Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

Cultural Literacy And The Field Of The Media, Tony Schirato, Jen Webb

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

This paper is concerned with the notion of cultural literacy, specifically with regard to the media, and focuses on two interrelated questions. First, what do we mean by the term cultural literacy, and how can this term be extended and applied to the field, texts and practices of the media? Second, what is it about the place and function of the media in the contemporary world that requires us (as citizens, educators or audiences) to be culturally and media literate?

"Two Guns, A Girl And A Playstation™": Gender In The Tomb Raider Series, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This article considers the combination of game play and narrative which combine to produce cross-gender identifications in video games, a previously underexamined potential for the production of alternate genders, one which calls into question the stability of gender, particularly masculinity, as a construct.

Uses, Motivations And Community Attachment Of Social Internet Users, Laura Price

Theses : Honours

The ability of the Internet to connect users across diverse locations has resulted in the use of the Internet for social purposes, such as to communicate and interact with others online. This has created the need to study the impact of the Internet on community attachment. Motivated by conflicting views relating to the impact of the Internet on community attachment, this study addresses the relationship from a social perspective, in order to investigate the motivations for social Internet use and to assess the impact of social Internet use community attachment. A quantitative design was utilised and a self administered questionnaire …

New And Now: A Plea For Historiography And Technology, Haidee Wasson

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, the word new was persistently attached to the term technology, a coupling intended to reference a vast range of phenomena -- computers, the internet, wireless telecommunications, satellite cinema and so on. Throughout this period, these technologies were widely heralded as global panaceas. In the pages of glossy hi-tech magazines and academic annals alike, the obliteration of racism, homophobia, sexism, and the great class divide became subjunctive to the problem of connecting everybody everywhere to emergent digital networks. Decentering old-world imperial powers and creating alternative cultural formations became battle cries for the new …

Reading Over The Shoulder Of The Future At The Library Of Congress, Samuel Gerald Collins

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

It is 2003 and I am doing some research at the Library of Congress, the de facto national library for the United States and the largest library in the world. Next to me sit some articles I've printed off of online journals on the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's Total Information Awareness Project, a plan, still in its formative stage, to throw a panopticon net of surveillance across the United States through a combination of language translation technologies, data search and pattern recognition technologies, and advanced collaborative and decision support tools (DARPA). But I am also doing research …

Press Controls In Wartime: The Legal, Historical, And Institutional Context, Stephen D. Cooper

Communications Faculty Research

News coverage of warfare poses a dilemma for social systems with a free press, such as the United States. In an era of high-tech weaponry and nearly instantaneous global communications, conflict is inevitable between the obligation of the press to inform the general public and the obligation of the military to successfully conduct war. The importance of secrecy to the conduct of warfare heightens the issue in the current counterterrorism operations. The competitive advantage of live coverage raises the stakes in a crowded media market. The military’s control over newsgathering during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War set off a controversy …

College Students' Media Consumption And Their Voting Habits, Peggy Anne Prudhomme

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Text As Technology: Reading N. Katherine Hayles' Writing Machines, Davin Heckman

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

N. Katherine Hayles' Writing Machines is a beautiful little book. Thanks to the innovative spirit of MIT Press' Peter Lunenfeld, the graphic design prowess of Anne Burdick, the multimedia talents of Sean Donahue (creator of the book's website ), and the insights of N. Katherine Hayles, Writing Machines arrives as one of the first installations of the Mediawork Pamphlet Series, and offers one possible line of development to follow for any scholar concerned with the future of The Book.

The Cyborgian Self: Toward A Critical Social Theory Of Cyberspace, Michael Ian Borer

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Contemporary social theory currently remains at a virtual standstill, quivering over the decision to radically leave the past behind or to continue within the historical narrative of the Enlightenment. Postmodern social theorists, advocating the position that we have, in fact, entered a new historical epoch, pose serious challenges to our perception of modernity and cultural identity. As an influential strategy that has infiltrated both the humanities and the social sciences for more than thirty years, postmodernism can no longer be dismissed as merely a fad or trend. In a world where the use of complex, and often mobile, …

Terra Incognita, Leslie Hill

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Inside Unlv, Betty Blodgett, Tom Flagg, Diane Russell

Inside UNLV

No abstract provided.

The Role Of The Internet In Chinese Foreign And Domestic Affairs, Jean Bowman Leedy

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Problem: Rapid dissemination of Internet technology and the free access to information it affords poses a threat to non-democratic states that rely on control of information to maintain power and stability. This is of substantial concern to the Communist regime in The People's Republic of China due to the fact that its repressed population constitutes the fastest growing body of Internet users in the world.

Methods: This paper examines the potential impact of the Internet on Chinese foreign and domestic policy through interpretation of existing literature as it applies to the Internet, interviews with experts studying the emergence of China's …

Nuestro Espacio Cyber: The Internet As Expressive Space For Latina/Os In The United States, Richard Pineda

Selected Works Temporary Series

The Latina/o community is in the midst of a major demographic shift upwards- Along with this population growth, there has been an explosion of Latina,/os across the spectrum of popular culture. However, lack of access to mass-media outlets and social constructions in mainstream society pose obstacles to Latina/o freedom of expression. Meanwhile, the Internet is evolving into a powerful platform for communication and freedom of speech- By developing a stronger Latina/o presence online, it may be possible to channel the power of the Internet as a vehicle for empowerment, expression and freedom of speech.

An Interview With Claude Guillemot, Samantha Mach

SWITCH

This interview with Claude Guillemot, a French video game developer and publisher, talks about his website and some of the issues surrounding it today. Guillemot also mentioned CD-ROM and the web at the time when DOTCOM started to boom in the years 1998 - 2000. He uses the web to create synthetic artworks and talks about how artworks cannot be objective, the same way scientists such as archeologists are not really objective. In his responses to Switch Staff, Guillemot explains scientists and artists do not form a bias in their works and do not favor one side or another. By …