Media Forms

From Documents to Data

ib — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:44:20 +0000

This is a really interesting summary of the shift to “virtual knowledge”. It’s about the transformations in the academic world, but most of it applies to the rest of media use/production (believe it or not, sometimes the academic world runs ahead of the rest of the world in some things .. especially when it comes to exploring new modes of publishing). The video is made by the Virtual Knowledge Studio in Amsterdam. Virtual Knowledge:a new research agenda in the humanities and social sciences from Virtual Knowledge Studio on Vimeo.

Thinking about Business Models but also the “Other Side”

ib — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:12:00 +0000

“You mean there’s more than business models when it comes to publishing?” Well the last few decades of economics and business education, research and practice has been very much focussed on the “supply side”. That is, what businesses can do to improve business (performance management, downsizing, smarter busines models etc). In my view, this approach hasn’t worked terribly well, because it puts business in its own bubble, out of touch with the rest of the world, and, to be frank, out of touch with what business used to be about (that is, making money by making things work, whether those things are analog or digital). As management expert Henry Mintzberg writes, “Society has become unmanageable as a result of management” (see his book, Mintzberg on Management). What’s the often forgotten side to this? The demand side. Put simply, user experience, reading, watching, engaging. CraigMod’s Books in the age of the iPad has one very good (and very complete) take on this. Meanwhile Dan Cohen—a digital historian—has a lovely post on this. It’s title The Social Contract of Scholarly Publishing but I think it applies to much of publishing. Both are well worth a read.

Welcome for 2010

ib — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:41:03 +0000

Welcome to the Media Forms blog for 2010. This is the last year for a course I’ve always enjoyed teaching. So I hope it goes out on a high note, and also that you enjoy your time studying what is a fascinating series of approached to thinking about media forms and their contexts. Please note that this blog is a continuation of last year’s, so has quite a lot of (often interesting) material from that year. I will be adding posts and links as we go.

Andrew

New Economy of Knowledge (Commons) Lecture

ib — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:02:04 +0000

Used in the Lecture

http://bavatuesdays.com/a-message-from-the-bava/ (this is a great blog by Jim Groom, one of the champions of open education, to whom we at UNSW will always be grateful).

Lessig 1; Lessig 2

Lawrence Lessig’s Ted lecture (the law is strangling creativity) (in general the Ted lectures are great on all kinds of topics)

The Internet as Playground and Factory conference

Creative Commons

Edupunk …

personal learning spaces

Lawrence Lessig

Lessig’s site (lots of downloads, including his books)

Lessig Videos

Free Culture (audio plus good powerpoint—main points)

Against transparency (analysis)

Elinor Ostrom

Nobel Prize analysis

What she does (basic)

What she thinks

Cooperation/Commons

Ostrom on

Insights on Linking Forests, Trees, and People from the Air, on the Ground, …

Profile/Summary

More links

P2P foundation/P2P foundation/P2P Foundation Blog/Michel Bauwens (great thinker about these issues—also gathers excellent resources)

Howard Rheingold

Edupunk: Stephen Downes; Anthem; definitions; Edupunk Battle Royale;

Bavatuesdays is a great blog to read on these matters … As is Mike Bogle’s Techticker

Open Access Publishing— a good place to start might be Open Humanities Press or the Public Library of Science

ARTS1091

Open Access

Open Source

Good Copy Bad Copy (downloadable film—I’m not saying I agree with everything in it, or on these sites, by the way

Open Access Education

Open Access Publishing

Cooperation/CreativeCommons/Community

Everything Open/Open Everything

Free, Legal Music

ib — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:24:31 +0000

One of this things that has changed my “experience” is the number of new sites with free, legal music. I’m mainly interested in electronica/ambient when it comes to free (well usually .. sometimes there are some low prices) stuff … and if that interests you, try

http://delicious.com/ibbertelsen/netlabels

“Sharing Power (Aussie Rules)” - Mark Pesce

ib — Sun, 10 May 2009 02:47:05 +0000

Great post by Mark Pesce which powerfully outlines the fundamental issues involving contemporary communications—as these challenge established forms of power and social conventions.

Contemporary Communication isn’t Only About “Journalism”

ib — Sat, 09 May 2009 09:59:17 +0000

Here is an interesting example of where some more specialist magazines are going online—it also shows how there’s so much more to communication and “journalism” than “journalism”, and how some of the extended roles of newspapers are now dispersing throughout newer media.

It’s a video from a forthcoming series put online by the science magazine Seed, on contemporary design. Well known artist Natalie Jeremijenko (born Australia, now at Yale), talks about Environment Design. There are lots of other great videos on design there as well.

Turing goes Wild

ib — Sat, 09 May 2009 09:52:47 +0000

via Mitchell Whitelaw, some stunning videos by Jonathan McCabe that the designers among you will enjoy ..

turing pattern 1 from Jonathan McCabe on Vimeo.

Origami Butterfly from Jonathan McCabe on Vimeo.

Media, Controls, Freedoms

ib — Sun, 03 May 2009 04:48:10 +0000

Here are some places to go for weeks 8 and 9. Via these links, you can explore issues such as the future of journalism, new forms of media discussion and activism. There is also a small case study set of links concerning climate change.

Bold links are the most useful. Also, if you use Diigo or Delicious to tag sites you find, it’s useful if you also tag these sites as “mdcm3000″ and perhaps, for example, “digitaljournalism” or “climatechange”.

Here are the links to the two online required readings for week 9:

Michael Hirschorn’s ‘End Times’

Emily Nussbaum’s ‘The New Journalism: Goosing the Gray Lady’

More specific links below, but, broadly speaking, it’s worth glancing through my links on these and related topics at:

http://delicious.com/ibbertelsen/digitaljournalism

http://delicious.com/ibbertelsen/globalwarming

http://delicious.com/ibbertelsen/mdcm3000

Current and Future State of Journalism

This concerns more than journalism—in fact communications in general—but it’s relevant to journalism. Mark Pesce on new forms of power and communications (very succinct and powerful summary of the issues).

And here’s a very recent—and informative—discussion of the present and future of journalism in the New York Times. (registration, for free, might be required)

Debates

http://delicious.com/ibbertelsen/sciencejournalism

Swine Flu, Hype and Media

http://delicious.com/ibbertelsen/digitaljournalism+mdcm3000

(also http://delicious.com/ibbertelsen/news)

SourceWatch (lists the often hidden affiliations of various “experts” and institutions such as think tanks)

Documentary reflecting on series 5 of The Wire (warning: Spoilers! - go the The Wire - The Last Word)

New Kinds of News Sites

http://www.nowpublic.com/

Hyperlocal news sites

SiloBreaker

Open Democracy

http://www.daylife.com/

and this on “daylife” kind of sites

The Daily Beast

Huffington Post

Global Internet Activism

Seed Magazine Videos on Design

Wikinews

IndyMedia

Journalism, Recession and Climate Change

Virgance (”Activism 2.0″)

Climate Change/Global Warming

The Road to Copenhagen (Nature magazine on the current situation - a good primer)

Global Warming 101 (video below)

Propaganda and Skepticism Towards Climate Science

The Case of Ian Plimer’s recent book Heaven and Earth.

Brave New Climate

Jennifer Marohasy

The Science is Missing

Review of Ian Plimer’s earlier book

Deltoid on the graph that came from ..

“The Australian’s War on Science 35″

“The Australian’s War on Science 36″

The supposedly “silenced” Ian Plimer

Ian Plimer on ABC’s Lateline

The Australian’s initial Framing and Coverage of this Event (please note that none of the below is written by climate scientists)

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25348271-11949,00.html

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25395523-16741,00.html

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25348908-16382,00.html

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25329958-20261,00.html

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25395364-17803,00.html

and, to be fair, here is a counter to Plimer’s arguments in the Australian

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25433327-25192,00.html

and once again in The Australian, long after the initial fuss, this devastating review

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25433059-5003900,00.html

and for some commenting/reporting on what’s currently happening in terms of policy in Australia

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/brag-now-pay-later–its-just-hot-air-20090508-axx8.html?page=-1

more …

The Age - The Skeptic’s Shadow of a Doubt

Why Isn’t the Brain Green?

Taking a Stand for Science

Anti-green Economics

The Global Warming Debate—A Layman’s Guide

Arguments from Global Warming Skeptics

What does it all mean?

Climate Disaster

Some Blogs

Deltoid

DeSmogBlog

Real Climate

International Journal of Inactivism

Science News

Science Daily

Nature on Climate Change

ScienceMag

and Climate Science related journals … for those who want to go to the source(s)

Alternative Economics

http://delicious.com/ibbertelsen/economics

Publishing

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/04/reinventing-the-book-age-of-web.html

http://recursivepublic.net/

http://delicious.com/ibbertelsen/openaccesspublishing

http://delicious.com/ibbertelsen/publishing

and finally, an interesting recent scandal concerning academic/science/medical publishing

DIY Film-Making - “We are the Strange”

ib — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:46:23 +0000

I haven’t seen We are the Strange but it’s getting a lot of attention and a few awards. It’s a good examples of do-it-yourself animation/film-making, and there a description of the approach on Wired.