1: Introduction

Table of contents

1. Introduction
2. Course Annotating and Discussion Participation.
3. Annotating your Self Introduction
4. Course Overview
   1. Two Guiding Course Questions.
   2. Course division.
   3. Syllabus, Assignments, and Expectations.

Introduction

Now that I’ve introduced myself, I want you to introduce yourself. But before you do that I want to introduce a special tool that I hope to use this semester. And, then if you’re able to set it up on your own, I’d like you to introduce yourself using the tool.

Course Annotating and Discussion Participation.

This course is going to have a lot to say about how we think about texts, how we read and write, and how the various media we use to do these actions shape and determine the pathways we find.

Not only are we going to read about these different pathways, but we will also experiment and practice them. One way we’re going to do this in this course is by using an annotation tool called “hypothes.is”. Hypothes.is is tool inspired by the possibilities of the web for inter-linked non-linear, multi sequence thinking. In fact in their promotional video, they refer to a paper by Vannevar Bush that we are going to read later in the course. Watch their video below.

So we’re going to work with this tool, work to build networked discussions throughout our course, and then continuously reflect on how the tools we use use are affecting our reception of the message.

But to do this we need to set up a few things (as described by hypothes.is)

1. Set up hypothesis account so your annotations can be saved.
2. Add the chrome browser extension or (for use in other browsers) drag the “hypothesis bookmarklet” to your bookmark bar.
   • Using Chrome is recommended so that we can all have a consistent experience, and so that I can more easily help you.
   • The hypothesis annotation script will also work for our class PDF readings, but this will mean you will need to open and read these PDFs in your chrome browser.
3. Finally, I will distribute a link through moodle allowing you to join our “private” hypothesis group so that our annotations will be visible to each other, but will not be made public to the world.

We will have ample time to discuss how this tool is working throughout our course. But for now, I ask that you give it a try and then “lean” into it, so that we allow it to help us create a vibrant connected discussion around common texts.

If you’re not able to get working, we can discuss it during our live course time, or during office hours.

Annotating your Self Introduction

You can highlight and comment on any text within our course packet. If I say something, that is unclear, you should highlight it and note that it was unclear and why. If something seems interesting, you should highlight it and say why it is interesting. As your fellow class mates add annotations, feel free to respond directly to their annotations (create an annotation on their annotation!).

You should also feel free to liberally use tags to help link discussions across pages and annotations. You should do the same for our class readings that are available as PDF. By reading these in the browser, you can use the annotation tool to annotate the text.

Annotations shared with our group will be visible to the entire class for discussion.

But even more exciting is that you can use this tool almost anywhere on the web. If you’re reading an article on wikipedia or the New York Times and it seems relevant to our class, you should annotate it with the group, and it will get connected to our class discussion. To draw even more attention to material you’ve found, you can capture a link to your annotation and then share that link in a page annotation or somewhere on the course notes.

Occasionally, some places in our course packet will be marked as discussion. These are targeted points that I am explicitly asking for you to join the discussion either by adding an annotation or responding to an annotation made by someone else in the class. These discussions will become a focal point for further live discussion when we meet together in person. But your annotations are by no means restricted to these discussions. You should feel free to annotate anywhere and everywhere on the course packet notes, on the course readings, or across the web.

So now that you’ve have the tool installed, let’s try to use it by highlighting the prompt question below and introducing yourself.

Here’s a video of how I do it.

Course Overview

In preparing this course, I’ve focused on preparing a set of readings, exercises, and questions that can evoke a conversation that will be useful to your own exploration. But I will be a co-researcher/investigators with you. I do not always have answers for you to simply absorb in large part because the field is so new and so rapidly evolving that we haven’t even yet found the right or pertinent questions for the topic at hand.

We know that we are living through one of the greatest media shifts human history has ever experienced. But there is no textbook or map for appreciating this transition because no one has ever lived through it before.

We are living this transition first hand, thus we must turn to our own cognitive powers to organize and then assess what is happening. That is what I want to do with you.

Two Guiding Course Questions.

With that said, let me turn to introducing the general structure of our course, and let me do so by first offering two very high level questions that can help shape the direction our exploration takes.

First:

We are not the first to recognize the impact of media shifts. Many thinkers of the 20th century believed they were going through an enormous shift, unaware of the fact that, by comparison, the transitions to radio and television would appear as a mere blip in comparison to the changes of the 21st century.

It was therefore Marshal McLuhan, the media guru of super star status in the 1970’s, who argued that the “Medium is the Message”. We will explore this claim in our next class.

But in brief, McLuhan wanted to point out that the medium through which we receive information/message is not an innocuous means of transport. Rather the medium affects and shapes the ultimate message we receive.

Said another way, the medium affects our consciousness. We cannot simply say that we have an idea and then we express that idea in a medium from which the recipient then extracts that same message. Rather McLuhan insist that the medium of expression has determined or affected what consciousness thinks, and the medium of expression has determined or affected what message the recipient extracts.

We will operate with this as a working hypothesis throughout the semester. But taking this claim as a hypothesis, we should constantly be looking for evidence for and against it.

Is it really true that medium affects consciousness in this way? Where do we see evidence for or against this claim?

Second:

On the assumption that the “medium is the message”, there is a second, more difficult, more paradoxical, perhaps unanswerable question.

In the midst of a shift as momentous as this one, we not only want to observe the impact of media, but we also want to use this reflection to make decisions about action.

What benefits are at risk of being lost through a given media shift, what benefits are to be gained?

How ought we to measure the pros against the cons, and how might this advise us going forward when we as humans choose to use one medium over another.

The question is, however, made paradoxical by our initial hypothesis.

If the dominant medium shapes our consciousness, then how is it possible to see outside or beyond the medium environment within which live.

If a given medium encourages certain patterns of thought, then this will develop into a norm or nature to be valued and preserved. What threatens this pattern will be seen as bad, not necessarily because it is “absolutely bad” but because it threatens the values shaped by the current dominant media form.

In short, how we can we ever judge the pros/cons from a neutral standpoint? Won’t our evaluations simply confirm what our habituation to a given medium prefers?

Or is it possible that, with enough reflection and effort, we can get a peek outside of the world-view shaped by our dominant environment to glimpse independent and universal truths about human nature? Is it possible to see some eternal values or goods that exist apart from the world in which we live; values which can direct or guide the choices we make about media based on the degree to which a given medium promotes or discourages such eternal or fixed values.

This is an open and difficult question, but an important one.

On the one hand, we need to be keeping an eye out for the values that we want our tools and technology to help us achieve. On the other hand, we need to be constantly aware to what degree these tools and technologies are determining the very values we pursue.

In short, we need to ask: is this something we really value, or is it something we’ve been trained to value by the dominant media forms, and is it possible to tell the difference?

There are no easy answers. But they are deep questions that I want us to continually circle back to as we progress through the semester.

Course division.

With these broad questions in mind, let’s turn to the general structure of our course.

I have divided our course into three units.

I. A history: We will read, from a historical point of view, about how the notion of information has changed over time, ultimately leading us to the modern “theory of information” that some see as the beginning of the “informational turn”.

This will certainly be one confirmation of the McLuhan’s hypothesis: as communications media have changed, so has our understanding of what information is. And as the 20th and 21st centuries have shown us, these changes in conceptual understanding have led to dramatic changes in our individual and social lives.

II. The Text: Reading, Writing, and Thinking.

While some of the pressing challenges raised by modern media are social (questions about freedom, privacy, property, etc.) I want to look first at a more personal set of questions, namely how are media shifts changing affecting some of our most personal and private activities: that of reading, writing, and thinking. Here we will ask questions like: what is a text? what does it mean to read? who is the author? what does it mean to write and to what extent is this a valuable skill?

Some thinkers have suggested that the notion of private reading only emerged in the modern period with the invention of print, giving rise to a uniquely modern preoccupation with the self. I want to explore this impact and how 21st century media are changing the nature of reading and writing (information consumption and information creation), for good or ill.

III. Finally, I want to look at the social impact of media shifts by exploring the notion of public sphere. As Jürgen Habermas notes, the concept of a “public sphere” and “deliberative democracy” is a uniquely modern phenomenon, again made possible through a particular form of media, the printing press.

Here we will want to explore what the public sphere is and the impact of 21st century media on it. Some have heralded the Internet as true medium of democracy while others worry that the Internet, with its vast scale and filtering capabilities, is drowning out the possibility of effective deliberation. Here again, we will want to evaluate if and why a “public sphere” ought to be valued and the degree to which 21st media can benefit or harm the public sphere.

Syllabus, Assignments, and Expectations.

At this point, I’d like you to look over our official class syllabus, the assignments, and expectations.

While looking over the syllabus, you might also look over the Annotation Participation Expectations and Rubric. Again, feel free to annotate directly.

If something needs clarification, try using the tag “nd” (short for “needs discussion). But don’t worry too much about “annotating correctly”. Part of the fun will be to see what kind of annotations, discussions, tags, and communal practices emerge through our course together.