Monday, April 02, 2007

Beside the white chickens

The difference between

this

and

this



puts into relief

the fact

that

medium is less message

than world.

16 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your world in 60 seconds.

All the news that's crimped to fit...

4/02/2007 5:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

crimped, simped, chimped, pimped...

4/02/2007 9:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The "journalism" of CNN seemed less concerned with the ostensible story than with its attitude toward same. Faced with the impossible challenge of making a complex textual tsunami in which nearly every fact is disputed, and for which every aspect is incrementally examined by an ever widening multiplicity of posts each with its own set of commenters commenting upon each other's comments - what could CNN do? Unless it was to convey its own defeat under the guise of a treatment that says, in bold cliche, "We are sorry to bother you with the unimportance of this whatever it is."

4/02/2007 10:22 PM  
Blogger Phil Cubeta said...

Tutor and Candidia, now that would be worth watching, hurling recriminations, threatening law suits, making nice.

4/02/2007 10:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, worth watching indeed, 10 rounds in the dumpster. But that's just the macguffin. The momentum goes where the fucktillion commenters and bloggers take it, massively parallel processing something with almost no facts or logic. Suddenly it becomes something else, less susceptible to cutesy soundbite summation.

4/03/2007 12:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Think there exists somewheres a 'war room' app that graphically depicts the (?) growth of a story/idea by the proliferation of its tags across the blogosphere and into MSM?


(?) what would apply best here?

4/03/2007 10:59 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Faced with the impossible challenge of making a complex textual tsunami...

...in an unprecedented move, CNN offers Locke and Sierra three pure minutes to converse before their cameras. Whatever is captured is presented to its audience unedited and without comment.


Kind of an extension of the "dialogue" statements presented in a post on Locke's site. When I read that post I wondered if they had considered further undercutting/shortstopping MSM with a video dialogue of their own...

4/03/2007 11:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Furthermore... *

4/03/2007 3:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

good q., ah. Something like twittervision tracking technorati's top stories would be kind of fun, but probably useless. I'm not sure what if not "growth" - there's nothing linear about how story and commentary behave; how does one meaningfully map the bewildering paths they take? Here, for example, is one digression on the Kathy Sierra business that seemed worth staying with.

4/03/2007 4:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, I was thinking what modifier, what kind of growth, my first image was the growth of a crystal, though I have no idea if that's technically apt. Something mysterious and engrossing about the visual, though.

I backed into the Sierra story here, first watching Scruggs' (mysterious and engrossing) vid, then following fp's trackback. For me, it was a great way to enter the story (days "late" and none the worse, imo.)

(If not linear, then maybe fractal? I have no idea, but I'm guessing Scruggs might..)

4/03/2007 6:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yr guess is at least as good as mine. fractal suggests some underlying algorithm, doesn't it? When there just may be no algo or rhythm. Backing in late can have its up side. I valued this and this among the early notes.

4/03/2007 8:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is probably not what it would look like, but it does intrigue.

(from)

As does this description:

The show begins discreetly. Smaller flocks fly in advance of the giant surge, with gradually larger groupings following in line. Suddenly, the rustle of a million wings can be heard in flight, and the haunting formation dominates the field of vision. The sky is darkened momentarily by the rush of words--the "black sun." As they move closer together, heading downward into the nearby forestland, the horizon fades to gray.

(from)


(btw, I like your ex-Mr. Anchor idea. it made me laugh -- with pleasure...)

4/05/2007 11:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

lovely images all, thanks.

yes, I think the ex-anchor project has merit. as an added incentive, producers could lock every television anchorperson in an elevator or men's room at the convention center. Cheap handheld camera on the whole bunch. They'd be allowed to report, Greek Tragic Chorus style, on "developments at the convention," only, they would not know anything.

4/05/2007 2:10 PM  
Blogger jonhusband said...

Suddenly it becomes something else, less susceptible to cutesy soundbite summation.

The medium is the meaning (for better and/or worse) that we consume and create ??

4/05/2007 4:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jon - if you set meaning aside for the nonce, what you have is texting gone wild. Jewel of a story, a wisp. Posts and comments spring up like soldiers and commence tearing each other apart. Mr. YesNo meets Ms. NoYes, rapiers kiss thrust parry separate repeat move down the line. Allemand paradiddle with a secondhand unstory to beat the band. Tara boom tara boom tara boom dee ay. Whatever this is, the nightly news can't do a thing with it. Let's (they wish) ignore the whole thing off.

4/05/2007 10:06 PM  
Blogger jonhusband said...

Yes.

Beyond that, all the world's a-twitter ... narcissistic fixation masquerading as opinion passed around 140 characters at a time.

Twitter's already been video-commercialized by Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC. The antipathetic-to-facts management just give the anchors a password, a theme, a backdrop, a camera jockey and they're off ...

4/06/2007 7:53 PM  

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