Thursday, April 22, 2010

Jordan - Matt's 11 Friday Section

This is a response aimed at Jenkins' essay "Worship at the Altar of Convergence". Jenkins' writes that, "a medium establishes itself as satisfying some core human demand," and I am interested in what the contemporary pervasive mediums are, what core human demands they do satisfy, and how does the development of technology itself develop these core human demands. In western culture, if you were to ask any individual what they consider a type of media or medium they would probably say television, radio, and art; however, it seems that many people do not recognize the internet as media for some reason. (I just asked two of my roommates, they both said television, radio, and art.) I believe the core human demand that the internet is attempting to fulfill is establishing a space for information that situates the individual in the post-modernist society. Space is definitely a form of media that has been evolving as the internet evolves.

I disagree with Jenkins' claim that the black box will never exist as evidenced by the divergence of technologies. He immediately points out how annoying it is to have so many different devices and technologies. Ultimately, there will not be one black box; however, think of the black box as an essential system of situated mobility. It will be a system that utilizes mobile devices networked over a broad public national network to any other device anywhere on the system. Additionally, you will have a point of situation, whether it is a web page or a networked hard drive, that contains your relevant information that you want to have with you as you move. This way your iphone can act as a remote control for your television. That's what I think will happen and I disagree with Jenkins.

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