FINAL ASSIGNMENT

Comments, please!

"Convergence"

In the introduction to Convergence Culture, Henry Jenkins explores how previously separate media technologies have intersected and combined in important ways. Although Donna Haraway never uses the word 'convergence' in her “Manifesto for Cyborgs,” she too examines a transgression of boundaries between entities once considered incompatible. However, she looks beyond the coming together of different types of machines to the coming together of machines and organisms. Jenkins argues that convergence “is starting to change the ways religion, education, law, politics, advertising, and even the military operate” (4). Haraway's conclusions are much more compelling; instead of merely predicting changes in the way things operate, she shares a vision for how these hybridizations can change our conceptions of physicality and humanity.

That is not to say that Jenkins' analysis is uninteresting. He points out several fascinating and confusing instances of media convergence, such as the globe-crossing, multi-platform journey of a satirical Photoshopped image of Sesame Street's Bert standing next to Osama Bin Laden. Jenkins sees wide-ranging consequences for these types of convergences. Media producers, distributors, and consumers are still attempting to figure out how they want to work together, and Jenkins believes that “the resulting struggles and compromises will define the public culture of the future” (24). As one example of this struggle, consider the multiple directions cell phone development is being pulled. Because different cell phone users have demanded different combinations of functions, the label of “phone” is currently applied to everything from MP3-playing, internet-surfing, picture-taking, texting, life-organizing monsters to super chic, feature-lite fashion accessories. These types of struggles over defining our media culture have consequences in our private lives as well. As Jenkins points out, “our lives, relationships, memories, fantasies, desires also flow across multiple media channels. Being a lover or a mommy or a teacher occurs on multiple platforms. Sometimes we tuck our kids into bed at night and other times we Instant Message them from the other side of the globe” (17).

Before I begin my analysis of Haraway, I must point out that her “Manifesto” is a radically different type of work. To use her own words, it is “an ironic political myth faithful to feminism, socialism, and materialism” (173). It is simultaneously a cultural analysis, a prediction of our future, and a call to arms. “My cyborg myth is about transgressed boundaries, potent fusions, and dangerous possibilities,” Haraway declares (178). Without the first three words, however, the same quote could be used to describe Jenkins' ideas about convergence. Just as a disparate variety of functions are integrated into new cell phones, Haraway points out the ways that artificial entities are integrated into humans. The use of animal parts in organ-replacement surgeries, for example, demonstrate how these days, “the difference between machine and organism is thoroughly blurred; mind, body, and tool are on very intimate terms” (189).

Haraway finds further evidence of the disintegrating boundaries between people and technology in the technologies themselves. She points out that “our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert” (176). This simple statement turns our beliefs about the proper attributes of humans and machines upside down. We are the ones who are alive; therefore, we are the ones who should be lively. Gradually, it appears that we are trading our characteristic traits for those of our machines and vise versa. These technological advances drive still deeper transgressions, as even “the boundary between physical and non-physical is very imprecise for us” (177). The physical dimensions of an object no longer give us any clue as to what that object is capable of. Machines today are becoming simultaneously smaller and more feature-packed. To many consumers, these products' inner workings might as well be magical. Haraway waxes poetic in her description of these new, sleek technologies: “Our best machines are made of sunshine, they are all light and clean because they are nothing but signals, electromagnetic waves, a section of spectrum” (178).

Perhaps the most significant differences between Jenkins' and Haraway's analyses arise in their statements about the future of convergence. Jenkins writes that “we are in an age of media transition, one marked by tactical decisions and unintended consequences, mixed signals and competing interests, and most of all, unclear directions and unpredictable outcomes” (11). What is key to notice here is that Jenkins believes that there will be an “outcome,” an end stage to convergence, although what that end stage will look like is “unpredictable.” For Haraway, however, there is no final stage of convergence, no happy ending. After all, her entire piece is based on irony, and “irony is about contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes” (173). The coming together of disparate parts is a never-ending process, one that Haraway sees as having both thrilling and chilling possibilities for humankind. We should work to ensure that these fusions lead to the creation of a society where “people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints” instead of to the creation of a “masculinist orgy of war” (179).

NOTE: Page numbers for the Haraway are from this print edition of the text:
Donna Haraway,"A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s." Coming to Terms. Ed. Elizabeth Weed. New York: Routledge, 1989. pp. 173-204.

ASSIGNMENT TWO

“It sucks. I hate it. I don't know how to do it” (1).
-- Evelyn Limon, Class of 2011, on her interactions with Banner

Evelyn Limon is not alone in her frustration with Banner, Brown's new information management software system. Almost all the students and professors who use the multi-million dollar system have found problems with it, as can be seen by the pages and pages of Banner-related letters and editorials that have filled the Brown Daily Herald this year and last, nearly all of them lambasting the system (2). It is noteworthy that the complaints are almost all about the interface of the system; very few focus on the capabilities of the system or on programming bugs. The fact that so many users are paying attention to an interface at all is a sign of poor program design, according to Soren Pold. “Interfaces should be intuitive and user friendly, should not 'get in the way' or otherwise be evident” (3). Interfaces, by their very nature, are limiting, controlling devices. As we cannot communicate directly with machines, we use interfaces to mediate the interactions between humans and computers. The result of this mediation is that users can only perform tasks that an interface allows them to perform. Most of the time, users are oblivious to this imposition of control and instead view software as freeing, an opening up of the seemingly unlimited possibilities of the digital world. When fighting with Banner, however, users do notice the limits being placed on them, and they don't like it.

The first thing one notices upon logging into Banner is its extremely sparse layout. There are no graphics except for an off-center “Brown University” logo at the top of the screen. The vast majority of the display is a blank white expanse. There are just a few lines of left-aligned black Arial text and a few colored links. Those colored links will prove to be the most frustrating feature of the Banner interface. We are forced to navigate through Banner by using its deeply layered, unintuitive, inconsistent tree structure. Our very first choice is between the ambiguously named master categories of “Personal Information” and “Student and Financial Aid.” The distribution of information between these two branches seems completely random. “Citizenship Status” is not found under “Personal Information.” To obtain this personal information, the user must navigate the following exact path: Student and Financial Aid --> Student Records --> View Student Information --> Effective from Spring 2008 --> Citizen. Links back to the previous page are only occasionally present, so if you make a wrong turn, you often must return to the beginning of the tree and start again. Matthew Fuller describes a similar failure in the menus of Microsoft Word: “to many users it is likely that [a certain] option should be so far down a choice tree that it drops off completely” (4).

Unlike in Microsoft Word, there are no flashy wizards or dancing paper clips to point us in the right direction. There is no ability to search for the information or tool we're looking for. When faced with terse menu labels, our only guide are the occasionally present semi-helpful descriptors. Where will “Admissions” lead me? The questionably useful descriptor reads, “Review Existing Applications.” If I follow this link, I am presented with the following message: “To Apply for Admissions, first select the Application Type you want to complete.” There follows a drop-down menu which is completely devoid of choices.

Hitting this type of dead end is an all too familiar occurrence in Banner. It is obvious that the designers did not bother to adjust the Banner experience for the different populations that use the software. For example, I am given the option to access “Graduate Student Financial Aid” and am urged to “Update Marital Status.” Despite its sparse aesthetic, the interface falls prey to an interface weakness usually found in much “busier” layouts: the useless “feature mountain” that Fuller notices in Word (4). The message from Banner is clear: I am not worth its personal attention. Perhaps this should be expected given Banner's URL: selfservice.brown.edu.

Speaking of URLs, a complicating point arises from the fact that Banner is not stand-alone software, it is contained in a web site. However, it doesn't behave like most web sites today. In her article “Reload,” Tara McPherson analyzes essential themes of the interfaces of modern web sites, such as personalization and a sensation she calls “volitional mobility.” “We imagine ourselves navigating sites, following the cursor, the Web... [generates] a feeling of choice, structuring a mobilized liveness which we come to feel we invoke and impact, in the instant, in the click, reload” (5). This type of excitement, momentum, and sense of liveness is utterly missing from Banner. There is no “feeling of choice” as one navigates Banner's incomprehensible tree. Even movement in Banner feels static as the user is shunted from one sparse textual landscape to another.

If indeed a successful interface is an interface you don't notice, Banner is a huge failure. Banner users are painfully aware that their interaction with the machine is being mediated, and not mediated well. Necessarily, control and limits are present in any software, but that doesn't mean that there is no place for user creativity and individuality within a program. As Fuller writes, “Software is reduced too often into being simply a tool for the achievement of pre-existing neutrally-formulated tasks” (4). This, unfortunately, is the case with Banner. By combining an inflexible, unintuitive menu organization with an aesthetically displeasing layout, an impersonal feature set, and a particularly undynamic web site, Banner blasts apart any attempt at creating an illusion of user freedom. Users tend to walk away from their interactions with the Banner interface feeling as if they, the user, have just been used by their computers, instead of the other way around.


(1) Chaz Firestone, “First-years test Banner registration”, The Brown Daily Herald, September 5, 2007.

(2) Editorial Board, “Diamonds and coal”, The Brown Daily Herald, April 26, 2007.

(3) Pold, Soren. "Interface Realisms: The Interface as Aesthetic Form." Postmodern Culture, 15.2 (2005): ??.

(4) Fuller, Matthew. “It looks like you're writing a letter.” Telepolis 3 July 2001.

(5) McPherson, Tara. “Reload: Liveness, Mobility, and the Web.” New Media, Old Media: A History and Theory Reader. Ed. Wendy Hui Kyong Chun & Thomas Keenan. Routledge, 2006. 199-208.

ASSIGNMENT ONE - the original

The text I decided to star comes from the hypertext "Patchwork Girl", created by Shelley Jackson. Below, I have pasted the original passage as an image (click for higher quality) and as transcribed text.

I am

I am tall, and broad-shouldered enough that many take me for a man; others think me a transsexual (another feat of cut and stitch) and examine my jaw and hands for outsized bones, my throat for the tell-tell Adam's Apple. My black hair falls down my back but does not make me girlish. Women and men alike mistake my gender and both are drawn to me.

The motley effect of patched skin has lessened with age and uniform light conditions, though I am still subtly pied. Naked, I am more visibly so. I have large eyes, thought they are proportional to my other features (all my features are large, but do not appear so in this setting). My pupils are pale grey, black-ringed.

I move swiftly, with long loose strides; I was never comfortable in the drawing rooms or the pruned and cherished gardens of Mary's time and territory. I am happier where I have room to take long strides and I am enough alone that I can strip and walk unencumbered I was made as strong as my unfortunate and famous brother, but less neurotic!

Born full-grown, I have lived in this frame for 175 years. By another reckoning, I have lived many lives (Tituba's, Jane's, and the others') and am much older. The curious, the lustful, the suspicious, and the merely stupid watch me wherever I go and some follow me, scribbling notes and numerals, as if translation into a chart or overview will make all clear and safe as houses. They may be sure that I will lead them for a chase. I am never settled.

I belong nowhere. This is not bizarre for my sex, however, nor is it uncomfortable for us, to whom belonging has generally meant, belonging TO.

ASSIGNMENT ONE - *******

HERACTSEMSYMREFLINK

I am * Immediately one asks, “Who is she?” Attempting to discover who the narrator “is” drives the reader through the text. (HER. Unknown identity) ** The verb “to be” could refer to either a person's identity/characteristics (“I am an American”), a person's current status (“I am eating”), or simply inform another of one's existence. The intended meaning is not immediately clear (ACT. “to be”: multiple interpretations)

I am tall, and broad-shouldered enough that many take me for a man; * The narrator is associating his/herself with characteristics our culture stereotypically associates with masculinity and assumes the reader recognizes them as such. It is unclear whether s/he uses the stereotypes for ironic effect or if s/he honestly subscribes to them. (REF: gender expectations [American/Western]) ** Although the phrase “take me for a man” has a surface meaning of simply “recognizing me as a man”, it has undertones of possession. “Taking” anything usually involves possessing it. (ACT. “to take for”: to recognize AND/OR to possess)

others think me a transsexual (another feat of cut and stitch) * “Cut and stitch” invokes images of patchwork and quilting that run throughout the entire work. It also carries connotations of manufacturedness. (SEM. Artificiality)

and examine my jaw and hands for outsized bones, my throat for the tell-tell Adam's Apple. * Examining a person is a very personal experience we usually allow only trained experts to do to us. (ACT. “To examine”: to probe) ** Why should some random “others” be allowed to “examine” the narrator? Is s/he nothing more than an object? (SYM. Antithesis – human/object)

My black hair falls down my back but does not make me girlish. * Similar formula here to “I am tall, and broad-shouldered...”. (REF: gender expectations [American/Western]) ** “make me” here implies involuntary imposition of a label (ACT. “to make [a person]”: to force [a person] to fit the category of)

Women and men alike mistake my gender and both are drawn to me. * It is implied, then, that even though the narrator's appearance is unusual, it is physically appealing. Of course, we are forced to take the narrator's word for this...perhaps s/he only wishes they were desired. Is s/he proud of this appeal? (SEM. Attractiveness)

The motley effect of patched skin has lessened with age and uniform light conditions, though I am still subtly pied. * This sentence reveals that narrator spends most of his/her time inside. (SEM. Confined) ** This leads the reader to ask, “Where was this uniformly lit place?” Which in turn leads to, “In fact, where has s/he been all her existence? What is her story?” (HER. Unknown backstory)

Naked, I am more visibly so. * Nakedness. It immediately draws the reader's attention. Questions of the sexual experiences of the narrator arise. Biologically, does the narrator have all the “parts” a normal male or female does? (REF. Cultural code - nudity [American/Western])

I have large eyes, thought they are proportional to my other features (all my features are large, but do not appear so in this setting). My pupils are pale grey, black-ringed. * This passage appears out of place, random. Why the detailed description of eyes? Is there some special significance of the largeness, greyness, or black-ringedness of the eyes? (HER. Enigma – significance of eyes)

I move swiftly, with long loose strides; I was never comfortable in the drawing rooms or the pruned and cherished gardens of Mary's time and territory. * The narrator is again associated with masculine properties. The stereotype of the self-confident male walks assuredly with large strides. (REF. Cultural code – masculinity) ** Here the narrator take his/her first true “action” in the whole text! We finally have physical motion. Up to now, the primary verb has been the unexciting “is”. (ACT. “to move”: to change locations) *** Both the name Mary and the “pruned and cherished gardens” that the narrator finds uncomfortable are symbols associated with women. (SEM. Femininity)

I am happier where I have room to take long strides and I am enough alone that I can strip and walk unencumbered * The narrator's emotions are brought up for the first time here. Until now, s/he has talked about itself objectively. (ACT. “to be”: to have an emotional status) ** A common theme that appears in this passage and elsewhere is the narrator's unclear gender. Here, s/he shows her/his preference for the stereotypically male characteristics (SYM. Antithesis – male/female)

I was made as strong as my unfortunate and famous brother, but less neurotic! * The author's artificiality is brought up again. S/he was manufactured to certain specifications. (SEM. Artificiality) ** Who was this brother? What happened to him? (HER. Unknown backstory) *** The use of an exclamation point here is extremely inconsistent with the mood of the rest of the text. It denotes an excitement that the narrator does not express anywhere else. (REF. Grammar codes)

Born full-grown, I have lived in this frame for 175 years. By another reckoning, I have lived many lives (Tituba's, Jane's, and the others') and am much older. * “Born”? Really? The verb implies a more natural beginning than the rest of the text would imply. It goes against the theme of artificiality. (ACT. “To be born”: to enter the world) ** The use of the word “frame”, however, brings us back immediately to the manufacturedness of the narrator. “Body” would be the more human word. “Frame” brings images of furniture and cars to mind. (SEM. Artificiality) *** The reference to Tituba and Jane is a reference to the “graveyard” section of the hypertext where the backstories of the previous owners of the narrator's organs are revealed. (REF. Previously revealed information)

The curious, the lustful, the suspicious, and the merely stupid watch me wherever I go * Watching is more than just seeing. It implies that the watcher is focusing on what it is seeing. (ACT. “To watch”: to actively see) ** The attractiveness of the narrator is brought up again. The types of people described bring to mind those people who obsessively track celebrities. (SEM. Fame)

and some follow me, scribbling notes and numerals, as if translation into a chart or overview will make all clear and safe as houses. * As the narrator defines his/herself, so do others. They try to understand the narrator by looking at him/her in conventional contexts. (SYM. Antithesis - Known/unknown) ** Translation is a tricky business. There is not always a clear one-to-one correspondence between source text and result. The original meaning can get adjusted/reassigned by the translator. (ACT. “To translate”: to interpret) *** Are our houses truly safe? It's a stereotype of suburban America, that we can retreat into our houses and all danger will stay on the other side of our door. (REF. Cultural code – American homeownership)

They may be sure that I will lead them for a chase. I am never settled. * Another one of the few places where the narrator is in motion. (ACT. “to lead”: to instigate) ** The theme of assigning definitions to the narrator comes up again. S/he refuses to stay in one place, physically, culturally, psychologically. (SYM. Antithesis – Fixed/temporary)

I belong nowhere. * By making this statement, and using the concept of “belonging”, the narrator implicitly accepts the judgment of others that she must be defined to be accepted. (ACT. “to belong”: to have a place)

This is not bizarre for my sex, however, nor is it uncomfortable for us, to whom belonging has generally meant, belonging TO. * “my sex”?? Throughout the rest of the text, the narrator has denied any association to any sex. Now she can refer to “my sex” and use the first person plural when referring to all those of the same sex? That sex is female, as women have traditionally been the ones who have “belonged TO” their males. (REF. Historical)

ASSIGNMENT ONE - final thoughts

Upon first reading this text, one might see it somewhere along the following lines:

A female Frankenstein is objectively analyzing her gender identity according to societal norms of male/femaleness. In the end, she figures out she is indeed a woman.

A deeper reading, however, reveals a much more unsettled, conflicted narrator. S/he struggles with the conflict between his/her physical “design” and his/her desires. The few emotions of pleasure s/he expresses to us come when s/he describes her “male” characteristics and activities, yet s/he appears to choose his/her female side at the end of the passage. S/he frequently brings up the fact that others find her/him fascinating and alluring which implies that s/he relishes that attention. But a feeling of grimness and loneliness pervades the entire passage. The narrator apparently has stayed inside all his/her life (the “uniform light conditions” mentioned). S/he takes little action his/herself; instead, s/he is acted upon. S/he is frequently treated as nothing more than an object of examination. Yet s/he clearly wants to “belong” somewhere. In the end, that urge leads her to suppress the “male” aspects of his/her character so s/he can be categorized and find a place in our society.