Monday, September 29, 2008

Paul Newman: A Life On Screen

“Yeah, I met him on my first ‘official’ date with Drew. We had been seeing each other while she was going out with this guy, then I called to say it was over after getting tired of that business, only for her to tell me that she just called it quits with him for good. So, to seem cultured and romantic, I asked her out on a date - a train ride to Stratford for lunch and a matinee of Merry Wives of Windsor. We walked down to the river afterward and, while sitting on a bench, noticed a couple walking toward us. The man seemed really familiar to me due to his walk and his posture; I thought it was a neighbour or a friend of my parents. When he got closer, I realized it was Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. My mom loved Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, which we had watched together on t.v. After seeing those movies, then Cool Hand Luke one Saturday afternoon at the end of high school, I was a fan. I rented as many movies of his as I could after that, so I recognized the walk, despite his sunglasses and ball cap. I was so awed and surprised that I barely acknowledged Joanne Woodward. I believe my salutation was "Holy Shit!"
After shaking his hand, which he informed me had been burned on the element of their hotel room kitchenette, the four of us briefly talked about the plays they had seen, including the Merry Wives of Windsor. Joanne Woodward did most of the talking - at one point, while Ms. Woodward and I went on about the merits of the production, Paul Newman winked at Drew from over his shades. They walked along, I called my mom from the train station payphone, and the marital commitment of Drew and I experienced a blessed foreshadowing from one of Hollywood's longest, happiest marriages due to a chance meeting on an unlikely first date.

Hey, you'll have to email me and tell me how things are going for you so far. You must be a real New Yawka by now! I think Craig and I are serious about coming to stay with you some weekend, maybe in the spring.
We'll talk soon (do you have a phone number?)

Bart”

Watching movies is a communal activity negotiated in a private mental/emotional sphere. Whenever I go to a movie, I try to look back at least once at the crowd. There is something almost religious in the way that a group of strangers go under a shared trance as they watch a movie.

I had an epiphany over the last year regarding social dynamics in general, and family dynamics specifically. It’s strange that so many of us get cues from the mass media as to how a “normal” family conducts itself. For example, from watching television families, dinner is a time when parents sit at both ends of the table, usually commenced with some kind of prayer or silence and people dig in. The substance of conversation is the events of the day. With kids it’s the uncomfortable questions about what they learned at school. With parents its the bills or some other pedestrian chatter about grown up stuff. Although obviously familial tradition plays its part in perpetuating the dinner time ritual, the mass media also plays its part in showing us what the normative form of discussion should be.

Similarly, our conduct as to what is proper social behavior is also conditioned by television and film. I have always been an appropriater of pop cultural artifacts. Sayings, clothing and behavior has long been at least partially dictated in terms of what I have viewed on the screen. Extending Turkle’s idea of a fragmented identity created through multiple online identities, I have appropriated the behavior and attitude of a number of pop cultural icons to create my own fragmented. And could there be a cooler cat to steal from than Paul Newman?

Just this summer I was visiting some relatives in Italy, I noticed a moment inspired by Paul Newman. An older relative would ride his bicycle around his small village feeding chickens, goats and dogs. And whenever I would walk beside him as he rode, I subconsciously started whistling “Rain Drop Keep Falling On My Head”, the song that played as Paul Newman’s Butch Cassidy charmed Katharine Ross’ Etta Place in “”Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. In large part, I believe I learned how to conduct myself in romantic situations by watching people like Paul Newman. Hey, I have to blame someone.

~

It is strange how we can develop an opinion of the “real” identity of a screen icon. I believe most people would say they think Mr. Newman is a decent man. See “Newman Remembered as a Good Neighbor and a Good Friend”

But why? Is it his long standing marriage to Joanne Woodward? How about his charitable work with “Newman’s Own”? How about his “Hole-in-the-wall gang” camps for kids? I am sure they all play some role.

However, I believe it was his earnest struggle with some of the more unseemly parts of the human condition in his multitude of roles which conveyed the decency of the man. Think of characters like Eddie Felson in “The Hustler” or Frank Galvin in “The Verdict”. Rightly or wrongly, the largely positive perception of the man was shaped by the composite of his fragmented identities on screen. And fortunately, unlike most people who pass away, we can easily revisit his presence.

Paul Newman died of cancer on September 28, 2008. He was 83.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/movies/28hotchner.html?ref=movies

Newman Remembered as a Good Neighbor and a Good Friend
NY Times
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
Published: September 27, 2008

Paul Newman and A. E. Hotchner lived about 10 minutes from each other in Westport, Conn. The two men, longtime friends, owned boats together. “As a matter of fact,” Mr. Hotchner said Saturday in an interview, “a couple of wretched boats.”

They would go out on Long Island Sound, drinking beer and scaring the fish. “We were terrible fishermen,” he said. Then the motor would stall. “We’d get out there in the middle of the sound and then it would poop out,” Mr. Hotchner said. “The police would say, ‘Those two guys have to be towed in again.’ There’s this major movie star being towed in by the police.”

Remembrances of Mr. Newman, the actor and philanthropist who died on Friday at his home in Westport at the age of 83, poured forth around the country on Saturday. But few remembered Mr. Newman the way his friend and neighbor did in Westport, a Fairfield County town of about 26,000.

Mr. Newman and Mr. Hotchner, 91, a playwright, novelist and biographer, had been friends for more than 50 years.

In 1982, they founded Newman’s Own food company. One night just before Christmas in 1980, they made a batch of salad dressing with oil and vinegar. They poured the dressing into wine bottles and then gave them as gifts to their neighbors. “It was a lark,” Mr. Hotchner said, a lark that would turn into Newman’s Own, which has donated all its millions of dollars of profits to charities.

In 1988, Mr. Newman and Mr. Hotchner founded a different sort of enterprise: the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Ashford, Conn., a free camp for children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. One camp grew into other camps, nationally and globally.

The two men first met in the mid-1950s, when Mr. Hotchner adapted an Ernest Hemingway short story, “The Battler,” for television. James Dean was to play the lead, but he had died in a car crash. So the director, Arthur Penn, gave the role to a little-known actor named Paul Newman.

“Paul was an unadorned man,” Mr. Hotchner said. “He was simple and direct and honest and off-center and mischievous, and romantic and very handsome. All of these qualities became the generating force behind him.” He added: “He was the same man in 2008 that he was in 1956 — unchanged, despite all the honors and the movie stardom, not a whisper of a change. And that’s something, the constancy of the man.”

Mr. Newman was the best man at Mr. Hotchner’s wedding in 1970. When Mr. Hotchner remarried last June, Mr. Newman was the best man again. “He’s the best man in my life, so why wouldn’t he be at my wedding?” he said.

Mr. Hotchner said he last saw Mr. Newman at the actor’s house in Westport a few days ago, when Mr. Newman was losing strength in his battle with cancer. “We didn’t really talk about anything other than some funny things that happened,” Mr. Hotchner said. “As I was leaving, I said, ‘Well, I’ll keep in touch.’ He said, ‘Yeah, it’s been a hell of a ride.’ I guess I’ll always remember that.”

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Liability for online activities in academia

“Get out of jail free” - liability for online activities in academia
Are professors liable for student misconduct in classroom-mandated activities? If so, how can professional liability be limited?

These questions arise from Michael J. Bugeja’s article “Second Thoughts About Second Life”. Bugeja recounts a campus cybershooting mimicking a real-life incident at Virginia Tech. In response, Bugeja explores the issue of university liability for academically-mandated tasks taking place in virtual worlds.

I would sum up the university’s legal liability as follows.

Be proactive. But don’t worry excessively.

This opinion is based on basic criminal and civil law principals applied against the ever-evolving backdrop of online life. As such, although this opinion may prove useful in the present instance, it may prove less so in the future.

Analysis of an allegedly criminal act normally starts at its division into two main components - actus reus, the evil act, and mens rea, the evil thought. Successful criminal prosecution requires satisfactory fulfillment of both elements beyond a reasonable doubt.

An evil act without malevolent thought protects those deemed below the requisite threshold of mental ability to be held responsible for criminal behavior, namely the mentally infirm, young children, etc.

An evil thought without an accompanying act is also not criminal. A bad person who wishes you wrong but does nothing physically or verbally harmful against you may be a cad (a potential adulterer), immoral (a potential corporate thief) or even reprehensible (a potentially violent spouse). However, he is not criminal.

Looking at the facts of the Ohio University case, it appears initially as though the cybershooter fulfilled the mens rea requirement of a criminal act. He (I am assuming it is a “he”) wanted to shoot and kill these other avatars. There were no claims of lack of intention, mistake or accident. There is nothing in Bugeja’s description attesting to any extenuating circumstances that would vitiate the mental element of the crime (e.g. mental infirmity, insanity, excessive youth, etc.).

As for the actus reus, there was no dispute as to whether this particular student committed the evil act in question. The shooter consciously and deliberately logged into his account, procured a weapon, navigated through the campus and shot the other avatars. There were no other perpetrators involved, the shooter’s identity was clear and there were no claims to the contrary.

As a result, there was fulfillment of the mens rea and actus reus requirements. It looks as though the student should be convicted.

Not so fast.

It is at the actus reus stage where the alleged criminality of this act would most likely fall apart according to the tenets of the criminal justice system. In short, because the scene of the incident was a virtual world, there was no direct physical contact between the cybershooter and the victims and, as a result, it would be argued that no truly criminal act was committed. Otherwise, if the opposite was successfully argued, couldn’t the victims of other cyberworlds charge the shooter with manslaughter (e.g. within any role playing “shoot-em-up” game)? Although the incident in question was callous, poorly timed in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy, and in an environment where violence is normally not expected, extending criminal sanctions and victims’ rights into a virtual world seem far-fetched at present and ripe for appeal. As a result, lower level judges would be reluctant to extend the punitive power of the criminal courts to the jurisdiction of the virtual world despite the emotional harm inflicted. A patently offensive cyberact such as this is regrettable and will hopefully never happen again. But it is still most likely not criminal.

As a result, the criminal law threshold for the case does not appear as though it would be met. But how would this incident play out in the lower threshold of the civil courts?

It would possibly merit an award for damages though it would probably still be unlikely.

Victims could claim emotional suffering as a result of the trauma of being “virtually killed”. However, in a context where so many people have been killed in other online environments this again seems beyond the purview of most civil courts and likely something that would be appealed. And on a practical level, add the fact that most college students have few valuable assets (iPod anyone?) and potentially much higher personal financial liability (e.g. student loan debt, a bill for the latest Manolo Blahniks), most lawyers would shy away from this case on purely financial grounds. Waiting four years to garnish someone’s future wages seems silly.

Bugeja believes that Linden Lab, creators of the Second Life virtual reality world, is fully insulated from liability due to a clause in its terms of service that disallows users from making claims or demands for damages. Also, Bugeja believes that universities are at great risk when promoting virtual-life games within a curricular setting when they omit a clause in course syllabi stating that engaging in virtual worlds is optional and lack of participation will not affect grades.

However, these beliefs are not entirely well-founded.

Professors apprised of the Ohio University incident should proactively add a clause that makes participation in virtual worlds optional. In fact, they should extend this type of preemptive statement to any activity that could result in liability (e.g. class trips, etc.). However, service providers such as Linden Labs appear in a much weaker position with respect to potentially criminal or tortious acts occurring within their world. This virtual environment is a place where the company has created an online setting, delineated membership standards, regulated, provided tools with which to interact as well as derived financial gain. In a legal setting, this would be compared with a university professor who unwittingly sends college students to this site. If you were a judge and felt the need to assign civil liability, would you choose the well-intentioned professor trying to appeal to a new generation of tech savvy learners who only has a cursory knowledge of a website? Or would you choose the highly impersonal multi-million dollar corporation flush with cash that created a tool that a wide swath of people can access and on which they can purchase weapons? Case closed.

In summary, the Ohio University case would probably not be judged as a criminal offence. Due to the perpetrator’s presumed lack of financial assets, a civil case against the cybershooter would probably not even be made. If anybody was going to be liable, it would most likely be a service provider like Linden Labs that would presumably have the responsibility to regulate its environment, vet its members and protect users from “violence”. But even then, due to the virtual nature of any act, and the general pervasiveness of violence and explicit sexual content in the media and technology, no award would normally be made and, if it was, it would be a nominal amount for pain and suffering. Specific threats through e-mail communication against the corporeal integrity of an actual person (e.g. sexual harassment, assault, etc.) would be the most likely scenario to merit criminal prosecution against guilty parties, gain legal protection or earn a monetary award for damages. And for those educators who still want to use virtual worlds within an academic setting, an optional participation clause within the class syllabus should provide adequate protection.

P.S And don’t let the terms of service clause fool you. The warning label “Cigarettes can kill” has not prevented tobacco companies from being sued for billions of dollars. If terms of service clauses provided absolute protection from liability, every single product ever made would have a warning added and consumer rights would be completely eviscerated. Don’t you think the manufacturers of the tainted baby formula in China would have added one of these clauses to their product to protect themselves?

P.P.S. As virtual worlds become more lifelike, technology becomes more integrated with daily life and the division between the two disappears, potential liability will only increase. In the future, all legal bets are off.

References:
Bugeja, M. (2007, September 14). Second thoughts about Second Life. The Chronicle of Higher Education, p. C1. Retrieved September 11, 2007 from http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i0303c00101.htm

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Manipulating information (personal/academic)

A range of influential writers, from Robert Reich (1992) and Peter Drucker (1993) to Manuel Castells (1996-8), suggest that the economy is led and energized by people whose major characteristic is the capacity to manipulate information. (Webster, 2006, p. 446, emphasis is mine)

Given the state of current global financial markets, during what the former Chair of the Federal Reserve Board Alan Greenspan might still call “The Age of Turbulence”, I am unsure if Webster knew how prescient the word “manipulate” would be...

Webster wrote this quotation as an example of the occupational change endemic to an “information society”. Webster, mimicking a sociological perspective, states that “we have achieved an information society when the preponderance of occupations is found in information work”. Although this argument smacks of circularity (e.g. How do you know when we have an “information society”? Well, when everyone in “society” has a job dealing with “information”…), this metric is as good as any of the others used to define the nature of an amorphous phenomenon like the information society.

I find this quotation especially intriguing in light of the recent financial meltdown of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, etc. and its particularly appropriate use of the phrase “manipulate information”. In “our globalized and fast-changing world” (Webster, 2006, p. 446) with financial services that allow increasingly large amounts of money to change hands almost instantaneously, good financial information becomes a highly valuable commodity. When you mix an oligarchy that monopolizes high-end financial information with direct access to a great deal of capital, these types of cataclysmic market corrections seem highly foreseeable, if not inevitable. Although there is no certainty as to what exactly caused the collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and others (1), part of it has to do with this deliberate manipulation of information.

I believe that Reich, Drucker, Castells and Webster wrote in good faith about the phenomenon of informational leaders. When they wrote about information manipulation they used neutral terms and meant it simply as those who create and use information. But for a person who until very recently (e.g. check out last week’s blog) would count himself as a “soft technological determinist” (2), I can’t help but revisit my seemingly rash view that “hard technological determinism” (3) carries less weight. It is difficult not to revisit these thoughts during a global economic meltdown accelerated by instantaneous financial transactions carried out by technology. At least in the present instance, financial services technology has hastened the collapse of some major Wall Street players.

Could these problems have still occurred without technology? Possibly. I guess that is up to the economic historians to decide…

(1) Speculation is rampant that this meltdown was based, to some extent, on collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). CDOs are an unregulated asset-backed security. In some instances they can be mortgage-backed securities, some of which, as you would expect, were exposed to the subprime mortgage markets.

(2) Technology is viewed as a part of a more complex mix of economic, political and social factors (Marx & Smith, 1994, p. xiii).

(3) Hard technological determinism imputes agency to technology itself and technological advances leading to a situation of inescapable necessity (Marx & Smith, 1994, p. xii).

References:
Marx, L., & Smith, M.R. (1994). Introduction. In M.R. Smith & L. Marx (Eds.), Does technology drive history?: The dilemma of technological determinism (ix-xv). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Webster, F. (2006). The information society revisited. In L. Lievrouw & S. Livingstone (Eds.), The Handbook of New Media, Updated Student Edition (443-457). London: Sage.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Who's afraid of the big bad robot? (personal)

"Hard" technological determinism (hereafter referred to as "TD" to help delay the onset of carpal tunnel...) conjures up stark images in the deepest recesses of the technophobes's mind. A Terminator-like cyborg running amok and laying waste to civil society. If it was put in human form, it would be the dude from Grand Theft Auto but with a flat Austrian accent.

Or, for those of you who are more mathematical in your thinking, you could also think of this phenomenon in these terms:

Advanced Technology + Paranoia + Hollywood CGI = The Governator

Was there really any other way these three variables could add up to anything else?

Haley Joel Osment, the cute robot boy from AI who was ubiquitous years ago*, couldn't bring in the box office dollars compared to the frightening tale of technology gone awry in the Terminator series. And that's despite having the help of Jude Law playing a randy robot. There's just something eminently more compelling to the popular consciousness in an apocalyptic tale of futuristic dystopia than Pinocchio 2.0 striving for technological self-actualization through his mother.

Funny business aside, I honestly get the heebeegeebees when I entertain the concept of hard TD. Just the idea of technology having agency and effecting change in an autonomous way scares me.

This of course leads to the $64,000 question.

Why?

Recognizing that I am old-school in this sensibility, I stated the following hypothetical scenario in class.

I wonder if I would be more comfortable with hard TD if I was born X years from now, when artificial intelligence would be a bigger part of everyday life?

I initially answered yes. I would be more comfortable born in the future when confronted with this phenomenon. With the presumed almost imperceptible long-term integration of increasingly smart machines across a variety of products, I would imagine that it would only be that much easier to accept the reality of hard TD.

But the existentialism-pondering, Descartes-reading philosopher in me thinks perhaps that would not be the case. I don't know if it would ever feel completely "natural" that we, as human beings, would have our fates inextricably and inescapably linked to the whims of technology, whether it be something as malevolent as a Terminator-like machine, the initially benevolent Hal in 2001 A Space Odyssey, or maybe, one day, Apple's iPresident.

But human ego aside, given the increasing complexity of the world, with the highly likely increase in the intensity of intermingling of cultural, economic, political and social factors, wouldn't technology, even if it permeated every pore of post-industrial life, only be one wave in an ocean full of currents?

Who knows?

See you in fifty years...



* For a two-year period it appeared that everybody's favorite scamp, Haley Joel Osment, was in every major Hollywood production - The Sixth Sense, Pay It Forward, AI, Different Strokes.

Oh sorry. The last one was Gary Coleman.

But Mr. Osment has succumbed to one of Hollywood's most fickle fates - the "awkward teen stage". Now he is too old to play a child, but too young to morph into a romantic lead.

At least I hope he had the sixth sense not to pay forward that trust fund money...

Ha. Ha ha ha.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Defining Technological Determinism (academic)

Focus: Present two questions that have arisen from readings and/or discussions in class so far. Why are these important to me in relation to both my personal and academic interests.

Question 1: What is technological determinism?
Technological determinism appears to be a recurring theme across various Mathematics, Science and Technology classes. And like many academic terms, it appears that its meaning is provisional, changing depending on the author, her usage and the time when she writes.

Marx and Smith (1994) define technological determinism as "the human tendency to create the kind of society that invests technologies with enough power to drive history" (p. xiv). Additionally, Heilbroner (1994) defines technological determinism as "peculiarly a problem of a certain historical epoch-specifically that of high capitalism and low socialism-in which the forces of technological change have been unleashed, but when the agencies for the control or guidance of technology are still rudimentary" (p. 63 - emphasis is his).

As a relative neophyte in the world of Communication, Computing, and Technology in Education, the lack of certainty with regard to what appears to be a key conceptual building block of my field leaves me initially wary about my intellectual engagement with its constituent subject matter. More specifically, how can I begin to understand the world of the Social and Communicative Aspects of the Internet and other ICTs when my initial forays are clouded by definitional differences and ambiguities?

In terms of the question of what is technological determinism, I would combine the two definitions as follows. Technological determinism is "the human tendency, over certain historical epochs (such as high capitalism and low socialism), to create the kind of society that invests technologies with enough power to drive history. During these epochs, the forces of technological change have been unleashed but the agencies for the control or guidance of technology are still rudimentary".

I am not entirely satisfied with this definition as it appears that Marx & Smith look at technological determinism as more of a general phenomenon that is long lasting and continuous while Heilbroner appears to constrain it according to specific historical periods (e.g. historical epochs) defined by particular economic/political regimes (e.g. high capitalism and low socialism). As much of my thoughts on this field thus far, my understanding of technological determinism is provisional, uncertain and subject to change. Encountering additional definitions, usages and examples should only cloud things over until I, hopefully, find a definition that is both more all encompassing of the materials I read and the experiences I have while also reaching more definitional clarity.

Question 2: How are competing intellectual schools of thought reconciled?

In "The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other", Pinch & Bijker (1987) "argue that the social constructivist view that is prevalent within the sociology of science and also emerging within the sociology of technology provides a useful starting point" (p. 17) to create a unified social constructivist approach. This focus intrigued me due to my previous work on my Master of Philosophy degree. I wrote a research thesis titled "The possible role of preservice teacher education programs in teacher attrition rates: the exploratory first year stage of a longitudinal, multi-year study". One of the most significant challenges I faced was attempting to integrate the quantitative and qualitative aspects of my research into a seamless whole. As I was attempting to negotiate this philosophical divide, one of the thoughts I had was concerning the utility of the exercise itself. Intellectually it was interesting trying to find a connection between two distinct entities. However, even if I could adequately do this, in practical terms, would it have much of an effect? For example, if I was using survey (quantitative) and case study (qualitative) methodologies in my study, in practical terms would it matter whether or not I successfully philosophically integrated these competing epistemologies? And when I read this article, it reminded me very much of this internal tension. Do we as academics strive to reconcile philosophical points that are moot on a practical, everyday level? If so, does this investment of time take our time and energy away from issues of greater importance? Also, and this is especially relevant to people working in educational research, does this attempt at epistemological and philosophical purity push us further away from the quotidian challenges of the classroom?

Conclusion:
In terms of these two questions, they clearly appear to engage me in relation to my academic interests. However, their relation to my personal interests appears, at least initially, less clear. Similar to the example of the distinction between hard and soft technological determinism (Marx & Smith, 1994, p.p. xii-xiii), you could also create a similar spectrum between the academic/rational and personal/emotional. However, this dichotomy feels at least partially false. Does something that is interesting to us on an academic/rational level perhaps imply that on a deeper level it could also be personally/emotionally important? If you take a holistic view of human beings as having an essential biology and cognitive makeup that is shaped by the political, economic, social environment where they find themselves, perhaps something that is inexplicably engaging on an intellectual level is the result of a combination of these forces that were somehow emotionally charged at a previous time. As an example, think of the poor child who ends up being an advocate for the impoverished as an adult. I love the idea of binaries, such as hard and soft technological determinism, because it helps me define the upper limits of the concept at hand. But these extremes are usually that - extreme. The truth usually lies somewhere in the more amorphous and highly contested space between these two endpoints. And perhaps my intellectual engagement with technological determinism and rectifying competing intellectual schools of thought is the end result of deeper unidentified currents running beneath my consciousness.

References:
Marx, L., & Smith, M.R. (1994). Introduction. In M.R. Smith & L. Marx (Eds.), Does technology drive history?: The dilemma of technological determinism (ix-xv). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Heilbroner, R. (1994). Do Machines Make History? In M.R. Smith & L. Marx (Eds.), Does technology drive history?: The dilemma of technological determinism (53-65). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Pinch, T, & Bijker, W. (1987). The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other. In W. Bijker, T. Hughes & T. Pinch (Eds.), The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology (17-50). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.