The Culture of Information:
A look at how technology is changing culture

    I was a sophomore in high school when I first heard the word "Internet."  My Honors Biology teacher tried unsuccessfully to explain the concept to our class.  (Not much he said did make sense, however, so this was no surprise.)  The next year, my dad got America Online for our home computer and we were set.  We were "on the Internet."

    Now, the internet is a huge part of my life.  Last week I searched the web for instructions on preparing avocados.  Today I paid my credit card bill online.  I use the web to check the weather forecast, read the news, send greeting cards, chat in real time, shop for books and CDs and clothes, download music, find clip art, buy theater tickets, see what movies are playing, get maps and driving directions, and get recipes for dinner--to name a few.  A crisis erupts when the system is down for even an hour.  (You may not want to admit it, but I know you know what I mean!)

    Until I took "The Culture of Information" at Miami University, I had no idea how much the Internet has changed my life, my identity, my worldview, my relationships.  In reality, the Internet and modern technology in general has changed our entire society.  But because it's so familiar to us, we have to look closely to uncover its influences.

    Come with me --let's take a closer look.

Armstrong, Karen.  The Battle for God.  New York: Knopf, 2000.

Chartier, Roger. “Figures of the Author.” The Order of Books, pp. 25-59.

Frosh, Stephen. “Social Experience and the Constructed Self.” Individualism Reconsidered, pp. 271-86.

McLuhan, Marshall. “The Medium is the Message.” Understanding Media, pp. 7-21.
 

BOOKS

John Berger Ways of Seeing
Albert Borgmann, Holding On To Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Century
Roger Chartier, The Order of Books
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By
 

HYPERTEXT

"Turning In" by Wes Chapman
 

ONLINE READINGS

Joshua Berman's online Turing Game: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/elc/turing
William Blake, The Blake Archive: http://www.blakearchive.org
Vannevar Bush, "As We May Think": http://www.isg.sfu.ca/~duchier/misc/vbush/
Chris Cheek, Online Poetry at the Electronic Poetry Center: http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/cheek/
Nick Gillespie, "Happy Birthday MTV," in Reason Magazine: http://www.reason.com/opeds/ng080101.html
Christopher Keep, et. al., "Ted Nelson and Xanadu," in The Electronic Labyrinth: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0155.html
Alan Liu, Lyotard Auto-Differend Page: http://www.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/ayliu/research/auto/lyotgate.htm
---, "The Tribe of Cool: Information, Culture, and History," paper given at ACH / ALLC 2001 - New York University (a webcast, requiring RealPlayer): http://www.nyu.edu/its/humanities/ach_allc2001/webcast.html, then click on "Webcast of Final Plenary"
Stuart Moulthrop and Sean Cohen, The Color of Television: http://raven.ubalt.edu/features/media_ecology/lab/96/cotv/
The Miami MOO: http://miamimoo.mcs.muohio.edu:7000/
Miracle Device: article on Ted Nelson's Literary Machines at Feed Magazine: http://www.feedmag.com/html/document/98.02nelson/98.02nelson_master.html
Ted Nelson, "What Is Literature?": http://www.univie.ac.at/Philosophie/vw/literat.htm
---, "The Xanadu Ideal": http://www.xanadu.com.au/general/ideal.html
Jim Whitehead, "Orality and Hypertext: An Interview with Ted Nelson" (1996): http://www.ics.uci.edu/%7Eejw/csr/nelson_pg.html
 

ARTICLES

Cleanth Brooks, "The Heresy of Paraphrase," in The Well-Wrought Urn
Michael E. Hobart & Zachary S. Schiffman, "Orality and the Problem of Memory," in Information Ages: Literacy, Numeracy, and the Computer Revolution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1998)
George P. Landow, "What's a Critic to Do?" in Hyper / Text / Theory, ed. George Landow (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994)
Marshall McLuhan, "The Medium is the Message," in Understanding Media
---, "Media Hot and Cold," in Understanding Media
Janet Murray, Introduction to Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997)
---, "From Additive to Expressive Form," in Hamlet
 

VIDEOS

Sut Jhally, Dreamworlds 2: desire/sex/power in music video
Neil Docherty, The Merchants of Cool

The Color of Television (An online story--actually four--in hypertext!)

Dancing Poetry (You have to see it to believe it!)