Last night, instead of finding a television to watch breaking election news, I stayed at my computer, checking back in to credible news sites to find out any updates. This made me think back to the ways I used to find out breaking election news-- even sophomore year, during the Presidential election, I remember being with a ridiculous amount of people huddled around a dorm room television. And I could've done this again I guess, if I'd wanted, but I think that something has changed in the way America and I do politics.

There are many advantages to using the internet instead of the television to find out breaking election news. For one thing, I didn't have to sit through some news anchor's meaningless drivel as he tried to fill up time between election projections. I was also able to immediately access information regarding the exact races I was interested in finding out about, without having to sit through in-depth profiles of Nebraska's House candidates. Most importantly, at least for me, I was able to multi-task throughout the whole night, keeping a handle on both my school work and the future of America! Did anyone else find that this year they shifted to the internet from watching television for election coverage?

K I wrote this one in my notebook and forgot to type it up, so I'm skipping way back to Hamlet on the Holodeck:

Chapter 10 of Murray's Hamlet on the Holodeck focused on the "kaleidoscopic world" that can be represented with new digital media, allowing audiences to choose which characters to follow among a variety of choices, and perhaps by a variety of authors. Murray writes that this "can feel to some like an unauthored world," but I see it as a much more appropriate representation of the real world - in which we each have a unique vantage point, and can get closer or distance ourselves from the perspectives of others. This "ability to capture experience as systems of interrelated actions" suggests that narratives will become more complex in the future, broadening the "good guy/bad guy" stance taken by many television shows and movies to expose the intimate perspectives and motives of each character - something the traditional television show or movie does not have the time to explore.

so, I know Janet Murray was concentrating mostly on television and narratives, but I think her book actually really connected with Understanding Comics. First of all there is the aspect that McCloud's more recent books became clearly much more digitized, but also since many people (especially young adults) no longer read hard copies of newspapers, daily newspaper comics also appear many places online. I actually really enjoy this medium because it allows people to see archives of the comics, which is helpful since many times there are multiple connected comics in a series. Janet Murray predicted the use of the internet and the impact the digital age would have and although she didn't precisely say that the news media and sources such as cnn.com would become so popular, I think that is the general idea she gives.

I am usually more in favor of moving forward in class bloggation than posting upon material that has already been discussed at length but I was reminded today of something I was going to blog about in Hamlet on the Holodeck but never got around to it.

I was interested in Janet Murray's idea of a literary hierarchy. At the start of Chapter 10, Hamlet on the Holodeck? on page 273, Murray returns to the question raised by Aldous Huxley, "Will the stories brought to us by the new representational technologies 'mean anything' in the same way that Shakespeare's plays mean something, or will they be 'told by an idiot'"? She continues to say that we often assume that stories told in one medium "are intrinsically inferior to those told in another." She uses the example of Shakespeare and Jane Austen and how they were once considered to be working in less legitimate formats than those used by predecessors such as Homer. Toda the same thing occurs much in the same way for television and cinema. As Murray says, "The very act of watching television is routinely dismissed as inherently inferior to the act of reading, regardless of content."

I'm glad someone mentioned in class that Murray gets creepy when she fantasizes about audience members providing "support" for characters on ER. But Murray seems to have been right-on in calling that production companies would attempt to blur the lines between entertainment and reality. She writes that as computer & television become further intertwined, audiences will be able to access the virtual world of a television show, complete with remnants of the personal life of each character.

Earlier in this blog someone called attention to LonelyGirl15, three producers' attempt to build hype for a movie by introducing a main character as a real person through the vlogging world. The idea initially seemed to have succeeded (15 million views), but I wonder whether audience members were turned off when they realized they had been duped. LG15's followers thought they were comforting a legit human, while any crazeball comforting an ER patient has willingly suspended his/her disbelief. I'm not sure if the LG15 movie is still happening, but if it is it will be interesting to see whether the hype has a negative or positive effect.

I thought it was cool how Janet Murray really thought out unique ways that the computer could tell a story, epitomized in the three versions of a tragic suicide that she gave: "mind as tragic labyrinth" (176), "web of mourning," (177) and "simulation and destiny" (178). I think it would be a very interesting experience to occupy all those points of view for one situation--first person, third person other character, and omniscient third person. Having the power to enact some sort of chanage (while being omniscient) is further engaging because you contribute. The one that got me most was the "mind as tragic labyrinth" because it recognizes the fundamental connection between a computer's programming and how our brains are configured. For example, Murray talks of blocked off or fading happy memories. Memories do actually got blocked, such as in people who are traumatized. Unlike a stream-of-consciousness novel, digital narrative could actually simulate this neurological activity. I must admit that, as much as I am frustrated by disorienting experimental stuff like this (or like Michael Joyce's "Afternoon"), I do think this literature is uniquely beneficial in the end. It's an experience, not an analysis, and once I realize that, I can enjoy it more. Yeah! I think I'm caught up on my blogs for a while!

I hope everyone liked the presentation our group gave for Hamlet on the Holodeck. I had a lot of fun--and not just with the wine. I thought it was cool that we could integrate so much real-life stuff into the theoretical dissections of literary development. I am thinking, in particular, of "Duck Amuck"--the Daffy Duck cartoon.

This cartoon was fun to watch because I felt like I was a kid again. That's involuntary, associative memory for you. In another class, I just had to read all about Proust's feelings on the unique power of involuntary memory. For him, it was a cookie, not a cartoon, that brought back childhood memories that he couldn't make himself remember. At any rate, there is power in the object that can do that: awaken emotions and visceral memories that the intellect and just words can't reach.

After McCloud's perfect integration of form and content I can't help but be a bit frustrated by the fact that Murray's book is.. well.. a book. Comics were the most appropriate format for Understanding Comics and in turn, I feel Murray would have made an even more convincing argument if she had reread Hamlet on the Holodeck a few more times and made her point using a web-based format. As she puts it “some kinds of knowledge can be better represented in digital formats than they have been in print”. I want her to show me this; to let me experience this for myself. If “by giving us greater control over different kinds of information, [computers] invite us to tackle more complex tasks and to ask new kinds of questions” show me this by presenting Hamlet on the Holodeck on an internet site that invites me to take on a more active role as “reader”.

Due to the web/hyperlink focused nature of the book, our group decided it would be best to do a website rather than a PowerPoint for our presentation, so here's the link:

Hamlet on the Holodeck

please feel free to explore the site and offer additional content for the page, you can email me at cmyers@scrippscollege.edu or you can post the additions in comments here. I wish we could make it a Wiki and let eveyone update it at will, but unfortunately we can't grant that kind of access.

Considering that this book was released in 1997, I find it amazing how relevant and precise many of Murray's predictions are. I mean, honestly, in terms of technology and the advancements of the internet, 1997 was forever ago and she definitely had a strong sense of the direction that television and the internet were going. While I agree with what other people have been commenting about the fact that the book is outdated and many parts are insignificant, I actually enjoyed the fact that the book was 10 years old. It was interesting to examine what she had written and see if her predictions were fulfilled or not. For example, she talks about how interesting it would be to have interactive, online sets for television programs where the audience could learn more about the show or the characters. While maybe this hasn't particularly happened in cyberspace (although I'm sure there are some cases), I know that almost every DVD that is released has extra features where the interested viewers can have an interactive part in deciding what else they would like to know about the set and characters and in some cases, even the plot. Best example of this being DVD's (of both film and television programs) where viewers can choose alternate endings or alternate scenarios in the DVD's, such as X-Men 3, where the DVD special features include multiple alternate endings, the ability to play the DVD with commentary to gain a larger insight into the film, character profiles, etc... Basically, the viewer can have an active part in deciding how they want to view the film. Not only is this available on the DVD itself, but typically similar things are shown on film or television websites, as well as public internet spaces, such as youtube and myspace.