Weinberger 9-10

I was reading chapter 10 of Weinberger (around page 202-203), and read the text that said:

"Benkler says the right question isn't whether the Web provides perfect equality but whether it provides more equality than 'the one-way structure of the commercial mass media'... in those conversations we hear multiple understandings of the world, for conversation thrives on difference... But there will always be multiple conversations and thus multiple understandings".

This information reminded me of the previous chapters in Weinberger's book about Wikipedia, and the growing conversation that occurs within a Wikipedia article. The whole idea of 'multiple conversation and thus multiple understandings' branches onto the idea of Wikipedia-users arguing their case within an article on the site.

However, it seems apparent later in chapter ten that Weinberger used examples so closely linked to his Wikipedia examples because he would later speak about Wikipedia (he brings it up again on pages 207 - 209).

Within this text, Weinberger is comparing the paper back version of an encyclopedia, such as Britannica, and the online wiki of Wikipedia (I originally wrote this sentence as "the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Are we allowed to call Wikipedia an encyclopedia?) . He mentions that the length of the text within the Britannica offers a suggestion of importance of that article to the reader. He gives the example of Oliver Goldsmith, and his entry in the Britannica and how it has diminished in size since 1911. "In the 1911 edition of the Britannica, the Goldsmith article was 6,000 words long. In the latest editions it's down to 1,500 words". Weinberger compares this to articles in Wikipedia. The length of articles in Wikipedia could suggest how important the article is to the masses, however it could also suggest that the article is important to just one person.

From this, I have gathered that there is a more humanistic approach behind the works of Wikipedia versus Britannica. This could be viewed in the realization that Britannica leaves no room for interpretation. There is no way to read an article in Britannica and then read a follow up article that suggests an opposing viewpoint. Within this chapter it seems as if Weinberger is saying that we need to understand all of these understandings/viewpoints in order to get a better understanding of the actual topic at hand.

One thing I found interesting today while reading up about the Swine Flu was how similar the articles on the online version of the New York Times are to the articles of Wikipedia. The text of both are swarmed with links to take you elsewhere. Does anyone know if this was the case 5 years ago with the New York Times? 10 years ago? Also, if you were interested in the Swine Flu (what it is, where it is located), would you first go to the New York Times search engine, or Wikipedia's search engine?

Weinberger 7-8

How fitting that Weinberger talks about Wikipedia after I decide to write my multimedia letter on wiki's.

I think that Weinberger gave me a lot of interesting negative things to speak about within my letter. By this I mean what not to use a wiki for. My favorite quote from the reading had to be when Robert McHenry said:

"The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him."

Now obviously McHenry is a bit bias, since he is editor in chief of Encyclopedia Britannica, but I thought that this was a beautiful way to outline what you could find when researching with Wikipedia. I couldn't help but imagine being in a bathroom stall with this quote, thinking of all of the writing you see on the walls. What Weinberger is saying with this is that at a site such as Britannica, or a news site like NY Times, there are people in charge of getting every little fact straight, while at Wikipedia anyone is capable of posting anything online. "Its authors need not have any credentials at all. In fact, the authors don't even have to have a name" (Weinberger 134). This could be beneficial in many ways, but the negative aspects of the site stick out as well, as it develops an anonymous screen to the reader. Every one knows that people are more willing to tell a rumor/lie if they know that their name wont be attached to it.

The idea of developing neutrality through Wikipedia posts seems like a bit of a stretch to me. In most cases, people wont want to change their minds - it's just what people do. In most cases I feel as if you would have to post both sides of something in order to produce a NPOV (neutral point of view). Is that really considered neutral, or is that just posting both sides to make everyone happy?

McCloud

How can anyone not enjoy McCloud's reading; it's a comic!

I enjoy how McCloud seems to have emerged us in this vast history of images in such little space. I managed to read through this chapter in about 15 minutes, however there was so much information there to consume. He seems to brush up on several examples, and the images that go along with it make it easier to pick up on what he is saying. For instance, on page 147 when McCloud is speaking about the evolution of poetry he says "...poetry began turning away from the elusive, twice-abstracted language of old toward a more direct, even colloquial, style". Now, by just reading this sentence, I would need a dictionary to understand what McCloud is trying to say. However, the graphic novel offers examples through pictures - demonstrating by suggesting a poem from 1819 that reads such as: "Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness...", compared to a poem written in 1890 that says: Facing west, from California's shores,/Inquiring, tireless, seeking/ what is yet unfound...". It is safe to say that McCloud's use of text is working with the image in order to convey the general meaning to the reader.

One part of the chapter that was interesting to me was McCloud's ideas of "New Media". I remember interviewing Dr. Springsteen last semester for another class project, and she brought up the question of exactly what is New Media. How can we hire professors to teach New Media if we can't define it? McCloud expressed that New Media essentially "begins its life by imitating its predecessors". He offers the example that many early movies could be compared to filmed stage plays, because stage plays were the most similar medium to the invention of moving film. Over time of working with this medium, it will evolve.

This makes me think of the advancement of film. Here is an example of one of the first moving films from the Lumiere brothers, Arrival of a Train. When the movie first premiered, it had been said that audience members were terrified that the train was going to hit them, since they had never seen anything like a moving picture before. The movie also uses music instead of dialogue. Soon thereafter, silent movies were created, and after that, "talkies" were being created with audible dialogues. This evolution carries the trend of what McCloud speaks of in chapter 6.