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Weekly Summary
Note: Some concepts are only mentioned in the reading even though they were also mentioned in the lecture.
This is because I edited my notes on the readings according to what has been said in the lectures, so you
wouldn’t have to read anything twice. :)
Week 1 * Media-Nature
Peters, John Durham. 2015. “Understanding Media.”
Media
The history of new media is old — Old media rarely die; they just recede into the background and become
more ontological
By motorization, acceleration of media velocities
“Media determine our situation.”
Media is the context of our lives, it is the underlying infrastructure that affects almost every part of our
lives
Media are our infrastructures of being, the habitats and materials through which we act and are — modes
of being
Like 'new media, ancient media such as registers, indexes, the census, calendars, and catalogs have
always been in the business of recording, transmitting, and processing culture; of managing subjects,
objects, and data; of organizing time, space, and power
Infrastructure
To be modern means to live within and by means of infrastructures
Infrastructures can be defined as “large, force-amplifying systems that connect people and institutions across
large scales of space and time” or “big, durable, well-functioning systems and services.”
Infrastructure are almost always vulnerable to hijacking — they are most visible when on trial
There are hard and soft infrastructures
Dams and websites, highways and protocols are equally infrastructural
There can be lightweight and portable as well as heavy and fixed infrastructures
Infrastructuralism
Its fascination is for the basic, the boring, the mundane, and all the mischievous work done behind the scenes
Politics of boredom: “Mature technological systems reside in a naturalized background, as ordinary and
unremarkable to us as trees, daylight, and dirt,”
The job of logistical media is to organize and orient, to arrange people and property, often into grids
Infrastructuralism shares a classic concern of media theory: the call to make environments (infrastructures)
visible
Lioi Anthony. 2022. “The Matrix of Ecomedia: Fan Worlds as Environments.”
Imaginative otherworlds become fan worlds: cinematic, digital & augmented environments we inhabit
Media is our ecology (ecomedia)
Weekly Summary 1
, Fan worlds can not be reduced to one medium, and fans can enter these worlds from different doorways and
make their paths through its “matrix of media”
Writerly Text (Barthes)
It is not only the writer who creates the text, but the reader as well — they become another writer
‘Prosumer’ — producer + consumer (Jenkins)
Intertextuality (Kristeva)
Texts are the poets of other texts, they intersect, overlay and build upon each other
Texts are not singular, they are plural, they are networks of texts — What is the plural of a media object? It
can be the extended storyworld
Mesocosm (Chang)
The term is originally used in the realm of video games
A blend of real and simulated worlds
It is a semi-controlled environment
In terms of fanworlds, when they meet offline, there is a building, a field outdoors, or a room in which a
storyworld (James) manifests in
These spaces have well-defned rules that refigure the rules of that storyworld
Matrices of media are:
Interobjective: They are made of books, films, television shows, podcasts, et cetera, and all the material
relations that go into their production, distribution, and maintenance
Intersubjective: They produce social environments in the way outlined above
The perceptual: The interactive dimension among living things, which are material bodies perceived, or
“imaged,” and responded to by other material bodies
Media matrixes
Media matrixes of fan worlds are models of networked environments — a sort of world-building
Ecosystem of things that are like it & already exist — Ecomedia (Environments that we inhabit and embody)
Examples:
1. Black Panther: Lots of fans entered into this storyworld through the gate of the film, but there is a big
background and history of comicbooks from which it originates. It had a huge empowering effect, there were
IRL meetings such as the Wacandacon, and it created a worldwide interest in Afrotourism
2. WandaVision: Another Marvel production, but this was a series, that was coming out with new episodes along
the way. Fans lost track of the storyline due to excessive theorizing and the plot was only revealed in the last
episodes. It caused confusion and speculation among fans.
Lecture
Infrastructure
It repeats
This repetition is normalized in our day-to-day life
It stabilizes time: Infrastructure is based on time because it relies on repetition — it has a ‘formerness’
When an infrastructure stops functioning (anti-programatic action happens) it is more visible
It has performativity
It does something, it makes us behave in some sort of way — it is pedagogical
It has agency, so infrastructures are actants
It tells a story
Weekly Summary 2
, When they come in and out of being?
There is a history that can be traced back/ de-scribed behind each infrastructure
We are conditioned by conditions we condition: We make an exit sign (a condition we condition) — we walk out
where it points us to (we are conditioned)
Nature
Nature is not just ‘out there’, it is a concept that we have created and defined as separate from culture
Nature is mediated by what we think nature is
We also define who we are and who or what the ‘other’ is (for example the squids or aliens)
There is always a crossing between media and nature (media is nature and nature is media)
Example:
1. Animals turn up in cities during Covid: It feels wrong, but only because we have decided where animals need
and needn’t be. Therefore, part of what an animal is is the frame we give to it (like where it should be). So if
you think of a cat you don’t think of it being in a jungle on a tree, but more like in your bed snuggled up next to
you.
2. A painted picture of a natural landscape: The painting is an imprint of the real that has performative agency as
Media is
An indirect non-encounter with the real, a ghosting device
A network, an intelligence, there is no ‘it’
Our condition, and we condition these conditions
Our ecology, media is as natural as a natural ecology
Key Terms
Setting/ Setup: Arranged environment that gives a frame for action and programms (A lecture hall can be a setup
or setting for a lecture), A certain assemblage that is part of a network of similars
Actant: Whatever acts or shifts action (Your laptop can be an actant as it is acting on its own by running an OS)
Combination of these two: “Dispositif actant”: "Dispositif" refers to a system or network of heterogeneous
elements. "Actant" is a term used primarily in actor-network theory, referring to any entity that enacts some
kind of action or has an effect on a situation. Thus, a "dispositif actant" might be understood as any element
within a dispositif that enacts action, influences other elements, or contributes to the overall function or
outcome of the system.
Apparatus: What is it that this media object does? What does it facilitate? How is it designed to facilitate that
specific function?
Inscription: Being chategorized, be made a part of a system, having a new identity is created for you (When you
go to university and get a student card, so now you are given a student title)
De-scription: Dissecting, taking something into its small components, tracing back its history
Affordances/ allowances: This is what something offers or allows you to do (A knife’s affordance is that you can
slice things with it)
Circumscription: The act of defining or limiting the scope of something, often by setting boundaries or restrictions
Interface: A point where two systems, subjects, organizations, etc. meet and interact. It can also refer to a device
or program enabling a user to communicate with a computer, or to the way something allows or limits interaction
(Graphic interface is what allows you as a person to communicate with the computer)
Anti-program: Something that happens outside the normal functioning of a program (In a restaurant people are
dining at their tables and there is a robbery or desire lines in parks and biking lanes)
An excercise in de-scription (example)
1. What components make up this room (lecture hall) and both define and enable its function, or ‘program’ (what
are we meant to do in this room)?
Weekly Summary 3
