As a class, we’ve discussed publishing quite a bit in relation to other topics such as Crowds, Public Humanities, and Social Media to name a few. The common theme that is brought up is open access publishing. With the internet comes a new way to make text available. Augusta Rohrback refers to this as “post-authorism”. As Rohrback mentions, it changes “how we read and think about authors”.

Sound is much more complicated than originally thought. In fact, “Sound studies” itself is “an umbrella term for a range of multidisciplinary work” (Ceraso). Sound studies itself can be used across disciplines to identify key components, but it can also be used differently within disciplines, as well. For example, sound studies could be used in communication studies to look at podcasts and make observations on cultural, gendered, and racial habits (Ceraso). Sound studies provide an opportunity for larger discussions to occur on a variety of topics.

A. Phillips, G. Smith, M. Cook, and T. Short define Computational Creativity as “[t]he performance of tasks [by a computer] which, if performed by a human, would be deemed creative”. While the definition is clear, it’s broadness can be problematic since it allows room for bias as to what may be deemed “creative”. Kate Compton attempts to answer this problem by giving a definition for creativity as “any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain into a new one”.

Public Humanities is about having a responsibility not only to your work but to the public as well. It is about being present in communities outside of the academic round while informing and engaging the public. This could mean changing your writing position to accommodate a wider audience, but it also means staying true to your goals and blog concept.

Social media offers a chance to bring social issues into the forefront. Scholars have interesting takes on social media and their uses in academia. Sarah Spangler et al. asks how social media can translate into conversations with “activism and social justice” (Spangler et al.), but I do not see any difference in what is done today in terms of discussing activism and social justice form what was done in the past. The only difference between both periods is that digital spaces now give us another medium to engage with the conversation and reach wider audiences.

“Crowds” is a difficult term to define. Some argue against using the term community to define crowds and to some extend I would agree. Instead, I would suggest the following. A crowd, in a digital sense, is a group of people with a common set of values working towards a common goal in a shared space that promotes “collaboration, openness, active learning, and reciprocity” (Draxler and Winet). I want to emphasise shared spaces because Draxler and Winet express that “community … is perhaps defined less by shared space than shared values”, which is incorrect because cultural factors will impact someone’s values and therefore impact the crowds that are drawn (Draxler and Winet).

Mapping can be defined as “the drawing, making, or provision of a map or maps; charting, recording, or setting out on or as on a map” (OED). I would add a technological component to this definition in order to capture mapping in the field of Digital Humanities. The OED does the same in order to specify specific types of mapping. In fact, the OED provides multiple definitions of mapping depending on the field of study. They have identified mapping for genetics, physiol, math, linguistics, and computing. However, one small problem with this approach is that mapping is used across disciplines. For example, in Fred Gibbs syllabus outline he incorporated many different types of fields into the course such as: cartography, geography, GIS, history, sociology, ethnography, computer science, and graphic design. In fact, many fields even share the same tools and materials to do the work; they are just using it in different ways in order to make different observations and conclusions. In class, we defined mapping as: “creating [or contributing to a digital]/computationally a process by visualizing structured relationships between concepts or things [data or capta] as viewed through a variety of dimessions such as time, space, power, and use etc. that carries semiotic value”.

“The problem with having a disability is not the disability. The problem is other people. Other people’s biases, prejudices and ugliness get in the way of seeing people. I wish people would understand that disability is just a variation of the human experience” - Johanna Hirons Radziwon

History and Definition

Visualization has a long history. In fact, “visualization techniques . . . have been used for centuries” (Bailey). Dating as far back as the medieval period, manuscripts contained tree diagrams to classify as a mnemonic technique, as shown in figure 1 (Bailey).

Text Analysis can be describes as a process that allows for information to be apprehended from data as a means to track, identify, and compare patterns and trends to work towards a conclusion. Text Analysis is not always technological or static, but establishes “webs of meaning” to quote Clifford Geertz.

“What is code” seems like a fairly simple question to ask, but it is not. Determining a definition is a complex exploit because it brings to light much more intricate questions. When we really start to look at the question, we start asking ourselves questions of the questions. So, what exactly do we mean by code? Well, I would define code as a series of ideas or phrases that form a cipher. The problem is that I am thinking of code in a non-technical sense, which makes the definition far too generic. So my next question would be what is technical code? The question is still generic enough to support a variety of ideas, but specific enough to direct our though in one direction, which is what the question did when we were asked this in class. Instead of a fixed definition, we came up with a hierarchical structure to explain “code”. Therefore, we described code as a system made up of languages that provide instructions to create an output within a framework. So what does that mean? Well, the English major would compare coding to writing for example a novel. So the language would be the incoherent individual standalone sentences and/or words. Instructions are the product of the language becoming coherent; words form sentences, which form paragraphs, which form chapters. The output itself is the novel, while the framework is the structure, the way the instructions are laid out to differentiate a novel from a short story.