Unit 3: Mediated Experience
Project: Screen Self Portrait
-
— due Sat 14-Nov: Exercise 3
» Due Sat 11/21: Exercise 4 (5 points)
— “Snapshot Portrait” of Digital Experience (Instructions below)
Week 13
M 11/09 Discuss: Rettberg Chapters 5–6 (ebook online)
- “Quantified Selves” & “Privacy & Surveillance”
- focus: “Quantified self-representation” (distinct image/angle of mediated experience & digital identity)
→ key topics: “dataism,” tech-cultural filters, “machine vision”; “digital traces” & curated/logged identity
W 11/18 hybrid work :
- watch Logorama (2009)
&
“What Crazy Tech Idea Could Become Real? The Atlantic.com (2014) - Discuss : Digital Identity public & private
(media culture) - Comment and Reply in Discussion Thread Below
» Individual Conferences
→ schedule using this form
» Due Sat 11/21: Exercise 4 (5 points)
— “Snapshot Portrait” of Digital Experience (Instructions below)
Optional Blog Entry — prompt below
Exercise 4: “Snapshot Portrait” of Digital Experience
- due S 11/21; 5 points
— post on your blog - Multiple forms of media: required (warm-up to project 3)
» Objective & Instructions:
compose a brief “snapshot portrait” of your digital identity experience, as seen by databases and networks — “machine vision” (Rettberg Chp 5) of you based on activity & behaviors.
For specific glimpse, consider the digital behavior you’ve logged the past 24–72 hours — especially considering tracking, both that you’re aware of and unknown.
Try to quantify as much of “digital me” as possible, from all angles: use many categories, both real and imagined, to create a chart/graph of “identity as mediated activity” — both visible & invisible, public & private, logged/tracked & anonymous, social/networked & isolated, general (anyone) & personal (unique).…
→ Composition: the entire entry is just this “snapshot” glimpse of you as “data body” or “database identity,” imagining your “digital traces” (and other activity without “footprints”?). Compose using categories quantitative, objective, perceived — using visual media as well as data/numbers and descriptions “legible” for (in language of) database.
No need to explain/discuss! Just create an imagined “composite sketch” of your digital identity, to greatest extent you can envision (considering from many angles).
» Conclusion (1−2 sentences): succinctly note a summary of this composite portrait — how you are viewed (inferences, assumptions, category, conclusions) based on your digital traces or network footprints overall. (This is imagined, not necessarily viewed/assessed by any actual perceiver.)
Add a media form at the end that represents or expresses this overall “machine vision” profile of your digital identity.
Optional Blog Entry (extra participation credit)
» Write a reflection (100−200 words) after creating the “snapshot portrait” of your digital identity: does this profile glimpse seem/feel like me, as a representation of your activity? (or a separate identity?) Perhaps elaborate your conclusion, thinking of yourself being categorized by institutions or in a database…
Include an idea/term/quote from Rettberg chapter 5–6: note your new perspective, about digital identity concerning technology and culture. Also, perhaps look ahead to Project 3 and consider what of this mediated experience (in snapshot) you might now include in your Screen Self Portrait.
→ also as warm-up to project 3, include one media form (any type) that expresses your subjective sense (feeling, attitude, mood, emotion) of the snapshot portrait.
» Quotes from Chapter 5
I thought the videos were interesting — highlighting how advertising and media have essentially consumed culture and one’s daily experience. On average we see thousands of graphics a day all intended to grab our attention and bring to light some form of product or way of life. Given how visual our culture has become we become desensitized to these images and although we may be consumed by commodification and essentially turning everything even ourselves into products, its unavoidable. Instead of feeling like its the end of the world I see it as an opportunity to easily distribute a message. The one catch is making your message genuine but still stand out. Media can be a very important outlet for change and for shaping social constructions of reality.
I actually really enjoyed the Logorama short film and thought that it as both entertaining and thought provoking. The abundance of logos as a literal environment was an interesting take on how such companies have great prevalence in our society under the veil of commerce and consumer identity. The idea that we see so many logos every day was taken very literally in this film and I liked they way that vulgarity and adult themes were incorporated as well, which indicates how many of these companies operate in ethical/moral grey areas. The metaphorical value of this piece was immense and there was a lot being said in the character’s actions an behavior which indicates the way in which we may be expected to exist in our culture.
I thought the Video Logorama was awesome first of all, but it also made me think about a company’s digital identity. We recognize these companies in the private sector by their logos. Even if we were to the CEO or any high ranking official more often we would still recognize the Michelin Man over Jean-Dominique Senard (CEO of Michelin). Businesses want to be recognized by their mascot/logo in the public sector because the logo has never done anything wrong it is just a fluffy chef who giggles when you poke his belly. When these companies are acting privately though the go in the other direction they want business partners to know the person not the company or logo. Online the company wants to be able to communicate to customers on a friendly basis, but if the CEO were to attempt this he/she would be hard pressed to not come off as robotic or insensitive. Instead the Logo or mascot does the talking and can relate on what seems to be a much more personal level with the consumer. This mediates the experience between the producer and consumer. The mascot puts what the company wants into the consumers’ head, and the consumer never feels the need to find out anything else about the company. The mascot is the medium for the company to push a product.
I think your connection to logos being a mediated experience is spot on. Often times, big companies have mascots, like the ones we saw in “Logorama” to speak for the company. But even more so it’s about the marketing aspect and the outward appeal of the company to its consumers/ potential consumers. They’re often viewed as funny or overly kind or cute to portray their company in a positive light — after all, there is significant power in a positive public identity, which, ultimately translates to positive benefits in the private sector ($$$$$$$$).
This is a really good point, connecting Logos and Mascots. I’ve never really thought about it that way but it makes perfect sense, but in the real world and the Logorama video. It’s often overlooked as to just how important Branding is.
I thought the video was well done, however in my opinion the way the movie was executed didn’t necessarily accomplish communicating clearly the intentions of the directors when creating this movie. The one idea they did get across was the fact that advertisements become overwhelming to the point that we loose sight of the purpose of the brand or the product it is promoting.
I agree with you on the communicating part of this video. It was hard to get the general message or take away point from this video, but it’s interesting to see and hear others prospective on the matter. I too picked up on that idea of overwhelming advertisements, almost as if the directors were making this the main point throughout the video.
I thought the purpose of this video was possibly to point out the flaws in our society, as if the authors were claiming that large corporations and capitalism has become more important than preserving nature, leading to total destruction. They do so without actually claiming their intentions, but instead using satire to allow for interpretation from viewers.
The video was strange in that it represented a lot about the mediated experience and modern consumerism, yet the plot seemed to be entirely random. It appeared that the creator was creating an apocalyptic scenario, while matching this with our modernized consumer-based society. It could possibly be described as a satire, pointing out the prominence of media and advertising, in all aspects of life; or possibly criticizing our consumer society, by claiming that it is destroying the world.
I think that in general this video definitely was aimed at being satirical, however at the same time highlighting important aspects of our society. It was funny how every person in the video was an add or logo themselves. This speaks to the idea that we are all in a sense sporting logos and advertising products every day whether or not we even realize it. I think they were trying to point out that such a huge emphasis on the media and consumerism in our lives can lead to ultimate destruction.
I definitely think this short film was a satire aiming at our obsession with brand names. It is not only prominent in our world today, but we actively use it to define ourselves.
The two videos were both very interesting. Logorama was a funny video that also kind of put into perspective just how iconic these logos are. While some of the things were ridiculous like the people being AOL or guns being logos, the buildings and skyline that were all logos weren’t really that far off from reality today. The Crazy Tech video was really cool to watch as I had no idea that some of these things were close to becoming real. The idea of flying cars becoming a thing was never a possibility in my mind, however it seems that it could potentially be something in the future. It’s interesting how these ideas could affect our digital identity. Some of the things seem like they’re on the path to the kind of apparat technology that was in Super Sad True Love Story, completely changing what we see as Digital Identity.
I think the video posted on the Atlantic more accurately represents the frame of mind encompassed by our generation. The fact that many people agreed talking to houses was normal and that the idea of communicating with machines is normal just shows the transgression of societal development.
Yes I also found it interesting how the video portrayed our society. It showed that everything is about consumerism, showing how wrapped up we are in products and corporations. I think the creators were making fun of our capitalist society and pointing out our dependence on consumer based society.
^^ Yes, without a doubt. I think you can connect the idea of consumerism presented in “Logorama” and Shteyngart’s technology-infatuated dystopia and see that they are both pretty negative representations of humans’ capitalist tendencies. We can become very consumed by the material things constantly surrounding us, but then again, how could we not when we are constantly being bombarded by advertising, marketing ploys, and logos, i.e., Logorama.
I really enjoyed the video provided by The Atlantic because it provided insight into what the future might hold from the perspectives of many professionals involved in the progression of technology. There were a few mentions of the idea of “freedom” as being something that would come with the advancement of technology and the ability for people to expand “communication” and “talking” to appliances and even your house. I do not agree with this idea. Although humans may be able to achieve the same goals with more ease and efficiency, we will begin to forget about our person as a soul. We will begin to quantify humans as a part of an overall statistic and loose sight of the characteristics that make our species what we are. In a sense, this “progression” could potentially cause a state of regression as it pertains to linguistics and moving our society into the post-literate communicative framework that Sheyngart discussed in his novel “Super Sad True Love Story”.
Technology is without a doubt on a very exponentially-curved path, the innovations and creations are improving by the day. The Atlantic video definitely made me think about what other possible “crazy” technological advancements there could be. Piggybacking of your connection to “Super Sad True Love Story” and the video, this made me think of the apparat and how crazy an innovation that would be and how it really wasn’t a very positive thing. That’s the weird niche with technology, on one hand, you would think technology would allow us to advance as human beings, but at the same time, we are already becoming so encapsulated and sucked in with our devices that we may eventually be living very similar closed-off, non-communicative lives as the people in SSTLS.
I agree that technology has a dual nature. It has the potential for the innovation and advancement of human society, but it is easily misused, potentially leading to a corrupt system of societal values and a state of regression as in Super Sad True Love Story.
The Atlantic video put in perspective for me that technology is actually changing fast and there are so many possibilities of what the future can bring. With that, there is also a fear that too much technology can hinder the human spirit. I do not really want the future to be people communicating through their minds or finding ways to make us a species even more lazy. There has to be set boundaries. Technology is great but only to an extent.
I’m really interested in the idea of branding and marketing, as was displayed in “Logorama”. In fact, I’m studying marketing and business as a major. To companies (and all businesses, in general), a positive public identity is a very important, if not the most important, aspect of their business. In order to maintain a positive image, companies often times rely on a funny, cute, happy, etc., logo/ mascot or spokesperson to convey or relay the companies positive image and message, i.e., Ronald McDonald and the Michellan Man. Sometimes this may be used as a ploy to cover for the company’s otherwise maybe corrupt or ugly private identity. I thought it was interesting also how in “Logorama” the normally joyful and happy mascots like Ronald or the Michellan Man had pretty negative attitudes or were portrayed as some sort of evil character. This is probably alluding to the “real” identities of those businesses and not the biased digital identities that they try to sell you.
I think you and I had very similar takeaways from Logorama. I agree that it is very interesting that companies almost strive to create a dual identity for themselves. In the public sector they are fluffy and cute, but in the private sector they are sharks scavenging for every morsel of cash possible.
I agree with you that I feel like this video was definitely trying to shed a negative light on some of the logos we have always deemed friendly and wholesome. There are plenty of companies that like to portray a positive brand image and yet are doing negative things and cheating their way through the business world.
Out of curiosity, why do you think Big Boy and Esso Girl were the only mascots to survive? I was thinking it had something to do with how they represent older, smaller companies that perhaps never reached the magnitude and corruption of corporations like McDonalds.
The overall concept of “Logorama” was very interesting and causes viewers to really think and digest some of the meanings behind it. I think that it that the fact that they made Ronald McDonald the villain in the video was an interesting factor. This speaks to the idea of globalization and the negativity behind all of the huge companies that were highlighted in the video. McDonalds is surely the most well known globally and I think this video was conveying the fact that these kinds of companies can grow bigger and bigger until they destroy and beat out the rest. Despite all of the different logos highlighted in the video, most of our media and businesses are own by only few big corporations. This video promotes the idea that once one of these organizations is under attack, the rest will just fall a part as well. Therefore, we must not view all of these logos as individual entities but really think about how they are all actually connected and owned by the same industries. However, the way that the designers of “Logorama” configured all of the logos into one video as well as told a story, capturing the attention of all viewers, was a genius move on their part.
I think it’s something that should be obvious, but it’s always shocking how there is actually not that many companies controlling our market. We always believe we have a choice in what we buy that is mostly based on the company’s image, but we usually don’t realize that the company has made its own image through marketing and their parent company can have completely opposing marketed views. And all they want to do is keep themselves present in your brain through advertisement.
Globalization is an important theme to call to light here because more often than not especially with such a large corporation as mcdonalds, these dominant cultural structure comes into these new countries and either attempts to change or successfully changes part of their culture to become more like the dominant one. This effectively takes away from the original culture and leaves consequences that one can’t fathom because it didn’t even leave space for the original culture to find its own take on that structure. Also, with medi being such a string force in today’s society its hard to say that any of our choices are truly free will. We most often reason our decisions based off experiences or messages that have shaped our beliefs and advertising has a strong way of influencing our choices, especially our consumer choices.
I like how you pointed out that the conglomerate companies own a lot of the smaller corporations that are featured in this film. That point speaks a lot about the proposed originality of the brand identities and how many of them adopt similar ideals when you go up the ladder. On the opposite end of this conversation (and as I pointed out in my comment) many of these companies operate in ethical grey areas which brings up ideas about their influence in relation to the negative themes, vulgarity, and violence portrayed in this film. The whole thing really begs the question of how we are being taught to behave or think in our society.
After watching the Logorama video it was interesting to see how these directors portrayed digital identity and the quantified self through the use of all different types of logos. I found it interesting how they incorporated certain logos of products we see daily into the buildings, cars, roads, and even people. It definitely shows us how we are invested so much into large corporations and how there is no way to eradicate them from our society.
Interesting comment about the portrayal of digital identity and quantified self through logos. While watching, I noticed that some logos were more numerous and in the background (like the AOL man) while others were fewer in number and much more central to the action (McDonald). Any thoughts on what this might symbolize? And I agree that consumers have fed into the system, and mass corporations are so heavily integrated into society now that there is no turning back.
After watching “Logorama” I scrolled down to the comments section and also did some research on it. For me the video seemed to be making a reference into how prominent all branding is in our every day life. Even brands that are not that relevant anymore are still present, either because they now own other brands or because they leave a kind of “footprint” on the internet. In the comments section there was someone who said that the video showed how it all comes down to the beginning: a man, a woman, and a tree which I thought was a bit too religious for the context of the video.
I agree, I didn’t understand the religious concept of the video. I think its interesting how brands can leave a foot print, especially since we constantly are having new and emerging brands come at us. Also because brands themselves are always trying to reinvent themselves to the internet.
I thought the video was extremely interesting about how logos affect our lives. It weird to think how logos mediate our experiences about a brand. Being an advertising major, I could relate and understand the affect of brands on society. We use brands to mediate our experience and vice versa, for example when we wear name brands we are wearing the logo to create an experience for ourselves in fashion.
I am studying marketing so I can also relate about brands effecting our decisions while purchasing. When someone recognizes a label or brand name they are more likely to buy it so that is why advertising is such a huge industry.
During the Logorama video I noticed myself thinking the brand names in my head to see how many I knew and it was shocking how many I could identify. Logos and brands help to create our identities and decision making. If I know of a brand and have seen or heard about it I will most likely chose that product over one that I haven’t seen or heard of before. These top companies make sure people know their logo and what they do in their advertising. The more we see something, the more likely we are to use it or buy it.
I really enjoyed watching the Logorama video. I recognized so many logos. It was really interesting to see how the logos themselves interacted with each other. it was also kinda cool to see the logos not really obsessed with media culture. I kind of got a a small metroplis vibe. I do not think I saw cell phones or things that dictate culture now in the 21st century. When the world was I guess being destroyed by an earthquake it kind of made me think that all these logos and the companies behind them have a huge stake in all of our lives. If they all were to disappear there would be madness. Nowadays those logos in the short film really have a powerful impact on the world’s citizens but in reality they probably shouldn’t and maybe it was foreshadowing how all these brands will tear apart human society.
I too saw the film as a representation of the interaction between the corporations, the people, and the planet. These companies have so much power and influence that they can do whatever they want. They can control the masses, the resources, and essentially our future on this planet. We depend on them and have to hope that what they do with their power will be for the greater good. Our world is run by the corporations and it is in their hands as to whether we perish or thrive.
The Logorama short film was not what I was initially expecting. The way I interpreted it is that mass corporations and industries will compete over resources, leading to the destruction of the planet. The familiarity of logos and allusions to brands, labels, or trademarks kept me engaged as a viewer. In particular, I thought the James Bond 007 gun barrel shot when Ronald McDonald killed the Michelin Man was creative. Overall, I thought the short was very thought-provoking and in some ways ties in with Rettberg chapter 5 “Quantified Selves.” As consumers, we buy into these brands and allow ourselves to become ‘data bodies’ for massive corporations.
I found the digital short to be extremely interesting. It made me think about how some people in society identify themselves and interact with these corporations and businesses. Many people like to stand up for the brands that they support (whether it’s buying their products or they hold shares in the company), and that was what I saw when Ronald McDonald was being chased down by the police. I saw it as an example as to how many people attack certain companies and blame them for their own problems. Then the oil that came out and destroyed the city, I saw it as a representation of how our dependancy on oil will someday destroy us (or maybe it already has). I saw everything as a metaphor for life in the present era.
I agree with you in that people identify themselves with corporations and businesses. The brand of clothes you wear or even what grocery store you shop at plays a hand in describing what type of person you are.
I thought the videos were interesting, especially the Logorama short film. I didn’t really expect it to be a short story. While it was entertaining, I didn’t fully understand the point of the storyline. What I did pull from it though was how everything was a brand name. It emphasized how we have become blind to advertisements. We are not only consumers but we are the product. Our interests are bought and sold to companies to target certain demographics.