Back in the Netherlands

So now I am again visiting the Netherlands for the research and talks I mentioned earlier. I have been at the University of Twente visiting the Information Systems and Change Management (IS & CM) department, which is where I gave my talk, yesterday. It is quite interesting because when Elfi invited me I at first wasn't sure how my research on Facebook would be relevant to the work she and her colleagues are doing, but actually, there is a surprising amount of overlap in the questions we are investigating. So the talk went well and also helped me to further refine my thinking about how participation in Facebook is affecting professional, in this case specifically scholarly communities.

A couple of points on that:

• Communication on Facebook leads to a greater feeling of co-presence (basically the feeling of being with someone) and it assuges the discomfort of asence (the feeling that we exist only in the process of communication, so we are always flickering in and out of existance). So, when academics get to know each other via Facebook, they may connect more quickly and more solidly--though this of course depends on how they use it, which leads to the next point.
• This increased connection seems linked to a more playful use of Facebook in which people allow the border between the personal/casual and the professional/formal to blur. Of course that makes sense; if we think someone is being more casual and personal, we feel we are seeing a more authentic self, that we know them better. In fact, slightly inappropriate behavior adds to this because we assume it is less calculated. I mean, who would behave in a way that was professionally inappropriate on purpose? (Of course this could be equally calculated, but I think most people don't imagine others treat every online action as if it were a move in a game of chess).
• But even if someone is not deliberately offering an image that is somehow distorted, distortion is inevitable because no one can put every detail that might be observed by somone physically proximal into a facebook page (or into a blog, or homepage, or what have you). So people always must choose what to include.
• Possibly Facebook feel more authentic though (and maybe it actually is) because when someone is addressing several different audiences--close friends, family, colleagues, other communities to which she belongs, she cannot address all of them at once. So some actions or posts or status updates are aimed more at one group or another, but everyone may see them. So it may be that Facebook does offer a more rounded or more integrated picture. But as privacy controls improve and as more people use them to filter the content the present to each group, this complete picture maybe be fragmented--hard to predict.

So those are some of the ideas I am thinking about, and now the question is how to gather data on them, since most facebook profiles are closed to non-friends, but I can hardly make any claims based only on what I see my own friends doing.

So, back to the visit; I had two very nice dinners, first at De Kater, where I had some amazing salmon stuffed with shrimp, and the next night at Sam Sam, where I had duck breast that was quite good too. While at Sam Sam I also tried a drink that combined beer and Sprite, and that was a little weird, but ok.

Silly to mention the food in the middle, but it was very good.... Anyway, I met a lot of nice people in the IS & CM department who are all working on interesting stuff. I won't put all the individual links in with the names; they can be found through the department page linked above. But I enjoyed speaking at length with Bjorn Kijl, Michel Ehrenhard, Romana Aziz, Roland Muller, and of course Elfi. Also I had a very interesting talk with the head of the department, Jos van Hillegersberg, and I spoke a lot with Celeste Wilderom who was also hosting me at her house. Everyone has statements about their research on their homepages, though I'm not sure it's all up to date, but anyway, some of them are looking at social networks in ways that relate to my work with Facebook, and some lokk at organizational change and communication, among other things. That actually has some connections to my other project on the institutionalization of new media in the Netherlands. I am looking at new media groups rather than business, but many of the issues are similar, particularly because now ICTs have such a strong effect on everything.

Staying with Celeste was a treat--she has a very nice house! But also, it was my first time to stay in in a family house and so I went with her to drop off her daughters at school and got to see a bit of Dutch family life. This post has grown quite long now, so I will end it here. I about an hour I go to the train station to make my journey back to Rotterdam. Hopefully when I return I can get my stupid chipcard sorted out (I managed to foul it up again) and I will have a chance to upload some pictures. --So the posts here will get a bit out of sequence as I back up to add those.

Award-winning Chaos

Award-winning Chaos
Originally uploaded by cuuixsilver

So my college (humanities and social sciences) had the end-of-term meeting and awards ceremony.

The recent (and ongoing) stress of budget cuts, and the just-this-week-resolved stress of the Retention/Promotion/Tenure (RPT) process has left people pretty punchy, so while most of the awards were quite serious, a few were NOT. --And really everyone was giggling through almost the whole event, without having had even one "adult beverage."

I was honored to have my efforts recognized in winning the Desktop Structural Achievement Award, conferred every year on the faculty member who, well, I think the picture says it all. --Taken immediately after the ceremony and, I must say, after earlier this week cleaning up a little. (seriously).

Of course I's prefer it to be neater, but I find that when I am working really hard, I naturally generate some kind of chaotic field. At least that's my story. And honestly I may agree that neat people are just too lazy to look for things. ;-)

I will reassure any future hosts that I never treat other people's spaces this way! As soon as I can I will post the text of the speech honoring my achievement, and a picture of the trophy, which is enormous!

Fun with NEH online submission forms

Submission is the right word for it, that's for sure! You must fill in these pdfs exactly the right way, with attachments in exactly the right order, without going over the unspecified-but-definitely-there character count in the text boxes, you must get lucky while uploading to grants.gov, and of course you must save everything every 2 minutes because Adobe will crash over and over and lose the unsaved form contents.

But in the end I got it in...would you believe the total time estimate for preparing the application was 15 hours? Who are they kidding.

Anyway, this is most of the narrative:

Institutionalization of New Media: Analysis of the Dutch Context

Research and Contribution

With the introduction of the Internet and WWW in the 1990s, scholars, artists and activists began a critical engagement with technology. These early adopters were a loose collection of individuals that came out of more traditional fields including philosophy, literature, film studies, sociology, computer science. Some also came from outside of the academy; journalists, politicians, artists, activists and business people and have participated in the evolving discourse community as well. This diverse group was united by their shared observation of and concern with the effects of technology on their respective fields and their work has shaped the field we now know as new media. Now what began as a very open area of study is becoming institutionalized; a canon of critical theory is being established, and gate-keeping mechanisms are beginning to appear, along with the other apparatus typical of an academic discipline such as journals, conferences, degree programs and so on. Increasingly, questions are being raised about this institutionalization process and how it will affect our understanding of new media and its impact on our culture (Lovink, Rossiter, Zielinski).

While early scholarship on new media came from the aforementioned traditional disciplines, recently institutionalization has been driven by former members of the early adopter networks entering academia. This is to say that rather than only following a traditional scholarly route through the academy before becoming professors themselves, many people who first work and create with new media are now entering the academy, with or without formal credentials, and are shaping the discourse about the cultural effects of new media. What began as almost a folk practice now has been recognized by the academy. The line between creator and scholar/critic has been in some ways blurred and in others sharpened, but the process of these changes remains unexamined.

Through this project I expect to answer the following questions: 1) What is the relation between institutionalization and the people, physical things, and symbols in the networks that gave rise to new media? 2) How are institutions constructed that critically reflect on emerging technologies? 3) How are the social networks of participants reflected in and shaping institutional networks? 4) How is the fluid knowledge shared between participants becoming crystallized, being canonized, such that some groups are included or excluded? 5) And finally, what do we gain and lose in knowledge production through this process? I propose exploring the human archive embodied in the actor-network of individuals and groups currently working on new media.

The Netherlands is the best starting point as it is where some of the first university programs in new media began, and thanks to early and extensive government funding, a wide array of other cultural institutions have developed simultaneously. The Dutch context was originally characterized by heterogonous networks of people, things and symbols that were ad hoc and informal, but now all of these disparate elements contribute to the establishment of formal knowledge, specialization, and the construction of a canon. These activities are a clear sign of institutionalization, which also inevitably involves the development of gate-keeping processes. However, while institutionalization is taking place, the Dutch cooperative polder model still shapes socio-economic relations and allows for the continued emergence of new voices and new groups. Thus the whole spectrum of development is available for study.

Preliminary insight into the institutionalization of new media have been studied in isolation by pioneers such as Geert Lovink (Dark Fiber, Zero Comments), but no comprehensive studies have yet appeared. I intend a rhetorical analysis of the cultural discourse on new media in Europe which I will approach as a dispositif. While Foucault applied this concept to historical archives, I will engage with current participants through interviews and observations.
Methods and Work Plan

I am requesting support to complete the necessary observations and interviews which I aim to carry out during 2009-2010, making visits each year during the summer and winter. During a sabbatical I expect to begin in 2011, I will complete the compilation, authoring a book and website.

Methods and Work Plan

For this study I have already begun observing a variety of groups and interviewing their staff, including:

De Waag Society for Old and New Media
V2_Institute for the Unstable Media
Worm Rotterdam
De Geuzen Foundation for Multi-visual Research
The Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Arts

Further visits to these institutions have been arranged for the award period, along with observations I have arranged at other cultural institutions and at numerous Dutch MA and PhD programs in New Media. Based on a survey of which programs have been actively publishing, seeking PhD candidates, participating in and holding conferences, I have established a list of schools hosting well-regarded programs studying and educating about new media, including:

Delft University of Technology Eindhoven University of Technology
Leiden University Piet Zwart Institute Radboud University Nijmegen
University of Amsterdam University of Maastricht
University of Twente University of Utrecht

This project will combine analysis of institutional documents with interviews and observations. At cultural institutions I will interview curators, project managers, directors and when possible artists/authors. At academic institutions I will interview faculty, administrators, and students. In particular, I will examine the basic degree structures, course content, reading lists, and assignments. When possible, sample student work will be studied as well. These interviews and observations will reveal informants' history in the field and the interconnections between various factors such as experience, age, gender, ethnicity, location, education and so forth. At both cultural and academic institutions, I will observe events organized around new media which often reveal places where institutional and social networks are parallel and where they are unaligned.

That is all--at least all the plugged in activities. Except finishing a Sequential Tart interview with Paweł and the teaching assignments for next Fall and Spring. And just about finishing an article. I have one more to write by the end of June!

More about Facebook

Since I am speaking at two different conferences about the way people participate in Facebook, I have been (believe it or not) reading about Facebook, about relationships online, about what motivates participation, and so on.

here are a few things I've noticed:

1. Though it was noted at least 5 months ago that many faculty are now using social networks and that 25-34 year-olds is the fastest growing segment of users, no one seems to be looking at how or why they use FB. Some articles have been written about faculty disclosing too much online, but so far I have found nothing else.
2. Almost every academic study (and there are many) concentrates on either how kids/teens use FB, class, racial or ethnic differences in who uses FB, how to use FB to teach, or how to use it to make money.
3. There are lots of non-academic slideshows and articles comparing FB and MySpace about how to make money or seduce women with FB. --I mention this because my search efforts are hampered by these kinds of documents cluttering the web.

But I have found some very interesting stuff about online relationships from Jonathan Marshall who has published about a concept he calls 'asence' including this one in Fibreculture. In brief, he argues that particpants in online communities experience asence, which he explains:

In offline societies, it is generally possible to tell whether a person is present or not. Presence and status are acknowledged by others making, at the least, eye contact or grunts in a person’s direction, or by their pointedly ignoring that person. Identity is reinforced by reaction. People are generally aware of who is listening to the conversation and of their reactions to each other. Online this is usually not the case. It is possible for a person to be present without others being aware of them: there is no marker of existence beyond the act of communication itself. “Asence” is the term I have coined to express this almost ontological uncertainty, or suspension of being between presence and absence.

Marshall goes on to argue that in an effort to overcome asence, participants will exaggerate gender characteristics and may also use romance and even netsex to reinforce intimacy. He developed these ideas from studying the Cybermind mailing list, but I think asence could explain certain behaviors I've noticed on Facebook. --more details on that soon.

Two other useful possibilities involved Fluxus and the theory that humans have evolved to be 'infovores' --love that term! But I'll save those for the next entries...

And by the way, apparently Twitter addicts are 61.3% more likely to visit Barcamp.org than the average internet user. --Not directly related to anything, but it caught my eye. ;-)

Research news, conferences, etc.

So let's see; I just got accepted to IFIP WG 9.5 International Working Conference on Virtuality and Society: Massive Virtual Communities, which is the 1st and 2nd of July, 2008 at Leuphana University Lueneburg, Germany. I'm glad of that; I hear the group and the people involved are well regarded and there is a book planned, so that may guarantee me another chapter by the time my tenure review rolls around. I guess the nearest big city is Hamburg--I've never been anywhere in Germany yet, so actually anywhere will be interesting! I think it's within reach, by train, of Rotterdam, so I can fit it into my other research pretty easily.

This summer I plan to interview Florian, Mirko, Brenno; some museum folk, and see if I can volunteer at Worm, make a site visit to U. Utrecht, U. Twente, and follow up on the email interviews I'm conducting already. --Of course I talk about new media and tech stuff with Florian, Mirko and Brenno anyway, but I need to do formal interviews to make sure that I get some comparable answers among all of them. Oh yeah, I also want to talk to the women at Gender Changers.

And, if my panel proposals get since at least one panel proposal has been accepted to IR 9.0, I need to work on that some. And there's the SFRA Europe plan.....oy veh. Overbooked again.

And a settled panel schedule becomes a moving target

Ok, I know people have personal situations that come up, but this week we have received cancellations from about five people who just last week were saying how much they looked forward to meeting us. Grrr. But it's ok, we juggled everything, the show has gone on. But now we are having issues over the alcohol and I really don't see how we can have dinner without drinks...I mean come on, we are all grown ups, we've traveled far, worked hard to present good papers. Anyway, I will not be sad to shed the hat of conference co-chair.

And because I've been running round like a maniac trying, along with Betsy, the other chair, to settle this stuff, I've hardly had a chance to hear any of the talks. So that's a bit disappointing, though I have at least gotten to meet and chat with many of our speakers. The worst aspect is the finances--the school just doesn't have much funding to support this kind of thing; they want us to raise our profile, but that costs money!

So yeah, lots of fun...

Whoohoo, the Empire Conference has started

I am glad to have had this experience, but I am so glad that in two days, it will be over! Tonight we held the opening reception, for which we slightly overestimated food and drink, but the reverse would have been worse by far.

So we have nice collection of papers and two really kick-ass keynote speakers, Mikhail Alexseev and Katynka Martinez. I'm really looking forward to meeting them both and to hearing some of the other talks as well. I also finally met Anne Paulet in person; she teaches history up at Humboldt State U. (also a branch of the CSU, for you out of town readers). She and I have corresponded quite a bit over the last months and I was getting ready for the conference, and we have hit it off very well.

Other news--I ended up sticking with a MacBook Pro, much as I admire the MB Air. the latter just gives up too many things I really need, so I will deal with lugging a 6-pounder for awhile.

More later...

Catching up a bit

So, last term got completely crazy toward the end. In addition to the stuff I usually might have to do--teach, direct the comp. program, do a little research and writing--I also have been trying to write some grant proposals, organize a conference, and chair a search committee. Oh yeah, and I had to do a job review for myself...and the computer was stolen...so yeah, totally crazy.

But, I did the job review, kept the search under control and the conference, and the grant proposals are ok, for now at least. And, I may buy a Macbook Air in a week or two... But the main thing is that I got things wrapped enough to make another trip to Rotterdam in January. The trip went really well, but I now know that 6 days on the ground is really not enough when you have 6 hour jet-lag to get over before you can function at all.

So, what did I do this time around? Well, since you ask... I spoke at De Geuzen as part of their Living Room Lecture program, about Sequential Tart and super-heroines. That was fun; there was a live audience of six people, with more online, though I think only a few were formally signed into the chat. Anyway, the video archive of the first part is online already, and also some pictures. I was pleased that I could speak comfortably in front of people who I know and whose work I respect a lot! I mean, it's one thing to address strangers, or students, but I actually care about my friends' opinions. ;-) So this was the first official event for me.

Finally news on my blogging chapter, and identity projects more genrally

Quick burst of good news: finally I've heard from the editor of International Blogging; it's coming out from Peter Lang in 2008 and my chapter will be the conclusion. :-) A draft of the intro is here.

It's weird; I wrote this so long ago and now that it's appearing, my work has moved on in another direction, focusing much more on participation, subversive cultures, and on the institutionalization of discourse around new media. I still work on identity, just not so much national identity by itself. I look at it in other contexts, like in comics, or genre fiction, or video games. Just recently I was searching for articles on this, and found some entries in Henry Jenkins' blog that discuss comics and games and national identity in Poland, which he visited in 2006.

He goes on in later entries to also talk about Russia, Japan, and globalization, but I haven't gotten to those yet. But anyway, he mentions a series generally referred to as the "Witcher" books that sound like I might like them, but they don't seem to be out in English or maybe just not in the US. I'd really like to see what reviewers mean about the stories incorporating national characteristics. The author, Andrzej Sapkowski, seems cool; he even has links to fanfiction--one of the few words I could decipher, since the site is in Polish. But here's another page with some info in English.

Where was I? Oh yeah, identity in genre fiction. Right, so I think I will have to take that up pretty soon.

And, we're off!

The semester has started and students are starting to find their way to the Moodle site, where so far, they are managing to register and upload pictures of themselves, set up their profiles , etc. So that's a relief. Now I just hope my grad students do as well.

Meanwhile, we are scrambling through two grant proposals and the co-I who was helping me with the one that's due next week got food poisoning two days ago. Argh. I think we will make it anyhow, but it's going to be close, and stressful. And, the worst thing is that we are still trying to contact potential speakers for the workshop series; if they say yes, we immediately need commitment letters, 2-page CVs, and biographical blurbs. This is a big change from the last grant cycle's requirements, which said that the letters would strengthen your proposals, but weren't required. So that's been a lot of fun to deal with; I love emailing people I don't know (and those I do) and asking for huge favors. On the up side, they've been quite nice about it, and two of these lovely people have said yes so far. If we get the grant and run the series, I'll brag about who they are. :-)

Tick Tick Tick

Every now and then I enter some kind of mental phase when my brain feels overclocked. My thoughts speed up and run in parallel processes. Right now I am thinking about three different grant proposals; my undergrad and grad classes which start in two weeks; the orientation for new TAs next week; the 10 emails to which I'm awaiting replies; those I have to send out tomorrow; the Empire conference I'm co-chairing; a bi-lateral agreement with Piet Zwart; four calls for papers I might answer; my review of the ELO electronic text; my latest article for Sequential Tart; the skype calls I'm trying to arrange...

Does this count as a dynamic heterarchy? Intermediation?

Sometimes this might make me feel overstressed but sometimes it feels like my brain is whirring along, sustained by it's own speed, in perpetual motion. It's not perpetual of course, and the one problem is that it's hard to sleep in this state. I have trouble dropping off until late and as soon as the sun is barely up my eyes fly open again. Just can't stop thinking. And I don't really want to except I'm getting rather tired...

Anyway, now, as if all this weren't enough, I'm thinking about scholarly subjectivity, engagement, and Kenneth Burke.

The Big Picture

Early on I introduced this blog and why I was writing it, but didn't say much about the overall plan of which my trip to the Netherlands was part. Here's a brief summary:

last fall I started organizing faculty that were interested in New/digital media to talk about possible projects and to write grants. We really got going on it in January and now we are really picking up steam (except of course the first grant was submitted in late April and the rest are underway, so we won't know about money until Late Sept., at the earliest). Money aside, we all felt that students really needed far more experience using and thinking about computer technology and the ways it has changed almost every aspect of our culture. We want them to gain the skills they really need for future employment, which now go beyond sending email and making powerpoint presentations, but most of all we want them to be active creators and users of digital technology, not just passive consumers.

So we decided to create a center through which to develop projects and programs, but interestingly, it's hard to get money for a center and easier to get it for projects, so we are just trying to do the projects and say they are through the center so that at first it will just exist in name. Hopefully, if the projects and programs succeed, we will be able to convince our administration to give us structural support (meaning space and money) so that someday the center will exist as a physical reality and a line in the base budget. Or maybe we'll make a space like Worm did (see my second entry on them) where almost everything is salvaged.

Anyway, we are working on the following projects:

• Running a series of workshops for faculty who want to incorporate technology or teach about it in their classes. We have funding for the fall portion and are seeking funding for the spring to offer small stipends to 15 faculty who actually create new classes or course modules and to bring in some visiting speakers.


• Connecting with local organizations such as the Turlock Library, the local schools, and the Arts Commission to run public programs for, students and teachers and the public. We've already got a letter of support from the Arts Commission.


• Creating a new minor in Digital Media--We just submitted a letter of intent to the NSF for a grant in support of this. --If the minor proves popular, I imagine in 5 years or so we might propose a major.
  


• Creating a new Interdisciplinary MA in Digital Media (or Technology, the title is still up in the air)


• As part of the new MA, we are proposing an international collaboration with the Piet Zwart Institute Media Design MA in Rotterdam, NL. This would involve an optional exchange program for students that would allow them to receive a Joint MA from our programs. I have been communicating with the Director of the Program and met with him and the of Piet Zwart this month and they are enthusiastic. I also attended the first-year student exhibit and the graduation exhibit, and spoke at length with students and staff, besides looking at student papers, class syllabi, etc. We are developing a plan that will be part of the MA proposal.


• We are planning to create a lost cost wireless mesh network in Turlock to provide cheap high-speed internet access. Lack of high-speed access is a nagging problem for many students and resident in the area and certainly would hinder our efforts to provide more educational and cultural material via the internet.


• I am conducting a study of cultural and academic institutions organized around new/digital media which will lead in the near future to articles and conference presentations and ultimately to a book. This summer I conducted a series of interviews with some directors of these kinds of programs in the Netherlands and will be continuing these over the next few years. --A lot about these interviews are covered in earlier entries.

As we work on all of these we are applying for grant after grant and I'm writing a lot of them. If I combine all the proposals, I'll have a book-length text by December. Too bad they don't count as publications!