Conference welcome and opening keynote
2 keynote speaker(s)
701 Introduction and welcome from the 2009 co-chairs and from the University of Manchester
Tom Boyle, Gilly Salmon
702 Michael Wesch – Mediated Culture/Mediated Education
Michael Wesch – Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, USA
Nice photos of Papua New Guinea, very ‘low tech’. MW spent several months there on a research grant. Huge cultural and linguistic divide. He lost sense of self and needed to rebuild his identity. Entire identity built up based on modern media. Introduced read/writing (for a census), many people didn’t have a fixed name, possession of a single name their ‘own’ name didn’t exist. Called each other by relationship or friend names, rather than ‘proper names’.
Media aren’t just tools, they mediate relationships. When media change, relationships change, cultural change. How are media tools shaping us?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
Problem in US, high drop out rates – not in it to learn. Many not liking ‘school’ but not necessarily not liking learning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o
Causes: growth of surburbia, modern mass production, 1-way communication of TV.
1992- MTV generation .. short attention spans

Thomas de Zengotita - quote

A brief history of ‘whatever’
Reality TV, wanting to be on TV.
Jean M Twenge, ‘Generation Me’
The search for identity and recognition. The search for the authentic self.

• self-centred modes of self-fulfilment (disengagement)
• negation of all horizons of significance (fragmentation)

Charles Taylor’s ‘Ethics of authenticity’ (1991)
web2.0

• not controlled by the few
• not 1-way
• group formation easy
• indiviidual pursuits transformed into collective action
• created by, for, and around networks, not masses

Why does it matter?

• We know ourselves through our relations with others.
• new media create new ways of relating to each others
• new media gives us new ways of relating to ourselves

Youtube communities, people talking into their webcam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU
The medium shapes the possibility of self-awareness.
The medium shapes the message – the medium is the message.
Our lecture theatres are part of our medium and despite the content of the lecture, we can’t avoid the roomm itself being part of the message.

• To learn is to aquire information
• information is scare and hard to find
• trust authority for good information
• authorised information is beyond discussion

from knowledgeable to knowledge-able
able to find information, question it, and create new knowledge
Crisis of significance in learning.
Power Corrupts. PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely. By Edward Tufte
http://mediatedcultures.net