According to the reading assemblage is “the arrangement and organization of a variety of heterogenous elements” (16). Assemblage can be applied to a variety of aspects in media as most media has many working parts and elements to it. Assemblage also points out how these different elements have human and non-human parts. In my group we looked at the assemblage of the website Wikipedia. We were able to break down all the working parts that make Wikipedia operate efficiently. Some of these parts were the authors, having access to internet, a technological device, letters/symbols, etc. By breaking down what makes Wikipedia what it is, we were able to take a look at its assemblage and what aspects of that assemblage have agency. Agency plays a large role in assemblage as some parts of the equation have more power and pull than others. One of these parts that I thought had agency was the authors since they bring the knowledge and ideas to the website. Without the authors the website would have no content and therefore not exist. Assemblage is in media all around us and helps us to look at the different aspects of media.
2 thoughts on “Assemblage- Caroline Rowe”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I like that you were able to find a connection between both of the keywords “assemblage” and “agency”. It’s very interesting how large of a role agency really does play in the idea of assemblage. I also agree with the idea that by breaking down these media sources such as Wikipedia, it becomes much more clear where assemblage is truly present. This helps the concept become easier to comprehend.
I agree that by breaking down media into many different working parts, we are able to see where assemblage is present. Both the human and nonhuman parts have agency. With your example of Wikipedia, the authors have agency over what they write and the technology has agency over advertisement display. It’s true that some parts of the assemblage have more power than others, like the author having more power than the table of contents on Wikipedia. All parts are necessary, though, to make up the entity of Wikipedia and for the media to function properly.