April 4, 2012
A few weeks ago, I spent the day hanging out with some folks involved with Occupy Research for the Occupy Hackathon 2. We worked with an extremely rich data set: the results of the Occupy Research General Demographic and Political Participation Survey (ORGS). Some participants worked to help filter the data, some worked to visualize it. I felt like I wanted to do something a bit more abstract, one that let me use both my technical chops and some of the things I’ve been thinking about at MassArt.
In the end, I created Visions of Occupy: a Tumblr blog populated automatically using some of the data from the ORGS, “mashed up” with some of the Occupy related photos posted to Flickr. For more info and the ongoing project, take a look here.
February 21, 2012
A number of weeks ago, during a class—for which I am the teaching assistant—called Narcissism, Aggression, and Creativity, we entered into a discussion related to the frustrations felt while riding public transportation and the physical and psychological manifestations this frustration takes. Most of them (and, I would posit, us as well) become introverts while riding the subway or the bus, trying their best to avoid contact with the other riders, silently judging the various public-transport-related faux pas committed along the way. During the discussion the group of 25 students came into quick alignment in regards to the way other riders on the T behave and why they considered this behavior unacceptable. For a relatively long time—30 to 45 minutes—they commiserated on why everyone else makes their riding experience.
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February 15, 2012
My first post for MIT Center for Civic Media’s CMS.861: Networked Social Movements
It’s an odd experience to be reading lit-reviews regarding information and communication technologies (ICT’s) from six years ago. On the one hand, a review from 2006 will only include technologies and movements written about ten years ago—a lifetime in the technology world. On the other, so many principles highlighted by both Garrett and Castells can be applied to today’s ICT landscape.
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January 26, 2012
This past May I presented a thesis abstract proposal to the review board of the Dynamic Media Institute at MassArt that focused on how dynamic media may elevate the level of public discourse in our country. My feeling at the time was that the media’s penchant for polarized debates, combined with social media’s weak-tied, high-speed nature left us without the means for substantive, civil debate—political or otherwise. How serendipitous, then, the fact that a public protest movement, centered around political and economic discourse, popped up just as I was gaining a stronger understanding of the theories behind civic participation via Intro to Civic Media.
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January 25, 2012
Last year, I had the great opportunity to work on the official iPhone app for the Newport Folk Festival. Downloaded over 1000 times (for a festival that only has 10,000 attendees), the app was received very well—so well that they’ve asked us to update it for this year’s show. I’m extremely excited, as working in PhoneGap and getting some mobile app development under my belt was a great experience. Last year was, as usual, a bit of a rush to the finish. This year, we hope to add a number of features and also make it available for the Android platform.
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November 1, 2011
From the MIT Civic Media Blog:
This week’s readings were particularly relevant to my project research, so it was exciting to read these having just returned from the [extremely chilly pre-snow] OccupyBoston site. I only got two interviews in before I had to head out (I’ll be returning for more soon), but I think I gained some important insight into the relationship between the “I” and the “We” at Occupy. Mostly, though, the interviews I conducted at Dewey Square got me thinking about the role professionalism and locality play in the success of an anti-establishment movement, and also what a move from fringe to mainstream does to that movement.
Read more at civic.mit.edu.
October 3, 2011
Over at the MIT Civic Media blog, I discuss the implications of media consolidation from the perspective of Nicholas Garnham and his views on the “industrialization of culture” way back in the 70′s.
September 25, 2011
My latest in a series of responses to our Intro to Civic Media class readings.
September 18, 2011
This week for our Intro to Civic Media class we read about imagined communities, the public sphere, counterpublics (generally and in the context of the African American struggle), and how networked tools affect the structure and growth of publics. In considering whether or not the concept of “networked counterpublics” was useful, I propose that it is, but only in an historical context. In a contemporary sense, it’s rare that you will find any counterpublics that are not networked.
If you’re interested in the topic, these were the readings we did:
Selections from Anderson, B. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and. Spread of Nationalism. [Ch. 4 "Imagined Communities": http://www.la.wayne.edu/polisci/kdk/nationalism/sources/anderson.pdf ]
Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy” – Social text, 1990: http://www.jstor.org/pss/466240
Catherine R Squires, “Rethinking the Black Public Sphere: An Alternative Vocabulary for Multiple Public Spheres,” Communication Theory 12, no. 4 (November 1, 2002): 446-468. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2002.tb00278.x/abstract
Yochai Benkler, “The Emergence of a Networked Public Sphere,” Ch7. in The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007): http://www.congo-education.net/wealth-of-networks/ch-07.htm
September 14, 2011
Current freelance client needs to know my on-site schedule every week. So I built a quick web tool.
Related: now you know when to rob my house.
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