Reading in the Future
- Bush, "As We May Think," from Life magazine, Sep 1945. Print. PDF
- Mc Luhan, from The Mechanical Bride, 1951. Print. PDF
- La Farge, The Deep Space of Digital Reading. Jan 2016. Nautilus.
A Guide to Reading in the Future
Please read Bush and McLuhan in print or PDF. Read La Farge online. I'd like you to encounter the reading text in the context in which it was originally published and presented.You should do a little background reading on the Bush essay and the McLuhan book - not one of his best known. Wikipedia.
As every week, please take notes on the wiki for each reading. You can use one wiki page for all three or three separate pages. But this time focus on your encounter with the reading: Reading this particular content in this particular form and situation.
Think User Testing. That's the kind of focus of attention I'm asking you to make.
Summarize content as a way of coming to a better understanding of it. But also record what it is like to read the content in the context it was published: paper or screen, in the framework of advertising, in the mechanics of flipping pages or scrolling.
- How did you read each? Intently, skimming, flipping around?
- Where did you read each? Home? Couch? Desk? Friend's apartment with death metal blasting? Ear buds? TV on? Video running on screen?
- What role does the format and framing context play? Paper v screen, but also the presence and placement of advertising in the Bush and La Farge pieces; the sidebar and maybe even comments in the La Farge piece.
- others
We will discuss what you have brought to the surface at our next meeting.
CategoryExercise
