Post-Modernism, Baudrillard and Psychotherapists

I am no expert on Jean Baudrillard. I am reading his works and the works of those who were inspired or disgusted by his ever-revised views. I like that about Baudrillard. He reminds me of a website which is frequently updated by different administrators; yet we can always find the older versions of this website in cache. And they will always deliver some wisdom.

I do not want to devote myself to the camp of "post-modernists" (as it's stubbornly done to Baudrillard). I just find Baudrillard's critical approaches to (American)consumerism, technologies and media studies appealing. Yet not scientific. In this respect, Baudrillard reminds me of Freud and his impact on scientific scholarship and arts.

Speaking about Baudrillard and psychotherapy, Questia search engine generated a curious result for me today: the title of the book is "Post-Modernism for Psychotherapists: A Critical Reader". Below is a chunk from the book's Introduction:

The post-modern challenges, and through this, potentially stimulates, in a variety of ways. Crucially, it attacks the 'modernist' ego-centric/person-centred approaches of much psychoanalysis, counselling, psychotherapy and psychology. Post-modern Continental philosophers suggest that we are 'subject to'. For example, for Lacan we are subject to language, for Levinas we are subject to the other and to difference, for Foucault we are subject to power/knowledge relationships, for Derrida we are subject to undecidability and the constant deferral of meaning, for Kristeva we are subject to strange, disruptive and potentially creative forces. In that he insisted that we are subject to the unconscious, Freud himself is a foundational post-modern thinker.
...
By reminding us that we are 'subject-to(o)', it can be a challenge to omnipotence, both the patient's and the therapist's, and it can be a plea for humility. It can induce a sense of wonder. It questions whether language and speech are ever neutral or transparent, merely pointing to meanings outside themselves. It can alert us to the fact that language is never static, but always changing, within the culture which language also shapes. It can remind us that our words and gestures are cultural, personal and inter-subjective acts.

In the chapter dedicated to post-modern continental philosophers, Baudrillard was honored with nine pages. Reading the compillation of chunks cropped from Baudrillard's works for psychotherapists was a rewarding experience, in the end. I should do a more extensive research on Baudrillard's views on simulation and the hyperreal. This philosophical framework might turn out as a very big contribution to my class and thesis. I am a bit concerned that my thesis might appear too method-oriented. And we are doing cultural studies here.

IssueCrawler is like calcium for the bones of my research, while Baudrillard's concepts of simulacra and the hyperreal might be a good serving of protein for the body muscle of the paper.

Finally, snack with this quote from Baudrillard's "Symbolic Exchange and Death" (1993):

Reality is no longer stranger than fiction: it captures every dream before it can take on the dream effect. A schizophrenic vertigo of serial signs that have no counterfeit, no possible sublimation, and are immanent to their own repetition - who will say where the reality they simulate now lies? They no longer even repress anything (which, if you like, keeps simulation from entering the sphere of psychosis): even the primary processes have been annihilated. The cool universe of digitality absorbs the universe of metaphor and metonymy. The simulation principle dominates the reality principle as well as the pleasure principle.

I will echo this quote with a line from Edgar Allan Poe: "Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?"

William Merrin, his book about Baudrillard, Nietsche and some thoughts on university education

Today, on a sunny Tuesday morning, I was drinking cappuccino with William Merrin.

William Merrin is a Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Wales, Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom. I am a PhD student stuck at the Hauptbahnhof on my way to the Technische Universitaet, Dortmund, Deutschland. My self-assigned reading for this week is the book titled "Baudrillard and the Media: A Critical Introduction" (2005). I cannot afford the exchange of symbols with this smart and incisive person due to a plenty of reasons. Yet I can afford "a tightly controlled simulation of communication" (quote from Millard, p. 25) while reading his book and googling his name. Luckily, the author of this fascinating book has a blogger.com profile; he holds THREE blogs. My favourite so far is the Media Studies 2.o Forum. I enjoyed reading the post titled "Media Studies 2.0 - My Thoughts..."; especially the chunk in which he compares the media world of his son and the younger generations of his students to the media world of his own when he was of the same age... The first chapter following Introduction of the beforementioned book opens with a quote from Nietzsche's "Human, All Too Human". The quote is long. To sum it up, Nietzsche suggests "removing ourselves disctinctly from our time", let "ourselves be driven far from its shore back into the ocean of former world views". This enables us to be in a position of a contemplative observer of our own "coast". Consequently, upon the comeback to our time we have a better understanding of it. It seems to me that it's exactly the approach of William Merrin to his life and work, as well as the lives of others (his son, students, etc.) and the work done by others (Baudrillard and his writing come first to my mind).

When I meet a person, I recognize those abilities in him or her by observing him or her or/and starting a conversation. (I wish I could say "recognize easily", but I am afraid to sound supernatural to myself) Some people just posess those abilities to "sail off-shore and come back". Some - not. I had a friend, she sailed away from the "shore" and it took time to have her back again. This is extreme (frankly, I don't think so: it's just inappropriate in this culture, it would have been appropriate at some other age/ in some other place). Yet I believe the purpose of the university education is to train students, professors, instructors, etc. to practice those journeys as often as possible together. Hey, stop giggling! I am not talking about smoking pot together.

Glamorous Coffin for the Newspaper Industry

Newspaper ad revenues have fallen 23% in the last two years. Some papers are in bankruptcy, and others have lost three-quarters of their value. By our calculations, nearly one out of every five journalists working for newspapers in 2001 is now gone, and 2009 may be the worst year yet.

See the sixth report on the American journalism "State of the News Media 2009" issued by the Pew Research on March 16, 2009.

Watch the decline of the old media (well, except the cable television which is flourishing!!!)




For details, I suggest visiting A Year in the News section of the The State of the News Media report on StateOfTheMedia On-line.

We observe the end of the printed newspaper industry. If I were an owner of another dying newspaper, I would have organized a glamorous burrial of the last issue of my newspaper: an exclusive kitchy plastic coffin for each of my farewell newspaper distributed by sellers dressed as Snowhites and dwarfs. Price?.. Double.

I wonder, why that dwarf doesn't look sad ENOUGH...

What ICT User Are You? The Pew Research Developed a Quiz.

Reading The Pew Research reports is a great pleasure. To me, what The Pew Research does---is an uttermost manifestation of the best quality research. Argue with me on that. I really wish I could hear someone criticizing The Pew Research for anything. So far, no prunes for this fact-tank.

The weekly Pew Research newsletter keeps me updated on the issues like American politics, state of American mass media, polls, Internet, technology, etc. I would say, this newsletter is of a great help to the American studies scholars who want to stay updated and avoid filtering poor-quality journalism all over the place on the web.

On March 25, 2009, The Pew Internet & American Life Project published "Internet Typology: The Mobile Difference/ Wireless Connectivity Has Drawn Many Users More Deeply into Digital Life". I accessed the report from the Pew Research publication website.

This is a constant debate: do information and communication technologies make us more sociable or, on the contrary, enable us to be more distanced? This was not the thesis of the report I am talking about. But I liked how the researchers differentiated among the different groups of the ICT users. This attempt is applausable. To me, the arguments and results of their surveys look convincing enough.

If you are interested and have some spare minutes---take the quiz compiled by The Pew Research team to find out what type of the ICT user you are. Surprisingly (well, why should I care?), my self-"definition" did not correspond with the results of The Pew Research. I thought I was more like an Ambivalent Networker-type; yet the results suggest quite the contrary. I am a Digital Collaborator (!!!)
Compare the two:

Digital Collaborators: 8% of adults use information gadgets to collaborate with others and share their creativity with the world.

For many Digital Collaborators, digital information is input into a creative process that often involves others and whose output they share with the world using the web. Members of this group can almost always get access to the internet, whether that is with an "always on" broadband connection or with an "always present" mobile device. With such robust connectivity, Digital Collaborators share their thoughts or creative content with others. Using blogs and other content-creation applications, they collaborate with others online to express themselves creatively. For Digital Collaborators, the internet can be a camp, a lab or a theater group -- places to gather with others to develop something new.

This pattern of active and continuous information exchange puts ICTs at the center of how Digital Collaborators learn, work, socialize and have fun. Most play games on electronic devices, with half playing games on the internet. At least occasionally, most of them watch TV on a device other than a traditional television set. And one-quarter have avatars that let them participate in virtual worlds. The typical Digital Collaborator is in his late 30s and has had years of online experience to hone his skills to get the most out of ICTs.

Ambivalent Networkers: 7% of adults heavily use mobile devices to connect with others and entertain themselves, but they don't always like it when the cell phone rings.

Digital information flows through handheld devices and social networking sites for Ambivalent Networkers as they have seamlessly integrated these cutting-edge resources into how they connect with others. With a handheld device at the ready, Ambivalent Networkers stay in touch with their family and friends and gather intelligence about what is going on in the world. They are the most frequent cell phone texters of any group. While some message content might be about current affairs, a portion is undoubtedly about culture, as Ambivalent Networkers will watch videos or listen to music using online access tools, mobile or otherwise.

While they welcome the connections to people and knowledge that easy access opens, Ambivalent Networkers don't always like a knock on their door. Like Digital Collaborators, frequent information exchange is a key part of Ambivalent Networkers' profiles. Unlike Digital Collaborators, they sometimes struggle with traffic volume. They are less likely than average to enjoy the extra availability enabled by mobile devices and less certain than Digital Collaborators about whether ICTs offer them more control over their lives. Most Ambivalent Networkers say they think it is a good idea to take a break from using the internet. Nonetheless, they are confident in their ability to manage gadgets and would be hard pressed to do without mobile access.

The other types of the ICT users coined by The Pew researchers are:

Media Movers: 7% of adults use online access to seek out information nuggets, and these nuggets make their way through these users' social networks via desktop and mobile access.

Roving Nodes: 9% of adults use their mobile devices to connect with others and share information with them.

Mobile Newbies: 8% of adults lack robust access to the internet, but they like their cell phones. A typical Mobile Newbie, who is about 50 years old, is a novice with modern ICTs, but is wading into the waters thanks to a new cell phone.

Desktop Veterans: 13% of adults are dedicated to wireline access to digital information, and like how it opens up the pipeline to information for them.

Drifting Surfers: 14% of adults are light users -- despite having a lot of ICTs -- and say they could do without modern gadgets and services.

Information Encumbered: 10% of adults feel overwhelmed by information and inadequate to troubleshoot modern ICTs.

The Tech Indifferent: 10% of adults are unenthusiastic about the internet and cell phone.

Off the Network: 14% of adults are neither cell phone users nor internet users.

Check out the report for more detailed definitions.

This attempt to differentiate among the ICT users provides an insight on why the information and communication technology can be both: a tool for getting connected and distanced from the society/social environment (to certain extent 'cause both can be an illusion). Yet these technologies ALSO enable us to switch identities. That's what I find particularly comfortable.

That's what the Pew research did not address so far.

"We need more curiosity driven research" (c) Informationlab

The Issue of this week is IssueCrawler.

Luckily, the "fathers" of the IssueCrawler not only developed a software which enhances research of the WWW communities, but also made a great effort in answering the W-questions about the project itself. This post is an invitation to a step-by-step overview of the websites one would find informative and useful. So, let's start surfing.

Before you start clicking the links, I suggest you look through the Q&A I have compiled.

Who Are the "Fathers" of the Project?
The Govcom.org Foundation (based in Amsterdam) and its collaborators* (need more research on that).
*UPDATE:
Richard Rogers and the Govcom.org Foundation acknowledge support of 1. the Center for Arts and Media (ZKM), Karlsruhe, Germany; 2. Crooked Line, with contributions by Creative Industries and Anderemedia, organizations all based in Amsterdam; 3. Govcom.org and Anderemedia, Sonologic (The Hague) provided the software, and 4. Noortje Marres furnished the issue as well as significant findings, 5. Marc Tuters produced the Issue Crawler exhibition ("The Places of Issues").

When was it developed?
So far, I cannot provide an exact answer. I wish I could interview Professor Rogers or his collaborators about it**. I can only say that the movie about the IssueCrawler was first shown: "Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy," exhibition curated by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, March-October 2005.
**UPDATE:
Perfect. Professor Rogers published an extensive article about how the IssueCrawler project was launched and carried out. The article can be found on the website of The European Association of Science and Technology. I really recommend it.

What is the IssueCrawler?
It's a software tool that locates and visualizes networks on the Web.

What is special about the IssueCrawler?
It is used by NGOs and other researchers to answer questions about specific networks and effective networking more generally. You also may do in-depth research with the software.

What websites do you recommend to visit first?
Now that you have some idea what the IssueCrawler is about---I suggest you download the video here.

The Issue Crawler Back-End Movie is a demonstration of how the Issue Crawler works. The movie is also a narrative of a research project conducted with the Issue Crawler and allied tools. The movie focuses on the implications of global civil society's 'issue drift.' As global civil society and intergovernmental organizations move from issue to issue, from place to place and from forum to forum, the question is, do they remember what is happening on the ground?

The movie goes like this:

When you meet someone for the first time, they may ask you: Where are you from? Some people have a hard time answering that question. For example, someone may say, "I'm from all over the place." To avoid awkwardness, some people now ask a new question. "Where are you based?"

Issues have a similar awkwardness. The place where an issue is from may not be the place where the issue is now based. The issue may have drifted elsewhere -- to another global forum, for example.

Showing methods and mapping results, the Issue Crawler movie addresses the places of issues - where they are from, and where they are based. The most important question is whether the new base remembers where the issue is from.*

Now, after the movie, I suggest you visit The Govcom.org and read carefully the extended article on "Scenarios of use for NGOs and other researchers".
For the purpose of my research, the following chunk about mapping the Issue Network is the most useful:

2.3 Issue Network

Issue Network: This is the network of organizations around a particular issue, and the original purpose of the software. Who’s doing ‘conflict timber’? Who’s doing ‘communication rights’? What’s the network around an issue at this time? Besides organizations, the network may have key documents, events, products, tools, slogans and more that bind the network, or particular clusters in the network. You may explore these commonalities once you have located a network.

Method: Doing a key word search in Google and using all the top ten or twenty results is one way to start, but it is not wholly advisable, for Google’s returns rely on the ‘entire Web’, while we are interested in only parts of the Web – networks. See also pieces that touch on the Issue Crawler philosophy.

To begin locating an issue network, use a short list of URLs which, in your view, provide a good overview of the issue. To gather such a list, you could use Google or another search engine (collecting one or more of the returns), but you also could ask an ‘expert’, gather organization names or URLs from one or more decent newspaper articles, rely on a particular organization’s link list related to an issue, scrape URLs from a discussion list (archive), etc.

Type or paste URLs in the Issue Crawler, and harvest. The Issue Crawler’s default settings are for issue network location.

Crawler settings:
Privilege starting points (off).
analysis ‘by page’
iterations of method: 2
crawl depth: 2

If you want to go into DETAILS, have a look at the long FAQ here.

Okay, now it is clear to me as a day: I need a trainin in the theory and method of network location and issue mapping to carry out my project. Last year and several months ago, I contacted Professor Rogers concerning the possibility to pay a visit to his Department and attend his lecture at UvA. The answer was positive. So, right now I am sending out the letter to Professor in which I ask about the possibility to visit him in UvA in April or May.
I will keep on updating about my progress.

***URGENT UPDATE!
I have received a positive reply from Professor Rogers. I will be attending his lecture at UvA on 20th of April. This is unbelievable. It means so much to me.

Generated Name for My Coffee Machine

At the moment I am working on the methodology section of my thesis. This is one of the most important moments for whole thesis depends on how I sample the blogs for my research. By the end of the next week I am planning to publish a small overview of the papers about the IssueCrawler, a software tool that locates and visualizes networks on the Web. Presentation can be found here.

But just for the sake of your entertainment, I decided to do something very stupid. Everyone knows there's a plenty of websites which generate names. I have decided to generate a name for my new coffee machine. I have got old Charlotte, now I need to find the matching date for her so that I will have more coffee machines in future. I need a nice name for the buddy to enchant Charlotte. I decided to resort to the help of the Internet name-generators. *sick laughter* I googled "name generator" and found some 13 400 000 websites. I decided to visit those websites one after another. When they asked me to give my real name I was simply typing in Coffee Machine. Have a look what I got here!

Generated at http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20010208b

Cruendithas Joysword
(Male Elf Cleric)
Also known as...
Cruendithas the Cleric
Lord Cruendithas
Lord Joysword
Lord Cruendithas Joysword the Cleric
Cruendithas Joysword the Cook

Random name from http://www.behindthename.com/random/

Fidelis Machine

Random name and IDENTITY from http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/index.php?gen=male&n=gr&c=gr

Erik Durr
Kurfürstenstraße 13
74399 Walheim

(the list to be prolonged)

Spanish Boot Memories: Unforgettable 10 Days in Spain

Hi,

I was away from office.
I needed time to have a rest after "rest". The trip was physically exhausting and emotionally challenging. That's how I imagine an awesome trip.
I was raised as a "normal" kid by Soviet grandparents and post-Soviet parents. (Oh, what a sick statement!) That means when I visit another country or city... of course, I rush into museums. It is a must to go to museums, and as many as possible. C'mon, have a look around once you are in a museum: you will ALWAYS find bunches of Russian and Chinese tourists there.

Some are really interested, some are really bored---but they are roaming around the museum rooms. I tell you, this is smthwithin the culture. It is a shame not to see as many museums as possible. This is how I was raised, too. So, I tell you, my colleague and I made an effort to visit as many museums, cathedrals, churches and parks as possible. Kilometers of walking damaged my feet, and---sorry for these ugly details---I lost my nail on the toe. Damn dilligent tourist I am. YET I should also mention that I bought new Spanish boots, which made the situation even worse. But I tell you: this was the right condition to enjoy art. Oh God, it was one of the most aesthetically satisfactory trips I ever had. I had enough time to draw and contemplate. Nadejda is the perfect person to travel with. In addition, the couchsurfing worked out UNEXPECTEDLY great!! We met wonderful people who shared their experiences with the cities they lived in. Forever in love with Barcelona. And Madrid is my great buddy. Okay, now I go back to work. I am writing scripts for my seminar. :)