Monday, September 21, 2009
Towards a Mediological Method: A Framework for Critically Engaging Dimensions of a medium
Turnley, Melinda. 2009.
Inspired by the French intellectual Regis Debray’s Mediology theory Turnley's "Mediological Method: A Framework for Critically Engaging Dimensions of Medium" suggests a framwork for analysing media through seven dimensions.
Technological:
Turnley states that though technology plays an important role in construction of a medium, it is very important to understand the rhetorical practices. Just because you have a certain technology available doesn't mean that it is the right choice for you. One needs to know when and how to use the technology. For example in web services world there are two ways of providing and consuming web services. using SOAP as a messaging protocol or following the RESTful architectural style (introduced by Roy fielding in his doctoral dissertation). The system architect or the project manager needs to know which technology or architectural style suits their requirements first and make decision based on it.
Social:
"Media are conceived, developed, and distributed within particular cultural and historical contexts and thus inform and are informed by the dominant structures within these settings." What this means is that there is a give and take relationship between media and society. A medium needs to address right message or information to the people so that it could be absorbed well by them. The recent shift towards the WWW has introduced a different type of social networking sites. Web applications like secondlife.com allows users to create their own virtual objects, socialise with other members, create and trade properties etc.
Economic:
Among all the dimensions i feel Economic dimension is the most important one. if the target audience does not have the motivation and financial resources to participate or engage themselves with the medium, the medium will not succed. In the article Turner gives a very good example of how television developed after the Economic shift in the post war era of the 1950's in America.
Archival:
In Archival dimension Turnley emphasises the importance of storing medium so that it could be retrieved for later use.Turnley argues that the retrieval of medium depends on how it has been stored and organised. For example if a medium is stored in a Database, it is retrieved and processed with SQL and if a medium is physically stored in a room someone has to remember where it has been stored.
Aesthetic:
Having a good design, colour scheme, format etc for a medium gives a pleasant experience to the target audience. With the emergence of New Media, it is now very important to consider the Aesthetic Dimension to converge various modes of media.
Subjective:
I believe the subject dimension on Turnley’s framework refers to the understanding of the relationship between medium and the target audience.
Epistemological:
Turnley states that the process of constructing and distributing knowledge are changing through internet and technologies such as Web 2.0. Wikipedia is a very good example of how the process of constructing and sharing knowledge has evolved recently. Users of such Web 2.0 type web applications have the ability to change or edit content and share information.
Inspired by the French intellectual Regis Debray’s Mediology theory Turnley's "Mediological Method: A Framework for Critically Engaging Dimensions of Medium" suggests a framwork for analysing media through seven dimensions.
Technological:
Turnley states that though technology plays an important role in construction of a medium, it is very important to understand the rhetorical practices. Just because you have a certain technology available doesn't mean that it is the right choice for you. One needs to know when and how to use the technology. For example in web services world there are two ways of providing and consuming web services. using SOAP as a messaging protocol or following the RESTful architectural style (introduced by Roy fielding in his doctoral dissertation). The system architect or the project manager needs to know which technology or architectural style suits their requirements first and make decision based on it.
Social:
"Media are conceived, developed, and distributed within particular cultural and historical contexts and thus inform and are informed by the dominant structures within these settings." What this means is that there is a give and take relationship between media and society. A medium needs to address right message or information to the people so that it could be absorbed well by them. The recent shift towards the WWW has introduced a different type of social networking sites. Web applications like secondlife.com allows users to create their own virtual objects, socialise with other members, create and trade properties etc.
Economic:
Among all the dimensions i feel Economic dimension is the most important one. if the target audience does not have the motivation and financial resources to participate or engage themselves with the medium, the medium will not succed. In the article Turner gives a very good example of how television developed after the Economic shift in the post war era of the 1950's in America.
Archival:
In Archival dimension Turnley emphasises the importance of storing medium so that it could be retrieved for later use.Turnley argues that the retrieval of medium depends on how it has been stored and organised. For example if a medium is stored in a Database, it is retrieved and processed with SQL and if a medium is physically stored in a room someone has to remember where it has been stored.
Aesthetic:
Having a good design, colour scheme, format etc for a medium gives a pleasant experience to the target audience. With the emergence of New Media, it is now very important to consider the Aesthetic Dimension to converge various modes of media.
Subjective:
I believe the subject dimension on Turnley’s framework refers to the understanding of the relationship between medium and the target audience.
Epistemological:
Turnley states that the process of constructing and distributing knowledge are changing through internet and technologies such as Web 2.0. Wikipedia is a very good example of how the process of constructing and sharing knowledge has evolved recently. Users of such Web 2.0 type web applications have the ability to change or edit content and share information.
// posted by Sumit @ 9:55 AM 
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