades following WWI, knowledge producers shifted modes dramatically, taking hints from the information processing technologies and techniques that emerged from the industrial revolution's crises of control

What new powers and capacities did electric tabulation and analog computing systems offer? What kinds of customers purchased these systems and for what purposes?

-New powers: Speed and efficiency, accuracy and precision, scalability, and automation

-Kinds of customers:

1) Businesses: used for payroll, management, and stat analysis

2) Government agencies: census data and tax calculations

3) Scientific research: complex STEM calculations

4) Military: cryptography and management (and other calculations)

In what ways did the control revolution contribute to modern afflictions such as anonymity, alienation, depersonalization, and dehumanization?

-Uncle Sam cartoon, just wanted social security numbers

-When people are pre-processing, only that information can be quantified is kept, while other information (personality) about the person is "destroyed or forgotten"

-Bureaucracy wants to turn us into data, just numbers.

-People became a "set of numbers: in a punch card that can be used to store data or control programs

-This determines important qualities of life (clothes size, intelligence, insurance)

What is a genre and how does it differ from a medium?

-Genre: a mode of recognition through a collection of features we recognize

-Appears across all mediums

-Medium: a material or technological apparatus that enables the storage, transmission, and dissemination of information

-Difference: genre focusses on the cultural and social forms of communication while medium focusses on the material and technological infrastructure

-The document is a genre.

-Document can appear across all genres—printed, written, typed, photocopied, etc.

-What makes it recognizable is its functions of archive and access

-Documents have the capacity for knowing and showing its ability successfully

-Genre is about recognizability, no particular feature but a collection of features that we can identify—Can occur cross mediums

What are documents for? What primary functions do documents have?

-Documents are for the storing of information, they act as evidence, provide a basis for knowledge, preserve things, convey authority, and objectivity

-Documents primarily imply accountability and can invoke and participate in ethical and political frameworks

What new logics and patterns of use did xerography inaugurate?

-Released in 1960, the Xerox photocopier provide new technological and labor conditions which allowed documents to become more accessible and fluid—creating new opportunities to how documents can flow

-Created Xelolore: office humor

-Documents implied accountability and invoked ethical and political frameworks

-Provide employees with the new powers of archiving, accessing, and communicating

-Provided new technological and labor conditions under which documents could become more accessible and more fluid

How does xerography present a challenge to authorship? What might Eisenstein have to say about this? How about Kirschenbaum?

-The author is not the one in charge of it being produced, spread, and edited

-With the power of xerography, individuals had these powers rather than the authors themselves

-Eisenstein: Typographical fixity and the preservative powers of print made authorship possible in the way that we think of it, but with xerography, what is preserved and fixed can be changed

-Kirschenbaum: word-processing threatened authorship because of its cognitive abilities and taking the role of the author, similar to xerography in the sense that others take on the role of spreading and printing

How did xerography and photocopying alter the balance of power between employees and employers? Is the photocopier a potentially subversive tool? Why or why not?

-Photocopier as a form of re-personalization, where power is given back to those who have been at the mercy of bureaucracy

-Subversive in that the function of the photocopier allows the employee tremendous new power → can create their own files, copy top secret documents, can change files

-Can achieve suddenly personal uses, which shifts power balances (whistleblowers)

-Indeed, bureaucracies are partly constructed out of documents (now private citizens with phones can document things)

What effects did xerography have on the genre of the document?

-Xerography provided documents the ability to become more easily accessible, shareable, and in turn more fluid

-Originally intended to make businesses more efficient, it provided employees with a. newfound power for archiving, accessing, and communicating -Xeroxlore: there developed anonymous

and semi-anonymous in-office publication often containing humor in forms of jokes and cartoons

How did Vannevar Bush and J.C.R. Licklider’s visions of the future of knowledge differ from traditional knowledge organization schemes (covered by Peter Burke) in terms of structure and function?

-Bush: introduces the idea of a desktop which can pull-up a photocopy of any document you want—visionary conceptualization of a digital desktop

-First stab to Dewey Decimal System and its replacement with Google, envisioning a new way of accessing information

-Licklider: father of internet who put everything together needed for ARPANET

-"Digital view": "information is a definite quantity increasing daily".

-Licklider proposed that the libraries of the future would be 'procognitive systems' containing recursive 'smart' documents which could read themselves, allowing users to easily locate and retrieve information using a Graphical User Interface (GUI) burke?

Why did the Internet end up operating so differently from the initial plan for ARPANET? What goals and functions were emphasized in each network?

-ARPANET: goal: smart, self-reading documents. search engines that do not organize knowledge

-Precise instructions could be encoded and delivered to a machine via algorithms and commands

-The type of information a machine was to process and the mode by which it was to display information was encoded and delivered in the form of document types, protocols, and mark up

-Internet: Search engines located and presented information without filters, without verification, and without hierarchies

The structure of the internet offered opportunities for nonexperts to access, produce, and share information

How do bibliography bodies relate to physical bodies? (compare with how electricity was thought to relate to physical bodies)

-A bibliographic body, as a physical item, facilitates smooth functioning of the system it is part of.

-Bibliographic bodies, such as draft cards, were aligned one-to-one with physical bodies. another system meant to pair bibliographic bodies with human ones is student registration cards.

-Electricity altered bodies or metaphorically connected them. bibliographic bodies represented them and gave them systemic meaning.

-What is “bibliographic barbed wire”? How do Eisenstein’s paratexts compare with the metadata or “bibliographic barbed wire” identified and discussed by Gitelman? What might N. Katherine Hayles have to sayabout Gitelman’s “bibliographic barbed wire”?

-Bibliographic Barbed Wire: refers to the usage of diacritical marks that editors use to precisely correct mistakes that some (Mumford) believe cut readers off from greater authorship.

-EX: arrows, brackets, underline

-It restricts us from understanding things or even accessing them

-Modern EX: code is not understood by many, so that serves as a form of bibliographic barbed wire, or Chicago style footnotes

-Paratexts inform other texts/transfer info between producer and consumer, lead to standardization

-Similarly, barbed wires standardize authorship, but have been criticized for taking away from readers' experiences

-Though electronic text appears to us as visually similar, if not identical, to physical text, it is not.

-Paratexts benefit readers and their purposes are generally self-evident

-Metadata and the "bibliographic barbed wire" of coding underlying and facilitating the display of electronic texts offer many benefits, but not all accrue to the users of those texts. Beware!

-This is similar to what Hayles is concerned about in terms of ebooks and PDF documents, they change the ways in which type is displayed and influences the way we read them as well as the way they read us

What distinguishes postprint from print? Which of Eisenstein’s concepts are most threatened by postprint?

-Postprint: books produced after roughly 2000, when computational technologies transformed the printing industry that amounts to a qualitative transformation, not just quantitative

-Print: the long reign of bound books produced by the printing press form the 15th century to the mid-20th century

-Typographical fixity is threatened: postprint allows for changing of texts once digital

How does Hayles’s concept of cognitive assemblages help us to understand the emergence of postprint? Why was the Linotype a more effective cognitive assemblage than the Paige Compositor?

-Cognitive Assemblages: the interconnected relationship between human thought processes and technologies that shape or are shaped by those processes, they allow for flexibility, adaptability, and evolvability because they can interpret, disseminate, and contextualize flows of information

-This helps us understand the emergence of postprint because it allows us to understand how human cognition and technology interacted to result in its creation

-Linotype: machine that cast entire lines of type at once, that required a skilled operator due to it being an electromechanical device

-Paige Compositor: first hybrid-human type setting machine that tried to automate typesetting process through the use of a rotating disk of matrices to form words

-It was too complicated, and tried to replace MANY of our cognitive functions unlike the Linotype which tried to replace only one cognitive function

-The Paige Compositor was conceived through attempting to completely replace the human in a mechanical fashion—which led to its failure

In what ways did phototypesetting set the stage for the development of word-processing software?

-Phototypesetting broke the link between metal type and printing, by instead using light and images

-It was cheaper, less heavy, and took up much less space—giving users more flexibility

-Phototypesetters gradually integrated more cognitive capabilities of computational media into its design, adding hyphenation and justification

-It set the stage for the development of word-processing software because phototypesetting was the predecessor of this technology, as they both stepped away from metal type to produce text and it became a commonality rather than something rare

-Phototypesetting marked the transition from physical to electronic composition, which word-processing software followed

Why is an e-book different from a book with the exact same text? In what ways is an e-book a “smart” (that is, cognitive) text?

-An e-book immerses the user in a very different media ecology than a print book does

-An e-book itself it a cognizer as it becomes in effect a collaboration with the human reader, able to sense and respond to the reader's desires and execute commands of a sophisticated nature

-E-books have certain "cognitive" functions that allow it to verbalize words, enlarge the type, highlight passages, find specific words, and most of all it took up less space than physical books

-An e-book is "smarter" than regular texts for this reason

-E-books read you as you read it, and we can own e-books but not the content on them (only the licenses to that content)

Why were literary authors suspicious of word processors, at least early on? How might we compare this with the ambivalence displayed by intellectuals towards electricity (see Nye above)?

-Suspicions stemmed from the apparent "perfection" of word processors, as they found that perfection to be untrue and unobtainable

-They felt it was a superficial trick to get them to use it

-Similar to the ambivalence displayed by intellectuals towards electricity as they wanted to stick with what they understood and stay in a pre-electric world due to their distaste towards fast progression

-In this case literary authors preferred other motives of writing, whether that be handwriting, the typesetter, phototypesetting, etc. (just anything before the word processor)

What sort of perfection did the word processor promise? What sort of “perfection” did it actually create the conditions for?

-The perfection that was promised was suspended inscription, which allowed revisions to go on forever and ever and ever

-The perfection that was actually provided was one filled with anxieties, where authors found themselves capable of continuously changing what they had written in attempts to reach "perfection", thus perfectionism emerges in this regard

What did word processing mean for authorship? How can we compare Kirschenbaum’s stance with that of Eisenstein, Gitelman, or Hayles?

-Word processing gives a lot of our cognitive abilities to the machine, and the machine takes on a larger responsibility of being the author—copy and paste, etc.

-Displaces the authorial responsibility

-The machine participates cognitively with us in the production of something

-Authors could more easily make revisions in attempts of reaching perfection

-It influenced how authors perceived their own writing identity—authors could experiment, revise, and reshape their texts at various stages as they weren't confined to a singular, unchanging expression or position

-Eisenstein: Typographical fixity and the preservative powers of print made authorship possible in the way that we think of it, but with word processing, what is preserved can be changed and in turn nothing is fixed

-If we no longer have individuality what do we have? Some form of networked digitized personality

-Gitelman & Hayles: The machine is now displacing the authorial responsibility, as cognitive assemblages take over

What new types of thinking did large-scale military investment in digital processing and automation produce?

-Cybernetics, cognitive science, artificial science, and game theory emerged as a result of these investments

-Instead of using inductive reasoning and analog science, they shift to deduction—the act of making up generalized statements with specific data and scenarios

How did operations research differ from systems analysis?

-Operations Research: problems are broken down into clearly defined objectives and and then solved in defined steps with the use of real-wold data, it's an attempt to solve a specific problem and the resolution comes out of that specific problem

-Systems Analysis: it imagines gigantic systems in abstract and then implements them with the understanding that they're just going to work out great—not efficient

-Rather than testing something, computer modeling is done and then they assume it will work because of that model

-Lends itself to same applications as game theory, thinks generally, and the provided analysis does not guarantee success

-Grows after the war

How were developments in cybernetics, the automation of battlefield command, and strategic military planning interrelated in the 1950s and 1960s?

-Cold War imperatives caused there to be a need for C31 (command, control, communication, and intelligence), creating military strategic plans with automation/computing

-Cybernetics seemed to model the world by reducing it to data points (Y/N, On/Off) which led to various initiatives such as the creation SAGE (system of computers connected to a vast network of radar stations that (theoretically) allowed real time command and control of hemispheric airspace) and Operation Igloo White (where used sensors, computers, and relay aircraft to automatically bomb the Ho Chi Minh Trail)

-All sought to improve awareness and control

-Strategic military planning underwent a shift which aimed to provide a more quantitative and scientific basis for decision-making: game theory, operations research, cybernetics

In what ways do the activities of the RAND and Simulmatics corporations exemplify Cold War logics and Cold War closed system thinking? How were these logics applied internationally and domestically (in the US)? In what ways were these logics and styles of thinking flawed?

-RAND: Research and Development Corporation: institution that helps improve policy and decision making through research and analysis

-Reflected a closed system (analysis of an isolate and independent variable) thinking that aimed to model complex interactions within closed, controllable systems

-Simulmatics Corporations: goal to engage principally in estimating probable human behavior by the use of computer technology, not very good

-Reflected a closed system approach to understanding and manipulating societal dynamics

-Applied internationally and domestically through increased militarization and surveillance—hired for these jobs (NY Times, Democratic Party, Department of Defense, Ford Foundation), they do as asked

-Flaws: oversimplified systems, assuming that diverse systems could be neatly modeled and controlled—ignored unpredictability and the true complexities of the real-world, lack of transparency, and disregard for human agency

What features distinguished the copious culture of the early Victorian period? What happened around 1870 that marked a shift in a new direction?

-Copious culture: thick flow of fact, as much info as possible—people delighted about accumulating facts and information

-Early Victorian period didn't organize the facts, simply amassed a plethora of them and commodified them

-1870's saw a shift towards the showing of concerns regarding the multitude of information collection without organization or control—there was excessive, but disconnected, information.

-Another concern was unbridled empiricism—too much fact destroying systemic order

What is an “object-based epistemology”? What might be an example of such today?

-Object-Based Epistomology: notion that knowledge was embodied in objects

-EX: classic Victorian museums, tightly packed with glass display cases containing dozens of variations of a particular object.

What features distinguished the early twentieth century culture of happy summary? What techniques did happy summarizers use to distill information into digestible forms of knowledge? What might have been inadvertently lost in the process?

-Culture of Happy Summary: 1920s-1940s, strategy for managing facts was summarizing complex wholes with a single image, number, example, or graph

-Happy Summary is the answer to copious culture (information overload)

-You can get information about something quickly without needing to dive into the details

-"Happy" because no one felt like abridgments led to a loss of critical information

-Lost: nuances, direct sense of engagement with objects, facts, and history

Did the culture of happy summary encourage stereotyping? How so?

-Culture of happy summary sought to condense information and summarize it into smaller points that were more digestible and in turn more enjoyable to digest

-It was thought that you would get what you wanted without having to dive into the details

-Stereotypes are in turn directly encouraged, as we belittle cultures to singular objects, events, or persons in attempt to get a "happy summary", and to maintain that happiness we support and accept these stereotypes

Cmiel and Peters argue that the 1970s marked a watershed for knowledge producers and consumers, after which expertise and authority experienced a long, deep, and ongoing fall from grace. How do they connect this with the rise of postmodern attitudes and stances? In what ways was the attack on expertise a positive corrective to the flaws of happy summary?

-The culture of happy summary, meanwhile, became as suspicious as the experts responsible for it

-Thus there was a mission to correct the summaries provided by those who considered themselves experts

-Now experts had to content with activists, amateurs, and advocacy groups across the cultural and political in battles through communications media

-The development of technology and internet further fostered a space where non-experts could dismantle existing powers by providing access to all

-Happy summary allowed for one image to represent an entire story, subject, etc., shown by common debunking of iconic images in the 1980s.

-This shift no longer allowed that, pointing out various sides to every story and a single image's inability to display an entire person, culture, event, etc.

Cmiel and Peters suggest that we have returned, in certain ways, to the Victorian culture of copious facts. How can we see this in our culture today? What distinguishes our new cult of information from the Victorian culture of copious facts?

-As research engines and social media platforms track and accumulate user data to facilitate niche marketing and targeted ads, users themselves are disaggregated into their component parts: interests and desires

-As metanarrative collapse, we have our own personal narratives which we rely on information technology to construct knowledge of ourselves

-We can see copious culture in that individuals today collect knowledge from online and construct their own narratives/truths

-Distinguishes: we have machines that generate information around the globe and systems of data tracking for every individual

-Data is the currency of money and power (lots of data is similar to copious culture).

-Information flows are more important than knowledge. victorian had faith in the future.

Why do Cmiel and Peters call Google’s search engine “a single portal to a churning mass of confusion” (252)?

-Google thrives in the messy disorder of the internet with a tangle of hyperlinks and advertisements that they profit off of

-It thrives on messiness and disorderliness

-Google takes the mass of confusion and customizes it for their users based on their information preferences

Is the culture of happy summary and its analog the culture of crystallized essence still part of our culture? Where do we see them most clearly?

-Yes, part of our culture in collector’s items, luxury items

-Culture of Crystallized Essence: analog of Happy Summary, the boiling down to one item that represents an entire thing

-Art representing an entire culture through a simple object

-This relies on cultural stereotypes and stereotypes more generally

-We even further distill information through shorter forms of media (e.g. Twitter)

-Also legacy of stereotypes.

Expertise and authority may be under relentless assault, but hierarchies and power inequalities are very much still with us and part of our lives. In what ways might the logics of digital promiscuity secretly reinforce power structures? Hayles and Gitelman would certainly have things to say about this...

-Digital Promiscuity: In todays digital era, anything hyperlinks to anything else, so you don't have information structured they way you would with the Dewey Decimal System

-We can connect with anything, but we don't understand the context occurring

-As information becomes more accessible, corporations gather information about their users and their interests, allowing them to facilitate niche marketing and targeted aids—WHICH reinforce the power structures between users and corporations

-We don't directly see this occur so it feels as though the power structures are diminishing, but this is untrue

-Hayles: documents read us and they read us back—the internet does the same

-Gitelman: bibliographic barbed wire—we can't see underneath everything so users get confused

How did the long and eventual transformation of American museums exemplify all three periods covered by Cmiel and Peters?

-Victorian Copious Culture: Collecting EVERYTHING: there was no organization as rooms and exhibits were chocked full of various artifacts

-Happy Summary:

-Organizing things (distillation)

-Information and artifacts were shrunk down/organized to represent entire time periods or geographic locations (e.g. dioramas used to

tell stories, period rooms, etc.)

-Postmodern attack on happy summary/authority/expertise:

-There was a questioning of expertise and authority. Advocacy groups or people in general could protest and create change (or prompt) museum exhibits to change the way things were represented in the museum