Infrastructure is a network or structure that is needed in order to keep a technology or community thriving. The word infrastructure can be used to talk about several different things. For example, the infrastructure of a city keeps the highways and roads functioning and keeps the “behind the scenes” aspects of the city up and running so that the people living there can enjoy it. Looking at infrastructure from a media lens can be looking at how social media apps and websites work. The infrastructure for Instagram is made up of code and technological systems that make it function and please users. Although it is the people and technology who work for apps like Instagram, that keep their infrastructure running, the users are also a vital part of this system. Without any users there would be no infrastructure, so it is a two-way street. Infrastructure is typically not noticeable to users except for when it fails or crashes. For example, it is evident that when an app like TikTok or Instagram is not loading or working, there is a problem with the mechanics of the app or otherwise called the infrastructure of the app.
Mimi Bainbridge “Infrastructure” Post
As shown in the reading, infrastructure can described as a “collective term for the subordinate parts of an undertaking, substructure, or foundation” that has continued to evolve as technology reaches new advancements. In relation to media, the foundation of multiple social media websites or apps includes its infrastructure. In order for social media apps to remain up and running and successful, they need to accumulate a good amount of dependable users that choose to interact with the app on a frequent basis. The infrastructure of these apps can act as data centers to aid in keeping up with the activity that is going on. For example, on popular apps such as Instagram and TikTok what posts a user “likes” or chooses to share with friends is all taken into account for them to create a space that the user will enjoy and continue to return to overtime. The infrastructure of these apps allows for it to run smoothly and helps keep people interested in what the apps have to offer.
Abby Bangs-Infrastructure
Within the essay, the concept of “infrustructuralism,” which is described as the background phenomena that occurs in order for a network, or any other functioning entity to operate. I believe that within televised media, the mediated networking acts as a lens for this concept due to the amount of backings, as well as background phenomena that occurs in order for the media to be televised. However, due to the amount of occurrences that are necessary to occur in order for the media to be televised, the media is inherently mediated. Infrustructuralism indirectly influences televised media to be mediated due to the amount of thought and phenomena, as mentioned earlier. Because these happenings remain unknown to the audience or consumers of the media, the audience may be under the impression that the televised media is truthfully reliable, however the media has undergone many rounds of review and editing in order for the media to be televised. Within the process of reviews, the thoughts behind the media may be molded and changed. Therefore, to an unknowing audience member, this mediation may be harmful. However, not only are the producers of the media part of the infrastructure, the consumers and audience members are part of the infrastructure as well; because they consume the media, the connection they build with the media forms a network relationship between the two, thus emerging an influential relationship between the two. This dynamic forms infrastructure, however ultimately, the influence televised media has over it’s audience may be harmful due to the hidden occurrences that are processed in order for the media to be televised.
Infrastructure Response- Thomas Takele
Infrastructure is “the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g. buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise”. This is a very interesting topic when considering social media. When thinking of Tik Tok, the organizational structures needed is a fascinating topic. The app uses hashtags to find out the user’s preference and the type of video that the user likes to see. Tik Tok tracks the videos that you like and it sees how common that the hashtags that are on each of these videos are and it puts more of these types of videos on the “for (fyp)you” page. This allows the fyp to be changed towards the user’s preference and it will keep the users on the app for a longer time. The more time the user is spending on the app the more money Tik Tok makes because of the sponsored ads that are in the app. This is all taken into account to bring in more money so that Tik Tok can keep growing.
Infrastructure: Mary Margaret Clouse
Infrastructures exist both within technology and our interactions with different technologies. For example, social media has digital code that creates the structure and format of the app or website. However, social media is dependent on user interactions with it. This begs the question: are user interactions part of this infrastructure? More standardized infrastructure such as what is featured in President Biden’s infrastructure bill (bridges, roads, wifi networks, etc.) are necessary and essential to American citizens. However, none of this would be necessary if not for the presence of people in the U.S. who require roads, bridges, and wifi to complete their daily activities. Many of these keywords take an approach that is largely scientific or analytical in nature, somewhat removed from a human perspective or accounting for human interaction. This infrastructure keyword is no different. In this keyword, the public is thought of as more of a collective unit rather than a complex variety of individuals. This is another example of the reductive, capitalistic perspective that is often used when discussing greater concepts or issues such as the keyword at hand.
Week 10: October 26 & 28
What’s Due Next?
This Week
- Tuesday (today): Keyword Infrastructure
- Thursday: Response post to “Infrastructure”
Near Future
- Write Short Response Paper #2: Technology using All You Need is Kill and Edge of Tomorrow for Sunday, October 31
- New! Add a paragraph on the cover page that explains how you used feedback provided for your first short response paper to write this paper.
What’s Coming Up?
- Be sure you’re able to access Apple TV+ (either through free trial or paid subscription) to watch Watch the Sound with Mark Ronson: Episode 1: Auto-Tune
- Begin thinking about how you’ll use ArcGIS StoryMap to visualize the definition of a keyword of your choice from KMS and/or our class coverage
Tuesday, October 26
Opening Discussion
-
- Anything happen recently that makes you think about any of the keywords we’ve discussed or addressed in class?
- Thanks for your mid-term feedback last week. I’ve taken some of the suggestions to heart, and I hope you see that in some of the future activities.
- What do you think about the role Facebook is alleged to have played in the events leading up to January 6?
- How might any of our keywords provide ways to understand how Facebook is engaged?
Infrastructure
- What are some examples of infrastructure?
- How does infrastructure relate to media studies? To rhetoric? To communication?
Some Characteristics of Infrastructure
- Rendered largely invisible
- Revealed most often in the moment of an infrastructural glitch
- Focused on the material conditions of production and consumption
- Often obscures forms of power not otherwise recognized
- Public utilities in the post-industrial information age become utility publics: the prosumer (producer + consumer) becomes the capital
Edge of Tomorrow & All You Need is Kill
Consider the relationship between technology and humans in these passage from All You Need is Kill. Then work to answer this question: Does Edge of Tomorrow paint a similar picture of this relationship between human and machine? Why and how? Or why not? Try to provide evidence from specific scenes in the film.
Work together in small groups to collect your ideas, and we’ll report out after about 10 minutes.
To fight them, we use machines to make ourselves stronger. (p. 11)
They simply hunt with the relentlessness of machines. (p. 11)
I bore the burden of endless battle like the killing machine I’d become—a machine with blood and nerves in place of oil and wires. A machine doesn’t get distracted. A machine doesn’t cry. A machine wears the same bitter smile day in, day out. It reads the battle as it unfolds. Its eyes scan for the next enemy before it’s finished killing the first, and its mind is already thinking about the third. It wasn’t lucky, and it wasn’t unlucky. It just was. So I kept fighting. If this was going to go on forever, it would go on forever. (p. 79)
I was a precision fighting machine without processing cycles to span on extraneous information. Rita and anything more complicated than run/parry/dodge would have to wait. Whatever her intentions, her attacks were deadly real. (p. 150)
If I flipped the switch on, the reflexes burned into me through 160 loops would kick in, taking over my body like a robot in a factory. (p. 155)
Short Response Paper #2
Each response paper should address the following questions:
- Why did you select the keywords you did? Why are they useful to interpreting the media?
- How does the keyword help you better understand the media?
- What questions does the media leave unanswered in relation to the keyword?
- What aspects of the keyword remain unaddressed or unengaged in the media, if any?
- If you don’t apply this keyword, how might your interpretation of this media differ?
Assignment
- Read All You Need is Kill, then watch Edge of Tomorrow (it’s important to do this in order)
- Use at least two keywords as a critical lens in a response to the film (but feel free to use the text to help you talk about the film): Choose from technology, data, network, infrastructure, and agency; or select other keywords related to identity from KMS.
- Write your response and submit it as a Word or PDF document via the Blackboard assignment entry.
- New: Include on your cover page a paragraph in which you explain how feedback on Paper #1 helped you improve this paper.
Thursday, October 28
ArcGIS StoryMaps Presentation
- Led by Justin Madron
- He’ll reference this page during class: Storytelling Tips
- You’ll also see the Nine Tips to Great Storytelling story embedded below.
Notes
- ArcGIS StoryMaps emerged from Esri, focused on digital storytelling (not as much about maps, which is the focus of Esri)
- StoryMaps login
- Click Sign In
- Click “Your ArcGIS organization’s URL” > netID and password
- Lots that can be done with ArcGIS StoryMaps, especially related to portfolios and career preparation, documenting trips
- StoryMaps are linear, although there are allowances to explore and divert (helpful when we define something)
- Not a media dump: telling a narrative
- Can be used for lots of different purposes and approaches
- Key approaches
- Identify your target audience (not “everyone everywhere”)
- How much knowledge will you target audience bring to the story?
- How can you make your story relatable to your target audience?
- Define 2-3 key takeaways (i.e., do some planning); simplicity is key
- Define your goals and metrics for success (clicks, engagement, learning)
- Create content inventory list (media heavy; get your media together, and switch up your media a little)
- Draft an outline or “storyboard” your project – check for flow, story or logic gaps, linearity
- Hook your audience at the very beginning: graphic, image, statement — like an abstract in a research project
- Identify your target audience (not “everyone everywhere”)
- Keep the audience in the StoryMap (use external links sparingly)
- Good use of slideshow is to pause the narrative and dive into a specific aspect or segment of the story
- Keep maps to a minimum unless maps are the focus of the project or assignment
Sample Outline
- Audience: Dean’s Office
- Purpose: Fund a class trip to Italy
- Key takeaways
- Explore new culture
- Impact on studies at UR
- Financial/funding requirements
- Italian outreach and partnership
- Key Graphics
- Pictures of specific destinations and activities in Italy
- Statistics showing the impact of trips abroad
- Pictures of other students who’ve studied abroad before
- Map of location
Some Options
- Cover design
- Navigation bar (yes/no)
- To add stuff, click the “plus” sign
- If you add a heading, it will automatically get added to the nav (if selected)
APA In-Text and References Citation Format
- Use the Purdue OWL’s APA Reference pages for assistance
- Apply for references used in your Short Response Paper #2
References Examples (don’t forget hanging indentation):
Levina, M. (2017). Network. In L. Ouellette & J. Gray (Eds.), Keywords for media studies (pp. 127–129). NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1gk08zz.44
Liman, D. (Director). (2014). Edge of tomorrow [Film]. Warner Bros.
Sakurazaka, H. (2011). All you need is kill. (J. Reeder & A. O. Smith, trans.). Haikasoru/VIZ Media.
In-text Citation Examples:
- According to Levina (2017), “some quoted materials” (p. 128). «« preferred
- And then there’s this summary of the chapter (Levina, 2017)
- Or there’s paraphrase of something from a specific page (Levina, 2017, p. 128).
Network: Mary Margaret Clouse
What I found interesting about the keyword “network” is how it seems to define members of a given network only by their output. For example, on social media, the only perceivable aspects of someone’s personality, ideology, experiences, or interests are what is shared in this specific network. The keyword explains that “in the network, we can understand ourselves only in terms of relationships to others.” This perspective is inherently reductive because it is impossible to include every piece of one’s identity on social media. The keyword author agrees with me here, that this way of interacting within said network is limiting. It can become hard to see one’s self, and especially other individuals, outside of the version presented on this network, which is why I think social media is so harmful to mental health. Not only does it force us to reduce ourselves, but we also only see perfected versions of other people, which creates an entire culture of falsehood and incompleteness. The article below is about the negative mental health impact Instagram has on users.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/15/tech/instagram-teen-girls/index.html
network- Chloe Whelan
Network is used to describe an entity made up of connections. As a fairly broad term, the definition has changed over the years, and is most commonly used as the umbrella term for information technologies in the modern digital age. The text shows how network can be used in a multitude of ways, primarily being a mediated forum for sharing personal information, organised crime, and a lifestyle or cultural norm. Another aspect of networks are the hierarchies of power that they are built on, with different levels of power used for organization. When trying to understand the concept of a network, I was reminded of the movie “The Social Network” about the creation of Facebook. The creation of Facebook showed the clear presence of hierarchical power, as the platform was originally only available to college students within a select group of schools. The ability to be “connected” on Facebook was determined by its creator Mark Zuckerberg, whose goal was to created a platform that allowed for the rapid spread of personal information that would allow college students to form digital connections and relationships with one another. Since the creation of Facebook, the concept of social networks have taken the world by storm, creating a cultural norm of sharing personal information online in order to be connected to people and the world around us. 
image from the 2010 film “The Social Network”
Alvin-Network
A network is any form of connection between two or more parties. This can be through sharing information or having similar interests. I am fascinated by the concept of actor network theory because it explores the structure of a network. The more components in a network, the stronger the performance. An example of this is any celebrity fan base. Most celebrity fans do not know each other although they are still a part of a very huge network which has supported the fame of the celebrity Other forms of networks include sports clubs which will have different elements for acceptance and maintenance. Elements such as skill level, class and experience among the various individuals will create a web of relationships hence a network.
Social networks for example LinkedIn were purposefully made with the aim of networking and career development. Such online networks are more popular because they are able to connect various people globally sharing similar ideas together and communication has never been easier in this era due to social media. Information is shared and debated online all over the world creating various networks. Both online and real life networks have some sort of hierarchy and it is very natural that people want to be at the top of the network or at least be acquainted with the top people in a specific network in order to get the best out of it.
Network – JT Windle
Networks are all around us and are a large part of our identities. Networks can form over shared interests, goals, fears, or even arbitrary things like location, language, or nationality. For thousands of years, people have created communities based on these networks. In the modern era, technology has allowed each of us to become a part of more and more networks. Online, anyone has the ability to meet people on forums or through social media. As a die hard fan of the Baltimore Ravens, through Instagram, i found myself a part of an online Ravens fan community. In this community, people share Ravens news, opinions, or interesting fun facts. I have met people through this community that I likely would have never come into contact with if it wasn’t for Instagram. Seeing new posts as games happen in real time allow me to celebrate with other like minded fans or share in their frustrations. It feels as if I am watching with a large community. Networks can be used to make a variety to different connections, including casual ones like mine, or ones that help with a professional career. It is undeniable that the internet has increased our collective ability to be a part of more of these networks.