Ania's E-learning and Digital Cultures

32 Responses to “Lifestream 2”

1.   Jen Ross Says:
   October 5th, 2011 at 11:20     Reply

   secret doors! fab. The question of authenticity is raised in relation to authorship as well as selection, I think. Who is the author of this lifestream?

2.   Ania Rolińska Says:
   October 6th, 2011 at 10:11     Reply

   Sure I am the author and I guess even though I stream other people’s content, the way I aggregate it, annotate, link is uniquely mine but there is an agenda here, isn’t there? I see the benefits of the activity but am feeling the stick of assessment too acutely. For this reason, I censor myself and try to craft the online me in such a way that it possibly meets the criteria, pleases the assessors and the audience? I want to be seen in a certain light, which is not necessarily truthful and which certainly exerts pressure on me. It’s like redesigning yourself in order to sell, well at least it sometimes feels like this.

3.   Jen Ross Says:
   October 10th, 2011 at 09:37     Reply

   Also I guess that if Kress is right in suggesting that “ordering” is part of meaning making and authorship, the question about who authors the lifestream takes on an extra dimension (for me) – the software does some of the “work” of producing the order in which the lifestream is presented. And the different RSS feeds update/refresh at different rates, so the feeds may have a part to play as well. Or is that pushing things too far?

4.   Ania Rolińska Says:
   October 10th, 2011 at 10:30     Reply

   Hmm, an interesting point Jen. First, I thought that yes, the software impacts the order of the lifestream but I wasn’t convinced as to the idea of its agency. It looks pretty random as it is dependant on the software mechanics, updates and so on. It’s just software after all!
   However, when I think about it more one thing strikes me. I quite like Kress’s idea of ordering and the related shifts in power – with a written text, the power in this respect lies with the author; with an image the audience assumes parts of it as it participates in creating the meaning by deciding on the order of ‘reading’ the information. With the lifestream, another agent appears, the technology, by intervening how the content is presented and how it’s ‘read’. A step away from perceiving techs as merely instrumental. The lifestream becomes more rhisome-ish this way too, something suggested by Carol which resonates with me more and more. Interesting … Cheers.