I’m not quite sure if the tone of this posting of mine meshes with the tone that the professor envisioned the postings would have when she decided to use an electronic discussion board for our class, but making the things that I do fun is an immutable part of my being. And that applies to work, to school, to volunteer opportunities, and to play.
With that said, here is my response to the question: Do artifacts have politics?
| I’m with Anna on this. I have way too many thoughts on it, too. Wait, let me put a look of surprise on your face about that.
Without getting too existential on us, what we do as humans is assign meaning. That’s the human agenda, and in the “new now,” it’s a 24x7x365 job. So, assuming you buy that, humans are giving meaning to objects. And I believe, earlier, Koerber called rhetoric a “meaning-making tool.” I don’t see inanimate objects using rhetoric. But, perhaps, it’s because I’m too busy in this class being a hammer looking for nails. But I digress… That aside, didn’t we learn in an earlier reading, or perhaps it was in my COM 487 Internet and Society class with Dr. de Souza e Silva, that technology gets its meaning through its adoption into society. If that’s the case, it seems to me that the meaning wouldn’t exist until the object gets out there. Q.E.D. The object has no meaning on its own. If I had to weigh in with a theory of my own on this, what occurs to me in a sense as a pedantic semantic inquiry, I would argue that the story around the object (once it acquires its “meaning”) is the political artifact. I’m going to go ahead and post this before I read the other Winner (and I use the term as a nominal, not as an adjective) article, though I’m leery about doing so after reading Anna’s posting. |
I took a well-deserved 2.5-hour break today, and enjoyed a cookout with E-Ching, David, and their friends John, LaTisha, and their daughter Jasmine.
All the food was so delicious, and the company, as always, was perfect. Thanks, guys!
I did homework all day, mostly the reading assignments and discussion board postings for class.
I met Kevin (av8rdude) and Kurt at Legends for the 12:30 show. Uneventful.