March 2010
2 posts
[NetCult] Jonathan Sterne — MP3 as Cultural...
Chatting today about this great Jonathan Sterne article on the MP3 format as a container technology with a rich cultural presence, capable of study as an artifact in its own right. Super smart mode of media history—download it here [PDF]. I wrote this summary a few months ago: The MP3 as Cultural Artifact Jonathan Sterne. New Media & Society 8:5 (2006). Because the mp3 encoding format has...
Mar 29th
[NetCult] New Thomas Levin Podcast
Forwarding this wonderful new Radio Open Source Thomas Levin podcast [tnx Greg Laynor!]. Lots of interesting points in there. To follow up: big batch of articles on JSTOR to find, Mass Ornament is essential, &I wish this book were still in print. [Catalog for the phenomenal show available online.] A great thinker of some of the issues NetCult has been following this week—locative media,...
Mar 15th
February 2010
2 posts
[NetCult] Strength of Weak Ties
From Mark Granovetter’s compelling &somewhat zany sociometric article “The Strength of Weak Ties” published in 1973 by The American Journal of Sociology. [Download article PDF] Granovetter proposes a network theory for linking micro and macro levels of sociological theory through an analysis of various types of ‘weak ties’ bridging groups otherwise bound by ‘strong ties.’ While the...
Feb 8th
1 note
Re: Larry Page
Jumping the gun a bit here, but this reminds me of a compelling hook concluding Alex Galloway’s short article on Protocol for TCS (graciously, found on aaaarg here). The basic thrust of the argument goes against the notion “that networks have the potential to dehierarchize, disrupt and generally dissolve rigid structures of all varieties… In fact, it is the opposite: distributed...
Feb 1st
January 2010
1 post
5 tags
Intro—Link Cluster—Theme Song
Hello 712.006.. . Sorry to miss the first (&next) class! Have been in Paris (performing with Vito Acconci &James Hoff at the Centre Pompidou) &Berlin (screening this moving picture called Flash Artifacts, on wch I’ll write more later.. .) Looking forward to getting back &digging into Network Cultures with yuall! Anyhow, here’s a short introduction &only follow...
Jan 31st