I Read Where I am – nieuwe recensies
Posted: May 10, 2012 at 9:36 am | By: Serena Westra | Tags: boek, book, I Read Where I Am, recensie, review, Valiz
Facebook as Virtual Mirror – Book review
Posted: May 4, 2012 at 4:25 pm | By: margreet | Tags: Koen Damhuis
By Serena Westra
Facebook makes us unhappy is the main premise of Dutch author Koen Damhuis. In his new book ‘De Virtuele Spiegel; Waarom Facebook ons Ongelukkig Maakt’ (The Virtual Mirror; Why Facebook makes us Unhappy) he is examining his generation, Generation Y, which is raised in a society with high expectations and no room for failure. According to him, the ubiquitous presence of Facebook makes us unhappy because we are confronted with all the things we did not accomplish and chances we did not take. Facebook friends always seem to look better, prettier and more successful. ‘Facebook provides the possibility to get closer to perfection; consequently the discrepancy between the ordinary world and our virtual image of the world gets bigger. […] It becomes harder and harder to accept failure, especially for Generation Y that want’s everything’ (Damhuis, 2012).
In The Virtual Mirror Damhuis gives three options to deal with this issue. First self-improvement: be better then your Facebook friends. You can use Facebook to hide your authentic self and to ‘fake it till you make it’. Second: have fewer ambitions. Creating borders in a borderless world might be a solution, because giving up your ambitions can be just as fulfilling as succeeding. The third option is a combination of both: try to be better than your friends, but accept failure too.
According to Damhuis we are living in a performance culture. Instead of accepting the fact that we are not necessarily the prettiest or most important person in the world, we oblige each other to see ourselves as special. Facebook helps us with this from commercial grounds - the more personalized the profile, the more personalized the advertisement can be - and provides us with the space we need to do this. Virtually we all look pretty and exceptional. ‘You are putting on a mask to hide your own mediocrity – we are all doing this in front of the virtual mirror.'
However, on his quest to find the reason why Facebook makes Generation Y unhappy, Damhuis forgets one important thing: to look at Facebook itself. New media critic Lev Manovich believes that an analysis cannot be complete until we consider the software layer. ‘All disciplines which deal with contemporary society and culture – architecture, design, art criticism, sociology, political science, humanities, science and technology studies, and so on – need to account for the role of software and its effects in whatever subjects they investigate’ (Manovich, 2008). Software is still invisible to most academics and the use of software studies in combination with sociology is not applied often. Yet, the implementation of software studies in Damhuis’ research would have provided a more complete image. For example, how does Facebook’s software encourage the self-promoting machine? And how exactly do users construct themselves in a perfect way on Facebook?
Despite this, Damhuis does, as a sociologist, know how to correctly grasp the current issue with Generation Y and the performance society. As part of Generation Y, I recognize myself in the stereotype he describes: one who is never satisfied and continually sharing content on Facebook. I share the idea that the standards of being successful are extremely high and that these are increased by Facebook because of the active use of impression management. From a sociological dramaturgic perspective Facebook can be seen as a stage on which we play our best part in front of the audience (friends). To be able to compete with perfect looking Facebook friends, we have all turned into self-promoting machines.
While Damhuis stops at this point, Geert Lovink tries to find an underlying reason for why we have turned into self-promoters. In his new book Networks Without a Cause, he gives three approaches to dismantle the consumer desire that drives the self-promoting machine. ‘One way is to disrupt it’s self-evidence. Talking about the dark side of positive thinking is a first step to recover from the mass delusion of smile or die’ (Lovink, 2011). On Facebook we are acting as if we play ourselves, even in front of our own friends. However, according to Lovink there is no one Self, our identities are more complex. He believes social networking is not about affirming something as truth, but more about making truth through endless clicking. The second way is to look at the self-promoting machine as primarily powered by the fast consumption of objects external to us, the unstoppable drive to collect more and more. Could it be that we are suffering form ‘affluenza’; the plenty that makes you sick? Third, Lovink revisits the notion of anonymity in today’s context. We have to re-imagine anonymity as a form of metamorphosis instead of seeing it as an attainable categorical state. It is the desire to become someone else. Yet, in the political sphere, we are told we do not have a right to perfect anonymity at all anymore.
Instead of having different identities, the current society wants us to find the ‘true, authentic self’. On Facebook you can only have one identity, so we are wearing this singular mask. But how can Facebook function as a mirror when everybody is wearing a mask? Damhuis claims that Facebook looks a lot like Fakebook. In that sense, wouldn’t Facebook function as a funhouse mirror instead of a virtual mirror?
However, are we really wearing masks? In my research I have found out that we are not pretending to be someone else on Facebook. We are selectively only showing our positive side on Facebook, with use of impression management, and hiding our negative and bad side. This means that we are not fake, but showing an incomplete authentic self to the audience (friends) on Facebook. Hence, one can ask the question if Facebook can still make us unhappy when everybody knows Facebook users are selectively constructing a positive identity. And if Facebook can make us unhappy, how can it make us happy again? Should we all befriend unsuccessful and ugly people? And what about turning the mirror around and looking at the way society is reflecting social media? I believe the mirror can work in both directions: both social media and society are influencing each other.
I am looking forward to a book that will study this subject form a sociological and media studies perspective. Damhuis describes the current society, Generation Y and the influence of Facebook on our level of happiness in an interesting way; he knows how to grasp the time we are living in. But for me, the exact reason how and why Facebook makes us unhappy and how to prevent this stays unclear.
Resources:
Damhuis, Koen. De Virtuele Spiegel; Waarom Facebook ons Ongelukkig Maakt. Arbeiderspers, 2012.
Lovink, Geert. Networks Without a Cause; a Critique of Social Media. Polity Press, 2011.
Manovich, Lev. Software Takes Commend. 2008
Westra, Serena. Performing the Self: Identity on Facebook. BA thesis, 2011.
“Réseaux sociaux, contribution et participation” avec Geert Lovink
Posted: April 11, 2012 at 3:31 pm | By: margreet |
Livestream tomorrow from the presentation "Réseaux sociaux, contribution et participation" by Geert Lovink
La séance d’inauguration
se tiendra
jeudi 12 avril à 17h30
dans la salle Triangle du Centre Georges Pompidou
Créé en partenariat avec le laboratoire InVisu (INHA-CNRS) en 2009, le séminaire Sens Public soutenu par la MSH Paris-Nord expose de nouvelles pratiques d’éditorialisation. Associé à présent à l’IRI et se tenant au Centre Pompidou, il interrogera les principes, les atouts et les limites des évolutions du numérique éditorial.
Geert Lovink posera la question suivante : la montée des médias sociaux va-t-elle induire une renaissance de la sociologie ? Une chose est certaine, il y a un besoin urgent de théorie générale sur le design “social”. La sociologie doit pour cela se libérer de ce que Lovink appelle “ses impulsions professionnelles”, c’est-à-dire l’implication sociale de la technologie. Nous devons tendre vers une abrogation des dichotomies qui contraignent et limites nos façons de penser, telle que la distinction entre réel/virtuel et public/privé.
Lieu : Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 4e. On accède à la salle Triangle par l’esplanade Pompidou. L’entrée se trouve à droite de l’entrée principale (à droite de la librairie).
Direct sur polemictweet dès 17h30.
Intervenant : Geert Lovink est fondateur de l’Institute of Network of Cultures et chercheur et professeur de Media Theory à la Hogeschool van Amsterdam et à l’Université d’Amsterdam.
Inscriptions (entrée libre) : sur le formulaire qui se trouve à cette page.
Nous vous remercions de votre intérêt pour nos événements.
Call for collaboration: Public Space Invaders
Posted: April 5, 2012 at 8:32 am | By: Serena Westra | Tags: call, collaboration, Public Space Invaders, Quatorze
A collaborative research on collective urban activism [1] is asking for your attention. Seeking for alternatives to administration driven city construction, the focus lies on self-organized projects who practically reshape public space.
To visualize the demographic topology of the practitioners network as well as inherent project patterns, Quatorze [2] develops an online interface [3]. Still in the early alpha phase, it already allows to sketch hypotheses about the network.
Given that the LAA [4] - Lab oratoire Architecture / Anthropologie - is funding the socioscientific part of the research, to continue with the knowledge mapping tool, the PSI crew is especially looking for fundings within the field of network culture and knowledge representation.
If you know anyone, wheather organization, institution or private person, who might be interested in supporting this endeavour, please contact the researchers [5] directly.
Public Space Invaders can be seen live end of May in Barcelona [6] and end of August in Cologne [7].
Merci beaucoup.
metadata
[1] http://publicspaceinvaders.org/
[2] http://quatorze14.org/
[3] http://alpha.publicspaceinvaders.org/
[4] http://www.laa.archi.fr/
[5] romain.minod@gmail.com, jon.richter@gmail.com, antoine.demarest@gmail.com,
[6] http://bit.ly/HdYxjg
[7] https://igc2012.org/
| International Geography Congress 2012 | Field : Urbanisation & Demographic Change | Session : Urban utopias and heterotopias: Theorizing, analyzing, and evaluating urban spaces
Notes from Anne Helmond for Geert Lovink’s book launch of Networks Without a Cause: A critique of Social Media
Posted: March 30, 2012 at 6:47 am | By: margreet |
Source: Anne Helmond
Anne Helmond & Geert Lovink during Geert Lovink's book launch of Networks Without a Cause: A critique of Social Media. Photo by Sabine Niederer. Background image: http://ogilvynotes.com/49790/454990/sxsw-2012/the-nick-denton-interview-the-failure-of-comments
The Institute of Network Cultures, Eva van den Eijnde and myself would like to welcome you to the official book launch of Geert Lovink’s new book Networks Without a Cause. A Critique of Social Media. Thank you very much for being here. Today I would like to start with a brief introduction to Geert’s new book and how it relates to his previous work. Afterwards Geert will talk about his new book, followed by a few questions and comments from Eva van den Eijnde and myself, and of course questions from the audience.
Networks Without a Cause is the fourth book by Geert in his series of studies into critical internet culture. For those unfamiliar with Geert’s work, the first book in this series is Dark Fiber (2001) which deals with early internet culture, from cyber culture to dot.com-mania. His second book My First Recession (2003) describes the aftermath of the dot.com mania and looks at the transition period of the dot.com crash to the early blogging years. His third book Zero Comments (2008) looks back on the blogging hype that has commenced since and addresses blogs as an unfolding process of “massification” and blogging as a “nihilistic venture.” It also looks at the Web 2.0 hype or Web 2.0 mini-bubble that echoes the dot-com era but also differs from it as described by Geert. His new monograph, Networks Without a Cause (2012), continues where Zero Comments has left off by describing the late Web 2.0 era.
Geert Lovink's net critique series. Publisher: Polity Press 2012 Design: Studio Leon Loes.
The introduction of Networks Without a Cause starts with the important umbrella question “How do we capture Web 2.0 before its disappearance?” The rise of the real-time signifies a fundamental shift from the static archive and handcoded HTML websites toward “flow” and the “river” as metaphors of the real-time, where the software, social media platforms, are automatically generating content flows from the input from their users. Blogs and blog software have played an important role in this shift, with the reverse-chronology of blog entries and the river of fresh content produced by RSS feeds. Real-time is a key feature of social media platforms such as Facebook with its news feed and Twitter with its timeline, where content flows by, begging the question for researchers how to capture and archive this flow in order to be able to analyze it, and for Geert also the question of “why store a flow?” related to the notion of users no longer saving their files for offline retrieval but instead moving, storing and syncing everything in the cloud (think for example about Gmail and Dropbox) but also the question of identity management because “how do you shape the self in real-time flows?” (p. 11) These and many other questions posed throughout the book are part of a “Net criticism” project that seeks to develop sustainable concepts as individual building blocks that through dialogues and debates “will ultimately culminate in a comprehensive materialist (read: hardware- and software-focused) and affect-related theory.” (p. 22)1
Question 1: Web 2.0 versus social media
Is it a coincidence that a number of books dealing critically dealing with “social media” are coming out at the same time? This book Networks Without a Cause with its subtitle A Critique of Social Media, also The Social Media Reader a volume on the topic with contributions by well-known authors on the subject where, in the introduction the term Web 2.0 is called a buzzword, that on the one hand has been “emptied of its referent, it is an empty signifier: it is a brand.” (p. 4)2 but on the other hand encapsulates an aspect of the phenomenon of social media. And finally, the upcoming book by Andrew Keen called Digital Vertigo that addresses the threat of the social and the tension between the collective social and the individual in “today’s creeping tyranny of an ever-increasingly transparent social network that threatens the individual liberty.”3 Geert also addresses related issues in his book when describes “The social as a feature.” He describes how “Social media as a buzzword of the outgoing Web 2.0 era is just a product of business management strategies and should be judges accordingly.” (p. 6)
Is Web 2.0 a thing from the past? As a lecturer in the first year of Mediastudies at the University of Amsterdam I was surprised to learn this year that my students were not familiar with the term Web 2.0 at all! Everyone had heard of social media, everybody except for one privacy conscious student, was a member of Facebook, but none of them had heard of the term Web 2.0. This is also illustrated in the following image:
Social Media versus Web 2.0
What is the relation between Web 2.0 and social media when thinking not only about terminology but also about software, practices and critiques?
Question 2: Comment cultures
While in Zero Comments Geert focused on the average blog with its zero comments, in Networks Without a Cause he focuses on the other end of the Power Law diagram and looks at blogs that have reached a critical mass. In the introduction he writes how in Web 2.0: “Current software invites users to leave short statements but often excludes the possibility for others to respond. Web 2.0 was not designed to facilitate debate with its thousands of contributions. […] What the back-office software does is merely measure “responsiveness”: in other words, there have been that many users, that much judgment, and that little debate.” p. 19
Measuring responsivenessWhile blogs offers a form of facilitated debate by offering the possibility of comments, it is highly hierarchical due to the strict separation of content and comments. On top of that bloggers are continuously debating how to improve the old blog comment infrastructure in order to deal with the “tragedy of the comments” that have caused some bloggers to shut down their comments.
Geert argues that thinking about the software-architecture to design the comment ecology is important because software co-produces a social order. Could you further elaborate on current comment cultures, your ideas to go beyond taming the commentators, and the increasing splintering comment ecology with the conversation also moving to social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook with no proper way to connect all these distributed comments back to the original text?
- Lovink, Geert. Networks Without a Cause. A Critique of Social Media. Polity Press, 2012.[↩]
- Mandiberg, Michael (editor). The Social Media Reader. New York University Press, 2012.[↩]
- Keen, Andrew. Digital Vertigo: How Today’s Online Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us. Forthcoming, May 2012.[↩]
Boeklancering: Networks Without a Cause, A critique of Social Media
Posted: March 20, 2012 at 10:58 am | By: margreet | Tags: boeklancering, geert lovink | 1 Comment
Boeklancering: Networks Without a Cause, A critique of Social Media door Geert Lovink
Waar: Benno Premselahuis (voorheen: Singelgrachtgebouw), Rhijnspoorplein 1, MediaLounge, 6e verdieping
Wanneer: woensdag 28 maart
Tijd: aanvang 17u, inloop 16.45u
Entree: gratis
De lancering wordt gemodereerd door Eva van den Eijnde en Anne Helmond.
Over het boek: Op welk moment staan we stil bij de gevolgen van onze info-verzadigde levens, met de grote meerderheid van Facebook gebruikers gevangen in een razernij van ‘bevrienden’, ‘leuk vinden’ en ‘becommentariëren’? Wat drijft ons zo ijverig verbonden te zijn met sociale netwerken? Networks Without a Cause onderzoekt onze collectieve obsessie met identiteit en zelfmanagement, gerelateerd aan de fragmentatie en het overaanbod aan informatie dat de hedendaagse online cultuur kenmerkt.
Om het tekort aan theorie over sociale en culturele implicaties van enorm populaire online diensten op te heffen, levert Geert een baanbrekende kritische analyse van onze overhypte, genetwerkte wereld met case-studies van zoekmachines, online video, bloggen, digitale radio, media-activisme en de Wikileaks sage. Dit boek biedt een krachtige boodschap aan media beoefenaars en theoretici: laten wij gezamenlijk onze kritische capaciteiten ontketenen om het ontwerp van technologie en werkruimtes te beïnvloeden, voordat we in de ‘cloud’ verdwijnen. Voortvloeiend uit zijn lange geschiedenis in media onderzoek biedt Geert, indringend doch nooit pessimistisch, een kritiek op de politieke structuren en conceptuele krachten die ingebed zijn in de technologieën die onze dagelijkse levens vormgeven.
Er zijn een aantal exemplaren te koop tijdens de lancering, maar mocht je naast het net vissen, dan kan je een exemplaar hier bestellen:
http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745649672
Tot dan!
Boek uit de Band Het E-boek, van Schrijver tot Lezer – 22 en 23 maart 2012
Posted: March 15, 2012 at 1:47 pm | By: margreet |
Met de opkomst van het E-boek wordt een nieuwe dimensie toegevoegd aan het uitgeven, redigeren, vormgeven en distribueren van boeken. De keten van schrijver naar lezer en wat daar tussenin zit komt onder druk te staan. Met dit als gegeven organiseert Boek-uit-de-Band haar tweede conferentie waarin alle ontwikkelingen en aspecten van de digitale keten aan bod komen.
22 maart Workshops
De eerste dag wordt besteed aan workshops over het maken van E-boeken. De workshop 'E-boekdesign in het ePub-formaat voor absolute beginners' zal worden begeleid door Florian Cramer en Jacob Molenaar. Belangrijk is hierbij is de vraag hoe je tekst vertaalt en beeld omzet in een gestandaardiseerde vorm die voor verschillende soorten schermen en systemen te lezen is. De nadruk zal liggen op de Epub standaard. De workshop 'E-boeken en Marketing' zal bestaan uit presentaties met een meer praktische inslag van Jürgen Snoeren (Meulenhoff Boekerij), Sander Dullaart (Favela Fabric) en Erik Rigters (ebook.nl) waarbij marketing strategieën en verdienmodellen met een focus op sociale media aan bod komen.
23 maart Conferentie
De tweede dag wordt besteed aan de inhoudelijke aspecten van de keten van schrijver naar lezer, met een accent op de vormgeving en redactionele taken en nieuwe procedures. De nadruk ligt op het Algemene Boek. De conferentie is niet bedoeld om een breed overzicht te geven wat er allemaal technologisch zou kunnen, maar hoe de uitgeverij, de bibliotheek, de boekhandel en de schrijvers en lezers tezamen “het boek” maken en gebruiken.
Sprekers: Willem Vermeend (TSS Cross Media Group), Bas Savenije (Directeur Koninklijke Bibliotheek), Eppo van Nispen tot Sevenaer (CPNB), Frans Havekes (Brill uitgevers), Prof. Adriaan van der Weel (Universiteit Leiden, Bohn-hoogleraar in de moderne geschiedenis van het boek), Hans Willem Cortenraad (Directeur Centraal Boekhuis), Henk Wals (Directeur Huygens Instituut), Jacob Molenaar (Epub expert) en Pieter Swinkels (Kobo). En schrijvers als Tonnus Oosterhoff (winnaar P.C. Hoofdprijs 2012) Sidney Vollmer, Mark Staniforth. Ontwerpers Megan Hoogenboom, Aymeric Mansoux en Petr van Blokland spreken over de veranderingen in hun vakgebied.
Voor een actueel programma networkcultures.org/boekuitdeband
Toegangskaarten kunt u hier bestellen.
We hopen u te zien op 22 en 23 maart!
Dit event is georganiseerd door CREATE-IT applied research, het kenniscentrum van de Hogeschool van Amsterdam Media Domein MCI, Willem de Kooning Academie Hogeschool Rotterdam en Boek en Digitale mediastudies Universiteit Leiden
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Locatie: Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, Oosterdokskade 143
Kaarten per dag: Normaal: €75,- Onderwijsgevend personeel: €15,- Studenten: €5,-
Passe-partout: Normaal: €125,- Onderwijsgevend personeel: €25,- Studenten: €10,-
22 maart 2012:
- Workshop 'E-boekdesign in het ePub-formaat voor absolute beginners - aanvang 11.00 einde 17.30. Voor deze workshop is naast een toegangskaartje aanmelding verplicht. Neem hiervoor contact op met Helen Poelwijk via creating010@hr.nl
- Workshop 'E-boeken en Marketing' - aanvang 14.00 einde 17.30
23 maart 2012:
- Conferentie - Aanvang 10.00 einde 17.30
Interview with Astrid Vorstermans and Pia Pol, publishers of Valiz
Posted: February 8, 2012 at 6:42 pm | By: margreet | Tags: Valiz
INC: How do you select what you publish?
Astrid: The program concentrates on contemporary art, linked to social or cultural topics. 80 percent of what we publish is provided by people coming to us. New content often develops from a network of people who link up to what we're doing. 20 percent or more is initiated by ourselves, and we try to look for people who fit in with these plans. But these are often from the same network, and it's growing and moving all the time, an organic group of people who fit that subject or not.
I can specify a bit more. Since Valiz started (2003) we have made book monographs with artists, people who we know or meet through galleries and exhibitions, though we've made less of these in the last few years. We have a line of books, series, that are on more theoretical subjects. These are international, both the authors and audience. They fit in discourses on art, technology, and society. Lastly we make book deals with individuals, institutes, and schools, sometimes museums, both in the Netherlands and internationally. These always have to fit into our program, and they are dealt with in the same editorial way.
The series each have specific missions. Books such as PhDs are in fact someone's personal project that investigates theoretical subjects. The series is a combined effort by several people; most are compilations of texts. They're embedded in a community where others interact with them. Other books are by one individual author or on one specific artist or designer. 80 percent of our books are English, the rest are Dutch. Some are bilingual.
One of our series is called Antennae. Then we are developing other series, one is called ‘Studiolo’, which publishes PhDs on art historical or cultural subjects. Monographs include Rob Voerman , Alexander van Slobbe, Joke Robaard, Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan, Berend Strik Hans Venhuizen and others.
With each book we look for a point of view that is discursive and we try to define its audience quite specifically. With monographs it is a challenge to go beyond the sole representation of the work and explore critical perspectives, open up its meaning.
INC: How long does it usually take to bring a manuscript to published form?
Pia: The shortest period of time is two to three months. The longest is years. I think most are in between, six to eight months. The shortest: I Read Where I Am took two months, or about six to eight weeks.
Astrid: I want to be involved in the concept phase of the book. It's important to talk about the type of book, the way the content is structured and a target audience in an early stage. When you jump in the middle of something, you don't have the distance nor space to think about those aspects very hard.
INC: How do finances affect what you select?
Astrid: I think of content first of all, always. When I believe in that, defining an audience and sales strategy follows, but we have to earn a living and need to pay our costs, so that is a part of trying to fit our work into an economic model. We act within the ‘normal’ publishing and bookseller’s industry, but we find other ways to reach an audience and fund books than a normal publisher.
Pia: Lots of things don't go via bookseller’s sales. We do book presentations, launches, discussions, trips around Amsterdam with an architecture book we have made, lots of events that generate direct sales. It's about linking communities, and getting people interested in the whole program.
INC: Is book design affected much by marketing strategies?
Astrid: We pay a lot of attention to graphic design, not from the point of view of sales, but we're trying to be on the cutting edge of what is happening. There are so many over-produced books, you must stand out in a certain way. You can communicate or enhance that content in graphic design. Graphic designers are very much like editors, defining how a book is structured, what type of information to convey.
Each year we receive one or two or three awards for best book design. We're proud of that, and it would be nice if it influences our sales or development of digital publishing. But we'll see.
Regarding book design, I don't think about sales except for the cover, legibility, and I try to have feedback from our distributors and reps.
INC: How do you fund your operation?
Astrid: Most of these books are not feasible without a partner or extra funding. So we look for partners and subsidies and try to enthuse our distributors to sell as many copies as possible. Funding is changing in the Netherlands, so we’ll have to see how this develops. We do projects with schools, in the Netherlands, institutes in Belgium, New York, Paris, in Bristol etc. We're networking, trying to explain what we do and being transparent about what books cost to produce, and that you might make very little money from it. So a way to convince other people is to say: if you want content developed into a well-made book, distributed within the right network, you must pay for it as well.
INC: How do you distribute and market your books?
Pia: We work with different international distributors, webshops like Amazon and our own, plus Facebook, mailings and events. We have a huge network of people who we try to keep up-to-date by emails, our website, LinkedIn. For the series we give introductions online in pdf format; for other things we provide pictures. We have seven free pdf intros..
INC: Will you make any other content available for free online?
Astrid: It's not a real policy apart from the series pdfs. The pdfs are several pages that help explain the book and their structure and aim. For other books we are trying to sort out what we can do to make them more open to the public. Sometimes it's difficult because we're very much in favor of open source. But take Hans Venhuizen for instance, who writes on architecture and urbanism. If we give his content away it's harder for him to live on what he does. He has to sell his knowledge to live, so more personal books are more difficult to ‘give away’.
We have to ask more consciously what format will work for each title. As for digital opportunities: we are not a cutting-edge digital publisher, but we try to keep up with what is happening, and what we could do. Opening books up, like we did with I Read Where I Am on the web, is still different than reading the physical book. I don't think people wouldn't buy the book anymore just because it's online.
Pia: In fact even the opposite might happen. Online the book is an extensive preview for the physical book.
INC: What formats might you offer online?
Pia: We're going for epub format. That's the most accessible to most people. Our books are well designed - that's the struggle. How to keep the feel or the intricate design of the books we create in a digital format? The conversion from plain text to epub is not difficult, but to have a suitable digital design, which uses the digital opportunities, is something which still has to be developed.
INC: What licenses do you use?
Astrid: For all of our texts we try to apply Creative Commons non-commercial license. But as soon as pictures from artists are involved, it's difficult to use Creative Commons. It's the same as talking about Hans Venhuizen giving his work away for free: we must ask the artists or authors if they agree with Creative Commons, and if they're already involved in picture rights. You can't combine Creative Commons with another license or rule.
INC: What do prefer, digital or print?
Astrid: Digital is important, and with an online book you have the internet as a sort of reference or to link to communities. Digital culture influences our way of using information and using books. But if you have a printed book, it's not important that you have it online also. For me a book is self-sufficient, but online it's not. Books influence digital developments, but what about the other way around?
The unique selling point of a book is that it's physical, you can have it in your pocket. It's autonomous, you don't need electricity.
I Read Where I Am is trying to translate a database into a book, but it's old fashioned how it is done. If it were filled with things that pop up and are used in a different way, that would be innovative. But its graphic design is based on a database, and the core idea of the database predates the digital.
INC: How do you interact with your reading public?
Astrid: At events, when we organize discussions. We do that quite a lot, more than other publishers. We're not linked to a digital system and don't have message boards. All discussions and book launches are meant for feedback. We could have an online platform where people react to our books, but I feel that with internet people don't think, but throw things out without inhibition. We're not comfortable with angry rants, but if someone wants to make a discussion around a book, it's great. We should develop our website into that direction. We're interested in the possibility of having small platforms where people are concentrated and interested in a topic, and you know that within that community, this subject is important.
INC: What do you see as the major dangers to the publishing industry?
Astrid: To express a cliche: how people are looking at art and culture in the Netherlands is the biggest danger. It's this, and it's a government that doesn't see any extra value in books or culture, apart from economic value. The book trade used to be something in between economy and culture. That is changing. All these small initiatives that feed the mainstream quite a lot could vanish or suffer. With the commercial model you're dependent on the market, and the market is about numbers, not about content or countermovements.
Pia: It goes hand in hand with how people are looking to simplify things. Nothing can take much time any more. Food, clothes, it's all made fast and cheap.
Astrid: The book trade is decreasing and receding. I'm still convinced there are readers, and so we have book launches for discussion, and it's busy and people buy books there. But if we also have to sell through the normal book trade, booksellers don't buy our books anymore; you cannot achieve a critical mass with them. The end user doesn't see certain books any more. The serendipity we had in a bookshop is going away - when you see something and come back to buy it, and subjects influence you to explore other fields and domains. Subject links on the internet are more difficult than the library or bookstore. Browsing on the internet is more superficial and less meaningful. You don't know what you're dealing with. In a bookshop you can look at a book and know you're interested.
Pia: But I'm completely dependent on Amazon. It's easier to find things online, and I do look at more things, I keep clicking.
INC: What other future plans could you foresee with the digital side of publishing?
Astrid: When I started Valiz, I edited and published books. Now we're more and more acting as a cultural stage, not just for books but to promote the subjects in our books. It's a model I like a lot, where we could proceed even more not just as a publishing house of physical books but as a platform doing cultural projects along with books. The content is there, the audience is there, but we need to find other models of funding that.
Pia: We'll have to explore the digital side that will be in tune with the subjects.
Astrid: It's difficult to think of how to improve the content with digital techniques. With more discursive books it's easier to think of as linking to other information, to communities. We are at a starting point, a kindergarten of digital possibilities. It's not a translation for a book but a new way of diving into it and spreading and condensing things. It's good to think about digital possibilities as you start a new project, if this is the most suitable medium to publish this subject in now. You start off from a different point of view as you develop content. But sometimes you really need a book.
Pia: I don't think the book will ever go away.
Word jij onze nieuwe collega?
Posted: January 13, 2012 at 5:02 pm | By: margreet | Tags: INC, vacature
Vacature
Functie: projectmanager lectoraat
Aantal fte: 0,6
Hay profiel: Projectmanager 4
Salarisschaal: 11
Sluitingsdatum: 29/01/2012
Het domein Media, Creatie en Informatie (DMCI) is onderdeel van de Hogeschool van Amsterdam en telt ruim 6.600 studenten en 425 medewerkers. Het domein, met een sterke crossmediale, mode en ICT-focus, is ambitieus en wil op alle fronten kwaliteit uitdragen.
Create-IT Applied Research is het kenniscentrum van het domein. Studenten en onderzoekers werken samen in uitdagende projecten op het gebied van media, mode en IT. Het centrum wordt gekenmerkt door een ondernemende instelling en multidisciplinaire aanpak. Het onderzoek vindt zoveel mogelijk plaats binnen de bedrijven en instellingen waarmee samengewerkt wordt, maar er zijn ook verschillende labs, waar nieuwe technologieën onderzocht kunnen worden en waar studenten (afstudeer)opdrachten uitvoeren.
In januari 2004 is bij op de opleiding Interactieve Media het lectoraat Interactieve Media in het Publieke Domein gestart, dat niet veel later werd omgevormd tot het Instituut voor Netwerkcultuur (INC). Het INC maakt inmiddels onderdeel uit van het Kenniscentrum Create-IT. Tot de werkzaamheden van het lectoraat behoren onderzoek, het organiseren van theoretisch onderwijs en het ontwikkelen en uitvoeren van een programma van seminars, conferenties, evenementen en publicaties ten behoeve van kennisontwikkeling en kennisoverdracht. Het lectoraat bestaat uit een team van 3 medewerkers: de lector en twee projectmanagers. We zoeken voor voor het INC een
inhoudelijk projectmanager lectoraat (0,6 fte)
De functie
• Initieert en schrijft projecten in de context van de onderzoeksagenda van het lectoraat;
• Schrijft subsidieaanvragen en verzorgt de documentatie voor de verantwoording aan subsidiegevers en sponsors;
• Draagt zorg voor een goede inbedding van de projecten in de organisatie, met een heldere toedeling van verantwoordelijkheden;
• Redigeert en beoordeelt teksten en werkt met auteurs aan manuscripten die bedoeld zijn voor een van de INC publicatiereeksen (zowel Nederlands als Engels);
• Is inhoudelijk sterk en in staat om de verbinding te maken met de verschillende gebieden van digitale cultuur, kunst en maatschappelijke relevantie te signaleren en te ontwikkelen;
• Organiseert samen met de andere projectmanager seminars, conferenties en andere bijeenkomsten in het kader van het lectoraat;
• Verzorgt de communicatie rond de activiteiten (onderhouden van contacten met de pers, persberichten, brochures, publicaties op de website en het intranet);
• Draagt regelmatig bij aan het blog van het lectoraat met inhoudelijke onderzoeksvraagstukken;
• Draagt samen met de andere projectmanager zorg voor een goede documentatie van de activiteiten en de resultaten van de project, ten behoeve van de kennisopbouw en -verspreiding.
Wij zoeken
• Op de hoogte van de ontwikkelingen in het vakgebied, in het bijzonder op het gebied van nieuwe media en netwerk-cultuur;
• Beheerst Engels in woord en geschrift op hoog niveau;
• Kan omgaan met de complexe onderwijsomgeving;
• Heeft aantoonbare ervaring in een vergelijkbare functie;
• Is flexibel, pro-actief, enthousiast en ondernemend;
• Beschikt over WO werk- en denkniveau.
Arbeidsvoorwaarden
Het betreft in eerste instantie een dienstverband voor een jaar. De werkzaamheden maken deel uit van de organieke functie projectmanager 4. De bij deze functie behorende loonschaal is schaal 11 (cao hbo). Het salaris bedraagt maximaal € 4.365,- bruto per maand bij een volledige aanstelling en is afhankelijk van opleiding en ervaring. De HvA kent een uitgebreid pakket aan secundaire arbeidsvoorwaarden, waaronder een ruime vakantieregeling en een 13e maand.
Informatie
Nadere informatie: Margreet Riphagen, via telefoonnummer: 020-5951866 of per e-mail: vacatures@hva.nl (niet gebruiken om te solliciteren).
Kijk voor meer informatie over het lectoraat op http://networkcultures.org en over het Create-IT op: http://www.create-it.hva.nl/
Sollicitaties
Klik op de link onderaan deze advertentie om online te solliciteren. Sollicitaties die rechtstreeks naar de contactpersoon of op een andere wijze worden verstuurd, worden niet verwerkt.
Bij de werving en selectie ter invulling van deze vacature, houden wij de NVP Sollicitatiecode aan. Acquisitie naar aanleiding van deze advertentie wordt niet op prijs gesteld.
http://www.hva.nl/over-de-hva/werken-bij-de-hva/vacatures/
