Monthly Archive for March, 2011

Wo bleibt die Medienpolizei?

Published by packard on 31/03/2011 in German. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Danke für viele spontane Reaktionen auf die Tagungsankündigung zur Kontrolle neuester Medien. Alle Interessierten sind als Beiträger und Mitdiskutanten herzlich eingeladen.

Besonders gefallen hat mir das Bild von dem Aufkleber, den mein lieber Kollege Marcel Schellong vor einer Münchener Eisdiele photographiert und mir geschickt hat. Offenbar ein sehr allgemeiner Ruf nach Ordnung, oder weist das Stoppschild auf das Zugangserschwerungsgesetz hin? Oder die Gehirnwäsche auf — ja, auf Medien allgemein? Wer weiß schon, welche Rolle Medien da genau spielen, also ob das Kompositum ‘Medienpolizei’ hier neutral wie ‘Verkehrspolizei’, positiv wie ‘Sittenpolizei’, ernster wie ‘Kriminalpolizei’ oder vielmehr als Anerkennung von Medien als selbstlegitimierende Macht und Gewalt, nämlich wie ‘Bundespolizei’ verstanden wird.

Ich verzichte mal darauf, denselben Fragenkatalog auch für ‘Medienwissenschaft’ auszuführen.

Jahrbuch für Germanistische Sprachgeschichte: Kostenloser Onlinezugriff für 30 Tage

Published by packard on 30/03/2011 in German. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Das neue Jahrbuch für Germanistische Sprachgeschichte bietet online einen kostenlosen Zugang für 30 Tage zu seinem ersten Band.  »»»»

Tagung und Call for Papers: Neueste Medien unter Kontrolle?

Published by packard on 29/03/2011 in German. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Das neugegründete Institut für Medienkulturwissenschaft in Freiburg lädt zu einer Tagung über die kulturelle Formung und gesellschaftliche Neugestaltung unseres Umgangs mit innovativen Kommunikationsmedien ein. Im Zentrum stehen dabei die gegenwärtigen Ansätze zu einer Kontrolle neuester Medien. Sie sollen durch historische, kulturelle und mediale Vergleiche kontextualisiert, relativiert und besser verstanden werden. »»»»

Recent Linkage 11

Published by packard on 27/03/2011 in Linkage. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

So I’ve spent some time unpacking, and then I spent some time catching up with work that piled up while I was unpacking, and eventually I’ll come round to catching up with the blog that was unattended while I was catching up with work, although luckily this does not quite pile up when I don’t write, although ideas do. Anyway, here is some of the stuff I’ve been reading in-between boxes and keyboards.

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What is Consciousness? Let’s decide by having a vote.

Published by packard on 22/03/2011 in English. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

Information is Beautiful is undertaking a large poll, mapping beliefs about consciousness to age, gender, and rough location, worldwide.

Perhaps even more interesting than the possible outcome is the way they framed the question, offering subjects to choose 3 out of 12 statements about consciousness. While the table with possible choices is a 3 minute crash course in contemporary philosophy, speculation about possible combinations may yield hours of fun. If you’re that kind of person. Which, in my case, happens to be a “Functionalistic Identity Theorizing Behaviourist”, in the poll’s terms. Which are you?

When you find out, feel free to post your vote to the comments here. Perhaps we’ll see how Signifying Media considers consciousness. By strict majority vote, of course.

Recent Linkage 10

Published by packard on 14/03/2011 in Linkage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

What might look like a slow week on Signifying Media has in fact been exciting and filled with work in real life; after taking up my new job in Freiburg in December, I have now finally moved from the bed-no-breakfast-place I was staying and am beginning to turn a flat into a place to live. Whatever it will eventually turn into, I realize it cannot compare to anthills (via Kraftfuttermischwerk), and yet we call it home. So right now, I have nothing to offer but a belated collection of other sources. But I’ll be back with more soon, I think. »»»»

Recent Linkage 9

Published by packard on 04/03/2011 in Linkage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

“A wake-up call’s mother is unfolding.  At the other end is a bell, which is telling us we have built a house at the foot of a volcano.” These are just the first of the amazing claims made by Thomas Friedman in his most recent column, as isolated by an anonymous friend of Jonathan Chait’s. Here are some more things on the net that I found interesting during the last few days:

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Binnentextlinks in der SZ

Published by packard on 03/03/2011 in German. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Blogs und Onlinezeitungen verwenden ja öfter mal Software, die Texte automatisch erweitert. Das geht leicht schief. Kürzlich wurde mehrfach beobachtet, daß etwa automatisch ausgesuchte Werbung Berichte über Guttenbergs Plagiat mit Anzeigen für Ghostwriter und gekaufte Ehrendoktortitel versieht. Ein weiteres Spektrum an rhetorischen Effekten entsteht durch die automatische Verlinkung von Schlagwörtern.

Hier rein exemplarisch zwei Fälle aus dem Onlineangebot der SZ, die mir heute morgen aufgefallen sind: »»»»

What happened to Virtuality Week?

Published by packard on 01/03/2011 in English. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Mid-February, I started a ‘virtuality week’, promising small pieces of a research project on virtuality every day. I started off well enough and continued through the second and third post, promised to continue on Saturday, and never did. So what happened?

Well, the short answer is you don’t really want to know, because it’s all tedious stuff about workflow coupled with a slight dysfunction in the interface I use for scheduling blog posts. Either way, I apologize, and I will be posting the two missing parts during the remainder of this week.

Now, instead of dwelling on what went wrong, let’s recap by considering what I would be doing if I declared virtuality week to be not broken but virtual, i.e. a virtual week that spans the first half of the real week beginning Feb 14th, and continuing during the second half of this week. I think this immediately creates an intelligible idea in our heads, right? But what is that idea about, and why would we accept the word ‘virtual’ to describe it, even as a rough metaphor?

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