Narratives in Media and eCommunication

Blending Theory and Practice in Community Informatics

2007-12-02T13:40:00.000+01:00

We met in Porto this week. The International Workshop CIBlend was a wonderful writing-sharing experience. We were a mixed group of ten people interested in Community Informatics from several different nationalities: Portuguese, Kenyan, South African, New Zelander, British, Colombian, Netherlander, American and two Australians.

We had never attempted to write together before and we managed to engage in a very inspiring writing process where we drafted two articles to be published in a journal.
We took photos and exchanged lots of ideas around issues related to the work with communities and the use of ICT´s in different environments and places.

I am looking forward to continue meeting these wonderful group of colleagues, most of them academics but also largely engaged in activism and praxis.

Connecting with others, celebrating Blog Day

2007-09-02T09:26:00.000+02:00

We could say we are celebrating Blog Day this week. A unique opportunity to link to people and blogs that we seldom connect to, read or know about.

As part of this "linking" celebration and inspired by David Sasaki I want to recommend some blogs to you.

The first one is Bangladesh from our View where a group of girls from the Nari Jibon Project tells about their lives, businesses and dreams while they participate in the Risisng Voices Online Project that aims to give them skills and access to the digital world available via Internet. It is very inspiring to read them and have a peek in their lives and whereabouts.

A similar group or young people in Sierra Leone has began to work together and soon will begin their blogging activities to show the world that this country is much more than blood and diamonds. In their site is possible to get to know who them a little bit.

Building the culture of writing, reading, and critical thinking among youth in Kolkata's social and economic margins in Kalam: Margins Write the tutors talk about this initiative and their experiences with bringing blogging tools and writing skills to the underprivileged of India.

Authentic citizen journalism from Colombia is still alive and well in The Colombian Herald is a new media outlet that uses blogging tools to air an independent view of what happens in a rich and beautiful land facing enormous challenges due to long civil war being fueled by money coming from cocaine trade.

Culture as exchange of ears

2007-06-08T11:32:00.000+02:00

In this insightful and prophetic text Eduardo Galeano, the argentinean author and prolific writer defines his and others people´s approach to culturre several decades before the creation of the Internet with all the participative and conversational modes of communication that this technology allows.

"Culture did not end for us in production and consume of books, paintings, symphonies, films or theatre plays. It did not even started there. We understood culture as the creation or any meeting place between human beings, and all the symbols of collective memory and identity: testimonies of what we are, the prophecies of imagination and the denunciation of what stop us from being.

We wanted to talk to people and answer their words. In order not to get mute, we believed culture had to begin by not being deaf. We published our texts about reality but also, and moreover, texts from reality. Words picked up in the street, in fields, in mine caves, stories of life, folk songs."

Food for thought

A new medium: The Colombia Herald

2007-03-17T23:32:00.000+01:00

Not without certain irony or sarcasm Carlos Raul van der Weyden has created The Colombia Herald a medium targeting the big English speaking audience searching for information on Colombia. I think I read an oxymoron in the title of this hybrid medium that using the blog format reports with the neutrality and credibility of good journalistic practices.

His promising adventure deserves attention and good sailing winds in its navigation. There is quality on his writing. I encourage him to continue the good work at The Colombia Herald which I warmly recommend.

Comunicacion - Blog de Victor Solano: En cuanto venderas tu blog?

2006-11-21T21:09:00.000+01:00

En cuanto venderas tu blog?

Diebold AccuVote-TS Security Demonstration

2006-10-10T10:26:00.000+02:00


Princeton researchers demonstrate security flaws in a Diebold electronic voting machine.

Public Discourse in USA since 1960

2005-08-23T09:23:00.000+02:00

Today, are we going to have pleasure to listen to Michael Schudson in a Guest lecture at our Department (University of Bergen). He is going to talk about his field of expertise which is Sociology of the American News Media, advertising, popular culture, and cultural memory. He has been recently examining the growing freedom of expression in the United States from 1960 to the present, and its complicated consequences.
The title of his lecture is: "Revealing, Disclosing, and Accounting: Some Features of American Public Discourse Since 1960". I imagine he will be using (and most problably criticizing) Habermas concepts around the Public Sphere in relation to his research on recent Public Discourse in the USA. I am looking forward to it.

If you want to read a sound and original Keynote Lecture delivered by Schudson in 1999 here is the link

Other Advantages of Open Source

2005-06-08T11:06:00.000+02:00

Another good thing and really the key advantage of Open Source is not cost savings.
Reduced dependence on software vendors appears more important than low cost

Computer Economics recently conducted a survey of visitors to its website regarding the perceived advantages in the use of open source software. Although not a scientific sample, the results are nevertheless startling.

As nearly everyone knows, open source software is a low cost alternative to proprietary software. For example, the open source Linux operating system is commonly seen as a low cost alternative to Microsoft’s Server 2003 operating system, or Sun’s version of Unix. The popularity of open source is seen in the fact that today the largest market share for web servers is held by the open source Apache system.

One might think, therefore, that the key advantage of open source software is its low cost of ownership. But visitors to our website didn’t think so.

Via Frank Scavo

Dutch academics declare research free-for-all

2005-06-05T20:06:00.000+02:00

Scientists from all major Dutch universities officially launched a website a couple of weeks ago where all their research material can be accessed for free. Interested parties can get hold of a total of 47,000 digital documents from 16 institutions the Digital Academic Repositories. No other nation in the world offers such easy access to its complete academic research output in digital form, the researchers claim. Obviously, commercial publishers are not amused.

DAREnet was already launched about a year ago, but for demonstration purposes only. The €2m DARE programme - a joint initiative by all the Dutch universities, the National Library of the Netherlands, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) - harvests all digital available material from local repositories, making it fully searchable. Aside from bibliographical information, the content can be full text, or even audio and video files.

The initiative is clearly not welcomed by commercial scientific publishers such as Elsevier Science. Increasingly, universities complain about the high cost of scientific journals and many argue that the research results should be distributed freely or at significantly less cost to library subscribers.

Via Jan Libbenga

Color perception can be universal

2005-06-04T12:49:00.000+02:00

In the New Scientist Print Edition there is a report implying that our perception of the palette of colours is universal, according to a survey of 110 different cultures, according to a survey conducted by Paul Kay at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California. So when it comes to choosing the reddest red or the bluest blue, everyone tends to go for the same hue.
But it is not clear why this should be so. The researchers asked the participants to choose from an array of 330 colours the shades that came closest to their absolute for each hue. Most subjects chose similar colours (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0503281102). Kay suggests that the common palette emerges because of similarities in the way our brains are wired.

Should the taxpayers pay for expensive software?

2005-05-09T18:23:00.000+02:00

Some days ago Jostein Gripsrud wrote (in Norwegian) an important article in Dagbladet, arguing against the dependency of a nation like Norway from a monopolistic international sofware corporation. It does not stop there. We should also think about the large sums of dollars payed by public and government offices to a handfull of companies acussed of monopolistic and unfair trade and competition.

In a report appeared in The TES - a British leading education newspaper published by The Times, I learned today that The British Educational Communications and Technology Association (BECTA) is telling primary and secondary schools in the UK to dump Microsoft Operating systems and products in order to save millions.

According to this organization which will publish a report next week:

"Schools which have turned to free software instead of the market leader’s products have saved 24 per cent in tax payers money.

The association analysed costs at 33 schools which use paid-for software, and compared them with 15 which have pioneered the use of free programs, known as open source, and the pared-down hardware to run them.

Average costs, including software, hardware and support costs, were always less per computer in secondaries using open source."

Via Slashdot.com

Borealis 2005, the festival

2005-03-14T13:01:00.000+01:00

The Borealis 05 is a tiny festival for contemporary music, experimental sound and navigation. It has just began here in Bergen and it will last until the 20th of March.

The festival will be a week-long celebration of Terry Riley's 70th Birthday a man who is a legend in contemporary music, and who will be in Bergen with some of his most known colaborators. Terry Riley is from San Francisco and was the man who started minimalism in 1964 and managed to associate La Monte Young, Philip Glass og Steve Reich to the movement. Robert Fripp and King Crimson calle Riley "The Father of the Loop".
At four p.m today he will be talking about his music, minimalism and hippie times in San Francisco at the Bergen Hall of Art.

The program for the week includes concerts with Terry Riley, Krishna Bhatt, Nihar Mehta, Gyan Riley, Stefano Scodanibbio, The Vigil Band, Zuleikha. Bergen Harding-fiddle 'In C' Orchestra, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Bollyphony, N-Collective, 9 Beet Stretch among others.

Blogging as publishing format

2005-03-11T10:21:00.000+01:00

Following on the same track and the discussion that has develop in the comments space of Jill Walker’s post I would like to bring the attention to very good post by Toril Mortensen in her thoughtful blog, thinking with my fingers, where she asks herself and answers to the question:

so: is blogging journalism? No. But a blog can be a medium for good reporting, good news coverage, and good investigative journalism. It is also a lot more.

I agree. But... there is a small noticeable difference here. A blog can be used as a good and effective publishing tool to do the tasks of a notable and important profession like journalism. But I would not dare to say that this in itself makes a single blog a medium proper. It is rather an authoring platform that once is up and running can enter in the public sphere and create all kinds of ethic and aesthetic distinctions and conflicts given the interests that are into play once a challenging utterance has come out to the public. As it is the case with Apple's court case against three bloggers.

I would say that it is in the networking of comment, dissent, track backing and linking that the blogging activity flourishes and become what I have called a very clear format with well defined characteristics, tools (database, syndication etc) and set of rhetorical conventions and ideological and aesthetic similarities.

Blogging as format and its legal consequences

2005-03-09T17:21:00.000+01:00

In her wonderful blog, Jill Walker discusses recently the court case Apple has initiated against blogs who apparently revealed industrial secrets. I agree with Jill that the court case raises questions about the legal status of blogs. But disagree with her when she says

"that blogging’s... not really about journalism at all".

The reason for my disagreement is conceptual. There is a tendency to consider blogging a genre or a medium when in fact blogging is a format.

And a format is a formal and content set of conventions created within a medium to rhetorically address a certain audience.

Each medium can have several formats. I have commented and presented an example as an argument for what I understand is a format: in Radio (and blogging has strong similarities with Radio) you have a medium and different formats: magazines, news programs, soaps etc.

As a matter of fact within the blogging format there are several genre within this format: the personal, collective, fictional, opinionated and news blogs. There are journalists who write in their blogs as if they were broadcasting news (they double check their sources, they are reliable and they follow known journalist’s ethical standards.) So in this particular case of bloggers who ordinarily report on facts and are used to cover events as elections, gatherings or corporate strategies are blogs that exercise a profession called journalism.

I do not know on which grounds the American judge tentatively will rule that three blogs should reveal the source of leaked information about an unreleased Apple product. But he/she should take some of these issues into consideration.

Film classics in top DVD transfers

2005-03-04T16:03:00.000+01:00

Criterion Collection has always been the very best on the DVD market. They began doing their top quality and careful film transfers in the old times of Laser Discs (eighties and nineties). They have become a legend in the industry for their classic catalog, superb commentaries, booklets, and other "special features."

But Warner Home Video is now out there to compete with them. According to Fred Kaplan:

Now it's time to take note of another logo that almost guarantees high quality—Warner Home Video. At least since 2002, the video division of Warner Bros. has released one great-looking DVD after another. I know of no other label, in fact, whose output has been more consistently spectacular.

A recent 2 disc edition of Casablanca and other valuable releases of films like Singing' in the rain and The Band Wagon show an outstanding picture quality and color definition and rendition. Why? Because they've been mastered from the original Technicolor three-strip negatives. In some ways, these DVDs have finer color and detail than even the original film prints. In the old days, it was difficult to align those three strips perfectly but now Warner is doing and coming out with authentic jewels.

Buy Nothing Christmas

2004-12-07T23:38:00.000+01:00

Buy Nothing Christmas is a very interesting initiative started by Canadians in connection with adbusters and supported by them.

Editing and mixing Fahrenheit 9/11

2004-11-21T13:55:00.000+01:00

Via Sven E Carlsson I find this fascinating description of the process of sound editing in the last film of Michael Moore: Fahrenheit 9/11

"Another key to the success of the sound edit was the tireless efforts of Carl Deal, the chief archivist. His job was to make sure there was plenty of archival footage for Moore to cut into the movie. “Along with the archival footage comes archival sounds,” Rizzo says. “If a piece of archival news footage had really bad sound, we looked to Carl to find us something better, another source for the same piece of audio.” Rizzo recalls that even though Deal was often able to come through, there sometimes wasn't a better sound source to be found, so other elaborate audio restoration actions had to be taken.

One of the Fahrenheit sequences that was particularly important to Rizzo, and particularly moving in the film, was the 9/11 montage. Cinematically, it was decided that since Americans had seen the Trade Center footage hundreds of times, the film would allow the sounds to carry forward the images.

“We wanted to start off with a couple of seconds of quiet, of city ambience,” Rizzo explains. “The last sound before our world changed. Then you have all this confusion. This mass panic. Some people are screaming, some people are crying. A little bit of radio clip. Every sound that you hear [in the movie] came from recordings of 9/11. No library sounds were used. The challenge was to make it as powerful as possible without doctoring it up. Make it as adrenaline-flowing as it really was without hypersensationalizing it. Make it real.”

Norway and Denmark join Open Access

2004-10-27T05:35:00.000+02:00

Since I found about the Open Access movement I have become a strong advocate of this initiative. Not too long ago I was lamenting the fact that the U of Bergen was not part of this initiative.

I hope they have heard me :-) even though I doubt anyone can pay attention to this blog. The good news is that today I have learned that Norway has made a nationwide commitment to Open Access for the biomedical research it funds. All universities, polytechnics research institutes and hospitals in Norway became BioMed Central members on 1 October 2004.

According to Peter Suber: "Norway's decision is another landmark in the move towards Open Access for all biomedical research."

Three other European countries have already taken out nationwide BioMed Central membership for the majority of their publicly funded researchers since Denmark has recently has joined this initiative.

BioMed Central's Institutional Membership Program was launched in January
2002 and now has over 450 members, including some of the world's most
prestigious academic institutions.

A day of peaceful demonstration

2004-10-11T22:14:00.000+02:00

The political climate in Colombia is hot at this very moment. The present government is giving all attention to security and the war against leftist guerilla groups and very little to the needs and pressures of the lower and middle classes. Unemployment runs rampant while the wealthy get richer and richer.

Tomorrow the Trade Unions (grouped in CUT) and the left movement united around the banner of “Polo democratico Independiente” are launching a national stand still day inviting people to hit the street and protest against the government. It will be a tense day. I hope for peaceful demonstrations and a very tolerant police force, so that people can express their discontent without getting hurt.

Away for a while

2004-07-23T12:20:00.000+02:00

In the next couple of weeks I will be traveling to New York and later to Bogotá mainly for family gatherings. I guess I will have very little chance to post in this blog for a while. I will try though. It will all be a matter of new schedules some tourist activity and real life as opposed to cyberwriting. I am looking forward to it.

Internet a truly international resource?

2004-07-21T16:26:00.000+02:00

Internet like many other technologies were created Eurocentric. And this will have to change. Like many other things many westerners using Internet asumme that everybody has to write using the Western alphabet. But the facts tells us that millions of people in this planet have languages that use diferent characters. And the Internet should include them.

Eurocentrism is naturalized as "common sense" and by this concept goes that the best has been created by Europeans which includes also "neo-Europeans" of the Americas, Australia and elsewhere.

Eurocentrism, as Ella Shohat and R.Stam have described it, engenders a fictitious sense of the innate superiority of European derived cultures and peoples.

The Internet as as site of power has been develop in the English-speaking countries. But the demographics are against this dominance.

BBC reports that since the net's centre of gravity is moving East, there are efforts aimed at finding standards in order to communicate more easily and make Internet a truly international resource.

I hope that this type of news increases an awareness of how big the World really is and how Eurocentrism narrows our view of the planet.

"When I close a book I open life"

2004-07-12T16:25:00.000+02:00

Today, a hundred years ago, one of my favorite writers, Pablo Neruda was born in Chile. That is a big day for the owner of this blog. Time to celebrate his words by citing one of his poems.

Ode to the Book
translated by Nathaniel Tarn

When I close a book
I open life.
I hear
faltering cries
among harbours.
Copper ignots
slide down sand-pits
to Tocopilla.
Night time.
Among the islands
our ocean
throbs with fish,
touches the feet, the thighs,
the chalk ribs
of my country.
The whole of night
clings to its shores, by dawn
it wakes up singing
as if it had excited a guitar.

The ocean's surge is calling.
The wind
calls me
and Rodriguez calls,
and Jose Antonio--
I got a telegram
from the "Mine" Union
and the one I love
(whose name I won't let out)
expects me in Bucalemu.

No book has been able
to wrap me in paper,
to fill me up
with typography,
with heavenly imprints
or was ever able
to bind my eyes,
I come out of books to people orchards
with the hoarse family of my song,
to work the burning metals
or to eat smoked beef
by mountain firesides.
I love adventurous
books,
books of forest or snow,
depth or sky
but hate
the spider book
in which thought
has laid poisonous wires
to trap the juvenile
and circling fly.
Book, let me go.
I won't go clothed
in volumes,
I don't come out
of collected works,
my poems
have not eaten poems--
they devour
exciting happenings,
feed on rough weather,
and dig their food
out of earth and men.
I'm on my way
with dust in my shoes
free of mythology:
send books back to their shelves,
I'm going down into the streets.
I learned about life
from life itself,
love I learned in a single kiss
and could teach no one anything
except that I have lived
with something in common among men,
when fighting with them,
when saying all their say in my song.

Want to read more by Pablo Neruda? click here

Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs

2004-07-05T20:30:00.000+02:00

The Spirit of Paulo Freire in Blogland: Struggling for a Knowledge-Log Revolution is a very good article written by independent researcher, Christine Boese.

She discusses weblogs and klogs (knowledge blogs) as a notable social phenomenon.
By applying some of the key concepts of The pedagogy of the oppressed to analyse Main stream Media Institutions like Time and CNN she makes an original exploration on digital and online dialog (through the blog technology) as sites of contestation and resistance.

I recommend not only this article but most of the others in the new publication Into the Blogosphere

Moore's Public Service

2004-07-02T19:24:00.000+02:00

PAUL KRUGMAN Op-Ed Columnist of the New York Times makes a very interesting and relevant point in his column today when he points to the small space mainstream media outlets in the US are giving to one of their most important duties that of being a public service channel for Democracy and the citizens who turn to them to get information and a qualified opinion.

News Media should always be a watchdog for the use and abuse of power. In this sense I respect Michael Moore much more than Krugman seems to do when he says :

"And for all its flaws, 'Fahrenheit 9/11' performs an essential service. It would be a better movie if it didn't promote a few unproven conspiracy theories, but those theories aren't the reason why millions of people who aren't die-hard Bush-haters are flocking to see it. These people see the film to learn true stories they should have heard elsewhere, but didn't. Mr. Moore may not be considered respectable, but his film is a hit because the respectable media haven't been doing their job."

Michael Moore begins to blog

2004-06-23T17:45:00.000+02:00

On June 22 Michael Moore's official website informed that the famous documentary filmmaker will soon become a blogger. I must say he is very welcomed to the world of instant publication.

Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore

2004-06-23T17:20:00.000+02:00

In today's review at The New York Times: Fahrenheit 9/11 by A. O. SCOTT, a very fresh and engaged film critic discusses the powerful film that opens this week in the USA.

Mr. Scott criticizes some of Michael Moore traits but points out that Fahrenheit 9/11 "is worth seeing, debating and thinking about, regardless of your political allegiances."

He concludes his article in a very compelling manner: "The most moving sections of "Fahrenheit 9/11" concern Lila Lipscomb, a cheerful state employee and former welfare recipient who wears a crucifix pendant and an American flag lapel pin. When we first meet her, she is proud of her family's military service — a daughter served in the Persian Gulf war and a son, Michael Pedersen, was a marine in Iraq — and grateful for the opportunities it has offered. Then Michael is killed in Karbala, and in sharing her grief with Mr. Moore, she also gives his film an eloquence that its most determined critics will find hard to dismiss. Mr. Bush is under no obligation to answer Mr. Moore's charges, but he will have to answer to Mrs. Lipscomb."

Accident

2004-06-17T15:16:00.000+02:00

Today I have managed to fall from my bicycle, in my way to the office.
I have broken two bones in my left arm. It has taken me more than 4 minutes to type these few words in the blog. It means I will stop bogging for a while.

Creating a "Commons" for digital education

2004-06-14T13:30:00.000+02:00

The Norwegian educational technology interoperability project (in short the E-standard Project) is part of the Norway's Ministry of Education and Research's initiative to establish a National Learning Network and a National web portal for education - www.utdanning.no.

They organized activities and workshops in order to discuss and share information. I have received an invitation to a Meeting to take place in Oslo on June 25th.
In the morning the group of experts composed by Hans Marius Graasvold, Thomas Gramstad, Tore Hoel, Jan-Arve Overland, Siri Slettvåg, Vebjørn Søndersrød og Jens Vindvad will present a report where they discuss solutions to implement the sharing of resources. A kind of "Creative Commons" for the digital education?

The invitation is open to people interested in questions of copyrights connected to digital resources in pedagogy and culture.

In the afterrnoon the meeting will be used to discuss not only technogical questions but also the most important issues: what about the pedagogical content?, how it should be structured and organized when presented as digital material?

There will be presentations of tools built in in some of the educational platforms that exist in the norwegian market: it:solutions presents ePlus, and Fronter will show their software Læringssti. Another example to be shown in the afternoon section is the free platform Lectora.

As they state it in their website: "the E-standard Project goal is to put the educational technology interoperability issues on the agenda of the educational community of Norway. What is done internationally will be brought to notice of the national institutions of education and the national ICT industry. Through participation in selected standards organizations the Norwegian input to the standardization process will be conveyed. Of special focus to the Project will be the aims of the portal utdanning.no. The Project will pay special attention to learning technology, pedagogy and the needs of different users groups."

I will try to be in Oslo for that meeting.

Members of Open Access

2004-06-10T12:48:00.000+02:00

The U. of Bergen is not a member yet of this great Open Access group of institutions and scholars that have began publishing peer reviewed cientific articles in the Internet. This is a great initiative because it consideres knowledge as an open and public good that should not be merchandised and make for profit.

Professor Elba S. Vázquez from FCEN, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina has this to say about her experience "The ability to submit a paper on the web is extremely important in developing countries, as it reduces the costs of posting and printing manuscripts. Furthermore, and perhaps the most important reason for submitting was the knowledge that open access to scientific information allows the whole scientific community to read our article, achieving an optimal distribution of knowledge."

Bio Med Central has to charge for the publishing costs but it also makes provisions for scholars who do not have the means to make their research work known. For scholars from low-income countries there is a free waiver provision so that in two days they get to know if Bio Med Central will take care of the costs of publishing.

Any researcher or Medicine Doctor can submitt an article for review. So far this great collection of free access journals (on the field of bio-medicine) has succeded in their Open Access goals.

I hope that the Humanities and Social Sciences will soon be able to follow this type of initiative. I am aware that The University of Lund has created a Directory of Open Access Journals where people from many other disciplines like me, can look for articles for free and this is very good. But the stakes at BioMed look higher and should be imitated and perfected.

Failed policy and abuse of prisoners

2004-06-09T16:03:00.000+02:00

This is a poweful document. It may be controversial but is worthwhile reading.
It is promoted by the Move on organization and sponsored by MoveOn PAC. In it Al Gore links the Abu Ghraib prison abuses to deep flaws in President Bush’s Iraq policy and calls for the resignation of 6 members of the Bush Administration team responsible for the failed policy and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.
The web address is:
http://www.moveonpac.org/goreremarks052604.html/

Exchange of Faculty and Students

2004-06-08T16:24:00.000+02:00

Since I arrived to Bergen I have been particularly interested in developing international relations between University and Schools (especially in the field of Media and film studies). I have worked since 1994 in all kinds of exchanges between the International Film School of San Antonio EICTV (Cuba) and the University of Bergen. Some years later we managed to signed an agreement with Universidad de Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia. Over the years we have had fruitful results from several Faculty and Student exchanges with these institutions.

The invitation that Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla extended me to their annual event Catedra Europa in April this year has strengthen my desire to develop more exchanges with them.

We have talked about it and made some provisory plans but today we had come a step forward in our goals. The visit of Reidar Østbye the Honorary Consul of Norway in Barranquilla, Colombia to the International Relations Office of the U. of Bergen has taken place and it resulted in a very nice and friendly dialog. A letter of invitation to Jesus Ferro, the Rector of UniNorte is going to be written. A pleasant atmosphere of good will and desire to extend our relations over the Atlantic is floating on the air. It is a wonderful sunny day in Bergen. A sail boat crosses the fjord. Things look promising.

Movable Type 3.0 for free, a wish or a dream?

2004-06-03T17:54:00.000+02:00

In my post yesterday about a couple of good reasons to move from Movable Type to Wordpress I expressed a wish for the future addressed to the people who created Wordpress. But they are actually doing a great job.

I mentioned that bloggers should consider a litte bit the radical income differences that some people experience in their every day life. Some have lots of things and money, some others have a job and an income that helps pay bills while many others have no jobs or are poorly paid.
Matt and Loic's comments have made me think a little bit more about this.
Since Wordpress is a General Public License software it means that it is unlikely that they will charge for their software in the future.

That means that my recommendation and wish should actually be addressed to Six Apart and the representatives of Movable Type.
I wish that they will consider geographic income differences when they come up with new upgrades of their software.

As a young, admirable and friendly company they could perfectly charge a different amount of money for the people in "Third World" countries, or just make it a free ride for them. Everybody would understand it. It is a known fact that it requires a hell of a lot more working hours to earn a 100 dollars in Bolivia than in the US or Europe.

Is that good business? I hear people asking me while reading. I will say that it may be. It is probably not so profitable in quick cash money, but it will be a solidarity gesture and will lower the access barriers that regular citizens have to technology innovation in the those countries. That alone I considered a social investment. I will bet that it will benefit Six Apart and every citizen in this planet.

Companies are part of civil society. Loic Le Meur's blog actually reminded me that any company have public duties and "citizens" roles to play.

In a World of growing inequality and difference this is not so much to ask. And it will probably be a very good example for many other companies to follow.

Open source and class distinctions

2004-06-02T10:14:00.000+02:00

Jill Walker is moving (or has moved) her blog from Movable Type to Wordpress. I admire that because it means some extra work, new knowledge and a change of habits. I am planning to do the same for the same IMPORTANT REASON: Wordpress software is an active participant of the Web Standards and Open Source Initiative.

My other reason is solidarity. I shared the worries of some of my friends and colleagues from Latin America and Africa. For them is not so easy to afford the new Movable Type software. Do people know that hosting alone is much more expensive in "Thirld World" countries that in the "Western World of Opulence and Honey"? Just to mention another one of the many Internet Access Barriers?

Wordpress should consider this. And if in the future they want or need to charge for their software, they should remember that not everybody in this planet is "white, male, rich and famous" :-) as some bloggers and developers seem to assume ;-)

Solidarity with others means adhering to the mission of Internet's most biting WaSP!

New Media Conference

2004-05-25T21:20:00.000+02:00

By invitation of Professor Barbara Gentikow our Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen is organizing a
New Media Conference titled New Media as Culture Techniques and as Fora for Communicative Action.

Taking place in Bergen Thursday, May 27 and Friday, 28 the Conference will focus "on the media as media, that is the materiality and technology of mediated communication. We are predominantly interested in the cultural and social meanings of material and technological changes. The emergence of new media in our perspective 'means' not only new technologies, but also new configurations of the cultural and social landscape. "

Guest speakers from Germany, USA, Norway and England include well known scholars in the field. Among them Reader Graham Murdoch, Prof. Jochen Brüning, Prof. Friedrich Kittler, Prof. Colin Sparks, Prof. Don Ihde and Prof. Barbara Gentikow.

By the title and the guests speakers it promises to be a very interesting experience.

Swiss Action Film

2004-05-07T11:54:00.000+02:00

In the Creative Commons site I found something very innovative and promising for us the people who support the Open Accesss movement. And it has to do with feature films, not with text or information as it is usually the case.

The Swiss movie CH7 was released on the internet under a Creative Commnos licence at the end of April. The 90min action film - featuring Denise Meili, Yvan Piccino and Noe Muller - is currently being shown exclusively in Switzerland but can be downloaded for free from www.CH7.ch.
CH7 is a production of Cineartis, an organisation seeking to support independent filmmakers.

Non-linear narratives make it to the art institutions

2004-05-05T17:05:00.000+02:00

Non-linear narratives in the novel are quite new. I remember reading with total amazement in the 70s the famous novel by Julio Cortázar Hopscotch (Rayuela)(1966) the probably first hyper text novel ever written. It made a strong experience on me, not only for his playful and innovative structure but for his deep meaning and the strong emotional impact it makes in the reader.

Non-linear narratives have begun to appear in film, too and both Memento and The Usuals Suspects are good examples of it.

And now it looks like they have made it to art institutions and galleries. Via Jill Walker, I learn today that the “House of Culture” in Stockholm is showing an interactive art installation that plays around the theme of unreliable narrators in film by means of a private eye story in a nonlinear drama.

The project sounds very interesting and is the work of Knifeandfork an international artist collective with an appetite for social computing and cutting-edge technologies. If you go to their site, look for the trailer. I loved it.

Painting narratives of a cruel war

2004-05-03T18:14:00.000+02:00

The New York Times publishes today an article about the recent donation of fifty paintings and sketches, made by Colombian artist Fernando Botero to the Museo Nacional in Bogotá.

These are works that represent a break from the traditional style and concept that has characterized the painter. War and violence are depicted in a very vivid manner. The "pictures intended to alarm and sadden, depict a conflict that is little understood outside Latin America: the brutal, drug-fueled guerrilla war that has been going on for 40 years in Colombia," according to Juan Forero, the journalist in charge of the article.

Besides the article there is a short and very interesting slide show where one can appreciate some of the paintings accompanied by sound and voice over.

I am horrified by Botero's pictures. I also feel that is very sad that it took so much horror to happen before a great artist like him took the trouble to portrait the conflict. I hope the attention these pictures get will somehow help people reflect and imagine another Colombia: a country without guns and war.

Unfortunately Colombia as well as Israel are examples of countries where the Military Industry of the United States and some countries in Europe have found the best arena to commercialize their "toys" contributing in this manner to spread fear, war, horror and death.

Liberating sound from its subconscious prison

2004-04-30T18:02:00.000+02:00

It is more than 7 years ago that I subscribe to an email list that discusses the issue of sound in film: sound-article-list-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

This is a very interesting forum where scholars, sound designers and many other people gather to talk about the use of sound and music in order to better convey stories in films.

These days an interesting question has come to the list. Does it exist an English word equivalent to “visualize” in order to describe the work of the sound people when they imagine how the sound of a film is going to be?. Cinematographers can visualize the look of a film before they go out and shoot the film, but how about sound designers?
Some have suggested audiolize, audio illusion and auricular (which by the way I think is a very good choice). Anyway these terms sound contrived because the field of sound has been little discussed and we are not so much aware of sound as much of images.

This list has very good contributors and is proud to have Randy Thom as one of its members. Randy “is an Oscar winner and part of a small group of sound designers who work to turn motion picture sound into an art form. His work often begins before the film has started shooting, and becomes an integral part of the storytelling and emotional impact of the film”.

I love the post that Randy sent us yesterday where he makes a couple of good points:

To me the interesting question is not so much whether there is an equivalent term in the aural realm for "visualize," but rather, why are there no equivalent terms in common usage? I don't pretend to know the answer, but my guess is that it has something to do with human brains being vision centric at least in terms of conscious thought. We invent and use words for things we need to talk about. Eskimos have scads of terms for snow. Modern English has scads of terms for money.

I've never had any doubt that we are consciously vision-centric.But what the eyeball crowd doesn't realize is that phenomena we are often not consciously aware of....like sound....are all the more powerful because of their fugitive nature.

As sound artists we need to train ourselves to think about sound like visual artists think about images, and open directors and producers eyes and ears to the same possibilities. Once we begin to liberate sound from it's subconscious prison we'll find the old saw that "sound is 50% of the movie" will live less and less comfortably with the ugly fact that sound remains today 1% of the budget.
Randy Thom

Out of Norway

2004-04-01T18:46:00.000+02:00

I have been invited by Universidad del Norte at Barranquilla, Colombia in order to participate in a couple of important events: Catedra Europa and the National Congress of Media Students.

It has been a week now and I have a busy schedule. The weather is warm and the wind from the Caribbean sea caresses us everyday. The University Campus' architecture is rather open and designed specially to let the breeeze flow through corridors and classrooms (not auditoriums though). People here are unusually friendly and kind.

I have made interesting contacts with scholars from Colombia and other visiting countries. I have participated in several lectures and meetings with colleagues working specially in the field of audiovisual narration.

Next week I will have the opportunity to relax and have a deserved vacation time in my country of origin.
I am looking forward to it!

Surplus: A very good film

2004-03-17T15:39:00.000+01:00

Do you want to see a very good documentary? Then you should try to get a copy of Surplus: Terrorized into being consumers. You can actually get a free taste of the film by going into the Atmo website where is possible to get a DVD copy of the entire film.

This television production/film was made in Sweden and shot in several countries. It does not have a story in the traditional sense. Instead it is a very stylized compelling argument about the society we live in.

I have de the feeling that the most interesting, engaging and experimental narratives in film today are happening in the field called documentary, understood as the creative treatment of actuality.

The borders between documentary and fiction films are very narrow and many of its makers have abandoned for long ago the concept of objectivity and neutrality in their documentaries.
There are many good examples of this trend from Nobodys business to Bowling for Columbine and Surplus is something at the same level of elaboration and commitment.

I have taken from their site Erik Gandini's 10-point manifesto for making documentaries. In response to Lars Von Triers "Dogumentary Manifesto". He disagrees with Triars and says: never try to be realistic or neutral and insist that this manifesto applies for Surplus only.

Manifesto by Erik Gandini:
1. No location should be revealed in the film. The viewer shouldn't really know where he is but find himself in an evironment, a dimension that he recognizes and percieves as such. A big city, a continent , an island... a planet. (Possibly reveal the locations in the end of the film.)

2. The filmmaker shouldn't show himself, unless he is more interesting than the characters in the film.(this is optional, some filmmakers are more interesting than their real life characters)

3. The victims of the film (in the case of Surplus: George Bush, Steve Ballmer, Fidel Castro and the G8 leaders) should have no chance at all to even know that they are participating in the film. Even less have a chance of replying the filmaker in the end of the film.
On the contrary they should be subjected to Johan Soederbergs (the editor) lipsynchronizing Read My Lips- treatment: to say things that they would never say and that everybody know are more true than the things they usually say.

4. No clips should ever be separated with a 12-frame black pause. On the contrary, try to create the feeling that all the images and caracters are part of the same dimension or planet as described in point 1. For that I suggest frequent use of dissolves, both on images and sound between the clips.

5. Sound and images should under no circumstances be left unmanipulated (at least some colouring).

6. Feel free to shoot images without sound and recreate the sound in postproduction. Note that background sounds (explosions, crashes, music etc.) should be boosted to create the desired feeling or atmosphere. Words and speeches should be chosen for how the musically fit in the composition.(remember: diferent people speak with different beat per minut-speed and different tonality)

7. Reconstruction of the concept of the film is necessary. Don't make the same film you planned while writing the script. Let reality influence you during the process and be open to drastic changes from the original concept.

8. Hidden cameras are absolutely allowed if relevant.

9. If you have acess to an archive that provides you with cheap footage, feel free to use it.

10. Don't try to be too realistic or neutral. Cameras, microphones and editing suites are extraordinary tools not only to reproduce how reality is but to visualize how reality feels. The wide range of cinematic tools gives you all the (previously too expensive nowadays affordable) freedom to realize your visions. Don' t reduce yourself and your creativity to those of a surveillance camera. Work as much as you can with very talented artists that are better than you in Shooting, Composing and Editing.

China shutting down blogs

2004-03-16T19:22:00.000+01:00
Freedom of expression does not rate very high in China. Internet has been the focus of serious censorship in the lasts years. Now the time has come for the authorities to clamp down on bloggers.

Blogbus.com, one of the biggest blogging service in China, has been ordered to shut down it's service two days ago. This is actually the biggest ever block on blog in China.

This are very sad news since there is probably very little a person can do to reverse that decision.

Good News from Copy Access and Cornell University

2004-03-15T17:27:00.000+01:00
The main laudable idea of the Copy Access movement is to publish and make available all kinds of content knowledge in order to spread, improve and accelarate research.
Today my email brings very good news from this front:
Cornell University, located primarily in Ithaca, New York, announced in January that it has created Internet-First University Press, which will offer old and new books under Open Access. And that promised is a reality now. From the DSpace Library is possible to browse and download books and articles free of any charge.

Many institutions and governments around the world recognize the importance of the exchange of data, information and knowledge and some of them have gathered together to state that "open access to, and unrestricted use of, data promotes scientific progress and facilitates the training of researchers."
Well, Cornell is doing it now, and that is very good news for all people promoting Open Access.

2004-03-14T16:48:00.000+01:00

The massacre in Madrid is still looming and calling our attention. Some political group has managed to attractt the attention of the world by the most violent and calculated form of assault on defenceless victims. This pattern of behaviour keeps repeating like an effective and contagious virus. And some politicians and businesses are profiting from it. The arm industry for example thrives in this environment.
And the killing continues. In Iraq and Afghanistan, in Jerusalem and Gaza, in Colombia and Liberia.

2004-03-09T14:17:00.000+01:00

Short narratives are fascinating. And when they are written by masters of storytelling like Augusto Monterroso (Guatemala/Mexico 1924-2003) one wonders how easy they look. In reality to write good short narratives is a craft that a few talented writers have developed to the high Art.

Monterroso is one of the masters of short prose, an admirer of Jorge Luis Borges and admired by Italo Calvino.
Besides brevity, Monterroso employs a variety of innovative narrative techniques that contribute to the effectiveness of his prose.

At the moment I am trying to edit and finished a portrait documentary about Augusto Monterroso, mostly videotaped in Mexico in the span of two years. Today I want to share one of his incredible short stories from his book The black ship and other fables.
The Tortoise and Achilles
by Augusto Monterroso
Finally, according to the cable, last week the Tortoise arrived at the finish line. At the press conference he declared modestly that all along he had feared that he was going to lose, since his competitor was right on his heels.
As it happened, one ten thousand trillionth of a second later, like an arrow and cursing Zeno of Elea, Achilles crossed the line.

Dramaturgy and Rhetorics

2004-03-04T11:43:00.000+01:00
Dramaturgy is used in many text types. What I am comparing at the moment is how according to ancient and modern Rhetoric a set of similar structuring premises and their balanced use are the conditions for a good public speech. It usually follows (in Latin) a very clear and deliniated pattern:
1. Exordium
2. Narratio
3. Propositio
4. Argumentatio
5. Conclusio

Film and dramaturgy?

2004-03-01T22:43:00.000+01:00
In English the word "dramaturgy" is not usually associated with film or television, and usually reserved to the world of Theater. A quick search in Google gives a very restricted and somehow disappointing answer to the question: what is dramaturgy?

In Scandinavia on the other side, the concept of Dramaturgy is very often used also in connection to the way a film is structured and built in order convey a story that has emotional impact on the audience. Many decisions have to be taken in order de design the way a story is going to be presented on the big screen: how it will begin, what happens, in which order the action is going to unfold, what are the main conflicts and how are they going to be solved as the story closes.

In the canonic or classic narration several books coincide in pointing to the following elements in the way a story is to be structured:
a) a prolog where the main conflict is established,
b) a presentation of the main characters their surroundings and relationships,
c) the building up of obstacles toward a climax and
d) a resolution of the story at the end of the film.

An interesting project

2004-02-13T18:55:00.000+01:00
Many things happening now around me at the moment.

Thursday and today Friday, Bergen was the site of an interesting Seminar called SEX(Y)KUNST a project aiming to examine gender and sexuality while researching and creating texts and artworks that deal with the boundaries between Knowledge Production, Art expression and how they are organized and presented to its audiences.

A multidisciplinary group of around 30 persons (mostly women) gathered together yesterday to listen and participate on the workshop by Ingebjørg Seip a philosophy Doctor and writer (from Trondheim) who discussed representations of body and lust in writing and images. A very interesting and inspiring way of lecturing and giving short three minute exercises for the audience to participate in the process of discovering and sharing ideas around these issues.

Today the main presentation and workshop was given by Hanna Hallgren a scholar and writer from Sweden in a workshop where she questioned and proposed to experiment with the mixing of genre literature and academic writing. Quite a challenge indeed.

This project has as goal to publish a book and present an art exhibition in the year 2006 and was initiated by two engaged scholars from Oslo the Artist Christel Sverre and the Gender and Media Researcher Wencke Mühleisen.

The Project has inaugurated its own blog and expects to continue to meet in the near future, while applying for necessary funds to carry out the activities in order to fulfil the planned exhibition.

Today

2004-02-05T11:12:00.000+01:00
In the middle of the classroom. I am talking about weblogs to an eager group of Teachers from Fusa Videregående School. They listen attentively and later get initiated in the arts and crafts of creating their own blogs. You can almost touch and feel the excitement that derives from finding a new tool.
A good experience.

Kristin Helen talks about weblogs and learning

2004-02-03T10:36:00.000+01:00
New and encoguraging things happen around us all the time.

Today I get a warm invitation from Konrad Morgan to a presentation by Master Student Kristin Helen Andersen who next Tuesday will be discussing in public her thesis work titled:
"Students Use of Weblogs: Weblogs for collaboration in an Educational Setting"

I find the idea of making public presentations of the Master Thesis Students work a must. Because it gives the opportunity to the people interested in a particular object of study to be updated on what is going on around us.

As far as I know this is is not a regular praxis here at the University of Bergen. At least not in all Departments. I would be very glad if it becomes a new praxis at our brand new InfoMedia Department.

I am particulary interested in issues regarding the use of weblogs as an educational tool. Since the theme of this Thesis is particularly atractive to my present research interests I will be attending Kristin Helen's presentation.

It will happen on Monday 9th of February at 11.15am on the 4th floor of the old IFI building

Weblogs as new public spheres?

2004-01-31T21:50:00.000+01:00
I am reading a summary of a panel that took place in the recent World Economic forum at Davos, under the title "Will Mainstream Media Co-opt Blogs and the Internet?" where five experts presented their thoughts on the matter.

What strikes me is how the opinions towards blogs tend to side on the positve or negative approach to blogs depending on the person talking. Journalists tend to be negative towards blogs and find different reasons to distrust them. Bloggers, artists and business people tend to see them as something very positive.

In this case Orville H. Schell, Dean of the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, USA dislikes the fact that blogging reinforces the trend towards media fragmentation. "It's a fracturing of the town square," Schell said. "While more information is available, there is less space for a common discourse."

It is quite clear that Professor Schell is pointing towards something important and relevant, but he probably forgets that several communities of bloggers could be included in what Seyla Benhabib describes as "diverse topographical locations that become public spaces, new sites of power, of common action coordinated through speech and persuasion".

They not be part of the traditional Town Hall politics but they are probably increasing the diversity of new public spheres.

And they are challenging not only the conventions of traditional journalism, but also the credibility of Main Stream Media news.

Our ceremony

2004-01-30T16:33:00.000+01:00
The University of Bergen is changing and adapting to new times and several reforms. As an employee I feel proud that this changes take place and hope that they will work for the best.

As part of this transformations The Department of Media Studies and the Dept of Information Studies have fused recently and we have must probably will get a new name: Department of Information and Media Studies (for short INFOMEDIA).

This became official from January the 1st 2004. But we are celebrating it today. At 12.30 we gathered us for an Inaugural lesson or Academic lecture by prominent lawyer and Norwegian Scholar Jon Bing. We were offered nice food and some champagne and later the official opening took place with speeches by the University Director, Rector, Decanus, and Chairman.

It was a very nice event and we all seemed to enjoy it very much.
Here are two pictures taken by me during the ceremony.

Jon Bing lecturing

And our dear Rector congratulates.

A pioneer initiative

2004-01-22T16:43:00.000+01:00
Via Jose Luis Orihuela from eCuaderno I have found that MIT has opened an experimental free hosted weblog to serve MIT students, faculty, staff, researchers, and alumni "with the purpose of facilitating the communication around research and innovation at MIT".
I think is a brilliant idea and a pioneer effort by a major University. As their website states it "Weblogs tools make it extremely easy to publish new content on a regular basis" .
I hope the Unversity of Bergen, very soon, will move in the same direction.

Dr. Jill Walker

2004-01-22T14:11:00.000+01:00
I am happy there are no schedule collisions and Jill Walker will be able to attend The Democracy and Theory Seminar on Monday February 2nd.
She has agreed to make a presentation about blogs and Power. I will be presenting some thoughts on similar lines.
Jill is a remarkable woman and one of the few experts in the field of New Media in the Nordic academic circle. Recently she has dedicated a lot of thinking and writing about blogs and the blogging activity. She is a fine blogger self. She has recently defended her Doctoral Thesis on Fiction and Interaction: How Clicking a Mouse Can Make you Part of a Fictional World.
I think she appreciates my referring to her by her title.
Doctor Jill Walker, thanks for accepting our invitation.

A Challenge

2004-01-20T20:27:00.000+01:00
The Democracy Seminar began yesterday. We were several colleagues around a large table.

Jostein introduced the main topics to be addressed and made a very good summary with comments around Habermas article. New readings were discussed and future presentations.

It was agreed by “qualified” consensus (or was it the authoritarian voice of Jostein? :-) ) that the Seminar will have a somehow Waltz Rhythm: two heavy theoretical sessions will be always followed by a lighter one focusing on possible applications of Discourse Theory to tecnology changes or other relevant Media phenomena.
I suggested (shyly) discussing the bloggers activity as an interesting phenomenon. Actually expanded forms of the Public sphere appear to grow out of the conversational and autonomous character of weblogs. They are actually congregating a increasing number of individuals (and groups) across the Internet in order to discuss and debate on a wide range of issues.
Given the lack of other suggestions Jostein decided to go for it.

A nice challenge.

Habermas and blogging

2004-01-17T10:56:00.000+01:00
Blogs and blogging have been increasingly occupying my attention these days. I have followed the activity for a while and began experimenting with this blog since April 2003. For the past three months I find myself using great part of my free time (and some of my working time too) reading and trying to learn from them.
Thematic and actuality blogs have moved me to study and think about them. Invited to participate in IdeaSapiens in December I have deepened my interest and enthusiasm for blogs. I see them as a great tool to be used by the students in my future teaching activity.
These last days I am finding that Habermas Discourse Theory is going to be a solid framework to initiate a more serious study of blogs and blogging.

Reading Theory

2004-01-16T22:49:00.000+01:00
Reading theory is quite an experience. It requires a lot from me and I imagine from many others. It takes some effort but it is very giving, and at times inspiring. When I finally begin to get some clue about the author’s line of thought I tend to get strange and contradictory signals: clear images come sometimes, answers to old puzzles at others, and usually many questions. It moves me to want to read and know more.

Habermas' article is good and substantial reading that opens windows and illuminates some holes accumulated in the room of my ignorance.

A Seminar to study models of Democracy

2004-01-15T09:56:00.000+01:00
Jostein Gripsrud opened up to all of us at the New Department an invitation to meet every week on Mondays to study issues of Democracy, Public Space and Communication. He sees a deficit of theoretical insight and serious reflection around these concepts among scholars of Media Studies.
To initiate study discussions and exchange of ideas he proposed the reading of J. Habermas: "Three Normative Models of Democracy", from Benhabib, Seyla. (ed.) *Democracy and Difference*Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, Princeton UP 1996.

I find it fascinating. I had to read that article twice in order to begin to understand what Habermas is talking about. Not because he is obscure or arcane, not at all, but because his writings are dense and highly theoretical. Very seldom he gives hints or refers in the article to possible concrete consequences of his postulates.

It is being a while I do not read or study philosophy. What surprised me in a very positive way was that as philosopher he comes to trace not so much the roots of certain concepts and discussions (as in philology or linguistics), but the routes that those concepts have encountered in different groups of the intellectual community today. It seems like he is working with practical philosophy. No citations (like I was used to read) around how democracy was understood since ancient Greece and their great philosophers. What he does is to concentrate the attention in the two most relevant and contrasting positions/theories around Democracy in Modernity: the Republican and Liberal view of Politics and the Public, Rousseau and probably Hobbes. And he does it in a very effective and dialectical manner which impresses me a lot.

Species of a new genre

2004-01-08T21:14:00.000+01:00
There seems to be an agreement among the academic community that individual blogs have become a new writing genre. A young genre still in formation and evolving at full speed.

I would suggest something else. I have the feeling that collective, thematic and news blogs are emerging as differentiated species within the main blog genre.

Where are each of them leading and differentiating from each other? Interesting question and object of analysis. They are for sure stirring some media hype. For business people and entrepreneurs it means ways and venues of possible big business

In a lively article on the economics of blogging, Wired magazine cites Chris Taylor appreciations of how readers relate to blogs.

"I think blogs are a fundamentally different medium from magazines. Why do we read blogs? We read them for a quick fix. A quick titillating view of someone else's life, a quick political fix, a quick link to something fun here or there. Or maybe lots of little quick fixes. We don't want to sit down and read a magazine-length article on any topic unless we're reading a magazine."

I am no so interested in knowing whether of not blogs will become an industry. What calls my attention is that in Taylor's comment there is an interesting observation about the relation between reader expectations and genre differences.

Food for thought

Blogging as laboratory work

2004-01-05T10:38:00.000+01:00
Using a weblog as a kind of routine activity to try out combinations of words, link them to own ideas and comparing them with ideas from other people while trying to produce some new meaning is the basic research method used in the Humanities and the Sciences.

Blogging then is another tool in my Research work. I have known that for a while ago, but it feels nice to write it down in plain English :-) in order to share it with my eventual readers.

And to reaffirm my conviction that this is another one among the many tools I have in order to do my research work.

Weblogging from Iran

2004-01-04T20:48:00.000+01:00
Iran is mentioned usually on Western Media only around issues of being part of Bush's "Evil axis countries" and big politics.

The recent earthquake that has destroyed a city and thousands of its inhabitants has made an impact and some other humane stories of sorrow have leaked through.

But interesting things are happening in Iran in the area of mass communication. Hossein Derakhshan's English weblog on Iran is compelling reading because it presents and reports on the weblog movement that is growing in that country and has become an Iranian weblog movement with a big network of educated people all around the world.
Their fight is for democracy and reform.

Among many of the stories in his Blog on November 23/03 he reported on the blogging activity of Mohammad Ali Abtahi a reformist politician and vice president of the country.

This is good news of democracy in Iran. In his website Abtahi tells about himself and his everyday life, including photos taken with his mobile phone camera. The best of all is his idea of listening to others. It is possible to take contact with him and comment on his blog.

I have just done it. We will see if he has the time to answer.

Vacation time and new year ahead

2004-01-03T19:38:00.000+01:00
Being at home makes it easier to connect to the Internet and betting for this blog's continuation.

The trip to Spain was fruitful in contacts. I had the opportunity to participate in a Two day "Jornadas sobre Periodismo Digital (Encounter around on-line journalism) at Universidad del Pais Vasco, in Bilbao.

Interesting presentations, good discussions and a chance to meet and exchange ideas with colleagues working on similar interests. I want to continue having contact with Gorka Palazios and José Luis Orihuela, two scholars interest in weblogs as journalism but also as excellent academic tool.

An interesting blog I find today by Salvador de la Vega shows the importance of combining technical savy with good content.

Weblogs are growing in many directions and this diversity is what makes them so interesting and at the same time so difficult to follow.

Visiting Cadiz in Spain

2003-12-23T19:55:00.000+01:00
Is like travelling in time. The place keeps loads of beautiful building, corners, details and traces of history and memories from the past.
Its monumental landmarks, very few, are intersting but less important than the landscape, the sea and the people. Fishermen still hold on with their chores.

In the afternoon on streets and "Belenes" large groups of children and young people perform the old tradition of singing flamenco villancicos in Christmas time.

Winter time is sunny and windy but with an air of openness and joy that reminds me of Christmas in Latin America.

Telling small unconected incidents

2003-12-20T10:31:00.000+01:00
To narrate some incidents from a vacation trip to Spain in a weblog can become a narrative? It depends very much on the narrational skills of the person writing the blog.

Small incidents, the joy of arriving to a small beautiful Hostal in Alicante, the smell of a good cup of coffe called "cortado"... are probably not enough material for a narrative and more appropiate and closely conected with the personal diary.

Back to the beginning

2003-12-10T15:58:00.000+01:00
My plan is to revive this blog. It will take some time because learning the tools and idiosincracies of blogging takes time. Very soon some people can begin to join the discussion. In the mean time I will point to Jill Walker's blog as a reference in the discussion of narrative issues in regards to blogs.

The idea of blogs as endless narratives is tempting, but I don't know if it is valid.

2003-05-09T12:56:00.000+02:00
According to some people in NBL a weblogg by a literary group in Mexico, narrative is the worst. It is Hollywood, Azcarraga and all the worst telenovelas. Literature is not about narrative but about voice.

Since Joyce, Wolf and Kafka, narrative has died, I think I hear. Long live the voice.

In terms of Cinema that discussion was settled by Bordwell in Narration in the Fiction Film. The auteur theory and Art Cinema represent the Voice trend. Hollywood among others, narrative, conventionality and tradition as another trend. Is this a real contradiction or a paradox?

Interesting question to come back to.

2003-04-07T11:48:00.000+02:00
This is the begining of this new blog. I expect to learn something with this new experience. What is probably going to be the best about it, has to do with the fact that it will be able to give an indication of the path followed in my research on the field.

As of today I am reading Trond Hetland's On Presence, Difference and Self-Deception a very interesting thesis around narrative. Trond has sent me a copy and I expect to answer him soon with some of my impressions.

It is clear to me that the author is taking a great leap in order to deduce from myth and the cannonical narrative structure a wider theoretical view on the need to widen this paradigm.