In this morning's Indianapolis Star, along with an article about Informatics professor Susan Tennant and her Herron School of Art professor husband Phil on page C1, we find the usual assortment of comics. Something about reading the comics on Saturday morning makes sense to at least my generation. We grew up with Saturday morning cartoons on TV. For some fairly obvious reasons back in the 1950s there were many local TV stations that used Saturday mornings as a kids' morning -- no school, parents sleeping in, etc.
One of the advantages -- or perhaps disadvantages -- of our media-drenched era is the way we have lost the connection between specific times of day or week or year when certain sorts of media are most appropriately consumed. We may still intuitively feel that head-banging rock or "gangsta" rap are probably best consumed on a Saturday night rather than a few hours later on Sunday morning, but would we criticize someone's choice to listen to whatever whenever?
In the past, people tended to rely on this sense of certain types of media being connected to certain times or moments, which also meant certain contexts or understood frameworks of media content and usage, certain types of communications.
On page A13 of the same Saturday morning Star, we find an article about the slow emergence of a mainstream sense of "e-tiquette." The article discusses the idea that what was once considered an inappropriate use of a specific medium or communications platform is now often quite acceptable.
The article starts with a discussion of a young married couple expecting their first child, and how the wife was a little ticked off by her husband's intention to circulate news of the unborn baby's gender via a social network, rather than waiting for his wife to contact certain friends individually. As the author, Barbara Ortutay, wrote:
"A decade or two ago, communicating important news electronically rather than in a letter was frowned upon. Now an email is considered acceptable for many situations, but even people comfortable with that might draw the line at social networks, which feel more like public or semi-public venues."
Notice that the author uses the expression "draw the line." As we briefly discussed in class, the idea of DESIGN grows out of the Italian word desegno, meaning drawing. Whenever we draw the line at using a certain communications medium at a certain time for a certain purpose, we are designing the total idea or meaning of that medium. Ask yourself a question: If you wanted to propose marriage, would you send an email? Call on the cell phone? A landline? Blog about it? Send a telegram (can you even do that anymore?)? Propose on the jumbotron at a Colts game? Write a personal letter? --- or, duh, maybe actually talk to your intended face-to-face?
Conversely, would you feel hurt or angry if someone proposed to you using ANY telecommunications platform other than face-to-face?
On the other hand -- (in marriage) -- maybe the public platform of the Web can be used well to communicate very personal messages.
How about a Web site custom designed to deliver a marriage proposal? Could you build a password protected site and send your beloved a link and password? Could you propose in a YouTube video, and send your love a link to connect to it – give it a few hours then remove the video? (And would you really care if some complete stranger found it first?)
And, about those comics: As trivial as they might seem, there are often nuggets of "new media" insight in them disquised as humor. This morning, we see a talking soft-drinking vending machine. (The ability to buy drinks from a machine by using your cell phone already exists.) Also a strip about animals competing for the greatest number of Facebook friends. (Do we have any idea if animals are responsive to media? -- Try googling "TV for dogs")
Enjoy the weekend -- with a loved one or a pet.
Steve
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