Author Archives: Norm Friesen
"Certain Media Biases:" Lecturing via TV, Radio, Text
In completing a research project looking into McLuhan, media theory and education, I’ve been reading about an early experiment on “certain media biases” and the pedagogical form of the lecture. Download a .pdf of the initial report, originally published in … Continue reading
Posted in Lecture, Marshall McLuhan, Media Theory
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German Documentary: McLuhan – Visionary of the Media Age
German Documentary: M. McLuhan: Visionary of the Media Age from Norm Friesen on Vimeo. (The entire broadcast can be viewed here.) Interviewer: …but [he] wasn’t a systematizer Martina Leeker (media studies, Cologne): …that makes it perhaps difficult to work with him … Continue reading
Posted in Friedrich Kittler, Marshall McLuhan, Media Theory
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RUOpen? OERu and Open Learning
A presentation by Wayne Mackintosh, hosted at a panel on Open Education held at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) on Oct. 20, 2011. Wayne Talks about openness in education, OERu, and points to some possibilities for TRU’s future role in it. … Continue reading
Posted in Open Ed
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Open Learning 2.0? Aligning Student, Teacher & Content for Openness
Just completed a paper outlining a new model for exploring openness in education. This model is developed by and for Open Learning at Thompson Rivers University, and the paper is co-written with Judith Murray, VP of the Open Learning division. … Continue reading
(Re)Inventing the Internet: Critical Case Studies
Just received the cover design for a book I’m editing with Andrew Feenberg. Here’s the table of contents, and below, some sentences to appear on the back cover: This book examines examples of controversy and contestation from the Internet, focusing on … Continue reading
Posted in Critical Theory, Students, Writing
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Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors
http://vimeo.com/benmendelsohn/bundled Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors from Ben Mendelsohn on Vimeo. A short documentary, sounding almost like a commentary and update on Innis’ Empire & Communications: It reminds us that the Internet is very much a physical infrastructure, with … Continue reading
Posted in Media Theory, Uncategorized
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Friedrich Kittler (1943 – 2011)
Yesterday (Oct. 18), marked the end of the life & career of a media theorist who played an important role in changing what media studies is and (maybe?) might come to mean. One German newspaper (the Baadischer Zeitung) said this … Continue reading
Posted in Friedrich Kittler
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Live Streaming Event: How open is *your* Education?
This event brings together two international experts in open and global education, to discuss the future of education: Dr. Wayne Mackintosh, a committed advocate and user of free software for education. He is the founder of WikiEducator (www.WikiEducator.org), an international … Continue reading
Posted in Open Ed, Presentation
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The (Dys)functionality of the User Interface
The [Dys]functionality of the User Interface [slideshare id=9577669&doc=doingwithiconsmakessymbols-111006112620-phpapp01] View another webinar from Norm Friesen A recording of a presentation I recently gave at the annual meeting of the (German) Soceity for Media Studies in Potsdam, Germany. The theme of the … Continue reading
Posted in Media Theory, Presentation, Writing
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Jesus, Computers and Communication
Many important characteristics and tensions in computational and other conceptions of communication find remarkable resonance in the words of the Jewish carpenter from Galilee. For example, Claude Shannon, the inventor of information theory and a proponent of digital computation (i.e. … Continue reading
Posted in History, Media Theory, Uncategorized
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