#context message etc etc of the text that is presented and judge that on its own

[alexiaugustin]

All of H. Y.'s books are the same torture/misery/trauma porn with LGBTQ+ characters, a straight person using LGBTQ+ trauma to sell is so gross not to mention she intentionally makes it as triggering as possible and she's said this in interviews. Even if you like the books, read her interviews and things she's said, it's wild. She's obsessed with male rape and as a gay male victim of sexual violence myself this is disgusting.

i do not see how and why her other works that all stand independently of each other are supposed to influence my opinion on the fact that a little life is, in my opinion, a literary masterpiece. even the question whether it’s a morally or ethically good book does not really have to influence your perception of art unless you are reading for moral and general life advice only. personally, i do not do that and do not recommend judging literature through that lens but it’s not any of my business how other people read unless they are somehow making it mine

[starlessea]

Ultimate Guide to Proofreading

Here’s the next installation of my writing tips series!

[Just a quick disclaimer: this isn’t meant to discourage anyone! We are all still learning. These are just some tips you may want to consider when editing your writing].

As a language / linguistics student, I tend to focus on the grammar, or just the overall presentation of my writing. Obviously, if you’re writing online or self-publishing, without a beta reader that is, then no one is going to scrutinise you over the small things.

However, it can elevate your writing SO MUCH if you simply proofread it. Often, I find myself taken out of the immersion of a story because a typo is so glaringly obvious. Most of the time, we can gloss over them and they don’t impact the reading experience too much - but if your work is littered with small errors, they tend to pile up.

Proofreading is an easy way to get your readers to stick with you - and it often doesn’t even take that long! You just need to know HOW to proofread, and it will save you time. 

1) Spell Checkers

I know this seems really obvious, but I read so much work that could be improved tenfold just by being copied-and-pasted into a spell checker. You can literally type ‘spell checker’ into Google, and use an online service.

Personally, I use Google Docs. I just Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C, and Ctrl+V my work into it - and it will underline the spelling mistakes in red, and the grammar errors in blue. 

It’s as easy as that.

2) Consistency and General Grammar Points

This section is by NO MEANS an exhaustive list, but I’ve just compiled the things I’ve noticed the most when reading online. 

American English vs. British English:

This one is quite self-explanatory. If you’re going to use American spellings, then use them consistently throughout - and vice versa with British. Some common ones to look out for include:

color / colour

neighbor / neighbour

humor / humour

(US/UK respectively)

I found a good article here that gives a more comprehensive list.

Homophones or the Question of Verb / Noun:

You may want to double-check that you’ve used the right form of a word (verb / noun) - especially if they sound the same. 

affect / effect

hoard / horde

practice / practise***

*See this article.

allowed / aloud

were / where

I know these can sometimes get a little tricky for non-native speakers - especially since English is really quite a weird language. But these are the most common errors I’ve picked up on.

A lot of the time, things like Google Docs won’t spot these - so it’s good to be aware of the TYPES of errors you’re trying to find.

Also, remember that Google Search is your friend. I can’t even count the number of times I look things up when writing - THERE IS NO SHAME IN IT. It doesn’t take long to check if you’re using a word in the correct context, or the correct form of the word.

Showing Possession:

A lot of people tend to get confused about using the genitive marker, apostrophe ‘-s’ to show possession. See the examples below:

[Disclaimer: don’t judge my name choices...]

Jade has a bag. That is Jade’s bag.

Jade Simpson has a bag. That is Jade Simpson’s bag.

Jade Simpson lives with her husband, John Simpson. They are the Simpsons.

That is the Simpson household. That is the Simpsons’ house.*** 

*This is the one most people struggle on. There are two Simpsons, so the apostrophe comes at the end to show PLURAL possession (i.e., belonging to BOTH Jade and John).

This is Jess. That is Jess’ bag.

Here, the above can be written as Jess’s, but the extra (-s) usually gets ellided if it is following an ‘s’.

Another thing people get confused about is its/it’s. 

In English, ‘it’s’ = a contraction of ‘it + is’ (NOT TO SHOW POSSESSION). ‘Its’ is the possessive form in this case.

E.g., The dog lost its collar; it is brown = The dog lost its collar; it’s brown (the collar is brown).

Punctuation Consistency:

Personally, I don’t mind what style of punctuation you use. Whether you put your full stops INSIDE your quotations, or OUTSIDE;

E.g., “Go away.” vs “Go away”.

or if you sometimes like using hyphens in place of a comma; likewise with capitalisation, and whether you decide to capitalise certain nouns etc.

But, whatever you choose, BE CONSISTENT WITH IT.

You don’t want to give your readers whiplash by changing styles every couple of lines. Otherwise, it’s like you’ve chosen one academic referencing style for your essay, only to switch it half-way through. It’s confusing. It may seem like a nit-picking point, but people will notice it - and it’s good written practice to focus on being consistent.

3) Formatting:

Dialogue:

PLEASE PLEASE start a new paragraph/line if SOMEONE NEW IS SPEAKING.

Your readers will be so confused if you don’t properly distinguish who is speaking. It takes away from the reading experience when you think one character has said a line, but it turns out to be another. 

Don’t just rely on “[...]” John said. We should know if someone new is speaking by the format, not just the name that follows the dialogue.

Paragraphs:

Don’t let your work be one block of text. Break it up and make it more digestible for your readers. Try to start a new paragraph for a new topic, place, thought, etc. You can find some really great guides online that go into more detail. Personally, I think it’s quite a stylistic thing - but you should still be consistent in how you choose to establish your paragraphs.

4) Other Things to Look out For

Detography: Have you written a word twice?

Pronouns: Are you using the following correctly?

their/they’re/there

your/you’re

Tenses: Are you sticking to the same tense? Are your verbs all conjugated in the same tense? Do you switch tense half-way through?

Repetition: Are you relying on the same words a lot. Are you using the same verb / descriptive word very close together?

For this, I just make a quick Google search:

E.g., “said synonym” or “angry synonym” - it adds variety to your writing.

Character Names: This seems obvious, but make sure you’ve spelt them correctly throughout - same goes for place names etc.

5) READ YOUR WORK ALOUD

I really can’t stress this enough. Even after studying language, literature and linguistics for as long as I have, I still miss so many of my own errors if I don’t read my work aloud. My editing process literally involves:

Write the draft

Read over the draft and correct any glaring errors

Copy and paste into a spelling/grammar checker

Re-read the new work and edit again

Read aloud and edit as I go

Final read through

Obviously I don’t do this every time - but it shows just how easy it is to miss mistakes when you’re still finding them during step 6.

6) Bribe a Beta-Reader (or a Friend)...

This is a really helpful step if you are able to find someone willing to check over your work. Often, we become blind to our own writing after we’ve read over the same thing a number of times. It can be really useful to get someone to take a look at it with fresh eyes!

Disclaimer: These are just some things I’ve noticed that I tend to look for in my own work. Also, I want to make a point of saying that English is a strange language, so please don’t be discouraged if you’re a non-native speaker feeling confused. I still get confused!

Also, please feel free to ask me any questions! I might not always be available to give a full beta-read of your work, but if you have any queries relating to grammar etc., don’t hesitate to drop me a message!

[yugihteseht]

SF Pro and iOS/v1// The story and idealisation SF Pro presents is tightly interwoven with the story and the thought behind the iOS experience, and in turn, Apple’s entire philosophy. Your type choices are basically a visual, utilitarian, experiential, cultural manifestation of how you believe your text (and the ideas it represents and communicates) should look -- which in turns tells us what exactly you think your text means to your experience, and how exactly it fits into it.

SF Pro is a typeface used widely across iOS and thousands of its apps -- which are basically extensions and completions of the message and objective of the iOS experience. The story iOS is telling through its experience is one of the marriage of simplicity and sophistication, of accessibility and inclusivity. iOS posits that it is possible to replace all physical world experiences and processes and solutions, with a singular experience that is digital and fits right into your pocket. It aspires to integrate a wide variety of real world existing solutions with the objective of convenience and productivity -- to give you the tools required to live life productively and comfortably on your own terms. iOS wants you to outsource all of the unnecessarily boring and complicated tasks, such as looking up a number of a contact in yellow pages, or finding a journal and a working pen and a table to sit down and note down something, or, more recently, walking to your switchboard and turning on or off a light or a fan. iOS tries to achieve all of these from a baseline very similar fundamental iOS experience, making it accessible and straightforward for everyone to use, with a practically vertical learning curve. One app, one interaction is pretty much enough to teach you how to use any app on iOS. This prioritisation of clear, effective design to replace all your individual real world workflows into one single device is further reflected in the direction in which Apple has expanded its products and experiences -- with Siri being able to vocally perform many of these tasks, with Shortcuts to further simplify the process of performing a task, with iOS 14 widgets to reclaim the features and benefits of all of these apps into a singular home screen experience.

So, how does text fit into this experience? what does text mean to iOS? what does their type choice tell us about what they think text means in iOS?

text is used across a variety of elements in iOS -- the body of notifications, conveying the time and date, labels for apps, etc. The home screen of iOS uses text only secondarily as an identifier, the primary recognition and identifier is the visuals and the icons. The labels here are set in SF Pro Text. We know that iOS likes to put top down control on iOS apps and keep them tightly on a strict constrained path in order to achieve what it is that they are supposed to do. SF Pro in this regard tells us a story about control and restriction and dominance. By the same token, SF Pro also tells a story of diversity in function and diversity in application. SF Pro of its own accord represents Apple’s iOS principles of Direct Manipulation and Aesthetic Integrity -- culturally, how they connect with the classics they are reimagining -- akzidenz grotesk, helvetica and univers. SF Pro tells a story of strict control and finding symmetry in asymmetry and the power in diversity. It also creates an experientially invisible interface, a reflection of its ubiquity, while drawing from swiss design principles of objectivity, of visual interest, of cultural calm, of asymmetry, of active visual elements, of emphasis on composition. The inner logic of the text in iOS is reflected in the outer logic of the type in that the text is all tools for the user to identify real world tasks that can enable him to achieve something of significance to him, in a standardised, usable, controlled, refined and trustable, perfected, and most importantly lightweight & learned manner. Text helps as tools to recognise the full width of what can be achieved, and what goal it is oriented towards. This is what the type choice SF Pro reflects in iOS. an identification tool, oriented towards a more integrated, more lightweight, less bulky future for you, in which you fit in as a more refined being, with the ability to focus on only that which you want to focus on, outsourcing the mundanity and the boring repetitive tasks to the device.

When a third party app chooses to use SF Pro, even though the conscious reason for this decision on their part might be “it is more naturally invisible and integrated with the iOS experience”, what they are doing is actually buying into the message of iOS, and performing their appropriate responsibilities as an app developer who has set out to perfect and accomplish the objectives of the iOS experience -- by buying into the values of accessibility, usability, learnability, universality, control, metaphor, and allowing their text to look feel and function like not just a piece of text, but a tool. In this regard, you can judge apps on a different dimension. A tweet is no longer just a tweet, it is a tool that you can identify and use as an asset oriented towards simplified integration into your Being, learnable usage in your life, the impossible dream of invisibility, and perfection. This goes two ways -- not just does the type indicate what the text is trying to convey, but it also motivates users to act in accordance with this message. It inspires twitter users to use their words as tools to help figure out the world a little more, it inspires Instagram users to express themselves as honestly and as refined-ly as they can, etc.

// gr888 scope to improve the twitter point and further clarify it. its right there but is barely explained.

// this isn’t articulate enough, a lot of the sentences are restatements of the same idea in a vaguely similar mannetr

// think about: the same type is used on iOS from messages to switches to settings -- what does that imply about the idealization and story it offers? how does it accommodate this entire range? usage imbibes it with meaning, there is no clearer example. helvetica and sf pro are so ridiculously similar but are actually so different cuz of their cultural significance. the story of iOS is in part defined by the form of the context. further, according to robert bringhurst: choose a font that will thrive under the final printing conditions, the final printing conditions is iOS. this can be extended into an idea.

[bryanfaganlaw]

The attorney-client relationship is the key to winning your Texas divorce case

If you have need a best suitable service your Child Law experience, The attorney-client relationship is the key to winning your Texas divorce case with the great process!

Houston Family Attorney: While your marital relationship will be the central focus of your divorce, it is the relationship between you and your attorney that will be the most integral to success or failure in your Texas divorce. While one relationship did not work the way that you intended it to, the other is an opportunity for you to build a strong and trusting bond with a person that will be in your life for at least two months.

There are a lot of misconceptions that exist about attorneys. We’ve all heard the lawyer jokes, bad move premises and the general attitude of some in the media about attorneys- they don’t need to be repeated in this space. With that said, you can do a lot to help build a strong relationship with your attorney by focusing on the issues that we are going to discuss in today’s blog.

Know, first of all, that your attorney is not there to work on your case by themselves. Quite the opposite- your attorney is there to help guide and advise you on issues that he or she is knowledgeable of due to their years of experience. However, the ultimate decision-making abilities lie with you. You are the person whose name appears at the top of any pleading or motion filed with the court. You are a parent to the children who are going through this divorce with you. It is your home, your business or your property that is potentially at stake in the divorce.

Communication is key

Stop me if you've heard that one before. When it is all said and done you and your attorney will either be done in by or thrive due to your ability to communicate with one another. This is not the sort of heartfelt, meaningful conversation that family members share. When I say "communication" in the context of you and your attorney I really just mean the sort of communication that allows the direct transmittal of information from one person to another. You will need to communicate with your attorney and update him or her on issues from time to time. Your attorney will need to do the same with you.

It really is simple to figure this out as long as you and your attorney are both willing to work with one another. For example, the attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan will bend over backward to help facilitate communication between ourselves and our clients. For example, it is not uncommon for us to ask a client if he or she has a preferred day of the week to communicate or a means of communication (phone, email, etc.) to utilize. We know that you have a busy schedule and we want to accommodate that as much as possible. Of course, there are some messages that need to be communicated throughout the week but for regular updates when there is nothing major to report we will work with you to figure out a time and means by which communication will work best.

Think about your case and how you will argue your positions to a judge

Houston Family Law Attorneys: It is likely that you will never actually have to go in front of a judge in your divorce case. We talked in yesterday’s blog post about how mediation has effectively made a divorce in Texas more about negotiation than litigation. This is a good thing for literally every person involved in your case. However, in the event that you will go to court, you and your attorney need to be prepared to present evidence that can help you. Begin by collecting evidence that could be beneficial to your case and provide that evidence to your attorney. Even if you think something is silly or not likely to be helpful you ought to provide it to him or her.

Many pieces of evidence may need to be explained to your attorney and/or their staff to be fully understood. Some things- text messages, emails, etc.- have context-specific explanations that need to be provided. If this is true of your case, it is best to work with your attorney's staff to schedule a time for you to speak to them about the evidence that you are providing. How you came about the evidence, what it represents and its significance to your case are good places to start a discussion. Your attorney can sit with you and analyze the evidence to figure out how to best utilize it in your case.

Do your homework and submit it on time

If you struggled in school with completing your work in a timely manner your divorce will offer you an opportunity to try again at this skill. At the beginning of your case, your attorney will hand you some paperwork to fill out. These documents are requesting basic information about you, your spouse and your family. It is helpful for your attorney to have these documents back by the time he or she begins to file your Petition for Divorce or needs to file an Answer for you. If you fail to turn these documents back into your attorney on time it may delay and ultimately harm your case.

Next, it is likely that your spouse will submit to your attorney what is known as Discovery requests. Discovery seeks to do exactly what you would think- obtain information about you and your life that can be used in your divorce case. These are not short or easy to complete requests. Some ask for you to answer “yes” or “no” type questions. Others will ask for you to fill in responses to some fairly detailed and complicated questions. Others will ask for you to collect and submit documents that are of interest to your spouse.

These requests must be turned in no later than thirty days from the date on which your attorney was provided the questions and requests from your spouse. As a result, you and your attorney will need to be on the same page as to how to respond appropriately to those requests. This can be done through exchanging emails about questions that don't make sense, or by having periodic phone calls to help you sort through issues. However, it is my experience that your best bet is to set up a time to speak with your attorney about the requests in person.

Remember- if it takes you 28 days to submit responses to these discovery requests to your attorney that only leaves him or her two days to review the material you provided, clarify any questions with you and then submit responses to their requests in an appropriate format. Like any good relationship, you need to think about your partner and how your actions will affect him or her. If you do not give your attorney enough time to do their job he or she may need to request an extension to submit your discovery responses. It is likely that an extension will be provided but your case may be unnecessarily delayed because of your actions.

If you need to communicate with your spouse do it in writing if at all possible

Divorce Houston: Have you ever been misquoted or misunderstood by a friend or family member? I think it is safe to say that we all have. It is a tough situation to be in, especially if that misunderstanding was due to something you told your friend or family member. We usually do not have an accurate record of what we say to other people so the misunderstanding can quickly evolve into a “he said, she said” battle.

In the context of a divorce case, he said/she said, is a recipe for anger, resentment, and delaying of cases. If you and your spouse are going over important subjects like your children, money, property or anything related to your divorce I would recommend that you have those discussions in writing rather than over the phone. Certainly, details can be ironed out in quick phone calls but if you are trying to engage in informal negotiations then use email. This way you can track exactly what was said and what was not said. You will also have a clear record of what you and your spouse want out of your divorce. Gaining a window into the thought processes of your spouse can be among the more valuable benefits of better communication.

Keep in mind that it is not uncommon for a rather small argument to blossom into something much larger in a high stakes situation like a divorce. Your attorney and your spouse's attorney can be great allies when it comes to calming down their respective clients. However, I can tell you from experience that the attorneys cannot help when each is relying on an entirely different set of facts than the other is. There is nothing more frustrating for two family law attorneys than to have upset, frustrated clients, who cannot get on the same page about what they are even arguing about.

You can avoid unwanted and unhelpful arguments by sticking to the plan of just communicated via email or text messages. This way you will have a clear record of what was said and where negotiations are. Secondly, you will not give your spouse an opportunity to mislead a judge, their attorney or any other person associated with your case by telling him or her an untruth about something that you supposedly had said ... Continue Reading

[rj15zq]

Online, Interactive Audiences & Audience Agency in New Contexts: Dobson Case Competition (Blog 2 Week 10 + 11)

As this blog is sadly coming to an end, I would like to wrap up my audience experiences by relating the course concepts taught by Professor Good to the Dobson Case Competition which I took part in on November 14th 2019. I will be connecting general audience theories to this particular experience while primarily focusing on Chapter’s 9 and 10 of the textbook (Week 10 and 11).

Do you remember in my first blog how I mentioned that you’re constantly part of an audience? Even when you’re not intending to be? Well, that’s kind of how I ended up in the competition… let me explain. I had heard my Professors promote this competition in both first and second year as an audience member of their classes, but I wasn’t entirely sure if I was interested and so I never really took the initiative to form a group and sign up. Third year rolls around, and a couple of my Professors promote it again announcing that this year’s theme would be the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. I thought about how I’m already in third year and I haven’t really done much to differentiate myself from average person working towards my same degree, and that was starting to concern me a bit (a LOT). 

I was looking to enhance my resume and gain valuable marketing/advertising experience, and I knew that if I decided not to take part this year I would regret it later on. It also helped that the theme for this year was extremely relevant in regards to climate change.

Before I could actually create a campaign outline based on the given brief, I needed a competing group. Obviously, my first instinct was to ask my friends to sign up with me, but no one wanted to commit due to busy schedules as this was happening during midterm season (brutal!). This is where my first question comes in to play. I was sitting in Professor Botterill’s lecture as I heard two students speaking to her about potentially signing up for the competition but needing another group member. Was I purposefully eavesdropping? Nope! I was sitting in the top row while they were standing at the bottom. As Professor Good stated, audience members are actively listening, even subconsciously, just as I was in that moment. I decided to step out of my comfort zone (way out), approach the group, and offer to join. Then and there, “SIR Advertising Agency” was formed!

Now, let’s focus on Chapter 9 and how the Dobson Case Competition relates to online, interactive audiences in a digital media world. The chapter begins by defining digitalization as “the standards by which media texts, images and sounds are recorded and transmitted” (Sullivan, 2013, p. 216). Nearly half of my group’s communication and strategy for this competition occurred based on digitalization. For example, digital technologies were integrated in building our campaign with the use of online video messaging, Brock’s online database for research, Google Images, Google Slides component, as well as Brock’s educational software platform Sakai to upload our campaign proposal. Sullivan (2013) states that digitalization entails the advantages of using space effectively, maintaining quality and operating as a common language (p. 216). In seminar on November 19th, we discussed how instead of having to burn music onto CD’s we could just create playlists on Spotify, and instead of purchasing DVD movies we mainly stream on Netflix now. Similarly, instead of having to download our campaign presentation onto a USB, we simply pulled it up with a user login through Google Slides. Without these digital properties, preparation for the competition would have been a lot more time consuming... so yeah, thanks digitalization!

Sullivan (2013) goes on to discuss how YouTube is the single most important online tool for empowering audiences in today’s digital age (p. 220). YouTubers are constantly inspiring their audiences by enforcing creativity, i.e. DIY’s, makeup tutorials, cooking lessons, music, etc. In the case of the Dobson Case Competition, I as an audience member watched public speaking videos and a video uploaded by CPCF TV on last year’s competition to empower and prepare myself in understanding both the judges and my team as audience members. I also used YouTube as a source to learn more about climate change and gain additional advertising and marketing knowledge in support of our campaign pitch.

CPCF TV’s 2018 Dobson video:

Before the day of the competition, I made sure to “clean up” my LinkedIn profile as well as any social media, just in case any of the judges or industry professionals decided to take a look (not that anything on there’s inappropriate, but you know, precautions!). Chapter 9 discusses this topic of social media and audience surveillance in a networked environment. Not only do marketers and advertisers follow audiences into networked spaces, but you guessed it, so do employers!

 The day of the competition we were fortunate enough to attend a networking dinner with everyone involved, including the judges. At my table sat the Owner/President of Naked Creative Consultancy. As expected, I did my best to appear as presentable as possible, not only with my appearance but with my words as well. However, in the age of Web 2.0, social networking is implemented on such a large scale that face-to-face “analysis” isn’t the only thing that matters anymore. Audience surveillance has become accustomed in these digital environments and although some may argue that it’s an invasion of privacy, it is up to online users themselves to control what they do and don’t post online. The article assigned for this week by Athique (2018) emphasizes this idea by stating “as users become aware of the pervasiveness of data trails, there is now an obvious ‘chilling’ effect [and] users have started to take evasive action online” (p. 67).

Time to shift gears to our last and final chapter of the textbook, Chapter 10! Chapter 10 was covered by Professor Good in class on November 21st and concludes Sullivan’s Media Audiences textbook by overviewing audience agency in new contexts and returning to some of the major themes already discussed throughout these blogs.

Sullivan (2013) states that access to information through shifts in technologies has fostered easier and expanded access to information, creating new opportunities for audience engagement (p. 240). Our Dobson Case Competition campaign was titled “Generation Change” and focused on a mobile application and competition between post-secondary schools to track which institution could collect the most shoreline trash within one academic year. 

Through audience and media consumption trends, we’re able to see that conversation surrounding climate change and environmental initiatives is beyond more prevalent today than it was 10 years ago. Yes, heavily due to the change in climate, but we have social media to thank for the spread of its awareness. 

The Internet allows for audiences to access information about nearly anything, which is why the judges saw potential in our campaign. Audiences today don’t just have deeper exposure to news and information, but they have the sources to access it. Our campaign implemented Facebook advertising, Twitter promotion with the use of hashtags, Instagram ads, QR codes linking to the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup website and Generation Change ads, as well as real-life events such as virtual reality stations to encourage our target audience to recognize the waste problem in Canada and seek more information on how to help reverse the detrimental effects of shoreline waste.

The article assigned for this week by Livingstone (2019) focused on audiences in an age of datafication. Our seminar has had several discussions regarding whether datafication and digital surveillance are an invasion of privacy and whether there should be restrictions. Personally, I have never been bothered by my data being tracked, sorted, and monetized as I’m essentially aware of it as I’m posting. What’s interesting about this article, however, is that as we’ve been learning about datafication, our focus has been on the audience perspective (the average consumer). Through creating a marketing campaign, my Dobson team and I got to experience the side of the one’s surveilling, the side of the advertisers. Cool, right? 

For example, as I mentioned, we implemented social media and QR codes as promotion strategies. Hypothetically, as advertisers we would be able to target audiences based on online activity, the people they interact with, the people and hashtags they follow, the events they have attended, etc. With the use of QR codes, we’d be able to see the number of scans, the location of the scans, the time of the scans, what kind of device it was scanned on, etc. “Academic attention has turned to the analysis of the algorithmic manipulations of audience’s digital traces that increasingly allow everything people do to be tracked, as their data are bought and sold above their heads and below their radars” (Livingstone, 2019, p. 176). 

Here’s an activity to get you thinking: Go to your web browser history and analyze your last visited sites. Social networks? Online shopping? Banking? Dating site? Reflect on how you feel knowing that all those activities have been and continue to be tracked through datafication.

Datafiction isn’t always a negative thing, however. As I mentioned, I personally don’t mind the surveillance that comes with online activity. I would much rather get advertisements that are targeted towards me than get an advertisement for something that I find little to no interest in, as that would come across as irrelevant and more of a disturbance. I can’t speak on behalf of everyone, but I’d pretty much say same goes for my Dobson “Generation Change” campaign. Our target audience included 18 to 24-year-old students in Canada who are interested in the climate change initiative and potentially attended the climate strike march. If our Generation Change ads were to appear on the Facebook timeline of a student who is passionate in protecting the environment, surely they’d be more than happy about being exposed to the sustainable opportunity that the campaign provides. Likewise, when we see Netflix recommend shows that we’re likely to enjoy or YouTube recommend videos based on the content we consume and like, it’s more interesting than bothersome. At the end of the day, consumers have preferences and not all consumers think a-like.

At last, we’ve finally reached the end of my Audience Studies blogs. This blog has covered several concepts such as the ways people are empowered agents in their roles as audience members, the ways in which audience members are affected by their various roles, how content and reception of content affect audience members, how technology has changed audiences, etc. Through understanding audiences, we can now become more aware of our participation as consumers, producers, and prosumers of audience content. Before I go, I’d like to thank you for being such a great audience member of my blog! I hope you’ve enjoyed your time reading it. Good-bye!

References:

Jennifer Good, Lecture November 14th & November 21st 2019

Seminar Discussion November 19thth & November 26th 2019

Athique, A. (2018). The dynamics and potentials of big data for audience research. Media, Culture and Society, 40(1), 59-74.

Livingstone, S. (2019). Audiences in an age of datafication: Critical questions for media research. Television & New Media, 20(20), 170-183.

Images: Giphy, Brock CPCF, Google Images

[journalofsportsmedicine]

Sport as a Semiotic Structure- Juniper Publishers

Open Access Publishers of Physical Fitness, Medicine & Treatment in Sports

Review Article

Sport as a Semiotic Structure

Klimov Mikhail Yuruevich*

Associate Professor, Department of physical education, Altai state University, Russia

Submission: March 07, 2018; Published: March 20, 2018

*Corresponding author: Klimov Mikhail Yuruevich, Associate Professor, Department of physical education, Altai state University, Russia, Tel: 89039957808; Email: michailklimov@yandex.ru

How to cite this article: Klimov Mikhail Yuruevich. Sport as a Semiotic Structure. J Phy Fit Treatment & Sports. 2018; 2(2): 555585 DOI: 10.19080/JPFMTS.2018.02.555585

Abstract

Sport is a corporal competition with strict rules with an aim to determine the winner. Sport is a conditional, gaming system, which communicative sign structure has no practical value. Analysis of sports as a structure allows you to select the category of form (rules) and content (the competition). There is one more category - value (determining the winner), expressing the very essence of sport. In semiotics category of value, along with form and content is of essence in nature. The term value itself is derived from sign. If the form expresses "what” the content-”how to”, then the value meets "why”. These semiotic categories do not relate exclusively to the sport, you can select them in any cultural phenomenon, with unquestionable signs of significant organization. E Benvenist defines culture as "human environment, all which in addition to carrying out biological functions attaches to human life and activities form, value and content”.

Introduction

Definition by Ferdinand de Saussure says that language is a system of signs that indicate concepts, the most important of all systems in semiologic phenomena [1,2]. Therefore, learning of sport as a semiotic system should be started with the language: to examine sport as a language with its own specific system of signs, concepts and formal organization; compare the language of sports with universal language and identify their similarities and differences.

The fundamental position in Linguistics is a view of language as a form in relation to thinking. E. Sapir said: "Language as a structure of some kind is a form of thought, a tool of the value expression" [3]. The specifics of sport as a language is as follows: the language can be classified as verbal, natural and universal, the language of sport is visual, artificial and reserved. Greimas assigns natural languages a privileged position because they provide a starting point for changes and end point for transfers [4]. However, a language can be examined as the basis or foundation, according to Levi-Strauss, "it is designed to establish the structures based on it, sometimes more difficult, but similar type corresponding to the culture, examined in its various aspects”[5] (in our case, the semiotic structure of sport).

In the semiotic structure of sport the form is understood as competition rules that are language by its nature. Let's use the definition of language by de Saussure: "A language is a grammatical system, virtually existing in everyone's brain, to be more precise, in entire aggregate of individuals, as the language does not exist fully in neither of them, it exists only in group.” [2]. It is easy to note that the rules are well within the scope of this definition: in any competition the athlete must perform only actions arising from the rules. Even if two players chase the ball in a vacant lot in the absence of judges and spectators, they are guided by some conditional system, virtually existing in their consciousness. This conditional system as well as the language for the speaker determines their actions: If they throw the ball by hands, then this is volleyball, if by foot-soccer.

Examining of "the form” categories in sign-semiotic system of sport lets us make a conclusion: sport as a semiotic structure has common signs with language as a linguistic structure. We can say that an iconic sports organization is subject to the same laws and regulations as that language. There are also significant differences. Firstly, sport is an artificial semiotic system. Date of birth of many sports is considered the appearance of universally accepted rules. So the game that could be called a prototype of soccer is known in England from the XI century. The official birthday of football-the year 1863, when the English Football Association adopted universal rules for football. Regarding to language this date cannot be determined (even approximately). De Saussure believed that language is a social product, a combination of essential conventions adopted by the collective to ensure implementation, functioning abilities of speech activities that has every native speaker. Although the language is a convention adopted by agreement, it formed naturally and independently from the will of the collective. Also a language changes spontaneously and randomly - it does not intend something (according to words of de Saussure).

The rules of sport were not artificially created originally; they had been repeatedly changing by the conditional agreement of the relevant sporting organization. Secondly, sport is a closed semiotic structure. The whole system of rules and relationships which can be qualified as a significant communicative organization aimed only for the service of sport itself. The language is a great mediator. This is not only a mean of communication between people; language establishes relationships of men with the world and with himself. Thirdly, sport is a visual sign system. Texts of such kind are primary in relation to the sign. Visual text is not discrete and does not break into signs, but divides into different characteristics. In a language the sign is always primary. Signs written in a certain sequence form a discrete linguistic text.

The next stage in the structural analysis of sport will be studying of the competition, which is in the semiotic structure of sport category named the content. In Linguistics, language as the form is contrasted by speech and its activity, expressing the content. De Saussure determined speech as an individual act of will and mind, including:

a) Combinations in which the speaker uses the language code to express its thoughts;

b) Psychophysical mechanism, allowing him to objectify these combinations.

The combination is a sports term that has the same meaning as in Linguistics, and if speaking about psychophysical mechanism we will mean the body movement (running, jumping, dribbling, throws, blows, etc.) used in sport for these combinations, the definition of Saussure completely captures the essence of sporting competition. Anyway speech is purely a linguistic term and is not really suitable for use in a sporting context, even semiotic. In Linguistics, is also used the term "text": separated articulated hypostasis of speech (according to the phrase by Lotman). In semiotics, the term text is has much broader meaning than in Linguistics. Semiotics interprets the text as a communicative act, transmission of messages, and content of statement and in this sense it is suitable for structural analysis of the content categories in sport.

The content of sport is a competition-physical contest of two or more opponents. In sport there cannot be an individual act of expression. The actual content of the competition, the essence of sporting contest, suppose the presence of the opponent. Even if an athlete is making a single attempt to establish the record of divingor lifting on a balloon into the stratosphere, he competes not only with himself, but with the opponent who has made the previous record.

Sport originally is a communication system that exists only as a collective act of expression and calling not only the sense function of the text, but also its meaning, interpretation. This is one of the main principles of sport as a semiotic structure. Sport can be denoted exactly because it is a collective product, a communicative system. In the semiotic structure of sport the category content is represented in the physical (body) competition. The denoted one here becomes the body of an athlete: gestures, moves, postures acquire the meaning of a sign. To express some content, these signs should line up in a certain sintagmatic row - the code, to acquire the sense, the meaning. Competition always involves an opponent, therefore the code of one athlete faces with anothers one (or with many). To get the necessary result-the victory in the competition- each of the opponents does best to outdo the other: to realize his code and to destroy enemy's code. The interaction of these codes forms the text of  the competition, which is perceived by the audience. The main points that determine the codes and the text of the competition are opponents' idea (intention) and the implementation of this plan. Dynamic interaction of these moments, their struggles determines the nature of the text, make up the main content of the competition.

Compulsory presence of an opponent and his code defines the dialog of the competition text. In Linguistics, dialog relations are relations between all sorts of utterances in speech communication. Russian linguist MM Bakhtin presents this definition: "Any two statements if we compare them in semantic plane will be in dialog relation" [6]. In the semiotic structure of sport dialogical interaction of codes of the opponents does not exhaust dialogic relations of the competition text. Dialogic relations include all participants of the competition: athletes, judges and spectators. Bakhtin philosophically represented text as an expression of consciousness, something reflective (subjective reflection of the objective world). When the text becomes an object of our cognition, we may talk about the reflection of the reflection. This definition, in our view, expresses the essence of sports text. The rules of the competition, representing the category of the form in sport, are always objective - they are, as given, are independent from the will of the players. The competition itself, being as a content of sport, is always subjective, because it includes the contrary not only in the process itself (the opponents), but also in its assessment (the fans). The result of the contest, expressing in the sport the category of the meaning has dual content: it is objective in its form-as a necessary result of competition and subjective in its content-as an ambiguous reflection of the result.

Sports competition can have many different forms: a single match or mileage, two-rounded match (at home and visiting), a qualifying tournament for the championship, the championship itself, consisting of a certain number of rounds, etc. As defined by the Eco, the structure will have a meaning if it functions as the code that can generate various messages. "The position can be structured if it meets the following two conditions: it must be a system with intercom; and this connection, invisible when viewing a single system can be found while examining its transformations, due to which in two different systems can be found commonalities" [7]. Commonalities which are inherent to any contest are a system of lottery or a format (match, tournament, and championship), the event itself and outcome (final result). The necessary conditions for competition are - all participants before the start are on an equal position, and after finish the only winner is brought out. Competitions, as a rule, consist of several stages and are not limited with only one stage. Such long competitions cannot not be visual by way of perception, thus the content of the competition is passed as a verbal description or formed as a table or a protocol, which is essentially the same written text. Such a text can be represented as an inter text, describing the content of the competition by the means of common language.

Sport is represented as a visual sign structure with a closed system of communicative relations. This is the peculiarity of sport in comparison with language and other semiotic structures. We will define visual communication of competition as the "visual sports text”. Sports competition is a single semantic unit, in which the visual sports text is seized by the audience in its pure form (perceived directly), and fixed a certain result. In sports, directly related to sport games, such a separate sports event is called the "game”. The term game is multi-valued and is used in different contexts. The term "game” denotes any sports event as a unit of competition. Visual sports text can be perceived directly within a certain time interval between the beginning and the end of the game. The game is limited by temporary, spatial or conditional scopes (90 minutes, 100 meters of the race, a player or a team gaining the required amount of points first). The result of the game becomes a part of the sports text of the competition and has an impact on the determination of the winner. A game can be divided into smaller units (round, period, time) and the results of these units add up to the overall outcome of the competition. The intermediate nature of a game in relation to competition, does not change its conditions: it (the game) always starts with score 0:0, although it admits dead heat final outcome. The competition may coincide with the game, if it consists of one stage, or takes place in a short period of time. Visual sports text consists of interaction between participants' codes of sports game. The minimum number of codes is-two (boxing, tennis, chess), the maximum is not limited (mass marathons involve thousands of people).

There are two types of sports visual codes. In the first case, the competitors are present in the game simultaneously. Interaction of opponents' codes takes place directly here- athlete’s code varies depending on the opponent's code. This code we define as the diacode. As well as in dialogue, there can be two or more participants of diacode. The second case: the opponents in the game are presented not simultaneously but one by one. One athlete (or a team) appears on the sports ground with the previously prepared code. Code interaction occurs indirectly-competitors do not interfere in each other’s codes. This is what we call monocode. Monocode can be represented by two athletes (pair skating) or more (group synchronized swimming). A necessary condition here is one team affiliation. The text of the game is always represented by the whole product - it does not matter whether it is formed of diacodes or monocodes.

As mentioned above, sport is a closed conditional gaming communicational sign system. Visual sign structures that make up codes, text and language of sports, we define as Basic. In sport, there are another signs serving for the basic sign structures. Generally, any item that is included into sports competition is a sign by its nature. These signs we call subsidiary. There is a great amount of subsidiary signs: pucks, sticks, balls, rackets, skates, football boots, form and its color, emblems of clubs or coats of arms of the country on this form, sports grounds and stadiums, scoreboards, gestures of referees, red and yellow cards, scarves, fan hats and jerseys with paraphernalia of their favorite club, etc.

A process in which something functions as a sign, Morris called semiosis. Semiosis involves three factors: the thing that appears as a sign (significant mean by Morris's classification); the thing that indicates the sign (designat); the impact, in virtue of which the relevant thing turns to interpreter as a sign (interpretant). Based on these three members of the ternary relations of semiosis, Morris examines binary relations: of one signs with the others (sintactic dimension of semiosis), signs to their objects (semantic dimension of semiosis) and signs to interpreters (pragmatic dimension of semiosis). Syntactics, semantics and pragmatics are involved in studying of these measurements [8]. From the position of our study, we note that syntactic studies the category of form, while pragmatics deals with content and semantics-meaning. Among other classifications of signs the best known is Peirce’s classification, which was based on the same principle of ternary. Ternary classification of Charles S. Pierce examines a sign in relation to itself, to the denoted object and towards interpretant [9] (Figure 1).

While the logical analysis of Pierce’s classification we should note that on each level-both the sign and its relations - there is a gradual (via representation) ascent from a simple form (compliance and submission) to the complex one (the convention and the law). A ternary principle of building this classification basically follows traditional notion of a sign, known as semiotic triangle [10]: There are many variants known, representing the semiotic triangle. According to Mechkovskaya, opened by stoics triad "the signified-the meaning-the thing” remains logical- semiotic invariant of searches or as  the coordinate axis of a single system. By its nature, this triangle expresses interaction of three categories, claimed us- form (the meaning), content (the thing) and values (the signified). These categories are present on each level of the semiotic structure-in sign, text and language (Figure 2).

A necessary condition of any semiotic system existence is the compulsory presence of categories of form, content and value. The triad serves a distinctive feature of semiotics comparing with other structural entities. Ratio of categories in each structural element changes and the forefront always becomes one of them, whether the form, content or value. Based on triadic classification of Pierce, we present a classification of sports signs, where each unit corresponds to a certain visual phenomenon of sports communication: There is also a group of signs classified as values, which we define as the key signs (Figure 3). The interrelation between these signs expresses the result of sports game. In linguistic literature this concept corresponds to the term "keyword". Regarding visual sports text key signs reflect the process of achieving a result, help to comprehend the meaning of the game better. Key signs reveal semantics of games, they belong to the category of value, and the value or the meaning in sport expresses the result. As in every sport result is determined in accordance with their specific rules and has a different manifestation, and then key signs gain different incarnation. In sports games key signs are productive actions that define the score of the match. In football and hockey they are goals, in basketball and volleyball-points, in athletics- seconds and centimeters, in weightlifting-kilograms and grams. The key signs are also the results of individual segments of a match: half, period, set.

On the second level of the perception of the game, when the visual sports text translates into graphic, the key signs are transformed into official technical protocol of the competition. The main function of the key signs is to specify the process of understanding. Key signs act as an expresser of common sense, the result of game, that combine the main content of the competition text. Thus, they contract information. The contracting occurs due to the "secondary” information, and the remaining one, provided by key signs, is the most significant. Lukin noted that these statements are true particularly concerning non-fiction texts [11]. The result, as a sign that expresses the value category, is the crucial  key sign. The entire text of the game can be contracted to a single result. In sports, there are several criteria to determine the result. Based on these criteria, all sports can be divided into a number of common groups and create a semiotic classification of sports, which would be based on the result as a sign that expresses the value category.

A Semiotic Classification of Sports According to the Criteria of the Outcome

a) Quantitative criteria of result. They include sports, where the winner is determined by objective indicators related to the system of measurement (the shortest time, maximum weight, the greatest height and length): athletics and weightlifting, skating, swimming, skiing, and cycling.

b) Qualitative assessment of results. Sports with subjective statements: figure skating, gymnastics, diving, boxing, wrestling.

c) Conditional criteria of determining the result. These are sports, where wins the team with the largest amount of conditional objective points (goals in football, points in basketball); or the smallest (penalty points in equestrian sport). They include all sports games.

d) Complex criteria of evaluation. Here can be combined: the quantitative, qualitative and conditional indicators (in various combinations) in ski jumping the length of the jump is added to the assessment of the jump technique. This group includes all the all-rounds, including different sports: modern pentathlon (combines equestrian, shooting, fencing, swimming, and cross), Nordic combined (ski jumping and ski race), biathlon (skiing and shooting).

Thus, the semiotic structure of sport is a unity of form, content and meaning. The same triadic division has any significant structure on any level of its building-in the sign, text and language. The category of form in the semiotic structure of sport is expressed in rules of the competition, which are language by its nature. The content is competitions that can be represented as a text, composed of athletes' codes. The meaning of sport comes down to identifying of a winner. In the semiotic structure of sports, we define it as a result expressing the category of value.

For More information click on the below link

https://juniperpublishers.com/jpfmts/JPFMTS.MS.ID.555585.php

For more information regarding journal click on the below link

Journal of Physical Fitness, Medicine & Treatment in Sports

For open access publishers click on the below link

Juniper Publishers

[mel-bct]

Informing my practice: Design thinking and Visual Communication

Using the experience I’ve developed in visual communication and brand design from the papers DIGM707 Web Media, DESN602 Visual Communication in Business, and my digital designer position in CfLAT, I have been able to broaden my skills as an artist and designer, and use these developed skills in the studio workspace this semester. My direction after university is to stay creative as that is the center of my being, and do this by being involved in graphic/digital design and visual art in my career. My goal this semester is to invest time in further developing my design skills, and expanding on my prior knowledge. I can then take these skills with me into my career and life after university.

What is Visual Communication?

By taking electives outside of BCT has helped me to develop my critical thinking around design from a different perspective that is associated in Creative Technologies - In particular, visual communication. 

Visual communication is communication through a visual aid and is described as the conveyance of ideas and information in forms that can be read or looked upon. Visual communication in part or whole relies on vision, and is primarily presented or expressed with two dimensional images, it includes: signs, typography, drawing, graphic design, illustration, Industrial Design, Advertising, Animation, colour and electronic resources. It also explores the idea that a visual message accompanying text has a greater power to inform, educate, or persuade a person or audience. 

To be a good designer (or visual communicator) is to understand the role communication plays. A good explanation of this comes from The Shannon and Weaver Model Of Communication: 

Image retrieved from:  Businesstopia in Communication. (2018). Shannon and Weaver Model Of Communication. Link here

(Continue reading below)

This model is an early example of communication from the 1940′s, it was created when Claude Elwood Shannon wrote an article “A Mathematical Theory of Communication” in Bell System Technical Journal with Warren Weaver. Shannon was an American mathematician whereas Weaver was a scientist. The Mathematical theory later came to be known as Shannon Weaver model of communication or “mother of all models.” This model is more technological than other liner models of communication. Businesstopia in Communication. (2018).

It breaks down the basic concepts of communication: 

Sender (Information source) – Sender is the person who makes the message, chooses the channel and sends the message.

Encoder (Transmitter) –Encoder is the sender who uses machine, which converts message into signals or binary data. It might also directly refer to the machine.

Channel –Channel is the medium used to send message.

Decoder (Receiver) – Decoder is the machine used to convert signals or binary data into message or the receiver who translates the message from signals.

Receiver (Destination) –Receiver is the person who gets the message or the place where the message must reach. The receiver provides feedback according to the message.

Noise –Noise is the physical disturbances like environment, people, etc. which does not let the message get to the receiver as what is sent.

In short it breaks down the key components of the communication process:  you have the sender, the message, the channel and the receiver. It is saying that communication has occurred when a message has been sent and received. The sender transmits info along a channel to a receiver. It is the exchange of information. 

This idea can be broken down further and explained in a liner way with The Emmert/Donaghy model of communication which elaborates on the Shannon and Weaver Model. 

Image retrieved from:  KHUGHESGRAPHICS. (2018). What is a Theory? Part 2, Emmert/ Donaghy: Model of Communication. Link here

The Emmert/Donaghy model acknowledges that communication always takes place in a context. This context includes the communicators themselves, as well as the physical, social-cultural, and technological environments through which messages pass. This recognition of context is especially important to the graphic designer. A designer has to decide how many variables within a given context the design will address, and which aspects of the overall context should be assigned the highest visual priority when they are in completion. It is the process in which the designer (communicator A) arranges information for the user (communicator B) to interpret. The quality of the design is judged by the designers ability to define the “problem” and communicate it in relation to its context. If the designer chooses to ignore critical aspects of the communication context, the design may fail. 

An even further break down of these ideas comes from  David Berlo, a communication theorist who provided a useful model for designers; The Process of Communication: An Introduction to Theory and Practice.

Image retrieved from:  Communication Theory. BERLO’S SMCR MODEL OF COMMUNICATION. Link here

He identifies the components of messages. Messages are what us designers communicate for our users. These messages take the form of physical elements: text, illustrations, photos, graphics, and symbols. These are the tangible forms of these messages from which the designer has made choices in developing. From this we have Structure - the arrangement or composition of elements. It not only represents the organisation of information, but the relationship they have to “the field of vision” (eg. on a page, on a screen or in the environment).

Understanding of these models

What I take away from these models is that as a designer/artist I may view the world differently than those in which I am designing for. I cannot assume my own perceptions and ideas will “match” or agree with my audience.  This is why the process of feedback and iteration of design is important. To prototype, test and develop the work I make is crucial in developing a thorough design that integrates well into context.  

I must also consider the messages I convey in my design, and consider their content, how they are structured, and how I treat (style or aestheticize) these messages. These factors all contribute to how the user will receive my information. 

I will use these models to inform my practice throughout this semester, by using them to critically analyse what I am producing for my users. 

References:

Foulger, D. (2004).  An Ecological Model of the Communication Process. Retrieved from: Here

Ludwig, K. Davis communication models. Retrieved from: Here

Communication Theory. BERLO’S SMCR MODEL OF COMMUNICATION. Link here

Khughesgraphics. (2018). What is a Theory? Part 2,  Emmert/ Donaghy: Model of Communication. Link here

Businesstopia in Communication. (2018). Shannon and Weaver Model Of Communication. Link here 

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

22 Apr 2019: Facebook wants to be regulated, why meal kit companies fail, and finding AI bias

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

[Image: Lindsay Obermeyer]

Facebook wants to be regulated

Last month, Facebook’s Zuckerberg called for more regulation of content, election integrity, privacy and data portability. The charitable reading of this is that he wants to make FB better, fairer, and less data-exploitive. The uncharitable reading: because more regulation means more compliance process, activities and people, large companies are usually better placed to handle it well, so regulation becomes a defensive moat that helps large incumbents vs their competitors.

(Good and bad Facebook: it will ban several of Britain's most prominent far-right pages for "spreading hate". FB says that it 'unintentionally uploaded' the email contacts of 1.5m users since May 2016. Facebook still not effectively understanding what's going onto its platform.)

Anyway, the UK Gov might have been listening because it has published its Online Harms white paper, and is seeking feedback on it until July.

“The new regulatory framework this White Paper describes will set clear standards to help companies ensure safety of users while protecting freedom of expression, especially in the context of harmful content or activity that may not cross the criminal threshold but can be particularly damaging to children or other vulnerable users. It will promote a culture of continuous improvement among companies, and encourage them to develop and share new technological solutions rather than complying with minimum requirements.”

Elsewhere in regulation, the pharmacy regulator has set new safety rules for the online sale of medicines.

Why meal kit companies fail

Meal kit businesses are complex and have a lot of cost: “The Achilles heel of meal-kit companies is that the business has exceptionally high customer acquisition costs, high operational and supply-chain costs, high logistics costs and low customer retention.” This means that, once the initial discounts end, the service feels too expensive.

On top of that, people are less likely to plan meals ahead, so delivered kits are fighting a broader trend: “Dinner is often a last-minute decision and sometimes people just don’t want to decide [what to eat] a week before”. Making meal kits in grocery stores may help because it gets round this second problem: people pop to the local shop to grab tonight’s dinner and see a kit that makes the meal even more convenient.

Finding AI bias

Ben Evans wrote a good piece exploring the nature of machine learning systems and what it means to talk about AI bias, and concluded:

“ML finds patterns in data - what patterns depends on the data, and the data is up to us, and what we do with it is up to us. Machine learning is much better at doing certain things than people, just as a dog is much better at finding drugs than people, but you wouldn’t convict someone on a dog’s evidence. And dogs are much more intelligent than any machine learning.”

One concern about machine learning is that they’re black boxes - it’s hard to look inside them to see how and why they’re finding patterns or making decisions. His counter-argument is that, well, everything else is a bit black-boxy too - or certainly everything else that involves a human or groups of humans. He’s right that “AI” is just a capability, an indifferent tech layer that can be done well or badly, and that the problems belong to the human layer: is the model good?, is the data good? etc.

Buuut the reason why people talk about AI bias is that many of the commonly-cited use cases for AI involve it replacing humans in tasks that involves complex decisions, judgements, for example like this... actual... judge.

Related: “So we’re ending the council and going back to the drawing board” - Google ends AI ethics board after one week.

Health data

NHSX will mandate tech and data standards across the NHS, so that “our systems can talk to each other. This will save time, money and ultimately lives.” NHSX leads digital transformation efforts across health and social care.

Amazon Alexa can now be used for patient medical data in the US. Some new Alexa skills are now HIPAA-compliant - HIPAA is a US health privacy law/standard for secure access to patient data. (So you might wonder how secure services are which don’t use the HIPAA-compliant Alexa skills…)

Cheaper electric cars

Bloomberg reckons that by 2022 the up front cost of electric vehicles will be lower than for combustion vehicles - battery technology is getting better and a lot cheaper. If you leave aside the important emissions benefits for a second, the tricky maths for today’s car buyer is whether the lower maintenance and running costs of an electric vehicle would outweigh the higher up-front purchase cost. So if this prediction is true a lot of EVs are going to be sold and leased.

Parking garages with loads of cameras to tell you where there’s a free space and remind you where you parked.

Other news

“Marketers have brought this upon themselves. We’re overloaded, we’re not paying attention. We have to hear it from a trusted source before we’ll click. So nothing lights a fire on the internet overnight. Which means that big publicity campaigns fall flat. And if you can see the sell beneath the supposed event, people are turned off.” - virality is over in the age of fractured attention.

“For every minute Ms. Wojcicki spent discussing it, users uploaded to the site an additional 500 hours of footage.” - content moderation at YouTube’s scale (Wojcicki leads YT).

“Our industry has much to do” - British Interactive Media Association’s Tech and Inclusion report.

“With Security Keys, instead of the *user* needing to verify the site, the *site* has to prove itself to the key. Security is as much about human factors as cryptography” - a good explanation of using security keys to minimise the risks of “phishing”. If the account is important (or one you’d use to regain access to your *other* accounts, like an email address), then getting a hardware 2 factor authentication token is a lot better than relying on text message-based 2FA.

“The card in the photo still displays the @monzo BIN (5355 22) and the name of one of our staff members…” - in the gap between designing a new thing and design about a new thing, there are sometimes mistakes.

"face the ball to be the ball to be above the ball" - an AI generated a new sport for humans from the rules of many other sports. TBH, it sounds better than the sports that humans typically design for machines, like “perform this task without end”.

Co-op Digital news

18 months on: our Digital Technology Operations team - the cloud cost dashboard is great.

Lessons learnt by a non-digital colleague: the benefits of agile ways of working - featuring the sterling work of Richard Sullivan, the newsletter’s most committed collaborator.

Events

Funeralcare show & tell - Tue 23 Apr 1pm at Angel Square 12th floor.

CMO CRM show & tell - Tue 23 Apr 2pm at Angel Square 13th floor.

Line managers' drop-in clinic - Tue 23 Apr 2pm at Federation House 5th floor.

#public_speaking club - development session - Wed 24 Apr 12pm at Federation House 5th floor.

Data management show & tell - Thu 25 Apr 3pm at Angel Square 13th floor.

Northern Policy Forum presents: What makes a place? - Thu 25 Apr 6pm at Federation House.

Membership show & tell - Fri 26 Apr 3pm at Federation House 6th floor.

Azure global bootcamp - Sat 27 Apr 9am at Federation House.

Joy Diversion, a day exploring, mapping and wandering in Manchester and Salford - Sat 27 Apr 11am at Federation House.

Delivery community of practice meetup - Mon 29 Apr 1.30pm at Federation House.

Year 8 Routes to Employment - Tue 30 Apr 8am at Co-op Academy Leeds, Stoney Rock Lane, Leeds LS9 7HD.

Food ecommerce show & tell - Tue 30 Apr 1.30pm at Federation House 5th floor.

Health team show & tell - Tue 30 Apr 2pm at Federation House 5th floor.

Line managers' drop-in clinic - Tue 30 Apr 2pm at Federation House 5th floor.

Web team show & tell - Tue 30 Apr at Federation House 6th floor.

Saving The Environment With Data - Tue 30 Apr 6.30pm at Federation House.

Co-operate show & tell - Wed 1 May 10am at Federation House 6th floor.

Data ecosystem show & tell - Wed 1 May 3pm at Angel Square 13th floor.

AMA: How to Learn, Sell and Run Design Sprints - Wed 1 May 3pm at Federation House.

Membership show & tell - Fri 3 May 3pm at Federation House 6th floor.

More events at Federation House - and you can contact the events team at  federation.events@coopdigital.co.uk. And TechNW has a useful calendar of events happening in the North West.

Thank you for reading

Thank you, clever and considerate readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to the newsletterbot’s flunky @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading please tell a friend!

If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog.

[jakeboleygraphicsfmp]

‘Lost & Found’ Part 3

Relief block printing

Handout:

Context:

In this last ‘Lost & Found’ workshop, I was looking at another printing technique, this time I was investigating the traditional wooden block relief printing. Having looked at how physical objects/materials could be used to create an entire typeface, here I was focusing on how I could use physical wooden blocks to physically print type. 

In all 3 of the different workshops, they are connected through the idea of assemblage and how things are arranged together. This workshop is also a combination of the two previous workshops by looking at merging physical type and printmaking together.

Influenced by the designer David Carson who’s work is best known for his use of experimental typography. My aim was to produce a series of typographic prints using wooden block letters to create interesting textural outcomes that captured the essence of two chosen words.

David Carson

About:

David Carson, born September 8, 1955, in Texas, USA is an American contemporary graphic designer and art director. His unconventional and experimental graphic style revolutionized the graphic designing scene in America during the 1990s. He came to graphic design relatively late in life, previously being a competitive surfer, ranked eighth in the world. Now he is claimed to be the godfather of ‘grunge typography’.

With surfing being a general part of Carson’s life, it has played a great role in his design career. It is one of the reasons for his motivation and success, designing various surfing, snowboarding and skateboarding magazines, websites, ads for brands like Quiksilver, Burton, SURFportugal, TwSkateboarding, etc.

Style- Experimental type

Carson is a very experimental designer, going out his way to take risks and thus, creates unique designs.  His work is very noisy and expressive often breaking the principles of graphic design that has resulted in him gaining major success. Best known for his experimental type, his work has been described disorganised yet unmistakable by having its own purpose of creating emotion and expressing ideas. 

Known as ‘the Godfather of grunge typography’ his work appears to be very messy and chaotic, however, every factor is considered and often uses limited colour palettes to restrict confusion. His work mainly consists of unusual ways of presenting type which he combines with textures, backgrounds and imagery to form posters, magazines. The most iconic example of the Grunge style is the Ray Gun magazine, designed by Carson in 1993. He inspired a new generation of young designers to express themselves and experiment with new techniques. Alot of Carson’s work consists of overlapping, collaging typography to create exciting compositions either doing this digitally or using printmaking techniques to explore with texture. The print process he often used and is very familiar with is block print (letterpress), allowing the opportunity to overlap and overlay typography without losing any information.

Carson’s 5 useful design tips: 

https://blog.flipsnack.com/5-useful-design-tips-from-the-father-of-grunge-david-carson/

Know your audience

Emotional typography

Visual communication

Get inspiration from your daily life

Break the rules, but still respect them

Similar to Rauschenberg’s work, both artists work use a variation of collage techniques to construct chaotic artworks in a controlled and considered manner to dictate how it is read and portrayed.

"Don’t mistake legibility for communication”

Above is a quote by David Carson, here he is discussing the idea of the readability of a letter being mistaken for communication. I think he is suggesting that just because a letter may not be legible it doesn't mean it can't communicate anything. I also think that by being legible people may overlook a hidden message within the letter because they don't think it can communicate more than one thing. I think Carson is trying to state that people mistake legibility by seeing unclear letters rather than a letter that is trying to communicate something. As well as this, I believe Carson is suggesting how typography is used too literal by people taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or exaggeration. The message I think Carson is trying to put across is that typography can be used as image to create interesting structures, shapes and messages through individual words and letters. By doing this, the rules of typography can be disregarded and often make letters less functional but instead can express different emotions, messages etc.

Key terms:

Relief printing: A process consisting of cutting or etching a printing surface in such a way that all that remains of the original surface is the design to be printed. Examples of relief-printing processes include woodcut, etching, linocut, and metal cut.

Letterpress: Printing from a hard raised image under pressure, using viscous ink.

Aims/objectives:

Create a series of typographic prints experimenting with colour, position, size to create new interpretations, meanings.

Created prints inspired by Carson reflecting his style and the idea of overlaying.

Use the letterpress techniques to create typographic outcomes as effective imagery rather than readable text.

Tools:

Oil-based ink

Ink roller

Palette knife

Cartridge paper

Wooden blocks (letters)

Newspaper

White spirit

Cloths

Albion or Columbian press

Task:

Task 1- Choose:

One of the aims of this workshop included capturing the essence of two chosen words. As the first task, I had to select two words that corresponded each other which I could print to communicate interesting/alternate meanings and juxtapositioning.

Words:

Trial & Error / Strenght & Weakness / Names & Faces / Bits & Pieces / Quiet & Loud / Beauty & Beast / Forwards & Backwards / Order & Chaos / Lost & Found / Winners & Losers / Strong & Weak / Positve & Negative / Time & Place.

Out of all the above, I chose Loud & Quiet, these are two words that cannot be visually shown due to them being volumes of sound, however, I thought it would be interesting to experiment with them by using size, colour, positioning to communicate them instead.

Task 2- Print, Print, Print

Relief printing is a process I am familiar with and have done plenty of times before in previous workshops. As a result of this, I knew the process of printing and also had some stored knowledge about what to consider when printing.

The direction of type and individual letters- when relief printing everything is flipped meaning words and letters should all read the opposite way.

Amount of ink- a well layered, even coat to ensure nice, consistent prints.

Amount of packing- having an appropriate amount so that it is secure enough to ensure an even, well-pressed print but not too tight that the blocks leave indents in the paper.

Before printing, I had to prepare some letters to use from a range of typeface trays. These trays consisted of a huge variety of styles and sizes, in which I chose a few different to play around with when printing. Once I had found some letters to make up my 2 words I had to move on to the printing stages.

I started the printing process by rolling out some different coloured inks, when doing this I selected a maximum of 4 colours sticking to Carson’s limited colour palette principle. Once I had my inks and block letters ready, I jumped onto the Albion press and began to lay my letters out considering how I could reflect Carson’s abstracted compositions. When I was happy, I used an ink roller to apply an even coat of colour on each block individually and placed them where I picked them up from. Ensuring everything was in the right place and as central as possible, I laid a sheet of cartridge paper over my composition, placed the correct amount of packing in and lifted the lid down ready to print. Next, I simply pulled the handle to print and then reversed the process to reveal my prints. 

Task 3- Develop

After creating some basic, quite plain prints I then started to use other typefaces to acquire different styles, sizes into my existing prints. With these, I began to overprint/collage thinking about how I could alter the positions, orders, directions of the words/letter to communicate different meanings of ‘quiet’ and ‘loud’.

The process of overlapping is a technique generated in part 2 and 3 of these ‘Lost & Found’ workshops which were inspired by both artists; Robert Rauschenberg and David Carson. This whole idea of overlapping also relates back to the whole theme of assemblage from the original collection and presentation of my 10 objects and is something I would like to explore going forward.

Review:

Considering David Carson’s quote how successful is the work you have created?

I think my work is to somewhat successful in consideration to Carson’s quote. I think I captured the essence of my chosen words by using a mixture of legibility, colour and typeface to portray their meanings. To do this, I used a mixture of colour and typeface which I combined with a sense of disorganisation. The way in which I used colour consisted of printing the word ‘loud’ in the most vibrant colour in order to stand out against the word ‘quiet’. In terms of typeface selection, I tried to use the more ‘blocky’ typefaces for the word ‘loud’ and use the more delicate fonts for the word ‘quiet’. Choosing two words that were judged on sound, I had to communicate the essence by making one more dominant and powerful than the other to communicate the volume. One factor I didn’t explore that could have worked nicely is the size of the word, using smaller and taller text to suggest the amplification. Relating back to Carson’s quote, I used these techniques to differ the legibility of the words and suggest/communicate their meaning looking past the idea of just reading what the word says.

In my outcomes, I also tried to represent Carson’s style through the use of layering, limitation of colour as well as modifications to orientation and order. Using layering of type and differing the orientation and position of letters changed how my words were read suggesting different messages.

What message do you think your work conveys?

Outcome on left: 

I think this outcome portrays the idea of loud noise dominating and covering up quietness. This is posed by the strong, vibrant orange letters that stand out above the subtle pink letters which almost lie behind the word ‘loud’ due to the use of layering. The orange almost seems to be sitting on top of the pink due to the pink being lost in the overlapping areas. At first glance, the words don’t read legibly however, one thing that is noticeable is the boldness of the orange which communicates the ‘loudness’ of the word.

How could you incorporate this work with another set of materials and processes?

Using the risograph or screenprinting to produced layered compositions of shape, embedded with texture.

Similar to Rauschenberg, Carson is an artist that explores assemblage, using layering to communicate deeper messages. Both artists’ works seem as if they have been randomly produced without any intention, however, they both consider factors which may manipulate the way it is read by the audience. On the other hand, both artists use very different approaches in terms of what they are presenting. Carson dedicates his work to using type in experimental ways, whereas Rauschenberg focuses more on the shape and photographic sources. In response to this workshop, I would like to push myself further to experimenting with how I could use both artists focal areas (type, shape and photographic sources) together to create new exciting work.

Reflection

Completing this workshop, got me thinking about how I could use typography experimentally and not so literally to create type that can read and also suggest other meanings or messages. 

How typographic rules can be broken to communicate new ideas, meanings

Looking past the conventional way of using type and pushing it to its limits

How printing processes can be used to create an accidental effect that can’t be produced digitally

Potentials

Use type experimentally moving forward in practical experiments rather than conventionally

Push printing processes to embrace the effect and communication of ideas create by overlapping/overlaying, collage

Work in layers to produce unintentional effects

Links

Rauschenberg’s and Carson’s similar stylistic approach- Experimental

Assemblage- Collage, arrangement/positioning of layers

Merging physical type and printmaking from 2 previous ‘Lost&Found’ workshops

[mild-lunacy]

TFP explained (YMMV)

monalisa72 replied to your post: What is a plausible theory?

So looking at your older post, you talk about checking to see whether a theory fits the plot arc, whether a reading integrates with character development. What do you do when faced with a canon like TFP, where things have gone so off the rails that it seems we’re expected to suspend even the laws of physics? How do we determine what is a reasonable theory when faced with implausible canon?

This is hard for me to answer, ‘cause I have to assume and integrate a response that I just didn’t have as a viewer, myself. Still, I’ve been trying!  

Basically: separate what’s implausible from what’s not your headcanon, a genre mismatch issue, or simply flawed execution of a fundamentally sound resolution on its own terms. A critique can coexist with comprehension, or seeing how a development does fit into Sherlock’s arc... even if it’s not the way I would have done it. I’m sure confused people would prefer more details, though.

The ‘laws of physics’ or genre issues.

Like I said in response to @marsdaydream’s post, I don’t think it’s so out of nowhere or shocking as all that, genre-wise; however, I admitted in response to @silentauroriamthereal’s plot-hole post that certain things (like, for example, jumping out of 221b) were hand-waved too easily, and we weren’t meant to think too much, which is lazy. 

Basically: you’re not supposed to suspend physics, I think? Just... Mofftiss want the audience to squint a bit, but they did that in TAB and TLD too (just in different ways, so in that sense I find TFP continuous and/or the problem to have started around Series 3, as @porcupine-girl described). However, Series 3 and Series 4 have pretty significant genre continuity. Obviously, YMMV.

Moriarty use issues and/or why is it even ‘The Final Problem’, anyway.

I answered this in my comment on Ivy’s post. A lot of this is people being unhappy with how Moriarty is used, which I can only shrug at. I changed my mind about Moriarty being alive with TAB, and in my last farewell to that theory, I mentioned that it made sense that the ‘Act II villain’ would be a lot more grey than the Act I ‘black and white’ villain like Moriarty.  

Essentially, in TFP, Moriarty is still 'the virus in the data' at Sherrinford just as he actually was at the end of HLV, so that TAB clearly provides a fair amount of foreshadowing in this regard.

Note: some people thought this meant Mary would be the Big Bad, but I thought this was unlikely ‘cause she was never really the type to think on a grand scale of villainy; she’s only concerned with herself, which is not how a Big Bad operates. Basically, like Ivy said, Mary just makes really bad knee-jerk decisions. Neither Moriarty nor Mary were cut out to be the ‘Final Problem’ in this show.

Eurus being too deus ex machina, out-of-nowhere and too powerful.

In many ways, that’s a valid critique. I do wish they’d set it up better and planned out the show better in general. I agree with @girlofthemirror about Moffat and Gatiss’s intent and the entire interest in Sherlock’s origins being difficult to accomplish in an open-ended serialized context, so this is partly an issue with execution, and partly a structural concern. 

I still agree with Ivy that TFP plausibly addressed Sherlock’s relationship and intimacy issues as part of his arc, so it’s not out-of-nowhere and it fits, even if it’s a retcon and therefore distasteful.

Sherlock’s childhood issues and/or his arc being in response to Eurus being too much of a retcon, not enough attention paid to realism.

As I mentioned re: Eurus, I’m probably most sympathetic to this. It is a retcon, and it is problematic structurally. Still, as I said about this earlier, what ‘made’ Sherlock the way he is was always a question (particularly in TAB), and so there was set-up. As I agreed later in the thread, you can critique the writing, you can say this is an unfortunate direction for them to have gone, but past trauma has certainly been a hinted at potential for awhile now (see: Redbeard in TSoT). 

The issue with realism and the trauma not being shown continuously... that’s more about personal priorities. If one’s suspension of disbelief breaks based on psychological realism and the lack thereof, that’s more or less a genre mismatch thing. I still respect @porcupine-girl’s argument that a Sherlock Holmes story also requires really strong ‘archplot’ type causality because of his very nature as a force of deductive reasoning. All I can say is that while I relate, it’s still a personal priority as a Holmes fan. Sherlock the character in BBC Sherlock has never really been as fundamentally rational as ACD Holmes (see: Sherlock’s presentation of himself as a pirate in TFP). BBC Sherlock is a ridiculous man in a ridiculous show, more or less.

As in the thread critiquing TFP on these grounds, I still have mixed feelings about this. It depends so much on what kind of thing you consider to be ‘enough’ or the right kind or degree of realism, and I don’t think stories are necessary to judge on that metric in any case. 

Some of people’s responses are probably generated in part because Sherlock has only shown continuous and intense psychological consequences in response to John, because John is his ‘conductor of light’ in all ways, realistic or not. Still, for what it’s worth, Victor mirrors John.

The ‘plot holes’ like John’s chained feet (or John’s letter in TST).

I’ve explained why I don’t think the letter is an instance of ‘Chekhov’s gun’ or even a plot-hole (though it depends how you define it). Overall, sometimes there are definitely some (or many) plot-holes, but it’s a genre and/or writing style thing which has always been there on Sherlock. Trying to fill in plot-holes to force the plot to line up too much is probably less rational than letting them be, but YMMV.

In general, I agree with many details in @thecutteralicia’s comment in that list of people’s nitpicks of the show, particularly that they are often simply opinions in disguise (though we obviously disagree on actual fandom-related opinions). 

The characterization stuff like Sherlock not following ‘Vatican Cameos’ or John not being worried enough about Sherlock’s solution to the John vs Mycroft scenario at Sherrinford, Sherlock being called ‘the adult’, etc.

The two of them being in ‘soldier mode’ explains a lot; like I said initially, I read TFP as John being back to the ‘good old days’ after they’d resolved their major issues at the end of TLD, so what do people really expect? This is definitely an issue with people’s characterization headcanons conflicting. 

As for Sherlock... initially I said that this is just Sherlock still thinking he can handle it himself when push comes to shove (he didn’t lose all his old flaws), but you can also argue that’s Eurus’s canonical effect in play.

Sherlock being called ‘the adult’ by his mum when she’s mad at Mycroft doesn’t seem too surprising to me. She’s upset with Mycroft. (Of course, a lot of things don’t seem too surprising or implausible to me... the same old caveat.)

Sherlock and John’s relationship overall being too shallow/not close enough compared to the other eps.

This is more subjective, obviously. All I can say is that I didn’t see it that way, and I still agree with Ivy that the natural conclusion of TLD is implicit Johnlock, which makes them a solid unit and a ‘family’ in TFP. Even in the platonic partnership sense, they are not as distant or estranged as they have been in Series 3 and most of Series for by TFP.  

Specifically, they have planned their little prank on Mycroft together and it was John’s idea (which is huge!) The sheer casualness of Sherlock saying John’s family and John accepting it is unprecedented, even if it’s always been true. And John actually calling Sherlock to watch the emotionally-loaded second message from Mary, because they share these things, they’re honest with each other now... and they coparent. That isn’t shallow. That is real intimacy, sans drama.

I also agree with Ivy that the Johnlock-friendly reading certainly requires one to fill some blanks and read between the lines, and this requires one to either disregard what they say or simply focus entirely on the text. One can certainly do that easily enough, even if I find the lack of confirmation frustrating and problematic. So yeah, once again, as with any shippy reading issue, YMMV (although I still think Johnlock is unique in the way it makes the story work).

In the case of BBC Sherlock, Authorial Intent is very hard to discern properly and is only important socially in fandom. It definitely seems like intent and what’s on the actual show have... diverged at some point. It’s certainly quite possible to disregard it and see Johnlock in TFP, and I have done an implicit Johnlock reading myself.  

The use of Mary and/or Mary narrating the last few minutes.

I agree with Ivy that the narration isn’t a big deal, and ‘someone had to narrate it’. I realize that plenty of people think John ‘should’ have narrated for various reasons, but that is an opinion. It is not a fact.

Mary’s resolution in TST was complicated in many ways, and reasonable people may disagree. Only addressing her role in TFP: it was minor. YMMV.

The marketing and Series 4/TFP promotion mismatch and/or TFP not ‘making history’.

I wouldn’t trust promos; promos aren’t really trying to be honest and reflect what actually happens so much as drum up excitement. In regards to the specific promo pic promoting TFP, it does make sense on the metaphorical level as a reflection of the plot. 

I also find it plausible that Mofftiss would have thought that the new take on Holmes’s past is groundbreaking, because I think they’re kind of self-involved, like @gloriascott93 suggested.

Well, this is probably more or less the best I can do. I’m definitely still game for answering more specific questions or concerns if people have any. I do have more caveats about the limitations of anyone explicating plausibility in a text as polarizing as this one, though. At certain point, the divergence in fannish priorities and in the audience response is just too deep. Alas.

Still, understanding and integrating other people’s responses to fiction was always sort of my hobby in fandom, so I tried. However, there’s only so far I can go in like, addressing the concerns of people who fundamentally process things differently and/or have fundamentally different expectations for fiction or interpretations of the characters. Like, for example, do you think Ivy and Archie’s debate about Mary can ever be resolved? I use that as an example because these are probably the two people in fandom whose readings of canon I trust the most deeply and have relied on in my own analysis the most frequently. I suppose that’s more evidence there’s something insidious about Series 4, something wrong, if two people whose readings I always respect and admire so deeply can be so far apart.

At the same time... I feel like a lot of the stuff Archie said there is colored by her subjective response to Mary and her brand of manipulativeness/emotional abusiveness to John (and Sherlock). That’s a valid response, but it also a subjective issue that colors analysis, surely. With Ivy, she’s on the other end of the spectrum, closer to where I am-- focused heavily on pure close reading, trying to see what the characters are trying to say, what sense can be made of their behavior with the intent to integrate it into an arc. So I myself do see both their perspectives as valid, but at the same time, I’m pretty sure they’re irreconcilable. To get to Ivy’s reading, I think one needs that underlying desire and the openness to being wrong or having an incomplete reading, not to mention a blissful disregard for Authorial Intent. Basically, I think reader/viewer response and their inherent biases count for as much as the textual inadequacies and actual continuity of characterization or plot issues.

Anyway, like I’ve said, I get that TFP ‘feels’ wrong to people on a very basic level, but I also think there’s very good structural reasons why it’s not. However, I definitely think the writing has pretty deep-rooted structural problems, and I take @girlofthemirror and @plaidadder’s critique of the self-indulgent writing as well as the pacing issues @plaidadder highlights in TFP seriously. This, even though I align with Ivy’s reading of TFP and its ‘purpose’. I see all these problems, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand or that I didn’t enjoy it. As I said to start with, I feel that critique is separate from understanding or enjoyment-- mostly because I can separate what I wanted or expected from what I can understand, or even see in the context of the larger arc if I reevaluated some of my assumptions, like with Mary. Like I said about this sort of analysis earlier, this is a difficult and drawn-out process that sometimes involves simply... changing your mind about things that were dear to you. You have to be willing to do that in order to integrate things that give you trouble initially, basically.

I think that for most people who’re not as obsessively committed to the process as I am, the cognitive dissonance that truly recalibrating one’s reading to fit new canon requires is probably too painful. I tried to redo my reading of ASiB recently, and that wasn’t so bad, but I’d already given up on the explicitly Johnlocky reading by that point. I think I’d be more upset if I could convince myself that Sherlock was into Irene for real or was straight somehow, but that’s... not possible. If nothing else, ASiB is too ambiguous and all the suggestiveness is between John and Sherlock if you take even a peek beneath the surface. No surprises there. Still, that’s pretty typical: there’s usually good news to go with the bad news. It depends how far you’re willing to bend and how genuinely interested you are in what the show is ‘really’ like, stripped of many of the preconceptions behind the stuff you may have liked about it to start with. 

For example, with most of the Johnlocky readings-- some were probably not there and/or it wasn’t that straightforward, while some of it was actually blatant, like Gatiss intentionally ‘flirting with homoeroticism’. Some things were certainly unintentional, and some weren’t the work of Mofftiss but apparently added in by the actors. There’s an alchemy involved in what makes up the show, beyond anything I ever imagined, that’s for sure. In a way, that makes it more beautiful to me, though. That’s true even though I’m still annoyed at being seen as the crazy one. Johnlock is like that tree falling in the forest: if no one notices, admits, or cares that you’re being rigorous and rational, does it matter?

Well... it does to me? I just putter along, one piece of the puzzle at a time.

In the end, a reasonable theory is about integration into the arc secondarily. First, any solid theory has to simply be reasonable. In other words, ideally, it’s the most elegant, least elaborate explanation for the facts as they develop. There’s usually at least a thin path from A to B that’s visible within the plot or characterization if you discard some underlying assumptions about the characters or the text. For example, as Ivy said so eloquently, John was in character in TLD, because that potential was always there, even if I agree with @materialofonebeing’s point that the show didn’t have to go there. But it is what it is, so here we are. Canon acceptance is the first step.

Essentially, canon can sometimes overturn or redefine itself, but a plausible theory still can’t overturn canon, or it becomes unreasonable and/or transformative. In other words, it becomes fanon rather than simply a close reading of the text. I do realize that TFP has retconned a lot of what seemed pretty solid about the show, so you have to simply decide to accept canon absolutely and redefine the puzzle. The puzzle itself may change: that is the prerogative of an ongoing canon, in that it can always ask the audience to expand their parameters for understanding. The audience can refuse and break the reader/author contract, or attempt to walk the new path even if it’s not in an expected or desired direction. If the new parameters hold together on the surface level first and foremost, then it works (even if it’s not ideal).

I’m really well-practiced at adjusting my expectations and recalibrating in response to new data, basically, so in general this means I can adjust what ‘plausibility’ means to some degree. YMMV.

[theconservativebrief]

The most explosive revelation in the newly released inspector general’s report on the FBI and the 2016 election is just three words long: “We’ll stop it.”

A few months before the 2016 election, FBI agent Peter Strzok sent the phrase in a response to FBI attorney Lisa Page, who’d texted him worried Trump might win. “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok reassured her. The two were having an affair at the time.

Strzok was in a position at the time to act on that promise. He was the deputy head of counterintelligence at the FBI, working on both the Trump-Russia probe and the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

Despite Strzok’s extremely inappropriate texting — it’s wildly improper for someone in his position to express animus or favoritism toward a particular candidate — the inspector general found no evidence that he acted on his text to Page.

“Our review did not find documentary or testimonial evidence directly connecting the political views these employees expressed in their text messages and instant messages to the investigative decisions we reviewed,” the IG report states.

But Republicans and the president’s media allies are spinning the revelation differently. They say that it backs up President Donald Trump’s argument that the FBI is a corrupt institution, out to get him for political reasons — that they tried to torpedo his campaign:

This is a story that requires careful parsing. There’s real wrongdoing here on Strzok’s part. He should not have said what he said. And there are real questions about why this text wasn’t disclosed to congressional investigators looking into similar issues.

But it also does not vindicate the president’s claim that the Russia investigation is a “witch hunt” launched by the FBI for political reasons.

Two things can be true at once.

Strzok and Page have been in the crosshairs of the White House and its defenders since the mid-December release of their personal messages. In the messages, neither of them making any secret about their hatred of Trump. Strzok referred to Trump as a “douche” and an “utter idiot,” and told Page that Hillary Clinton “just had to win” the race.

Most damningly from the Republican point of view, Strzok once referred to an “insurance policy” against Trump winning. It wasn’t exactly clear what he meant — in context, it didn’t seem connected to any kind of actual plot against Trump — but it was enough to turn him into the poster boy for the president and his allies in their campaign to discredit the Russia investigation. Trump has referred to them, among other things, as “the incompetent & corrupt FBI lovers.”

The core point here — that Page and Strzok were behaving inappropriately — is pretty much impossible to deny. When special counsel Robert Mueller found out about the texts last year, he removed Strzok from his post working on the Russia investigation (he’s currently been reassigned to the FBI’s HR department, somewhat ironically).

But there’s nothing in the Strzok-Page texts to suggest some kind of institutional bias against Trump in the FBI, nor is there any evidence that Strzok actually abused his position of influence to persecute Trump. Or at least there wasn’t, until the Strzok text released today.

Again, it’s not clear exactly what Strzok meant. Was the “we” in “we’ll stop it” the FBI, or is it something more vague (i.e., “we the people” will “stop” Trump by voting for Clinton)? It’s hard to say, but the former reading is certainly very plausible. And if that’s correct, then it can easily be seen as a promise to take action to thwart the Trump campaign.

Some prominent conservatives have taken this as proof in and of itself that there was political bias at the FBI.

“This text from Strzok to Page could and should completely destroy whatever faith that America still had in the legitimacy of the Russia investigation,” Ben Shapiro, editor of the right-wing Daily Wire, writes. “How could the IG … find that no political bias was present in the actions of the FBI?”

The answer to Shapiro’s question comes on page 178 of the (admittedly lengthy) IG report. Investigators, they explain, looked into Strzok and Page’s conduct after they came across the texts that seemingly threatened the Trump campaign, and examined internal FBI records of the meetings concerning Trump that the couple was involved in. Here are their key conclusions:

We found that Strzok was not the sole decisionmaker for any of the specific investigative decisions examined in this chapter. We further found evidence that in some instances Strzok and Page advocated for more aggressive investigative measures than did others…however, we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative decisions discussed below, or that the justifications offered for these decisions were pretextual.

Inappropriate text messages do not, in and of themselves, amount to an abuse of power. Either Strzok never intended to act on his words, or more professional members in the FBI prevented him from acting in a politically motivated fashion. Whichever of those is the case, it’s an indictment of Strzok personally — but has little significance for whether the broader Russia probe can be seen as a legitimate enterprise.

The more sophisticated argument you’re hearing from Trump allies, including some members of Congress, is that the “we’ll stop” text should have been disclosed earlier. The text preceding it, Page’s question about Trump’s chances, was published in a Senate Homeland Security Committee report earlier this year — yet Strzok’s response was somehow omitted. Congressional Republicans are wondering if it was omitted intentionally:

This is a legitimate line of inquiry. It’s possible there was some technical glitch, or some error on the part of congressional investigators rather than the FBI. But it’s also possible that someone in the FBI was trying to cover up Strzok’s most embarrassing messages, basically to prevent the bureau from getting egg on its face. We need more investigation to know either way.

But even then, the question has no obvious bearing on whether the Russia investigation itself is legitimate. Again, Mueller dismissed Strzok precisely because he thought the texts were inappropriate. Absent any evidence that this concretely affected the investigation — caused FBI agents to lie to a judge, caused them to harass a Trump family member or associate, etc. — there is simply no legitimate way to jump from what we know now to the “witch hunt” conclusion that Trump wants.

But the truth is that Trump’s entire approach to this investigation is obfuscation — by spinning innocuous things into major scandals, or even outright lying about what the FBI has and hasn’t found. No matter the truth behind the Strzok texts, a subject that does raise legitimate questions, it’ll be used as part of an overall narrative of an anti-Trump FBI that simply is not supported by the facts.

The Strzok text messages are real. The narrative they’re being used to support is a lie.

Original Source -> The “we’ll stop it” text: the IG report’s most inflammatory finding, explained

via The Conservative Brief

[bestcgart]

Magic Wheelchair Comic-Con Contest

Pixologic Inc Presents

Magic Wheelchair Comic-Con Contest

Contest Run Date: April 30th – May 31st 2018.

Who is Magic Wheelchair? Magic Wheelchair is an organization that builds costumes for kiddos in wheelchairs, at no cost to their families. Magic Wheelchair is a non-profit organization that teams up with artists and builders to assemble theme-based costumes that are fabricated to integrate with the child’s existing wheelchair. 

Check out a gallery of previous builds here 

Magic Wheelchair has set a goal to build seven Star Wars themed costumes which will then be unveiled to seven boys or girls and their families at the 2018 Comic-Con.

Pixologic is calling on the amazingly imaginative talents of our ZBrush artists to design one of these seven Star Wars costumes. You design the costume, and the team headed up by Frank Ippolito at Thingergy Inc will bring the winning design to life.

Starting Monday, April 30th, 2018 Pixologic Inc. has launched a ZBrush community contest with the challenge to design a Star Wars themed costume for one chosen kiddo. The contest will run until Thursday, May 31st, 2018.

The winning design will also be included with the other professional build teams for the big reveal at Comic-Con. These teams are:

Thingergy Inc Team

Monster City Studios Team

McMaster Robots and GT Props Team

Tom Spina Studios Team

Fon Davis and Fonco Studios Team

Tested.com and Adam Savage Team

Pixologic Inc. Team

We would also like to thank Massivit 3D and Dangling Carrot Creative for providing 3D prints to the Thingergy Inc team for the ZBrush Community build and Pixologic Inc build.

We encourage you to get the popcorn ready and start watching those Star Wars movies for inspiration! 

Do you know a child that you would like to nominate for a chance to receive one of these Star Wars costumes? Visit Magic Wheelchair’s site for further details.

YOUR CHALLENGE

To design a Star Wars themed costume that will be given to one Magic Wheelchair kiddo. Your goal if you choose to accept it is to replicate anything from the Star Wars universe into a wheelchair ready costume. This could be any vehicle, ship, character and or other element of existing Star Wars designs.

Please use the existing Star Wars Universe IP designs creatures, characters, vehicles, ships, etc. Do not create new or original designs.

The winning digital design will be fabricated for a custom fit on the chosen kiddo’s wheelchair. This design and final costume will be unveiled at the 2018 Comic-Con in San Diego, California.

BEFORE YOU GET STARTED

To assist with an accurate, general understanding of designing for a wheelchair, Pixologic is providing Magic Wheelchair ZBrush Project to get started.

Download the MagicWheelchair_Contest2018.zpr before beginning your design. 

This Project contains:

One subtool with actual measurements of the powered wheelchair.

Images of the powered wheelchair for a better understanding of how your design may fit in relation to the wheelchair. Please keep in mind that this is not the exact wheelchair for the kiddo you are designing for. Rather, it is meant to give you a general direction for design.

Please keep your design compact and maneuverable. Here are some great examples for you to reference.

Keep in mind that your design will need to be either CNC or 3D Printable. This means that it must be a “watertight” mesh.

Watch the Video below to understand how to use the Magic Wheelchair Contest 2018 ZBrush Project File: 

WINNING DESIGN

The winning design will be fabricated into a one-of-a-kind costume for a Magic Wheelchair kiddo and will be presented to the kiddo at the 2018 Comic-Con in San Diego California.

The winning artist will be credited at the 2018 Comic-Con unveiling.

The winning artist will also be announced and have their design featured on Pixologic.com and ZBrushCentral.com.

Further prizes by Pixologic will be announced at a later date.

DESIGN SUBMISSION DETAILS

What Must be Submitted

Contest entries must be submitted in the form of a thread in the ZBrushCentral.com Magic Wheelchair forum. The title of your thread must include the name of the Star Wars themed item you have chosen for your inspiration.

Begin Your Challenge

We have created a Magic Wheelchair Contest forum. Please visit this forum to begin your own thread. 

Title your thread with the Star Wars themed design that you’ve chosen. 

As an example the Pixologic Inc Team design thread will be titled:

Poe Dameron X-Wing Fighter

During the Contest

We encourage you to actively participate in the contest by including WIP images, explanations of your techniques, interaction with people who comment in your thread, etc. 

The full criteria that will be monitored for each entry are:

How well the final entry expresses the contest’s Star Wars theme. If the final submission does not fit the theme then it will be excluded. For example, the most amazing dragon ever seen would still be disqualified because dragons haven’t been seen in any Star Wars films.

Overall use of ZBrush features: Majority of the sculpt must be completed in ZBrush to qualify. The judges will be depending on your WIP images and accompanying descriptive text to see that the model truly was created using ZBrush.

Submission must be a completed image (not a Work In Progress stage) and have a completed 3D Model ready for upload to Pixologic Inc.

Final Submission

Your “Final Entry” post must provide the following:

Your final post for the contest thread must contain the words: “Final Entry.”

Final submission must be posted in your contest thread by 11:59 PST on Thursday May 31st.

At least one final posed image that is colored, sculpted and rendered completely in ZBrush or KeyShot. Minimum image dimensions are 1,500 x 1,500 pixels and a third party program may only be used for compositing the final render.

If your design is picked as the winning design you will be required to upload your file to be downloaded by Pixologic Inc for the Thingergy Inc team to evaluate. Please remember that your design will need to be CNC or 3D Printable.

Please also include in your final entry the name you would like to be credited under. This could be your full name or your ZBrushCentral username.

JUDGING

Judging will be by a panel of industry experts and professionals within the Magic Wheelchair Organization and Thingergy Inc. Judges will be given Friday, June 1st, 2018 through Monday, June 4th, 2018 to evaluate each contestant’s entry.

This panel’s judging will determine the winner of the ZBrushCentral Magic Wheelchair Comic-Con Contest.

RULES

Any ZBrushCentral member is welcome to enter the contest. One ZBrushCentral thread per artist. (Should you change your concept, the new work must continue within the original thread.) 

This is a ZBrush contest and emphasis will be placed on the use of ZBrush to create all assets produced for this contest. Majority of the design must be completed in ZBrush. The entrant is encouraged to show within the WIP thread the original creation of all assets. If the entrant uses assets from a third party or assets created prior to the start of this contest, this fact must be disclosed at the point in the WIP thread where the asset is first introduced. Use of any asset that would infringe upon a copyright other than Star Wars is prohibited.

Any character deemed to be the same or similar (in whole or in part) to one currently published by yourself or any other artist will be disqualified.

Any image deemed to contain content that depicts explicit acts that are overtly violent, sexual, cruel or brutal will be disqualified. Such entries may be closed during the WIP phases of the contest at Pixologic’s sole discretion.

The challenge runs from Monday, April 30th, 2018 through 11:59PM (PST) on Thursday, May 31st, 2018. The final post for your entry must be created no later than 11:59PM (PST) on Thursday, May 31st, 2018. No late entries will be accepted.

An independent panel of judges from the Magic Wheelchair Organization and Thingergy Inc will be deciding the winner of the contest.

Final submission must be posted in your contest thread by 11:59 PST on Thursday May 31st.

Judging will take place June 1st, 2018 through June 4th, 2018.

Entries may only contain the original completed work during contest scheduled timeframe and concepts of the artist(s) submitting.

Only the final winning design will be unveiled during the 2018 Comic-Con.

If your costume is picked as the winning design. You will be required to upload your final ZBrush Project for download by Pixologic Inc. You may use any upload system that works for you, for example, Dropbox, WeTransfer, Box, Google Drive or any other uploading service. Your file will only be used for the purpose for fabrication with the makers of this contest.. Pixologic Inc will be communicating with the winning contestant through the Private Messaging of ZBrushCentral along with sending out an email to the registered ZBrushCentral email address. Please be on the lookout for any emails or Private Messages on ZBrushCentral starting June 6th, 2018 or any time after this date.

The winning design will be announced on Wednesday, June 13th, 2018.

All dates are based on the U.S. Pacific Time zone. Entry and voting deadlines are at 11:59 pm PST on the date in question.

The sponsors of this contest may use final or winning artwork for marketing purposes in the context of the challenge, and agree to credit the artist if any such artwork is used.

All entries are the property of the respective artists. Pixologic may use submitted artwork for the purpose of promoting this or future contests. If any artist’s work is used in this manner, the artist will be credited.

Pixologic reserves the right at its sole discretion to disqualify any entry that does not adhere to the spirit of ZBrushCentral and these rules. Pixologic also reserves the right to suspend, adjust the dates, modify or cancel the contest, including these rules, in any manner and at its sole discretion. This may be done with or without prior notice.

In the event of a dispute, ruling will be made by Pixologic legal counsel based upon the rules laid out herein. Legal counsel’s ruling will be final.

If you do not agree with any of the above terms and conditions, please do not enter the contest.

[photoforumpasquart]

The project Image+

Photography today can take on multiple forms, both material and immaterial: from print to pixel, from the page to the screen, from static images to moving images. What are the challenges and opportunities for image-makers and editors who wish to critically explore the hybrid nature of photography? What are the contemporary practices in working with images and distributing them? What does editing mean in the age of information overflow, and how can we think of alternative publishing strategies for the new image? What are the new platforms for the “post-photographer”?

Four artists have been invited to discuss these themes in a series of workshops being offered to small groups of professionals, and to create works with the participants. The results of the workshops are exhibited in the context of the Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography.

Curation: Marco de Mutiis and Hélène Joye-Cagnard

Participating artists: Sebastian Schmieg, Ola Lanko, Kamilia Kard, Emmanuel Crivelli

Image+ is produced by Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography in collaboration with Fotomuseum Winterthur's SITUATIONS programme.

Sebastian Schmieg (1983, Germany) examines the ways in which modern technologies shape online and offline realities, including the hidden logics and politics of algorithmic image and computer vision.

sebastianschmieg.com

Workshop Sebastian Schmieg

During the workshop, participants were introduced to the field of computer vision: Machines recognizing objects within photos or identifying specific people, analyzing their mood and tracking their behavior; and machines learning to synthesize new images, visualizing the concepts they are being taught. Following a discussion of the ethical implication and of the absence of photographers in the development of this technology and regime, participants assembled their own image data sets on which a computer would be trained. In a second step, a so called artificial intelligence looked at these images for several hours, internalizing the concepts and aesthetic of each image archive. In a last step, this algorithm created a series of new images based on what it had learned. During this process, participants received messages sent back in time from their future selves. As time had progressed, the workshop participants seemed to have either integrated machine vision into their practice, or to have been integrated into the process of seeing machines.

Sebastian Schmieg featuring Rebecca Bowring (Image+ Workshop 2017)

Participants Sebastian Schmieg

Simon Tanner Patrick Pfeiffer Rebecca Bowring

Kamilia Kard (1981, Hungary/Italy) focuses in her work on the construction of identity in the internet age, and is manifested in multiple media, ranging in a fluid way from painting to video, animated gifs, prints and installations. 

kamiliakard.org

Workshop Kamilia Kard

Through the course of the workshop the participants worked with Kamilia Kard to explore the physicality of the digital image and its new role in the post-internet era. Inverting the traditional photographic process of flattening our experience into an image, the artist starts from the reality on our screen and transports it to the physical world through plotter and 3D printing. Resulting in what Josephine Bosma describes “an 'archive of the virtual' [that] starts to be complimentary to the online 'archive of the real’.”

Kamilia Kard featuring Dana Popescu, Jonas Kambli and Marie-Pierre Cravedi (Image+ Workshop 2017)

Participants Workshop Kamilia Kard

Dana Popescu Jonas Kambli Marie-Pierre Cravedi

Ola Lanko (1985, Ukraine) explores parallels between knowledge and history constructed by images, big data and free access to information. She works with metaphors and allusions, rearranging them in a new non-linear narratives.

olalanko.com

Workshop Ola Lanko

For the duration of 6 hours a group of people was invited to work with the archives and develop a small body of work that will revitalise the archives and use the material in new contexts.

As archiving increasingly becomes a regular part of everyone’s daily routine, so too does the need to rethink the ways in which archives are being used . We are simultaneously archiving and forgetting. Every day, billions of new data points are created and preserved, most of which simply ends on storage devices, never to be revisited or reused, and hence forgotten. The act of collection, preservation and accumulation appears to be more important than the information itself. Quantity has replaced quality as a standard of measurement, acquiring currency as a means to assign value to information. Likes, shares, followers and friends determine the merit of things, people and phenomena in the global virtual archive. In the economy of information, things that are copied acquire greater value as they multiply, judged as they are on their ubiquity rather than on the nature and meaning of their content itself.

Owing as much to their operational rules, structure and framework as to the nature of the stored bits of information, archives never contain the full picture of anything. An archive is at once a coherent space and a fractured one. This illusion of completeness is problematic, and limits one’s exibility when working with archives. Anxiety over re-contextualising or altering data in any way results in forgetting. Yet, a visit to an archive represents the possibility for new perspectives on the contemporary, and the chance to position it on the continuum of me.

Archives are often rich and always full of surprises. Each box, folder, book or album contains hidden narratives, forms and emotions. Visiting an archive is often a fulfilling and exciting voyage, the experience and outcome of which help us to be er navigate the present and chart or prepare for the future through our better understanding of our connection to the past. In an age where questions are being asked of the linearity of time, archives represent a means to explore a complex system of fractured linearities and rearrange them for the creation of new ideas.

Ola Lanko featuring Marion Nitsch (Image+ workshop 2017)

Participants Workshop Ola Lanko

Damien Sivier Massimo Piovesan Karina Munch Reyes Marion Nitsch Rosario Mazuela Thomas Nie

Emmanuel Crivelli (1985, Switzerland) is an editorial designer playing with photography, illustrations and text. His publications range widely from opera posters to quarterly issues on gender and sexuality.

dualroom.ch

Workshop Emmanuel Crivelli

With this workshop we created a newspaper as a curatorial space for the pictures of the Fotomuseum’s collection.

“Suicidal reproduction” is the term used for animals who lose their lives when they reproduce, such as the praying mantis. The name of this fanzine provokes, ironically, the question of the death of the reproduction of photography nowadays and at the same time gives an attractive and a punk tone to the newspaper, declaring a free, experimental, and possibly brutal, work on the images to produce a new reading of the collection.

“Araki & Friends”: every issue of this fanzine is a focus on a photographer, in this case I chose Araki. Participants had to react to a chosen image by associating other photos of the collection, in a formal or narrative way. And then they had to associate the statements of the new museum identity (svg) to give a further question about photography. An index with the captions of the images is visible in the fanzine.

As for the digital declination, the sequence of the two or more images associated with the statement (svg) is translated in a GIF. This exercise allows to rethink a sequence or collage on a different format and act as a teaser for the magazine as well.

This project question the main points of editing (the editorial concept, what is being said, the rhythm of a sequence, etc.) and the contemporary communication strategies in the editorial world, in a concrete context: the collection of the Fotomuseum.

Emmanuel Crivelli featuring Natalia Mansano and Miriam Elias (Image+ Workshop 2017)

Participants Workshop Emmanuel Crivelli

Natalia Mansano Miriam Elias

[netmaddy-blog]

Content Ever be Profitable?

New Post has been published on https://netmaddy.com/content-ever-be-profitable/

Content Ever be Profitable?

Content Suppliers is the underprivileged sector of the Internet. They all lose money (even sites which offer basic, standardized goods – books, CDs), with the exception of sites proffering sex or tourism. No user seems to be grateful for the effort and resources invested in creating and distributing content. The recent breakdown of traditional roles (between publisher and author, record company and singer, etc.) and the direct access the creative artist is gaining to its paying public may change this attitude of ingratitude but hitherto there are scarce signs of that. Moreover, it is either quality of presentation (which only a publisher can afford) or ownership and (often shoddy) dissemination of content by the author. A really qualitative, fully commerce-enabled site costs up to 5,000,000 USD, excluding site maintenance and customer and visitor services. Despite these heavy outlays, site designers are constantly criticized for lack of creativity or for too much creativity. More and more is asked of content purveyors and creators. They are exploited by intermediaries, hitchhiker sand other parasites. This is all an off-shoot of the ethos of the Internet as a free content area.

Most of the users like to surf (browse, visit sites) the net without reason or goal in mind. This makes it difficult to apply to the web traditional marketing techniques.

What is the meaning of “targeted audiences” or “market shares” in this context? If a surfer visits sites which deal with aberrant sex and nuclear physics in the same session – what to make of it?

Moreover, the public and legislative backlash against the gathering of surfer’s data by Internet ad agencies and other websites – has led to growing ignorance regarding the profile of Internet users, their demography, habits, preferences, and dislikes.

“Free” is a keyword on the Internet: it used to belong to the US Government and to a bunch of universities. Users like information, with emphasis on news and data about new products. But they do not like to shop on the net – yet. Only 38% of all surfers made a purchase during 1998.

It would seem that users will not pay for content unless it is unavailable elsewhere or qualitatively rare or made rare. One way to “rarely” content is to review and rate it.

2. Quality-Rated Content

There is a long-term trend of clutter-breaking website-rating and critique. It may have a limited influence on the consumption decisions of some users and on their willingness to pay for content. Browsers already sport “What’s New” and “What’s Hot” buttons. Most Search Engines and directories recommend specific sites. But users are still cautious. Studies discovered that user, no matter how heavy, has consistently re-visited more than 200 sites, a minuscule number. Some recommendation services often produce random – at times, wrong – selections for their users. There are also concerns regarding privacy issues. The backlash against Amazon’s “readers circles” is an example. Web Critics, who work today mainly for the printed press, publish their wares on the net and collaborate with intelligent software which hyperlinks to websites, recommends them and refers users to them. Some web critics (guides) became identified with specific applications – really, expert systems -which incorporate their knowledge and experience. Most volunteer-based directories (such as the “Open Directory” and the late “Go” directory) work this way.

The flip side of the coin of content consumption is the investment in content creation, marketing, distribution, and maintenance.

3. The Money

Where is the capital needed to finance content likely to come from?

Again, there are two schools:

According to the first, sites will be financed through advertising – and so will search engines and other applications accessed by users.

Certain ASPs (Application Service Providers which rent out access to application software which resides on their servers) are considering this model.

The recent collapse in online advertising rates and click-through rates raised serious doubts regarding the validity and viability of this model. Marketing gurus, such as Seth Godin went as far as declaring “interruption marketing” (=ads and banners) dead.

The second approach is simpler and allows for the existence of non-commercial content.

It proposes to collect negligible sums (cents or fractions of cents) from every user for every visit (“micro-payments”). These accumulated cents will enable the site-owners to update and to maintain them and encourage entrepreneurs to develop new content and invest in it. Certain content aggregators (especially of digital textbooks) have adopted this model (Questia, Fathom).

The adherents of the first school point to the 5 million USD invested in advertising during 1995 and to the 60 million or so invested during 1996.

Its opponents point exactly at the same numbers: ridiculously small when contrasted with more conventional advertising models. The potential of advertising on the net is limited to 1.5 billion USD annually in 1998, thundered the pessimists. The actual figure was double the prediction but still woefully small and inadequate to support the internet’s content development. Compare these figures to the sale of Internet software (4 billion), Internet hardware (3 billion), Internet access provision (4.2 billion in 1995 alone!).

Even if online advertising were to be restored to its erstwhile glory days, other bottlenecks remain. Advertising encourages the consumer to interact and to initiate the delivery of a product to him. This – the delivery phase – is a slow and enervating epilog to the exciting affair of ordering online. Too many consumers still complain of late delivery of the wrong or defective products.

The solution may lie in the integration of advertising and content. The late Pointcast, for instance, integrated advertising into its news broadcasts, continuously streamed to the user’s screen, even when inactive (it had an active screen saver and ticker in a “push technology”). Downloading of digital music, video and text (e-books) leads to the immediate gratification of consumers and increases the efficacy of advertising.

Whatever the case may be, a uniform, agreed-upon system of rating as a basis for charging advertisers, is sorely needed. There is also the question of what does the advertiser pay for? The rates of many advertisers (Procter and Gamble, for instance) are based not on the number of hits or impressions (=entries, visits to a site). – but on the number of the times that their advertisement was hit (page views), or clicked through.

Finally, there is the paid subscription model – a flop to judge by the experience of the meager number of sites of venerable and leading newspapers that are on a subscription basis. Dow Jones (Wall Street Journal) and The Economist. Only two.

All this is not very promising. But one should never forget that the Internet is probably the closest thing we have to an efficient market. As consumers refuse to pay for content, investment will dry up and content will become scarce (through closures of websites). As scarcity sets in, a consumer may reconsider.

Your article deals with the future of the Internet as a medium. Will it be able to support its content creation and distribution operations economically?

If the Internet is a budding medium – then we should derive great benefit from a study of the history of its predecessors.

The Future History of the Internet as a Medium

The internet is simply the latest in a series of networks which revolutionized our lives. A century before the internet, the telegraph, the railways, the radio and the telephone have been similarly heralded as “global” and transforming. Every medium of communications goes through the same evolutionary cycle:

Anarchy

The Public Phase

At this stage, the medium and the resources attached to it are very cheap, accessible, under no regulatory constraints. The public sector steps in: higher education institutions, religious institutions, government, not for profit organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), trade unions, etc. Bedeviled by limited financial resources, they regard the new medium as a cost effective way of disseminating their messages.

The Internet was not exempt from this phase which ended only a few years ago. It started with a complete computer anarchy manifested in ad hoc networks, local networks, networks of organizations (mainly universities and organs of the government such as DARPA, a part of the defense establishment, in the USA). Noncommercial entities jumped on the bandwagon and started sewing these networks together (an activity fully subsidized by government funds). The result was a globe encompassing a network of academic institutions. The American Pentagon established the network of all networks, the ARPANET. Other government departments joined the fray, headed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) which withdrew only lately from the Internet.

The Internet (with a different name) became semi-public property – with access granted to the chosen few.

Radio took precisely this course. Radio transmissions started in the USA in 1920. Those were anarchic broadcasts with no discernible regularity. Noncommercial organizations and not for profit organizations began their own broadcasts and even created radio broadcasting infrastructure (albeit of the cheap and local kind) dedicated to their audiences. Trade unions, certain educational institution send religious groups commenced “public radio” broadcasts.

The Commercial Phase

When the users (e.g., listeners in the case of the radio, or owners of PCs and modems in the case of the Internet) reach a critical mass – the business sector is alerted. In the name of capitalist ideology (another religion, really) it demands “privatization” of the medium. This harps on very sensitive strings in every Western soul: the efficient allocation of resources which is the result of competition. Corruption and inefficiency are intuitively associated with the public sector (“Other People’s Money” – OPM). This, together with the ulterior motives of members of the ruling political echelons (the infamous American Paranoia), a lack of variety and of catering to the tastes and interests of certain audiences and the automatic equation of private enterprise with democracy lead to a privatization of the young medium.

The end result is the same: the private sector takes over the medium from “below” (makes offers to the owners or operators of the medium that they cannot possibly refuse) – or from “above” (successful lobbying in the corridors of power leads to the appropriate legislation and the medium is “privatized”). Every privatization – especially that of a medium – provokes public opposition. There are (usually founded) suspicions that the interests of the public are compromised and sacrificed on the altar of commercialization and rating. Fears of monopolization and cartelization of the medium are evoked – and proven correct in due course. Otherwise, there is fear of the concentration of control of the medium in a few hands. All these things do happen – but the pace is so slow that the initial fears are forgotten and public attention reverts to fresher issues.

A new Communications Act was enacted in the USA in 1934. It was meant to transform radio frequencies into a national resource to be sold to the private sector which was supposed to use it to transmit radio signals to receivers. In other words: the radio was passed on to private and commercial hands. Public radio was doomed to be marginalized.

The American administration withdrew from its last major involvement in the Internet in April 1995, when the NSF ceased to finance some of the networks and, thus, privatized its hitherto heavy involvement in the net.

A new Communications Act was legislated in 1996. It permitted “organized anarchy”. It allowed media operators to invade each other’s territories. Phone companies were allowed to transmit video and cable companies were allowed to transmit telephony, for instance. This was all phased over a long period of time – still, it was a revolution whose magnitude is difficult to gauge and whose consequences defy imagination. It carries an equally momentous price tag – official censorship. “Voluntary censorship”, to be sure, somewhat toothless standardization and enforcement authorities, to be sure – still, a censorship with its own institutions to boot. The private sector reacted by threatening litigation – but, beneath the surface it is caving in to pressure and temptation, constructing its own censorship codes both in the cable and in the internet media.

Institutionalization

This phase is the next in the Internet’s history, though, it seems, few realize it.

It is characterized by enhanced activities of legislation. Legislators, on all levels, discover the medium and lurch at it passionately. Resources which were considered “free”, suddenly are transformed to “national treasures not to be dispensed with cheaply, casually and with frivolity”.

It is conceivable that certain parts of the Internet will be “nationalized” (for instance, in the form of a licensing requirement) and tendered to the private sector. Legislation will be enacted which will deal with permitted and disallowed content (obscenity ? incitement ? racial or gender bias ?) No medium in the USA (not to mention the wide world) has eschewed such legislation. There are sure to demand to allocate time (or space, or software, or content, or hardware) to “minorities”, to “public affairs”, to “community business”. This is a tax that the business sector will have to pay to fend off the eager legislator and his nuisance value.

All this is bound to lead to a monopolization of hosts and servers. The important broadcast channels will diminish in number and be subjected to severe content restrictions. Sites which will refuse to succumb to these requirements – will be deleted or neutralized. Content guidelines (euphemism for censorship) exist, even as we write, in all major content providers (CompuServe, AOL, Yahoo!-Geocities, Tripod, Prodigy).

The Bloodbath

This is the phase of consolidation. The number of players is severely reduced. The number of browser types will settle on 2-3 (Netscape, Microsoft, and Opera?). Networks will merge to form privately owned mega-networks. Servers will merge to form hyper-servers run on supercomputers in “server farms”. The number of ISPs will be considerably cut. 50 companies ruled the greater part of the media markets in the USA in 1983. The number in 1995 was 18. At the end of the century, they will number 6.

This is the stage when companies – fighting for financial survival – strive to acquire as many users/listeners/viewers as possible. The programming is shall be owed to the lowest (and widest) common denominator. Shallow programming dominates as long as the bloodbath proceeds.

From Rags to Riches

Tough competition produces four processes:

1. A Major Drop in Hardware Prices

This happens in every medium but it doubly applies to a computer-dependent medium, such as the Internet.

Computer technology seems to abide by “Moore’s Law” which says that the number of transistors which can be put on a chip doubles every 18 months. As a result of this miniaturization, computing power quadruples every 18 months and an exponential series ensues. Organic-biological-DNA computers, quantum computers, chaos computers – prompted by vast profits and spawned by inventive genius will ensure the continued applicability of Moore’s Law.

The Internet is also subject to “Metcalf’s Law”.

It says that when we connect N computers to a network – we get an increase of N to the second power in its computing processing power. And these N computers are more powerful every year, according to Moore’s Law. The growth of computing powers in networks is a multiple of the effects of the two laws. More and more computers with ever increasing computing power get connected and create an exponential 16 times growth in the network’s computing power every 18 months.

2. Content Related Fees

This was prevalent in the Net until recently. Even potentially commercial software can still be downloaded for free. In many countries, television viewers still pay for television broadcasts – but in the USA and many other countries in the West, the basic package of television channels comes free of charge.

As users/consumers form a habit of using (or consuming) the software – it is commercialized and begins to carry a price tag. This is what happened with the advent of cable television: contents are sold for subscription or per usage (Pay Per View – PPV) fees.

Gradually, this is what will happen to most of the sites and software on the Net. Those which survive will begin to collect usage fees, access fees, subscription fees, downloading fees and other, appropriately named, fees. These fees are bound to be low – but it is the principle that counts. Even a few cents per transaction may accumulate to hefty sums with the traffic which characterizes some websites on the Net (or, at least its more popular locales).

3. Increased User Friendliness

As long as the computer is less user-friendly and less reliable (predictable) than television – less of a black box – its potential (and its future) is limited. Television attracts 3.5 billion users daily. The Internet stands to attract – under the most exuberant scenario – less than one tenth of this number of people. The only reasons for this disparity are (the lack of) user friendliness and reliability. Even browsers, among the most user-friendly applications ever -are not sufficiently so. The user still needs to know how to use a keyboard and must possess some basic acquaintance with the operating system. The more mature the medium, the more friendly it becomes. Finally, it will be operated using speech or common language. There will be room left for user “hunches” and built in flexible responses.

4. Social Taxes

Sooner or later, the business sector has to mollify the God of public opinion with offerings of political and social nature. The Internet is an affluent, educated, yuppie medium. It requires literacy and numeracy, live interest in information and its various uses (scientific, commercial, other), a lot of resources (free time, money to invest in hardware, software and connect time). It empowers – and thus deepens the divide between the haves and have-nots, the developed and the developing world, the knowing and the ignorant, the computer illiterate.

In short: the Internet is an elitist medium. Publicly, this is an unhealthy posture. “Internet phobia” is already discernible. People (and politicians) talk about how unsafe the Internet is and about its possible uses for racial, sexist and pornographic purposes. The wider public is in a state of awe.

So, site builders and owners will do well to begin to improve their image: provide free access to schools and community centers, bankroll internet literacy classes, freely distribute contents and software to educational institutions, collaborate with researchers and social scientists and engineers. In short: encourage the view that the Internet is a medium catering to the needs of the community and the underprivileged, a mostly altruist endeavor. This also happens to make good business sense by educating and conditioning a future generation of users. He who visited a site when a student, free of charge – will pay to do so when made an executive. Such a user will also pass on the information within and without his organization. This is called media exposure. The future will, no doubt, will be witness to public Internet terminals, subsidized ISP accounts, free Internet classes and an alternative “non-commercial, public” approach to the Net. This may prove to be one more source of revenue to content creator sand distributors.

Sam Vaknin is the author of “Malignant Self Love – Narcissism Revisited” and “After the Rain – How the West Lost the East”. He is a columnist in “Central Europe Review”, United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101, and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

[socialmediablogggposts-blog]

Gender Post

Gender Post According to Rosalind Gill, “The body is presented simultaneously as a woman’s source of power, and as always unruly, requiring constant monitoring, surveillance, discipline, and remodeling, to conform to ever-narrower minded judgments of female attractiveness.” Today, many examples of how women are depicted are witnessed in any forms of media including social media, advertisements, women’s roles in movies or television shows, music videos, and even entire shows themselves such as, “Desperate Housewives”, or weight loss and makeover programs. As women, we appear to dress for men rather than ourselves, we get our bodies waxed and we even undergo plastic surgery to create the “ideal” women, which only exists because of what society has created. Focusing specifically on the Instagram account “World Star”, we see that this account is directed towards a male audience. I choose a post that caught my eye because of how disrespectful it was towards women. The post shows an unknown woman in extremely tight leggings that outlines her rather bigger backside. It almost appears as if she is not wearing anything else because of how tight her pants are and the posts caption reads, would you smash without knowing what her face looks like? I found many things disturbing about this post which asked its followers to comment. This post got over 150 thousand likes with about 17,000 comments of people tagging their friend or asking for the girls ig or commenting things like, “Yes that’s why we have brown bags”, suggesting they would have sex with her as long as a bag was over her head so they didn’t have to know what she looked like if she were unattractive.  Some even said “who cares about her face or it doesn’t matter as long as I’m smashing that ass.” Basically, no one cared about who the girl was or what her face even looked like because they were judging her based off her body features as a woman.  As Gill also states men are seen as, “Hedonist “in society only capable of wanting to shag. Even though men want more in life, whenever a post is targeted towards them it has do with a women’s sexuality or a man’s masculinity. A post on Daquan also sums up this comparison of sexual desire and power showing a guy’s yearbook picture with his quote saying, “disregard females, acquire currency”. which with no other way to put it means, screw “bitches” and get money.” Although many people including myself found this post funny it reinforces the idea of what attributes define being a man. And often women on social media are referred to as “thots” or “hoes”. And lastly looking at a post on Daquan, an old cell phone is displayed where you had to text by pushing the numbers to enter letters. The numbers displayed on the screen are 7777 33 663 66 88 3 33 77777 ,and followers were amused when they decoded the message as, “send nudes”. This phrase has become popular this year making fun of how guys will reportedly message girls asking for “nudes” out of context. Although humorous, again it goes back to the idea of guys being “hedonist”, only looking for sex. This stereotypes all guys. If we think of such posts, we find on social media as just being funny we “invite men to evaluate women as sexual objects.” Gill. In fact, this idea of “sending nudes” has even become a trend on t-shirts that not only men, but women also will wear as a “joke”. Aside from men viewing women as objects it is said that women display themselves as sexual objects based on how they act or what they wear. An IG post on Daquan that was taken from two females IG accounts shows these two women in skimpy clothing having a “dance battle.”  The context behind this video is so obvious as the girls are moving in slow motion with the camera zooming in on their front and backsides. One girl has bigger breasts then the other, and the other girl who is seen, “twerking and you barley see her face, has the bigger backside. The caption is asking followers to choose who won the “dance” battle. We know nothing about these girls other than their sex appeal and which one has the bigger breasts or backside. This post reminds me of how Weiser talked about girls sexualizing themselves for the attention and self-validation. Although, accounts such as Daquan posted this it was initially recorded and posted by the girls in the videos themselves. In this case, they knew that their body type would give them the attention and popularity that was desired.  So as Rosalind states there’s this blurred line of confusion between feminism and post feminism ideas. On one hand, we have the guys treating women as sexual objects and on the other hand we have girls who display themselves sexually to achieve popularity self-validation. In conclusion, when you think about social media in general the women are typically seen as eye candy for men and vice versa. Sadly, we often created this sex symbol just so we won’t be judged, but then we fall victim to slut shaming, being a thot, a player etc. Women are worth way more than their bodies and many women have accomplished great things. Not all men objectivity female bodies and some may not even find women attractive of course. When we look at men and women from a stereotypical standpoint presented by the media we lose sight of all other important factors regardless of our sex because before anything, we must remember that we are human.

[journalofsportsmedicine]

Sport as a Semiotic Structure- Juniper Publishers

Abstract

Sport is a corporal competition with strict rules with an aim to determine the winner. Sport is a conditional, gaming system, which communicative sign structure has no practical value. Analysis of sports as a structure allows you to select the category of form (rules) and content (the competition). There is one more category - value (determining the winner), expressing the very essence of sport. In semiotics category of value, along with form and content is of essence in nature. The term value itself is derived from sign. If the form expresses "what” the content-”how to”, then the value meets "why”. These semiotic categories do not relate exclusively to the sport, you can select them in any cultural phenomenon, with unquestionable signs of significant organization. E Benvenist defines culture as "human environment, all which in addition to carrying out biological functions attaches to human life and activities form, value and content”.

    Introduction

Definition by Ferdinand de Saussure says that language is a system of signs that indicate concepts, the most important of all systems in semiologic phenomena [1,2]. Therefore, learning of sport as a semiotic system should be started with the language: to examine sport as a language with its own specific system of signs, concepts and formal organization; compare the language of sports with universal language and identify their similarities and differences.

The fundamental position in Linguistics is a view of language as a form in relation to thinking. E. Sapir said: "Language as a structure of some kind is a form of thought, a tool of the value expression" [3]. The specifics of sport as a language is as follows: the language can be classified as verbal, natural and universal, the language of sport is visual, artificial and reserved. Greimas assigns natural languages a privileged position because they provide a starting point for changes and end point for transfers [4]. However, a language can be examined as the basis or foundation, according to Levi-Strauss, "it is designed to establish the structures based on it, sometimes more difficult, but similar type corresponding to the culture, examined in its various aspects”[5] (in our case, the semiotic structure of sport).

In the semiotic structure of sport the form is understood as competition rules that are language by its nature. Let's use the definition of language by de Saussure: "A language is a grammatical system, virtually existing in everyone's brain, to be more precise, in entire aggregate of individuals, as the language does not exist fully in neither of them, it exists only in group.” [2]. It is easy to note that the rules are well within the scope of this definition: in any competition the athlete must perform only actions arising from the rules. Even if two players chase the ball in a vacant lot in the absence of judges and spectators, they are guided by some conditional system, virtually existing in their consciousness. This conditional system as well as the language for the speaker determines their actions: If they throw the ball by hands, then this is volleyball, if by foot-soccer.

Examining of "the form” categories in sign-semiotic system of sport lets us make a conclusion: sport as a semiotic structure has common signs with language as a linguistic structure. We can say that an iconic sports organization is subject to the same laws and regulations as that language. There are also significant differences. Firstly, sport is an artificial semiotic system. Date of birth of many sports is considered the appearance of universally accepted rules. So the game that could be called a prototype of soccer is known in England from the XI century. The official birthday of football-the year 1863, when the English Football Association adopted universal rules for football. Regarding to language this date cannot be determined (even approximately). De Saussure believed that language is a social product, a combination of essential conventions adopted by the collective to ensure implementation, functioning abilities of speech activities that has every native speaker. Although the language is a convention adopted by agreement, it formed naturally and independently from the will of the collective. Also a language changes spontaneously and randomly - it does not intend something (according to words of de Saussure).

The rules of sport were not artificially created originally; they had been repeatedly changing by the conditional agreement of the relevant sporting organization. Secondly, sport is a closed semiotic structure. The whole system of rules and relationships which can be qualified as a significant communicative organization aimed only for the service of sport itself. The language is a great mediator. This is not only a mean of communication between people; language establishes relationships of men with the world and with himself. Thirdly, sport is a visual sign system. Texts of such kind are primary in relation to the sign. Visual text is not discrete and does not break into signs, but divides into different characteristics. In a language the sign is always primary. Signs written in a certain sequence form a discrete linguistic text.

The next stage in the structural analysis of sport will be studying of the competition, which is in the semiotic structure of sport category named the content. In Linguistics, language as the form is contrasted by speech and its activity, expressing the content. De Saussure determined speech as an individual act of will and mind, including:

a) Combinations in which the speaker uses the language code to express its thoughts;

b) Psychophysical mechanism, allowing him to objectify these combinations.

The combination is a sports term that has the same meaning as in Linguistics, and if speaking about psychophysical mechanism we will mean the body movement (running, jumping, dribbling, throws, blows, etc.) used in sport for these combinations, the definition of Saussure completely captures the essence of sporting competition. Anyway speech is purely a linguistic term and is not really suitable for use in a sporting context, even semiotic. In Linguistics, is also used the term "text": separated articulated hypostasis of speech (according to the phrase by Lotman). In semiotics, the term text is has much broader meaning than in Linguistics. Semiotics interprets the text as a communicative act, transmission of messages, and content of statement and in this sense it is suitable for structural analysis of the content categories in sport.

The content of sport is a competition-physical contest of two or more opponents. In sport there cannot be an individual act of expression. The actual content of the competition, the essence of sporting contest, suppose the presence of the opponent. Even if an athlete is making a single attempt to establish the record of divingor lifting on a balloon into the stratosphere, he competes not only with himself, but with the opponent who has made the previous record.

Sport originally is a communication system that exists only as a collective act of expression and calling not only the sense function of the text, but also its meaning, interpretation. This is one of the main principles of sport as a semiotic structure. Sport can be denoted exactly because it is a collective product, a communicative system. In the semiotic structure of sport the category content is represented in the physical (body) competition. The denoted one here becomes the body of an athlete: gestures, moves, postures acquire the meaning of a sign. To express some content, these signs should line up in a certain sintagmatic row - the code, to acquire the sense, the meaning. Competition always involves an opponent, therefore the code of one athlete faces with anothers one (or with many). To get the necessary result-the victory in the competition- each of the opponents does best to outdo the other: to realize his code and to destroy enemy's code. The interaction of these codes forms the text of the competition, which is perceived by the audience. The main points that determine the codes and the text of the competition are opponents' idea (intention) and the implementation of this plan. Dynamic interaction of these moments, their struggles determines the nature of the text, make up the main content of the competition.

Compulsory presence of an opponent and his code defines the dialog of the competition text. In Linguistics, dialog relations are relations between all sorts of utterances in speech communication. Russian linguist MM Bakhtin presents this definition: "Any two statements if we compare them in semantic plane will be in dialog relation" [6]. In the semiotic structure of sport dialogical interaction of codes of the opponents does not exhaust dialogic relations of the competition text. Dialogic relations include all participants of the competition: athletes, judges and spectators. Bakhtin philosophically represented text as an expression of consciousness, something reflective (subjective reflection of the objective world). When the text becomes an object of our cognition, we may talk about the reflection of the reflection. This definition, in our view, expresses the essence of sports text. The rules of the competition, representing the category of the form in sport, are always objective - they are, as given, are independent from the will of the players. The competition itself, being as a content of sport, is always subjective, because it includes the contrary not only in the process itself (the opponents), but also in its assessment (the fans). The result of the contest, expressing in the sport the category of the meaning has dual content: it is objective in its form-as a necessary result of competition and subjective in its content-as an ambiguous reflection of the result.

Sports competition can have many different forms: a single match or mileage, two-rounded match (at home and visiting), a qualifying tournament for the championship, the championship itself, consisting of a certain number of rounds, etc. As defined by the Eco, the structure will have a meaning if it functions as the code that can generate various messages. "The position can be structured if it meets the following two conditions: it must be a system with intercom; and this connection, invisible when viewing a single system can be found while examining its transformations, due to which in two different systems can be found commonalities" [7]. Commonalities which are inherent to any contest are a system of lottery or a format (match, tournament, and championship), the event itself and outcome (final result). The necessary conditions for competition are - all participants before the start are on an equal position, and after finish the only winner is brought out. Competitions, as a rule, consist of several stages and are not limited with only one stage. Such long competitions cannot not be visual by way of perception, thus the content of the competition is passed as a verbal description or formed as a table or a protocol, which is essentially the same written text. Such a text can be represented as an inter text, describing the content of the competition by the means of common language.

Sport is represented as a visual sign structure with a closed system of communicative relations. This is the peculiarity of sport in comparison with language and other semiotic structures. We will define visual communication of competition as the "visual sports text”. Sports competition is a single semantic unit, in which the visual sports text is seized by the audience in its pure form (perceived directly), and fixed a certain result. In sports, directly related to sport games, such a separate sports event is called the "game”. The term game is multi-valued and is used in different contexts. The term "game” denotes any sports event as a unit of competition. Visual sports text can be perceived directly within a certain time interval between the beginning and the end of the game. The game is limited by temporary, spatial or conditional scopes (90 minutes, 100 meters of the race, a player or a team gaining the required amount of points first). The result of the game becomes a part of the sports text of the competition and has an impact on the determination of the winner. A game can be divided into smaller units (round, period, time) and the results of these units add up to the overall outcome of the competition. The intermediate nature of a game in relation to competition, does not change its conditions: it (the game) always starts with score 0:0, although it admits dead heat final outcome. The competition may coincide with the game, if it consists of one stage, or takes place in a short period of time. Visual sports text consists of interaction between participants' codes of sports game. The minimum number of codes is-two (boxing, tennis, chess), the maximum is not limited (mass marathons involve thousands of people).

There are two types of sports visual codes. In the first case, the competitors are present in the game simultaneously. Interaction of opponents' codes takes place directly here- athlete’s code varies depending on the opponent's code. This code we define as the diacode. As well as in dialogue, there can be two or more participants of diacode. The second case: the opponents in the game are presented not simultaneously but one by one. One athlete (or a team) appears on the sports ground with the previously prepared code. Code interaction occurs indirectly-competitors do not interfere in each other’s codes. This is what we call monocode. Monocode can be represented by two athletes (pair skating) or more (group synchronized swimming). A necessary condition here is one team affiliation. The text of the game is always represented by the whole product - it does not matter whether it is formed of diacodes or monocodes.

As mentioned above, sport is a closed conditional gaming communicational sign system. Visual sign structures that make up codes, text and language of sports, we define as Basic. In sport, there are another signs serving for the basic sign structures. Generally, any item that is included into sports competition is a sign by its nature. These signs we call subsidiary. There is a great amount of subsidiary signs: pucks, sticks, balls, rackets, skates, football boots, form and its color, emblems of clubs or coats of arms of the country on this form, sports grounds and stadiums, scoreboards, gestures of referees, red and yellow cards, scarves, fan hats and jerseys with paraphernalia of their favorite club, etc.

A process in which something functions as a sign, Morris called semiosis. Semiosis involves three factors: the thing that appears as a sign (significant mean by Morris's classification); the thing that indicates the sign (designat); the impact, in virtue of which the relevant thing turns to interpreter as a sign (interpretant). Based on these three members of the ternary relations of semiosis, Morris examines binary relations: of one signs with the others (sintactic dimension of semiosis), signs to their objects (semantic dimension of semiosis) and signs to interpreters (pragmatic dimension of semiosis). Syntactics, semantics and pragmatics are involved in studying of these measurements [8]. From the position of our study, we note that syntactic studies the category of form, while pragmatics deals with content and semantics-meaning. Among other classifications of signs the best known is Peirce’s classification, which was based on the same principle of ternary. Ternary classification of Charles S. Pierce examines a sign in relation to itself, to the denoted object and towards interpretant [9] (Figure 1).

While the logical analysis of Pierce’s classification we should note that on each level-both the sign and its relations - there is a gradual (via representation) ascent from a simple form (compliance and submission) to the complex one (the convention and the law). A ternary principle of building this classification basically follows traditional notion of a sign, known as semiotic triangle [10]: There are many variants known, representing the semiotic triangle. According to Mechkovskaya, opened by stoics triad "the signified-the meaning-the thing” remains logical- semiotic invariant of searches or as the coordinate axis of a single system. By its nature, this triangle expresses interaction of three categories, claimed us- form (the meaning), content (the thing) and values (the signified). These categories are present on each level of the semiotic structure-in sign, text and language (Figure 2).

A necessary condition of any semiotic system existence is the compulsory presence of categories of form, content and value. The triad serves a distinctive feature of semiotics comparing with other structural entities. Ratio of categories in each structural element changes and the forefront always becomes one of them, whether the form, content or value. Based on triadic classification of Pierce, we present a classification of sports signs, where each unit corresponds to a certain visual phenomenon of sports communication: There is also a group of signs classified as values, which we define as the key signs (Figure 3). The interrelation between these signs expresses the result of sports game. In linguistic literature this concept corresponds to the term "keyword". Regarding visual sports text key signs reflect the process of achieving a result, help to comprehend the meaning of the game better. Key signs reveal semantics of games, they belong to the category of value, and the value or the meaning in sport expresses the result. As in every sport result is determined in accordance with their specific rules and has a different manifestation, and then key signs gain different incarnation. In sports games key signs are productive actions that define the score of the match. In football and hockey they are goals, in basketball and volleyball-points, in athletics- seconds and centimeters, in weightlifting-kilograms and grams. The key signs are also the results of individual segments of a match: half, period, set.

On the second level of the perception of the game, when the visual sports text translates into graphic, the key signs are transformed into official technical protocol of the competition. The main function of the key signs is to specify the process of understanding. Key signs act as an expresser of common sense, the result of game, that combine the main content of the competition text. Thus, they contract information. The contracting occurs due to the "secondary” information, and the remaining one, provided by key signs, is the most significant. Lukin noted that these statements are true particularly concerning non-fiction texts [11]. The result, as a sign that expresses the value category, is the crucial key sign. The entire text of the game can be contracted to a single result. In sports, there are several criteria to determine the result. Based on these criteria, all sports can be divided into a number of common groups and create a semiotic classification of sports, which would be based on the result as a sign that expresses the value category.

A Semiotic Classification of Sports According to the Criteria of the Outcome

a) Quantitative criteria of result. They include sports, where the winner is determined by objective indicators related to the system of measurement (the shortest time, maximum weight, the greatest height and length): athletics and weightlifting, skating, swimming, skiing, and cycling.

b) Qualitative assessment of results. Sports with subjective statements: figure skating, gymnastics, diving, boxing, wrestling.

c) Conditional criteria of determining the result. These are sports, where wins the team with the largest amount of conditional objective points (goals in football, points in basketball); or the smallest (penalty points in equestrian sport). They include all sports games.

d) Complex criteria of evaluation. Here can be combined: the quantitative, qualitative and conditional indicators (in various combinations) in ski jumping the length of the jump is added to the assessment of the jump technique. This group includes all the all-rounds, including different sports: modern pentathlon (combines equestrian, shooting, fencing, swimming, and cross), Nordic combined (ski jumping and ski race), biathlon (skiing and shooting).

Thus, the semiotic structure of sport is a unity of form, content and meaning. The same triadic division has any significant structure on any level of its building-in the sign, text and language. The category of form in the semiotic structure of sport is expressed in rules of the competition, which are language by its nature. The content is competitions that can be represented as a text, composed of athletes' codes. The meaning of sport comes down to identifying of a winner. In the semiotic structure of sports, we define it as a result expressing the category of value.

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