digital media ecology

What does a bookend — an edge — mean for narrative arc? Broadly, it helps define the shape of the arc. The experience of a bundle of content changes depending on how it’s packaged.

It seems distant now, but once upon a time the Internet was going to save us from the menace of TV. Since the late fifties, TV has had a special role, both as the country’s dominant medium, in audience and influence, and as a bête noire for a certain strain of American intellectuals, who view it as the root of all evil. In “Amusing Ourselves to... See more

The Faustian bargain of the digital age—free or cheap digital conveniences in exchange for our data—was only ever explained to us after it was already a done deal. And it represents an enormous and radical shift not only in how we live but also, far more importantly, in what our lives are for. We are all mine sites now, data mine sites, and despite

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Narratives seek closure (the story must end). The Database is open-ended (it assimilates new data indefinitely). The Database resists the Narrative impulse to control and stabilize meaning.

The internet's infinite private worlds at times feel more like the clan-based societies that predated individualism. But where past worlds were bound by blood, today’s are bound by interests, desires, identities, and what the algorithms governing these spaces — helmed by capitalistic KPIs —nudge us to do.

If professional editors serve as gatekeepers, determining the importance of various stories before publication, the Internet opens the gates, deciding on the significance of content after it’s published. Hence, it’s not just a collective editor—it’s what I call the Viral Editor. Anyone can post anything, including rubbish. But people then vote with... See more