Week Five Archives, Authority and Memory, Cultural and Individual/Theory and Practice

According to this week’s reading, I found that I have the same view with Jacques Derrida about his theory of Archive Fever. What the theory claims is that archives, which can be defined as a collection of documents and records that include historical information and archive can also used to refer to the place where it is stored. It also constructs the basis of the society and its individuals.

Nowadays, People can archive most aspects of their lives digitally, changing the way we express our personalities and personal histories (Ogle 2010). Just considering this theory at the most basic everyday life level proves it true to me. The record of history is what makes up me or my position in the communities that I am involved in. The photos I have posted on my Face book page shows others what kind of a person I have. When you look at my face book timeline which shows the relationship between me and other people has demonstrates the interactions I engage in with other people.

Actually, archive is not only the data collections on my Facebook, I also have posted various of personal things uploaded onto a weibo, renren, wechat and Instagram. Of course, there are all sorts of Meta data that involve other people as well, and they also have their own collections of data on the online platforms the same like me. Therefore, it can be seen that we are all archives and just like food, archive too has always been the most integral part of our everyday life. Without archives, it is impossible for us to know who we are as a group and as individuals. It just like what Derrida’s Archive has illustrated that the history is what makes up the present that is quite universally philosophically true (Derrida 1995, p. 17).

Reference List:

Derrida, Jacques (1995) ‘Archive Fever—A Freudian Impression’, Diacritics, 25(2), pp9-63.

Ogle, Matthew (2010) ‘Archive Fever: A love letter to the post real-time web’, mattogle.com, December 16, <http://mattogle.com/archivefever/>

Week Four Assembling Publishing-Publics/Archive Fever

According to week 4’s lecture notes and readings, the main topic of this week is actor-network theory which developed by the staff Michel Callon and Bruno Latour. To more details, it illustrates the connection and interaction between humans and non-human actors that form the new network and it also mentions the relationship between scientific practice and social background.

According to actor-network theory, it says that the scientific practice and social background are working and producing stuffs together; they do not have a causal relationship but develop in company. In addition, the actors in actor-network theory are generalized that both be appropriate for humans (actor) and non-human strength (actant). On the basis of the book science in action, Latour has said that science is a field of both human and non-human interactions, where either party is not given special priority, which seems like human and non-human are equally exist on the world.

Actually, it is intricate to analyze the network in this theory. Because it seems like an assemblage who concentrates resources in certain places-NODE, and the notes have connect the dispersed resources into a net and extend to all corners. It can be found in wiki that the most important and fundamental purpose of using the word ‘network’ in this theory is to make human and non-human equally, especially in network sphere. In Latour’s viewpoint, there is no opposition between natural and society. However in contrast, they are completely integrated and both the elements in network.

Additionally, in terms of the actor-network theory, it emphasizes the different relationships. The first main point is about human and non-human, it can be conclude that they might be placed on the equal footing in the network. For instance, in the previous, teachers and scholars are the particular human who are supposed impart knowledge, but now the network can do everything they did and even do better than them, because students can get everything they need online such as Google, wiki and so on. Therefore, in some respects, human and non-human are equally in network and this can be regard as a good phenomenon that shows the network and human are developing together and they are completely integrated.

As i mentioned before, an assemblage can be defined as a text which is adapted from the older versions that aims to adapt a new context. This is possible to blear the line between invented and borrowed work. It is obviously to see that the music always has been ‘remixed’ to adapt the modern audiences. In addition, because of the fast moving nature of publishing which caused the phenomena that publishers are made to adapt, assemblages may be possible to allow publishers to achieve some sort of control over the content audiences are able to see. Similarly, another example is about the concept of a paywall. It seems like a system which prevents users from accessing site content without a paid subscription. Through this way, publishers can not only boost revenue, but also increase the amount of their print subscribers, again changing the nature of new publishing platforms and also giving publishers a degree of control over their audience.

In summary, it is obviously to see that with the appearance of technology and a various range of publishing platforms, the history of publishing tools and techniques has changed forever. Even at present, publishing is a dynamic force which is changing to order to adapt to the new types of audiences being formed by new publishing devices all the times. This change is the key to understanding the social impact publishing has had on the general public.

Week Three Genres, Processes, Tools and Techniques of Publishing

The main point of this week is the various techniques which used for publishing. Web Publishing Tools are applications that are used to design and build websites for either the Internet or an Intranet. They scope for simple text editors that can generate web application code through to highly sophisticated and feature-rich web authoring packages. Some Web Publishing Tools must be installed on a workstation.  Others are server-based and are accessed through a web-interface.  Web Publishing Tools can also be called Web Authoring Tools.

This website provides an overview of current Web Publishing application software.  It is intended for individuals and small business owners that wish to establish a new website or want to upgrade an existing site to one that is more attractive, functional and maintainable.

There are two different kinds of Web Publishing Tools.  The first type is "code centric" and simply assists the web author to write and validate HTML code.  The second type is "page centric" and uses a WYSIWYG user interface. This Web Authoring Applications allow the user to layout web pages, add text and graphics and create hyperlinks from one web page to another. 

Here are some websites I found online which can help to discover the most popular web publishing tools. The first is called fusion, which is a popular Web Publishing Tool that lets users to visually map out the website structure and allows users to publish their sites easily to the web. This website allows global changes to be made, automatically updates links, and constructs and organizes individual pages without using HTML or Dynamic HTML coding. Others are Hot Metal, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Microsoft FrontPage and Page mill.  

Actually, with the modern technology get into people’s life, like the Smartphone enters into the dynamic, MICHAEL SACASAS saids that ‘it disrupts the body’s communicative patterns. Gestures, eye contact, posture, facial expression — all of it is altered. People’s body no longer means in the way it is used to being perceived. It becomes impossible to achieve an optimal grip on the embodied interaction. Additionally, as our bodies give and receive this sort of communication tacitly and often in remarkably subtle ways in the act of conversation, we may not be conscious of this dissonance.” 

Ever since advertisement paid the news publishers the big money, news has been corrupted in accordance with the intention of the publisher’s finance team. The news had to be filtered to fulfill the biggest sponsor or include unrelated stories about certain advertising items. However, it can be seen that the statistics are showing the success of pay walls at present, it means in face people are willing to pay for quality news reports and so on, journalism might just as well come back to its basics and turn over a new leaf.If readers are willing to pay money for the “good” news, publishers will not have to rely on the resource from advertisers. If readers are willing to pay journalists for proper news, journalists will actually be able to make big money for journalism.

Week Two History, Present and Future of Publics and Publishing

The key concept of this week’s study is that the origin of publishing, the transformation of publishing by printing, and then by digital and networked media, and e-book.

 Actually, publishing can be defined as the business of issuing printed matter for sale or distribution in the public. In order to make the it well-known in the public, so far it was from the proclaiming, until for now is changed a lot by printing (newspapers, books, magazines), recording (photography, music, film), digitising and on the Internet like 3d printing and some semantic webs. However, the most significant differences between publishing and printing is that the former is making public, but the latter is just ditto. additionally, The definition of printing is the reproduction by applying ink to paper as for publication and they are all the copies of the work.

In tends of publishing and its social impacts, although some people, institutions, business models still prefer investing older methods to do the things, and there are lots of debates about piracy of the books, music and films, or the further of journalism which survive the Internet, it also can be seen that people have more and more diverse music, books, journalism and public than ever before.Therefore, it can be concluded that the changes in publishing act as a promotion in development of history, they have altered the ways in which people interact with written language and also paved the way for information explosion.

According to will self, it can be concluded that “novel will still continue to be written and read, but it will be an art form on a par with easel painting or classical music which is confined to a defined social and demographic group, requiring a degree of subsidy, a subject for historical scholarship rather than public discourse.”

Sachin Kamdar also said that “as publishers have adopted new technology first, they can get the ability to better understand their audience markets , optimize their supply chain, and meet the demands of their customers from the content performance data. The insights from older data help them create new product that is going to be in demand. ”

Lehrer has illustrated in his article called ‘The Future of Reading’ that books having withstood the tests of time have proved to be very durable. In most cases, a tool through which many a thing is passed on from generation to generation, it has been and still is a primal learning and educational object.

This picture illustrates the process of publishing, from the beginning author do the word processing to write to the end books parcel, this is a cyclical process which go round and round.

This picture shows how to use e-book by Electronic equipment like apple ipad. it is very convinces for people to read all the books or magazines they want and take them away, just need a ipad. 

This pictures shows two girls publish their e-book and they said in the interviewing that: "founding and creating online magazines, writing for online publications and blogs and feel at home in the space. We also love the potential reach that you can be anywhere in the world and download a copy of SFOF.It’s easy, it’s instant, it’s accessible, it’s affordable. We wanted to bring a sense of quality to the digital space. We both love print, but digital is such a strength of ours, and we wanted to keep learning and evolving the space."

reference:

Kylie Triggell, 'Interview with Online Book Publishers O&S Publishing', http://gaynoralder.com/author/kylie-triggell/

http://karenknowsbest.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/howitworks.gif

http://www.nobledesktop.com/image/sem-graphic/digital-publishing.jpg