Navigating Technomedia: Response

The first idea I am drawn to from this article is the interview of Susan Sontag where she details her view that there are two kinds of photographers, "Moralist" and "Scientist." As photography was my first career choice, and my preferred subjects were not the sort that she described that the moralist photographer would take (images of war, poverty, etc.) (p.9), that makes me a scientific photographer. While I'm not sure the terms make a difference where I am concerned, I like that she segregates the concept, or what I consider the art of, photography. Perhaps better stated, I accept her segregation.

In this same manner, I therefore contend that in our current "you media" culture (Facebook, Twitter, social media - all inclusive), the same is true with words. There are "moralists" and "scientists" commentators in social media. I would call these people, the converse of scientist photographers, "memeographers" (meem-ographers). By my limited observation, there is an extraordinarily large set of users on the Internet that take social media and comment adding in their own ideas, often with greatly humorous or notably ironic results.

In general, the intrepid memeographer ingests a given message and turns it around on the author, adding either snarky comments, or in many cases, giving kudos to the author. Many such things turn into memes like Texts From Hillary. There is a paper in this somewhere, perhaps this is what I'll use for my research project.

The other idea I liked was the section on feedback; this reminded me about an excellent article in Wired Magazine about feedback from June of last year that I commend to you for further interesting reading and thought on this subject. Suffice it to say that feedback helps us adjust and get better. With improved feedback loops as a high value target in technology, it's no wonder the pace at times is break-neck.