my wondeful Twitter "follow me" stalkings

Gabby and Tal make amazing tattoo tights and socks that they sell on Etsy (they’re also on Twitter!). I found their stuff through a friend’s tweet and immediately bought myself a pair of these “Follow Me” “stalkings” haha. I admit they make me rather self-conscious and cautious of people who might literally be “following me,” but they’re too much of an eye-catching conversation piece to just keep in my drawer. I don’t regret buying these one bit and chances are I’ll be wearing them to tweet-ups and similarly geeky parties for years to come.

• I formatted my rationale as a guide to my intellectual trajectory at NYU, mapping the issues that most interested me according to the key texts that help me understand these topics. Gallatin has already approved this draft twice so I don’t need to edit it so much as dig into (and make sense of) the texts and ideas.
• Gallatin requires that every booklist contain seven (yes, SEVEN) ancient/medieval/renaissance classics, from before the year 1650. No joke. (Read: if you can think of any compelling connections between Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Internet, feel free to leave a comment…)
• My actual colloquium will take place on the afternoon of December 11. I will preparing from now until then, so I appreciate any feedback you might have!

Title: New Media & Re-Imagining Communities

With three months remaining until I complete my undergraduate career at Gallatin, my concentration can be articulated as follows: the study of digital technology and the ways in which people utilize new media and the Internet to express their worldview; broadly, how media is produced by and simultaneously produces culture (as manifested in hierarchy, identity, community, knowledge, and so on); the Internet as an unprecedented medium that has transformed individuals from consumers to collaborators/producers, connecting people in real-time across the world; the decentralization of hierarchy in the spread of information and culture, and the power of “new” media in organizing collective action toward social/political progress; all of the above interpreted with an anthropological mindset.

The most basic foundation for my intellectual career developed relatively early in college and can be categorized into two themes: (1) reality/symbols/systems of meaning, and (2) race/Us vs. Them/the Other. In other words, how do we come to understand our reality and ourselves? Others who differ from us? How do symbols, prejudices, and stereotypes mold our beliefs and identities, and how can these symbols be exploited or manipulated? Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” and Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion form the epistemological basis of the first theme. Plato’s “Allegory” speaks to the façade of reality by positing a situation in which prisoners shackled in a cave can neither move nor turn their heads.  Though a fire burns from an elevated position behind the prisoners, they can only see what is in front of them – the shadows thrown onto the wall of the objects being carried by people behind the fire. Insomuch as the prisoners know of no other state of being, their perception of reality relies solely on these “shadows” as reality. Lippmann similarly labels this subjective perception the “pseudo-environment” that consists of mental representations (“pictures in our heads” of “the world outside”) upon which people act. Both Plato and Lippmann’s analyses apply to contemporary politics, mass media, and the daily struggle to steer the course of public discourse – to shape Public Opinion through vague symbols in “the manufacture of consent.” Whereas these two texts question the meaning of “the real” and the construction of popular beliefs, the next two focus on the dichotomous and Manichean worldview that sets the global East against the global West.

The Greek play, Persians, demonstrates this second theme in both its content and its broader historical context. Written by Aeschylus soon after the end of the Peloponnesian War, the play portrays its main characters – the defeated Persians – as suffering and deserving of pity. In that Greek citizens both performed and watched the play, Persians symbolizes a Grecian representation of the Oriental Other, an ancient statement of Western superiority. Edward Said’s Orientalism attributes the Occident-Orient relationship to a history of unbalanced power and domination, in which the Occident maintains its position of entitlement and superiority by colonizing the inferior Orient both physically and ideologically. Who has the ability to represent whom, and to what end? What is the status of the East-West binary today? How is fear and mistrust of the Oriental Other represented in Lippmann-esque linguistic symbols today (e.g. “War on Terrorism,” “radical Islamists,” and so on)? These four ancient and modern texts fundamentally address the psychological and cognitive underpinnings to identity, nationalism, and the need to be defined in opposition to an Other.

After revisiting my Intellectual Autobiography and Plan for Concentration (IAPC), I recognize that these two issues that energized me two years ago still comprise my core interests. They’ve simply expanded (or, rather, my interests have become more focused on the role of media in constructing reality, hierarchy, and race). When I classified my concentration in the spring of 2008 as “Power, Ideology, Representation,” I intended these three terms to implicate media as a function of identity, dominance and resistance, knowledge and interpretation. Drawing upon the inspiration I felt in my cultural anthropology courses – the first of two “major epiphan[ies] in my college career” – I began structuring my intellectual framework using concepts from Frankfurt School critical theorists.

Seminal works such as Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” and Horkheimer and Adorno’s “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” – evaluate the impact of technology and mass production on people’s lives; however, these two works directly contrast in their view of mass culture and mass society. Whereas Benjamin asserts that the ability to watch film (with close-ups, slow motion, etc.) will open up people’s perception of reality for conscious exploration, Horkheimer and Adorno consider film an instrument of the dominant used to force the masses to remain passive viewers of “reality” and automatic consumers of prescribed culture. In dialogue with Benjamin as well as Horkheimer and Adorno, Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities and Marshall McLuhan’s “The Medium is the Message” analyze how shifts to new technology alter people’s sense of identity, community, and nationalism. Anderson identifies the proliferation of  “print-capitalism” as the emergence of “imagined communities” and nationhood; by transitioning from sacred religious texts interpreted by the few to mass reproduced newspapers/books in a common vernacular, formerly disparate groups developed a shared national identity. McLuhan, on the other hand, famously locates the “message” of technology in its form as opposed to its content. As such, the significance of “electric” media like radio and television is evident in the way they transform people’s actions and relationships and collapse spatiotemporal boundaries. All of these texts relate to my earlier themes of reality and systems of meanings by suggesting the following questions: How does media technology determine our experience of reality and of culture? In what ways does technology reflect or restructure power relations and hierarchy?

The summer after my sophomore year marked another “epiphany” for my intellectual and professional career. I started my first internship at Undercurrent, a digital marketing/social media startup. Undercurrent ushered me into the young, tech-driven world of Twitter, other budding social networks, bookmarking sites, blogging, and RSS feeds – essentially catalyzing my interest in the Internet as a field of study. The experience of working in this sphere of emerging media and engaging directly with individuals in vibrant online communities further reinforced the meaning of Benjamin, Anderson, and McLuhan’s work, provoking more questions. In what ways does “new” media differ from other media through which we consume culture? Is virtual reality less tangible than “the real world” or is that just a romanticized notion? With the prominence of mobiles devices and various digital screens in our everyday lives, how has the Internet changed the “speed and pace” of people’s lives and how have individuals begun re-“imagining” their social ties?

With my concentration further expanding in the direction of the Internet, the prominent themes in my area of concentration include networks, collective action, decentralization, globalization, as well as issues of access (always bearing in mind identity, community, information, and so on). Marx and Engels’s “The Communist Manifesto” and Eben Moglen’s “The dotCommunist Manifesto” logically follows the critical theory texts in that both pieces convey the relation between revolution, socio-economic class structure, and technology. In Marx and Engels’s time, capitalism and the Industrial Revolution drove workers into industrial factories; though the bourgeoisie owned the means of production, Marx and Engels concluded that the proletariat would come together while working side-by-side in these factories, form unions, and overthrow the bourgeoisie. Moglen’s piece presents a modern spin on this class struggle – a revolution in which digital technology enables the new proletariat of knowledge workers/digital creators (rather than labor workers) to overthrow the bourgeois system of private ownership of ideas and culture. The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman is useful as it relates the “shrinking” of the world and the “flattening of the playing field” over time as digital technology enables the East to compete with the West (a reversal of Said’s Orientalism?), communities to challenge multinational corporations, and individuals to collaborate with the rest of the world. Moreover, Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody provides a more timely account of the decentralizing effect of the Internet. What with individual consumers becoming producers and broadcasters of information/culture/ideas, Shirky explains the hitherto unprecedented ability of individuals to collaborate on projects and organize for collective social action. Questions continue to arise such as: Can we ever be less connected ever again? Does the Internet actually flatten or decentralize hierarchy? Does it reinforce hierarchy? Who has access to media technology? How has access changed with the rise of cyberspace?

I decided to explore the professional realm of digital media and politics by interning at the Center for American Progress this past summer. In conjunction with my current Air America Media internship, I have become increasingly embedded in the progressive movement and its use of progressive communications platforms for online advocacy. Some remaining questions I’m tackling include: What are the legal and technical constraints on the Internet? What are the politics of new media technology and how does this affect access and governance? How can the government use the Internet to improve transparency and accountability (dubbed Gov 2.0)? In my colloquium, I hope to delve into the intellectual history of my topic by first discussing basic theories of communication and sociocultural anthropology, applying these concepts to the present-day use of digital media, and then exploring future possibilities for the study of media and culture.

BOOKLIST

ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL, & RENAISSANCE CLASSICS

1. Plato, “Allegory of the Cave”; Phaedrus
2. Aeschylus, Persians
3. William Shakespeare, Othello
4. Homer, Odyssey
5. The Holy Bible
6. Ovid, Metamorphoses
7. Aristophanes, Lysistrata

MODERN HUMANITIES

1. Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

& Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”

1. Edward Said, Orientalism

10.  Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

11.  Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism

12.  Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization

MODERN SOCIAL & NATURAL SCIENCES

13.  Marshall McLuhan, “The Medium is the Message”; Playboy Interview

14.  Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

15.  Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

16.  Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, “Communist Manifesto” + Eben Moglen, “dotCommunist Manifesto”

17.  Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion

18.  George Lakoff, Don’t Think of An Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate

AREA OF CONCENTRATION

19.  Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

20.  Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity

21.  Yochai Benkler, Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

22.  Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (for criticism)

23.  Beth Simone Noveck, Wiki Government

Me in the Center for American Progress internship video. I say the first 3 words: "Change does happen." Click to watch all of it.

I abandoned my blog this summer. Perhaps I could blame it on my apartment’s lack of wireless connectivity, or on my 9-6 working schedule (though my wireless hadn’t stopped me from posting twice in May and my internship provided more than enough content to blog about). It could be that summer vacation seeped into my brain as my academic thoughts seeped out (though I managed to blog throughout last summer, with two jobs). Then again, I could always just revert to the fact that I am more of a Twitter person (not to mention the only people who find this blog are ones who Google “Hunter Parrish” + any combination of “gay? girlfriend? naked? Silas?”).

My seeming aversion to blogging presents a dilemma insomuch as I feel like I should have put more effort into ninanyc.com these past two months; I say “should” because substantive blogging is a requirement for any hopeful up-and-comer in the digital media marketing/online advocacy sphere. And yet, is it so wrong that I don’t enjoy hearing or discussing the same topic (“social media,” or anything else, for that matter) interminably? While the Internet and social networks account for my major as well as my work/internship life, one can only handle so much 2.0 talk. Blasphemy or honesty? You decide.

That said, I’ll continue to blog, though on an infrequent basis. This blog never had an explicit purpose or goal and so it has drifted along, becoming more of an intermittent chronicle of my life. I’m content to keep it that way, since my life consists largely of online social networks anyway. As a happy and busy Sam explained, “I’m having a hard time adapting (or even caring about adapting) this blog to a new purpose. It was basically a time-filler, and the time is currently filled.” As I just explained…my blog has no new purpose to adapt to, but my time is currently filled with exciting opportunities, a pending graduation, loved ones, and a new apartment in the West Village.

I will probably post again soon to recount my experience interning in DC this summer and to review my new place with soon-to-be roommate (Gawker-dubbed “NYU’s new-media wunderkind”) Cody Brown. Of course, don’t hold your breath.

I’ve also been trying to get a start on my rationale/colloquium topic for graduation (trust me, it’s still in its convoluted/overbroad stage). Trying to find some inspiration, I watched this documentary that was recently launched online (May 12) by London-based Banyak Films – it’s titled Us Now. The documentary helped me formulate some key ideas on the topic of “mass collaboration, government, and the internet.” It takes a look at collaborative websites such as CouchSurfing.org, Mumsnet.com, and MyFootballClub.co.uk.  The case study of MyFootballClub.co.uk is particularly intriguing – the club is the first web community to own a football (read: U.S. soccer) team, Ebbsfleet United, while also deciding how the team plays by vote (e.g. player positions, budget, etc.); not to mention Ebbsfleet United went on to win the FA trophy at Wembley in 2008.

Us Now examines these sites’ successes as precursors to new forms of participatory government. The video below is only a teaser clip of some especially insightful parts of the documentary.

You can watch the hour-long documentary online in its entirety HERE.

The first time I live-tweeted an event, it was unintentional. I was watching the Golden Globes and began using the hashtag (#goldenglobes) for the sake of convenience in following everyone else’s awards commentary. It didn’t occur to me that what I was doing was considered “live-tweeting, ” until I suddenly gained 20 new followers and potentially had 20 other followers who were ready to yell at me in 140 characters or less. Then I started to understand the pros and cons of live-tweeting.

Provided that the event itself is buzz-worthy (highly-anticipated, well-attended/viewed, featuring people with influence/celebrities), the hashtag should itself gain momentum. All of this criteria applied to the Golden Globes. I had conversations with people who were watching the awards at the same time, as well as those who could not access a television and were thankful for tidbits of real-time information (i.e. “Kate Winslet is so classy!” and “Why does Drew Barrymore’s hair keep getting bigger???” and “Did Colin Farrell really just make a coke joke?”). Of course, there were people on the West Coast who were understandably peeved about having to avoid Twitter for the fear of ruining the surprise of who wins; others simply did not want #goldenglobes to continually dominate their tweet feeds. The former are the people who followed me (as I found people through Twitter Search and followed them) and the latter are those who temporarily hated me.

When it come down to it, live-tweeting involves talking about ONE subject repeatedly. Just as it gets tiresome to overhear two people’s conversation without being able to leave, it is much the same on Twitter with @replies.

******In the middle of writing this post, I read on Twitter that a plane crashed in Clarence, NY, on its way to Buffalo from Newark, NJ.  It was a Continental commuter plane carrying 44 passengers and 4 crew members, none of whom are reported to have survived. The plane also struck 1 or 2 people on the ground. @KeithBurtis was the first to tweet about it and is getting numerous phone calls from the media for eyewitness reports; he’s understandably upset about the circumstances while still having to provide information to news outlets, who will thus report to the rest of the world:

Another neighbor, SpiketheCowboy711, took a video of the crash site and the massive fire.  He zooms in on the firemen at the scene.  His raw footage was already played on CNN and is being retweeted over and over on Twitter.

I promise to continue my original post as soon as possible but this tragedy was just too immediate to ignore.  As for @KeithBurtis and SpiketheCowboy711 (as well as all of my followers who kept me posted before I could find any information on CNN or The New York Times), they’re the real live-tweeters I need to be following tonight.

President Obama is, undeniably, the first U.S. President of the digital age. Throughout his election campaign, Obama became a wildly popular participant in a wide range of social networks (from Twitter to YouTube, LinkedIn to Flickr; and, of course, on Facebook and MyBarackObama.com). By utilizing online technologies to reach out to citizens and to organize countless enthusiastic communities, Obama and his new media team amassed millions of supporters through conversation and interaction. By talking as well as listening to voters, Obama successfully opened up the lines of communication with citizens – people developed immense loyalty and support for the candidate who could seemingly empower and unite anyone, in a genuine and far-reaching way. Of course, this story is already old news because the technologically-savvy President is now in office. That is, the transition to a two-way administration that facilitates increased transparency has only just begun. Case in point: digital fireside chats (formerly located here, before Inauguration), The Citizen’s Briefing Book, and the first ever Presidential Blackberry.

What comes as more of a surprise, however, is the legislative branch’s own forays into new media tools. Beginning to break its closed shell of stodginess, Congress can be found tweeting under the Twitter usernames @HouseFloor and @SenateFloor

They may not @reply or follow others - however, it's definitely a new form of communicating Congressional activity.

Perhaps even more exciting, Congress has been developing their commercial-free YouTube “hubs” for both the House of Representatives (HouseHub) as well as the Senate (SenateHub). These sites feature an interactive Google Map through which users are encouraged to “Discover, Connect, and Engage with [their] Government.” By clicking on a state, the map displays the links to that state’s Representatives’ or Senators’ YouTube channel (provided they have one). Though YouTube manages these hubs, each Congressperson’s office creates the original content for their individual channels – a huge step in the direction of a more transparent and open government.

In addition to clicking on the state, there is also a drop-down menu from which you can select your state.

In the video below, both the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate welcome citizens to check out Congress’s new home on the internet. Despite their differences, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says, “one thing we can agree on is the importance of utilizing technology to communicate with constituents.” They welcome comments and response videos from citizens, thus encouraging people to directly access and communicate with their elected officials. In other words, instead of mass calling a Senator’s office, people can also create YouTube video responses. This ability has shifted into every internet user’s hands, along with the responsibility to find their representatives on YouTube and to keep tabs on their activity in Washington D.C. This “backstage pass to government” may be unprecedented, but it is certainly welcome.

Oh, and there’s also a new iPhone application called Town Hall that gives you information on all current or past members of Congress – it even gives Twitter Search results that display what people are tweeting about that representative. Now if only this application would also link to each Congressperson’s YouTube page…

Despite the busy week and the fact that I should be reviewing Supreme Court cases, I’ll attempt to list the news I’m currently excited about.  If this bullet format seems like a trend of mine, you can attribute it to my love for Twitter – which happens to fit my scattered thoughts perfectly.  As I’ve said before, Twitter is always the best place to see what I’m doing/thinking (also known as virtually lurking me – it’s okay, that’s kind of the point).

• President Obama gets to keep his beloved Blackberry, though he’s upgrading to a more exclusive, high-security version.  Barackberry v.2?  I completely understand this personal victory, as I’m becoming more attached to my own new Blackberry.  This change in the executive branch’s connectedness should be welcome because Obama IS the first U.S. President of the digital age (the White House, on the other hand, needs some adapting).

• In addition to CNN/Facebook’s livestream and feed of Facebook updates, Microsoft Photosynth was taking people’s 2D photos of the event and overlapping each picture’s unique perspective to create a 3D experience. Last spring, a speaker came to my Anthropology of Media course and actually demonstrated this technology – he showed us how thousands of individual tourists’ photos of Notre Dame could be “stitched together” in a way that allows people to explore popular destinations from their computer.  From what I remember, you can click on any single layer (representing an individual photo) and the program will show you the exact position from which the picture was taken (i.e. where the photographer was standing).

• The Undercurrent Social Island(TM) is in full effect, as Julia put it the other day. We’re avid socializers and self-proclaimed digital ninjas (hii-yah!):

Also in this pic: Ana and Sean, Julia took the photo. I'm hunched over, writing something down.

Sorry for the rushed post.  Until next week.

So far, my LinkedIn and Delicious accounts have proven useful.  While LinkedIn successfully connects me with coworkers and classmates, it also presents all of my professional information in one very accessible profile; I’ve also added the WordPress application that displays tidbits of my blog posts on my profile.  Pros to a regular resume?  The “websites” section, the customizable URL, the thorough scope of information, and the use of recommendations.  Some cons?  It has to match the paper resume perfectly, if submitted together.  I also think the site needs a nicer, slightly more personalized look; while it looks clean, LinkedIn should allow users to alter little details of their profile, such as font, bullet points, formatting/layout of the different sections.  As for Delicious, it serves as a simple, easy-to-reference log of the websites/articles that I read and share on Twitter – whereas my tweets will eventually disappear from my profile, I can always look back at my Delicious bookmarks.

With Aditi‘s help and encouragement, I’ve finally put together a much more complete RSS feed that’ll keep me updated on news, pop culture, technology, and social media sites, in addition to my friends‘ awesome blogs.  Oh, the pain and excitement of committing to new networks.

An old, but now active profile? My YouTube page.  I think I’ll actually post videos this time around, what with my new MacBook and Blackberry.  (Don’t worry, 12seconds, I still adore you.)  See my semi-ridiculous debut video – featuring me, Meghna, and the crazy squirrel in Princeton- below:

To wrap up this post, here are other things I’m watching/loving this week:

• the Palm Pre!! I want it. And as much as I love my Blackberry, I want this phone more. And they’re releasing it on Sprint (my carrier) as well, sigh. Perhaps in a couple years when they come out with a newer-and-more-improved version.
• Kate Winslet’s Golden Globe acceptance speech for Best Actress in a Drama.  Classy and quirky simultaneously.  In response to her speech, I wonder why she isn’t married to Leo.  Then again, her husband (Sam Mendes, American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) is an amazing director and the father of her children.

• Since September, there have been YouTube “hubs” for the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.  Displaying a U.S. map, the sites connect to each Congress member’s YouTube channel (which is actually, for the most part, applicable).  Hadn’t heard about it until now, but I think it’s about time.  Now to see how the Obama administration makes government spending available to taxpayers online – website + Twitter?

Yes, I’m at home in New Jersey.  As I’ve explained several times, my tendency to become unproductive while home is in full swing – and by “full swing,” I mean a less energetic albeit consistent medium-speed swing.  The majority of my days consist of me lounging around in my pajamas, completely zoned into the television (or television shows on my computer), as time somehow passes.  Though this kind of lazy hibernation is a particularly bad habit of mine, the mindless vegging not only helps my post-finals recharge but it also means more mindless reality-TV-bonding-time with my mom, cuddled under a blanket in our recliner.  This break has so far consisted of Mad Men, a sudden cold which I expertly slept away, more Mad Men (I started the first season last Friday and I’m already halfway through Season 2), and hangouts with friends here and there.  However, in an effort to be slightly more productive with my seemingly infinite free time, I finally made an account on both LinkedIn and Delicious last night.

I'm working on getting more connections at the moment.

I figured I should continue expanding my social network presence.  Next up is probably Flickr – once I (hopefully) get this Blackberry, in which case tweeting will also become much easier with Twitterberry.  Whereas Delicious is pretty self-explanatory as far as bookmarking sites/videos/articles/etc. go, LinkedIn should be relatively more interesting to explore.  I’ve already come across college friends’ and coworkers’ profiles so I’m curious whether the network goes beyond this utility.  As Julia explained it to me a couple weeks ago, LinkedIn has high search engine optimization, meaning it’s a good profile to have available/searchable no matter what.  Case in point: it already shows up as the third link when I Google my full name, only preceded by this blog (which is first, woo!) and Digg (which I rarely use anymore).  So far, I’m glad I joined and we’ll see how my digital professional network grows.  Speaking of networks, I have 500 followers on Twitter now (skepticism aside, this is an exciting milestone, people)!

As for my next post, expect some musings on the tension between providing personal information on public networks and maintaining privacy and security.  Not that I’ve ever had a problem [knock on wood] but due to recent indirect experiences, the boundary between public/private has been on my mind lately.

Anyway, Happy Holidays, dear friends and readers – stay safe