CMST 3900 – The Rhetoric of Cyberculture
Dr. Sells
Spring 2005
 

Lab II Assignment Sheet

Objective: This assignment is designed to give students an opportunity to use class concepts to reflect on several different mediated "reading experiences."

Directions: There are four steps to this process. Be sure that you leave yourself enough time to complete these steps. As you work through each step, take some time to jot down your reflections so that you can answer the lab questions and so that you will have material to use for your lab paper. You must complete all four steps but you may complete them in any order that is convenient for you. After you have completed the steps and the lab questions, you will write a lab paper reflecting on your experience of this process.

If you do not have an account, create one and log in with it. Sometimes it takes a few minute for the data to be processed so you might have to login 10 minutes or so after you create the account. This will set up on the toolbar a tab called <YOUR NAME'S> STORE. Before you do ANYTHING else, i.e., click on _any_ links, take note of what is on your personal page. One you see the "blank slate" of your personal page, then browse, search, and follow links as desired. Periodically return to your personal page and hit the PAGE YOU MADE LINK to see how Amazon.Com customizes your recommendations.

If you have never shopped or surfed at Amazon, you can visit their demonstration page.

After you have spent some time surfing Amazon. Brows the following features:

1. Friends and Favorites __ create a "wish list" here and set up a personal profile.

2. Visit and browse the "Top Reviewers" list.

3. Try to edit your collection to improve your recommendations (follow link on YOUR STORE).

4. Surf Listmania. Consider setting up your own list. Browse lists in your area of interest.

Visit Barnes&Nobles on Corporate by the movie theater. NOTE: You CANNOT use the LSU Barnes&Nobles for this lab. Spend some time browsing your favorite areas, reading magazines, listening to music, drinking coffee at the coffee shop. Bring your CMST 3900 readings and do your homework. Fill out your lab in the comfy chairs. While you are there, make sure that you do the following:

While you are at Barnes&Nobles, look for a book entitled, "Griffin and Sabine," by Nick Bantock. Griffin and Sabine is a book series of adult pop_up books by Nick Bantock. The fourth book is recently released and should be out on the tables at the front of the store. Spend some time (carefully) thumbing through the book and reading a couple of the letters and postcards it contains. After you browse this book, you should visit the websites devoted to these books: www.griffinandsabine.com, www.nickbantock.com

Log in to your PAWS account and then visit the LSU Libraries homepage (you cannot access Net Library unless you go through PAWS). Hit the link called Electronic Publications, then hit the link called Net Library, then hit the link called CONNECT to enter the Net Library. From there you can browse the ebooks, but you will need to download software to check the books out. Ebook software is already installed on the computers at the reference desk. You will need to create an account if you want to check out a book. You should be able to browse enough of the book to complete the assignment without having to download. Under subject type internet culture and select and browse one of the books that come up.

1. What is the title, author, and date of publication of the book you read from eBooks? Write a brief paragraph that summarizes the content of the eBook you selected.

2. Describe your experience of reading the eBook. In what ways was it similar or different from reading a print book? Which format do you prefer and why? Explain your answer using concepts from class readings.

3. Describe your experience of reading (thumbing through) Griffin and Sabine. In what ways is it similar or different from reading a print book? An eBook? In what ways does Griffin and Sabine illustrate Benjamin's arguments about art in the age of mechanical reproduction?

4. Briefly compare/contrast your experiences of visiting Barnes&Noble and Amazon.com. In what ways do these two experiences illustrate or challenge ideas of authentic experience (define authentic experience using the readings)?

5. In what ways does Amazon.com illustrate Kellner's ideas about the spectacle and simulation? In what ways does Amazon.com illustrate Kellner's ideas about interactivity? In your opinion, which of the four steps in the lab experience best illustrates Kellner's idea of authentic interaction and why? (Define spectacle, simulation, interactivity using the readings)

6. In what ways do Barnes& Noble and Amazon.com illustrate Sorenssen's and Mitra&Schwartz’s ideas of space metaphor? (Explain how both articles approach space)

7. How does your experience in this lab illustrate Mitra&Schwartz’s concept of cybernetic space? (Define cybernetic space)

8. Explain Baudrillard's concept of "the ecstasy of communication" (define this concept) and identify an example from the lab experience to illustrate this concept.

After participating in the lab experience, write a 5 page (typed) paper in which you reflect on and analyze your lab experience in relation to the themes and concepts from class. You may write a paper that focuses on one or more of the lab questions or you may make up a question to answer. In your paper be sure that you 1) include and define four concepts from class readings since Lab I, 2) define your concepts, 3) support your analysis with examples, and 4) support your analysis with quotes from at least four readings since Lab I.

1. Ability to draw concepts from the reading material into your essay.
2. Ability to demonstrate understanding of concepts from course readings, lectures and discussions.
3. Significance and appropriateness of concepts chosen for discussion in the essays.
4. Fit between concepts and illustrations.
5. Specificity and amount of support material from readings, lectures and discussions to illustrate the concepts
6. Thoughtfulness and insightfulness of arguments.
7. Coherence of essay__ability to organize ideas and create an argument.
8. Writing mechanics.