Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media (MIT Press)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.25 (937 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 026253472X |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 264 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-04-17 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Instead, she digs deep into the meaning of our digital habits, showing how the productive, generative everydayness of the habitual gets corroded in so much of new media into a pervasive sense of addictive updating to cope with threats -- condensed in her formula habit + crisis = update. Duke Professor of Literature, Duke University)There is something pervasive and destructive about the fantasy that we, one by one, are the absolute center of a new digital world, that this world is customized for us like a perfect coat, tying us into 'networks.' Wendy Chun's remarkable Updating to Remain the Same takes on this saccharine fake-personalized 'YOU' and the superficially linked networks. (Peter Galison, Joseph Pellegrino University
Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, who has studied both systems design and English literature, is Professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. . She is the author of Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics and Programmed Visions: Software and Memory, both published by the MIT Press
But what do we miss in this constant push to the future? In Updating to Remain the Same, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun suggests another approach, arguing that our media matter most when they seem not to matter at all -- when they have moved from "new" to habitual. Meanwhile, analytic, creative, and commercial efforts focus exclusively on the next big thing: figuring out what will spread and who will spread it the fastest. Networks have been central to the emergence of neoliberalism, replacing "society" with groupings of individuals and connectable "YOUS." (For isn't "new media" actually "NYOU media"?) Habit is central to the inversion of privacy and publicity that drives neoliberalism and networks. New media -- we are told -- exist at the bleeding edge of obsolescence. We thus forever try to catch up, updating to remain the same. Smart phones, for example, no longer amaze, but they increasingly structure and monitor our lives. Through habits, Chun says, new media become embedded in our lives -- indeed, we become our machines: we stream, update, capture, upload, link, save, trash, and troll. Chun links habits to the rise of networks as the defining concept of our era. Why do we view our networked devices as "personal" when they are so chatty and promiscuous? What would happen, Chun asks, if, rather than pushing for privacy that is no privacy, we demanded public rights -- the right to be exposed, to take risks and to be in publi
7Excellent synthesis of a number of important topics. The first 100 pages are amazing. 740 W. The first 100 pages tie together a number of important concepts and idea, including sovereignty, habit formation, data capture vs surveillance,as well as some historical perspectives that, even though I have lived through them, have been long forgotten (remember Pokemon Go?).I think she is arguing that we need to create new norms (and laws) which allow us to thrive with the newer media, much like we did with mail tampering and wire tapping laws in previ. 0 W. said Excellent synthesis of a number of important topics. The first 100 pages are amazing.. The first 100 pages tie together a number of important concepts and idea, including sovereignty, habit formation, data capture vs surveillance,as well as some historical perspectives that, even though I have lived through them, have been long forgotten (remember Pokemon Go?).I think she is arguing that we need to create new norms (and laws) which allow us to thrive with the newer media, much like we did with mail tampering and wire tapping laws in previ. "Great look at today's trends in the networked society" according to KF6GPE. Chun presents a fast-paced and well thought out analysis of some of the leading trends in today's network society, backed both by current events and thinking in media theory.I especially appreciated her formulation of Habit + Crisis = Update, a look at how in today's online media we have moved from the reporting of news and catastrophes to a state of constant crisis driving endless calls for action and updates. It captures my (not nearly so clear) exper