My project focuses on the emergence of new types of "screens" - computer screens, iPod, PDA, cell phone screens, and other new media monitors - that might change how we approach, digest, and consume media every day. The sources I have chosen for this project reflect my desire to compare these new physical screens with older screens such as TV monitors and those in movie theaters. I also chose sources that provided background information on digital and New Media, as well as on theories of spectatorship and screen consumption, since I was not well-versed on the topic before beginning this project.

Friedberg’s 2006 book discusses the recent emergence of new ideas on visual media perspective through the concept of the “window.” The computer plays host to the idea of presenting several distinct, unrelated displays to the viewer at once. These windows have become the marker of a multi-perceptual outlook. Friedberg traces the development of the concept of a “window” throughout time, with the word becoming a metaphor for one of an infinite number of screens now available to computer users everywhere. The metaphor, she says, implies a delimitation of a view with variable size. She goes on to examine the window in metaphoric, architectural, and virtual registers. All three views emphasize a framed look at a particular subject; spectatorship plays a major role in all three parts. Ultimately, she examines how computer windows have changed these traditional views on spectatorship, demanding a viewer who can handle multiple, adjacent, and postperspectival consumption.

    Her book is unique because it is thus far the most comprehensive view on this very specific topic of screens and windows. She lays out a history behind her theory of “windows,” incorporating the related concepts of perspective, frame, spectatorship, and identification. Though the history gets a bit heavy at times, it’s an incredibly thorough background and a great one to have when considering spectatorship and interaction in the digital age. I also appreciated the fact that she included a section discussing the physical aspects of screens as seen through the writings of Paul Virilio. This is the most thorough discussion I could find on the physical attributes of the screen itself, and the roles it plays as both a boundary for and a provider of information.

    The end sections of the book interest me the most because they discuss new media, and the future of new technologies in terms of Friedberg’s “virtual windows” theory. Sequential narratives here make way for the multiple and simultaneous, within one device as well as among many at once. This can be applied to devices like a PDA, which allows for instant messaging while e-mailing and writing reports; the new iPhone will also hold such capabilities, providing an update on the iPod (which, interestingly, doesn’t provide multiple virtual windows in the same device, but rather allows you to use that while using other small devices). These technologies still differ a great deal, at this moment, from televisions and the cinematic experience, and thus Friedberg’s theory can be directly applied to my paper topic.

Basic International Telecom stats -- number of phone lines by country, computer users, cell phones, etc.

"Penn's Security SIG was established in October, 2005 to provide an opportunity and forum for security-conscious system administrators and support staff at Penn to meet and discuss information security issues and problems. The group is sponsored by ISC's Office of Information Security."

PDF/text available

Despite the fact that it was originally printed in 1987, Rice and Love's essay still provides interesting theoretical material about computer-mediated communication (CMC) in that it seeks to dispel myths that all computer-based communication is unemotional by nature and lack of bandwidth.  Among socioemotional content found, they discuss face-saving mechanisms, disinhibition, and "flaming".  They created 5 hypotheses about socioemotional content to be measured in the datasets of six weeks of transcripts from the Medsig/Compuserv public computer conference in order to attempt to prove their thesis that CMC over computer networks mirrors participation in real-world communities.  While this study does not differentiate variables according to gender, it was interesting to me to read their conclusions that the participants did particpate in socioemotional discourse, although there was no increase in the amount of such discourse over time.  I think that if the study were moved to a non-technical forum and increased in physical time length, that the results seen might be very different and more informative.

In this study, Fahy analyzed written texts from on online conference of graduate students in a distance learning exercise.  He and his team hypothesized that the women's speech would be more "epistolary" in participation style as previously described by other researchers, and would most likely contain more hedges, qualifiers, first and second person pronouns, and parenthetical constructions with the intent of reducing any potential conflict and sustaining ongoing dialog.  He likewise hypothesized that the men's speech would be more "expository", using less of the aforementioned forms as well as being more declarative.  They also predicted that the men would use a greater number of linguistic intensifiers and would be more prone to flaming and/or rudeness.  While their results were not overwhelmingly strong, the numbers did support the base hypotheses of inherent differences in men's and women's discourse.  Fahy goes on to discuss what the potential effect upon distance learning may be if professors do not take into account the differences between epistolary and expository styles regardless of the participants' gender.