The Rhetoric of Speed: The megabytes-per-second IS the Message

Every golfer has heard the saying, "Direction is more important than distance." And, golfers will come to believe the saying after losing a dozen balls that were hit far, but not accurately.

I imagine drivers who have been lost after following incorrect directions could adopt a similar motto, "Direction is more important than speed." In fact, the faster you go in the wrong direction, the "loster" you become. (I just invented that word, "loster.")

So - we are faced with another situation that may be a fecund field for mantras, mottos, and axioms: the speed of communication and information in the 21st century. Consider this quirky commercial for a French communications company that provides high speed fiber connections:

It seems that the brave new world of high-speed communications has birthed a new maxim:

"Speed is more important than... anything." 

We can see this in the use of internet in families like that of Papa Cool in the commercial. They just want to be able to see stuff, play stuff, hear stuff - without delay. They want it right now - no lag time. It seems that speed trumps all other concerns. We also see this principle instantiating itself in "news" - which was formally transmitted via newspapers, and afforded by that medium time to research, vet sources, confirm claims, etc. Even the structure of television news called for critical thinking and verification before the broadcast aired. But the new world of social media like twitter, etc. has re-shaped the practices of communications to meet the demands of an instant, 140-character, hyper-connected, brave new reality. Some would say that in news today:

"It is now better to be first, than to be accurate."

Our 21st-century challenge is to negotiate this new collection of media and critically interrogate the new rhetorics that are shaping our communication. A dozen years ago, Richard Lanham wrote:

"If economics is about the allocation of resources, then what is the most precious resource in our new information economy? Certainly not information, for we are drowning in it. No, what we are short of is the attention to make sense of that information." (Economics of Attention)

And another thing: That Papa Cool (by securing high-speed access) provides for his family, and makes them happy, is obvious. But there is another dynamic: speed makes Papa Cool... cool. He can now "fit in" with the peer groups of any of his family members. He uses his new access to learn and imitate the values, languages, and cultural practices of each group. See Papa Cool earning his coolness:

But what does Papa Cool want for Papa Cool? We have no idea of his own personal desires - other than to be cool, accepted by the various groups of consumers of speed. Papa becomes them by using their technologies, and his own identity fades into that of a member of the group(s). The individual disappears. Papa Cool is reshaped into the image of the desire of his creation.

For more thinking on this issue, read Greg Ulmer's "Flash Reason," which begins with this tought:

Paul Virilio stated the challenge to our information society: every technology includes its own disaster. The technology in question is that of our communications infrastructure, the digital media that function at the speed of light. The disaster Virilio has in mind is not only technical, but cultural and social as well (technics).  The speed of our digital world has created a dimensional pollution, compressing everything into “now.” This condition threatens to render impossible any democratic  public  sphere  since  there  is  no  time  for  deliberative  reason,  the persuasion and argument, needed to achieve the consent of the governed. (Read Ulmer's "Flash Reason" here.)

As an educator, I have the pleasure/task of introducing students to the tools and sites of current real world of communications, which are increasingly digital, connected, social and high-speed. I don't have the luxury to pretend that today's world of communications is the same as it was in the 1960's. My students already know that it is not the same. But my students and I are challenged with negotiating the sometimes seductive/sometimes dictatorial demands of the speed of new media with the need for critical thinking, research, verification, contemplation, reflection, and elegant composition.

And, as new media is continually shifting, I understand this will be a perpetually changing negotiation.Until time travel is invented, that is - then I'll be back at the city desk, using the communication literacies of old media, and hoping for a big scoop!

Calling Our Bluff: VR & Our "New Media" Theories

Unless you've actually strapped on the headgear and experienced it, you don't understand.

VR has arrived. 
Seriously - it's here.

CNET has an interesting take on one of the VR vehicles (Oculus Rift) here: CNET VR Special Edition.

But VR is arriving by other ways, too. I've already begun experiencing (and producing) the new phenomenon for (very nearly) FREE with my own smartphone, the free Google Cardboard and Cardboard Camera apps, and a very comfortable 15 buck headset. Tons of free VR material is even available on YouTube. (Add a cheap Bluetooth controller for a few bucks and you can do even more.)

For under a hundred bucks, there is the Samsung Gear VR headset that Lebron hawks. Gear is powered by Oculus, which is releasing its more expensive premium Rift device (mentioned above.) Microsoft Hololens is also already shipping - and more iterations are following this year.

Like I said - VR has arrived.

We Don't Know &#!@
We theorists like to think we know about "new media." We know about Technologizing the Word, and the Second Gutenberg Shift, and how Old Media Becomes Content for New Media, and how Remediation works in Re-shaping our Brains. We're pretty sure we know it all.

But, strap-on a VR headset, and it becomes clear that we don't. know. $#!@.

We Better Learn Quick
Taking a class on Tigers, or watching a documentary on Tigers, is one thing.
Being tossed in the path of a Tiger is another.
One situation is casual and leisurely.
The other is frantic.

VR has just brought FRANTIC to the new media party.
We gotta learn. Quick.

There are no experts in this field. There is no time (yet) for experts to develop. This is a media shift that is happening at  pace exponentially faster than previous shifts. We need to move, think, improvise, and act before the Tiger eats us and moves on.

Here are some ideas: (What? You got better ideas? Let's hear 'em.)

READ QUICK

1. Read. Quick. I'm not thinking of scholarly journals that take a year or more to get to press or books that take 6 years to get to print. The Tiger will have already eaten us by then. Read now - here's a start: 
2. Play. Now. Experiment with the emerging medium and its technologies. Explore, Create. Share. Download the apps. Get a headset. Talk with others. Share Experiences. Have students experience stuff and make stuff with you.
3. Write. Immediately. Be willing to have this writing be "disposable." Use a blog or a website or a social media vehicle. Editing, revision, peer review and publication can come later. After you've survived the encounter with the Tiger. "Writing" might consist of aggregating, curating, cobbling, collaging, and sharing resources in platforms like ScoopIt!, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, etc. 

It appears, in glorious, 360-degree 3D realness, that the VR Tiger is in front of us, so let's get busy, shall we?

(Your shared resources, contributions, ideas, etc. will be greatly appreciated. Just leave links, etc. in the comments section.)

You're Doing It Wrong - and It's Working!

Jockeys Before the Race by Edgar Degas
 Public domain image: Wikimedia Commons

I considered titling this entry, "A Pole through the Horse's Head."

Recently, WIRED Magazine ran an article about design that was autobiographical in nature, and theoretically provocative in implications. The article, "Why Getting It Wrong Is the Future of Design" began with a discussion of Degas' painting, Jockeys Before the Race - which you see to the right.

The most obvious element is pole, which is jarringly juxtaposed over the horse's face in a location that is neither centered, nor adhering to the rule-of-thirds.In Degas' day, social media was ablaze with cries of "You're Doing It Wrong!" (Keep in mind that social media, at that time, consisted of letters and reviews and conversations.) But after a while, it became as obvious as the pole in your face that this gesture opened up a new way of artistic seeing and showing.

The article's author, Scott Dadich, recounts a design decision he made regarding WIRED's cover - a decision that he knew to be "wrong" according to the established professional protocol, a decision he came to regret after the cover went to press, (read about the decision in the article, I'm not telling you everything,) but a decision that opened up a new way of seeing and executing design in the magazine. Of this event, Dadich says:

We have figured out the rules of creating sleek sophistication. We know, more or less, how to get it right. Now, we need a shift in perspective that allows us to move forward. We need a pole right through a horse's head.

Maybe those of us who work in new media, digital literacies and related fields could learn something from this example about how we can do more than simply theorize about randomization, aleatory methods, and non sens as necessary post-modern catalysts for invention. And, as I ponder these issues, I might offer two words for those composing in these new media:

1. Caution: It's not a wise thing to break the rules until you know you can execute your work according to the rules. The old adage, "Rules were made to be broken," doesn't seem so attractive when you meet someone on the interstate who has fully embraced that motto.
2. Throw Caution to the Wind: When you have mastered the rules, break them. Turn off the guidelines, Edit the "Master Slide," violate the template, spin the convention around, and experiment. New media doesn't yet know what they want to do/be/do, so give knock down some fences and give them some room to run.

A Few of My Favorite (Digital) Things

As a little Christmas present - I offer a few of my favorite digital things for 2013. I chose these things because they represent an interesting approach to digital literacies and composing for the brave new digital world in which we live. Or maybe just because I thought they were cool. Anyway - enjoy!

• The best new interactive web thingy is Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" multi-channel music video. Oh, yeah they did that - and it's pretty cool. It's the coolest provocation to digital creativity since Arcade Fire's interactive "Wilderness Downtown," (which I still use in my intro to Digital Literacies class.)
• My favorite (though sometimes frustrating) socially-connected app is WAZE. You probably heard about it this year when Google bought the app from its developer for about a billion dollars. It's like Google Maps meets Twitter - a free navigation app that allows users (er, uh, their passengers,) to share info with other travelers such as traffic jams, accidents, weather, and, ahem - location of police. (Admittedly, I started using this last year I think.)
• For me, and I suspect millions of others, TripAdvisor has stolen time and attention from my other travel and dining apps like Yelp and UrbanSpoon. It's desktop website and smartphone apps work well together to provide friendly, useful and comprehensive collection of user-reviews on dining spots, hotels, attractions, etc.
• Did you know you can use video backgrounds for PowerPoint? I just started using this really cool feature this year. Formerly, you'd have to shell out big bucks to get this effect - or use hinky 3rd-party apps that never failed to, uh... fail.
• And, though it is hardware, I just gotta say - I love the Jambox by Jawbone. I use it around the house for the worlds most portable best music, but its easy-synching with my smartphone and laptop means I can have awesome sound for any presentation, regardless of the available equipment at the venue.

What will 2014 bring? I don't know - but I figure that, whatever it is, it will be delivered by my Amazon Prime drone.

Ethos for The Uber Wealthy

I recently attended a large conference where a number of very famous speakers were on the agenda. The conference was designed as a motivational event for area business people, community leaders, etc. Each of the speakers was known for some attribute or accomplishment. That is to say, each had a unique appeal of "ethos" to the audience.

(Annie Olson, in her webpage at LeTourneau University, describes Ethos as being "all about your credibility, reliability, and authority as a speaker or writer. Essentially, ethos is your reputation with your audience and the strategies you use to convince your audience that you should be believed or taken seriously.")

One of the speakers was Steve Forbes. I anticipated that his ethos might be questioned by some who saw him as just the son of a very rich father who left him a thriving financial empire. This concern had not escaped Mr. Forbes. He opened his talk with something like the following:
The best piece of advice I can give you regarding success is this: Choose rich and successful parents!

Forbes practiced wise rhetorics here - by acknowledging the perceived objection, and by dealing with it up front so he could move on with his speech.

The Rhetorical consideration of Setting (According to John Stewart)

If indeed, rhetoric is anything like "finding the available means of persuasion in a given situation," (and let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it is something like that,) then some things are both obvious and important:

• know who you are talking to (audience)
• know the situation and setting of your communication (kairos)
• know the network of cultural & communicative exchange of your audience (language)

It is sometimes easier to see how important these considerations are when they are done wrong, than it is to see when they are done right. For example, suppose you were to speak to a group of 11-year-old school kids - would you communicate the same as if you were speaking to a group of university faculty? No? I didn't think so.

You'd think this would be obvious. You'd be wrong.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Obama Speaks to a Sixth-Grade Classroom
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Vancouverage 2010

You know how much 6th graders love to meet bureaucratic heads of various government departments....

A couple of "rules of thumb" for rhetorically sound communication:
1) Don't bring a knife to a gun fight.
2)Don't bring teleprompters to a middle school classroom.

Clear Cups: Making the Rhetoric Visible

In Science in Action, Latour makes the rhetoric of science visible, like Penn & Teller make the rhetoric of magic visible. The formation of "facts" in Latour's revealing treatment does not make science any less interesting, to the contrary, it encourages a fascination with the process of knowledge-making. (Just as "magic" becomes no less fascinating when Penn & Teller do the cups and balls trick with clear cups.)

If one views these resulting scientific "facts" as sausage, and science as sausage-making, Latour's work might be considered "bad," and Latour considered the Upton Sinclair of the Rhetorics of Science.

If one views the work of Latour as revelatory/apocalyptic, and sees the resulting understanding of "scientific knowledge" as new knowledge itself, then surely, Latour is the Penn & Teller of the Rhetorics of Science.


Penn & Teller's Cup And Balls Routine - A funny movie is a click away