Response to Part 8 of the Reader Book

In his article, Mark Poster gives the term, "the mode of information," to describe electronically mediated communication. I think it's a confusing term: which mode? electronic, print, or other? He argues that "the mode of information enacts a radical reconfiguration of language, one which constitutes subjects outside the pattern of the rational, autonomous individual. ... Electronic culture promotes the individual as an unstable identity, as a continuous process of multiple identity formation, and raises the question of a social form beyond the modern, the possibility of a post-modern society." (p398) He gave three examples: (1) TV ad creates a virtual connection between the viewer and the product, making the viewer feel as "the absent hero or heroine of the ad;" (2) Computerized database operates as a super panopticon, making us inescapable from its survey; and (3) electronic writing removes the distinction between author and reader but at same time allows individuals to have multiple identities. I kind of get his point, but his terribly scholarly writing style is intolerable. Why can't he write in ordinary English?

Realizing both positive and negative impact of mass broadcasting may bring to indigenous culture, Eric Michaels tried to answer this question in his article: "how to respond to the insistent pressure towards standardization, the homogenizing tendencies of contemporary world culture?" His analysis confirms local videomakers' claims that "TV is a two-edged sword, both a blessing and a curse, a 'fire' that has to be fought with fire." (p421). I like the criteria for aboriginal media that the local people use: "Can video make our culture strong? Or will it make us lose our law?"

Sadie Plant's article is very unique. I never imagined that computer and weaving are so much related, and women are so instrumental for both. Computer, in his analysis, does look very feminine from appearance to how it's used by man. But how much does it matter if computer is feminine?