A Game Outside of the Game

This week’s reading was perhaps the most difficult for me to connect with this semester. Not because of the writing but because I did not have a reference point to connect with as I read. I have only played video/computer games a few times in my whole life. I guess being the son of workaholic parents who encouraged me to become a workaholic has impacted my game play experience. In this stage of my life I am not sure if I will start to explore the world of gaming.

However, I would agree with McAllister, “it’s important to closely examine computer games. . . precisely because they are having at least this [assumptions and ideologies] reinforcing effect on a broad cross-section of the world’s population” (p. 144). When a medium is presented as fun or relaxing consumers of the medium are less likely to question what ideologies are being presented for their consumption. One of the most striking things I took away from the text is the game outside of the game or the marketing process and its similarities to the game Black & White.

In the game the player attempts to increase belief within the game and manipulates other economic system of the game with the player actions. The game industry like others uses similar tactics to sell products. Almost a year ago I was asked to design a research methods course with practical applications to industry. During this process I spent time at both Scarborough Media Research and Nielsen Media Research. This was the first time I was exposed to a look book- a 5 to 7 inch binder of research for a specific product and its consumers. The specific book was for a high-end ice cream brand that was examining a new print media campaign. The book contained the profile of the average consumer, their likes, their dislikes, their daily habits, the spending habits, the type of car they would drive, the types of jobs they would work, what their would buy while grocery shopping.

The amount of detail the researchers produced about who purchases the product and the perceptions others had about the product would be used to develop ads to hit this market. One of the researchers said their job was not only to help provide data to sell the product, their job was also to provide data to help connect the product to a lifestyle. McAllister discussed how due to limited processing capacity of home computers a decade ago the game designers did not include a sophisticated way to process and compare matrixes of data to the user, but this information would be presented in a straightforward way like “we need food.” One thing is for certain; modern advertising professionals have already answered the tagline of Black & White and already know exactly who we really are.  

Players of this game attempt to influence their world with belief, miracles, and wonder. I cannot think of any recent adverting campaigns that do not attempt to do the same with a product, idea, or company. 

The Food Network as Remediation

This week I wanted to try something different in my post and extend the arguments presented by Bolter and Grusin beyond the medium to the context presented by the media. “We can also consider repurposing in microeconomic terms as the refashioning of materials and practices” (p. 68). I would also argue that the media not only repurposes materials, they also repurpose ideas and principles. In this process the media will take a concept and idea only to make seem more real or tangible to an audience. One clear example of this process could be the framing of shows on The Food Network.

Several years ago I did research on the themes presented by the Food Network, “One underlying theme that Adema (2000) calls for is increased exploration, “cooking as a family activity is earning ‘rarity values,’ a nostalgic value ascribed to something based in its scarcity” (p. 118). A nostalgic longing for happier moments, home-cooked meals and food may be a key reason for the success of The Food Network. However, in this research I discovered that the network often presents a feeling for nostalgic for something that never really existed in the first place.

This concept connects to Bolter and Grusin’s belief that “the desire to express one’s self through media is a hallmark of romanticism and long predates the development of digital media. . . If the Enlightenment subject was content to stand and gaze through the window frame, the romantic subject wanted to get closer” (234). Much of the programming allows viewers to get closer and envision a world that is like the world The Food Network creates for them. 

On such way this is achieved in the show The Barefoot Contessa. The Barefoot Contessa uses food to help others connect to each other and with the past.  She often tells guest the importance of using traditional ingredients to make things that remind people of the their past. In one episode she selected a menu that would remind her guests of their childhood. She will often use recipes from her past or the past of her friends. During this process she allows the audience to remember or long for this traditional food and ideal family setting.  Beyond simply longing for this connection she encourages her audience to use her ideas in their own life.  This allows viewers to move from passive to active participants s. It also allows viewers to connect to the romantic inside and connect with a television character in what we believe is an important or meaningful way.  

Not only has the media effectively remediated the technology we use, but also they have effectively remediated our concept of the past to a version that seems better and more realistic but most likely has never existed. 

Cyber-Marx annotated bibliography

Gaetan, T. (1995). The information society: from fordism to gatesism. Canadian Journal of Communication, 20(4), 461-482.

In this article Gaetan presents three criteria we must meet before we can say we have entered an information society. First, the creation of an interconnected society, where the use of technology offers the promise of a better life, with machines that allow use to work and interact with society from home, industry drive by computers, and the ability to break the bonds of time and space and experience anything in a virtual environment. Second, society will develop around an information economy. Individual and collective knowledge will be the most important means of production. Information and the transmission of information via technology is a critical component to the economy. Third, we must also have an interactive society, where being a passive observer is not good enough. Citizens want the ability to interact in real time with every sector of human activity.

The major argument of the article is that just as Henry Ford’s assembly line changed the fabric of society, Bill Gates as the most powerful representative of the technological community has created the means to change our society again. However, Gaetan wants readers to critically examine the true cost of Ford’s contribution; a large of sector of our economy now values the reduction of cost above the environment, people, and contribution to society. While this economy has made a few people very rich, their continued prosperity is depended on taxpayers and the government. While the Gatesism promises to change our lives again do the long-term costs outweigh the benefits?

Puzziferro, M., & Shelton, K. (2009). Challenging our assumptions about online learning: a vision for the next generation of online higher education. Distance Learning, 6(4), 9-12. doi: 2017059861

While is article presents more questions than answers about online education, it still examines several critical issues with an online education. First, in attempt to scale and make online course profitable, content is fixed and faculty do not have power to change the curriculum. This is presented as a benefit for online instructors who will not need to worry about developing curriculum but can now spend that time interacting with students. However, teaching the same material in the same way removes the opportunity for students to have an “authentic learning experience.”

Second, most online courses are taught by adjuncts, many of which are “professional adjuncts” teaching for multiple institutions, and in some cases they maybe teaching as many as 10 courses. In Puzziferro and Shelton’s research they found that these online instructors often cut corners in grading and engaging students. In many cases adjunct faculty do not receive similar compensation packages as full-time instructors or administrators.

Third, the approach of profit and traditional institutions are different because their missions are not the same. Often profit institutions focus on throughput, profit, and scalability; traditional institutions focus on process to ensure quality and rigor and most professors are willing to adapt to meet the needs of learns. While a growing number of universities are looking to develop online programs in order to find profit centers, few institutions have begun to answer how online courses will impact both faculty and the role traditional education in society.

Perkins, G. (1999). Culture clash and the road to world domination. IEEE Software, 16(1), 80-85. doi: 38837530

The open-source software community is often in direct competition to for profit and capitalist driven corporations. However in this article Perkins explores the idea that while these two groups appear to have different motives, they are achieving the same goal. Many software giants like IBM, Oracle, and Informix have released their software to the open source community in order to improve coding and usage. For example, IBM has worked with the open source community to develop Apache, open source software that is the backbone of many online applications.

Open source applications are often built by individuals who have the same skill set as those who work within a software company. Programmers will use a similar process no matter if it is for profit or open source applications. Both are accountable to the end user and both will attempt to find solutions to common problems and issues. While at the surface, open source applications seem different, but in reality open source and for profit programs are often closely connected. No matter the type of software we select we may be working with high-tech corporate giants.

Warwick, K. (2003). Cyborg morals, cyborg values, cyborg ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, 5(3), 131-137. doi: 477953211

While this article is several years old, Warwick has an important definition of Cyborg. He argues that individuals who have pacemakers, Cochlea implants or other types of medical devices could be called a cyborg. For Warwick this most vexing form of cyborg would occur by connecting the human nervous system/ brain to a machine. While this type of technology is still in the future, Warwick argues in some case we have created machines more powerful than the human brain for example “many computers can carry out as many calculations in the blink or an eye (about one third of a second) as the typical human does in a week. Not only that but the computer will usually get all the results correct” (p. 132)

In terms of Dyer-Witheford, the combination of machine and human on an organic plane would allow for cheap, super human labor with computer like precision. While there are many ethical dilemmas science, medicine, and technology will need to answer it is not unrealistic to imagine a future with two types of human those who have technological enchantments and those who do not.

Hedelind, M., & Jackson, M. (2011). How to improve the use of industrial robots in lean manufacturing systems. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 22(7), 891-905. doi: 10.1108/17410381111160951

In this article the authors conduct a case study of how a lean system could experience a reduction of costs and increased productivity by using robots in the manufacturing process. In the authors point to how Toyota was able to overtake GM in the manuafuring of automobiles. Much of Toyota’s competive advantage comes from how they use automation.

The authors examine ways an organization could adopt this type of practices. In the conclusions of their research, they argued that while robots have increased productivity, with additional work and a combination of work systems robots could become more efficient and reduce the number of operators they would need to function. 

Two examples of D&G's space

How does smooth and striated space inform each other? While much of Deleuze’s and Guattari’s writing focuses on the differences between these two elements of space; there are several passages that show the interconnected nature of smooth and striated space.

D&G citing Gerard Desargues discusses space in mathematical terms, “The constitution of a statistical space in which each variable has not an average value, but a probability of frequency that places it in continuous variation with the other variables” (p. 96). This made me think of a way to explain the relationship between smooth and striated space in statistical terms. Perhaps the best concrete example of their relationship is a basic statistical concept called kurtosis.

Kurtosis is a way to describe skewness or extremes in comparison to a normal distribution. While the data exists on the same plane, the mean of the distribution doesn’t bisect the data equally. When a researcher sees kurtosis they understand there is a high amount of variance within the data. Variance could be viewed as the tension between smooth and striated space, which only exists in extremes in comparison to each other. Just as machines and assemblages work to move the nomad to the sedentary, researchers also work to reduce variance within a give data set. Thus they deterritorialize any concept or meaning between the original data points.

Additionally, it could be argued that kurtosis could be an example of the holey space defined by D&G, “Holey space itself communicates with smooth space and striated space. . . it is not at all in the same way, and the two communications are not symmetrical” (p. 415). In serious cases of kurtosis that data will have not symmetrical shape or pattern. “The two segments cannot be separated,” the data or plain on which the space exists is a path that connects and adds an organic understanding of the relationship between the data or smooth and striated space.

While kurtosis adds a scientific element to the understanding of the relationship between the two types of space, perhaps a less ethereal connection could occur by exploring the relationship between the slow food movement and molecular gastronomy.

These two movements function as polar extremes in our understanding and concept of food. Slow food is an art form requiring a basic understanding of botany, gardening, cooking, canning, and storage; while molecular gastronomy requires an understand of physics, chemistry, and brings industrial efficacy to food.

The concept of the nomad which is closely related to smooth space would best fit someone who would be involved with the slow food movement. Growing, harvesting, and storing food would be in line with the definition of a nomadic science, which could also be categorized as an art form. “From the point of view of nomad science, which presents itself as an art as much as a technique” (p. 369). The ability to conform to the concept of slow food requires the learning of new techniques such as the growing, harvesting, and processing of food something that is often taught one generation to the next or is learned from experimentation.

Food has been a part of human existence from the beginning. For centuries people only had access to the food they could grow themselves or trade for to support themselves and their families. However as societies move from a largely agrarian to an industrial complex, the food systems also move in a similar direction.

Once we learned how to produce food using a lab we removed ourselves from understanding the nomadic science behind food. D&G discuss how we have moved from the nomad to the State, “State science retains of nomad science only what it can appropriate; it turns the rest into a set of strictly limited formulas without an real scientific status, or else simply represses and bans it” (p. 362). For me this is a perfect description of molecular gastronomy. Why make spaghetti sauce when you can buy a hundred varieties at any grocery store? Who needs to know how to cook food we you can simply put any kind of prepared meal into a microwave and enjoy within seconds? Why do we need to grow a tomato when we can make the flavor by combine chemicals in a lab? This is how the state has slowly appropriated a nomad science to become a State science.