Author: Ying

As shown in the title “The Medium Is the Message, McLuhan is conveying that the way message is created can influence and override the actual words of the message. The method in creating the message is called the medium and it is commonly used in our digital world that affects the way people perceive the message. For example, an emoji can have so much meaning and people perceives it differently depending on their mood. It can be seen in an advertisement that draws people’s emotion and attention with elements such as color. To me, it is a form of art that exists for a very long time even well before the existence of modern media. Art tends to have the same effects where it draws people emotions with many elements like color, space, and pattern which is adopted in modern media. 

This article relates to our course since we are studying in the creation of media with those methods that enable us to create stories. We are also expressing ourselves through the medium. While reading this article, I understand the significance of the medium. However, it teaches a lesson that sometime message can be manipulated with the medium and we have to be aware of what we are perceiving. An example would be the political slogan where it draws so much from our emotion, it tends to bring hate against another group of people.    

Link: http://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~yc3359/week1/index.html

Although without CSS and Js, this was quite an interesting experience with just HTML and I had a good time with it. It really made me think about the organization and the content that I want to put. Instead of posting big photos, I used some pictures as small logos that will direct to another link. Also, I tried to add a home page just to see how two separate HTML work. 

In today’s word, access to the Web through the internet is becoming more of a necessity. Like Tim Berners Lee says in his “Long Live the Web”, “We take it for granted, expecting it to “be there” at any instant, like electricity”. He addresses the important role of the Web such as being a democratic platform for people and advocates to protect the freedom of speech. The progression of the Web along with the internet is going toward a path that Lee is unexpected. Originally, he created it for research and ultimately, to serve humanity. But now, it faces challenges such as censorship, limitation of competition that leads to innovation, and web neutrality. He demands the separation of the Web from the internet, so it is free from third party interference such as limiting the network speed of the users by the internet service provider to compete in the market. It is unfortunate to see that Lee has no control over the trajectory of his own creation. In writing this article, he attempts to reassure the principal that he created for the Web by seeking mutual cooperation from everyone.

Ingrid Burrington in his article “The Room Where the Internet was Born” focuses on the historical progression of ARPANET and the basis for the modern internet. The setting was set in a room at UCLA and it is made into a museum. It’s imagery as “really large, expensive, and intensively energy-consuming technology” really contrast with how the internet function today. It is only a decade that this once clunky machine that created the internet and shaped the way how we live today. The use of metaphor in comparing the internet to “the cloud” best fit the transformation of something physical into an invisible substance that is able to transfer information into the far distance.

The short story “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster written during the early 20th century addresses the negative role of technology in our lives and the way modern people interact with them. Forster developed this science fictional world of a destroyed Earth where there is a disconnected relation between a mother and son. Throughout the story, the machine played an immense role in the trajectory of humanity and the relationships between people. Although the story is unrealistic and is dramatized, Forster was able to foresee the possible danger of technology such as the issue of human dependency on technology.

The story is indeed a society where everything is controlled by machines and human was heavily depended on it. The author began the story by leading the readers into this world where individuals live and function within a cell. This can be symbolism for how our society is becoming more homogeneous. An example can be the job industry where individuals work in an office building or factories and work in their own little workplace that looks and function just like a cell. But the more serious problem of this story is the human dependency on machines. Vashati, the mother is being characterized as someone who is completely living off of the machines. This machine allows individuals to communicate but without being face-to-face or being able to touch each other. You can see this as a modern communication tool like Wechat, Facebook etc. Vashati’s son, Kuno, on the other hand, doesn’t favor the machine at all. He said to his mother “you talk as if God made the machine”, while his mother says to him “One mustn’t say anything against the Machine,” (Forster).  Her response clearly states not only the importance of the Machine but that we should obey it. Also, Forster capitalized the letter “m” whenever the “Machine” is mentioned. This shows off its significance and how it is held at such high level, that it is worthy of praise. In fact, the machine is far more powerful even though it is us that we created them. Like Kuno says “it is we who are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine” (15). 

My take away from this story is that people today are obsessed with technology, whether it is a smartphone or computers. We live in a world where technology is rapidly advancing making it a necessity to our lives as if it was our way of breathing. It can be seen as a lesson for human advancement in technology and anyone who is building a new technology should reconsider before building it because it can cause these complications that can possibly disturb humanity.