Banks: The Digital Divide

The first part of the reading that stuck out to me was the idea of a cultural divide that is keeping parts of the country from literacy (including digital access and literacy).

Banks states that there is a "long stating theoretical blind spot" that is "especially pronounced in a field like English studies, where race, technolog, and questions of access are all addressed... but where the connections between them are almost never explored."

I found this thought to be very interesting. Exactly what connections is he referring to?

*Claims that although engineers, science professionals, and even some mainstream policymakers have long understood the importance of equal access to these technologies, writing and communication teachers of all races have been mostly silent on the subject.
***but if the most important characteristic of computers and the internet is their role as communication technologies, and if these tools have begun a revolution in communication the results for African Americans will be catastrophic (because they have consistently and often systematical been denied access to these technologies).

following the "silence over the decade" as it echoes through journals and books published in composition and technical communication, as well as following African American rhetoric.
**in the past ten years since the digital age divide and broader technology access issues emerged in the nation has a single article addressing race and technological limitations been published in the top three technical communication journals.
** composition as well has published very few articles on technology access and writing instruction.
** there have been several works that call to attention the importance of access; by such authors as James Porter and Cynthia Selfe
*** there are systemic exclusions as well as involvement in political power and literacy.
*** companies will always try to sell expensive "new" software to school, but at times less expensive "lowe-end tools" may be enough


overall I have to say I didn't really understand the article, or chapter rather. I though the author's sentence structure was confusing. Many of the examples were also confusing. throughout the chapter I kept looking for specific evidence of African American (or any minority) that explicitly lacked the opportunity or access to digital technology.

Also, it dawned on me while writing this that there is no visible cultural diversity in our class

Then again,despite the fact that I am middle-class white, I did not have home internet access or even a computer until I was in college. The only regular computers I was exposed to, were in my school, but this access was extremely limited. Although we did have training in PowerPoint and regular access to smartboard, creating a certain paradox.

This reading leaves me baffled.

For a fun experiment though I'm going to show a music video by African American, visibly homemade, and a video by a presumably middle class White kid.
the first video, by an African American artist seems to corrigenda with Banks ideas that races other than White are lacking in digital literacy.
1- It's So Cold in the D by Tbaby
2- Under Cover Penis Lover by Nuglah on youtube.

but of course. I also have an example of a video well made by an African American man.
3- Beyonce spoof video by Alphacat

Wienberger 9 and 10

My first reaction to Wienberger's chapter 9, Messiness as a Virtue, was near horror. Wienberger begins by labeling the levels and different types of messiness The example about photos as a third-order mess is was really stuck out to me. This example that he starts off with also really strikes home to me, since i am such a photo phenatic: "They are potential sources of memory... Maybe your kids are in the background of that awful photo of Aunt Sally and it brings back a surprising moment from your childhood." This exact moment has taken place in my family. At my baptism there is a generic photo of my mother holding me all wrapped in a blanket in the generic baptism pose, but in the background you can see my two older brothers (about 5 and six at the time) blowing out all the candles that are lit as prayers. It such a funny photo that we can't flip through the photos as a family without stopping to laugh about that one and remember how unruly my older brothers have always been. Wienberger makes a great point in stating that the more one would add to the shoe box ( a first-order mess) the less value it has, in the fact that the less likely one is in finding a particular photo. So as with photos, which easily can be applied as a metaphor for metadata, how does one go about organizing all this information? I also have to say here, it feels as if we've read this all before with Wienberger. To Wienberger the simple solution is to add metadata to each photo, making them smarter leaves. We even get another author in this reading stating that "the task of categorization systems is to provide maximum information with the least cognitive effort." What makes the internet so unique is that the "edges" of all information can be fuzzy. It can only be a percentile relation to something else. So what I take from Wienberger's assement is that organization is best within the digital world, because of the infite possibilities to lable and search, but I'm also left with a sense of chaos and unavoidable messes in the physical world.

Wienberger 7&8

Wienberger's thoughts on Wikipedia in chapter seven were the most interesting and though provoking parts of the reading. He starts off by explaining the ways newspapers rank space, moving on to the ways the digital world ranks space. I enjoyed the way Wienberger placed into words the importance of internet ranking of information. He states: "enabling groups of readers to influence one another's front pages not only brings us more relevant information, but it also binds groups socially.  He also states that knowledge is content organization, which is becoming a social act. I find this to be incredibly true even as I watch conversations among my peers. Especially with movies, if you are a movie fan, with today's internet capabilities and standards you should know everything about that movie from the director right down to the original inspiration for the movie. Really, if I could record what I hear and place it on this blog as an example I would. The comparison of one's knowledge on a particular subject have become a past time, at least with my experiences and I'd be extremely curious to know if anyone has had the same experience over the years. 

Weinberger also states that internet places such as Wikipedia have undergone intense media criticism, because of the fact that all it's authors are miscellaneous. I find this to go hand in hand with Mccloud's ideas that comics are considered juvenile in intelligence; authors that can't show a list of their credentials are considered a hoax. But according to Wikipedia, credibility is not based on credentials, but on an authors contributions. Which is what the standard for all authors should be in my opinion. The point of having such credentials is to be able to create such articles as on Wikipedia. In fact Wikipedia states that it encourages pseudo identities above gathering a persons actual identity and credentials. The success of Wikipedia, lies in the ideas of a social consciousness. The idea that collectivily we can provide each other with the information needed, from a simple easy to use and for the first time, free site. The glorified idea of knowlege being spread from man to man has lead to colleges, libraries, books, and finally the internet. And yet in each case the need for knowledge has been a way to make a profit. 

McCloud Reading

I found the reading on McCloud to be very interesting and unique. I can honestly say it is my favorite reading so far. I loved the comic style, I feel it made the reading much more enjoyable. It was also easier to read because there were demonstrations or examples on every page to go along with everything the author was saying. My favorite part I'd have to say was just reading along with the animated author. I greatly enjoyed how his expressions could change from panel to panel. 

Though I did find the reading extremely unique it did remind me of our reading on The Sticky Embrace of Beauty. The ideas of form and content being connected were also mentioned there, but I think McCloud goes a step further in identifying the separation of literature and art. The first thing that came to my mind was manga (and/or graphic novels). I know many people, myself included, who love reading manga and graphic novels. The stories are often complex and thought provoking, as well as artistically inspiring. Yet most people wouldn't consider graphic novels , comics or mangas to be a mature form of reading, despite its mature content.  My example for this is the graphic novel, Watchmen written in the 1980s. Despite the fact that the novel has a deeply intellectual plot, it did not gain popular recognition until it was turned into a movie this year. It is my theory that if one were to try and promote the story as a graphic novel, success would be minimal. But as a movie, the ideas and story is easily attracts an audience. Perhaps though this is simply a cultural issue. In Japan manga is accepted and respected as leisure and intellectual reading. 

The reading has also made me see a greater importance in multimedia. Just as I found McClouds reading to be more engaging through his expressions on the page, the internet is more engaging and more enjoyable to read with multimedia.