WRITING AND PUBLISHING

PL2002: Writing and Publishing Online and Electronic Media



Writing and Publishing Online and Electronic Media

Question 1: Cyborg Dreams

Cyborg metaphor refers to a creature which is a combination of organism and machine; it is a concept of modern culture or post modern era. Cyborg dreams refer to the dreams about picture of the society. Depending on the nature of literature or novel, the authors have to sometime illustrate the society as a positive (Utopian), while sometimes as a negative (Dystopian). Utopians and Dystopians are most commonly found in science fiction. Utopia refers to the genre of literature where the society is presented as an ideal, while Dystopia refers to the opposite of Utopia; Dystopia refers to the novels or literature where the society is pictured as ultimately horrible. In various novels, both of these cyborg dreams are combines together in a form of metaphors.

Cyborg metaphor has a definite impact on the development of scientific concepts and computing mechanisms (Baumeler and Gugerli, 2005). This metaphor helped the scientists, engineers as well as the general public in understanding the man-machine relationships. Donna Harraway theorized the concepts of hybrid human-machine for the first time in her article, in the period of 1980's. This article for the first time discussed the concepts that the age and society was transforming from industrial to polymorphous information society.

In addition to Harraway, the pioneers of this metaphor, Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline proposed to change the entire cybernetic controls and homeostatic conditions, instead of creating a small artificial environment. The Utopian dream refers to the situation in the science fiction films, when a driver does not have to worry about controlling or monitoring the temperature or pressure conditions, while in a space shuttle, but the machines take care of all such physical measures. Thus, the characters such as driver, scientist or other people of the space shuttle become independent, rather than acting as slaves of the machine.

William Gibson published an influential novel in 1984, in which he introduced the concept of new cybernetic controlled spaces (commonly known as cyberspace). This novel provided the readers with an idea of the future relationships between the human and machine. Despite of being a novel, and not a research paper, the author introduced the concepts of technological manifestations which could be connected to the human body, can be carried on the body or even could be taken inside the body. Thus, cyborg metaphor begun to destroy and blur the boundaries between human and machine, and helped the people to reduce their distance from the machines. People began to use the machines such as computers without hesitation, with the greater level of comfort.

Question 2: Locative media: Location, space and the city

Over the past few years, with the increasing use and demand of mobile devices, the use of locative media and technologies has been significantly increased. The projects of locative media mainly deal with delivering the multimedia or other content to the service user, depending on his ...