MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing

The End of the Virtual: Digital Methods

presented by Richard Rogers

What I’m going to do today is situate digital methods as an approach, as an outlook, in the history of Internet-related research. I’d like to divide up the history of Internet research largely into three eras, the first being where we thought of the Web as a kind of cyberspace.

Re-calling the Modem World: The Dial-Up History Of Social Media

presented by Kevin Driscoll

Where did the Internet come from? And in order to answer that question, you would have to have a pretty clear idea of what you mean when you say “the Internet.” I suspect that if we were to poll everybody in the room, we would have a variety of different, sometimes contradictory, sometimes incompatible, sometimes overlapping, definitions of “the Internet.”

The Neil Gaiman 2008 Julius Schwartz Lecture at MIT

presented by Henry Jenkins, Neil Gaiman

What is genre? I think it’s probably a set of assumptions, and it’s a loose contract between a creator and an audience. But for most of you, genre is something that tells you where to look in a book shop or a video store.

How to Social Engineer Your Child through Minecraft

presented by Marie Gilot

Today I want to talk to you about how you too can social engineer your child through Minecraft. First off, this is not a presentation for any kind of parents. There are some parents that are not going to be interested in this, for instance if you want your child to be happy and you’re fine with that.

The “Essence of Sandwichness,” Including the Official New York Definition of a Sandwich

presented by Noah Veltman

I love reading government memos because the world is an unclassifiable place, but the people that write these memos have to try to classify it anyway, and the results get weird. You get these classification oddities, these regulatory platypuses.

How Interfaces Demand Obedience

presented by Mushon Zer-Aviv

I’m going to discuss the theme of interface and maybe the politics of interface through the communication cycle, the idea of protocols, and then I’ll try to suggest interfaces for resistance, and ways for that to be addressed as well.