Page 219 - Cyberculture and New Media

210 The Différance Engine
______________________________________________________________

their pedagogic student/objects (now turned teacher). Of course media theory
was not previously sewn-up (or even sutured) by non-playful explanations.
For example, one need only think of Fiske’s classical re-deployment of de
Certeau and Bakhtin (almost a repeat of Merin’s re-deployment of Caillois)
to see the role that play as tactics have had in the face of a seemingly faceless
and strategic ideological power. It is of course this latter ‘strategic’ aspect (as
representative of ‘the server’ serving media to a linear down-stream
consumer) that has here come into question. Still does this create a neat 2.0
departure?
3
See Fiske, J., Television Culture. Routledge, London, 1987 for a clear
example of this position of carnivaleque consumption which refuses to
unwrap its parcel in the symmetrical way that the giving institution would
prefer.
4
See de Certeau, M., The Practice of Everyday Life, University of California
Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988 for a classic examination of the
organising strategies of institutions versus the resistant counter-tactics of their
users, consumers, etc.
5
In 1987 with its System 6 operating system Macintosh Hypercards were
much hyped and lead famously to popular games such as Myst as well as the
popularising of interactive multimedia along with the Commodore Amiga’s
‘Amigavision’ authoring system.
6
See Aarseth, A,. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. The Johns
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1997. Though Aarseth
rightly points out the difficult notion of a reader writing through choosing
pathways, he points out that such choice does not in any way compete with a
notion of writing.
7
Here we could name Jay .G. Blumer, Wolfgang Iser, John Fiske, Stuart
Hall, David Morley, Ien Ang, Standley Fish, Henry Jenkins, Martin Barker
and others
8
See MacCabe’s ‘Realism: Notes on Some Brechtian Theses’ for a clear
explanation of the workings of meta-narration within classic narrative texts.
9
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-
bin/webadmin?A2=ind0801&L=MECCSA&P=R386&I=-3 for a brief entry
on Merrin’s thinking on keeping up with strudent’s ludic experiences also the
intereseted reader could search the archive for “media studies 2.0” for other
entries in this debate. This debate also responded to an outline by Gauntlet of
his thinking on media theory 2.0 to be found here:
http://www.theory.org.uk/mediastudies2.htm.
10
See Caillois R., Man, Play and Games, University of Illinois Press, Urbana
and Chicago, 2001, for an influential analysis of the social functions of play