Mit Cms/w

Algorithms may now be our most important knowledge technologies, “the scientific instruments of a society at large,” (Gitelman) and they are increasingly vital to how we organize human social interaction, produce authoritative knowledge, and choreograph our participation in public life. Search engines, recommendation systems, edge algorithms on social networking sites, and “trend” identification algorithms: these not only help us find information, they provide a means to know what there is to know and to participate in social and political discourse. In this talk Tarleton Gillespie will highlight one particular dimension of these algorithms, their production of calculated publics: algorithmically produced snapshots of the “public” around us and what most concerns it. Understanding the calculations and motivations behind the production of these calculated publics helps highlight how these algorithms are relevant to our collective efforts to know and be known. Tarleton Gillespie is an associate professor at Co

Using the tools of online textual annotation -- the platform Rap Genius, its spinoff site Poetry Genius, or MIT's own Annotation Studio -- readers can collaborate on annotating or interpreting a work, make their annotations public, and respond to interpretations by others. We will be joined by creators, facilitators, and users of these sites to discuss how online annotation is changing practices of reading, enriching practices of teaching and learning, and making newly public a previously private encounter with the written word. Speakers: Wyn Kelley is a senior lecturer in Literature. She has worked for many years with the MIT's digital humanities lab, HyperStudio, and is the author of Melville's City: Literary and Urban Form in Nineteenth-Century New York (1996) among other works. Kurt Fendt is Director of HyperStudio, MIT's Center for Digital Humanities. HyperStudio explores the potential of new media technologies for the enhancement of research and education. Jeremy Dean, AKA Lucky_Desperado, is the "E

The standardization of color television in the US during the postwar era was, in large part, discussed and determined in relation to historical developments in color theory (philosophical, psychological, and physical), colorimetry, color design and industry, psychophysics, psychology and, of course, what had already been established industrially, culturally, and technically for monochrome television. In this presentation, Susan Murray explores how these various threads of scientific, aesthetic, philosophical, and industrial knowledge were built into the standards, processes, and procedures for and around the technology and use of color television from the late 1940s and into the early 1950s. This presentation will be less about color programming itself, and more about the discourses that framed and managed color use and reception not only in the standardization period, but also during RCA and NBC’s early attempts to sell color to consumers, sponsors, and critics. Susan Murray is associate professor of Media,

Hanya Yanagihara’s first book, the widely celebrated The People In The Trees, is loosely based on the life and work of Nobel Prize-winner physician and researcher D. Carleton Gajdusek. She joins author and physicist Alan Lightman, who was the first professor at MIT to receive a joint appointment in the sciences and the humanities, to discuss the unique challenges of respecting the exacting standards of science in fictional texts. Forum Co-Director Seth Mnookin, author of The Panic Virus, moderates. Hanya Yanagihara is an Editor-At-Large at Conde Nast Traveler and author of The People In The Trees, a novel the New York Times called "suspenseful" and "exhaustingly inventive." Alan Lightman is currently Professor of the Practice of the Humanities at MIT and author of the international bestseller Einstein’s Dreams. His most recent novel, Mr g, was published in January 2012. Seth Mnookin is Co-Director of the Communications Forum and Associate Director of MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing. His most rece

Journalist and author Barry Werth has been writing about the business and practice of the pharmaceutical industry for more than two decades. The Billion Dollar Molecule, his 1995 book on Vertex Pharmaceuticals, was named one the “75 Smartest Books We Know” by Fortune. His sixth and most recent book, The Antidote: Inside the World of Big Pharma, revisits Vertex, offering unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to a company that that went from cash-starved startup to a triumph of American bio-tech innovation. Werth has also written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Technology Review, among many others publications.

Legendary former MIT professor and housemaster Henry Jenkins, now the Provost’s Professor of Communications, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California, returns to the Forum for a conversation about his time at the Institute and the founding of CMS as well as his path-breaking scholarship on contemporary media. Forum Director David Thorburn, Jenkins’ longtime friend and colleague, will moderate the discussion. Henry Jenkins is Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California. He taught at MIT from 1990-2009 and was the founding director of the Comparative Media Studies program at the Institute. He has written many books on film, popular culture and media, including Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (2008). David Thorburn is a professor of Literature and Director of the MIT Communications Forum. He is the author of a critical study of the novelist Joseph Conrad and many essays on l

Against inexorable machinations of data surveillance, analysis, and profiling, data obfuscation holds promise of relief. Whether it can withstand countervailing analytics is an intriguing question; whether it is unethical, illegitimate, or, at best, ungenerous cuts close to the bone. Yet, as NYU’s Helen Nissenbaum will argue in this talk, obfuscation is a compelling “weapon-of-the-weak,” which deserves to be developed and strengthened, its moral challenges countered and mitigated. Helen Nissenbaum is Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, and Computer Science, at New York University, where she is also Director of the Information Law Institute. Her work spans social, ethical, and political dimensions of information technology and digital media. She has written and edited five books, including Values at Play in Digital Games, with Mary Flanagan (forthcoming from MIT Press, 2014) and Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life (Stanford University Press, 2010) and her resear

We live in the era of computation and play. Everywhere we look, there is a computer, translating the world around us into patterns for production of labor or consumption of entertainment. And now more than ever, we play everywhere: our work should be playful, as it should be our dieting, our love life, and even our leisure. We play as much as we can, in this world of computers. In this talk Sicart will look at the culture, aesthetics, and technological implications of play in the age of computers. He will propose a theory of play that includes the materiality of computation in its definition of the activity, and will suggest that our forms of playing with machines are both forms of surrendering to the pleasures of computation, and forms of creative resistance to the reduction of our worlds to computable events. Miguel Sicart is a games scholar based at the IT University of Copenhagen. For the last decade his research has focused on ethics and computer games, from a philosophical and design theory perspectiv

Courtesy of The New York Public Library. www.nypl.org Re-use is subject to the New York Public Library's non-commercial use permissions: http://www.nypl.org/help/about-nypl/legal-notices/website-terms-and-conditions Original event and recordings: http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/toni-morrison-junot-d%C3%ADaz

Some have called long-form journalism an endangered species. But ground-breaking articles requiring months of research and writing continue to appear. Why is such work important? How is it created? James Fallows and Corby Kummer of The Atlantic chart the journey of a major feature story from conception to publication and speculate about the future of long-form writing in the digital age.

MIT Students: Are you curious about how to get a job in the game industry as an MIT graduate? What kind of jobs can MIT prepare you for? What should you expect from your first job? The MIT Game Lab has invited a number of local MIT alumni in the game industry to talk about their experiences entering the industry. Panelists include: Ethan Fenn Fire Hose Games Ethan graduated in 2004 with a double major in Courses 18 and 21M. Soon after graduating he joined the team at Harmonix, where he worked as a programmer with an audio focus on several titles, including Karaoke Revolution Party, Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, and Rock Band. After a few years at Harmonix, he met Eitan Glinert, who had recently finished his graduate work at GAMBIT and was working on starting up a new game studio, Fire Hose Games. Naomi Hinchen Flash Programmer, Learning Games Network Naomi Hinchen graduated Course 6-3 in 2011 and finished her MEng in 2012. While at MIT, she was on the teams for Poikilia and The Snowfield at GAMBIT (now t

Mary Flanagan pushes the boundaries of medium and genre across writing, visual arts, and design to innovate in these fields with a critical play centered approach. Her groundbreaking explorations across the arts and sciences represent a novel use of methods and tools that bind research with introspective cultural production. As an artist, her collection of over 20 major works range from game-inspired systems to computer viruses, embodied interfaces to interactive texts; these works are exhibited internationally. As a scholar interested in how human values are in play across technologies and systems, Flanagan has written more than 20 critical essays and chapters on games, empathy, gender and digital representation, art and technology, and responsible design. Her three books in English include Critical Play (2009) with MIT Press. Flanagan founded the Tiltfactor game research laboratory in 2003, where researchers study and make social games, urban games, and software in a rigorous theory/practice environment. Fl

Sonia Livingstone is a full professor in the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science. She is seconded to Microsoft Social Research for fall 2013 as well as being a faculty fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Her talk is based on her current book project, “The Class: Living and Learning in the Digital Age”, based on her ethnographic research with the MacArthur Foundation-funded Connected Learning Research Network. With a focus on young teenagers, Sonia will examine how powerful forces of social reproduction result in missed opportunities for many youth in the risk society.

The culture of fighting games — digital games of competitive martial arts-style combat—is one of the most interesting and contentious of gamer subcultures. This talk examines the influences and norms of that community, including its spiritual and physical roots in the arcade, common gameplay practices, and how issues of ethnicity and gender collide with gamer identity in the ‘FGC’. Todd Harper is a researcher at the MIT Game Lab with a background in mass communication and cultural studies. His current research focuses on both competitive communities and their cultural norms, as well as queer and gender representation and issues in gaming culture.

New York-based interdisciplinary artist and writer Coco Fusco will consider the critical responses to the original Planet of the Apes films, focusing in particular on the interpretation of the films as critiques of American race relations during the 1960′s and ’70′s. She will also discuss her interest in exploring the strategies used in early sci-fi cinema, the ways that films such as Planet of the Apes employed speculative fiction to generate social critique. Moderated by Professor of Writing Junot Díaz and Associate Professor Ian Condry.

Social media-fueled protests in many countries have surprised observers with their seemingly spontaneous, combustible power. Yet, many have fizzled out without having a strong impact on policy at the electoral and legislative levels. In this talk, Tufekci will discuss some features of such protests that may be leading to this boom and bust cycle drawing upon primary research in Gezi protests in Turkey as well as “Arab Spring”, Occupy and M15 movements. Zeynep Tufekci is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Moderated by Professor of Comparative Media Studies and Head of MIT Foreign Languages and Literatures Ian Condry and Ethan Zuckerman, Director of the MIT Center for Civic Media.

How is the generation born in the digital age different from its analog ancestors? Are those born digital likely to have different notions of privacy, community, identity itself? How do educators approach this generation to help prepare them for scholarship and for citizenship? Speakers: John Palfrey, Head of School at Phillips Academy and author of Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives; and Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media, a collaboration between the MIT Media Lab and Comparative Media Studies/Writing.

Liveblog text: http://cmsw.mit.edu/liveblog-ethan-zuckerman-digital-cosmopolitanism-cognitive-diversity/ New media technologies have sharply increased the number of people who are able to create and disseminate content. But they may not be leading to a more diverse media environment, as tools that allow us to tailor what content we see and what we ignore are becoming more powerful and more personal. The framework of cosmopolitanism suggests a way through this challenge – by examining perspectives we are exposed to and insulated from, we may be able to design tools and approaches that help readers increase their cognitive diversity and prepare themselves to tackle transnational challenges. Ethan Zuckerman is the Director of the MIT Center for Civic Media. Moderated by Associate Professor Ian Condry.

When a big news story breaks, Twitter goes crazy. Keepr tries to make sense of these periodic bursts by implementing natural language processing and social network analysis algorithms to surface topics, eyewitnesses, and amplifiers. A live demo will be followed by a discussion of the capabilities and limitations of computational newsgathering, along with reports of how it is being used in newsrooms. Hong Qu is a digital toolmaker. He has led teams at YouTube and Upworthy. He enjoys building social media tools that help us better understand ourselves and the world around us.

From http://rosalindwilliams.com/2013/09/introduction-a-podcast-conversation/ Annotations by Rosalind Williams.