Story/Novel Idea: Spectral Tech, Inc.

Eighteen-year-old Court has been on the streets ever since police found him bloodied up and unconscious a year ago. He has no recollection of what happened or who he is. He had no wallet on him, no identification except for a name inscribed on his (handkerchief/coat/other). Lives in an old, half-finished factory with two friends--a lady named Phyllis (who calls him Courtney) and a kid his age, Zeke. There have been recent protests against Spectral Tech, Inc., a company whose consciousness-porting technology allows the wealthy to hire 'Specter' agents, lower-class people who essentially give up control of their bodies for a certain amount of time in exchange for monetary compensation. The wealthy still control all, but now the middle class is made up primarily of so-called "specs," and with technological developments in manufacturing, agriculture, etc. people who oppose conscience porting have no real means of sustenance and thus live in poverty. Having lived on the streets, Court has become a champion of the common man and an active opponent to Spectral Tech.

Some rights reserved (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Greg Bayles, modified from original, by James Nash

Having had little success in terms of his peaceful protests, Court eventually decides to take things into his own hands by sneaking into the highrise where Spectral Tech houses their executive offices. Court and some of his fellow activists venture inside, but Court gets separated from his comrades and ends up being chased by guards up to the top floor. Court tries a number of doors, and just as the guards burst from the elevator, one of the doors scans Court's eye and opens inward. Court tumbles inside and a computer voice greets him by name as the door closes gently behind him. Looks around at the posh office space. Big windows, plush white carpets, modern art. Quiet, no sound from the security officers who are probably pounding down the corridor and will soon be bursting through the mahogany door.  In the corner, Court sees a Spectral Chamber (provides nourishment, health monitoring, etc. so they don't have to leave the immersive environment unless they want to). He's never seen one before. Goes over, jumps when he sees that there's a man in the chamber! Court's blood is boiling, anger rising, and then he sees the Spectral display. The display's field of vision has centered on a Spectral display, creating an infinite loop of decreasing windows. Court looks over at the man, and in his peripheral vision he sees that the display now shows the same man. Right as the guards burst through the door, Court comes to the realization that he himself is a specter...

Bridging the Divide: How Digital Writing Can Save the Humanities

[This is the first post in a series on the benefits and advantages of digital writing and distribution over traditional scholarly inquiry. In you have thoughts, suggestions, questions, or contentions, please feel free to make them known in the comments.]

[Over to "Schematic Overview"] [Down to "Connectivity"]

Introduction

Image Credit: Sporti

Creative Commons License: Attribution 2.0 Generic

I began this project initially as a piece of formal academic writing. I realized, of course, the inherent irony in traditional academic writing, but I felt at that time that my work wouldn't be taken seriously if it were presented as a blog. As I began writing, though, I realized that if I held to that same form that I sought to reform, I would be limiting my ability to adequately express my ideas in a way that would be meaningful and powerful. In the introduction to Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, Peter Rudy explains Zamyatin's belief that form and content must complement one another, "that only a heretical form could adequately dramatize heretical ideas" (x). Perhaps saying that scholars need to look at digital writing as the salvation of the humanities isn't as heretical as some of the claims being made in contemporary scholarship, but nonetheless, if the humanities are to remain relevant within a modern context, they must learn to thrive within the mediums of our day. And if the humanities are to survive the transition to this brave new world of the digital age, there must be a bridge built between formal and digital writing. Academia must broaden its scope and prove its grand potential.
preparing a piece of academic writing dedicated to the weaknesses of

Bridging the Divide: Schematic Overview

[Back to "Introduction"]

This project is not a research paper. While it embraces certain fundamental aspects of a research paper, the very nature of the medium requires that the reader think about these ideas differently than he might were he to read a traditional research paper instead. Neither is this meant to be a comprehensive study of writing or of digital distribution. Rather, it serves as an exploration of key concepts and scholarship as pertaining to digital writing and is written with the intent of helping students, scholars, and other interested parties to make better use of digital tools and strategies in creating and disseminating meaningful content.

To the right is a visual scheme for the overall structure of the work. The main argument follows a central path, as one might expect from a typical research paper, but each main "body page" includes branching links to pertinent digital topics and further scholarship. Use the links at the top and bottom of each page to navigate to adjacent pages, and keep an eye out within the texts themselves for links to branching pages, denoted by [square brackets].

[Back to "Introduction"]

Bridging the Divide: Social Proof in Action

[Back to "Connectivity"]

To demonstrate the points of social proof and social discovery in a humanities context, I wanted to share a recent encounter that I had with Harold Bloom, the esteemed Yale sterling scholar. I had been researching Paradise Lost's Satan figure for an undergraduate class on John Milton, and I came across an article that stated that Bloom had advised the author to read Paradise Lost from a secularist view. This was right in line with the claim that I was trying to prove, but searching through Bloom's scholarly publications, I wasn't able to find much of anything that contributed to my understanding of the topic. I had the presumption to try contacting Dr. Bloom himself for more info, and while I honestly didn't expect a response--especially not from someone so prominent within the literary community--I figured it was worth a shot if anything that my digital writing professor had been saying was true. I was very pleasantly surprised when, two days later, I opened my inbox to find a response. My email was as follows:

Bridging the Divide: The Watermill Principle

[Back to "Connectivity"]

Photo courtesy of Oliver Bacquet
Creative Commons License: Attribution 2.0 Generic

Despite the Watermill Principle's utter simplicity, it remains an essential component in understanding the potential of digital writing to rescue and revitalize the humanities. The concept is this: if you want a watermill to work for you, you build it by a river. Initially, this concept may seem a bit facile, but when related to writing and, more specifically, to digital writing, it becomes a foundational principle for creating meaningful content and effecting real change in the world.

So, I say it again: build your watermill by a river, not in a desert. Too often in formal academic writing, the proposed audience consists of a selective group of scholars and specialists. Academics often assume that because their work is specific and eclectic, it must therefore have relevance only to an isolated group of individuals. While this is, in some cases, true, more often than not, scholarly works are kept from cultural relevance only because they are kept from the people. Scholars sometimes build their watermills in the desert and either expect the river to flow to them or spend much of their time trying to carve channels in order to direct the flow of readers to their work--sometimes, dare I say, even through social media! While this perhaps proves effective in certain cases, the reality is that there exists a much simpler and more effective way of engaging audiences: you build around those audiences. Rather than trying to redirect the stream toward one's work, the digital scholar builds his research around people and communities, engaging in social proof and receiving feedback on both informal and formal levels. Admittedly, this involves a major paradigm shift for scholars who are used to working in more constrained environments, but building one's scholarly watermill on the river means that the flow of readers is already established. The ideas have been vetted in early stages of social proof, and there are already people interested in the topics, be they scholars, enthusiasts, or just curious users. Aside from that, digital modes of distribution have the potential to open up works of scholarship to a much broader audience, to a veritable river of people and communities with diverse interests and backgrounds, so the work becomes not a static monument to be viewed only by the acolytes of academia but instead a fundamental component within the rich and vibrant conversation and progression of human thought.

[Back to "Connectivity"]

Bridging the Divide: Connectivity

[Up to "Introduction"]   [Down to "Ease of Distribution"]

[Over to "The Watermill Principle"]   [Over to "Social Proof in Action"]

Image courtesy of naomi83
Wikimedia Commons

Digital writing further demonstrates the usefulness of the humanities through its emphasis on connectivity and its potential for a socially-mediated research process. In saying "digital writing," I do not mean simply using a computer to produce writing. Rather, it implies an entirely new writing environment--one that is integrally connected to the Internet and, as such, to a broad network of readers and contributors. It can thus, in some sense, be seen as more of a culture than a mode of production. This "culture" of connectivity, however, is proving increasingly vital in the modern economy, and scholars within the humanities will benefit greatly in seeking to harness the sociality of digitally-mediated writing.

Bridging the Divide: The Long Tail of Digital Scholarship

[Back to "Ease of Distribution"]

Image Credit: Chris Anderson
Creative Commons License: Attribution 2.0 Generic

One of the most fundamental principles in coming to understand a modern mode of content distribution is that of the "Long Tail." The concept of the Long Tail is built on the idea of a left-skewed statistical distribution for content popularity, and basically, it proposes that providing "tail" content serves in increasing sales at minimal costs while providing for a much richer and more diverse content base. The Long Tail was first introduced in 2004 by Wired magazine's chief editor, Chris Anderson, who at that time applied the Long Tail specifically to the entertainment industry. Since that time, the concept of the Long Tail has expanded to embrace  banking, science, and a host of other areas, scholarship among them. Anderson noted that because songs and other forms of digital content facilitate inexpensive reproduction and distribution, producers and online media marketplaces could offer a much broader selection than could, for example, brick-and-mortar stores, which had to rely primarily on high-grossing, "hit" songs. Even on purely digital platforms, these mainstream songs account for the bulk of revenues, but because hosting and distributing "long tail" content is so inexpensive, digital marketplaces are finding that they can cater to both mainstream and more eclectic audiences. As Anderson notes on his blog, "As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare." For scholars writing on somewhat obscure topics like Anglo-Saxon poetic meter or the use of zeugma in the works of Alexander Pope, this ought to sound at least a little bit enticing.

Bridging the Divide: Ease of Distribution

[Up to "Connectivity"]  [Down to "Doing the Risky Thing"]  

[Over to "The Long Tail of Digital Scholarship"]

Digital writing further substantiates the value of the humanities through its ease of reproduction and dissemination. Historically, the sphere of academic publication has been one dominated by scarcity. Publishers want to publish books, and scholars want to share their ideas, but at the end of the day, printing is costly, and there is only so much money to go around. That means that scholarly monographs and journals are limited not only in the number of physical copies that can be profitably produced but also in the overall form--the font size, margin spacing, and use of graphics.

With the onset of digital publication, however, academia has entered an abundance economy. In the past, even integrating black and white images or graphics into a text substantially increased the cost of publication, and widespread distribution of scholarly texts was prohibitively expensive. Modern digital technology has made it possible to easily and inexpensively incorporate not only pictures but music, video clips, surveys, and other forms of interactive media into scholarly and non-scholarly works. In addition, [long tail] dynamics have made it possible for even hyper-specialized works of scholarship to reach broad audiences in a number of different disciplines and on a much more global scale. Works that previously justified no more than five hundred print copies are being downloaded and utilized thousands and thousands of times thanks to online repositories and recent digitization efforts. These efforts are making knowledge more accessible for millions of users throughout the world, thus demonstrating to a broad audience the value of the humanities within a modern context.

Bridging the Divide: "Doing the Risky Thing"

[Up to "Ease of Distribution]   [Over to "Works Cited"]

Even emerging forms like video games have the potential to

engage audiences in meaningful ways and contribute to a

contemporary understanding of art and literacy.

Screenshot from The Last of Us, by Naughty Dog, Inc.

Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic

The reality is that the Internet is not really a new form or an aberration within the spectrum of human interaction--it's just the next phase in a progression of human communication and thought. Writing has served as the dominant form of communication for thousands of years, but it is not the first mode of communication nor the last. Modern, digital paradigms are providing means for integrating a variety of engaging and instructive media resources into writing, and many scholars anticipate the day when such resources will find their place within the broad body of formal academic writing as well. In "Digital Media Studies Futures,"Ben Aslinger and Nina Huntemann suggest that the future will increasingly require writers to bridge disciplinary gaps and rethink literacy to incorporate non-textual formats like video games and film. Sally Pryor offers a similar evaluation of "integrationism" in her article, "Who’s Afraid of Integrationist Signs?" (651). Assessing the historically oral nature of early communication and the visual nature of early writing systems, Pryor suggests that audiovisual and written forms ought to be treated as “complementary facets of one integrated form of communication” (650). In the future it will be harder to define oneself as a scholar of film or writing or music because the concepts are converging, and only those who are able to adapt to these new media formats and writing styles will be in a position to promote the usefulness and relevance of the humanities in our age. We are, in some sense, entering into a new Renaissance, and those who neglect to take advantage of modern forms of digital writing will increasingly find themselves cast into a self-inflicted Dark Age. The world is changing, and with it, scholars and academics must likewise change, adapting to new circumstances and making use of new tools. 

Bridging the Divide: Works Cited

[Back to "Doing the Risky Thing"]

Works Cited

[Below are selected works available through paid online archives. All open resources are linked directly in the body of the blog posts.]

Aslinger, Ben, and Nina B. Huntemann. "Digital Media Studies Futures." Media, Culture & Society 35.1

     (2013): 9-12. Sage Premier 2013. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.

DeVoss, Dànielle Nicole, and James E. Porter. "Why Napster Matters to Writing: Filesharing as a New
     Ethic of Digital Delivery." Computers and Composition 23.2 (2006): 178-210. Print.

Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. "Do 'The Risky Thing' In Digital Humanities." Chronicle Of Higher Education 58.6
     (2011): A96. LexisNexis. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.

Laquintano, Tim. "Manufacturing Scarcity: Online Poker, Digital Writing, and the Flow of Intellectual
     Property." Computers and Composition 27.3 (2010): 193-201. Elsevier SD Freedom. Web. 24 Oct.
     2013.

Liu, Alan. “The State of the Digital Humanities: A Report and a Critique.” Arts and Humanities in Higher
     Education 11.2 (2011): 8-41. Sage Premier 2013. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.

Pryor, Sally. "Who’s Afraid of Integrationist Signs? Writing, Digital Art, Interactivity and Integrationism."
     Language Sciences 33.4 (2011): 647-53. Elsevier SD Freedom. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.

[Back to "Doing the Risky Thing"]

NaNoWriMo Day 2

This is just to let you know that I do get around
to writing some stuff for NaNoWriMo below.
Image by Greg Bayles, remixed from Wikimedia Commons

Dear Blogger,

They say NaNoWriMo is to get you writing. So, if I don't want to write my novel on day 2, does that mean I fail? Or is the whole purpose of this just to get me writing in general?

I slept in later than I ever have before today. I think it might have had something to do with staying up until some ungodly hour to make sure I got in my first NaNoWriMo post so that I wouldn't have a bad precedent, but I'm thinking I might have been better off just wriitng in the morning instead... if not for the dream... I don't usually dream, but when I do, it's usually either really profound and changes my life or is unintelligible until some future event and then kind of reminds me where I'm supposed to be going. I don't have just dreamy dreams. They're not happy. But last night, I found myself in a movie--some movie that I saw a long time ago--and for those few minutes I was happier than I have been in a long, long time. That's not to say that I'm not generally happy, but in that moment--I don't know what it was--I was just carefree and happy, and I felt like I had all of the answers to the questions that have vexed me this last while. Life just made sense, and I thought to myself, "Now, when I wake up, I can just go watch the movie, and I'll understand in real life, and I can be happy there, too."

Chapter 2, Pt 1: The Trial

Happy NaNoWriMo. I'm doing it this year. Rough day to have to start, but I got some writing out there, so I guess that counts for something. Will catch up on words tomorrow or Sunday. P.S. I'm finally writing a novel. Be excited. Maybe not about this chapter (it's intentionally dry for my own purposes), but be looking for stuff all this month, and if for some reason it lags, get on my case about it.

"There will be order in the council room!" The Speaker's ring pulsed white, and the room fell into an anxious hush as the other two tribunal members entered the room and assumed their seats at the front of the crowded hall. The Speaker himself could not have been older than fifty, though his hair, like the oculus shard on his ring, was white like the Northlands snow that my father told me about when I was young. The other two tribunes were younger, kinder, though their eyes spoke of years of judiciary training which had weighed heavy on their minds. The younger of the two, a woman, looked like she might have been from a different city, maybe Sarta, to the south, but it was difficult to distinguish her facial features through the customary black paint of criminal justices.

Catching the direction of my gaze, my court-appointed legal rep leaned toward me and whispered excitedly. "She's one of ours." My excitement apparently was restrained, because he slid he chair closer to mine and continued in subdued animation: "We worked for months to win her over. I honestly didn't think we would get her, what with her being from the south. You know how tight-fisted they can be, but we got 'er in the end. Just took a few trade licenses from our friend at the ministry of commerce. You know 'im--old codger by the name of... by the name... oh, doesn't matter much anyway. We got her."

The Speaker's voice boomed again across the hall. "This morning's case is that of Private Jonah Cross. The defendant will please rise." I felt an elbow jab to my ribs and clamored noisily to my feet. "Jonah Cross. You are brought here hereby accused by Commander Raga of the Salamander Legion on charges of endangering the success and well-being of your battalion, compromising of your mission, and willfully disobeying your commanding officer. The details of this mission are yet classified and will not be discussed at this time, but what have you to say of these matters? Private, how plead you to these charges?"

"Not guilty," I heard myself mumble. The third tribunal member, a slim, young man with honeyed curls of hair, gestured to me to take my seat, and I felt the hard wooden seat rise up beneath me as the legal rep leaned in once more:

"He's also pretty new, blondie over there, but you have nothing to worry about. We made he second largest contribution to his campaign last year, and my daughter played air tag with his son two or three weeks ago. I talked to him before the case, and he's on our side. He assured me that everything would go according to our plans.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

of snow, before he died. He used to tell stories about his missions along the Ivory Wall, skirting along the base of the snow-laden cliffs in search of the Alchemist's Road. They never did find it, though. Or him.

It's like Bara the merchant says: "One day they're here, and every other day, you just wonder and wait."