While the title of this post is a bit of a play on our book title, in chapter 21, Rushkoff describes some of the flaws of "communicating" over the certain mediums. For example, he describes the issues within communicating in a video game, multimedia cd-rom, or web site. Within all of these, the communication is simply one dimensional, even if the user gets to pick his own direction.
A video game has been preprogrammed to let the player choose his own direction. While the player is able to follow his own path in the video game, all possible options have already been exhausted by video game developers. There is no possible decision the player could make that has not been already. The player moves within the constraints of the game.
A multimedia CD-rom is very similar to a video game. Like the "choose your own ending" stories we saw in class, a multimedia CD-rom lets the user pick his own direction, but all possible outcomes have been previously thought out by the developers. The person may think he is choosing his own direction, but truly it is the CD-rom developers who have actually come up with any possible ending.
At the time this book was written, the web was not into its full blown "web 2.0" stage. Communication on the web was one sided, with news and information being simply conveyed to the online reader. It is "a simulation of free choice" (350). In this, the reader is simply told information. But now with the rise of social media such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, each person has the chance to publish and respond to anything he wants. The web became 2-directional with each user able to communicate with others, respond to stories, watch and comment on videos, and so forth. With the ability for so many different people to publish their own information, good and bad material has come. But, I don't think that anyone would argue the bad that the internet offers outweighs the good
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Your comment is particularly interesting to me as i am intrigued by the "create your own ending" media. This idea is connected to the on-demand trend we are seeing in our media options.
ReplyDeleteI certainly agree that most people would not discuss the "bad" that Internet communication offers. However, it is important to realize these issues. With a seemingly "never ending" outlet of information how do we know which source is credible?
ReplyDeleteWe are better off with the internet then without it. I think using the internet we can accomplish nearly anything we'd like, with sites like "howto.com" or "youtube.com" and social networking sites that allow us to talk to someone in real time about anything we'd like to do. Even though most people won't talk about the "bad" that internet communication presents, we can't deny that there are some problems.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, the power belongs to the programmers!
ReplyDeleteThe whole "create-your-own" craze actually blurs the line between real life itself and the game. After all, what is real life but a glorified game of "choose your own ending" that we have been playing all our lives.
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