Thoughts on Sturtz, and the Ups and Downs of Self-Catagorization.
I am a political science major, and in good fashion I like to study these men who founded the US government. This is a great picture because one can enjoy it without necessarily debating the nature of the fathers in a realistic sense, but rather in a romantic sense. Sometimes, in history, romanticism can be just as influential as realism. That is why I posted this picture.
The other reason I posted this picture is because of the use of folksonomy I used to find the picture. According to Sturtz, Google uses folksonomy though its web based algorithms when retrieving data from the internet. I typed in founding fathers into this search engine, and it tagged this portrait from the title it had on a web page (verses the picture itself as in the system used by this web page) of the founding fathers I was looking for. Also, I think that being able to participate in the act of creating my own classification sytemes are neat to, as seen in Flickr.
I however, do believe that the “democratic� way that folksonomy, and indeed classification of information that is used can be a double edged sword. This is because I believe in what Sturtz said, that ideas and concepts can be all but forgotten in a system that is not hierarchical, due to either the lack of interest in the area, or the controversial nature of an issue. It would be shame if information was lost to the ages just because no one categorized it.
As far as Cyberliteracy is concerned, I think it addresses a very valid point for this section. That over use of internet communication has depleted its importance. In personal experience, I have looked at how I write e-mails, and how my grandparents write letters. We have entirely different ways of communication through these mediums. When I e-mail people, it is usually informal, and it’s usually meant to communicate a need for something. My grandparents, and indeed their generation write each other letters to see how people are doing, what’s up, and that general stuff. These days I would either pick up my cell phone, or hop on AIM (America Online Instant Messenger) to achieve this. I really think, that the generation of our grandparents put more meaning into communication because they communicated/traveled less. When they sat down to write a letter, they made sure it communicated to their reader what it is they were doing/feeling/otherwise. Unlike modern instant messaging. Example I LUV U...says a lot...
Comments
I agree with what you say about the overuse of the internet, and how that's affected the way we communicate, or value communication. The comparison between e-mail and letter writing is interesting too because in a letter, the words are meant for one or two specific people, whereas a carelessly worded e-mail can be copied and resent almost instantly, to almost anyone, which for me at least, is a pretty strong disincentive to send important (to me) communication electronically.
Posted by: elizabeth | January 26, 2007 4:25 PM
LOL ROFL HAHA
Just joking. But I thought it was a fitting (albeit lame) joke for your post. I really feel like communication via email or any other electronic vehicle for that matter (aim or whatnot) is largely defined by context and the users that are sending it. Text can be just as effective on a screen as on paper but if it's surrounded by school-related emails and "50% off!" offers it can be lost in the clutter. Though different people put different amounts of time into their emails thereby making it distinguishable what type of relationship or communication they are trying to share. I know this isn't contradictory to what you said but your post just sparked me off thinking about the different people that email me and the differences in their word choices and etc. Likewise, my manner of responding is equally affected as is my attitude...do they really LUV me? haha
Posted by: Andrew | January 28, 2007 8:22 PM