Re: nettime a new definition
Florian Cramer wrote: Before her edit, the article said: | New media usually refers to a group of relatively recent mass media | based on new information technology. It is based on computing technology | and not reducible to communication in a traditional sense. Most | frequently the label would be understood to include the Internet and | World Wide Web, video games and interactive media, CD-ROM and other | forms of multimedia popular from the 1990s on. The phrase came to | prominence in the 1990s, and is often used by technology writers like | those at Wired magazine and by scholars in media studies. [...] While this is not perfect, it's not a bad text either. Sorry to insist, but this text is bad. The first two sentences can sound reasonable in the context of media study, communicating that -- in the opinion of media study -- the New Medium WWW and the New Medium Video Games have mass media potential. The following very abstract interactive media and other forms of multimedia are meaningless satellites of the term without any connection to mass media. But my problem with this definition is not that it is vague -- in this case I'd edit it, replacing interactive media with nbsp; and CD-Rom with iPod. My problem is that this definition is irrelevant. Because New media does not usually refer to relatively recent mass media. It does not usually refer to mass media discourse. It refers to the digital medium: computer, computer networks. And unfortunately to interactive media and other forms of multimedia when it comes to giving definitions. Olia completely deleted it and replaced it with: | New Media is the field of study that has developed around cultural | practices with the computer playing a central role as the medium for | production, storage and distribution. | | New Media studies reflect on the social and ideological impact of the | personal computer, computer networks, digital mobile devices, ubiquitous | computing and virtual reality. The study includes researchers and | propagators of new forms of artistic practices such as interactive | installations, net art, software art, the subsets of interaction, | interface design and the concepts of interactivity, multimedia and | remediation. [...] The whole entry, IMHO, is based on a confusion of the term new media with new media studies and should have been a separate article with the according title. It is not a confusion, it is my statement, that the term New Media as a name for a field of studies is the only meaningful appearance of this term. When it comes to artistic or design practices, terms like digital culture, mobile computing, net art, interface design or even information architecture describe precisely the field of activity. New media artist, New media worker, New media design are quite blurry terms. At the same time New Media department of an academy, New Media Reader, New Media teacher are reasonable constructions, because they are associated with a maturing study, that is btw not at all a subdivision of Media Studies. New Media is not a perfect name for a study as well. But it has some adequate properties I mentioned in the wikipedia article*. And again, as I wrote in my last nettime message, my intention is that the term shrinks. It was quite embarrassing to watch the Refresh conference** and see how curators and theoreticians are again and again fantasizing on what is New Media and how new it is, and what is old (as if the term New Media contains in itself an implication to other, not digital media to unite under an Old Media banner -- but this is another topic). After watching Refresh streams I looked in The Language of New Media book for the definition -- it was not there. I looked in New Media Reader. The Term was not defined. I looked in Wikipedia -- after you know (see the beginning of the message). Thank you for your time olia * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_mediaoldid=27098010 ** http://www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/events/refresh/ -- FROZEN NIKI A blog from a cryogenic box http://frozen-niki.org/ # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
nettime about indictment of Libby and need for Congressional Investigation)
An article I wrote that I thought would be of interest to nettimers - r 'Scooter' Libby, White House Drama Unfolds [Analysis] Will the leak probe extend into a Congressional investigation? http://www.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=A11100no=256802rel_no=1 The unfolding saga of the latest scandal to hit the White House in the U.S. continues. With the formal indictment of I. Lewis Libby, known as Scooter Libby, on Oct. 28 by the Special Council Patrick Fitzgerald, the investigation into the probe of the CIA leak is taking on a new dimension. The essence of the prosecutor's case in indicting Libby is that the obstruction of the investigation and the lies told to those doing the investigation hampered the chance to get a clear picture of the crimes committed and the guilty parties. That is why obstruction of justice and lying to the investigators are serious offenses. (1) There are other aspects of the indictment, which is publicly postedhttp://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/libby_indictment_28102005.pdf(PDF) on the Internet, which provide a window into the activities at the White House during the period when the faulty intelligence used to justify the war against Iraq was being publicly questioned. *Related Articles* Heat Is On for CIA Leak Probe Prosecutor http://articleview/article_view.asp?menu=A11100no=253530rel_no=1back_url= The Internet and White House Leak Inquiryhttp://articleview/article_view.asp?menu=A11100no=255517rel_no=1back_url= The indictment charges that on May 29, 2003, Libby asked an under Secretary of State for Information about the then unnamed Ambassador (Joseph Wilson) and his trip to Niger. What is interesting about this detail is that it wasn't that Libby was trying to determine whether the intelligence information about Iraq trying to buy yellowcake from Niger was true or false. Instead he was seeking information about the person who was challenging the intelligence. The indictment then describes how documents were faxed to Libby which made it possible for him to identify the person who took the trip to Niger as Joseph Wilson. By June 11 or 12, the indictment explains, Libby spoke with an unnamed CIA officer about the circumstances leading to Wilson's trip to Niger, and from that conversation Libby was able to learn that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and could have had some connection with Wilson's being sent to Niger. Again, the portrait of Libby's activities being described here is a portrait that presents him as interested in gathering information about Wilson, rather than his gathering information about the reliability of the intelligence used to justify the war. The picture presented in the indictment is one which shows there was a considerable amount of activity among the White House staff who were trying to determine who Wilson was and to gather information about him. Wilson is essentially being treated as a target, rather than the information he is providing being treated in a serious way. There is currently speculation in the media about the identity of the unnamed members of the White House and State Department staff that are referred to in the indictment. (2) While this speculation is helpful in unraveling the actual activities and relationships that led to the crime, it is secondary to coming to understand the nature of the White House activity that the indictment exposes. Intelligence information for Libby, as demonstrated in the indictment, is not to be held to standards of accuracy. Instead, it becomes a political weapon by which to campaign for a desired policy and to use to attack others who may disagree. Another observation from the details enumerated in the indictment is that a large number of people on the White House and State Department staff were brought into the activity of setting Wilson up as a target to be attacked. White House activity, then, is not to ascertain that the accuracy of intelligence being used for matters as serious as taking the U.S. and other countries into a war in Iraq. Instead the time and efforts of numerous members on the White House and State Department staff were expended on creating a web to encircle someone who asked for the serious consideration of the accuracy of intelligence. The indictment documents how members of the U.S. press were also brought into this web of deceit. Hence, not only are a number of members of the U.S. government involved in these illegitimate activities, but also several journalists are similarly pulled into the fold. The apparent intention is that they will help to change the focus of the critique that Wilson is providing of intelligence used by the White House, into setting Wilson, himself, and soon his wife, up as the focus of public attention. A serious question not treated in the indictment is what President Bush knew about these activities by a number of people on the White House staff. While the indictment states that Vice President
