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Does Google Make Us Smarter?
We often read articles informing us about new research on human brain, with some spectacular results. This is relatively a new trend. The invent of fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) technology in 1990s revolutionized brain research, making it possible to explore the dynamics of human brain without use of invasive methods. At the beginning of this revolution fMRI was available only in few laboratories. Then, it became more and more prevalent. Now, there is a fMRI imaging facility in almost every research university.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Audience, Participation and Reception: THE ROOM
About a month ago, I attended a midnight showing of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room with fellow CCTers, Sonora Bostian and Lakshmi Padmanabhan. I had vaguely heard of its cult of devotees but really wasn’t ready for what I was about to experience. Often compared to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Room has developed a specific following with ritualized audience part
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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New Electric Car Profiles and the American Auto Industry
The first car I ever drove was a 1989 Dodge Caravan. You remember this model. A dashing midnight blue color, seats 750, heavy, threatning sliding doors, seat belts that went only across the lap (none of this pretentious “across the chest” seat belting), and yes, the glorious faux-mahogany siding that gives it that 70’s look and feel. Although gas prices were a fraction of what they are now (about $1 per gallon) that classic ride was not the most fuel efficient car on the road. I’m going to guess that this may partly have to do with its aerodynamics and weight.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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A Mediated Log, Secular Sermon, and Marking Capitol Time
This is my first gnovis post regarding my master’s thesis topic, the weekly presidential address or formerly known as the weekly radio address. A genre of presidential rhetoric that developed during the Reagan administration, the weekly address has evolved from a strict radio format to an internet video channel under President Obama. I am examining both content and effects to study whether the transition to a different medium is altering messages and persuasive effects. Today, I am concerning myself (and you luckily) with the content side.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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The Importance of Managing Your Online Reputation
Last week during #journchat, I saw a reference to a post titled Does Your Twitter Handle Belong on Your Resume? The author is a PR college student, and the conversation around the post is mainly tactical, but the bigger picture surrounding our online identities is one I’ve been wanting to address for some time, so this gives me the opportunity.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Reinscribing Imperialism in our Academic Work or Knowing Your Frame
Before coming to Communication, Culture and Technology for my master’s, I was pursuing an Asian Studies bachelor’s in the School of Foreign Service, and, predictably, our program focused a lot on Orientalism and other forms of imperialism and colonialism both historically and today. Having shifted now to thinking primarily about media and cultural production, it has been very important for me to keep that part of my academic history alive by paying attention to the ways that we in CCT might fall into the trap of reinscribing imperialism in our academic work. The following suggestions, then, are a few of the ways I’ve thought about for working through this in any given paper or study:
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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From Orality To Digitization: Leaping Past The Written Word With ITC For Development In Rwanda
“Writing,” according to Walter Ong, “is the most momentous of all human technological inventions. Because it moves speech from the oral-aural to a new sensory world, that of vision, it transforms speech and thought as well.” The transition from oral culture towards written culture, also represents the first major technological shift that profoundly altered mankind’s relation with the world and the self. For Robert Logan, the introduction of
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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The iPad, and Expectations of Creativity
Every year the Grammy Awards seem less and less important to me. And I’m not sure, exactly, why that is. It could be a continuous personal detachment from popular music. But it could also be that the award shows- the Grammys, Academy Awards, and even the old MTV award- used to bring a bit of unpredictability or creativity that they don’t seem to have any longer. True, the more traditional award shows are far more tame than the MTV awards, but past hosts tended to bring their own personalities to the program in a new, or creative way. This aside, one of the highlights of this y
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Narrating Nations
A friend of mine recently pointed me to this article and then went on to say that it made her embarrassed to be Indian because this is what Indians do. For a fraction of a second, I almost agreed because it seems in-built in us to be embarrassed of where we come from.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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First and Ten of the Culture Wars
What did it mean to have two presidential candidates in 2008 downplay divisive social issues? Abortion was off the radar, gay marriage was nowhere in sight, and the death penalty…well, was hardly discussed. After eight years of an administration elected partly as a result of Christian, evangelical conservatives, the culture wars seemed to end in 2008. A global economic crisis and two wars made these political “wedge” issues politically unpopular with independent and moderate voters (not that they were ever that popular to begin with).
Category: The Gnovis Blog