Submitted by dparsons22 on Sep 23, 2009, 06:56 PM

Interactivity has changed the way we communicate, and the old theories of communication no longer reflect the current trends. The Communication Solar System Model is an attempt to understand the changing role of the receiver (spectator), and their ability to now participate and react to the original communication.

Submitted by FionaB on Sep 17, 2009, 06:54 PM

Brief report on Dr. Allison Clarke's presentation at HASTAC at Duke, and linking it to a recent NPR report on the growing influence of social media and social technology.

Submitted by etussey on Sep 13, 2009, 11:47 AM

In my first blog post for the HASTAC community I have offered my analysis of the interactive audience measurement game, RewardTV.

Submitted by Kim on Sep 09, 2009, 10:26 PM

On Tuesday, September 8 President Obama addressed American students, exhorting them to take responsibility for their educational futures. Millions of Americans were concerned that their children would be politically indoctrinated. There are two aspects to this story, of which we should be aware: one that rewards the Obama Administration for its fluency in digital media communication, and another that requires understanding in the way Americans issues are communicated internationally.

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Aug 24, 2009, 08:44 AM

According to Wikipedia, the term "astroturfing" was coined by Senator Lloyd Bentsen way back in 1985, but I hadn't been aware of it until the current health care reform debates when extremists carrying provocative signs and sometimes wielding AK-47's or pistols strapped to the thigh began turning

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Apr 03, 2009, 09:52 AM
This short video was made February 2008, after the first winners of the Digital Media and Learning Competition was announced.  These winners will be showcasing their work at a concert at Newberry Library April 16 and a Showcase with panel discussions and an interactive expo on April 17 at the Palmer House, both in Chicago.  New winners for this year's competition will be announced at the Showcase and perhaps among the visitors will be some of next year's winners, too.  We hope so!  We invite you to join us and, in the meantime, to enjoy this short video.  http://tiny.cc/PECYk

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Mar 26, 2009, 04:25 PM
John Hope Franklin passed away yesterday. In our beloved John Hope Franklin Center (where this photograph of our namesake was taken) Director of Operations Jason Doty has made a living and virtual commemoration and celebration of a life lived brilliantly. On our plasma screen directory, pass images of John Hope (as he made me call him, although "Dr. Franklin" came more naturally), with presidents and activists, statesmen and children, worldwide. At the memorial, I met a man who came just to be closer to him. Standing there, he said he once asked John Hope what inventions, in his lifetime of 94 years, seemed to him to most alter the possibilities of existence: the cell phone and the Internet, he said. The Internet, he told me a week before this year's election, could change politics forever if only we learned to use it right.

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Mar 09, 2009, 05:11 PM
Here's a reblog from the UCI website of our MacArthur Foundation Grantee's meeting for the Digital Media and Learning Initiative at University of California Irvine. A fabulous meeting! http://www.chancellor.uci.edu/090219_digital_media.php

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Jan 22, 2009, 05:38 AM
I am responding to the terrifically interesting comments by Whitney and Jed that make us think about how the histories of very old media help us understand new media--and vice versa. To my mind, it is not very useful to define what is "new" but, rather, to be constantly remind ourselves that "new" changes before our eyes--and often before our eyes process the change. It all--not just new media but anything new-- seems dazzling, new, different . . . and then it seems, ho hum, inevitable, all the same, twas ever thus. Finding some complexity and interest within that paradox is, for me, the beauty of making new media historical.

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Jan 02, 2009, 07:29 AM
A point made over and over at both the Digital Media and Learning (Humanities 2.0) and Microblogging (Twitter) session at MLA was that, unless some new way of thinking, some different possibility for knowing is offered by the technologies being used, then it is not worth doing. Would that we had such a high bar for all the courses we required in formal education!