Journal articles on the topic 'Press line phone numbers'

Purpose This paper aims to compare residential fixed-line telephone surveys with cell phone surveys for assessing the extent of the potential undercoverage issue evaluating the necessity and feasibility of conducting cell phone surveys or dual-frame telephone surveys in Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach The research team simultaneously carried out a conventional fixed-line telephone survey and a cell phone survey in 2015 with similar features on survey design, sampling and data collection procedures. Two samples with sample size of 801 and 1,203 were achieved separately. Data collected were analysed to see to what extent survey findings will be biased if the sampling frame of telephone surveys is solely based on residential fixed-line numbers in Hong Kong, and if such a bias does exist, whether a survey conducted through cell phones or by adding a cell phone-only (CO) group would be an ideal solution for it. Findings The findings show that the cooperation rates for the cell phone survey were much lower than those of the fixed-line telephone survey. The respondents from two surveys were fairly different. However, estimates of most commonly used socio-demographic characteristics from the latter group had the least bias compared with population statistics. Supplanting the traditional fixed-line survey with a cell phone survey or supplementing it with a CO group will not make the resulting sample a better representative of the population but it will amplify the sample bias on the major social socio-demographic characteristics. Originality/value This paper empirically compares the two types of telephone surveys in a well-designed scientific study.

Social network applications are being more widely used among users and new types of such applications are created by developers. Almost all users who use smart phones are users of such application. Major concern in these applications is privacy and security. We can name WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, Telegram, Line, WeChat and Beetalk as the most popular applications. There are also websites which provide online numbers in order to receive SMS. The goal of this website is providing anonymous virtual phone number to protect users from spam. Also these sites provide different number from different countries and let people to can use them for different application. The services of these websites are divided into two groups: subscription services in which a unique number is assigned to the user by charging him/her and free services in which user can see the received messages of some online numbers without any registration.

Background: Since 1989 Sydney Sexual Health Centre has provided a community phone information line (PIL). The service aims to educate and promote the sexual health of the community and facilitate efficient use of the centre’s resources through the provision of information and advice to the community and health professionals; a referral service; and patient triage. In October 1997 a comprehensive computerised database was developed to collect caller information. In 2003, a 5-year review of the PIL database was undertaken with the express aim of describing the profile of people using the service. Methods: We analysed data from the PIL from 16 October 1997 to end 20 December 2002 using SPSS. Results: A total of 34 013 callers were in the PIL database. Every year the service has seen an increase in demand from 5295 calls in 1998 (first full year of service) to 8401 in 2002. The majority of callers lived in central and southeast Sydney geographical area, however, calls were registered from over 55% of postcodes in NSW and from interstate. The average caller age each year was 32 years with similar standard deviation and the distribution over time has not changed. There were equal numbers of male and female callers each year. Peak times for people to call the PIL were 2–4 pm with a high number of callers at 10 am. In general, calls were between 4 and 6 Min duration. Overall, 14 098 (41.4%) of calls in the database were for general sexual health information. The majority of the information callers over the period who have been calling about infections have called about herpes simplex virus. Conclusions: As is evident the PIL meets a specific community need. This study did not, however, look at patient outcomes and this area needs investigation to fully evaluate the benefits of a community PIL.

Quality function deployment is a cross-functional decision-making tool that converts customer needs into technical attributes of new products. Fuzzy numbers are usually adopted to evaluate the customer need importance and the customer need–technical attribute relationships. However, the weighted normalized customer need–technical attribute relationship matrix is not always full rank. If the different fuzzy numbers of two technical attributes are defined as the fuzzy negative ideal solutions, both the closeness coefficients are 0, and the traditional technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution cannot prioritize the two technical attributes. Actually, the rankings of different fuzzy numbers are not identical. To solve this problem, we present a new technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution to prioritize technical attributes in the fuzzy quality function deployment. The fuzzy positive ideal solution, fuzzy negative ideal solution, and distance measurement of the new technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution are improved. As a result, the proposed method not only prioritizes various forms of numbers without considering the lower and upper limits, the median, and boundary interval but also deals with the nonfull rank matrix. Besides, the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving is used to solve technical conflicts which are identified by the line-fitting method. The prioritization results from the proposed method can help to reasonably allocate design and manufacturing resources. Finally, a case on phone shell is given to illustrate the application of the proposed quality function deployment method.

185 Background: The term “telephone triage” best represents a large proportion of customer interactions carried out by telephone versus other contact channels. It’s often referred to as the “front door” to a business and is the place where the most crucial customer interactions take place. Therefore, the effective and efficient operation of managing these interactions is a key ingredient to the overall success of any organization. Over the last several years, customer feedback and monitoring of trends on the Press Ganey Patient Satisfaction surveys showed opportunity for improvement in the overall patient care experience at our centers. This led to the development of a strategic goal to create a decentralized phone triage center that would manage these interactions as a group across the service line. Methods: A subgroup of key stakeholders came together for a Failure Mode Effects Analysis of the current state. Results were used in the creation of standard work and process flow algorithms for training the new staff. Staff training included: customer service education; shadow experiences across sites; one to one mentoring on new software and technology Results: The Phone Triage room opened this fall and is staffed daily to manage roughly 400 calls. We track quality metrics that fall into three categories: service, quality and efficiency measures. Service measures include the total number of incoming call; number of abandoned calls; length of time the caller is on hold; and statistics on the telephone and answered service factor. Quality measures include: knowledge/competency of service agents; adherence to protocol; first call resolution rate and transfer rate. Lastly, efficiency measures include average handle time; on hold time; schedule efficiency; and agent availability. In October, the center managed 4657 calls over a 14-day period, 98% were answered in under 2.5 minutes with a 2% abandon call rate. Conclusions: Early data shows pooling of service line resources and utilization of technology has increased customer satisfaction. We plan to monitor trends on several key Press Ganey performance indicators with the next quarter results available in January 2017.

PT. Selamat Sempurna, Tbk is a company that manufactures automotive parts, namely car filters. This filter product has many part numbers. In this company has one of the production lines, namely Line Seat Press Shop, this line produces components from filters, namely seat components. Seat is the main part of the filter component that functions as a filter holder to the engine. This Seat component consists of several part numbers (shapes or variations) following the filter product, and some part numbers handled by the manual engine B070 & L224 will affect the changes in the production engine settings. This production machine includes machines that require time in a slow setup process for switching dies when switching from one part number to another part number compared to other machines, because the element of the process setting is long. With a fishbone diagram, the root cause of the Change Over Part long problem on the machine is from the method category (there is no preparation desk dies and there is not separation of external setup and internal setup). Previously the time needed for Change Over Part was 1961 seconds. After knowing the root cause of the problem and the improvement of the time needed is only 866 seconds. The time difference is 1067 seconds, so save on average time 1095 seconds or 18 minutes / setup. Keywords: Filter product, Change Over part (COP), Fishbone Diagram, Setup, Process Elements.

Face-to-face prevention-focused relationship education programs have generally been efficacious in improving couples’ communication and relationship satisfaction. Computer-based interventions have furthered the dissemination of these interventions, so anyone with access to a computer can participate in the intervention. One of the next steps in this line of research is finding affordable and convenient ways to disseminate this information. One possibility is text messaging. The current study examined the feasibility of utilizing text messages as a dissemination tool for relationship enhancement. In this study, 128 married individuals were randomly assigned to a control condition ( n = 64), where relationship-related text messages were not received, or to a treatment condition ( n = 64), where relationship-related text messages were received. Individuals assigned to the treatment condition responded positively toward the intervention. Participants’ dropout and retention rates were promising, and 99% of the participants supplied authentic phone numbers. Participants reported the intervention helped them make changes in their relationship, and that the text messages’ content was beneficial to their relationship. Strengths, limitations, and ideas for future research are discussed, as well as the implications for utilizing text messages as a dissemination tool for preventative relationship education.

In a binary response setting, it has been frequently observed that small numbers are reacted to faster with the left hand and large numbers with the right hand (i. e., the SNARC-effect) which reflects the spatial left-right orientation of the mental number line ( Dehaene, Bossini, & Giraux, 1993 ). In line with the work of Keus and Schwarz (in press ), we investigated the locus of the conflict in the SNARC effect in a parity judgment task with the Arabic numerals 1, 2, 8, or 9. Differences between compatible (left-hand response to 1 or 2 and right-hand response to 8 and 9) and incompatible SNARC conditions (left-hand response to 8 or 9 and right-hand response to 1 or 2) were observed in the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) but not in the peak latency of the P300. In accordance with Keus and colleagues ( Keus, Jenks, & Schwarz, 2005 ), we argue that the locus of the conflict is situated at intermediate response-related stages. However, instead of adopting a single-route processing architecture, a dual route account is proposed as the underlying processing architecture explaining the SNARC effect.

Genetics has fascinated societies since ancient times, and references to traits or behaviors that appear to be shared or different among related individuals have permeated legends, literature, and popular culture. Biomedical advances from the past century, and particularly the discovery of the DNA double helix, the increasing numbers of links that were established between mutations and medical conditions or phenotypes, and technological advances that facilitated the sequencing of the human genome, catalyzed the development of genetic testing. Genetic tests were initially performed in health care facilities, interpreted by health care providers, and included the availability of counseling. Recent years have seen an increased availability of genetic tests that are offered by companies directly to consumers, a phenomenon that became known as direct-to-consumer genetic testing. Tests offered in this setting range from the ones that are also provided in health care establishments to tests known as ‘recreational genomics,’ and consumers directly receive the test results. In addition, testing in this context often does not involve the availability of counseling and, when this is provided, it frequently occurs on-line or over the phone. As a field situated at the interface between biotechnology, biomedical research, and social sciences, direct-to-consumer genetic testing opens multiple challenges that can be appropriately addressed only by developing a complex, inter-disciplinary framework.

Euphorion SH 417 (fr. 36 Van Groningen) deserves to be better known. A curiosity in itself—an apparent poetic reference to number theory—it is also, potentially, one of our earliest references to Euclidean material. On the authority of a late commentator on Aristotle, Euphorion, a mid-third-century b.c. Euboean poet who was also active in Athens and Antioch, is said to have mentioned perfect numbers—i.e. numbers which equal the total of all their factors, including 1 (but obviously excluding the number itself). It is a pity that the context in Euphorion does not survive, and that the line is only preserved, and indeed interpreted, by so late a source. But the wording of the fragment—if Westerink's restoration of its various corruptions (again, a pity) is plausible—would strongly suggest a reference to the notion of perfect number. The fragment has been known since Westerink published it in 1960, and was included both in Van Groningen's edition of Euphorion in 1977 and in Supplementum Hellenisticum (1983). But its implications have still not been discussed, and when David Fowler came to gather the evidence for references to Euclidean material in and after the third century b.c. in The Mathematics of Plato's Academy, his attention, unsurprisingly, was not drawn to it. Euphorion has had a bad press, as a poet of rebarbatively obscure myth and intractable vocabulary; yet he holds some interest, and we may be missing more insights into the intellectual life of the Hellenistic period which the perverse intelligence and baneful wit of the fragments display.

Neuropsychological, neurophysiological, and neuroimaging studies suggest that right frontoparietal circuits may be necessary for the processing of mental number space, also known as the mental number line (MNL). Here we sought to specify the critical time course of three nodes that have previously been related to MNL processing: right posterior parietal cortex (rPPC), right FEF (rFEF), and right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG). The effects of single-pulse TMS delivered at 120% distance-adjusted individual motor threshold were investigated in 21 participants, within a window of 0–400 msec (sampling interval = 33 msec) from the onset of a central digit (1–9, 5 excluded). Pulses were delivered in a random order and with equal probability at each time point, intermixed with noTMS trials. To analyze whether and when TMS interfered with MNL processing, we fitted bimodal Gaussian functions to the observed data and measured effects on changes in the Spatial–Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect (i.e., an advantage for left- over right-key responses to small numbers and right- over left-key responses to large numbers) and in overall performance efficiency. We found that, during magnitude judgment with unimanual key-press responses, TMS reduced the SNARC effect in the earlier period of the fitted functions (∼25–60 msec) when delivered over rFEF (small and large numbers) and rIFG (small numbers); TMS further reduced the SNARC effect for small numbers in a later period when delivered to rFEF (∼200 msec). In contrast, TMS of rPPC did not interfere with the SNARC effect but generally reduced performance for small numbers and enhanced it for large numbers, thus producing a pattern reminiscent of “neglect” in mental number space. Our results confirm the causal role of an intact right frontoparietal network in the processing of mental number space. They also indicate that rPPC is specifically tied to explicit number magnitude processing and that rFEF and rIFG contribute to interfacing mental visuospatial codes with lateralized response codes. Overall, our findings suggest that both ventral and dorsal frontoparietal circuits are causally involved and functionally connected in the mapping of numbers to space.

In order to increase the productivity of shipbuilding to respond to current situations such as decreasing numbers of skilled workers and aging of workers in the shipyard, mechanization and robotization have been accelerated. To apply them effectively, the current fabrication and assembling system of ship hull has to be reviewed so that the dimensional accuracy of the hull block and its components increase particularly. Accordingly, the authors had developed an "accurate production system" for the fabrication and assembly of flat block, which was based on advanced accuracy technology and modem automated machines. This report concerns the deformation due to the filet welding of longitudinals on a skin plate and its straightening; the estimation of welding deformation, especially angular distortion, and its straightening method using a press roller which was developed newly in this automated production line. In order to clarify the power of the straightening machine, non-linear FEM analysis was carried out.

The HIPPARCOS Catalogue, linked to the system of extra-galactic radio sources, will soon be the reference system in optical astronomy. The Guide Star Catalog (GSC; Lasker et al. AJ 99, 2019ff, 1990), with its 18 million objects, already serves most astronomers for the planning of small field observations, optical identifications, and the reduction of CCD images. The utility of the GSC will be greatly enhanced if it is transformed to the HIPPARCOS system and its remaining systematic errors minimized. To do so we will use the forthcoming TYCHO Reference Catalogue (Röser & Høg, in Workshop on Databases for Galactic Structure, eds. Davis Philip, Hauck & Upgren, pp. 137, 1993). The reductions will use a combination of the mask and sub-plate methods (Taff, AJ 98, 1912, 1989; Taff, Lattanzi & Bucciarelli ApJ 361, 667, 1990), the co-location method (Bucciarelli, Lattanzi & Taff, ApJ Suppl. 84, 91, 1993), the new “fixed number of stars filter” of Röser, Bastian & Kuzmin (in press in the proceedings of IAU 148, 1994), and the infinitely overlapping circles (IOC) version of the latter (Taff, Bucciarelli & Lattanzi, ApJ 358, 359, 1990; Bucciarelli, Taff & Lattanzi, J. Stat. Comp. Sim. 48, 29, 1993). We present in the table below test results using the PPM as the reference catalog (typically only 4 sub-plates per plate; 25 stars for the Square Filter; 16 stars per circle for the IOC method). The first line presents the estimates for σαcosδ and σδ, both in arcsec, relative the to PPM Suppl (Röser, Bastian & Kuzmin, A&A Suppl. 105, 301, 1994); the second line contains them based on plate overlaps (all for the −30° declination zone). When comparing the numbers note that in the first line the GSC and PPM Suppl (0.″12) errors are contributing whereas in the second line the GSC errors are present twice (in the rms sense).

116 Background: Our cancer service line provides infusion services for oncology patients at three locations. The numbers of chairs vary by location from 10 to 30. Each location has a nurse manager. Staff are hired for specific locations. Hours of operation differ at each location, depending on patient needs. With increasing pressure to streamline operations and maintain productivity, along with challenges of RN vacancies and growing volumes, efforts were needed to coordinate staffing between locations to ensure best utilization of resources. Methods: The leadership team met to identify opportunities for improvement and develop an action plan. Issues identified included: Locations worked in silos to manage staffing issues and patient volumes. Decisions were made without consideration of the other locations; Staff were reluctant to float; Lack of consistent communication and comradery among managers/leads; Critical decisions were made inconsistently by staff; Lack of communication to senior management and physician leadership when capacity and staffing situations were occurring. Strategies were proposed to address the issues. Phone huddles with leadership from all locations are held daily to discuss staffing, patient scheduling and concerns. A tool was developed to assist with decision making related to staffing and patient scheduling. A “One Team” approach was implemented for staffing with the expectation that staff would float to cover staffing needs at the other locations. Processes were standardized across all units to ensure staff feel competent when floating. Results: Several positive outcomes have been noted since changes were implemented 10 months ago. Staff are more willing to float and have bought into the “One Team” concept. Cross coverage of staffing vacancies occurs daily, allowing for better and more cost effective utilization of staff across locations. Decisions to block schedules are made by managers using the developed tool. There is improved awareness of critical staffing and capacity issues by senior leadership and physician leaders. Conclusions: Implementing a One Team staffing approach to cover three infusion center locations increases staff productivity and allows for fluctuations in patient volumes.

I am concerned about industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology's relevance to the gig economy, defined here as the broad trends toward technology-based platform work. This sort of work happens on apps like Uber (where the app connects drivers and riders) and sites like MTurk (where human intelligence tasks, or HITs, are advertised to workers on behalf of requesters). We carry on with I-O research and practice as if technology comprises only things (e.g., phones, websites, platforms) that we use to assess applicants and complete work. However, technology has much more radically restructured work as we know it, to happen in a much more piecemeal, on-demand fashion, reviving debates about worker classification and changing the reality of work for many workers (Sundararajan, 2016). Instead of studying technology as a thing we use, it's critical that we “zoom out” to see and adapt our field to this bigger picture of trends towards a gig economy. Rather than a phone being used to check work email or complete pre-hire assessments, technology and work are inseparable. For example, working on MTurk requires constant Internet access (Brawley, Pury, Switzer, & Saylors, 2017; Ma, Khansa, & Hou, 2016). Alarmingly, some researchers describe these workers as precarious (Spretizer, Cameron, & Garrett, 2017), dependent on an extremely flexible (a label that is perhaps euphemistic for unreliable) source of work. Although it's unlikely that all workers consider their “gig” a full time job or otherwise necessary income, at least some workers do: An estimated 10–40% of MTurk workers consider themselves serious gig workers (Brawley & Pury, 2016). Total numbers for the broader gig economy are only growing, with recent tax-based estimates including 34% of the US workforce now and up to 43% within 3 years (Gillespie, 2017). It appears we're seeing some trends in work reverse and return to piece work (e.g., a ride on Uber, a HIT on MTurk) as if we've simply digitized the assembly line (Davis, 2016). Over time, these trends could accelerate, and we could potentially see total elimination of work (Morrison, 2017).

9107 Background: Large numbers of cancer survivors have led to the need for FU care addressing lasting effects of BC and its treatment. We conducted a trial evaluating formats of FU care to determine if integration of remote electronic questionnaire FU provides for timely symptom management and more efficient care than routine clinic visits alone. Methods: Patients (pts) with ESBC were randomized to either usual care (UC, frequency of visits determined by oncology providers) with completion of an optional online health and symptom questionnaire (Q) before each clinic visit, or to SIS.NET FU care, in which pts were scheduled for up to 3 routine oncology related clinic visits over 18 mos and completed the online Q every 3 mos. Qs were reviewed by a survivorship nurse practitioner (NP) with pt phone contact for symptoms requiring urgent attention. We recorded the time between electronic symptom reporting and FU for pts in the SIS.NET arm. Data included the number of oncology related clinic visits, total number of physician visits, and number of medical tests including labs and imaging studies ordered. Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests for equal distributions were used to determine if there were any significant differences between SIS.NET and UC. Results: 100 pts were enrolled, 75 completed the 18 month study and 25 pts remain in FU. For the 75 pts, 85% received chemotherapy and 77% received hormone therapy. Pts in the SIS.NET arm completed an average of 3.8 out of 7.2 emailed surveys (52.6%), and pts in the UC arm completed an average of 2.2 out of 3.4 (69.1%) routine pre-clinic surveys. For pts in the SIS.NET arm, 75% of reported symptoms were reviewed by a NP in < 3 days. There was no significant difference between SIS.NET and UC FU for oncology related clinic appointments, total number of physician visits, or number of medical tests performed. Conclusions: Use of on-line health and symptom surveys with remote NP review provided timely symptom FU but did not reduce clinic visits or medical testing in pts with ESBC. Further analyses of these data as well as additional studies are necessary to understand the barriers to integration of web-based tools to achieve more efficient FU care for BC survivors.

Nowadays, Indonesia is one of the countries with the highest internet user growth. In line with it, the local governments in Indonesia use their official website to report the government’s activities as an accountability form to the society. Thus, this study conducted for knowing the accountability characteristics and the factors that affect the level of internet accountability reports in the local government websites.Using content analysis based on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) index in government agencies and OLS statistical approach on the 34 provinces’ official websites, this study finds, in general, the provinces’ websites have reported 63% of the total numbers that suggested by GRI. Furthermore, there are two main factors, i.e. the number of population and districts/cities, which positively affect the level of accountability reports in provinces’ website. However, no empirical evidence shows the press pressure affects the broad of website reporting in the Indonesia provinces context.Overall, this research indicates that the Indonesia local governments, in this case, provincial governments have focused on delivering their accountability to the society. Moreover, this is a good sign for the democracy growth in Indonesia. Furthermore, the Indonesia local governments may have to give more portions on their official website for answering the headline news from the mass media, specifically for the environmental and social themes. Therefore, it will further strengthen the governance-sustainability and democracy in Indonesia local government environment.

Brown-headed Cowbirds Molothrus ater, a brood parasite that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, has recently undergone a tremendous range expansion. Before European settlement, this species was restricted to short-grass prairie, where it followed buffalo Bison bison and fed on insects stirred up by their movements (Lowther 1993). Settlement of North America by Europeans, the subsequent large-scale deforestation, and extirpation of buffalo lead to Brown-headed Cowbirds shifting to associate with cows and horses. These changes in landscape and host associations allowed a rapid range expansion and increase in numbers (Payne 1977, Laymon 1987, Rothstein et al.1980). Brown-headed Cowbirds now are found from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast, and from south-central Mexico north to tree line in Canada (Lowther 1993). Cowbirds are apparently expanding their range altitudinally as well, so that they can now be found breeding over 3,000 m in elevation (Hanka 1985). Lazuli Buntings Passerina amoena are small neotropical migrant birds that breed throughout western United States and southwestern Canada. These conspicuous birds breed in a wide variety of brushy habitats, ranging from sea level along the Pacific coast to over 3,000 m in Sierras and Rocky Mountains. Preferred breeding habitat includes arid bushy hillsides, riparian habitats, wooded valleys, aspen, willow, alder or cottonwood thickets, sage brush, chaparral, open scrub, recent post-fire habitats, thickets and hedges along agricultural fields, and residential gardens (Greene et al. in press).

Abstract Introduction Despite gains in survival with aggressive upfront treatments, such as R-CHOP (rituximab, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone) for follicular lymphoma (FL), and the implementation of rituximab maintenance, approximately 20% of patients will still experience progression of disease (POD) within 24 months of chemoimmunotherapy, as demonstrated by the PRIMA study and others (Salles et al, Lancet 2010; Press et al, JCO 2013). This suggests a high-risk group of patients warranting further study. We analyzed the National LymphoCare Study to identify patients with FL who are at high risk of death after treatment with R-CHOP. We aimed to define what factors constitute high-risk FL that would merit further clinical and biological characterization. Methods Evaluable patients with stage II, III, and IV FL who were treated with R-CHOP in the first-line setting were included. Patients were excluded if the initial treatment strategy was watchful waiting or if there was POD prior to beginning first-line treatment. Two groups were defined: patients with POD/death ≤2 years from diagnosis (early POD group) and a reference group without POD/death within 2 years of diagnosis (Ref). Multiple logistic regression compared baseline characteristics by group. Survival probability was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method. A Cox model evaluated the effect of early POD on overall survival (OS). The Pearson chi-squared test and multiple logistic regression with backwards stepwise selection were used to evaluate whether baseline characteristics differed by group. OS was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method, and a time-varying Cox model was used to evaluate the relationship between progression time and OS. Results A total of 588 patients were analyzed. Similar to results from the PRIMA study, approximately 21% of patients (122/588) had early POD, while 71% (420/588) did not, and 8% (46/588) were lost to follow-up within 2 yrs. Early POD following R-CHOP was dramatically and significantly related to worsened OS, with a hazard ratio of 12.3 (95% confidence interval [CI] 6.1—24.9), compared with those not progressing. After adjusting for FLIPI, patients with early POD who were still alive within 2 years of R-CHOP (early POD—alive at 2 yrs) had worse OS compared with patients who did not progress within 2 years (Ref group) [HR = 4.76, 95% CI 2.95—7.69]. At 5 years, patients with early POD had OS of 50% compared with an OS of 95% in the Ref group (Table 1 and Figure 1). Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that high lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), poor Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status, B symptoms, and bone marrow involvement were significantly associated with early POD (P<0.05). As an exploratory analysis, we evaluated maintenance and second-line treatments following R-CHOP. In the early POD group, 22% received maintenance rituximab, and 80% began second-line treatment, compared with the reference group, where 45% received maintenance rituximab, and 23% began second-line treatment. The impact of second-line autologous stem cell rescue or allogeneic transplant on survival is unknown because of the small numbers of patients in these groups. Conclusions Relapse of FL after first-line treatment with R-CHOP is associated with poor outcomes. However, POD within 2 years of R-CHOP defines a unique category of patients at substantially increased risk of death. In our unselected cohort of 588 patients, 63% (65/104) of deaths in 6 years of follow-up occurred in the early POD cohort. High LDH, poor ECOG performance status, B symptoms, and bone marrow involvement conferred a significantly high risk for early POD. These high-risk patients represent a distinct population that warrants further study in directed prospective studies of FL biology and clinical trials. Disclosures: Byrtek: Genentech, a member of the Roche group: Employment, Stock ownership Other. Dawson:Genentech, a member of the Roche group: Employment, Stock ownership Other. Flowers:Abbott, Celgene, Millennium/Takeda, Sanofi, Spectrum, Janssen: Research Funding; Celgene, Genentech Bio-Oncology: Consultancy. Link:Genentech: Consultancy; Millenium: Consultancy; Pharmacyclics: Consultancy; Spectrum: Consultancy. Zelenetz:GSK: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Cephalon: Consultancy; Gilead: Consultancy; Seattle Genetics: Consultancy; Sanofi-Aventis : Consultancy; Genentech: Research Funding; GSK: Research Funding; Roche: Research Funding; Cancer Genetics: Scientific Advisor Other.

Abstract Abstract 3338 Background: Refractory immune thrombocytopenia (RITP) is a severe bleeding disorder with a high mortality rate of 10% to 30%, which is resulted from the toxicities associated with therapies, as well as from life-threatening bleedings. Up to now, treatments for RITP patients are still limited and no consensus has been reached about the standard treatment protocol, therefore, it remains a great problem and challenge for hematologists to think out ways to treat RITP, that is to say, new therapies should be explored to maintain a relatively stable and safe platelet counts with minimum toxicities, so as to improve patients' quality of life and reduce mortalities related to severe bleedings and therapies. ITP is an autoimmune disorder ascribed not only to increased PLT destruction, but also to reduced PLT production, which appears to be related to impaired megakaryocytes (MKs) maturation. ATRA belongs to a class of retinoids, which exerts immunomodulatory and differentiation inducing capacities, and has been included in clinical trails about autoimmune diseases and has been successfully applied in clinic to cure APL by inducing the differentiation of cancer cells. Design and Methods: In this study, we retrospectively reviewed the medical charts of 35 RITP patients who took ATRA as part of the combination therapy from February 2008 to August 2012. We made phone calls for some other detailed medically relevant information not recorded, including previous ITP history, bleeding episodes and etc. All the patients fulfilled the primary ITP criteria as described. They had a median ITP duration of 29 months (range, 6–129 months), with a diagnosed RITP duration of 11months (range, 2–79 months). All the patients have received a median of 6 therapies (range, 3–8) prior to taking ATRA, including steroids, IVIG, CSA, azathioprine, danazol and etc. The median lowest PLT number in the course of their disease was 12×109/L (range, 1–27×109/L), and the median PLT count before starting take ATRA was 11×109/L (range, 1–23×109/L). Patients were treated with ATRA (10mg 3times/day), in combination with any one of methylprednisolone, danazol and CSA or nothing not randomly. When patients were severely thrombocytopenia or present with bleeding sings or symptoms, transfusion of PLT or injection of thrombopoietin were applied. Patients were monitored every 1 to 3 days at the first two weeks and every 1to 4 weeks afterwards for PLT counts, and were monitored every 1 month for transaminitis and other side effects. Results: Of the 35 patients, 25 responded to our treatments in a median of 8 weeks (range, 3–16 weeks), with PLT increased to greater than 30*109/L, and remained in remission in a median of 24 months, after which, 10 patients relapsed and 8 patients regained remission with the addition of other drugs. The other 15 patients remained in remission after 24 months during the maintenance therapy process and the following drugs decrement process. 5 patients had a relatively stable and safe PLT count (median 58×109/L, rang 38–225×109/L) after discontinuation of all the medications and the other 10 continued the therapy with a low dose for relapsing after the medicine discontinuation. The median peak PLT count after starting the ATRA therapy was 94×109/L (rang 57–225×109/L), and it is after a median of 3 month (range, 1.5–8 months) before the median PLT count reached to peak level. During the treatment process, no severe adverse events and bleedings happened. Patients refractory to previous conventional first-line therapies and combined therapies responded to the combination of ATRA with any one of methylprednisolone, danazol or CSA, which implies that ATRA has the potential of making RITP less refractory and even curing RITP. Given to the limited samples size and nonrandomization of our study, no prognostic factors were found in our study, including sex, age, ITP duration, the lowest PLT count, previous therapy numbers, previous bleeding episodes, the combined drug and etc. Conclusion: ATRA may have the potential to help RITP patients gain remission and maintain remission combined with one of the conventional first-line therapies, which requires to be verified by more large-sized, prospective, randomized, and controlled clinical trials, and the mechanism of ATRA in treating RITP also needs to be further investigated. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

In Korea, anemones (Anemone coronaria L.) are mostly grown during winter, in polyethylene tunnels that may have high humidity and poor ventilation, to meet the high demand of cut flowers in February and March for school ceremonies. During the winter of 2011 to 2012, symptoms typical of Sclerotinia stem rot were observed in commercial crops of anemone (cv. Rosso Mistral Plus) in Hwaseong City, Korea. About 40% of anemones withered or died before harvest due to the disease, causing considerable economic losses. In one farmer's polyethylene tunnel with a good ventilation system in Icheon City, Korea, less than 1% of the anemones showed Sclerotinia stem rot during the same season. Symptoms included stem necrosis and withering of leaves, followed by crown rot and wilt a few days afterward. White cottony growth of the fungus was observed on dead plants and the nearby soil surface, especially under high relative humidity. Black sclerotia 2 to 7 mm in diameter developed in the mycelium. Isolations from surface-disinfested stem pieces onto potato dextrose agar (PDA) consistently yielded white, fluffy colonies. Two-week-old colonies produced plentiful numbers of sclerotia on PDA. The isolated fungus was morphologically identified as Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary (1,3). Voucher specimens (n = 4) were deposited in the Korea University herbarium (KUS). Two isolates were deposited in the Korean Agricultural Culture Collection with accession numbers KACC46708 (ex KUS-F26433) and KACC46834 (ex KUS-F26437), respectively. Fungal DNA was extracted with a DNeasy Plant Mini DNA Extraction Kit (Qiagen Inc., Valencia, CA). The complete internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of rDNA was amplified with the primers ITS1/ITS4 (4) and sequenced using an ABI Prism 337 automatic DNA sequencer (Applied Biosystems, Foster, CA). The resulting sequences of 501 bp were deposited in GenBank (Accession Nos. KC412065 and KC412066). A BLAST search revealed that sequences of the two Korean isolates showed 100% identity with those of S. sclerotiorum (e.g., GenBank Accession No. JN012606). A pathogenicity test was achieved by placing agar segments (9 mm2) from a 7-day-old culture grown on PDA on the stems of healthy anemones (cv. Rosso Mistral Plus) near the soil line. Three plants inoculated with agar blocks served as controls. Plants were maintained in a greenhouse at 16 to 20°C and relative humidity >90%. After 2 days, all inoculated stems became discolored, soft, watery, and covered with white mycelia, whereas control plants remained symptomless. S. sclerotiorum was consistently reisolated from the symptomatic tissue, fulfilling Koch's postulates. Sclerotinia stem rot of anemones caused by S. sclerotiorum has previously been recorded from the United States and New Zealand (2), and to our knowledge, this is the first report of S. sclerotiorum on anemone in Korea. According to our observations in damaged plots, low temperature, high humidity, poor ventilation, and continuous cultivation would accelerate the incidence of Sclerotinia stem rot in polyethylene tunnel cultivation systems in Korea. References: (1) M. D. Bolton et al. Mol. Plant Pathol. 7:1, 2006. (2) D. F. Farr and A. Y. Rossman. Fungal Databases. Syst. Mycol. Microbiol. Lab., Online publication, ARS, USDA. Retrieved December 3, 2012. (3) S. Umemoto et al. J. Gen. Plant Pathol. 73:290, 2007. (4) T. J. White et al. PCR Protocols: A Guide to Methods and Applications. Academic Press, San Diego, 1990.

Abstract Abstract 3429 Background: Idiopathic PRCA and secondary PRCA associated with thymoma and large granular lymphocyte leukemia are major subtypes of adult-onset chronic PRCA. We have previously shown that these types of PRCA are responsive to immunosuppressive therapy but most patients require long-term maintenance immunosuppressive treatment. These results suggest that acquired chronic PRCA is an autoimmune disorder mediated by T lymphocytes and pathogenic T cell clones may be persistently present during remission. We have previously made an interesting observation that a thymoma-associated PRCA patient had an increase of Vd1 gd T cells in blood. We have also reported that recipients of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell grafts had an oligoclonal expansion of Vd1 gd T cells and that Vd1 gd T clones had cytotoxicity against autologous EBV-transformed B cell line. Thus, gd T cell repertoires may be altered in PRCA patients in response to certain antigens. Objective: In order to clarify the role for gd T cells in the pathogenesis of chronic acquired PRCA, we have examined the gd T cell receptor repertoire in acquired chronic PRCA patients. Materials and Methods: Nineteen PRCA (8 idiopathic, 6 thymoma, 3 LGL-leukemia and 2 SLE) and 107 healthy volunteer donors were included in the study. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Akita University and conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Blood lymphocyte subsets were analyzed by flow cytometry. Clonality of T cells was determined by complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3) size distribution analysis and junctional sequence was determined by subcloning of PCR products and DNA sequencing. In some experiments, purified gd T cells from PRCA patients were co-cultured with allogeneic erythroid progenitor cells derived from CD34-positive cells in vitro in order to learn whether patient's gd T cells would exert cytotoxic or growth-inhibitory effect on erythroid progenitor cells. Results: The absolute numbers of ab T cells and gd T cells were normal in patients with PRCA, but there were an increase of Vd1 gd T cells and a decrease of Vd2 T cells (Table 1). More than 50% of Vd1 T cells from PRCA patients expressed HLA-DR, while 20 to 30% of those from healthy individuals expressed HLA-DR (Fig. 1). CDR3 size spectratyping revealed that CDR3 size distribution patterns were skewed in 9 out of 13 PRCA patients examined, although skewed CDR3 size distribution patterns were also observed in 7 out of 10 healthy individuals. In order to determine whether a particular Vd1-Jd rearrangement size was selected in PRCA patients, we performed statistical analysis comparing the CDR3 size distribution of 115 Vd1 TCR clones obtained by subcloning of PCR products in 7 PRCA patients versus 7 controls. No significant difference was found between the two groups (p=0.795 by Mann-Whitney test). Moreover, no apparent consensus amino acid motifs were identified in PRCA patients. Although the T cell clone carrying the -YWGIR- sequence in the CDR3d region was detected in 3 PRCA patients, the T cell clone carrying the -YWGIR- sequence was also detected in one healthy donor. Purified gdT lymphocytes from idiopathic PRCA neither showed an inhibitory effect on proliferation nor cytotoxicity against erythroid progenitor cells in vitro. Adjusted p value was calculated by Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA test. Conclusions: Expansion of Vd1 T cells and depletion of Vd2 T cells are unique features for chronic acquired PRCA. Expansion of Vd1 T cells does not seem to be the consequence of CDR3-dependent selection. Depletion of Vd2 T cells may be the result of chronic stimulation, because our previous study has revealed that the numbers of Vd2 T cells show an age-dependent decrease and Vd2 T cells are susceptible to activation-induced cell death (Int J Hematol, in press). Failure to demonstrate the cytotoxicity of gd T cells from a PRCA patient against erythroid progenitor cells suggests that expanded gd T cells are not effector T cells. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Abstract Abstract 4020 We previously showed that highly activated natural killer cells can be generated in large numbers from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of healthy donors and multiple myeloma (MM) patients by co-culturing with K562 stimulator cells modified to express 41BBL and membrane bound IL15 (Garg et al. Haematologica, 2012; in press). We are utilizing these expanded NK (ENK) cells in a clinical trial to treat genomically-defined high-risk relapsed MM. In this study we investigated possible mechanisms of MM escape from ENK cell control. First we determined whether it is feasible to induce ENK cell resistance by co-culturing 11 MM cell lines with ENK cells from the same donor in 6 well-plates at E:T ratios of 10:1. Fresh ENK cells were added every 3–4 weeks. The MM cell lines were tested for emergence of resistance at regular intervals using standard chromium release cytotoxicity assays. In seven of 11 cell lines tested all MM cells died upon adding ENK cells. However, from 4 MM cell lines (OPM2, JJN3, ANBL-6, INA-6), subpopulations emerged which were resistant to ENK cell-mediated lysis (Figure 1A). These cell lines retained resistance even when passaged for ≥3 months in the absence of ENK cells. Flow cytometry showed down regulation of Tumor Necrosis Factor-Related Apoptosis Inducing Ligand-Receptors (TRAIL-R) –R1 and -R2 on all ENK resistant cell lines. Further experiments with OPM2 showed that the resistant cell line was less sensitive to recombinant TRAIL-induced apoptosis. Bortezomib treatment of both ENK-resistant and-sensitive OPM2 cell lines increased TRAIL-R1 and –R2 expression and susceptibility to recombinant TRAIL. Interestingly, gene expression profiling of CD138 positive MM patient cells failed to demonstrate a statistically significant difference in the level of TRAIL-R1 and-R2 expression among molecular subgroups, high- versus low-risk 70 gene score, diagnosis versus relapse, or baseline versus 48 hours post bortezomib. However, we also observed that TRAIL-R1 gene expression was down regulated in only 2 of the 4 resistant cell lines suggesting that there might not always be a tight correlation for TRAIL-R expression between GEP and flow cytometry. Next, we demonstrated that supernatants derived from both ENK cell-sensitive and -resistant MM cell lines could down modulate cell surface molecules either by ligand-shedding or reducing expression of receptors critical for activation such as CD54, NKp30, NKp80, NKG2D, CD26, CD69, CD70 and DNAM-1. Furthermore, the cytolytic activity of ENK cells was adversely affected, suggesting an additional NK cell suppressive effect mediated by soluble factors. The latter could be reversed by re-incubation of ENK cells in fresh medium with IL2 (Figure 1B). In summary, down regulation of the TRAIL-R deserves further exploration as a potential mechanism of resistance to ENK cell mediated lysis of MM cells and could be examined pre-and post-ENK cell therapy. MM cells may also evade ENK cell-mediated lysis via the production of suppressive factors. However, both mechanisms of resistance may be surmountable by NK cell sensitizing agents such as bortezomib or by generating the optimal cytokine milieu for infused ENK cells. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Abstract Several recent studies have demonstrated substantial biological differences between cord blood (CB)- and adult peripheral blood (PB)-derived megakaryocytes (MKs). Specifically, neonatal (CB) progenitors proliferate at a much higher rate than adult (PB) progenitors, and generate 10-fold more MKs per progenitor when cultured with thrombopoietin (Tpo). The highly proliferative neonatal MKs undergo cytoplasmic maturation without polyploidization, which ultimately generates large numbers of small, low ploidy, but fully mature MKs. Adult MKs, in contrast, undergo successive rounds of endomitosis to reach much higher ploidy levels, and maturation is coupled with polyploidization, so that MKs with the highest ploidy levels are also the most mature. The molecular mechanisms underlying these developmental differences are just beginning to be elucidated. Here, we investigated the effects of cortistatin A (CA), a highly specific small molecule inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinase 8 (CDK8) and its paralog CDK19, on megakaryopoiesis. CDK8 and CDK19, together with CCNC (Cyclin C), MED12/MED12L and MED13/MED13L, form "CDK modules" which can associate with Mediator, a 26-subunit complex that acts as a bridge between transcription factors and the transcriptional machinery to coordinate gene expression. The Mediator complex has been implicated in developmental disorders and cancer. CB-derived MK progenitors treated with CA from day 7 to day 14 of culture exhibited a dose-dependent reduction in proliferation (6.2±1.7 vs. 24.9±2.2 fold expansion in treated vs. control cultures; p=0.003), accompanied by an increase in ploidy levels to those comparable to adult PB-derived MKs (34±6% vs. 8.9±0.9% MKs with ploidy ≥8N in treated vs. control cultures; p=0.014). MK maturation, evaluated by CD42b surface expression level, also increased with advancing ploidy in CA-treated MKs, in a manner similar to that observed in adult MKs, and CA-treated mature MKs were capable of pro-platelet formation in vitro. These changes were not observed when undifferentiated CB-derived CD34+ or CD41-negative cells were treated, indicating that the effect was specific to committed MK progenitors. CA treatment induced the expected decrease in STAT-1 phosphorylation at Serine 727, a specific site of CDK8-mediated phosphorylation, confirming effective CDK8 inhibition in treated MKs. Next, we used microarray to evaluate the gene expression profile of CB-derived MKs following CA treatment for 4 and 8 hours vs. untreated cells. These studies revealed significant CA-induced changes in the MK gene expression profile. By Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA), CA treatment significantly upregulated genes that were downregulated in CB- vs. PB-derived MKs. Furthermore, genes upregulated by CA in CB-derived MKs were also upregulated in the megakaryoblastic cell line SET2 (Pelish, Liau et al., Nature, in press), suggesting that the gene expression program affected in SET2 cells is likely the same one affected in neonatal MKs. At the protein level, we observed time- and dose-dependent increases in RUNX-1 in CA-treated vs. control MKs. In summary, this study demonstrated that treatment with CA induced a phenotypic switch from neonatal to adult-like megakaryopoiesis, accompanied by changes in the MK gene expression profile. These findings indicate a novel role for Mediator kinases in the regulation of megakaryopoiesis, and potentially on the developmental differences between neonatal and adult MKs. These studies open the door to a better understanding of and to potential novel therapies for a number of developmental stage-specific megakaryocyte and platelet disorders, which exclusively or more severely affect neonates and infants, including the thrombocytopenia/absent radius (TAR) syndrome and the transient myeloproliferative disorder associated with trisomy 21 and GATA1s mutations. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Abstract Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) can be derived selectively in culture from multiple organs, an omnipresence we have recently suggested to be explained by the perivascular location of native MSC ancestors within intact tissues (Crisan et al. 2008, in press). We have now analyzed the ability of MSC extracted pro- or retrospectively from different human tissues to support hematopoiesis. MSC were either classically derived in primary cultures of umbilical cord blood (UCB) lineage-depleted mononuclear cells (n=3) or enzymatically dissociated adult adipose tissue (n=3), or grown as CD146+ NG2+ CD34-CD56- CD45- pericytes (n=2) purified by flow cytometry from fetal skeletal muscle and cultured over the long term. In both settings, identical MSC were obtained that maintained a stable CD146+ CD90+ CD73+ CD105+ CD34- CD45- surface phenotype and could differentiate into skeletal muscle, fat, bone and cartilage. CD34+ hematopoietic progenitors (n=3) immunoselected from term UCB were seeded (5×10e3cells/cm2 in triplicate) onto confluent irradiated layers of MSC derived from UCB, adipose tissue or fetal muscle pericytes (MSCu, MSCa and MSCmp, respectively) or, as a control, MS5 bone marrow stromal cells that allow the proliferation of very primitive human progenitor cells. All studies were approved by the relevant institutional regulatory board. The cells were cocultured for 5 weeks in a classical long-term culture-initiating cell assay in a complete medium (MyeloCult H5100, Stem Cell Technologies) containing hydrocortisone but no added cytokine. Wells were scored daily for the presence of cobblestone areas (CA) and half of the medium was replaced every week. Eventually, trypsinized cells from each well were characterized by flow cytometry for the expression of hematopoietic cell markers and assayed for CFC potential. After 14 days of incubation, colonies grown in semi-solid medium were scored as derived from colony forming units (CFU)-granulocyte, erythroid, macrophage, megakaryocyte (GEMM) and as high-proliferative-potential colony precursors (HPPC), the most primitive hematopoietic cell so far identified in a clonogenic assay in vitro. Within the CD45+ gate, all trypsinized cultures contained comparable percentages of CD34+lin- cells (MSCu: 51±9%; MSCa: 58±14%; MSCmp: 61±19%; MS5: 59±18%), the most immature hematopoietic cell compartment maintained during the long-term coculture. MSCu and MSCmp supported a similar cell proliferation during the whole culture while on MSCa, CA formed very rapidly and consistently but eventually decreased over the long-term culture. Interestingly, MSCu and MSCmp supported the development of the highest numbers of HPPC and of CFU giving rise to the largest GEMM colonies, as compared to MSCa that gave the same results as the control MS5 cell line. In summary, all MSCs tested were able to support hematopoiesis and CA formation, albeit with differences in growth kinetics and morphology of the colonies. Herein we show for the first time that purified human perivascular cells exhibit robust hematopoiesis support in vitro, in addition to multilineage mesodermal developmental potential. In conclusion, we demonstrate that MSC from novel sources distinct from the bone marrow are able to support hematopoiesis. These results further sustain the identity, beyond acronyms, between marrow stromal cells, long known for their support of hematopoiesis, and mesenchymal stem cells that gained more recent credit in the field of regenerative medicine because of their multilineage differentiation potential.

Abstract Introduction: Daratumumab is a first-in-class monoclonal antibody targeting the plasma cell antigen, CD38, that demonstrated significant activity in combination with bortezomib and dexamethasone (DVd) compared with bortezomib and dexamethasone alone (Vd) in a pre-specified interim analysis of CASTOR, a randomized phase 3 study of relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM; Palumbo A. N Engl J Med 2016; in press). In this abstract, we report on subgroup analyses according to the number of prior lines of therapy received, and include outcomes based on cytogenetic status, in order to identify the patient population who derived the most benefit from the DVd combination. Methods: Eligible patients (pts) received at least 1 prior line of therapy and were randomized (1:1) to 8 cycles (q3w) of Vd with or without daratumumab (16 mg/kg IV qw in Cycles 1-3, Day 1 of Cycles 4-8, then q4w until progression). For each cycle, bortezomib 1.3 mg/m2 SC was administered on Days 1, 4, 8, and 11, and dexamethasone 20 mg PO was given on Days 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12. Progression-free survival (PFS) was the primary endpoint. Numbers of prior lines of therapy were determined by the site investigator according to the IMWG consensus guidelines. High-risk cytogenetic status based on local laboratory assessments was defined as having at least one of the following abnormalities via karyotyping or fluorescence in-situ hybridization: del17p, t(4;14), or t(14;16). Minimal residual disease (MRD) was evaluated on bone marrow aspirate samples that had been prepared with Ficoll using three different thresholds (10-4, 10-5, and 10-6) based on the ClonoSEQ assay (Adaptive Biotechnologies, Seattle, WA, USA). Results: Median follow-up was 7.4 months. In the 1 to 3 prior lines (1-3 PL) subgroup (DVd, n=229; Vd, n=219), PFS was significantly longer with DVd vs Vd (median: not reached [NR] vs 7.3 mo; HR, 0.39; 95% CI, 0.28-0.55; P<0.0001); estimated 12-month PFS rates were 62.2% vs 29.3%, respectively. Median time to progression (TTP) among 1-3 PL pts was NR vs 7.4 months, respectively (HR, 0.29; 95% CI, 0.20-0.43; P<0.0001). Overall response rate (ORR) was significantly higher with DVd vs Vd (84% vs 67%; P<0.0001) and was associated with higher rates of very good partial response (VGPR) or better (62% vs 32%; P<0.0001). Among 1-3 PL pts with standard-risk cytogenetic status, PFS was significantly prolonged in DVd vs Vd (HR, 0.38; 95% CI, 0.25-0.58; P<0.0001), and estimated 12-month PFS rates were 58.7% vs 27.0%, respectively. PFS was also significantly longer in pts with high-risk cytogenetics who received DVd vs Vd (HR, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.22-0.97; P=0.0367; Figure), with estimated 12-month PFS rates of 63.2% vs 26.7%, respectively. Lastly, the rate of MRD-negative patients was significantly higher (4 fold or greater) at all evaluated thresholds (10-4, 10-5, and 10-6) among the 1-3 PL subgroup. In the 1 prior line (1 PL) subgroup (DVd, n=122; Vd, n=113), PFS was also significantly improved for DVd vs Vd (median: NR vs 7.5 mo; HR, 0.31; 95% CI, 0.18-0.52; P<0.0001); estimated 12-month PFS rates were 77.5% vs 29.4%, respectively. Median TTP among 1 PL pts was NR vs 8.4 months, respectively (HR, 0.28; 95% CI, 0.16-0.49; P<0.0001). ORR in pts with 1 PL was significantly higher for DVd vs Vd (89% vs 74%; P=0.0029), including higher rates of VGPR or better being observed for DVd vs Vd (71% vs 42%; P<0.0001). Updated efficacy and safety data, including analyses of MRD status across different sensitivity thresholds (10-4, 10-5, and 10-6), will be presented at the meeting. Conclusions: The treatment benefit of DVd vs Vd was maintained across 1-3 PL and 1 PL pts. Responses for DVd were deep and durable and correlated with significantly improved outcomes vs Vd. Despite small group sizes, treatment benefit of DVd vs Vd was also observed in high-risk cytogenetic pts receiving 1-3 PL. These data continue to support the addition of daratumumab to a standard-of-care regimen in RRMM. Figure Progression-free Survival in High-risk Patients (Defined by Cytogenetic Abnormalities) who Received 1 to 3 Prior Lines of Therapy Figure. Progression-free Survival in High-risk Patients (Defined by Cytogenetic Abnormalities) who Received 1 to 3 Prior Lines of Therapy Disclosures Mateos: Janssen, Celgene, Amgen, Takeda, BMS: Honoraria. Estell:Janssen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Corradini:Celgene, Janssen, Novartis, Roche, Takeda, Sanofi, Servier, Gilead: Honoraria; Takeda: Consultancy. Medvedova:Oregon Health and Science University: Employment. Qi:Janssen: Employment. Schecter:Janssen: Employment, Equity Ownership. Amin:Janssen: Employment. Qin:Janssen: Employment. Deraedt:Janssen: Employment; Johnson & Johnson: Equity Ownership. Casneuf:Johnson & Johnson: Equity Ownership; Janssen R&D, Beerse, Belgium: Employment. Chiu:Janssen: Employment. Sasser:Janssen: Employment; Johnson & Johnson: Equity Ownership. Nooka:Amgen, Novartis, Spectrum: Consultancy.

Abstract Abstract 4001 By means of a large RNA interference screen, Ebert et al. identified RPS14 as the target of del(5q), since haploinsufficiency of RPS14 in human hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) induces an erythroid differentiation defect, a characteristic feature of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) with isolated deletion in 5q (Nature451, 335–339 (2008)). However, to the best of our knowledge, these cells have not been observed for more than two weeks in culture. We have shown that telomere shortening and chromosomal instability play a crucial role, particularly during progression of MDS with del(5q) into acute myeloid leukemia (AML) (K Lange et al, Genes Chromosomes Cancer49, 260–269 (2010) and G Göhring et al, Leukemia, 2011 (in press)). Because of the limited proliferation of primary MDS cells in culture and because there is no appropriate MDS cell line, a good human cell culture model is urgently needed to investigate the relationship of telomere attrition and chromosomal instability during the progression of MDS with del(5q). Therefore, it was our aim was to create a long-term culture (LTC) model to observe the effects of RPS14 haploinsufficiency on differentiation capacity, DNA repair, telomere shortening and chromosomal instability in human HSCs. CD34+ cells were isolated from umbilical cord blood via magnetic cell separation. Knockdown of RPS14 to a level of 40 – 50% was performed via lentiviral transduction of shRNA vectors. As controls, in addition to untransduced mock cells, CD34+ cells were transduced with scrambled shRNA. LTC was performed on murine feeder layers (M2-10B4). In short-term culture, as expected, knockdown of RPS14 led to an erythroid differentiation defect, decreased proliferative activity and an increased level of apoptosis. Cultivation on murine feeder layers enabled expansion of CD34+ cells for more than 6 weeks. Generally, within 6 weeks RPS14 -deficient CD34+ cells showed a poorer proliferation than the control cells with a 214-fold versus a 6080-fold multiplication, respectively. Median numbers of γH2AX foci, indicators of DNA double-strand breaks, did not differ between RPS14-deficient and control cells with a median number of 9.4 and 8.2 foci/cell, respectively. Induction of γH2AC foci via Mitomycin C, a DNA cross-linking agent inducing double-strand breaks, did not reveal an altered DNA repair capacity with 14.3 and 11.6 foci/cell. Colony-forming assays showed that, even though RPS14 haploinsufficiency immediately led to an erythroid differentiation defect, this differentiation capacity decreased even further within the weeks of follow-up. This however, although with a delay of about 4 weeks, could also be observed in the control cells (Figure 1).Figure 1Figure 1. Telomere length decreased in RPS14- deficient cells as well as in control cells. Initially, telomeres showed a median length of about 12.5 kb, decreasing to a median length of 10.3 kb (range 8.4 – 11.4 kb) and 5.8 kb (range 5.7 – 8.9 kb) after 2 and 4 weeks, respectively, which afterwards elongated to a level of 8.7 kb (range 8.5 –8.9 kb) after 6 weeks. The mechanism underlying this primary shortening and subsequent re-elongation might be due to an up-regulation of telomerase or of the alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) mechanism. Cytogenetic investigations demonstrated an increase in chromosomal breakage in all cultures, pointing towards induction during LTC rather than due to RPS14 deficiency. Remarkably, chromosomal breakage and chromosome aberrations in single cells within the first 4 weeks of cultivation of hematopoietic stem cells transduced with scrambled shRNA was followed by clonal dominance of monosomy 7 after 6 weeks. This may be an effect caused by insertional mutagenesis. LM-PCR is currently under way to obtain insights into the affected insertion site(s). Monosomy 7 is one of the most frequent chromosome aberrations in MDS and frequently occurs as an additional aberration in MDS/AML with inversion 3q generating an MDS-EVI1 fusion transcript. Thus, it will be interesting to see whether monosomy 7 in our LTC model cooperates with EVI1 activation as in sporadic MDS and AML. In conclusion, a LTC model on feeder layer cells seems to be an appropriate system to analyze hematopoietic stem cells and MDS in culture. However, cell culture artefacts inducing telomere shortening and chromosomal instability or insertional mutagenesis have to be taken into account and regular cytogenetic analyses should always be performed. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Background:Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors (JAKinibs) show similar efficacy in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, in vitro studies have shown differences in JAK selectivity profiles for baricitinib (BARI), tofacitinib (TOFA), upadacitinib (UPA) and filgotinib (FIL).1,2 These lead to distinct pharmacologic profiles in cellular signaling assays that may impact clinical efficacy or safety1. NK cells are innate lymphocytes important in anti-pathogen responses and immune surveillance, which function via production of cytokines and cell killing3. NK cell proliferation and IFNγ production are JAK-dependent pathways and may be modulated by JAKinibs. Clinical findings show transient decreases in NK cell numbers in patients treated with JAKinibs, but the link to safety is unclear4Objectives:To extend upon findings in proximal cell signaling assays, we compared the selectivity and potency of clinical JAKinibs on NK cell function by assessing proliferation mediated by IL-15 (JAK1/3) and IFN-γ production driven by IL-12 (JAK2/TYK2)+IL-18.Methods:NK cells were isolated from healthy donor PBMC, incubated in vitro with 8 concentrations of each evaluated JAKinib (TOFA, BARI, FIL, FIL metabolite, UPA) and stimulated with IL-15 for proliferation or IL-12/18 for IFNγ production. Proliferation was assessed by Cell Trace dye dilution after 6 days and IFNγ production by intracellular flow cytometry 4hrs post-stimulation. Half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) values were calculated for CD56bright, CD56dim, and total NK cells. Steady-state pharmacologic profile over a clinical dosing interval was modeled using concentration-time profiles from JAKinib population pharmacokinetic data in RA subjects under the therapeutic dose5-7. For each JAKinib, the time above IC50 and average daily inhibition of IFNγ or proliferation were calculated for each NK cell population in each donor.Results:Cellular assays in purified NK cells showed dose-dependent inhibition of IL-15-induced proliferation by all JAKinibs with TOFA showing the highest average inhibition and time above IC50 (35-60% inhibition for 8-15 hrs; TOFA>UPA>BARI≈FIL). The differences between JAKinibs are in line with differences in pSTAT inhibition downstream of IL-151. Interestingly, IL-12/18-induced production of IFNγ, which is mediated via JAK2/TYK2 (IL-12) and non-JAK dependent pathways (IL-18), showed weaker inhibition for all compounds. Moreover, all JAKinibs showed <25% average inhibition of IFNγ production over 24hrs and did not show any time above IC50 for IFNγ production or pSTAT4 inhibition at clinical doses. CD56dim and CD56bright sub-populations of NK cells are proposed to have distinct functions and unique expression of surface receptors. Analysis of the IC50 for pSTAT4 and IFNγ production showed ~2-10-fold weaker inhibition by JAKinibs in CD56bright NK cells, suggesting less dependence on JAK-dependent signals in CD56bright NK cells than CD56dim NK cells.Conclusion:NK cell proliferation depends on JAK1 and JAK3-mediated signaling and is differentially inhibited at clinical doses of distinct JAKinibs. In contrast, functional responses downstream of JAK2/TYK2-dependent IL-12/18 were not substantially inhibited by any of the JAKinibs studied. Inhibition of functional and proliferative responses in purified NK cells aligned well with proximal pSTAT inhibition. JAKinib modulation of NK cell proliferation, but not response to IL-12, reflects unique pharmacologic profiles of the drugs studied and could be one component underlying clinical safety observations, including increased risk of viral infections or malignancy4.References:[1]Traves PG et al. Ann Rheum Dis 2021 (in press)[2]McInnes IB, et al. Arthritis Res Ther 2019;21:183.[3]Cooper MA, Fehniger TA, Caligiuri MA. Trends Immunol 2001 Nov;22(11):633-40.[4]Winthrop KL. Nat Rev Rheumatol 2017; 13(4):234-243[5]Zhang X, et al. CPT Pharmacometrics Syst Pharmacol 2017;6(12):804-13.[6]CDER. Application Number: 203214Orig1s000. NDA 203214: Tofacitinib.[7]Klunder B et al. Clin Pharmacokinet 2019;58(8):1045-58.Disclosure of Interests:Paqui Gonzalez-Traves Shareholder of: Gilead Sciences, Employee of: Gilead Sciences, Laura Simpson Shareholder of: Gilead Sciences, Employee of: Gilead Sciences, Bernard Murray Shareholder of: Gilead Sciences, Employee of: Gilead Sciences, Amy Meng Shareholder of: Gilead Sciences, Employee of: Gilead Sciences, Julie A. Di Paolo Shareholder of: Gilead Sciences, Employee of: Gilead Sciences, Ethan Grant Shareholder of: Gilead Sciences, Employee of: Gilead Sciences, Gundula Min-Oo Shareholder of: Gilead Sciences, Employee of: Gilead Sciences

Abstract Abstract 1912 Introduction Remarkable increases in the dose and activity of NK cells can be achieved by co-culture with the HLA class I deficient cell line K562 that has been genetically modified to express membrane-bound IL15 and the co-stimulatory molecule 41BB-ligand (K562-mb15-41BBL; Fujisaki et al. Cancer Res. 2009;69:4010–4017). We are conducting a clinical trial utilizing these ex-vivo expanded NK cells (ENK) which are produced at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy (CAGT) at Baylor and then shipped to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) for infusion to high-risk relapsed multiple myeloma (MM) patients using the NHLBI-PACT mechanism. Here we report on the characteristics of the ENK cell products sent fresh versus frozen. Methods Apheresis products were collected from MM patients or healthy donors (HD), cryopreserved, and then shipped to CAGT for GMP grade production, as described (Lapteva et al. Cytotherapy 2012; in press). Briefly, mononuclear cells from thawed and ficolled apheresis products were cultured in Stem Cell Growth Medium (CellGenix) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum and 10 U/mL IL2 with stimulator cells at a ratio of 1 NK cell to 10 irradiated K562-mb15-41BBL cells (developed at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN). Cells were harvested on day 8–9; products from HD were CD3-depleted. Clinical-grade products were shipped to UAMS overnight either cryopreserved in a dry shipper (n=7) or fresh in 5% human serum albumin on cold packs at 1–11°C (n=4). Cell purity, expression of activating molecules, and viability by 7AAD exclusion was assessed by flow cytometry. Standard 4h chromium-release assays were used to assess potency against K562 cells at a 20:1 ENK: K562 ratio. Student's t-Test was used to determine significance. Results From 0.9–1.5×107 starting NK cells, the total number of ENK cells produced was 5.4×109 (range 1.8–24×109). The fold NK-cell expansion was significantly lower for MM patients (n=5, median 22, 12–70 fold) than for HD (n=6, median 95, 31–160 fold; p<0.05). At harvest, median CD3+/CD56+ NK cell purity was 70% (52–88); CD3 depletion of HD products increased CD3+/CD56+ purity to 93% (86–95) resulting in a median CD3+/CD56- T cell content of 0.02% (0.04–1.02). Overall, median viability was 93% (67–98) and potency (defined as lysis of K562 cells at a 20:1 E:T ratio) was 74% (26–92). One product derived from a patient with 21% CD138+ MM cells in the apheresis collection had low expansion (12-fold), viability (66.7%) and potency (26%). For cryopreserved products, viability immediately after thawing was acceptable (median 94%, 75–99) but recovery of viable cells varied from 61% to 100% and thawed ENK failed to lyse K562 cells unless rested overnight. Further, recovery was extremely poor after overnight incubation (median 16%, 10–21). We therefore validated shipment of fresh ENK products. In contrast with frozen NK cells, the median recovery for fresh clinical products post-shipping was 101% (87–151). We confirmed that NK purity, viability, potency and expression of the key activating molecules NKG2D, NKp30, NKp44 and CD226 were retained up to 48h after transfer. ENK further increased by 34% after 72h in vitro incubation in the presence of IL2. Significant in vivo expansion of ENK was observed after infusion of fresh ENK cell products (n=3) but not after infusion of thawed products (n=3, see separate abstract). An additional advantage was that the fresh cells arrived ready to infuse and changes in release criteria relying on rapid and in process testing significantly reduced the time from apheresis collection to ENK infusion, an important consideration when treating high-risk MM patients who can experience rapid disease progression. Conclusion We conclude that large numbers of clinical grade ENK cells can be generated from both MM patient and HD derived apheresis products by co-culture with IL2 and K562-mb15-41BBL although less vigorous expansion was observed with patient-derived cells. Upon thawing, cryopreserved ENK cells exhibited inferior recovery and potency, and survived poorly during further in vitro culture. In contrast, freshly formulated and shipped ENK cells have excellent recovery and retain cytolytic ability. Robust in vivo expansion was only seen after infusion of fresh ENK cells. Production assistance by CAGT allowed for the rapid implementation of a novel therapy utilizing fresh ENK cells for poor prognosis MM patients. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Synonymous with globalism, the mobile phone has become an integral part of contemporary everyday life. As a global medium, the mobile phone is a compelling phenomenon that demonstrates the importance of the local in shaping and adapting the technology. The adaptation and usage of the mobile phone can be read on two levels simultaneously – the micro, individual level and the macro, socio-cultural level. Symbolic of the pervasiveness and ubiquity of global ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) in the everyday, the mobile phone demonstrates that the experiences of the local are divergent in the face of global convergence. The cultural significance of mobile technologies sees it often as a symbol for discussion around issues of democracy, capitalism, individualism and redefinitions of place. These debates are, like all forms of mediation, riddled with paradoxes. As Michael Arnold observes, mobile media is best encapsulated by the notion of “janus-faced” which sees an ongoing process of pushing and pulling whereby one is set free to be anywhere but is on a leash to whims of others anytime. This paradox, for Arnold, is central to all technologies; the more we try to overcome various forms of distance (geographic, temporal, cultural), the more we avoid closeness and intimacy. For Jack Qui, mobile technologies are indeed the ultimate “wireless leash”. These paradoxes see themselves played in a variety of ways. This is particularly the case in the Asia-Pacific region, which houses divergence and uneven adoption, production and consumption of mobile technologies. The region simultaneously displays distinctive characteristics and a possible future of mobile media worldwide. From the so-called ‘centres’ for mobile innovation such as Tokyo and Seoul that have gained attention in global press to Asian “tigers” such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan that demonstrate high penetration rates (Singapore has a 110% penetration rate), the region often plays out its dynamics through mobile technologies. The Philippines, for example, is known as the ‘texting capital of the world’ with 300 million text messages sent per day. Moreover, the region has taken central focus for debates around the so-called democratic potential of the mobile phone through examples such as the demise of President Joseph Estrada in the Philippines and the election of President Roh in South Korea (Pertierra, Transforming Technologies; Kim). Through the use of mobile technologies and the so-called rise of the “prosumer” (consumer as producer), we can see debates about the rhetoric and reality of democracy and capitalism in the region. In the case of nascent forms of capitalism, the rise of the mobile phone in China has often been seen as China’s embrace, and redefinition, of capitalism away from being once synonymous with westernisation. As Chua Beng Huat observes, after the 1997 financial crisis in the region notions of consumerism and modernity ceased to be equated with westernization. In the case of China, the cell phone has taken on a pivotal role in everyday life with over 220 billion messages – over half the world’s SMS – sent yearly in China. Despite the ubiquity and multi-layered nature of mobile media in the region, this area has received little attention in the growing literature on mobile communication globally. Publications often explore ‘Asia’ in the context of ‘global’ media or Asia in contrast to Europe. Examples include Katz and Aakhus’s (eds.) seminal anthology Perpetual Contact, Pertierra’s (ed.) The Social Construction and Usage of Communication Technologies: European and Asian experiences and, more recently, Castells et al., Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective. When publications do focus specifically on ‘Asia’, they single out particular locations in the region, such as Ito et al.’s compelling study on Japan, Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life and Pertierra’s eloquent discussion of the Philippines in Transforming Technologies: Altered Selves. This issue of M/C Journal attempts to address the dynamic and evolving role of mobile technologies in the Asia-Pacific region. By deploying various approaches to different issues involving mobile media, this issue aims to connect, through a regional imaginary, some of the nuances of local experience within the Asia-Pacific. As a construct, the region of the Asia-Pacific is ever evolving with constantly shifting economic and political power distributions. The rapid economic growth of parts of the region (Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, and now China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia) over the last two to three decades, has led to increasing linkages between these nations in creating transnational networks. The boundaries of the Asia-Pacific are indeterminate and open to contestation and social construction. Initially, the Asia-Pacific was a Euro-American invention, however, its ‘Asian’ content is now playing a greater role in self-constructions, and in influencing the economic, cultural and political entity that is the Asia-Pacific. There have been alternative terms and definitions proffered to describe or delimit the area posited as the Asia-Pacific in an attempt to acknowledge, or subsume, the hierarchies inherent within the region. For example, John Eperjesi has critiqued the ‘American Pacific’ which “names the regional imaginary through which capital looked to expand into Asia and the Pacific at the turn of the [last] century” (195). Arif Dirlik has also suggested two other terms: ‘Asian Pacific’ and ‘Euro-American Pacific.’ He suggests, “the former refers not just to the region’s location, but, more important, to its human constitution; the latter refers to another human component of the region (at least at present) and also to its invention as a regional structure.” (“Asia-Pacific Idea”, 64). Together, Rob Wilson and Arif Dirlik use the configuration ‘Asia/Pacific’ to discuss the region as a space of cultural production, social migration, and transnational innovation, whereby “the slash would signify linkage yet difference” (6). These various terms are useful only insofar as they expose the ideological bases of the definitions, and identify its centre(s). In this emphasis on geography, it is important not to obscure the temporal and spatial characteristics of human activities that constitute regions. As Arif Dirlik notes, “[an] emphasis on human activity shifts attention from physical area to the construction of geography through human interactions; it also underlines the historicity of the region’s formations” (What Is in a Rim?, 4). The three-part structure of this issue seeks to provide various perspectives on the use of mobile technologies and media – from a macro, regional level, to micro, local case studies – in the context of both historical and contemporary formations and definitions of the Asia-Pacific. In an age of mobile technologies we see that rather than erode, notions of place and locality take on increasing significance. The first four papers by Jaz Hee-jeong Choi, Gerard Raiti, Yasmin Ibrahim, and Collette Snowden & Kerry Green highlight some of the key concepts and phenomena associated with mobile media in the region. Choi’s paper provides a wonderful introduction to the culture of mobile technologies in East Asia, focusing largely on South Korea, China and Japan. She problematises the rhetoric surrounding technological fetishism and techno-orientalism in definitions of ‘mobile’ and ‘digital’ East Asia and raises important questions regarding the transformation and future of East Asia’s mobile cultures. Gerard Raiti examines the behemoth of globalization from the point of view of personal intimacy. He asks us to reconsider notions of intimacy in a period marked by co-presence; particularly in light of the problematic conflation between love and technological intimacy. Yasmin Ibrahim considers the way the body is increasingly implicated through the personalisation of mobile technologies and becomes a collaborator in the creation of media events. Ibrahim argues that what she calls the ‘personal gaze’ of the consumer is contributing to the visual narratives of global and local events. What we have is a figure of the mediated mobile body that participates in the political economy of events construction. The paradoxical role of mobile technologies as both pushing and pulling us, helping and hindering us (Arnold) is taken up in Collette Snowden and Kerry Green’s paper on the role of media reporting, mobility and trauma. Extending some of Ibrahim’s comments in the specific case of the reporting of traumatic events, Snowden and Green provide a wonderful companion piece about how media reporting is being transformed by contemporary mobile practices. As an integral component of contemporary visual cultures, camera phone practices are arguably both extending and creating emerging ways of seeing and representing. In the second section, we begin our case studies exploring the socio-cultural particularities of various adaptations of mobile media within specific locations in the Asia-Pacific. Randy Jay C. Solis elaborates on Gerard Raiti’s discussion of intimacy and love by exploring how the practice of ‘texting’ has contributed to the development of romantic relationships in the Philippines in terms of its convenience and affordability. Lee Humphreys and Thomas Barker further extend this discussion by investigating the way Indonesians use the mobile phone for dating and sex. As in Solis’s article, the authors view the mobile phone as a tool of communication, identity management and social networking that mediates new forms of love, sex and romance in Indonesia, particularly through mobile dating software and mobile pornography. Li Li’s paper takes the playful obsession the Chinese and South Koreans have with lucky numbers and locates its socio-cultural roots. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, the author traces this use of lucky mobile numbers to the rise of consumerism in China and views this so-called ‘superstition’ in terms of the entry into modernity for both China and South Korea. Chih-Hui Lai’s paper explores the rise of Web 2.0. in Taiwan, which, in comparison to other locations in the region, is still relatively under-documented in terms of its usage of mobile media. Here Lai addresses this gap by exploring the burgeoning role of mobile media to access and engage with online communities through the case study of EzMoBo. In the final section we problematise Australia’s place in the Asia-Pacific and, in particular, the nation’s politically and culturally uncomfortable relationship with Asia. Described as ‘west in Asia’ by Rao, and as ‘South’ of the West by Gibson, Yue, and Hawkins, Australia’s uneasy relationship with Asia deserves its own location. We begin this section with a paper by Mariann Hardey that presents a case study of Australian university students and their relationship to, and with, the mobile phone, providing original empirical work on the country’s ‘iGeneration’. Next Linda Leung’s critique of mobile telephony in the context of immigration detention centres engages with the political dimensions of technology and difference between connection and contact. Here we reminded of the luxury of mobile technologies that are the so-called necessity of contemporary everyday life. We are also reminded of the ‘cost’ of different forms of mobility and immobility – technological, geographic, physical and socio-cultural. Leung’s discussion of displacement and mobility amongst refugees calls upon us to reconsider some of the conflations occurring around mobile telephony and new media outside the comfort of everyday urbanity. The final paper, by Peter B. White and Naomi Rosh White, addresses the urban and rural divide so pointed in Australia (with 80% of the population living in urban areas) by discussing an older, though still relevant mobile technology, the CB radio. This paper reminds us that despite the technological fetishism of urban Australia, once outside of urban contexts, we are made acutely aware of Australia as a land containing a plethora of black spots (in which mobile phones are out of range). All of the papers in this issue address, in their own way, theoretical and empirical ‘black spots’ in research and speak to the ‘future’ of mobile media in a region that, while diverse, is being increasingly brought together by technologies such as the mobile phone. Lastly, we are pleased to include a photo essay by Andrew Johnson. Entitled Zeitgeist, this series of artworks sees Johnson exploring the symbolic dimensions of the hand phone in South Korea by drawing on the metaphor of the dust mask. According the Johnson, these images refer to ‘the visibility and invisibility of communication’ that characterises the spirit of our time. The cover image is by Larissa Hjorth as part of her Snapshots: Portrait of the Mobile series conducted whilst on an Asialink residency at Ssamzie space (Seoul, South Korea) in 2005. The editors would like to offer a special note of thanks to all of our external reviewers who answered our pleas for help with willingness, enthusiasm, and especially, promptness. This issue could not have been completed without your support. References Arnold, Michael. “On the Phenomenology of Technology: The ‘Janus-Faces’ of Mobile Phones.” Information and Organization 13 (2003): 231-256. Castells, Manuel, et al., Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007. Chua, Beng Huat, ed. Consumption in Asia. London: Routledge, 2000. Dirlik, Arif. “The Asia-Pacific Idea: Reality and Representation in the Invention of a Regional Structure.” Journal of World History 3.1 (1992): 55-79. Dirlik, Arif, ed. What Is in a Rim? Critical Perspectives on the Pacific Region Idea. Boulder: Westview, 1993. Eperjesi, John. “The American Asiatic Association and the Imperialist Imaginary of the American Pacific.” Boundary 2 28.1 (Spring 2001): 195-219. Gibson, Ross. South of the West: Postcolonialism and the Narrative Construction of Australia. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1996. Ito, Mizuko, Daisuke Okabe, and Misa Matsuda, eds. Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005. Katz, James E., and Mark Aakhus, eds. Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communications, Private Talk, Public Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002 Kim, Shin Dong. “The Shaping of New Politics in the Era of Mobile and Cyber Communication.” Mobile Democracy: Essays on Society, Self and Politics. Ed. Kristof Nyiri. Vienna: Van Passen Verlag, 2003. Pertierra, Raul, ed. The Social Construction and Usage of Communication Technologies: European and Asian Experiences. Singapore: Singapore UP, 2005. –––. Transforming Technologies: Altered Selves. Philippines: De La Salle UP, 2006. Qui, Jack. “The Wireless Leash: Mobile Messaging Service as a Means of Control.” International Journal of Communication 1 (2007): 74-91. Rao, Madanmohan, ed. News Media and New Media: The Asia-Pacific Internet Handbook. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 2004. Wilson, Robert, and Afir Dirlik, eds. Asia/Pacific as Space of Cultural Production. Durham: Duke UP, 1995. Yue, Audrey. “Asian Australian Cinema, Asian-Australian Modernity.” Diaspora: Negotiating Asian-Australia. Eds. Helen Gilbert et al. St Lucia: U of Queensland P, 2000. 190–99. Yue, Audrey, and Gay Hawkins. “Going South.” New Formations 40 (Spring 2000): 49-63. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Hjorth, Larissa, and Olivia Khoo. "Collect Calls." M/C Journal 10.1 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0703/00-editorial.php>. APA Style Hjorth, L., and O. Khoo. (Mar. 2007) "Collect Calls," M/C Journal, 10(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0703/00-editorial.php>.

My message is this in regard to SMS messages and swarming crowds; this is ludicrous behaviour; it is unAustralian. We all share this wonderful country. (NSW Police Assistant Commissioners Mark Goodwin, quoted in Kennedy) The cops hate and fear the swarming packs of Lebanese who respond when some of their numbers are confronted, mobilising quickly via mobile phones and showing open contempt for Australian law. All this is the real world, as distinct from the world preferred by ideological academics who talk about “moral panic” and the oppression of Muslims. They will see only Australian racism as the problem. (Sheehan) The Politics of Transmission On 11 December 2005, as Sydney was settling into early summer haze, there was a race riot on the popular Cronulla beach in the city’s southern suburbs. Hundreds of people, young men especially, gathered for a weekend protest. Their target and pretext were visitors from the culturally diverse suburbs to the west, and the need to defend their women and beaches in the face of such unwelcome incursions and behaviours. In the ensuing days, there were violent raids and assaults criss-crossing back and forth across Sydney’s beaches and suburbs, involving almost farcical yet deadly earnest efforts to identify, respectively, people of “anglo” or “Middle Eastern” appearance (often specifically “Lebanese”) and to threaten or bash them. At the very heart of this state of siege and the fear, outrage, and sadness that gripped those living in Sydney were the politics of transmission. The spark that set off this conflagration was widely believed to have been caused by the transmission of racist and violent “calls to arms” via mobile text messages. Predictably perhaps media outlets sought out experts on text messaging and cell phone culture for commentary, including myself and most mainstream media appeared interested in portraying a fascination for texting and reinforcing its pivotal role in the riots. In participating in media interviews, I found myself torn between wishing to attest to the significance and importance of cell phone culture and texting, on the one hand (or thumb perhaps), while being extremely sceptical about its alleged power in shaping these unfolding events, on the other — not to mention being disturbed about the ethical implications of what had unfolded. In this article, I wish to discuss the subject of transmission and the power of mobile texting culture, something that attracted much attention elsewhere — and to which the Sydney riots offer a fascinating and instructive lesson. My argument runs like this. Mobile phone culture, especially texting, has emerged over the past decade, and has played a central role in communicative and cultural practice in many countries and contexts as scholars have shown (Glotz and Bertschi; Harper, Palen and Taylor). Among other features, texting often plays a significant, if not decisive, role in co-ordinated as well as spontaneous social and political organization and networks, if not, on occasion, in revolution. However, it is important not to over-play the role, significance and force of such texting culture in the exercise of power, or the formation of collective action and identities (whether mobs, crowds, masses, movements, or multitudes). I think texting has been figured in such a hyperbolic and technological determinist way, especially, and ironically, through how it has been represented in other media (print, television, radio, and online). The difficulty then is to identify the precise contribution of mobile texting in organized and disorganized social networks, without the antimonies conferred alternatively by dystopian treatments (such as moral panic) or utopian ones (such as the technological sublime) — something which I shall try to elucidate in what follows. On the Beach Again Largely caught unawares and initially slow to respond, the New South Wales state government responded with a massive show of force and repression. 2005 had been marked by the state and Federal enactment of draconian terror laws. Now here was an opportunity for the government to demonstrate the worth of the instruments and rationales for suppression of liberties, to secure public order against threats of a more (un)civil than martial order. Outflanking the opposition party on law-and-order rhetoric once again, the government immediately formulated new laws to curtail accused and offender’s rights (Brown). The police “locked” down whole suburbs — first Cronulla, then others — and made a show of policing all beaches north and south (Sydney Morning Herald). The race riots were widely reported in the international press, and, not for the first time (especially since the recent Redfern and Macquarie Fields), the city’s self-image of a cosmopolitan, multicultural nation (or in Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s prim and loaded terms, a nation “relaxed and comfortable”) looked like a mirage. Debate raged on why the riots occurred, how harmony could be restored and what the events signified for questions of race and identity — the latter most narrowly construed in the Prime Minister’s insistence that the riots did not reflect underlying racism in Australia (Dodson, Timms and Creagh). There were suggestions that the unrest was rather at base about the contradictions and violence of masculinity, some two-odd decades after Puberty Blues — the famous account of teenage girls growing up on the (Cronulla) Shire beaches. Journalists agonized about whether the media amounted to reporter or amplifier of tensions. In the lead-up to the riots, at their height, and in their wake, there was much emphasis on the role mobile text messages played in creating the riots and sustaining the subsequent atmosphere of violence and racial tension (The Australian; Overington and Warne-Smith). Not only were text messages circulating in the Sydney area, but in other states as well (Daily Telegraph). The volume of such text messages and emails also increased in the wake of the riot (certainly I received one personally from a phone number I did not recognise). New messages were sent to exhort Lebanese-Australians and others to fight back. Those decrying racism, such as the organizers of a rally, pointedly circulated text messages, hoping to spread peace. Media commentators, police, government officials, and many others held such text messages directly and centrally responsible for organizing the riot and for the violent scuffles that followed: The text message hate mail that inspired 5000 people to attend the rally at Cronulla 10 days ago demonstrated to the police the power of the medium. The retaliation that followed, when gangs marauded through Maroubra and Cronulla, was also co-ordinated by text messaging (Davies). It is rioting for a tech-savvy generation. Mobile phones are providing the call to arms for the tribes in the race war dividing Sydney. More than 5000 people turn up to Cronulla on Sunday … many were drawn to the rally, which turned into a mob, by text messages on their mobiles (Hayes and Kearney). Such accounts were crucial to the international framing of the events as this report from The Times in London illustrates: In the days leading up to the riot racist text messages had apparently been circulating calling upon concerned “white” Australians to rally at Cronulla to defend their beach and women. Following the attacks on the volunteer lifeguards, a mobile telephone text campaign started, backed up by frenzied discussions on weblogs, calling on Cronulla locals to rally to protect their beach. In response, a text campaign urged youths from western Sydney to be at Cronulla on Sunday to protect their friends (Maynard). There were calls upon the mobile companies to intercept and ban such messages, with industry spokespeople pointing out text messages were usually only held for twenty-four hours and were in many ways more difficult to intercept than it was to tap phone calls (Burke and Cubby). Mobs and Messages I think there are many reasons to suggest that the transmission of text messages did constitute a moral panic (what I’ve called elsewhere a “mobile panic”; see Goggin), pace columnist Paul Sheehan. Notably the wayward texting drew a direct and immediate response from the state government, with legislative changes that included provisions allowing the confiscation of cell phones and outlawing sending, receipt or keeping of racist or inflammatory text messages. For some days police proceeded to stop cars and board buses and demand to inspect mobiles, checking and reading text messages, arresting at least one person for being responsible for transmitting banned text messages. However, there is another important set of ideas adduced by commentators to explain how people came together to riot in Sydney, taking their cue from Howard Rheingold’s 2002 book Smart Mobs, a widely discussed and prophetic text on social revolution and new technologies. Rheingold sees text messaging as the harbinger of such new, powerful forms of collectivity, studying emergent uses around the world. A prime example he uses to illustrate the “power of the mobile many” is the celebrated overthrow of President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines in January 2001: President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines became the first head of state in history to lose power to a smart mob. More than 1 million Manila residents, mobilized and coordinated by waves of text messages, assembled … Estrada fell. The legend of “Generation Txt” was born (Rheingold 157-58). Rheingold is careful to emphasize the social as much as technical nature of this revolution, yet still sees such developments leading to “smart mobs”. As with his earlier, prescient book Virtual Community (Rheingold 1993) did for the Internet, so has Smart Mobs compellingly fused and circulated a set of ideas about cell phones and the pervasive, wearable and mobile technologies that are their successors. The received view of the overthrow of the Estrada government is summed up in a remark attributed to Estrada himself: “I was ousted by a coup d’text” (Pertierra et al. ch. 6). The text-toppling of Estrada is typically attributed to “Generation Txt”, underlining the power of text messaging and the new social category which marks it, and has now passed into myth. What is less well-known is that the overriding role of the cell phone in the Estrada overthrow has been challenged. In the most detailed study of text messaging and subjectivity in the Philippines, which reviewed accounts of the events of the Estrada overthrow, as well as conducting interviews with participants, Pertierra et al. discern in EDSA2 a “utopian vision of the mobile phone that is characteristic of ‘discourses of sublime technology’”: It focuses squarely on the mobile phone, and ignores the people who used it … the technology is said to possess a mysterious force, called “Text Power” ... it is the technology that does things — makes things happen — not the people who use it. (Pertierra et al. ch. 6) Given the recrudescence of the technological sublime in digital media (on which see Mosco) the detailed examination of precise details and forms of agency and coordination using cell phones is most instructive. Pertierra et al. confirm that the cell phone did play an important role in EDSA2 (the term given to the events surrounding the downfall of Estrada). That role, however, was not the one for which it has usually been praised in the media since the event — namely, that of crowd-drawer par excellence … less than half of our survey respondents who took part in People Power 2 noted that text messaging influenced them to go. If people did attend, it was because they were persuaded to by an ensemble of other reasons … (2002: ch. 6) Instead, they argue, the significance of the cell phone lay firstly, in the way it helped join people who disapproved of Pres. Estrada in a network of complex connectivity … Secondly, the mobile phone was instrumental as an organizational device … In the hands of activists and powerbrokers from politics, the military, business groups and civil society, the mobile phone becomes a “potent communications tool” … (Pertierra et al. 2002: ch. 6) What this revisionist account of the Estrada coup underscores is that careful research and analysis is required to understand how SMS is used and what it signifies. Indeed it is worth going further to step back from either the celebratory or minatory discourses on the cell phone and its powerful effects, and reframe this set of events as very much to do with the mutual construction of society and technology, in which culture is intimately involved. This involves placing both the technology of text messaging and the social and political forces manifested in this uprising in a much wider setting. For instance, in his account of the Estrada crisis Vicente L. Rafael terms the tropes of text messaging and activism evident in the discourses surrounding it as: a set of telecommunicative fantasies among middle-class Filipinos … [that] reveal certain pervasive beliefs of the middle classes … in the power of communication technologies to transmit messages at a distance and in their own ability to possess that power (Rafael 399). For Rafael, rather than possessing instrinsic politics in its own right, text messaging here is about a “media politics (understood in both senses of the phrase: the politics of media systems, but also the inescapable mediation of the political) [that] reveal the unstable workings of Filipino middle-class sentiments” (400). “Little Square of Light” Doubtless there are emergent cultural and social forms created in conjunction with new technologies, which unfreeze and open up (for a time) social relations. As my discussion of the Estrada “coup d’text” shows, however, the dynamics of media, politics and technology in any revolution or riot need to be carefully traced. A full discussion of mobile media and the Sydney uprising will need to wait for another occasion. However, it is worth noting that the text messages in question to which the initial riot had been attributed, were actually read out on one of the country’s highest-rating and most influential talk-radio programs. The contents of such messages had also been detailed in print media, especially tabloids, and been widely discussed (McLellan, Marr). What remains unknown and unclear, however, is the actual use of text messages and cell phones in the conceiving, co-ordination, and improvisational dynamics of the riots, and affective, cultural processing of what occurred. Little retrospective interpretation at all has emerged in the months since the riots, but it certainly felt as if the police and state’s over-reaction, and the arrival of the traditionally hot and lethargic Christmas — combined with the underlying structures of power and feeling to achieve the reinstitution of calm, or rather perhaps the habitual, much less invisible, expression of whiteness as usual. The policing of the crisis had certainly been fuelled by the mobile panic, but setting law enforcement the task of bringing those text messages to book was much like asking them to catch the wind. For analysts, as well as police, the novel and salience appearance of texting also has a certain lure. Yet in concentrating on the deadly power of the cell phone to conjure up a howling or smart mob, or in the fascination with the new modes of transmission of mobile devices, it is important to give credit to the formidable, implacable role of media and cultural representations more generally, in all this, as they are transmitted, received, interpreted and circulated through old as well as new modes, channels and technologies. References The Australian. “SMS Message Goes Out: Let’s March for Racial Tolerance.” The Australian. 17 September, 2005. 6. Brown, M. “Powers Tested in the Text”. Sydney Morning Herald. 20 December, 2005. 7. Burke, K. and Cubby, B. “Police Track Text Message Senders”. Sydney Morning Herald, 23-25 December, 2005. 7. Daily Telegraph. “Police Intercept Interstate Riot SMS — Race Riot: Flames of Fear.” Daily Telegraph. 15 December, 2005. 5. Davis, A. “Flying Bats Rang Alarm”. Sydney Morning Herald. 21 December, 2005. 1, 5. Dodson, L., Timms, A. and Creagh, S. “Tourism Starts Counting the Cost of Race Riots”, Sydney Morning Herald. 21 December, 2005. 1. Goggin, G. Cell Phone Culture: Mobile Technology in Everyday Life. London: Routledge, 2006. In press. Glotz, P., and Bertschi, S. (ed.) Thumb Culture: Social Trends and Mobile Phone Use, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Harper, R., Palen, L. and Taylor, A. (ed.)_ _The Inside Text: Social, Cultural and Design Perspectives on SMS. Dordrecht: Springer. Hayes, S. and Kearney, S. “Call to Arms Transmitted by Text”. Sydney Morning Herald. 13 December, 2005. 4. Kennedy, L. “Police Act Swiftly to Curb Attacks”. Sydney Morning Herald. 13 December, 2005. 6. Maynard, R. “Battle on Beach as Mob Vows to Defend ‘Aussie Way of Life.’ ” The Times. 12 December 2005. 29. Marr, D. “One-Way Radio Plays by Its Own Rules.” Sydney Morning Herald. 13 December, 2005. 6. McLellan, A. “Solid Reportage or Fanning the Flames?” The Australian. 15 December, 2005. 16. Mosco, V. The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. Overington, C. and Warne-Smith, D. “Countdown to Conflict”. The Australian. 17 December, 2005. 17, 20. Pertierra, R., E.F. Ugarte, A. Pingol, J. Hernandez, and N.L. Dacanay, N.L. Txt-ing Selves: Cellphones and Philippine Modernity. Manila: De La Salle University Press, 2002. 1 January 2006 http://www.finlandembassy.ph/texting1.htm>. Rafael, V. L. “The Cell Phone and the Crowd: Messianic Politics in the Contemporary Philippines.” Public Culture 15 (2003): 399-425. Rheingold, H. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 2002. Sheehan, P. “Nasty Reality Surfs In as Ugly Tribes Collide”. Sydney Morning Herald. 12 December, 2005. 13. Sydney Morning Herald. “Beach Wars 1: After Lockdown”. Editorial. Sydney Morning Herald. 20 December, 2005. 12. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Goggin, Gerard. "SMS Riot: Transmitting Race on a Sydney Beach, December 2005." M/C Journal 9.1 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0603/02-goggin.php>. APA Style Goggin, G. (Mar. 2006) "SMS Riot: Transmitting Race on a Sydney Beach, December 2005," M/C Journal, 9(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0603/02-goggin.php>.

Use of technologies in domestic spaces in a market economy suggests a certain notion of consumption. But is this the same as consumption or use of technologies in public spaces such as urban streets, internet cafes and libraries? As Baudrillard has argued, consumption can be seen as a form of desire for social meaning and interaction [1988]. How then do we describe the types of social interaction made possible by virtualising technologies, and the tensions between these interactions and the physical spaces in which they take place? Studies of the social and behavioural impacts of new technologies often focus on the home as a site where these technologies (for example, radio and television) are consumed, appropriated, fetishised or made into artefacts by their owners. For example Silverstone and Haddon [1996] speak of the domestication of new technologies as a process involving four stages, making a claim for the role of users/consumers and consumption in the production, design and innovation of technologies - a role which has until recently very rarely been acknowledged. Such a process is dependent on the processes of a capitalist market system in general, which sets roles for people not just in the workplace but in the home as well. Historically this system informed the distinction between public and private spaces. Embedded in this dichotomy are notions of gender, class and race. While Silverstone and Haddon are showing the artificiality of the distinction, their assumption that consumption is a largely domestic activity reinforces the public/private divide. This however begs the question of how technologies are consumed and indeed, whether this is even the right word to use when describing such uses in public spaces. It is ironic that our consumption of technologies has become so public and yet so disconnected from traditional notions of social interaction. The mobile phone, numbers of which surpassed fixed lines for the first time last year in Australia [ACA 2002] is a much-hyped case in point. In our new mobile condition we minimise social encounters with strangers on the street and avoid face-to-face contact. Instead we invest in mediated faceless conversations with known counterparts through text messaging and mobile telephony. After all, as Baudrillard says, most of these machines are used for delusion, for eluding communication (leave a message) for absolving us of the face-to-face relation and the social responsibility. [1995] This may in part explain the sense of anxiety often expressed by commentators (and users) in respect of these new technologies. Perhaps the falling back on a form of technological determinism is in actual fact the expression of a profound pessimism, similar to that voiced by a journalist in a London newspaper in 1897: We shall soon be nothing but transparent heaps of jelly to each other. [Marvin 1988, 68] The use of technologies in public spaces in our own time use has not until recently been noted, even in official statistics, due perhaps to an overwhelming preoccupation with domestic access. It must also be acknowledged that Australian government policy with respect to the Internet during the last decade has assumed that the functions of the free market will deliver access to the home, the assumption being that, like the fixed line telephone, the domestic Internet will eventually become ubiquitous. And, indeed, home computer ownership has risen over time; household connections to the Internet have also risen sharply, and a large number of Australians also access the Internet from work [ABS 2001]. Public libraries, tertiary institutions and friend or neighbour's house as sites of access make up a mere remainder in these statistics. And yet, the inclusion of these three categories makes for a far more complete picture when discussing effective use. What do people use technologies in public spaces for? Are these uses different to domestic uses? If not, what does this suggest about public use, in terms of present policy and provision? We can notionally divide the complex set of places known as public space into four categories: civic spaces (including libraries), commercial spaces (including malls, shops and arcades), public spaces (such as the street and the park) and semi-privat(is)e(d) spaces. The shopping mall, for example, is a semi-privatised space, which mediates both the type of users and their activities through surveillance and obtrusive design (images of the street). The library, as a civic space, represents a place in which the use of new technologies (for example the Internet, if not the mobile phone) can be both appropriate (i.e. relevant) and equitable. But what of Internet access in other public spaces? The existence of a growing body of literature relating to mobile phone use in public spaces, for example, suggests that the relationship between new technologies and space is fluid [see Lee 1999; also DoCoMo Reports 2000] At a more basic, societal level, interactions between people on the street have historically been mediated by considerations of gender, occupation and disability [see for example, Rendell's male rambler]. In the same way as the provision of public access is often miscast as being solely for those without access at home, so too the street has been characterised as a site whose occupiers are transient, homeless or otherwise unengaged (for example, unemployed). So, what happens when the street meets the commercial imperative, as in the case of an Internet cafe? Most Internet cafes in Australia operate on a commercial basis. A further distinction can be made between pay-per-session and free public access Internet cafes. Within the pay-per-session category we may locate not only Internet cafes but also kiosks (the vending machine approach to access) and wireless Internet users; while within the free category we could include libraries, community centres and tertiary institutions. Each of these spaces induce certain kinds of activities, encourage and discourage certain forms of behaviour. When we add use of the Internet, which in itself functions as a semi-private space, this cocktail of design, use, consumption and communication becomes very potent indeed. Crang describes the intersection of two different kinds of spaces: the architectural (where forms are entered and moved through) and the cinematic (where pictures move in front of an unmoving person) (2000, 5). We would argue that Internet cafes, especially those where customers are visible to passers-by on the street, embody this essentially urban, interactive, consumption-driven shopping mall kind of a space, whose 'liberties of action' (to borrow Sawhney's phrase) are contained not within the present but a (perhaps misnamed) hyperreality. This approach has been taken by several multimedia Internet cafes in Australia, notably the Ngapartji centre in Adelaide, where "Equity of access is underlined by the vision of the walk-in, hands-on, street-front showcase of high-end multimedia Timezone for grown-ups. [Green 1996] This is an overwhelmingly urban notion of space. Public space in non-urban areas, by comparison, is located within a predominantly civic framework (the ANZAC memorial, the Town Hall). It's therefore apparent that an examination of public space in terms of strict public/private demarcations must also take into account the inter-relationship between urbanisation and consumption. Crang's image-event (2000, 12) may have many manifestations, not all of which will fit into simple dichotomies such as public/private, commercial/charitable, streetside/inside. What then can we say about users of technologies in public spaces, engaged in a notionally private act in a public space, mediated by a cash transaction? In what ways is this complex interaction made possible by (or embedded within) the design of the Internet cafe itself? Does the kind of public space induce particular forms of behaviour or usage? How do people interact with each other in these public spaces, whilst also engaging with another community, whose sole physical presence is a screen? One could argue, as Connery [1997] does, that the cafe metaphor is appropriate not so much to the space itself, but to the interactions between people on mailing and discussion lists, whose interplay occurs, perhaps ironically, in a virtual space. Internet cafes occupy a vague, barely-researched space somewhere in between the home and the office. They are an example of the intersection between new communications technologies and sites where leisure activities take place. They are at once intensely public but also intensely private. Lee's (1999) study of an Internet cafe and its users is timely, as it refutes the notion that public access encourages totally different users and use, a point of view summed up in a (no longer accessible) 1999 BT OpenWorld market analysis of Internet cafes: The clientele will largely consist of people who appreciate the usefulness of the Internet, but have no other access to it. These circumstances will not continue indefinitely, as PC ownership is increasing daily. In other words, you'd better get in quick, before universal domestic access kills your business! Lee's study runs counter to this view, suggesting that the progression from public access to domestic access is not linear, and that people frequent Internet cafes for a variety of reasons, and may indeed have access elsewhere. Lee's conclusion that peoples' use of Internet cafes is directly connected to their home and work life suggests the need for a re-examination of the kinds of public access being made available, and the public policy assumptions behind this access. Public use does not necessarily equate with a lack of access elsewhere. In fact, mobile Internet users may use public access as an adjunct to their daily activities; travelling users may log on to workstations en route to another destination; public library users may be accessing training, Internet facilities and bibliographic databases at the same time. It is a matter of concern that recent government policies have shown little recognition of these subtleties in both users and their activities. References Australian Bureau of Statistics, 8147.0 Use of the Internet by Householders, Australia (Final Issue: November 2000) and 8146.0 Household Use of Information Technology. Australian Communications Authority (2002) Media Release: Mobile Numbers Up by 25%, 13 February [http://www.aca.gov.au/media/2002/02-06.htm (viewed 6 March 2002)]Baudrillard, J.(1995) The virtual illusion for the Automatic writing of the World in Theory, Culture and Society, 12: 97-107. Baudrillard, J.(1998) The Consumer Society, Myths and Structures, Sage, London Connery, B. (1997) IMHO: Authority and Egalitarian Rhetoric in the Virtual Coffeehouse, in Porter, D. (ed.) Internet Culture, Routledge. Crang, M. (2000) Public Space, Urban Space and Electronic Space: Would the Real City Please Stand Up? in Urban Studies February, 37.2: 301. DoCoMo Reports (2000) No. 9 (The use of cell phones/PHS phones in everyday life) and No. 10 (Current trends in mobile phone usage among adolescents) NTT DoCoMo (Japan), Public Relations Department [http://www.nttdocomo.com] Green, L. (1996) Interactive Multimedia, the Cooperative Multimedia Centre Story in Media International Australia, 81: 11-20. Lee, S. (1999) Private Uses in Public Space: a study of an Internet cafe, in New Media and Society, 1.3: 331-350. Marvin, C. (1988) When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking about Electronic Communications in the late 19th century, Oxford University Press. Rendell, J. (1998) Displaying Sexuality: Gendered Identities and the early nineteenth century street, in Fyfe, N. (ed.), Images of the Street: Planning, Identity and Control in Public Space, Routledge. Silverstone & Haddon (1996) Design and the Domestication of Information and Communication Technologies: Technical Change and Everyday Life in Mansell and Silverstone (eds.) Communication By Design: the Politics of Information and Communication Technologies. Oxford University Press. 44-74. Links http://www.nttdocomo.com http://www.ngapartji.com.au http://www.aca.gov.au/media/2002/02-06.htm Citation reference for this article MLA Style Prater, David and Miller, Sarah. "We shall soon be nothing but transparent heaps of jelly to each other" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.2 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0205/transparent.php>. Chicago Style Prater, David and Miller, Sarah, "We shall soon be nothing but transparent heaps of jelly to each other" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 2 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0205/transparent.php> ([your date of access]). APA Style Prater, David and Miller, Sarah. (2002) We shall soon be nothing but transparent heaps of jelly to each other. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(2). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0205/transparent.php> ([your date of access]).

The information that follows is designed to help members of the profession use the association's programs and services and to offer a convenient reference tool for members who wish to undertake specific association-sponsored activities. Unless otherwise noted, all correspondence should be addressed to the department or person indicated at the MLA office, Cooper Station, PO Box 788, New York, NY 10276-0788. At press time the MLA office was moving, and the new phone and fax numbers were not known. For the new fax numbers or to reach a staff member by phone, call 212 475-9500. To reach a staff member by e-mail, follow the address format firstname.lastname@mla.org. A list of staff members appears on pages 529-31.For membership information and application forms, write or phone the membership office (membership@mla.org) or access the MLA Web site (www.mla.org). Membership runs for the calendar year; applications for 2001 membership will be accepted through 30 June 2001. Membership applications received after that date will be effective for 2002, although certain benefits-discounts on MLA publications, members' rates for convention registration and hotels-are available immediately.

In a TEXT essay in 2004, Philip Edmonds wrote about the publication prospects of graduates of creative writing programs. He depicted the publishing industry of the 1970s and 1980s as a field driven by small presses and literary journals, and lamented the dearth of these publications in today’s industry. Edmonds wrote that our creative writing programs as they stand today are under-performing as they do not deliver on the prime goal of most students: publication. “Ultimately,” he wrote, “creative writing programs can only operate to their full potential alongside an expanding and vibrant publishing culture” (1). As a creative writing and publishing lecturer myself, and one who teaches in the field of publishing and editing, this anxiety rings quite true. I am inherently interested in the creation of a strong and vibrant publishing industry so that promising students and graduates might get the most out of their degrees. As the popularity of creative writing programs grows, what relationships are being formed between writing programs and the broader publishing industry? Furthermore, does a role and responsibility exist for universities themselves to foster the publication of the emerging writers they train? Edmonds argued that the answer could be found not in universities, but in state writers’ centres. He advocated a policy whereby universities and the Australia Council funded the production of literary magazines through state writers’ centres, resulting in a healthier publishing marketplace for creative writing graduates (6). This paper offers a second alternative to this plan, arguing that university presses can play a role in the development of a healthier Australian publishing industry. To do so, it cites three examples of university press interactions with both the broad writing and publishing industry, and more specifically, with creative writing programs. The paper uses these examples—University of Queensland Press, University of Western Australia Press, and Giramondo Publishing (UWS)—in order to begin a broader conversation regarding the role universities can play in the writing and publishing industry. Let us begin by thinking about the university and its traditional role in the development of literature. The university can be thought of as a multi-functional literary institution. This is not a new concept: for centuries, there has been an integral link between the book trade and the university, with universities housing “stationers, scribes, parchment makers, paper makers, bookbinders, and all those associated with making books” (Clement 317). In universities today, we see similar performances of the various stages of literary production. We have students practising creative writing in both undergraduate and postgraduate coursework programs. We have the editing of texts and mentoring of writers through postgraduate creative writing supervision. We have the distribution of texts through sales from university bookshops, and the mass storage and loans of texts in university libraries. And we have the publication of texts through university presses.This point of literary production, the publication of texts through university presses, has traditionally been preoccupied with the publication of scholarly work. However, a number of movements within the publishing industry towards the end of the twentieth century resulted in some university presses shifting their objectives to incorporate trade publishing. The globalization of the publishing industry in the early 1990s led to a general change in the decision-making process of mainstream publishers, where increasingly, publishers looked at the commercial viability of texts rather than their cultural value. These movements, defined by the takeover of many publishing houses by media conglomerates, also placed significant financial pressure on smaller publishers, who struggled to compete with houses now backed by significantly increased fiscal strength. While it is difficult to make general statements about university presses due to their very particular nature, one can read a trend towards trade publishing by a number of university presses in an attempt to alleviate some of these financial pressures. This shift can be seen as one interaction between the university and the broader creative writing discipline. However, not all university presses waited until the financial pressures of the 1990s to move to trade publishing. For some presses, their trade lists have played a significant role in defining their relationship with literary culture. One such example in the Australian landscape is University of Queensland Press. UQP was founded in 1948, and subsisted as purely a scholarly publisher until the 1960s. Its first movements into trade publishing were largely through poetry, originally publishing traditional hardback volumes before moving into paperback, a format considered both innovative and risky at the time. David Malouf found an early home at UQP, and has talked a number of times about his relationship with the press. His desire to produce a poetry format which appealed to a new type of audience spawned the press’s interest in trade publishing. He felt that slim paperback volumes would give poetry a new mass market appeal. On a visit to Brisbane in 1969 I went to talk to Frank Thompson (general manager) at the University of Queensland Press… I told him that I did have a book but that I also had a firm idea of the kind of publication I wanted: a paperback of 64 pages that would sell for a dollar. Frank astonished me by saying … that if his people told him it was financially viable he would do it. He picked up the phone, called in his production crew … and after a quarter of an hour of argument and calculations they came up with the unit cost of, I think, twenty-three cents. ‘Okay, mate,’ Frank told me, ‘you’re on.’ I left with a firm undertaking and a deadline for delivery of the manuscript. (Malouf 72-73) That book of poetry, Bicycle and Other Poems, was Malouf’s first solo volume. It appeared in bookstores in 1970 alongside other slim volumes by Rodney Hall and Michael Dransfield, two men who would go on to become iconic Brisbane poets. Together, these three bold experiments in paperback poetry publishing sold a remarkable 7,000 copies and generated these sales without school or university adoptions, and without any Commonwealth Literary Fund assistance, either. UQP went on to publish 159 new titles of poetry between 1968 and 1996, becoming a significant player in the Australian literary landscape. Through University of Queensland Press’s poetry publishing, we see a way of how the university can interact with the broader writing and publishing industry. This level of cohesion between the publishing house and the industry became one of the distinguishing features of the press in this time. UQP garnered a reputation for fostering Australian writing talent, launching the careers of a generation of Australian authors. Elizabeth Jolley, Roger McDonald, Beverley Farmer, Thea Astley, Janette Turner Hospital, and Peter Carey all found their first home at the press. The university’s publishing house was at the forefront of Australian literary development at a time when Australia was beginning to blossom, culturally, as a nation. What this experience shows is the cultural importance and potential cultural benefit of a high level of cohesion between the university press and the broader writing and publishing industry. UQP has also sought to continue a high level of social cohesion with the local community. The press is significant in that it inhabits a physical space, the city of Brisbane, which is devoid of any other significant trade publishers. In this sense, UQP, and by association, the University of Queensland, has played a leading role in the cultural and literary development of the city. UQP continues to sponsor events such as the Brisbane Writers Festival, and publishes the winning manuscript for the Emerging Queensland Author award at the annual Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. Another point of interest in this relationship between the press and the university at University of Queensland can be seen in the relationship between UQP and some of the staff in the university’s creative writing department. Novelist, Dr Venero Armanno, senior lecturer in the creative writing program at UQ, shifted from a major international publisher back to his employer’s publishing house in 2007. Armanno’s move to the press was coupled with the appointment at UQP of another University of Queensland creative writing senior lecturer, Dr Bronwyn Lea, as poetry editor (Lea has recently left this post). This sort of connection shapes the public face of creative writing within the university, and heightens the level of cohesion between creative writing programs and university publishing. The main product of this interaction is, perhaps, the level of cohesion between university press and creative writing faculty that the relationship outwardly projects. This interaction leads us to question whether more formal arrangements for the cohesion between creative writing departments and university presses can be put in place. Specifically, the two activities beg the question: why can’t university publishers who publish trade fiction make a commitment to publish work that comes out of their own creative writing programs, and particularly, work out of their research higher degrees? The short answer to this seems to be caught up in the differing objectives of university presses and creative writing programs. The matter is not as cut-and-dry as a press wanting to publish good manuscripts, and a creative writing program, through its research by creative practice, providing that work. A number of issues get in the way: quality of manuscripts, editorial direction of press, areas of specialisation of creative writing faculty, flow of numbers through creative writing programs, to name a few. University of Western Australia Publishing recently played with the idea of how these two elements of creative writing within the university, manuscript production and trade publishing, could work together. UWA Publishing was established in 1935 as UWA Press (the house changed its name to UWA Publishing in 2009). Like University of Queensland Press, the house provides an important literary and cultural voice in Perth, which is not a publishing hub on the scale of Sydney or Melbourne. In 2005, the press, which had a tradition as a strong scholarly publisher and emerging trade publisher, announced a plan to publish a new series of literary fiction written by students in Australian creative writing courses. This was a new idea for UWA Publishing, as the house had previously only published scholarly work, along with natural history, history and children’s books.UWA Publishing fiction series editor Terri-Ann White said that the idea behind the series was to use creative writing postgraduate degrees as a “filter” to get the best emerging writing in Australia.There’s got to be something going for a student writer working with an experienced supervisor with all of the resources of a university. There’s got to be an edge to that kind of enterprise. (In Macnamara 3) As this experiment began in 2005, the result of the press’s doctrine is still unclear. However, it could be interesting to explore the motivations behind the decision to focus fiction publishing on postgraduate student work. Many presses publish student work—N.A. Bourke’s The Bone Flute and Julienne van Loon’s Road Story come to mind as two examples of successful work produced in a creative writing program—but few houses advertise where the manuscript has come from. This is perhaps because of the negative stigma that goes along with student work, that the writing is underdeveloped or, perhaps, formulaic, somehow over-influenced by its supervisor or home institution. UWA Publishing’s decision to take fiction solely from the pool of postgraduate writers is a bold one, and can be seen perhaps as noble by those working within the walls of the university. Without making any assumptions about the sales success of the program, the decision does shape the way in which the press is seen in the broader writing and publishing industry. We can summise from the decision that the list will have a strong literary focus, that the work will be substantial and well-researched, to the point where it could contribute to the bulk of a Masters degree by research, or PhD. The program would also appear to appeal to writing students within the university, all of whom go through their various degrees being told how difficult publication can be for first time writers. Another approach to the relationship between university presses and the broader writing and publishing industry can be seen at the University of Western Sydney. UWS founded a group in 2005 called the Writing and Society Research Group. The group manages the literary journal Heat Magazine and the Giramondo book imprint. Giramondo Publishing was established in 1995 with “the aim of publishing quality creative and interpretative writing by Australian authors”. It states its objectives as seeking to “build a common ground between the academy and the marketplace; to stimulate exchange between Australian writers and readers and their counterparts overseas; and to encourage innovative and adventurous work that might not otherwise find publication because of its subtle commercial appeal” ("Giramondo History"). These objectives demonstrate an almost utopian idea of engaging with the broader writing and publishing industry—here we have a university publisher actively seeking to publish inventive and original work, the sort of work which might be overlooked by other publishers. This philosophical approach indicates the gap which university presses (in an ideal world) would fill in the publishing industry. With the financial support of the university (and, in the case of Giramondo and others, funding bodies such as the Australia Council), university presses can be in a unique position to uphold more traditional literary values. They can focus on the cultural value of books, rather than their commercial potential. In this way, the Writing and Society Research Group at UWS demonstrates a more structural approach to the university’s engagement with the publishing industry. It engages with the industry as a stakeholder of literary values, fulfilling one of the roles of the university as a multi-functional literary institution. It also seeks directly to foster the work of new and emerging writers. Not all universities and university presses will have the autonomy or capacity to act in such a way. What is necessary is constant thought, debate and action towards working out how the university press can be a dynamic and relevant industry player. References Clement, Richard. “Cataloguing Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts.” The Library Quarterly 55 (1985): 316-326. Edmonds, Philip. “Respectable or Risqué: Creative Writing Programs in the Marketplace.” TEXT 8.1 (2004). 27 Jan. 2010 < http://www.textjournal.com.au/april04/edmonds.htm >. “Giramondo History.” Giramondo Publishing. 27 Jan. 2010 < http://www.giramondopublishing.com/history >. Greco, Albert N., Clara E. Rodriguez, and Robert M. Wharton. The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century. Stanford: Stanford Business Books, 2007. Macnamara, Lisa. “Big Break for Student Writers.” The Australian 2 Nov. 2005: Features 3. Malouf, David. In Munro, Craig, ed. UQP: The Writer’s Press: 1948 – 1998. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1998.

Introduction In The World Is Not a Desktop, Marc Weisner, the principal scientist and manager of the computer science laboratory at Xerox PARC, stated that, “a good tool is an invisible tool.” Weisner cited eyeglasses as an ideal technology because with spectacles, he argued, “you look at the world, not the eyeglasses.” Although Weisner’s work at PARC played an important role in the creation of the field of “ubiquitous computing”, his ideal is widespread in many areas of technology design. Through repetition, and by design, technologies blend into our lives. While technologies, and communications technologies in particular, have a powerful mediating impact, many of the most pervasive effects are taken for granted by most users. When technology works smoothly, its nature and effects are invisible. But technologies do not always work smoothly. A tiny fracture or a smudge on a lens renders glasses quite visible to the wearer. The Microsoft Windows “Blue Screen of Death” on subway in Seoul (Photo credit Wikimedia Commons). Anyone who has seen a famous “Blue Screen of Death”—the iconic signal of a Microsoft Windows crash—on a public screen or terminal knows how errors can thrust the technical details of previously invisible systems into view. Nobody knows that their ATM runs Windows until the system crashes. Of course, the operating system chosen for a sign or bank machine has important implications for its users. Windows, or an alternative operating system, creates affordances and imposes limitations. Faced with a crashed ATM, a consumer might ask herself if, with its rampant viruses and security holes, she should really trust an ATM running Windows? Technologies make previously impossible actions possible and many actions easier. In the process, they frame and constrain possible actions. They mediate. Communication technologies allow users to communicate in new ways but constrain communication in the process. In a very fundamental way, communication technologies define what their users can say, to whom they say it, and how they can say it—and what, to whom, and how they cannot. Humanities scholars understand the power, importance, and limitations of technology and technological mediation. Weisner hypothesised that, “to understand invisibility the humanities and social sciences are especially valuable, because they specialise in exposing the otherwise invisible.” However, technology activists, like those at the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), understand this power of technology as well. Largely constituted by technical members, both organisations, like humanists studying technology, have struggled to communicate their messages to a less-technical public. Before one can argue for the importance of individual control over who owns technology, as both FSF and EFF do, an audience must first appreciate the power and effect that their technology and its designers have. To understand the power that technology has on its users, users must first see the technology in question. Most users do not. Errors are under-appreciated and under-utilised in their ability to reveal technology around us. By painting a picture of how certain technologies facilitate certain mistakes, one can better show how technology mediates. By revealing errors, scholars and activists can reveal previously invisible technologies and their effects more generally. Errors can reveal technology—and its power and can do so in ways that users of technologies confront daily and understand intimately. The Misprinted Word Catalysed by Elizabeth Eisenstein, the last 35 years of print history scholarship provides both a richly described example of technological change and an analysis of its effects. Unemphasised in discussions of the revolutionary social, economic, and political impact of printing technologies is the fact that, especially in the early days of a major technological change, the artifacts of print are often quite similar to those produced by a new printing technology’s predecessors. From a reader’s purely material perspective, books are books; the press that created the book is invisible or irrelevant. Yet, while the specifics of print technologies are often hidden, they are often exposed by errors. While the shift from a scribal to print culture revolutionised culture, politics, and economics in early modern Europe, it was near-invisible to early readers (Eisenstein). Early printed books were the same books printed in the same way; the early press was conceived as a “mechanical scriptorium.” Shown below, Gutenberg’s black-letter Gothic typeface closely reproduced a scribal hand. Of course, handwriting and type were easily distinguishable; errors and irregularities were inherent in relatively unsteady human hands. Side-by-side comparisons of the hand-copied Malmesbury Bible (left) and the black letter typeface in the Gutenberg Bible (right) (Photo credits Wikimedia Commons & Wikimedia Commons). Printing, of course, introduced its own errors. As pages were produced en masse from a single block of type, so were mistakes. While a scribe would re-read and correct errors as they transcribed a second copy, no printing press would. More revealingly, print opened the door to whole new categories of errors. For example, printers setting type might confuse an inverted n with a u—and many did. Of course, no scribe made this mistake. An inverted u is only confused with an n due to the technological possibility of letter flipping in movable type. As print moved from Monotype and Linotype machines, to computerised typesetting, and eventually to desktop publishing, an accidentally flipped u retreated back into the realm of impossibility (Mergenthaler, Swank). Most readers do not know how their books are printed. The output of letterpresses, Monotypes, and laser printers are carefully designed to produce near-uniform output. To the degree that they succeed, the technologies themselves, and the specific nature of the mediation, becomes invisible to readers. But each technology is revealed in errors like the upside-down u, the output of a mispoured slug of Monotype, or streaks of toner from a laser printer. Changes in printing technologies after the press have also had profound effects. The creation of hot-metal Monotype and Linotype, for example, affected decisions to print and reprint and changed how and when it is done. New mass printing technologies allowed for the printing of works that, for economic reasons, would not have been published before. While personal computers, desktop publishing software, and laser printers make publishing accessible in new ways, it also places real limits on what can be printed. Print runs of a single copy—unheard of before the invention of the type-writer—are commonplace. But computers, like Linotypes, render certain formatting and presentation difficult and impossible. Errors provide a space where the particulars of printing make technologies visible in their products. An inverted u exposes a human typesetter, a letterpress, and a hasty error in judgment. Encoding errors and botched smart quotation marks—a ? in place of a “—are only possible with a computer. Streaks of toner are only produced by malfunctioning laser printers. Dust can reveal the photocopied provenance of a document. Few readers reflect on the power or importance of the particulars of the technologies that produced their books. In part, this is because the technologies are so hidden behind their products. Through errors, these technologies and the power they have on the “what” and “how” of printing are exposed. For scholars and activists attempting to expose exactly this, errors are an under-exploited opportunity. Typing Mistyping While errors have a profound effect on media consumption, their effect is equally important, and perhaps more strongly felt, when they occur during media creation. Like all mediating technologies, input technologies make it easier or more difficult to create certain messages. It is, for example, much easier to write a letter with a keyboard than it is to type a picture. It is much more difficult to write in languages with frequent use of accents on an English language keyboard than it is on a European keyboard. But while input systems like keyboards have a powerful effect on the nature of the messages they produce, they are invisible to recipients of messages. Except when the messages contains errors. Typists are much more likely to confuse letters in close proximity on a keyboard than people writing by hand or setting type. As keyboard layouts switch between countries and languages, new errors appear. The following is from a personal email: hez, if there’s not a subversion server handz, can i at least have the root password for one of our machines? I read through the instructions for setting one up and i think i could do it. [emphasis added] The email was quickly typed and, in two places, confuses the character y with z. Separated by five characters on QWERTY keyboards, these two letters are not easily mistaken or mistyped. However, their positions are swapped on German and English keyboards. In fact, the author was an American typing in a Viennese Internet cafe. The source of his repeated error was his false expectations—his familiarity with one keyboard layout in the context of another. The error revealed the context, both keyboard layouts, and his dependence on a particular keyboard. With the error, the keyboard, previously invisible, was exposed as an inter-mediator with its own particularities and effects. This effect does not change in mobile devices where new input methods have introduced powerful new ways of communicating. SMS messages on mobile phones are constrained in length to 160 characters. The result has been new styles of communication using SMS that some have gone so far as to call a new language or dialect called TXTSPK (Thurlow). Yet while they are obvious to social scientists, the profound effects of text message technologies on communication is unfelt by most users who simply see the messages themselves. More visible is the fact that input from a phone keypad has opened the door to errors which reveal input technology and its effects. In the standard method of SMS input, users press or hold buttons to cycle through the letters associated with numbers on a numeric keyboard (e.g., 2 represents A, B, and C; to produce a single C, a user presses 2 three times). This system makes it easy to confuse characters based on a shared association with a single number. Tegic’s popular T9 software allows users to type in words by pressing the number associated with each letter of each word in quick succession. T9 uses a database to pick the most likely word that maps to that sequence of numbers. While the system allows for quick input of words and phrases on a phone keypad, it also allows for the creation of new types of errors. A user trying to type me might accidentally write of because both words are mapped to the combination of 6 and 3 and because of is a more common word in English. T9 might confuse snow and pony while no human, and no other input method, would. Users composing SMS’s are constrained by its technology and its design. The fact that text messages must be short and the difficult nature of phone-based input methods has led to unique and highly constrained forms of communication like TXTSPK (Sutherland). Yet, while the influence of these input technologies is profound, users are rarely aware of it. Errors provide a situation where the particularities of a technology become visible and an opportunity for users to connect with scholars exposing the effect of technology and activists arguing for increased user control. Google News Denuded As technologies become more complex, they often become more mysterious to their users. While not invisible, users know little about the way that complex technologies work both because they become accustomed to them and because the technological specifics are hidden inside companies, behind web interfaces, within compiled software, and in “black boxes” (Latour). Errors can help reveal these technologies and expose their nature and effects. One such system, Google’s News, aggregates news stories and is designed to make it easy to read multiple stories on the same topic. The system works with “topic clusters” that attempt to group articles covering the same news event. The more items in a news cluster (especially from popular sources) and the closer together they appear in time, the higher confidence Google’s algorithms have in the “importance” of a story and the higher the likelihood that the cluster of stories will be listed on the Google News page. While the decision to include or remove individual sources is made by humans, the act of clustering is left to Google’s software. Because computers cannot “understand” the text of the articles being aggregated, clustering happens less intelligently. We know that clustering is primarily based on comparison of shared text and keywords—especially proper nouns. This process is aided by the widespread use of wire services like the Associated Press and Reuters which provide article text used, at least in part, by large numbers of news sources. Google has been reticent to divulge the implementation details of its clustering engine but users have been able to deduce the description above, and much more, by watching how Google News works and, more importantly, how it fails. For example, we know that Google News looks for shared text and keywords because text that deviates heavily from other articles is not “clustered” appropriately—even if it is extremely similar semantically. In this vein, blogger Philipp Lenssen gives advice to news sites who want to stand out in Google News: Of course, stories don’t have to be exactly the same to be matched—but if they are too different, they’ll also not appear in the same group. If you want to stand out in Google News search results, make your article be original, or else you’ll be collapsed into a cluster where you may or may not appear on the first results page. While a human editor has no trouble understanding that an article using different terms (and different, but equally appropriate, proper nouns) is discussing the same issue, the software behind Google News is more fragile. As a result, Google News fails to connect linked stories that no human editor would miss. A section of a screenshot of Google News clustering aggregation showcasing what appears to be an error. But just as importantly, Google News can connect stories that most human editors will not. Google News’s clustering of two stories by Al Jazeera on how “Iran offers to share nuclear technology,” and by the Guardian on how “Iran threatens to hide nuclear program,” seem at first glance to be a mistake. Hiding and sharing are diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive. But while it is true that most human editors would not cluster these stories, it is less clear that it is, in fact, an error. Investigation shows that the two articles are about the release of a single statement by the government of Iran on the same day. The spin is significant enough, and significantly different, that it could be argued that the aggregation of those stories was incorrect—or not. The error reveals details about the way that Google News works and about its limitations. It reminds readers of Google News of the technological nature of their news’ meditation and gives them a taste of the type of selection—and mis-selection—that goes on out of view. Users of Google News might be prompted to compare the system to other, more human methods. Ultimately it can remind them of the power that Google News (and humans in similar roles) have over our understanding of news and the world around us. These are all familiar arguments to social scientists of technology and echo the arguments of technology activists. By focusing on similar errors, both groups can connect to users less used to thinking in these terms. Conclusion Reflecting on the role of the humanities in a world of increasingly invisible technology for the blog, “Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory,” Duke English professor Cathy Davidson writes: When technology is accepted, when it becomes invisible, [humanists] really need to be paying attention. This is one reason why the humanities are more important than ever. Analysis—qualitative, deep, interpretive analysis—of social relations, social conditions, in a historical and philosophical perspective is what we do so well. The more technology is part of our lives, the less we think about it, the more we need rigorous humanistic thinking that reminds us that our behaviours are not natural but social, cultural, economic, and with consequences for us all. Davidson concisely points out the strength and importance of the humanities in evaluating technology. She is correct; users of technologies do not frequently analyse the social relations, conditions, and effects of the technology they use. Activists at the EFF and FSF argue that this lack of critical perspective leads to exploitation of users (Stallman). But users, and the technology they use, are only susceptible to this type of analysis when they understand the applicability of these analyses to their technologies. Davidson leaves open the more fundamental question: How will humanists first reveal technology so that they can reveal its effects? Scholars and activists must do more than contextualise and describe technology. They must first render invisible technologies visible. As the revealing nature of errors in printing systems, input systems, and “black box” software systems like Google News show, errors represent a point where invisible technology is already visible to users. As such, these errors, and countless others like them, can be treated as the tip of an iceberg. They represent an important opportunity for humanists and activists to further expose technologies and the beginning of a process that aims to reveal much more. References Davidson, Cathy. “When Technology Is Invisible, Humanists Better Get Busy.” HASTAC. (2007). 1 September 2007 http://www.hastac.org/node/779>. Eisenstein, Elisabeth L. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Latour, Bruno. Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Harvard UP, 1999. Lenssen, Philipp. “How Google News Indexes.” Google Blogscoped. 2006. 1 September 2007 http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-07-28-n49.html>. Mergenthaler, Ottmar. The Biography of Ottmar Mergenthaler, Inventor of the Linotype. New ed. New Castle, Deleware: Oak Knoll Books, 1989. Monotype: A Journal of Composing Room Efficiency. Philadelphia: Lanston Monotype Machine Co, 1913. Stallman, Richard M. Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman. Boston, Massachusetts: Free Software Foundation, 2002. Sutherland, John. “Cn u txt?” Guardian Unlimited. London, UK. 2002. Swank, Alvin Garfield, and United Typothetae America. Linotype Mechanism. Chicago, Illinois: Dept. of Education, United Typothetae America, 1926. Thurlow, C. “Generation Txt? The Sociolinguistics of Young People’s Text-Messaging.” Discourse Analysis Online 1.1 (2003). Weiser, Marc. “The World Is Not a Desktop.” ACM Interactions. 1.1 (1994): 7-8. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Hill, Benjamin Mako. "Revealing Errors." M/C Journal 10.5 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0710/01-hill.php>. APA Style Hill, B. (Oct. 2007) "Revealing Errors," M/C Journal, 10(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0710/01-hill.php>.

South Africa enacted the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPI) in an effort to curb the misuse of customers’ personal information by organisations. The aim of this research was to establish whether the South African insurance industry is adhering to certain prescripts of POPI, focusing on direct marketing requirements. An experiment was utilised to monitor the flow of personal information submitted to 20 insurance companies requesting short-term insurance quotations, using new e-mail addresses and phone numbers. The results of the experiment indicate that 92% of the marketing communication received did not have prior consent from the researcher. Contact was made by companies outside the sample, indicating third-party sharing. 86% of the unsolicited short message service (SMS) communication received required customers to pay for unsubscribing from SMSs, which is not in line with regulatory requirements. The non-compliance evident in this experiment acts as an early warning to the insurance industry and South Africa, prompting a more concerted effort towards preparation of compliance with POPI. A personal information processing management framework is proposed to aid the insurance industry in understanding how personal information can be processed in line with the requirements of the Act.

Introduction Australia’s mobile communications industry has been slower to embrace the convergence of digital communication technology compared to other areas of the Asia-Pacific region, in particular Japan. However, the introduction of new mobile networks and spread of broadband (albeit still limited in some areas) has given Australians opportunities to experience the new technosocial communications. As a result mobile communication resources have become embedded within a sociocultural infrastructure that is at once mobile, personalised and consumerist. This paper examines how the iGeneration (or ‘Internet Generation’, those born in the first half of the 1980s and who were the first to grow up in a networked and communications media driven society) of young Australians have taken up and embraced the mobile technologies as part of their everyday sociability. This journal issue is concerned to understand the significance of the convergence of mobile media. In this paper ‘mobile’ is taken to refer to the range of digital media that are owned and used by the iGeneration. These can include mobile phones, laptops, computers alongside an array of other digital social software and Web 2.0 resources such as email, Social Networking Systems (SNS), e.g. Facebook, that enable individuals to situate themselves and communicate across their social networks. The discussion that follows will touch on all of these mobile communication resources. It is argued that these should be seen as more than technical tools, as they offer a constant ‘tether’ to personalised and intimate connections (Ito et al, 2005). This in itself is significant because the emphasis is on a digitally mobile and connected sociability rather than any single device or piece of software. It will be concluded that this connected sociability means that for the iGeneration there is a seamless movement across what has been previously depicted as an off/online and disembodied dichotomy. Researching the iGeneration The paper draws on the data from 40 in-depth and open-ended interviews with undergraduate students who were in the last term of their first year at University in Australia in 2006. The conventions of anonymity have been followed to ensure that no individual may be identified. All interviews were digitally recorded (with permission) and detailed analysis undertaken utilising AtlasTi. The analysis involved identifying themes and issues as they emerged from reading and re-reading of the data. This group was chosen as they had established non-university social networks and new connections amongst university peers. The focus on what constitutes one of the more privileged sections of young people in terms of education, if not material resources, is appropriate in a study that seeks to explore those who are likely to be able to take advantage of innovative communications technology. Extracts from the interview data for this paper, are not intended to be representative, but rather are used for illustrative purposes. Mobile Life The diffusion of communications media has become ubiquitous amongst the iGeneration who are socially, temporally and spatially mobile and likely to immerse themselves in their social connections. This is a generation that has been said to “inhabit a different world” (Muller), where seemingly unregulated flows of information and methods of staying in touch with others ‘situate’ social lives as part of mobile sociability. Part of this more mobile sociability is the crossover between global and localised connections. Indeed, globalisation theorists have emphasised how the world is characterised by the flows of such information. Urry has paid particular attention to the forms of mobility that take place in a society characterised by the exchange and sharing of information and communication practices. This paper has a narrower focus and is concerned with what might be thought of as ‘local’ communicative practices between people situated in the same city and at the same, but dispersed, institutions. Mobile communications technology takes on an increasingly ‘invisible’ sociotechnological power that underlies the structure and shapes the experience of everyday sociability and relationships (Graham). Identified as “Digital Natives” by Prensky these individuals ‘thrive’ on their constant connectivity to one another. The following quote reflects the sentiments of many of the students interviewed: I would never be without my phone, or at least having some way of being in touch with my friends. People tend to have ties everywhere now and I find that I am always in touch at the click of a button anytime. (Jon) Key to social interaction for the iGeneration is to be constantly ‘switched on’ and available to others. Significantly, the mediated aspects of mobile technology means that social connections are valued for their ‘liveness’, whereby interactions are expected to take place in ‘real time’. In this way the iGeneration have become both the producers and consumers of ‘live’ content where personal engagements are ‘active’. This ensures that individuals are (and are seen to be) socially and digitally engaged. The new social practices that form part of an ‘on-the-go’ and ‘ever-current’ lifestyle means that to be ‘in touch’ has taken on a new symbolic and social form. All 40 of the students interviewed mentioned that they could not ‘imagine’ being detached from their social networks, or without some form of communication device on their person. The relationship between previously defined on and offline lives, or ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ situations are not separate entities in this context. Instead they are inextricably linked together as the individual is continually socially connected. Individuals are part of a constant present-ness and engagement to what is experienced as a lived or ‘worldspace’, rather than static ‘real’/’virtual’ world duality (Steinberg cited by White). As a result members of the iGeneration have to maintain two active and dynamic social presences, one that is ‘real’ world and the other that is virtual. They are always ‘situated’ in both their embodied and disembodied digital lives, and yet this is a duality that many do not consciously recognise as they move ‘seamlessly’ across different venues for sociability. In order to remain ‘up-to-date’ communication strategies are employed, as one student explained: Things are changing so fast, like you go away for just one day and you are just so out of the loop, things change continually and it’s nice to be part of that. It’s hard if you miss a message because then you are behind and don’t know what’s going on… you have to continue to make the effort if you want to stay in touch. (Kim) In Goffman’s classic analysis of face-to-face interaction he revealed the complexity of social communication and the nuanced use of ‘props’ and ‘backstage work’. In a similar fashion the mediated and real time interaction amongst the iGeneration is full of symbolic meanings and rituals. Ironically in what is often thought of as a disembodied sociability, where time and place cease to matter, it is the immediacy or live presence that is valued. Thus social life rotates around the emergence of a set of continually updated communications between individuals. Social relationships are ‘reworked’ as mobile communications introduces a new layer of social connectiveness. The process of communicating with someone is not just about what is expressed, but includes a set of subjective meanings as to the ‘whom’ an individual is and value of a relationship. Successful communication and development of relations through technology require the engagement of the self with shared social conventions and representations. Mobile technology has enabled a whole generation to mobilise relationships and connections whilst ‘on the move’ in a way that strengthen social bonds and facilitates a sense of social connectedness (Wei and Lo). Getting to Know Each Other For members of the iGeneration traditional forms of social meetings, and indeed settings, have become modified to take into account constant social connectivity. Students employ technologies to provide new ways of ‘getting-to-know’ others and to develop relationships. In particular, SNS is used to find out about potential new friends by drawing on the profiles and connections that are displayed on resources such as Facebook. Profiles involve the creation of a virtual ‘identity’ that represents an individual and may include digital photographs, music, a detailed self-description, lists of interests and of other ‘friends’ etc. Sites such as Facebook are popular because (at the time the research was undertaken) they require an email address from an academic institution in order to join. Consequently, users trusted the information displayed on these sites and rarely questioned whether the descriptions that they read were accurate (Jones and Soltren). Not only would it be seen as breaking communicative norms to, for example fabricate an identity on Facebook, it would also be a fabrication that would be difficult to maintain across the various media that are in use. Indeed it would be ultimately pointless in terms of a sociability that moves across media and between the virtual and non-virtual domains. Such sites are geared to the student population and it is often taken-for-granted that amongst students that they will have a Facebook profile. Reflecting this university clubs and societies distribute notices of events and so forth through Facebook. Individual profiles may also display mobile phone numbers and other points of contact so that the online descriptions of the self are linked to other forms of connection. As this Melbourne student explains, these resources provide new means of ‘getting to know’ others. The way in is different now if you are getting to know someone, before maybe you went out a few times and got to know their circle of friends, but now you can check out their MySpace profile, or send them a message on Facebook BEFORE you meet up. Just by messaging each other you know that there’s no awkwardness or danger of gaps in conversation before you get together. (Tom) In effect the individual is digitally represented in a range of digital spaces so that a stranger can imagine or construct a sense of the ‘real’ person without ‘knowing’ or engaging with them. Such imaginings represent an important means of being on familiar terms with others and the ‘social value’ or individuals ‘place’ within a social network (Gotved). In the early stages of becoming acquainted with someone the status of the individual was related to the how frequently they were contacted and the form of interaction that took place. As noted earlier Goffman’s (1978 [1959]) work is useful as social ceremonies and rules for interaction can be detected although these are often taken-for-granted unless people are prompted to talk about how they communicate with others. They are perhaps best exemplified by the following descriptions from students talking about how they ‘got-to-know’ one another at the beginning of the university term: When you are getting to know someone it’s interesting to see if they’ll message you or call, then your like ‘oh he’s a caller’ and can go from there. (Emma) If I don’t know the person well I like to text, I am not good on the phone and so it creates a way to say ‘hi’ without the danger of awkward gaps. Then you find yourself messaging back and forth and can meet up later… (Katie) You have to play to their agenda otherwise you never hook up. (Stu) Instant messaging like on MSN or texts or whatever totally helps with getting to know someone. Before you meet up you can find out whether you’ll get on or not and whether it’s worth you while meeting up. Kind of like a filtering process. (Dan) This mediated process may involve text messages, emails and mobile calls before individuals meet offline. Members of the iGeneration therefore use an integrated set of devices and software resources to initiate and maintain friendship networks. In effect the often-rich descriptions created in SNS reflect a visualisation of what Bourdieu has described as ‘habitus’. This notion of habitus, that can basically be seen as set of acquired dispositions is appropriate, as “when habitus encounters a social world of which it is the product, it is like a “fish in water” ... it takes the world about itself for granted” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 127). This neatly describes how the iGeneration incorporates mobile communications technology into their everyday lives. An Etiquette for Mobility The ‘rules’, attitudes and expectations, that come into play as part of these new mobile communication practices continue to remain tied to a recognised and preconceived social ordering. Indeed, one of the most important aspects of this kind of mobile communication is the adherence to a set of social rules through which individuals continually control the process of interaction itself. This includes for example, the pace of communication, when to text, to make a voice call, or to email, and so forth. Galloway has argued that there is a “decidedly playful” aspect to mobile interaction. However, a range of communicative strategies underwrites this ‘play’ as periods of non-contactability have to be ‘justified’ or explained. If such episodes are not explained these can become problematic, generate misunderstandings or cause anxieties within networks and emergent relationships. Indeed, the “simple fact of carrying a mobile phone generates in the carrier the expectation of being immediately available” (Licoppe and Heurtin 100). For this reason a sense of disappointment, or cause for concern, may be experienced if an individual receives for example no text messages for a period of time. Amongst those students who were in regular contact with one other a set of what can be thought of as ‘communicative regimes’ is negotiated. These arise out of social practices for connectivity that are part of virtual and face-to-face meetings. Such negotiations may be largely implicit but occur out of a shared sense of ‘knowing’ the other. Actions or non-actions such as not answering a voice call or responding to a message straight away can be seen as a social distancing. For example, a student talked about how he always immediately returned a text message to his housemate because “it was expected” and to delay a response without an explanation would not be seen as an appropriate response to a “close mate” (Riley). Consequently communication regimes are developed around relationships and may be layered in terms of status within a peer group. For the iGeneration such practices reflect what in pervious times would have been thought of as etiquette. It is interesting to note that at the time of writing this paper there were 11 global groups with some 2,870 members on Facebook dedicated to what is described as ‘Facebook etiquette’. Conclusion A purpose of this paper is to suggest that recent changes in the provision of information and communications services in Australia have created new opportunities for an iGeneration to incorporate the technologies within their everyday lives. There are similarities here with the practices found amongst young people in Japan, South Korea and other counties that have some of the most advanced publicly available communications infrastructures (Ito et al). It is worth noting that 3rd Generation mobile phones, and video technologies are less common in Australia, hence future convergence remains open to speculation and dependent upon improved network infrastructures and marketing. The emphasis in Australia is on the seamless use of different mobile communications technologies and the embedding of these within broader social practices. The convenience and ‘pocketability’ of communications devices has become one of the most important innovations for an iGeneration that desires communication, information and entertainment accessible in the palm of their hand, a first step “towards a digital paradise” (Standage). However, care has to be taken to differentiate between media and marketing hype and actual social practices. Commentaries and research in the early days of the Internet tended to focus on the possibilities it offered to escape the fleshy body through the screen into new identities, genders and bodily forms (Turkle; Haraway). While there are resources such as Second Life that provide a means to escape form the embodied self the main concern of the iGeneration is to promote sociability across the digital and real worlds. One reinforces and reflects the other so that the virtual self is always anchored in the embodied self. It is the convergence of the self through such representations that whilst not exactly embodied in a physical sense refer to a ‘real’ physicality and presence. This suggest that in terms of social practices for the iGeneration the virtual/place dichotomy is unhelpful and as Daniel Miller and Don Slater note “we need to treat Internet media as continuous with and embedded in other social spaces” (5). The convergence of mobile communicative resources highlighted in this paper and their embodiment into social practices suggests that users may have little more to gain in terms of sociability from, for example, streaming video on mobile phones. The emotive experience of being ‘in touch’ with one another remains a fundamental amongst the iGeneration who draw upon a range of mobile media and social software to form and sustain interactions. Such connections are conducted through a more or less nuanced set of communicative regimes that move across what for them is a seamless landscape of mediated and off line resources and relationships. References Bourdieu, Pierre, and L. Wacquant. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992. Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978 [1959]. Gotved, S. “Time and Space in Cyber Social Reality.” New Media and Society 8.3 (2006): 467-486. Graham, S. “Beyond the ‘Dazzling Light’: From Dreams of Transcendence to the ‘Remediation’.” New Media Society 6 (2004): 16-25. Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. Ito, Mizuko, Daisuke Okabe, and Misa Matsuda. Personal, Portable Pedestrian. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005. Harvey Jones, H., and J.H. Soltren. “Facebook: Threats to Privacy.” MIT, Dec. 2005. 6 Feb. 2007 http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/6.805/student-papers/fall05-papers/ facebook.pdf>. Licoppe, Christian, and J.P. Heurtin. “Managing One’s Availability to Telephone Communication through Mobile Phones.” Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 5 (201): 99-108. Miller, Daniel, and Don Slater. The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach. Oxford: Berg, 2000. Muller, D. “Y Bother? This Generation Inhabits a Different World.” Sydney Morning Herald 3 Oct. 2006. Prensky, M. “The Emerging Online Life of the Digital Native.” Marcprensky.com 2004. 2 Jan. 2007 http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/default.asp>. Standage, T. “Your Television Is Ringing.” The Economist: A Special Report on the Future of Telecoms. 14-20 Oct. 2006. Turkle, S. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Urry, John. “Mobile Sociology.” British Journal of Sociology 51.1 (2000): 185-203. White, M. “Television and Internet Differences by Design.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 12.3 (2006): 341-355. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Hardey, Mariann. "Going Live: Converging Mobile Technology and the Sociability of the iGeneration." M/C Journal 10.1 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0703/09-hardey.php>. APA Style Hardey, M. (Mar. 2007) "Going Live: Converging Mobile Technology and the Sociability of the iGeneration," M/C Journal, 10(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0703/09-hardey.php>.

The popular press often extolls packet networks as much more efficient than switched voice networks in utilizing transmission lines. This impression is reinforced by the delays experienced on the Internet and the famous graphs for traffic patterns through the major exchange points on the Internet, which suggest that networks are running at full capacity. This paper shows the popular impression is incorrect; data networks are very lightly utilized compared to the telephone network. Even the backbones of the Internet are run at lower fractions (10% to 15%) of their capacity than the switched voice network (which operates at over 30% of capacity on average). Private line networks are utilized far less intensively (at 3% to 5%). Further, this situation is likely to persist. The low utilization of data networks compared to voice phone networks is not a symptom of waste. It comes from different patterns of use, lumpy capacity of transmission facilities, and the high growth rate of the industry.

Human history has witnessed varied surveillance and counter-surveillance activities from time immemorial. Human beings could not surveille others effectively and accurately without the technology of their era. Technology is a tool that can empower both people and governments. The outcomes are different based on the users’ intentions and aims. 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu noted that ‘If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can win numerous (literally, "a hundred") battles without jeopardy’. His words still ring true. To be a good surveiller and counter-surveiller it is essential to know both sides, and in order to be good at these activities access to technology is vital. There is no doubt that knowledge is power, and without technology to access the information, it is impossible to be powerful. As we become more expert at technology, we will learn what makes surveillance and counter-surveillance more effective, and will be more powerful.“Surveillance” is one of the most important aspects of living in the convergent media environment. This essay illustrates government surveillance and counter-surveillance during the Iranian Green Movement (2009) on social and mobile media. The Green Movement refers to a non-violent movement that arose after the disputed presidential election on June 2009. After that Iran was facing its most serious political crisis since the 1979 revolution. Claims of vote fraud triggered massive street protests. Many took to the streets with “Green” signs, chanting slogans such as ‘the government lied’, and ‘where is my vote?’ There is no doubt that social and mobile media has played an important role in Iran’s contemporary politics. According to Internet World Stats (IWS) Internet users in 2009 account for approximately 48.5 per cent of the population of Iran. In 2009, Iran had 30.2 million mobile phone users (Freedom House), and 72 cellular subscriptions for every 100 people (World Bank). Today, while Iran has the 19th-largest population in the world, its blogosphere holds the third spot in terms of number of users, just behind the United States and China (Beth Elson et al.). In this essay the use of social and mobile media (technology) is not debated, but the extent of this use, and who, why and how it is used, is clearly scrutinised.Visibility and Surveillance There have been different kinds of surveillance for a very long time. However, all types of surveillance are based on the notion of “visibility”. Previous studies show that visibility is not a new term (Foucault Discipline). The new things in the new era, are its scale, scope and complicated ways to watch others without being watched, which are not limited to a specific time, space and group, and are completely different from previous instruments for watching (Andrejevic). As Meikle and Young (146) have mentioned ‘networked digital media bring with them a new kind of visibility’, based on different kinds of technology. Internet surveillance has important implications in politics to control, protect, and influence (Marx Ethics; Castells; Fuchs Critique). Surveillance has been improved during its long history, and evolved from very simple spying and watching to complicated methods of “iSpy” (Andrejevic). To understand the importance of visibility and its relationship with surveillance, it is essential to study visibility in conjunction with the notion of “panopticon” and its contradictory functions. Foucault uses Bentham's notion of panopticon that carries within itself visibility and transparency to control others. “Gaze” is a central term in Bentham’s view. ‘Bentham thinks of a visibility organised entirely around a dominating, overseeing gaze’ (Foucault Eye). Moreover, Thomson (Visibility 11) notes that we are living in the age of ‘normalizing the power of the gaze’ and it is clear that the influential gaze is based on powerful means to see others.Lyon (Surveillance 2) explains that ‘surveillance is any collection and processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, for the purpose of influencing or managing those whose data have been granted…’. He mentions that today the most important means of surveillance reside in computer power which allows collected data to be sorted, matched, retrieved, processed, marketed and circulated.Nowadays, the Internet has become ubiquitous in many parts of the world. So, the changes in people’s interactions have influenced their lives. Fuchs (Introduction 15) argues that ‘information technology enables surveillance at a distance…in real time over networks at high transmission speed’. Therefore, visibility touches different aspects of people’s lives and living in a “glasshouse” has caused a lot of fear and anxiety about privacy.Iran’s Green Movement is one of many cases for studying surveillance and counter-surveillance technologies in social and mobile media. Government Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media in Iran, 2009 In 2009 the Iranian government controlled technology that allowed them to monitor, track, and limit access to the Internet, social media and mobiles communication, which has resulted in the surveillance of Green Movement’s activists. The Iranian government had improved its technical capabilities to monitor the people’s behavior on the Internet long before the 2009 election. The election led to an increase in online surveillance. Using social media the Iranian government became even more powerful than it was before the election. Social media was a significant factor in strengthening the government’s power. In the months after the election the virtual atmosphere became considerably more repressive. The intensified filtering of the Internet and implementation of more advanced surveillance systems strengthened the government’s position after the election. The Open Net Initiative revealed that the Internet censorship system in Iran is one of the most comprehensive and sophisticated censorship systems in the world. It emphasized that ‘Advances in domestic technical capacity have contributed to the implementation of a centralized filtering strategy and a reduced reliance on Western technologies’.On the other hand, the authorities attempted to block all access to political blogs (Jaras), either through cyber-security methods or through threats (Tusa). The Centre for Investigating Organized Cyber Crimes, which was founded in 2007 partly ‘to investigate and confront social and economic offenses on the Internet’ (Cyber Police), became increasingly important over the course of 2009 as the government combated the opposition’s online activities (Beth Elson et al. 16). Training of "senior Internet lieutenants" to confront Iran's "virtual enemies online" was another attempt that the Intelligence minister announced following the protests (Iran Media Program).In 2009 the Iranian government enacted the Computer Crime Law (Jaras). According to this law the Committee in Charge of Determining Unauthorized Websites is legally empowered to identify sites that carry forbidden content and report that information to TCI and other major ISPs for blocking (Freedom House). In the late fall of 2009, the government started sending threatening and warning text messages to protesters about their presence in the protests (BBC). Attacking, blocking, hacking and hijacking of the domain names of some opposition websites such as Jaras and Kaleme besides a number of non-Iranian sites such as Twitter were among the other attempts of the Iranian Cyber Army (Jaras).It is also said that the police and security forces arrested dissidents identified through photos and videos posted on the social media that many imagined had empowered them. Furthermore, the online photos of the active protesters were posted on different websites, asking people to identify them (Valizadeh).In late June 2009 the Iranian government was intentionally permitting Internet traffic to and from social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter so that it could use a sophisticated practice called Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to collect information about users. It was reportedly also applying the same technology to monitor mobile phone communications (Beth Elson et al. 15).On the other hand, to cut communication between Iranians inside and outside the country, Iran slowed down the Internet dramatically (Jaras). Iran also blocked access to Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Twitter and many blogs before, during and after the protests. Moreover, in 2009, text message services were shut down for over 40 days, and mobile phone subscribers could not send or receive text messages regardless of their mobile carriers. Subsequently it was disrupted on a temporary basis immediately before and during key protests days.It was later discovered that the Nokia Siemens Network provided the government with surveillance technologies (Wagner; Iran Media Program). The Iranian government built a complicated system that enabled it to monitor, track and intercept what was said on mobile phones. Nokia Siemens Network confirmed it supplied Iran with the technology needed to monitor, control, and read local telephone calls [...] The product allowed authorities to monitor any communications across a network, including voice calls, text messaging, instant messages, and web traffic (Cellan-Jones). Media sources also reported that two Chinese companies, Huawei and ZTE, provided surveillance technologies to the government. The Nic Payamak and Saman Payamak websites, that provide mass text messaging services, also reported that operator Hamrah Aval commonly blocked texts with words such as meeting, location, rally, gathering, election and parliament (Iran Media Program). Visibility and Counter-Surveillance The panopticon is not limited to the watchers. Similarly, new kinds of panopticon and visibility are not confined to government surveillance. Foucault points out that ‘the seeing machine was once a sort of dark room into which individuals spied; it has become a transparent building in which the exercise of power may be supervised by society as a whole’ (Discipline 207). What is important is Foucault's recognition that transparency, not only of those who are being observed but also of those who are observing, is central to the notion of the panopticon (Allen) and ‘any member of society will have the right to come and see with his own eyes how schools, hospitals, factories, and prisons function’ (Foucault, Discipline 207). Counter-surveillance is the process of detecting and mitigating hostile surveillance (Burton). Therefore, while the Internet is a surveillance instrument that enables governments to watch people, it also improves the capacity to counter-surveille, and draws public attention to governments’ injustice. As Castells (185) notes the Internet could be used by citizens to watch their government as an instrument of control, information, participation, and even decision-making, from the bottom up.With regards to the role of citizens in counter-surveillance we can draw on Jay Rosen’s view of Internet users as ‘the people formerly known as the audience’. In counter-surveillance it can be said that passive citizens (formerly the audience) have turned into active citizens. And this change was becoming impossible without mobile and social media platforms. These new techniques and technologies have empowered people and given them the opportunity to have new identities. When Thompson wrote ‘the exercise of power in modern societies remains in many ways shrouded in secrecy and hidden from the public gaze’ (Media 125), perhaps he could not imagine that one day people can gaze at the politicians, security forces and the police through the use of the Internet and mobile devices.Furthermore, while access to mobile media allows people to hold authorities accountable for their uses and abuses of power (Breen 183), social media can be used as a means of representation, organization of collective action, mobilization, and drawing attention to police brutality and reasons for political action (Gerbaudo).There is no doubt that having creativity and using alternative platforms are important aspects in counter-surveillance. For example, images of Lt. Pike “Pepper Spray Cop” from the University of California became the symbol of the senselessness of police brutality during the Occupy Movement (Shaw). Iranians’ Counter-Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media, 2009 Iran’s Green movement (2009) triggered a lot of discussions about the role of technology in social movements. In this regard, there are two notable attitudes about the role of technology: techno-optimistic (Shriky and Castells) and techno-pessimistic (Morozov and Gladwell) views should be taken into account. While techno-optimists overrated the role of social media, techno-pessimists underestimated its role. However, there is no doubt that technology has played a great role as a counter-surveillance tool amongst Iranian people in Iran’s contemporary politics.Apart from the academic discussions between techno-optimists and techno-pessimists, there have been numerous debates about the role of new technologies in Iran during the Green Movement. This subject has received interest from different corners of the world, including Western countries, Iranian authorities, opposition groups, and also some NGOs. However, its role as a means of counter-surveillance has not received adequate attention.As the tools of counter-surveillance are more or less the tools of surveillance, protesters learned from the government to use the same techniques to challenge authority on social media.Establishing new websites (such as JARAS, RASA, Kalemeh, and Iran green voice) or strengthening some previous ones (such as Saham, Emrooz, Norooz), also activating different platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts to broadcast the voice of the Iranian Green Movement and neutralize the government’s propaganda were the most important ways to empower supporters of Iran’s Green Movement in counter-surveillance.‘Reporters Without Borders issued a statement, saying that ‘the new media, and particularly social networks, have given populations collaborative tools with which they can change the social order’. It is also mentioned that despite efforts by the Iranian government to prevent any reporting of the protests and due to considerable pressure placed on foreign journalists inside Iran, social media played a significant role in sending the messages and images of the movement to the outside world (Axworthy). However, at that moment, many thought that Twitter performed a liberating role for Iranian dissenters. For example, Western media heralded the Green Movement in Iran as a “Twitter revolution” fuelled by information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social media tools (Carrieri et al. 4). “The Revolution Will Be Twittered” was the first in a series of blog posts published by Andrew Sullivan a few hours after the news of the protests was released.According to the researcher’s observation the numbers of Twitter users inside Iran who tweeted was very limited in 2009 and social media was most useful in the dissemination of information, especially from those inside Iran to outsiders. Mobile phones were mostly influential as an instrument firstly used for producing contents (images and videos) and secondly for the organisation of protests. There were many photos and videos that were filmed by very simple mobile cell phones, uploaded by ordinary people onto YouTube and other platforms. The links were shared many times on Twitter and Facebook and released by mainstream media. The most frequently circulated story from the Iranian protests was a video of Neda Agha-Sultan. Her final moments were captured by some bystanders with mobile phone cameras and rapidly spread across the global media and the Internet. It showed that the camera-phone had provided citizens with a powerful means, allowing for the creation and instant sharing of persuasive personalised eyewitness records with mobile and globalised target populations (Anden-Papadopoulos).Protesters used another technique, DDOS (distributed denial of service attacks), for political protest in cyber space. Anonymous people used DDOS to overload a website with fake requests, making it unavailable for users and disrupting the sites set as targets (McMillan) in effect, shutting down the site. DDOS is an important counter-surveillance activity by grassroots activists or hackers. It was a cyber protest that knocked the main Iranian governmental websites off-line and caused crowdsourcing and false trafficking. Amongst them were Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's supreme leader’s websites and those which belong to or are close to the government or security forces, including news agencies (Fars, IRNA, Press TV…), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the Police, and the Ministry of the Interior.Moreover, as authorities uploaded the pictures of protesters onto different platforms to find and arrest them, in some cities people started to put the pictures, phone numbers and addresses of members of security forces and plain clothes police officers who attacked them during the protests and asked people to identify and report the others. They also wanted people to send information about suspects who infringed human rights. Conclusion To sum up, visibility, surveillance and counter-surveillance are not new phenomena. What is new is the technology, which increased their complexity. As Foucault (Discipline 200) mentioned ‘visibility is a trap’, so being visible would be the weakness of those who are being surveilled in the power struggle. In the convergent era, in order to be more powerful, both surveillance and counter-surveillance activities aim for more visibility. Although both attempt to use the same means (technology) to trap the other side, the differences are in their subjects, objects, goals and results.While in surveillance, visibility of the many by the few is mostly for the purpose of control and influence in undemocratic ways, in counter-surveillance, the visibility of the few by the many is mostly through democratic ways to secure more accountability and transparency from the governments.As mentioned in the case of Iran’s Green Movement, the scale and scope of visibility are different in surveillance and counter-surveillance. The importance of what Shaw wrote about Sydney occupy counter-surveillance, applies to other places, such as Iran. She has stressed that ‘protesters and police engaged in a dance of technology and surveillance with one another. Both had access to technology, but there were uncertainties about the extent of technology and its proficient use…’In Iran (2009), both sides (government and activists) used technology and benefited from digital networked platforms, but their levels of access and domains of influence were different, which was because the sources of power, information and wealth were divided asymmetrically between them. Creativity was important for both sides to make others more visible, and make themselves invisible. Also, sharing information to make the other side visible played an important role in these two areas. References Alen, David. “The Trouble with Transparency: The Challenge of Doing Journalism Ethics in a Surveillance Society.” Journalism Studies 9.3 (2008): 323-40. 8 Dec. 2013 ‹http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616700801997224#.UqRFSuIZsqN›. 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The digital revolution has been characterized by the overlapping of different media technologies and platforms which reshaped both traditional forms of audiovisual consumption and older conceptions of place and space. John Agnew claims that, traditionally, the notion of place has been associated with two different meanings: ‘the first is a geometric conception of place as a mere part of space and the second is a phenomenological understanding of a place as a distinctive coming together in space’ (317). Both of the dominant meanings have been challenged by the idea that the world itself is increasingly “placeless” as space-spanning connections and flows of information, things, and people undermine the rootedness of a wide range of processes anywhere in particular (Friedman). On the one hand, by obliterating physical distance, new technologies such as the Internet and the cell phone are making places obsolete, on the other hand, the proliferation of media representations favoured by these technologies are making places more relevant than ever. These increasing mediatisation processes, in fact, generate what Urry and Larsen call ‘imaginative geographies’, namely the conflation of representational spaces and physical spaces that substitute and enhance each other in contingent ways (116). The smartphone as a new hybrid media platform that combines different technological features such as digital screens, complex software applications, cameras, tools for online communication and GPS devices, has played a crucial role in the construction of new notions of place. This article examines a specific type of phone applications: mobile, digital mapping tools that allow users to identify film-locations. In doing so it will assess how new media platforms can potentially reconfigure notions of both media consumption, and (physical and imagined) mobility. Furthermore, the analysis of digital movie maps and their mediation of film locations will shed light on the way in which contemporary leisure activities reshape the cultural, social and geographic meaning of place. Digital, Mobile Movie MapsDigital movie maps can be defined as software applications, conceived for smart phones or other mobile devices, which enable users to identify the geographical position of film locations. These applications rely on geotagging which is the process of adding geospatial metadata (usually latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates) to texts or images. From this point of view these phone apps belong to a broader category of media that Tristan Thielmann calls geomedia: converging applications of interactive, digital, mapping tools and mobile and networked media technologies. According to Hjorth, recent studies on mobile media practices show a trend toward “re-enacting the importance of place and home as both a geo-imaginary and socio-cultural precept” (Hjorth 371). In 2008 Google announced that Google Maps and Google Earth will become the basic platform for any information search. Similarly, in 2010 Flickr started georeferencing their complete image stock (Thielmann 8). Based on these current developments media scholars such as Thielmann claim that geomedia will emerge in the future as one of the most pervasive forms of digital technology (8).In my research I identified 44 phone geomedia apps that offered content variously related to film locations. In every case the main functionality of the apps consisted in matching geographic data concerning the locations with visual and written information about the corresponding film production. ‘Scene Seekers’, the first app able to match the title of a film with the GPS map of its locations, was released in 2009. Gradually, subsequent film-location apps incorporated a number of other functions including:Trivia and background information about films and locationsSubmission forms which allow users to share information about their favourite film locatiosLocation photosLinks to film downloadFilm-themed itinerariesAudio guidesOnline discussion groupsCamera/video function which allow users to take photos of the locations and share them on social mediaFilm stills and film clipsAfter identifying the movie map apps, I focused on the examination of the secondary functions they offered and categorized the applications based on both their main purpose and their main target users (as explicitly described in the app store). Four different categories of smart phone applications emerged. Apps conceived for:Business (for location scouts and producers)Entertainment (for trivia and quiz buffs)Education (for students and film history lovers)Travel (for tourists)‘Screen New South Wales Film Location Scout’, an app designed for location scouts requiring location contact information across the state of New South Wales, is an example of the first category. The app provides lists, maps and images of locations used in films shot in the region as well as contact details for local government offices. Most of these types of apps are available for free download and are commissioned by local authorities in the hope of attracting major film productions, which in turn might bring social and economic benefits to the region.A small number of the apps examined target movie fans and quiz buffs. ‘James Bond and Friends’, for example, focuses on real life locations where spy/thriller movies have been shot in London. Interactive maps and photos of the locations show their geographical position. The app also offers a wealth of trivia on spy/thriller movies and tests users’ knowledge of James Bond films with quizzes about the locations. While some of these apps provide information on how to reach particular film locations, the emphasis is on trivia and quizzes rather than travel itself.Some of the apps are explicitly conceived for educational purposes and target film students, film scholars and users interested in the history of film more broadly. The Italian Ministry for Cultural Affairs, for example, developed a number of smartphone apps designed to promote knowledge about Italian Cinema. Each application focuses on one Italian city, and was designed for users wishing to acquire more information about the movie industry in that urban area. The ‘Cinema Roma’ app, for example, contains a selection of geo-referenced film sets from a number of famous films shot in Rome. The film spots are presented via a rich collection of historical images and texts from the Italian National Photographic Archive.Finally, the majority of the apps analysed (around 60%) explicitly targets tourists. One of the most popular film-tourist applications is the ‘British Film Locations’ app with over 100,000 downloads since its launch in 2011. ‘British Film Locations’ was commissioned by VisitBritain, the British tourism agency. Visit Britain has attempted to capitalize on tourists’ enthusiasm around film blockbusters since the early 2000s as their research indicated that 40% of potential visitors would be very likely to visit the place they had seen in films or on TV (VisitBritain). British Film Locations enables users to discover and photograph the most iconic British film locations in cinematic history. Film tourists can search by film title, each film is accompanied by a detailed synopsis and list of locations so users can plan an entire British film tour. The app also allows users to take photos of the location and automatically share them on social networks such as Facebook or Twitter.Movie Maps and Film-TourismAs already mentioned, the majority of the film-location phone apps are designed for travel purposes and include functionalities that cater for the needs of the so called ‘post-tourists’. Maxine Feifer employed this term to describe the new type of tourist arising out of the shift from mass to post-Fordist consumption. The post-tourist crosses physical and virtual boundaries and shifts between experiences of everyday life, either through the actual or the simulated mobility allowed by the omnipresence of signs and electronic images in the contemporary age (Leotta). According to Campbell the post-tourist constructs his or her own tourist experience and destination, combining these into a package of overlapping and disjunctive elements: the imagined (dreams and screen cultures), the real (actual travels and guides) and the virtual (myths and internet) (203). More recently a number of scholars (Guttentag, Huang et al., Neuhofer et al.) have engaged with the application and implications of virtual reality on the planning, management and marketing of post-tourist experiences. Film-induced tourism is an expression of post-tourism. Since the mid-1990s a growing number of scholars (Riley and Van Doren, Tooke and Baker, Hudson and Ritchie, Leotta) have engaged with the study of this phenomenon, which Sue Beeton defined as “visitation to sites where movies and TV programmes have been filmed as well as to tours to production studios, including film-related theme parks” (11). Tourists’ fascination with film sets and locations is a perfect example of Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality. Such places are simulacra which embody the blurred boundaries between reality and representation in a world in which unmediated access to reality is impossible (Baudrillard).Some scholars have focused on the role of mediated discourse in preparing both the site and the traveller for the process of tourist consumption (Friedberg, Crouch et al.). In particular, John Urry highlights the interdependence between tourism and the media with the concept of the ‘tourist gaze’. Urry argues that the gaze dominates tourism, which is primarily concerned with the commodification of images and visual consumption. According to Urry, movies and television play a crucial role in shaping the tourist gaze as the tourist compares what is gazed at with the familiar image of the object of the gaze. The tourist tries to reproduce his or her own expectations, which have been “constructed and sustained through a variety of non-tourist practices, such as film, TV, literature, records, and videos” (Urry 3). The inclusion of the camera functionality in digital movie maps such as ‘British Film Locations’ fulfils the need to actually reproduce the film images that the tourist has seen at home.Film and MapsThe convergence between film and (virtual) travel is also apparent in the prominent role that cartography plays in movies. Films often allude to maps in their opening sequences to situate their stories in time and space. In turn, the presence of detailed geographical descriptions of space at the narrative level often contributes to establish a stronger connection between film and viewers (Conley). Tom Conley notes that a number of British novels and their cinematic adaptations including Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and Stevenson’s Treasure Island belong to the so called ‘cartographic fiction’ genre. In these stories, maps are deployed to undo the narrative thread and inspire alternative itineraries to the extent of legitimising an interactive relation between text and reader or viewer (Conley 225).The popularity of LOTR locations as film-tourist destinations within New Zealand may be, in part, explained by the prominence of maps as both aesthetic and narrative devices (Leotta). The authenticity of the LOTR geography (both the novel and the film trilogy) is reinforced, in fact, by the reoccurring presence of the map. Tolkien designed very detailed maps of Middle Earth that were usually published in the first pages of the books. These maps play a crucial role in the immersion into the imaginary geography of Middle Earth, which represents one of the most important pleasures of reading LOTR (Simmons). The map also features extensively in the cinematic versions of both LOTR and The Hobbit. The Fellowship of the Ring opens with several shots of a map of Middle Earth, anticipating the narrative of displacement that characterizes LOTR. Throughout the trilogy the physical dimensions of the protagonists’ journey are emphasized by the foregrounding of the landscape as a map.The prominence of maps and geographical exploration as a narrative trope in ‘cartographic fiction’ such as LOTR may be responsible for activating the ‘tourist imagination’ of film viewers (Crouch et al.). The ‘tourist imagination’ is a construct that explains the sense of global mobility engendered by the daily consumption of the media, as well as actual travel. As Crouch, Jackson and Thompson put it, “the activity of tourism itself makes sense only as an imaginative process which involves a certain comprehension of the world and enthuses a distinctive emotional engagement with it” (Crouch et al. 1).The use of movie maps, the quest for film locations in real life may reproduce some of the cognitive and emotional pleasures that were activated while watching the movie, particularly if maps, travel and geographic exploration are prominent narrative elements. Several scholars (Couldry, Hills, Beeton) consider film-induced tourism as a contemporary form of pilgrimage and movie maps are becoming an inextricable part of this media ritual. Hudson and Ritchie note that maps produced by local stakeholders to promote the locations of films such as Sideways and LOTR proved to be extremely popular among tourists (391-392). In their study about the impact of paper movie maps on tourist behaviour in the UK, O’Connor and Pratt found that movie maps are an essential component in the marketing mix of a film location. For example, the map of Pride and Prejudice Country developed by the Derbyshire and Lincolnshire tourist boards significantly helped converting potential visitors into tourists as almost two in five visitors stated it ‘definitely’ turned a possible visit into a certainty (O’Connor and Pratt).Media Consumption and PlaceDigital movie maps have the potential to further reconfigure traditional understandings of media consumption and place. According to Nana Verhoeff digital mapping tools encourage a performative cartographic practice in the sense that the dynamic map emerges and changes during the users’ journey. The various functionalities of digital movie maps favour the hybridization between film reception and space navigation as by clicking on the movie map the user could potentially watch a clip of the film, read about both the film and the location, produce his/her own images and comments of the location and share it with other fans online.Furthermore, digital movie maps facilitate and enhance what Nick Couldry, drawing upon Claude Levi Strauss, calls “parcelling out”: the marking out as significant of differences in ritual space (83). According to Couldry, media pilgrimages, the visitation of TV or film locations are rituals that are based from the outset on an act of comparison between the cinematic depiction of place and its physical counterpart. Digital movie maps have the potential to facilitate this comparison by immediately retrieving images of the location as portrayed in the film. Media locations are rife with the marking of differences between the media world and the real locations as according to Couldry some film tourists seek precisely these differences (83).The development of smart phone movie maps, may also contribute to redefine the notion of audiovisual consumption. According to Nanna Verhoeff, mobile screens of navigation fundamentally revise the spatial coordinates of previously dominant, fixed and distancing cinematic screens. One of the main differences between mobile digital screens and larger, cinematic screens is that rather than being surfaces of projection or transmission, they are interfaces of software applications that combine different technological properties of the hybrid screen device: a camera, an interface for online communication, a GPS device (Verhoeff). Because of these characteristics of hybridity and intimate closeness, mobile screens involve practices of mobile and haptic engagement that turn the classical screen as distanced window on the world, into an interactive, hybrid navigation device that repositions the viewer as central within the media world (Verhoeff).In their discussion of the relocation of cinema into the iPhone, Francesco Casetti and Sara Sampietro reached similar conclusions as they define the iPhone as both a visual device and an interactive interface that mobilizes the eye as well as the hand (Casetti and Sampietro 23). The iPhone constructs an ‘existential bubble’ in which the spectator can find refuge while remaining exposed to the surrounding environment. When the surrounding environment is the real life film location, the consumption or re-consumption of the film text allowed by the digital movie map is informed by multi-sensorial and cognitive stimuli that are drastically different from traditional viewing experiences.The increasing popularity of digital movie maps is a phenomenon that could be read in conjunction with the emergence of innovative locative media such as the Google glasses and other applications of Augmented Reality (A.R.). Current smart phones available in the market are already capable to support A.R. applications and it appears likely that this will become a standard feature of movie apps within the next few years (Sakr). Augmented reality refers to the use of data overlays on real-time camera view of a location which make possible to show virtual objects within their spatial context. The camera eye on the device registers physical objects on location, and transmits these images in real time on the screen. On-screen this image is combined with different layers of data: still image, text and moving image.In a film-tourism application of augmented reality tourists would be able to point their phone camera at the location. As the camera identifies the location images from the film will overlay the image of the ‘real location’. The user, therefore, will be able to simultaneously see and walk in both the real location and the virtual film set. The notion of A.R. is related to the haptic aspect of engagement which in turn brings together the doing, the seeing and the feeling (Verhoeff). In film theory the idea of the haptic has come to stand for an engaged look that involves, and is aware of, the body – primarily that of the viewer (Marx, Sobchack). The future convergence between cinematic and mobile technologies is likely to redefine both perspectives on haptic perception of cinema and theories of film spectatorship.The application of A.R. to digital, mobile maps of film-locations will, in part, fulfill the prophecies of René Barjavel. In 1944, before Bazin’s seminal essay on the myth of total cinema, French critic Barjavel, asserted in his book Le Cinema Total that the technological evolution of the cinematic apparatus will eventually result in the total enveloppement (envelopment or immersion) of the film-viewer. This enveloppement will be characterised by the multi-sensorial experience and the full interactivity of the spectator within the movie itself. More recently, Thielmann has claimed that geomedia such as movie maps constitute a first step toward the vision that one day it might be possible to establish 3-D spaces as a medial interface (Thielmann).Film-Tourism, Augmented Reality and digital movie maps will produce a complex immersive and inter-textual media system which is at odds with Walter Benjamin’s famous thesis on the loss of ‘aura’ in the age of mechanical reproduction (Benjamin), as one of the pleasures of film-tourism is precisely the interaction with the auratic place, the actual film location or movie set. According to Nick Couldry, film tourists are interested in the aura of the place and filming itself. The notion of aura is associated here with both the material history of the location and the authentic experience of it (104).Film locations, as mediated by digital movie maps, are places in which people have a complex sensorial, emotional, cognitive and imaginative involvement. The intricate process of remediation of the film-locations can be understood as a symptom of what Lash and Urry have called the ‘re-subjectification of space’ in which ‘locality’ is re-weighted with a more subjective and affective charge of place (56). According to Lash and Urry the aesthetic-expressive dimensions of the experience of place have become as important as the cognitive ones. By providing new layers of cultural meaning and alternative modes of affective engagement, digital movie maps will contribute to redefine both the notion of tourist destination and the construction of place identity. These processes can potentially be highly problematic as within this context the identity and meanings of place are shaped and controlled by the capital forces that finance and distribute the digital movie maps. Future critical investigations of digital cartography will need to address the way in which issues of power and control are deeply enmeshed within new tourist practices. 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The brand, by definition, promises the experience of the scan. A quick glance at the exterior (i.e. brand name/image) presumably conveys a host of brand attributes to the shopper. This scanning experience is particularly intriguing when it comes to colour trademarks, for it presumes that the sight of a colour brings individuals to the same set of associations—that purple connotes Cadbury chocolate, for instance, while pink signifies Owens Corning Fiberglass insulation and orange suggests Orange Personal Communications. But there is a complexity to both colour trademarks and this scanning ‘experience’ that demands a closer look; this paper probes the logic of the ‘colour scan’, as well as its significance. Sketching out 1) how the legal ownership of colour alone or colour per se corresponds to and idealises practices of scanning, and 2) how colour trademarks are positioned (in legal and marketing literature) as a means of dealing with information overload, the paper then addresses how the granting of colour marks by the trademark office/courts creates various difficulties—both for competing brands and for colour communication itself. Most problematic about the ‘brand’ colour scan is that it runs counter to the very nature of colour, which bursts free of constraints with its infinite potential to signify. I Granting legal ownership to colour corresponds to and idealises practices of scanning One great thing about colour, argues Martin Lindstrom in his newly published marketing book Brand Sense (2005) is that it contributes to the ‘smashability’ of a brand. Successful brands can be ‘smashed’ like a glass bottle of Coca-Cola and consumers would still recognise the brand from its pieces. Logically, then, marketers should place a ‘signature’ colour at the center of all branding efforts. Trademarking this colour is even better, as it secures the hue as a distinct part of a particular brand’s sensory experience (119). More to the point, it prevents competitors from using the trademarked colour—or any confusingly similar shade—to promote their products. Of course, marketers have long recognised this fact, and the history of the U.S. is dappled with attempts to ‘own’ a colour. Examples range from Leschen & Sons Rope Company’s claim to ‘blue’ woven into wire rope in 1906 and Campbell Soup’s quest to monopolise red and white for soup labels in 1949, to Life Savers’ desire for certain candy wrapper colours in 1950 and Kraft’s application for royal blue on silver solely for its Klondike bars in 1986. In 1990, NutraSweet Co. even sought rights to the spectrum of blue for its sweetener, arguing that “the accepted market understanding is that pastel blue means ‘Equal,’ pink means ‘Sweet ‘N Low’ and yellow means ‘Sugar Twin’” (Kearns, 355ff). All of these requests demonstrate that colour fits the demands of the glance—it is scanworthy—an understanding the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately supported in 1995 in Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co. when it ruled that colour per se could in fact constitute a legal trademark. Some analysts see a “trademark disaster” looming in colour ownership (Overcamp); its trademarking certainly provides a vivid example of what Carol Rose deems the “propertisation” of seemingly “un-ownable resources” (Rose, 94). But disaster and propertisation aside, colour trademarks suggest the idealised object d’scan; purple, for instance, provides an instant sensory strike, but if the logic of colour trademarks works, purple also connotes a host of very specific meanings. Within the world of confectionaries in the UK, purple means not simply chocolate but chocolate by Cadbury Limited. This is an important point, since the function of a trademark is not merely to distinguish products from one another but also to indicate the source or origin of a product. As such, purple simultaneously embodies both definitions of scan—both the “quick glance” and the “measured study”—because the exteriority of purple (so we are to understand) immediately gives way to the interiority of the brand. Purple’s exteriority singularly connotes the “taste, smoothness and snap characteristic of Cadbury chocolate” in the confectionary sector (Cadbury). Perhaps this is not too much to ask of colour. After all, the Latin colorem “is related to celare, to hide or conceal; in Middle English ‘to colour’ is to embellish or adorn” as well as “to disguise” (Batchelor 52). Perhaps purple really does conceal the ‘source’ of Cadbury Limited, the fact that a certain product in the UK confectionary sector originates with Cadbury. But perhaps (as will be discussed) it conceals something more… II Colour trademarks are positioned as means of dealing with information overload Practices of scanning, suggest the editors of this issue, stem from “the increased number of things to consider and the reduced amount of time to consider them”. Despite the fact that they are not designed to do so1, colour trademarks shine as a golden solution to this problem of information overload, as well as to a variety of other marketing challenges. Observing colour takes no time, it makes consideration easy and it transcends borders, cultures, and language barriers. Colour naturally draws attention. So, if we’re dealing with a saturated marketplace characterised by information overload, the push for colour trademarks actually works to shift the balance of both the overload and the saturation. Today’s aim is for colour saturation, with brighter, bolder, weirder, and signature hues colonising untapped arenas—as per pink Parkay margarine and blue Heinz fries (which failed), and “Funky Purple” and “Blastin’ Green” Heinz EZ Squirt ketchup (which triumphed). Think, too, of crayoned cell phones, fruit-flavored iMacs, or even Air Canada’s Zip airlines, which coloured the runways in September 2002 with its bold palette of blue, fuchsia, orange and green planes. This push to create a distinct ‘signature’ colour is actually a type of colour overload, with unusual hues being stuffed into ordinary arenas. Ironically, colour is equally used to promise a respite for consumers overwhelmed by a complex environment. Orange Personal Communications, the UK’s largest telecommunications provider, reassures customers with the tagline “The Future’s Bright, The Future’s Orange”—a promise that the company visually demonstrates with its legally trademarked orange (Pantone No. 151) used to market its telephones and all things related to its telecommunication services. III Significance of the colour™ scan The obvious problem with the colour™ scan is that its immediate sensory strike may not take consumers to the ‘deeper’ associations of the brand. Trademarks, observes Celia Lury, are “a way of fixing things” (98) but it is difficult to believe that blue or orange or purple (etc.) can be tacked down so neatly. Does the ordinary consumer really associate turquoise with H.J. Heinz in the category of canned beans? And do consumers make these links even though our world is saturated with colourful experiences and products? Businesses argue that they do and frequently roll out survey data, advertising expenditures, and the paid services of visual ‘experts’ to demonstrate and prove its particular colour ‘rights’ to the trademark office and/or court. In this way, corporate players, supported by the courts, authorise specific colour meanings, and discount others. But perhaps colour isn’t smashable. Even corporately ‘authorised’ colour readings (i.e. those that purportedly ‘scan’ in sync with the brand) encounter difficulties because the semiotics of colour continually evades the quest to pin it down. Regardless of its legal status, a trademark does not actually sequester colour or spontaneously combust a precise brand meaning within individuals. Orange Personal Communications may own the rights to Pantone No. 151 (orange) in the UK, but this has not stopped easyMobile from using a very similar shade of orange to promote its nascent cell phone services. Although Orange began court action against easyMobile over the colour orange on February 18, 2005, the legal ‘solution’ to this infringement is unclear. The problem is that easyMobile is not merely an upstart company, but a subsidiary of easyGroup, well known for its signature orange shellacking its entire discount brand—a brand spanning jet planes, car rentals, internet cafes, movie theatres, cruise lines, male toiletries, and pizza delivery. Thus, the company with the rights to orange for its telecommunications has challenged a company that places orange at the very centre of its brand. What is to be done? Should easyGroup be blocked from using its signature colour for one branch of its operations? If so, wouldn’t this be counter to the very logic of branding? Conversely, what about Orange Communications’ “rights to orange” within the realm of mobile phone services? Aren’t they being infringed? The solution is unclear. And the waters are no less muddied by the fact that the ‘trademarked’ orange in question is Pantone No. 151, while easyGroup uses Pantone No. 023. The numbers, objectively, are different—but what do consumers see? What is the meaning of orange for them? These Pantone numbers, just like advertising expenditures, trademark certifications, and ‘expert’ opinions, remain utterly silent on the question of colour meaning and personal interpretation. And so, we are left with a troubled notion of the scanning of trademarked colours. It’s a practice that promises—but cannot guarantee—a particular meaning and reading within a certain context, one that is perfectly suited to the ‘instant look’ yet might contain a significance far different than the one authored and authorised by a business and the trademark office. While colour is scanworthy, it has multiple meanings and multiple readings; it is subject to recoding and reworking and distortion. That is what makes it colourful. Notes Trademarks recognise distinctiveness within a particular class of goods or services (i.e. Cadbury Ltd. successfully registered purple in the UK for use in the category of chocolate and chocolate confectionary, and a similar mark has been accepted for registration in New Zealand. This does not, of course, give Cadbury Ltd. the exclusive right to purple in unrelated categories, such as sporting goods. Interestingly, Cadbury’s application to register eight different shades of ‘Cadbury purple’ in Australia was unsuccessful.) The author gratefully acknowledges the thoughtful and thorough commentary provided by an anonymous referee. Thank you. Many excellent points were raised which, due to space constraints, were woefully under-addressed in this piece. References Batchelor, D. Chromophobia. London: Reaktion Books, 2000. Cadbury. “History of Chocolate.” 26 June 2005 http://www.cadbury.co.uk/>. Kearns, J. H. “Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co.: Orange You Sorry the Supreme Court Protected Color?” St. John’s Law Review 70.2 (1996): 337-58. Lindstrom, M. Brand Sense: Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound. New York: Free Press, 2005. Lury, C. Brands: The Logos of the Global Economy. New York: Routledge, 2004. Overcamp, E. (1995). “The Qualitex Monster: The Color Trademark Disaster.” Journal of Intellectual Property Law 2.2 (1995): 595-620. Rose, C. “Romans, Roads, and Romantic Creators: Traditions of Public Property in the Information Age.” Law and Contemporary Problems 89 (Winter/Spring 2003): 89-110. Cases Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co., 514 U.S. 159, (1995). Citation reference for this article MLA Style Elliott, Charlene. "Colour™: Law and the Sensory Scan." M/C Journal 8.4 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/06-elliott.php>. APA Style Elliott, C. (Aug. 2005) "Colour™: Law and the Sensory Scan," M/C Journal, 8(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/06-elliott.php>.

The move from analog distribution to online digital delivery is common in the contemporary mediascape. Music is in the midst of an ipod driven paradigm shift (Levy), television and movie delivery is being reconfigured (Johnson), and newspaper and magazines are confronting the reality of the world wide web and what it means for business models and ideas of journalism (Beecher). In the midst of this change, the book publishing industry remains defiant. While embracing digital production technologies, the vast majority of book content is still delivered in material form, printed and shipped the old-fashioned way—despite the efforts of many technology companies over the last decade. Even the latest efforts from corporate giants such as Sony and Amazon (who appear to have solved many of the technical hurdles of electronic reading devices) have had little visible impact. The idea of electronic books, or e-books, remains the domain of geeky early adopters (“Have”). The reasons for this are manifold, but, arguably, a broader uptake of e-books has not occurred because cultural change is much more difficult than technological change and book readers have yet to be persuaded to change their cultural habits. Electronic reading devices have been around for as long as there have been computers with screens, but serious attempts to replicate the portability, readability, and convenience of a printed book have only been with us for a decade or so. The late 1990s saw the release of a number of e-book devices. In quick succession, the likes of the Rocket e-Book, the SoftBook and the Franklin eBookman all failed to catch on. Despite this lack of market penetration, software companies began to explore the possibilities—Microsoft’s Reader software competed with a similar product from Adobe, some publishers became content providers, and a niche market of consumers began reading e-books on personal digital assistants (PDAs). That niche was sufficient for e-reading communities and shopfronts to appear, with a reasonable range of titles becoming available for purchase to feed demand that was very much driven by early adopters. But the e-book market was and remains small. For most people, books are still regarded as printed paper objects, purchased from a bookstore, borrowed from a library, or bought online from companies like Amazon.com. More recently, the introduction of e-ink technologies (EPDs) (DeJean), which allow for screens with far more book-like resolution and contrast, has provided the impetus for a new generation of e-book devices. In combination with an expanded range of titles (and deals with major publishing houses to include current best-sellers), there has been renewed interest in the idea of e-books. Those who have used the current generation of e-ink devices are generally positive about the experience. Except for some sluggishness in “turning” pages, the screens appear crisp, clear and are not as tiring to read as older displays. There are a number of devices that have embraced the new screen technologies (mobileread) but most attention has been paid to three devices in particular—mainly because their manufacturers have tried to create an ecosystem that provides content for their reading devices in much the same way that Apple’s itunes store provides content for ipods. The Sony Portable Reader (Sonystyle) was the first electronic ink device to be produced by a mainstream consumers electronics company. Sony ties the Reader to its Connect store, which allows the purchase of book titles via a computer; titles are then downloaded to the Reader in the same way that an mp3 player is loaded with music. Sony’s most prominent competition in the marketplace is Amazon’s Kindle, which does not require users to have a computer. Instead, its key feature is a constant wireless connection to Amazon’s growing library of Kindle titles. This works in conjunction with US cellphone provider Sprint to allow the purchase of books via wireless downloads wherever the Sprint network exists. The system, which Amazon calls “whispernet,” is invisible to readers and the cost is incorporated into the price of books, so Kindle users never see a bill from Sprint (“Frequently”). Both the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle are available only in limited markets; Kindle’s reliance on a cellphone network means that its adoption internationally is dependent on Amazon establishing a relationship with a cellphone provider in each country of release. And because both devices are linked to e-bookstores, territorial rights issues with book publishers (who trade publishing rights for particular global territories in a colonial-era mode of operation that seems to ignore the reality of global information mobility (Thompson 74–77)) contribute to the restricted availability of both the Sony and Amazon products. The other mainstream device is the iRex Iliad, which is not constrained to a particular online bookstore and thus is available internationally. Its bookstore ecosystems are local relationships—with Dymocks in Australia, Borders in the UK, and other booksellers across Europe (iRex). All three devices use EPDs and share similar specifications for the actual reading of e-books. Some might argue that the lack of a search function in the Sony and the ability to write on pages in the Iliad are quite substantive differences, but overall the devices are distinguished by their availability and the accessibility of book titles. Those who have used the devices extensively are generally positive about the experience. Amazon’s Customer Reviews are full of positive comments, and the sense from many commentators is that the systems are a viable replacement for old-fashioned printed books (Marr). Despite the good reviews—which suggest that the technology is actually now good enough to compete with printed books—the e-book devices have failed to catch on. Amazon has been hesitant to state actual sales figures, leaving it to so-called analysts to guess with the most optimistic suggesting that only 30 to 50,000 have sold since launch in late 2007 (Sridharan). By comparison, a mid-list book title (in the US) would expect to sell a similar number of copies. The sales data for the Sony Portable Reader (which has been on the market for nearly two years) and the iRex iliad are also elusive (Slocum), suggesting that they have not meaningfully changed the landscape. Tellingly, despite the new devices, the e-book industry is still tiny. Although it is growing, the latest American data show that the e-book market has wholesale revenues of around $10 million per quarter (or around $40 million per year), which is dwarfed by the $35 billion in revenues regularly earned annually in the US printed book industry ("Book"). It’s clear that despite the technological advances, e-books have yet to cross the chasm from early adopter to mainstream usage (see IPDF). The reason for this is complex; there are issues of marketing and distribution that need to be considered, as well as continuing arguments about screen technologies, appropriate publishing models, and digital rights management. It is beyond the scope of this article to do justice to those issues. Suffice to say, the book industry is affected by the same debates over content that plague other media industries (Vershbow). But, arguably, the key reason for the minimal market impact is straightforward—technological change is relatively easy, but cultural change is much more difficult. The current generation of e-book devices might be technically very close to being a viable replacement for print on paper (and the next generation of devices will no doubt be even better), but there are bigger cultural hurdles to be overcome. For most people, the social practice of reading books (du Gay et al 10) is inextricably tied with printed objects and a print culture that is not yet commonly associated with “technology” (perhaps because books, as machines for reading (Young 160), have become an invisible technology (Norman 246)). E. Annie Proulx’s dismissive suggestion that “nobody is going to sit down and read a novel on a twitchy little screen. Ever” (1994) is commonly echoed when book buyers consider the digital alternative. Those thoughts only scratch the surface of a deeply embedded cultural practice. The centuries since Gutenberg’s printing press and the vast social and cultural changes that followed positioned print culture as the dominant cultural mode until relatively recently (Eisenstein; Ong). The emerging electronic media forms of the twentieth century displaced that dominance with many arguing that the print age was moved aside by first radio and television and now computers and the Internet (McLuhan; Postman). Indeed, there is a subtext in that line of thought, one that situates electronic media forms (particularly screen-based ones) as the antithesis of print and book culture. Current e-book reading devices attempt to minimise the need for cultural change by trying to replicate a print culture within an e-print culture. For the most part, they are designed to appeal to book readers as a replacement for printed books. But it will take more than a perfect electronic facsimile of print on paper to persuade readers to disengage with a print culture that incorporates bookshops, bookclubs, writing in the margins, touching and smelling the pages and covers, admiring the typesetting, showing off their bookshelves, and visibly identifying with their collections. The frequently made technical arguments (about flashing screens and reading in the bath (Randolph)) do not address the broader apprehension about a cultural experience that many readers do not wish to leave behind. It is in that context that booklovers appear particularly resistant to any shift from print to a screen-based format. One only has to engage in a discussion about e-books (or lurk on an online forum where one is happening) to appreciate how deeply embedded print culture is (Hepworth)—book readers have a historical attachment to the printed object and it is this embedded cultural resistance that is the biggest barrier for e-books to overcome. Although e-book devices in no way resemble television, print culture is still deeply suspicious of any screen-based media and arguments are often made that the book as a physical object is critical because “different types of media function differently, and even if the content is similar the form matters quite a lot” (Weber). Of course, many in the newspaper industry would argue that long-standing cultural habits can change very rapidly and the migration of eyeballs from newsprint to the Internet is a cautionary tale (see Auckland). That specific format shift saw cultural change driven by increased convenience and a perception of decreased cost. For those already connected to the Internet, reading newspapers online represented zero marginal cost, and the range of online offerings dwarfed that of the local newsagency. The advantage of immediacy and multimedia elements, and the possibility of immediate feedback, appeared sufficient to drive many away from print towards online newspapers.For a similar shift in the e-book realm, there must be similar incentives for readers. At the moment, the only advantages on offer are weightlessness (which only appeals to frequent travellers) and convenience via constant access to a heavenly library of titles (Young 150). Amazon’s Kindle bookshop can be accessed 24/7 from anywhere there is a Sprint network coverage (Nelson). However, even this advantage is not so clear-cut—there is a meagre range of available electronic titles compared to printed offerings. For example, Amazon claims 130,000 titles are currently available for Kindle and Sony has 50,000 for its Reader, figures that are dwarfed by Amazon’s own printed book range. Importantly, there is little apparent cost advantage to e-books. The price of electronic reading devices is significant, amounting to a few hundred dollars to which must be added the cost of e-books. The actual cost of those titles is also not as attractive as it might be. In an age where much digital content often appears to be free, consumers demand a significant price advantage for purchasing online. Although some e-book titles are priced more affordably than their printed counterparts, the cost of many seems strangely high given the lack of a physical object to print and ship. For example, Amazon Kindle titles might be cheaper than the print version, but the actual difference (after discounting) is not an order of magnitude, but of degree. For example, Randy Pausch’s bestselling The Last Lecture is available for $12.07 as a paperback or $9.99 as a Kindle edition (“Last”). For casual readers, the numbers make no sense—when the price of the reading device is included, the actual cost is prohibitive for those who only buy a few titles a year. At the moment, e-books only make sense for heavy readers for whom the additional cost of the reading device will be amortised over a large number of books in a reasonably short time. (A recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggested that the break-even point for the Kindle was the purchase of 61 books (Arends).) Unfortunately for the e-book industry, not is only is that particular market relatively small, it is the one least likely to shift from the embedded habits of print culture. Arguably, should e-books eventually offer a significant cost benefit for consumers, uptake would be more dramatic. However, in his study of cellphone cultures, Gerard Goggin argues against purely fiscal motivations, suggesting that cultural change is driven by other factors—in his example, new ways of communicating, connecting, and engaging (205–211). The few market segments where electronic books have succeeded are informative. For example, the market for printed encyclopedias has essentially disappeared. Most have reinvented themselves as CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs and are sold for a fraction of the price. Although cost is undoubtedly a factor in their market success, added features such as multimedia, searchability, and immediacy via associated websites are compelling reasons driving the purchase of electronic encyclopedias over the printed versions. The contrast with the aforementioned e-book devices is apparent with encyclopedias moving away from their historical role in print culture. Electronic encyclopedias don’t try to replicate the older print forms. Rather they represent a dramatic shift of book content into an interactive audio-visual domain. They have experimented with new formats and reconfigured content for the new media forms—the publishers in question simply left print culture behind and embraced a newly emerging computer or multimedia culture. This step into another realm of social practices also happened in the academic realm, which is now deeply embedded in computer-based delivery of research and pedagogy. Not only are scholarly journals moving online (Thompson 320–325), but so too are scholarly books. For example, at the Macquarie University Library, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of electronic books in the collection. The library purchased 895 e-books in 2005 and 68,000 in 2007. During the same period, the number of printed books purchased remained relatively stable with about 16,000 bought annually (Macquarie University Library). The reasons for the dramatic increase in e-book purchases are manifold and not primarily driven by cost considerations. Not only does the library have limited space for physical storage, but Macquarie (like most other Universities) emphasises its e-learning environment. In that context, a single e-book allows multiple, geographically dispersed, simultaneous access, which better suits the flexibility demanded of the current generation of students. Significantly, these e-books require no electronic reading device beyond a standard computer with an internet connection. Users simply search for their required reading online and read it via their web browser—the library is operating in a pedagogical culture that assumes that staff and students have ready access to the necessary resources and are happy to read large amounts of text on a screen. Again, gestures towards print culture are minimal, and the e-books in question exist in a completely different distributed electronic environment. Another interesting example is that of mobile phone novels, or “keitai” fiction, popular in Japan. These novels typically consist of a few hundred pages, each of which contains about 500 Japanese characters. They are downloaded to (and read on) cellphones for about ten dollars apiece and can sell in the millions of copies (Katayama). There are many reasons why the keitai novel has achieved such popularity compared to the e-book approaches pursued in the West. The relatively low cost of wireless data in Japan, and the ubiquity of the cellphone are probably factors. But the presence of keitai culture—a set of cultural practices surrounding the mobile phone—suggests that the mobile novel springs not from a print culture, but from somewhere else. Indeed, keitai novels are written (often on the phones themselves) in a manner that lends itself to the constraints of highly portable devices with small screens, and provides new modes of engagement and communication. Their editors attribute the success of keitai novels to how well they fit into the lifestyle of their target demographic, and how they act as community nodes around which readers and writers interact (Hani). Although some will instinctively suggest that long-form narratives are doomed with such an approach, it is worthwhile remembering that, a decade ago, few considered reading long articles using a web browser and the appropriate response to computer-based media was to rewrite material to suit the screen (Nielsen). However, without really noticing the change, the Web became mainstream and users began reading everything on their computers, including much longer pieces of text. Apart from the examples cited, the wider book trade has largely approached e-books by trying to replicate print culture, albeit with an electronic reading device. Until there is a significant cost and convenience benefit for readers, this approach is unlikely to be widely successful. As indicated above, those segments of the market where e-books have succeeded are those whose social practices are driven by different cultural motivations. It may well be that the full-frontal approach attempted to date is doomed to failure, and e-books would achieve more widespread adoption if the book trade took a different approach. The Amazon Kindle has not yet persuaded bookloving readers to abandon print for screen in sufficient numbers to mark a seachange. Indeed, it is unlikely that any device positioned specifically as a book replacement will succeed. Instead of seeking to make an e-book culture a replacement for print culture, effectively placing the reading of books in a silo separated from other day-to-day activities, it might be better to situate e-books within a mobility culture, as part of the burgeoning range of social activities revolving around a connected, convergent mobile device. Reading should be understood as an activity that doesn’t begin with a particular device, but is done with whatever device is at hand. In much the same way that other media producers make content available for a number of platforms, book publishers should explore the potential of the new mobile devices. Over 45 million smartphones were sold globally in the first three months of 2008 (“Gartner”)—somewhat more than the estimated shipments of e-book reading devices. As well as allowing a range of communications possibilities, these convergent devices are emerging as key elements in the new digital mediascape—one that allows users access to a broad range of media products via a single pocket-sized device. Each of those smartphones makes a perfectly adequate e-book reading device, and it might be useful to pursue a strategy that embeds book reading as one of the key possibilities of this growing mobility culture. The casual gaming market serves as an interesting example. While hardcore gamers cling to their games PCs and consoles, a burgeoning alternative games market has emerged, with a different demographic purchasing less technically challenging games for more informal gaming encounters. This market has slowly shifted to convergent mobile devices, exemplified by Sega’s success in selling 300,000 copies of Super Monkey Ball within 20 days of its release for Apple’s iphone (“Super”). Casual gamers do not necessarily go on to become hardcore games, but they are gamers nonetheless—and today’s casual games (like the aforementioned Super Monkey Ball) are yesterday’s hardcore games of choice. It might be the same for reading. The availability of e-books on mobile platforms may not result in more people embracing longer-form literature. But it will increase the number of people actually reading, and, just as casual gaming has attracted a female demographic (Wallace 8), the instant availability of appropriate reading material might sway some of those men who appear to be reluctant readers (McEwan). Rather than focus on printed books, and book-like reading devices, the industry should re-position e-books as an easily accessible content choice in a digitally converged media environment. This is more a cultural shift than a technological one—for publishers and readers alike. Situating e-books in such a way may alienate a segment of the bookloving community, but such readers are unlikely to respond to anything other than print on paper. Indeed, it may encourage a whole new demographic—unafraid of the flickering screen—to engage with the manifold attractions of “books.” References Arends, Brett. “Can Amazon’s Kindle Save You Money?” The Wall St Journal 24 June 2008. 25 June 2008 ‹http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121431458215899767.html? mod=rss_whats_news_technology>. Auckland, Steve. “The Future of Newspapers.” The Independent 13 Nov. 2008. 24 June 2008 ‹http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article1963543.ece>. Beecher, Eric. “War of Words.” The Monthly, June 2007: 22–26. 25 June 2008 . “Book Industry Trends 2006 Shows Publishers’ Net Revenues at $34.59 Billion for 2005.” Book Industry Study Group. 22 May 2006 ‹http://www.bisg.org/news/press.php?pressid=35>. DeJean, David, “The Future of e-paper: The Kindle is Only the Beginning.” Computerworld 6 June 2008. 12 June 2008 ‹http://www.computerworld.com/action/article .do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9091118>. du Gay, Paul, Stuart Hall, Linda Janes, Hugh Mackay, and Keith Negus. Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1997. Eisenstein, Elizabeth. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. “Frequently Asked Questions about Amazon Kindle.” Amazon.com. 12 June 2008 ‹http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200127480&#whispernet>. “Gartner Says Worldwide Smartphone Sales Grew 29 Percent in First Quarter 2008.” Gartner. 6 June 2008. 20 June 2008 ‹http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=688116>. Goggin, Gerard. Cell Phone Cultures. London: Routledge, 2006. Hani, Yoko. “Cellphone Bards Make Bestseller Lists.” Japan Times Online Sep. 2007. 20 June 2008 ‹http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070923x4.html>. “Have you Changed your mind on Ebook Readers?” Slashdot. 25 June 2008 ‹http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/08/2317250>. Hepworth, David. “The Future of Reading or the Sinclair C5.” The Word 17 June 2008. 20 June 2008 ‹http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/future-reading-or-sinclair-c5>. IPDF (International Digital Publishing Forum) Industry Statistics. 24 June 2008 ‹http://www.openebook.org/doc_library/industrystats.htm>. iRex Technologies Press. 12 June 2008 ‹http://www.irextechnologies.com/about/press>. Johnson, Bobbie. “Vince Cerf, AKA the Godfather of the Net, Predicts the End of TV as We Know It.” The Guardian 27 Aug. 2008. 24 June 2008 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/27/news.google>. Katayama, Lisa. “Big Books Hit Japan’s Tiny Phones.” Wired Jan. 2007. 24 June 2008 ‹http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2007/01/72329>. “The Last Lecture.” Amazon.com. 24 June 2008 ‹http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401323251/ref=amb_link_3359852_2? pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=right-1&pf_rd_r=07NDSWAK6D4HT181CNXD &pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=385880801&pf_rd_i=549028>.Levy, Steven. The Perfect Thing. London:Ebury Press, 2006. Macquarie University Library Annual Report 2007. 24 June 2008 ‹http://senate.mq.edu.au/ltagenda/0308/library_report%202007.doc>. Marr, Andrew. “Curling Up with a Good EBook.” The Guardian 11 May 2007. 23 May 2007 ‹http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2077278,00.html>. McEwan, Ian. “Hello, Would you Like a Free Book?” The Guardian 20 Sep. 2005. 28 June 2008 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/sep/20/fiction.features11>. McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1962. Mobileread. E-book Reader Matrix, Mobileread Wiki. 30 May 2008 ‹http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix>. Nelson, Sara. “Warming to Kindle.” Publishers Weekly 10 Dec. 2007. 31 Jan. 2008 ‹http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6510861.htm.html>. Nielsen, Jakob. “Concise, Scannable and Objective, How to Write for the Web.” 1997. ‹20 June 2008 ‹http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/writing.html>. Norman, Don. The Invisible Computer: Why Good Products Can Fail. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 1998. Ong, Walter. Orality & Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. New York: Methuen, 1988. Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York: Penguin, 1986. Proulx, E. Annie. “Books on Top.” The New York Times 26 May 1994. 28 June 2008 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/23/specials/proulx-top.html>. Randolph, Eleanor. “Reading into the Future.” The New York Times 18 June 2008. 19 June 2008 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/opinion/18wed3.html?>. 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In a TED talk in June 2009, media scholar Clay Shirky cited the devastating earthquake that struck the Sichuan province of China in May 2008 as an example of how media flows are changing. He explained how the first reports of the quake came not from traditional news media, but from local residents who sent messages on QQ, China’s largest social network, and on Twitter, the world’s most popular micro-blogging service. "As the quake was happening, the news was reported," said Shirky. This was neither a unique nor isolated incident. It has become commonplace for the people caught up in the news to provide the first accounts, images and video of events unfolding around them. Studies in participatory journalism suggest that professional journalists now share jurisdiction over the news in the sense that citizens are participating in the observation, selection, filtering, distribution and interpretation of events. This paper argues that the ability of citizens to play “an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating news and information” (Bowman and Willis 9) means we need to reassess the meaning of ‘ambient’ as applied to news and journalism. Twitter has emerged as a key medium for news and information about major events, such as during the earthquake in Chile in February 2010 (see, for example, Silverman; Dickinson). This paper discusses how social media technologies such as Twitter, which facilitate the immediate dissemination of digital fragments of news and information, are creating what I have described as “ambient journalism” (Hermida). It approaches real-time, networked digital technologies as awareness systems that offer diverse means to collect, communicate, share and display news and information in the periphery of a user's awareness. Twitter shares some similarities with other forms of communication. Like the telephone, it facilitates a real-time exchange of information. Like instant messaging, the information is sent in short bursts. But it extends the affordances of previous modes of communication by combining these features in both a one-to-many and many-to-many framework that is public, archived and searchable. Twitter allows a large number of users to communicate with each other simultaneously in real-time, based on an asymmetrical relationship between friends and followers. The messages form social streams of connected data that provide value both individually and in aggregate. News All Around The term ‘ambient’ has been used in journalism to describe the ubiquitous nature of news in today's society. In their 2002 study, Hargreaves and Thomas said one of the defining features of the media landscape in the UK was the easy availability of news through a host of media platforms, such as public billboards and mobile phones, and in spaces, such as trains and aircraft. “News is, in a word, ambient, like the air we breathe,” they concluded (44). The availability of news all around meant that citizens were able to maintain an awareness of what was taking place in the world as they went about their everyday activities. One of the ways news has become ambient has been through the proliferation of displays in public places carrying 24-hour news channels or showing news headlines. In her book, Ambient Television, Anna McCarthy explored how television has become pervasive by extending outside the home and dominating public spaces, from the doctor’s waiting room to the bar. “When we search for TV in public places, we find a dense, ambient clutter of public audio-visual apparatuses,” wrote McCarthy (13). In some ways, the proliferation of news on digital platforms has intensified the presence of ambient news. In a March 2010 Pew Internet report, Purcell et al. found that “in the digital era, news has become omnipresent. Americans access it in multiple formats on multiple platforms on myriad devices” (2). It seems that, if anything, digital technologies have increased the presence of ambient news. This approach to the term ‘ambient’ is based on a twentieth century model of mass media. Traditional mass media, from newspapers through radio to television, are largely one-directional, impersonal one-to-many carriers of news and information (McQuail 55). The most palpable feature of the mass media is to reach the many, and this affects the relationship between the media and the audience. Consequently, the news audience does not act for itself, but is “acted upon” (McQuail 57). It is assigned the role of consumer. The public is present in news as citizens who receive information about, and interpretation of, events from professional journalists. The public as the recipient of information fits in with the concept of ambient news as “news which is free at the point of consumption, available on demand and very often available in the background to people’s lives without them even looking” (Hargreaves and Thomas 51). To suggest that members of the audience are just empty receptacles to be filled with news is an oversimplification. For example, television viewers are not solely defined in terms of spectatorship (see, for example, Ang). But audiences have, traditionally, been kept well outside the journalistic process, defined as the “selecting, writing, editing, positioning, scheduling, repeating and otherwise massaging information to become news” (Shoemaker et al. 73). This audience is cast as the receiver, with virtually no sense of agency over the news process. As a result, journalistic communication has evolved, largely, as a process of one-way, one-to-many transmission of news and information to the public. The following section explores the shift towards a more participatory media environment. News as a Social Experience The shift from an era of broadcast mass media to an era of networked digital media has fundamentally altered flows of information. Non-linear, many-to-many digital communication technologies have transferred the means of media production and dissemination into the hands of the public, and are rewriting the relationship between the audience and journalists. Where there were once limited and cost-intensive channels for the distribution of content, there are now a myriad of widely available digital channels. Henry Jenkins has written about the emergence of a participatory culture that “contrasts with older notions of passive media spectatorship. Rather than talking about media producers and consumers occupying separate roles, we might now see them as participants who interact with each other according to a new set of rules that none of us fully understands” (3). Axel Bruns has coined the term “produsage” (2) to refer to the blurred line between producers and consumers, while Jay Rosen has talked about the “people formerly know as the audience.” For some, the consequences of this shift could be “a new model of journalism, labelled participatory journalism,” (Domingo et al. 331), raising questions about who can be described as a journalist and perhaps, even, how journalism itself is defined. The trend towards a more participatory media ecosystem was evident in the March 2010 study on news habits in the USA by Pew Internet. It highlighted that the news was becoming a social experience. “News is becoming a participatory activity, as people contribute their own stories and experiences and post their reactions to events” (Purcell et al. 40). The study found that 37% of Internet users, described by Pew as “news participators,” had actively contributed to the creation, commentary, or dissemination of news (44). This reflects how the Internet has changed the relationship between journalists and audiences from a one-way, asymmetric model of communication to a more participatory and collective system (Boczkowski; Deuze). The following sections considers how the ability of the audience to participate in the gathering, analysis and communication of news and information requires a re-examination of the concept of ambient news. A Distributed Conversation As I’ve discussed, ambient news is based on the idea of the audience as the receiver. Ambient journalism, on the other hand, takes account of how audiences are able to become part of the news process. However, this does not mean that citizens are necessarily producing journalism within the established framework of accounts and analysis through narratives, with the aim of providing accurate and objective portrayals of reality. Rather, I suggest that ambient journalism presents a multi-faceted and fragmented news experience, where citizens are producing small pieces of content that can be collectively considered as journalism. It acknowledges the audience as both a receiver and a sender. I suggest that micro-blogging social media services such as Twitter, that enable millions of people to communicate instantly, share and discuss events, are an expression of ambient journalism. Micro-blogging is a new media technology that enables and extends society's ability to communicate, enabling users to share brief bursts of information from multiple digital devices. Twitter has become one of the most popular micro-blogging platforms, with some 50 million messages sent daily by February 2010 (Twitter). Twitter enables users to communicate with each other simultaneously via short messages no longer than 140 characters, known as ‘tweets’. The micro-blogging platform shares some similarities with instant messaging. It allows for near synchronous communications from users, resulting in a continuous stream of up-to-date messages, usually in a conversational tone. Unlike instant messaging, Twitter is largely public, creating a new body of content online that can be archived, searched and retrieved. The messages can be extracted, analysed and aggregated, providing a measure of activity around a particular event or subject and, in some cases, an indication of the general sentiment about it. For example, the deluge of tweets following Michael Jackson's death in July 2009 has been described as a public and collective expression of loss that indicated “the scale of the world’s shock and sadness” (Cashmore). While tweets are atomic in nature, they are part of a distributed conversation through a social network of interconnected users. To paraphrase David Weinberger's description of the Web, tweets are “many small pieces loosely joined,” (ix). In common with mass media audiences, users may be very widely dispersed and usually unknown to each other. Twitter provides a structure for them to act together as if in an organised way, for example through the use of hashtags–the # symbol–and keywords to signpost topics and issues. This provides a mechanism to aggregate, archive and analyse the individual tweets as a whole. Furthermore, information is not simply dependent on the content of the message. A user's profile, their social connections and the messages they resend, or retweet, provide an additional layer of information. This is called the social graph and it is implicit in social networks such as Twitter. The social graph provides a representation of an individual and their connections. Each user on Twitter has followers, who themselves have followers. Thus each tweet has a social graph attached to it, as does each message that is retweeted (forwarded to other users). Accordingly, social graphs offer a means to infer reputation and trust. Twitter as Ambient Journalism Services such as Twitter can be considered as awareness systems, defined as computer-mediated communication systems “intended to help people construct and maintain awareness of each others’ activities, context or status, even when the participants are not co-located” (Markopoulos et al., v). In such a system, the value does not lie in the individual sliver of information that may, on its own, be of limited value or validity. Rather the value lies in the combined effect of the communication. In this sense, Twitter becomes part of an ambient media system where users receive a flow of information from both established media and from each other. Both news and journalism are ambient, suggesting that “broad, asynchronous, lightweight and always-on communication systems such as Twitter are enabling citizens to maintain a mental model of news and events around them” (Hermida 5). Obviously, not everything on Twitter is an act of journalism. There are messages about almost every topic that often have little impact beyond an individual and their circle of friends, from random thoughts and observations to day-to-day minutiae. But it is undeniable that Twitter has emerged as a significant platform for people to report, comment and share news about major events, with individuals performing some of the institutionalised functions of the professional journalist. Examples where Twitter has emerged as a platform for journalism include the 2008 US presidential elections, the Mumbai attacks in November of 2008 and the January 2009 crash of US Airways flight (Lenhard and Fox 2). In these examples, Twitter served as a platform for first-hand, real-time reports from people caught up in the events as they unfolded, with the cell phone used as the primary reporting tool. For example, the dramatic Hudson River landing of the US Airways flight was captured by ferry passenger Janis Krum, who took a photo with a cell phone and sent it out via Twitter.One of the issues associated with services like Twitter is the speed and number of micro-bursts of data, together with the potentially high signal to noise ratio. For example, the number of tweets related to the disputed election result in Iran in June 2009 peaked at 221,774 in one hour, from an average flow of between 10,000 and 50,000 an hour (Parr). Hence there is a need for systems to aid in selection, organisation and interpretation to make sense of this ambient journalism. Traditionally the journalist has been the mechanism to filter, organise and interpret this information and deliver the news in ready-made packages. Such a role was possible in an environment where access to the means of media production was limited. But the thousands of acts of journalism taking place on Twitter every day make it impossible for an individual journalist to identify the collective sum of knowledge contained in the micro-fragments, and bring meaning to the data. Rather, we should look to the literature on ambient media, where researchers talk about media systems that understand individual desires and needs, and act autonomously on their behalf (for example Lugmayr). Applied to journalism, this suggests a need for tools that can analyse, interpret and contextualise a system of collective intelligence. An example of such a service is TwitterStand, developed by a group of researchers at the University of Maryland (Sankaranarayanan et al.). The team describe TwitterStand as “an attempt to harness this emerging technology to gather and disseminate breaking news much faster than conventional news media” (51). In their paper, they describe in detail how their news processing system is able to identify and cluster news tweets in a noisy medium. They conclude that “Twitter, or most likely a successor of it, is a harbinger of a futuristic technology that is likely to capture and transmit the sum total of all human experiences of the moment” (51). While such a comment may be something of an overstatement, it indicates how emerging real-time, networked technologies are creating systems of distributed journalism.Similarly, the US Geological Survey (USGS) is investigating social media technologies as a way quickly to gather information about recent earthquakes. It has developed a system called the Twitter Earthquake Detector to gather real-time, earthquake-related messages from Twitter and filter the messages by place, time, and keyword (US Department of the Interior). By collecting and analysing the tweets, the USGS believes it can access anecdotal information from citizens about a quake much faster than if it only relied on scientific information from authoritative sources.Both of these are examples of research into the development of tools that help users negotiate and regulate the streams and information flowing through networked media. They address issues of information overload by making sense of distributed and unstructured data, finding a single concept such as news in what Sankaranarayanan et al., say is “akin to finding needles in stacks of tweets’ (43). danah boyd eloquently captured the potential for such as system, writing that “those who are most enamoured with services like Twitter talk passionately about feeling as though they are living and breathing with the world around them, peripherally aware and in tune, adding content to the stream and grabbing it when appropriate.” Conclusion While this paper has focused on Twitter in its discussion of ambient journalism, it is possible that the service may be overtaken by another or several similar digital technologies. This has happened, for example, in the social networking space, with Friendster been supplanted by MySpace and more recently by Facebook. However, underlying services like Twitter are a set of characteristics often referred to by the catchall phrase, the real-time Web. As often with emerging and rapidly developing Internet trends, it can be challenging to define what the real-time Web means. Entrepreneur Ken Fromm has identified a set of characteristics that offer a good starting point to understand the real-time Web. He describes it as a new form of loosely organised communication that is creating a new body of public content in real-time, with a related social graph. In the context of our discussion of the term ‘ambient’, the characteristics of the real-time Web do not only extend the pervasiveness of ambient news. They also enable the former audience to become part of the news environment as it has the means to gather, select, produce and distribute news and information. Writing about changing news habits in the US, Purcell et al. conclude that “people’s relationship to news is becoming portable, personalized, and participatory” (2). Ambient news has evolved into ambient journalism, as people contribute to the creation, dissemination and discussion of news via social media services such as Twitter. To adapt Ian Hargreaves' description of ambient news in his book, Journalism: Truth or Dare?, we can say that journalism, which was once difficult and expensive to produce, today surrounds us like the air we breathe. Much of it is, literally, ambient, and being produced by professionals and citizens. The challenge going forward is helping the public negotiate and regulate this flow of awareness information, facilitating the collection, transmission and understanding of news. References Ang, Ien. Desperately Seeking the Audience. London: Routledge, 1991. Boczkowski, Pablo. J. Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers. 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Alfred Hermida recently posited ‘ambient journalism’ as a new framework for para- and professional journalists, who use social networks like Twitter for story sources, and as a news delivery platform. Beginning with this framework, this article explores the following questions: How does Hermida define ‘ambient journalism’ and what is its significance? Are there alternative definitions? What lessons do current platforms provide for the design of future, real-time platforms that ‘ambient journalists’ might use? What lessons does the work of Brian Eno provide–the musician and producer who coined the term ‘ambient music’ over three decades ago? My aim here is to formulate an alternative definition of ambient journalism that emphasises craft, skills acquisition, and the mental models of professional journalists, which are the foundations more generally for journalism practices. Rather than Hermida’s participatory media context I emphasise ‘institutional adaptiveness’: how journalists and newsrooms in media institutions rely on craft and skills, and how emerging platforms can augment these foundations, rather than replace them. Hermida’s Ambient Journalism and the Role of Journalists Hermida describes ambient journalism as: “broad, asynchronous, lightweight and always-on communication systems [that] are creating new kinds of interactions around the news, and are enabling citizens to maintain a mental model of news and events around them” (Hermida 2). His ideas appear to have two related aspects. He conceives ambient journalism as an “awareness system” between individuals that functions as a collective intelligence or kind of ‘distributed cognition’ at a group level (Hermida 2, 4-6). Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks are examples. Hermida also suggests that such networks enable non-professionals to engage in ‘communication’ and ‘conversation’ about news and media events (Hermida 2, 7). In a helpful clarification, Hermida observes that ‘para-journalists’ are like the paralegals or non-lawyers who provide administrative support in the legal profession and, in academic debates about journalism, are more commonly known as ‘citizen journalists’. Thus, Hermida’s ambient journalism appears to be: (1) an information systems model of new platforms and networks, and (2) a normative argument that these tools empower ‘para-journalists’ to engage in journalism and real-time commentary. Hermida’s thesis is intriguing and worthy of further discussion and debate. As currently formulated however it risks sharing the blind-spots and contradictions of the academic literature that Hermida cites, which suffers from poor theory-building (Burns). A major reason is that the participatory media context on which Hermida often builds his work has different mental models and normative theories than the journalists or media institutions that are the target of critique. Ambient journalism would be a stronger and more convincing framework if these incorrect assumptions were jettisoned. Others may also potentially misunderstand what Hermida proposes, because the academic debate is often polarised between para-journalists and professional journalists, due to different views about institutions, the politics of knowledge, decision heuristics, journalist training, and normative theoretical traditions (Christians et al. 126; Cole and Harcup 166-176). In the academic debate, para-journalists or ‘citizen journalists’ may be said to have a communitarian ethic and desire more autonomous solutions to journalists who are framed as uncritical and reliant on official sources, and to media institutions who are portrayed as surveillance-like ‘monitors’ of society (Christians et al. 124-127). This is however only one of a range of possible relationships. Sole reliance on para-journalists could be a premature solution to a more complex media ecology. Journalism craft, which does not rely just on official sources, also has a range of practices that already provides the “more complex ways of understanding and reporting on the subtleties of public communication” sought (Hermida 2). Citizen- and para-journalist accounts may overlook micro-studies in how newsrooms adopt technological innovations and integrate them into newsgathering routines (Hemmingway 196). Thus, an examination of the realities of professional journalism will help to cast a better light on how ambient journalism can shape the mental models of para-journalists, and provide more rigorous analysis of news and similar events. Professional journalism has several core dimensions that para-journalists may overlook. Journalism’s foundation as an experiential craft includes guidance and norms that orient the journalist to information, and that includes practitioner ethics. This craft is experiential; the basis for journalism’s claim to “social expertise” as a discipline; and more like the original Linux and Open Source movements which evolved through creative conflict (Sennett 9, 25-27, 125-127, 249-251). There are learnable, transmissible skills to contextually evaluate, filter, select and distil the essential insights. This craft-based foundation and skills informs and structures the journalist’s cognitive witnessing of an event, either directly or via reconstructed, cultivated sources. The journalist publishes through a recognised media institution or online platform, which provides communal validation and verification. There is far more here than the academic portrayal of journalists as ‘gate-watchers’ for a ‘corporatist’ media elite. Craft and skills distinguish the professional journalist from Hermida’s para-journalist. Increasingly, media institutions hire journalists who are trained in other craft-based research methods (Burns and Saunders). Bethany McLean who ‘broke’ the Enron scandal was an investment banker; documentary filmmaker Errol Morris first interviewed serial killers for an early project; and Neil Chenoweth used ‘forensic accounting’ techniques to investigate Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer. Such expertise allows the journalist to filter information, and to mediate any influences in the external environment, in order to develop an individualised, ‘embodied’ perspective (Hofstadter 234; Thompson; Garfinkel and Rawls). Para-journalists and social network platforms cannot replace this expertise, which is often unique to individual journalists and their research teams. Ambient Journalism and Twitter Current academic debates about how citizen- and para-journalists may augment or even replace professional journalists can often turn into legitimation battles whether the ‘de facto’ solution is a social media network rather than a media institution. For example, Hermida discusses Twitter, a micro-blogging platform that allows users to post 140-character messages that are small, discrete information chunks, for short-term and episodic memory. Twitter enables users to monitor other users, to group other messages, and to search for terms specified by a hashtag. Twitter thus illustrates how social media platforms can make data more transparent and explicit to non-specialists like para-journalists. In fact, Twitter is suitable for five different categories of real-time information: news, pre-news, rumours, the formation of social media and subject-based networks, and “molecular search” using granular data-mining tools (Leinweber 204-205). In this model, the para-journalist acts as a navigator and “way-finder” to new information (Morville, Findability). Jaron Lanier, an early designer of ‘virtual reality’ systems, is perhaps the most vocal critic of relying on groups of non-experts and tools like Twitter, instead of individuals who have professional expertise. For Lanier, what underlies debates about citizen- and para-journalists is a philosophy of “cybernetic totalism” and “digital Maoism” which exalts the Internet collective at the expense of truly individual views. He is deeply critical of Hermida’s chosen platform, Twitter: “A design that shares Twitter’s feature of providing ambient continuous contact between people could perhaps drop Twitter’s adoration of fragments. We don’t really know, because it is an unexplored design space” [emphasis added] (Lanier 24). In part, Lanier’s objection is traceable back to an unresolved debate on human factors and design in information science. Influenced by the post-war research into cybernetics, J.C.R. Licklider proposed a cyborg-like model of “man-machine symbiosis” between computers and humans (Licklider). In turn, Licklider’s framework influenced Douglas Engelbart, who shaped the growth of human-computer interaction, and the design of computer interfaces, the mouse, and other tools (Engelbart). In taking a system-level view of platforms Hermida builds on the strength of Licklider and Engelbart’s work. Yet because he focuses on para-journalists, and does not appear to include the craft and skills-based expertise of professional journalists, it is unclear how he would answer Lanier’s fears about how reliance on groups for news and other information is superior to individual expertise and judgment. Hermida’s two case studies point to this unresolved problem. Both cases appear to show how Twitter provides quicker and better forms of news and information, thereby increasing the effectiveness of para-journalists to engage in journalism and real-time commentary. However, alternative explanations may exist that raise questions about Twitter as a new platform, and thus these cases might actually reveal circumstances in which ambient journalism may fail. Hermida alludes to how para-journalists now fulfil the earlier role of ‘first responders’ and stringers, in providing the “immediate dissemination” of non-official information about disasters and emergencies (Hermida 1-2; Haddow and Haddow 117-118). Whilst important, this is really a specific role. In fact, disaster and emergency reporting occurs within well-established practices, professional ethics, and institutional routines that may involve journalists, government officials, and professional communication experts (Moeller). Officials and emergency management planners are concerned that citizen- or para-journalism is equated with the craft and skills of professional journalism. The experience of these officials and planners in 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in the United States, and in 2009’s Black Saturday bushfires in Australia, suggests that whilst para-journalists might be ‘first responders’ in a decentralised, complex crisis, they are perceived to spread rumours and potential social unrest when people need reliable information (Haddow and Haddow 39). These terms of engagement between officials, planners and para-journalists are still to be resolved. Hermida readily acknowledges that Twitter and other social network platforms are vulnerable to rumours (Hermida 3-4; Sunstein). However, his other case study, Iran’s 2009 election crisis, further complicates the vision of ambient journalism, and always-on communication systems in particular. Hermida discusses several events during the crisis: the US State Department request to halt a server upgrade, how the Basij’s shooting of bystander Neda Soltan was captured on a mobile phone camera, the spread across social network platforms, and the high-velocity number of ‘tweets’ or messages during the first two weeks of Iran’s electoral uncertainty (Hermida 1). The US State Department was interested in how Twitter could be used for non-official sources, and to inform people who were monitoring the election events. Twitter’s perceived ‘success’ during Iran’s 2009 election now looks rather different when other factors are considered such as: the dynamics and patterns of Tehran street protests; Iran’s clerics who used Soltan’s death as propaganda; claims that Iran’s intelligence services used Twitter to track down and to kill protestors; the ‘black box’ case of what the US State Department and others actually did during the crisis; the history of neo-conservative interest in a Twitter-like platform for strategic information operations; and the Iranian diaspora’s incitement of Tehran student protests via satellite broadcasts. Iran’s 2009 election crisis has important lessons for ambient journalism: always-on communication systems may create noise and spread rumours; ‘mirror-imaging’ of mental models may occur, when other participants have very different worldviews and ‘contexts of use’ for social network platforms; and the new kinds of interaction may not lead to effective intervention in crisis events. Hermida’s combination of news and non-news fragments is the perfect environment for psychological operations and strategic information warfare (Burns and Eltham). Lessons of Current Platforms for Ambient Journalism We have discussed some unresolved problems for ambient journalism as a framework for journalists, and as mental models for news and similar events. Hermida’s goal of an “awareness system” faces a further challenge: the phenomenological limitations of human consciousness to deal with information complexity and ambiguous situations, whether by becoming ‘entangled’ in abstract information or by developing new, unexpected uses for emergent technologies (Thackara; Thompson; Hofstadter 101-102, 186; Morville, Findability, 55, 57, 158). The recursive and reflective capacities of human consciousness imposes its own epistemological frames. It’s still unclear how Licklider’s human-computer interaction will shape consciousness, but Douglas Hofstadter’s experiments with art and video-based group experiments may be suggestive. Hofstadter observes: “the interpenetration of our worlds becomes so great that our worldviews start to fuse” (266). Current research into user experience and information design provides some validation of Hofstadter’s experience, such as how Google is now the ‘default’ search engine, and how its interface design shapes the user’s subjective experience of online search (Morville, Findability; Morville, Search Patterns). Several models of Hermida’s awareness system already exist that build on Hofstadter’s insight. Within the information systems field, on-going research into artificial intelligence–‘expert systems’ that can model expertise as algorithms and decision rules, genetic algorithms, and evolutionary computation–has attempted to achieve Hermida’s goal. What these systems share are mental models of cognition, learning and adaptiveness to new information, often with forecasting and prediction capabilities. Such systems work in journalism areas such as finance and sports that involve analytics, data-mining and statistics, and in related fields such as health informatics where there are clear, explicit guidelines on information and international standards. After a mid-1980s investment bubble (Leinweber 183-184) these systems now underpin the technology platforms of global finance and news intermediaries. Bloomberg LP’s ubiquitous dual-screen computers, proprietary network and data analytics (www.bloomberg.com), and its competitors such as Thomson Reuters (www.thomsonreuters.com and www.reuters.com), illustrate how financial analysts and traders rely on an “awareness system” to navigate global stock-markets (Clifford and Creswell). For example, a Bloomberg subscriber can access real-time analytics from exchanges, markets, and from data vendors such as Dow Jones, NYSE Euronext and Thomson Reuters. They can use portfolio management tools to evaluate market information, to make allocation and trading decisions, to monitor ‘breaking’ news, and to integrate this information. Twitter is perhaps the para-journalist equivalent to how professional journalists and finance analysts rely on Bloomberg’s platform for real-time market and business information. Already, hedge funds like PhaseCapital are data-mining Twitter’s ‘tweets’ or messages for rumours, shifts in stock-market sentiment, and to analyse potential trading patterns (Pritchett and Palmer). The US-based Securities and Exchange Commission, and researchers like David Gelernter and Paul Tetlock, have also shown the benefits of applied data-mining for regulatory market supervision, in particular to uncover analysts who provide ‘whisper numbers’ to online message boards, and who have access to material, non-public information (Leinweber 60, 136, 144-145, 208, 219, 241-246). Hermida’s framework might be developed further for such regulatory supervision. Hermida’s awareness system may also benefit from the algorithms found in high-frequency trading (HFT) systems that Citadel Group, Goldman Sachs, Renaissance Technologies, and other quantitative financial institutions use. Rather than human traders, HFT uses co-located servers and complex algorithms, to make high-volume trades on stock-markets that take advantage of microsecond changes in prices (Duhigg). HFT capabilities are shrouded in secrecy, and became the focus of regulatory attention after several high-profile investigations of traders alleged to have stolen the software code (Bray and Bunge). One public example is Streambase (www.streambase.com), a ‘complex event processing’ (CEP) platform that can be used in HFT, and commercialised from the Project Aurora research collaboration between Brandeis University, Brown University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. CEP and HFT may be the ‘killer apps’ of Hermida’s awareness system. Alternatively, they may confirm Jaron Lanier’s worst fears: your data-stream and user-generated content can be harvested by others–for their gain, and your loss! Conclusion: Brian Eno and Redefining ‘Ambient Journalism’ On the basis of the above discussion, I suggest a modified definition of Hermida’s thesis: ‘Ambient journalism’ is an emerging analytical framework for journalists, informed by cognitive, cybernetic, and information systems research. It ‘sensitises’ the individual journalist, whether professional or ‘para-professional’, to observe and to evaluate their immediate context. In doing so, ‘ambient journalism’, like journalism generally, emphasises ‘novel’ information. It can also inform the design of real-time platforms for journalistic sources and news delivery. Individual ‘ambient journalists’ can learn much from the career of musician and producer Brian Eno. His personal definition of ‘ambient’ is “an atmosphere, or a surrounding influence: a tint,” that relies on the co-evolution of the musician, creative horizons, and studio technology as a tool, just as para-journalists use Twitter as a platform (Sheppard 278; Eno 293-297). Like para-journalists, Eno claims to be a “self-educated but largely untrained” musician and yet also a craft-based producer (McFadzean; Tamm 177; 44-50). Perhaps Eno would frame the distinction between para-journalist and professional journalist as “axis thinking” (Eno 298, 302) which is needlessly polarised due to different normative theories, stances, and practices. Furthermore, I would argue that Eno’s worldview was shaped by similar influences to Licklider and Engelbart, who appear to have informed Hermida’s assumptions. These influences include the mathematician and game theorist John von Neumann and biologist Richard Dawkins (Eno 162); musicians Eric Satie, John Cage and his book Silence (Eno 19-22, 162; Sheppard 22, 36, 378-379); and the field of self-organising systems, in particular cyberneticist Stafford Beer (Eno 245; Tamm 86; Sheppard 224). Eno summed up the central lesson of this theoretical corpus during his collaborations with New York’s ‘No Wave’ scene in 1978, of “people experimenting with their lives” (Eno 253; Reynolds 146-147; Sheppard 290-295). Importantly, he developed a personal view of normative theories through practice-based research, on a range of projects, and with different creative and collaborative teams. Rather than a technological solution, Eno settled on a way to encode his craft and skills into a quasi-experimental, transmittable method—an aim of practitioner development in professional journalism. Even if only a “founding myth,” the story of Eno’s 1975 street accident with a taxi, and how he conceived ‘ambient music’ during his hospital stay, illustrates how ambient journalists might perceive something new in specific circumstances (Tamm 131; Sheppard 186-188). More tellingly, this background informed his collaboration with the late painter Peter Schmidt, to co-create the Oblique Strategies deck of aphorisms: aleatory, oracular messages that appeared dependent on chance, luck, and randomness, but that in fact were based on Eno and Schmidt’s creative philosophy and work guidelines (Tamm 77-78; Sheppard 178-179; Reynolds 170). In short, Eno was engaging with the kind of reflective practices that underpin exemplary professional journalism. He was able to encode this craft and skills into a quasi-experimental method, rather than a technological solution. Journalists and practitioners who adopt Hermida’s framework could learn much from the published accounts of Eno’s practice-based research, in the context of creative projects and collaborative teams. In particular, these detail the contexts and choices of Eno’s early ambient music recordings (Sheppard 199-200); Eno’s duels with David Bowie during ‘Sense of Doubt’ for the Heroes album (Tamm 158; Sheppard 254-255); troubled collaborations with Talking Heads and David Byrne (Reynolds 165-170; Sheppard; 338-347, 353); a curatorial, mentor role on U2’s The Unforgettable Fire (Sheppard 368-369); the ‘grand, stadium scale’ experiments of U2’s 1991-93 ZooTV tour (Sheppard 404); the Zorn-like games of Bowie’s Outside album (Eno 382-389); and the ‘generative’ artwork 77 Million Paintings (Eno 330-332; Tamm 133-135; Sheppard 278-279; Eno 435). Eno is clearly a highly flexible maker and producer. Developing such flexibility would ensure ambient journalism remains open to novelty as an analytical framework that may enhance the practitioner development and work of professional journalists and para-journalists alike.Acknowledgments The author thanks editor Luke Jaaniste, Alfred Hermida, and the two blind peer reviewers for their constructive feedback and reflective insights. References Bray, Chad, and Jacob Bunge. “Ex-Goldman Programmer Indicted for Trade Secrets Theft.” The Wall Street Journal 12 Feb. 2010. 17 March 2010 ‹http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703382904575059660427173510.html›. Burns, Alex. “Select Issues with New Media Theories of Citizen Journalism.” M/C Journal 11.1 (2008). 17 March 2010 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/30›.———, and Barry Saunders. “Journalists as Investigators and ‘Quality Media’ Reputation.” Record of the Communications Policy and Research Forum 2009. Eds. Franco Papandrea and Mark Armstrong. Sydney: Network Insight Institute, 281-297. 17 March 2010 ‹http://eprints.vu.edu.au/15229/1/CPRF09BurnsSaunders.pdf›.———, and Ben Eltham. “Twitter Free Iran: An Evaluation of Twitter’s Role in Public Diplomacy and Information Operations in Iran’s 2009 Election Crisis.” Record of the Communications Policy and Research Forum 2009. Eds. Franco Papandrea and Mark Armstrong. Sydney: Network Insight Institute, 298-310. 17 March 2010 ‹http://eprints.vu.edu.au/15230/1/CPRF09BurnsEltham.pdf›. Christians, Clifford G., Theodore Glasser, Denis McQuail, Kaarle Nordenstreng, and Robert A. White. Normative Theories of the Media: Journalism in Democratic Societies. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Clifford, Stephanie, and Julie Creswell. “At Bloomberg, Modest Strategy to Rule the World.” The New York Times 14 Nov. 2009. 17 March 2010 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/business/media/15bloom.html?ref=businessandpagewanted=all›.Cole, Peter, and Tony Harcup. Newspaper Journalism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2010. Duhigg, Charles. “Stock Traders Find Speed Pays, in Milliseconds.” The New York Times 23 July 2009. 17 March 2010 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/24trading.html?_r=2andref=business›. Engelbart, Douglas. “Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework, 1962.” Ed. Neil Spiller. Cyber Reader: Critical Writings for the Digital Era. London: Phaidon Press, 2002. 60-67. Eno, Brian. A Year with Swollen Appendices. London: Faber and Faber, 1996. Garfinkel, Harold, and Anne Warfield Rawls. Toward a Sociological Theory of Information. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2008. Hadlow, George D., and Kim S. Haddow. Disaster Communications in a Changing Media World, Butterworth-Heinemann, Burlington MA, 2009. Hemmingway, Emma. Into the Newsroom: Exploring the Digital Production of Regional Television News. Milton Park: Routledge, 2008. 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In the modern theory of elliptic curves, one of the important problems is the determination of the number of rational points on an elliptic curve. The Mordel–Weil theorem [T. Shioda, On the Mordell–Weil lattices, Comment. Math. University St. Paul. 39(2) (1990) 211–240] points out that the elliptic curve defined above the rational points is generated by a finite group. Despite the knowledge that an elliptic curve has a final number of rational points, it is still difficult to determine their number and the way how to determine them. The greatest progress was achieved by Birch and Swinnerton–Dyer conjecture, which was included in the Millennium Prize Problems [A. Wiles, The Birch and Swinnerton–Dyer conjecture, The Millennium Prize Problems (American Mathematical Society, 2006), pp. 31–44]. This conjecture uses methods of the analytical theory of numbers, while the current knowledge corresponds to the assumptions of the conjecture but has not been proven to date. In this paper, we focus on using a tangent line and the osculating circle for characterizing the rational points of the elliptical curve, which is the greatest benefit of the contribution. We use a different view of elliptic curves by using Minkowki’s theory of number geometry [H. F. Blichfeldt, A new principle in the geometry of numbers, with some applications, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 15(3) (1914) 227–235; V. S. Miller, Use of elliptic curves in cryptography, in Proc. Advances in Cryptology — CRYPTO ’85, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 218 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1985), pp. 417–426; E. Bombieri and W. Gubler, Heights in Diophantine Geometry, Vol. 670, 1st edn. (Cambridge University Press, 2007)].

By the time you read this, it will be wrong. Things seemed to be moving so fast in these first days after airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania earth. Each certainty is as carelessly dropped as it was once carelessly assumed. The sounds of lower Manhattan that used to serve as white noise for residents—sirens, screeches, screams—are no longer signs without a referent. Instead, they make folks stare and stop, hurry and hustle, wondering whether the noises we know so well are in fact, this time, coefficients of a new reality. At the time of writing, the events themselves are also signs without referents—there has been no direct claim of responsibility, and little proof offered by accusers since the 11th. But it has been assumed that there is a link to US foreign policy, its military and economic presence in the Arab world, and opposition to it that seeks revenge. In the intervening weeks the US media and the war planners have supplied their own narrow frameworks, making New York’s “ground zero” into the starting point for a new escalation of global violence. We want to write here about the combination of sources and sensations that came that day, and the jumble of knowledges and emotions that filled our minds. Working late the night before, Toby was awoken in the morning by one of the planes right overhead. That happens sometimes. I have long expected a crash when I’ve heard the roar of jet engines so close—but I didn’t this time. Often when that sound hits me, I get up and go for a run down by the water, just near Wall Street. Something kept me back that day. Instead, I headed for my laptop. Because I cannot rely on local media to tell me very much about the role of the US in world affairs, I was reading the British newspaper The Guardian on-line when it flashed a two-line report about the planes. I looked up at the calendar above my desk to see whether it was April 1st. Truly. Then I got off-line and turned on the TV to watch CNN. That second, the phone rang. My quasi-ex-girlfriend I’m still in love with called from the mid-West. She was due to leave that day for the Bay Area. Was I alright? We spoke for a bit. She said my cell phone was out, and indeed it was for the remainder of the day. As I hung up from her, my friend Ana rang, tearful and concerned. Her husband, Patrick, had left an hour before for work in New Jersey, and it seemed like a dangerous separation. All separations were potentially fatal that day. You wanted to know where everyone was, every minute. She told me she had been trying to contact Palestinian friends who worked and attended school near the event—their ethnic, religious, and national backgrounds made for real poignancy, as we both thought of the prejudice they would (probably) face, regardless of the eventual who/what/when/where/how of these events. We agreed to meet at Bruno’s, a bakery on La Guardia Place. For some reason I really took my time, though, before getting to Ana. I shampooed and shaved under the shower. This was a horror, and I needed to look my best, even as men and women were losing and risking their lives. I can only interpret what I did as an attempt to impose normalcy and control on the situation, on my environment. When I finally made it down there, she’d located our friends. They were safe. We stood in the street and watched the Towers. Horrified by the sight of human beings tumbling to their deaths, we turned to buy a tea/coffee—again some ludicrous normalization—but were drawn back by chilling screams from the street. Racing outside, we saw the second Tower collapse, and clutched at each other. People were streaming towards us from further downtown. We decided to be with our Palestinian friends in their apartment. When we arrived, we learnt that Mark had been four minutes away from the WTC when the first plane hit. I tried to call my daughter in London and my father in Canberra, but to no avail. I rang the mid-West, and asked my maybe-former novia to call England and Australia to report in on me. Our friend Jenine got through to relatives on the West Bank. Israeli tanks had commenced a bombardment there, right after the planes had struck New York. Family members spoke to her from under the kitchen table, where they were taking refuge from the shelling of their house. Then we gave ourselves over to television, like so many others around the world, even though these events were happening only a mile away. We wanted to hear official word, but there was just a huge absence—Bush was busy learning to read in Florida, then leading from the front in Louisiana and Nebraska. As the day wore on, we split up and regrouped, meeting folks. One guy was in the subway when smoke filled the car. Noone could breathe properly, people were screaming, and his only thought was for his dog DeNiro back in Brooklyn. From the panic of the train, he managed to call his mom on a cell to ask her to feed “DeNiro” that night, because it looked like he wouldn’t get home. A pregnant woman feared for her unborn as she fled the blasts, pushing the stroller with her baby in it as she did so. Away from these heart-rending tales from strangers, there was the fear: good grief, what horrible price would the US Government extract for this, and who would be the overt and covert agents and targets of that suffering? What blood-lust would this generate? What would be the pattern of retaliation and counter-retaliation? What would become of civil rights and cultural inclusiveness? So a jumble of emotions came forward, I assume in all of us. Anger was not there for me, just intense sorrow, shock, and fear, and the desire for intimacy. Network television appeared to offer me that, but in an ultimately unsatisfactory way. For I think I saw the end-result of reality TV that day. I have since decided to call this ‘emotionalization’—network TV’s tendency to substitute analysis of US politics and economics with a stress on feelings. Of course, powerful emotions have been engaged by this horror, and there is value in addressing that fact and letting out the pain. I certainly needed to do so. But on that day and subsequent ones, I looked to the networks, traditional sources of current-affairs knowledge, for just that—informed, multi-perspectival journalism that would allow me to make sense of my feelings, and come to a just and reasoned decision about how the US should respond. I waited in vain. No such commentary came forward. Just a lot of asinine inquiries from reporters that were identical to those they pose to basketballers after a game: Question—‘How do you feel now?’ Answer—‘God was with me today.’ For the networks were insistent on asking everyone in sight how they felt about the end of las torres gemelas. In this case, we heard the feelings of survivors, firefighters, viewers, media mavens, Republican and Democrat hacks, and vacuous Beltway state-of-the-nation pundits. But learning of the military-political economy, global inequality, and ideologies and organizations that made for our grief and loss—for that, there was no space. TV had forgotten how to do it. My principal feeling soon became one of frustration. So I headed back to where I began the day—The Guardian web site, where I was given insightful analysis of the messy factors of history, religion, economics, and politics that had created this situation. As I dealt with the tragedy of folks whose lives had been so cruelly lost, I pondered what it would take for this to stop. Or whether this was just the beginning. I knew one thing—the answers wouldn’t come from mainstream US television, no matter how full of feelings it was. And that made Toby anxious. And afraid. He still is. And so the dreams come. In one, I am suddenly furloughed from my job with an orchestra, as audience numbers tumble. I make my evening-wear way to my locker along with the other players, emptying it of bubble gum and instrument. The next night, I see a gigantic, fifty-feet high wave heading for the city beach where I’ve come to swim. Somehow I am sheltered behind a huge wall, as all the people around me die. Dripping, I turn to find myself in a media-stereotype “crack house” of the early ’90s—desperate-looking black men, endless doorways, sudden police arrival, and my earnest search for a passport that will explain away my presence. I awake in horror, to the realization that the passport was already open and stamped—racialization at work for Toby, every day and in every way, as a white man in New York City. Ana’s husband, Patrick, was at work ten miles from Manhattan when “it” happened. In the hallway, I overheard some talk about two planes crashing, but went to teach anyway in my usual morning stupor. This was just the usual chatter of disaster junkies. I didn’t hear the words, “World Trade Center” until ten thirty, at the end of the class at the college I teach at in New Jersey, across the Hudson river. A friend and colleague walked in and told me the news of the attack, to which I replied “You must be fucking joking.” He was a little offended. Students were milling haphazardly on the campus in the late summer weather, some looking panicked like me. My first thought was of some general failure of the air-traffic control system. There must be planes falling out of the sky all over the country. Then the height of the towers: how far towards our apartment in Greenwich Village would the towers fall? Neither of us worked in the financial district a mile downtown, but was Ana safe? Where on the college campus could I see what was happening? I recognized the same physical sensation I had felt the morning after Hurricane Andrew in Miami seeing at a distance the wreckage of our shattered apartment across a suburban golf course strewn with debris and flattened power lines. Now I was trapped in the suburbs again at an unbridgeable distance from my wife and friends who were witnessing the attacks first hand. Were they safe? What on earth was going on? This feeling of being cut off, my path to the familiar places of home blocked, remained for weeks my dominant experience of the disaster. In my office, phone calls to the city didn’t work. There were six voice-mail messages from my teenaged brother Alex in small-town England giving a running commentary on the attack and its aftermath that he was witnessing live on television while I dutifully taught my writing class. “Hello, Patrick, where are you? Oh my god, another plane just hit the towers. Where are you?” The web was choked: no access to newspapers online. Email worked, but no one was wasting time writing. My office window looked out over a soccer field to the still woodlands of western New Jersey: behind me to the east the disaster must be unfolding. Finally I found a website with a live stream from ABC television, which I watched flickering and stilted on the tiny screen. It had all already happened: both towers already collapsed, the Pentagon attacked, another plane shot down over Pennsylvania, unconfirmed reports said, there were other hijacked aircraft still out there unaccounted for. Manhattan was sealed off. George Washington Bridge, Lincoln and Holland tunnels, all the bridges and tunnels from New Jersey I used to mock shut down. Police actions sealed off the highways into “the city.” The city I liked to think of as the capital of the world was cut off completely from the outside, suddenly vulnerable and under siege. There was no way to get home. The phone rang abruptly and Alex, three thousand miles away, told me he had spoken to Ana earlier and she was safe. After a dozen tries, I managed to get through and spoke to her, learning that she and Toby had seen people jumping and then the second tower fall. Other friends had been even closer. Everyone was safe, we thought. I sat for another couple of hours in my office uselessly. The news was incoherent, stories contradictory, loops of the planes hitting the towers only just ready for recycling. The attacks were already being transformed into “the World Trade Center Disaster,” not yet the ahistorical singularity of the emergency “nine one one.” Stranded, I had to spend the night in New Jersey at my boss’s house, reminded again of the boundless generosity of Americans to relative strangers. In an effort to protect his young son from the as yet unfiltered images saturating cable and Internet, my friend’s TV set was turned off and we did our best to reassure. We listened surreptitiously to news bulletins on AM radio, hoping that the roads would open. Walking the dog with my friend’s wife and son we crossed a park on the ridge on which Upper Montclair sits. Ten miles away a huge column of smoke was rising from lower Manhattan, where the stunning absence of the towers was clearly visible. The summer evening was unnervingly still. We kicked a soccer ball around on the front lawn and a woman walked distracted by, shocked and pale up the tree-lined suburban street, suffering her own wordless trauma. I remembered that though most of my students were ordinary working people, Montclair is a well-off dormitory for the financial sector and high rises of Wall Street and Midtown. For the time being, this was a white-collar disaster. I slept a short night in my friend’s house, waking to hope I had dreamed it all, and took the commuter train in with shell-shocked bankers and corporate types. All men, all looking nervously across the river toward glimpses of the Manhattan skyline as the train neared Hoboken. “I can’t believe they’re making us go in,” one guy had repeated on the station platform. He had watched the attacks from his office in Midtown, “The whole thing.” Inside the train we all sat in silence. Up from the PATH train station on 9th street I came onto a carless 6th Avenue. At 14th street barricades now sealed off downtown from the rest of the world. I walked down the middle of the avenue to a newspaper stand; the Indian proprietor shrugged “No deliveries below 14th.” I had not realized that the closer to the disaster you came, the less information would be available. Except, I assumed, for the evidence of my senses. But at 8 am the Village was eerily still, few people about, nothing in the sky, including the twin towers. I walked to Houston Street, which was full of trucks and police vehicles. Tractor trailers sat carrying concrete barriers. Below Houston, each street into Soho was barricaded and manned by huddles of cops. I had walked effortlessly up into the “lockdown,” but this was the “frozen zone.” There was no going further south towards the towers. I walked the few blocks home, found my wife sleeping, and climbed into bed, still in my clothes from the day before. “Your heart is racing,” she said. I realized that I hadn’t known if I would get back, and now I never wanted to leave again; it was still only eight thirty am. Lying there, I felt the terrible wonder of a distant bystander for the first-hand witness. Ana’s face couldn’t tell me what she had seen. I felt I needed to know more, to see and understand. Even though I knew the effort was useless: I could never bridge that gap that had trapped me ten miles away, my back turned to the unfolding disaster. The television was useless: we don’t have cable, and the mast on top of the North Tower, which Ana had watched fall, had relayed all the network channels. I knew I had to go down and see the wreckage. Later I would realize how lucky I had been not to suffer from “disaster envy.” Unbelievably, in retrospect, I commuted into work the second day after the attack, dogged by the same unnerving sensation that I would not get back—to the wounded, humbled former center of the world. My students were uneasy, all talked out. I was a novelty, a New Yorker living in the Village a mile from the towers, but I was forty-eight hours late. Out of place in both places. I felt torn up, but not angry. Back in the city at night, people were eating and drinking with a vengeance, the air filled with acrid sicklysweet smoke from the burning wreckage. Eyes stang and nose ran with a bitter acrid taste. Who knows what we’re breathing in, we joked nervously. A friend’s wife had fallen out with him for refusing to wear a protective mask in the house. He shrugged a wordlessly reassuring smile. What could any of us do? I walked with Ana down to the top of West Broadway from where the towers had commanded the skyline over SoHo; downtown dense smoke blocked the view to the disaster. A crowd of onlookers pushed up against the barricades all day, some weeping, others gawping. A tall guy was filming the grieving faces with a video camera, which was somehow the worst thing of all, the first sign of the disaster tourism that was already mushrooming downtown. Across the street an Asian artist sat painting the street scene in streaky black and white; he had scrubbed out two white columns where the towers would have been. “That’s the first thing I’ve seen that’s made me feel any better,” Ana said. We thanked him, but he shrugged blankly, still in shock I supposed. On the Friday, the clampdown. I watched the Mayor and Police Chief hold a press conference in which they angrily told the stream of volunteers to “ground zero” that they weren’t needed. “We can handle this ourselves. We thank you. But we don’t need your help,” Commissioner Kerik said. After the free-for-all of the first couple of days, with its amazing spontaneities and common gestures of goodwill, the clampdown was going into effect. I decided to go down to Canal Street and see if it was true that no one was welcome anymore. So many paths through the city were blocked now. “Lock down, frozen zone, war zone, the site, combat zone, ground zero, state troopers, secured perimeter, national guard, humvees, family center”: a disturbing new vocabulary that seemed to stamp the logic of Giuliani’s sanitized and over-policed Manhattan onto the wounded hulk of the city. The Mayor had been magnificent in the heat of the crisis; Churchillian, many were saying—and indeed, Giuliani quickly appeared on the cover of Cigar Afficionado, complete with wing collar and the misquotation from Kipling, “Captain Courageous.” Churchill had not believed in peacetime politics either, and he never got over losing his empire. Now the regime of command and control over New York’s citizens and its economy was being stabilized and reimposed. The sealed-off, disfigured, and newly militarized spaces of the New York through which I have always loved to wander at all hours seemed to have been put beyond reach for the duration. And, in the new post-“9/11” post-history, the duration could last forever. The violence of the attacks seemed to have elicited a heavy-handed official reaction that sought to contain and constrict the best qualities of New York. I felt more anger at the clampdown than I did at the demolition of the towers. I knew this was unreasonable, but I feared the reaction, the spread of the racial harassment and racial profiling that I had already heard of from my students in New Jersey. This militarizing of the urban landscape seemed to negate the sprawling, freewheeling, boundless largesse and tolerance on which New York had complacently claimed a monopoly. For many the towers stood for that as well, not just as the monumental outposts of global finance that had been attacked. Could the American flag mean something different? For a few days, perhaps—on the helmets of firemen and construction workers. But not for long. On the Saturday, I found an unmanned barricade way east along Canal Street and rode my bike past throngs of Chinatown residents, by the Federal jail block where prisoners from the first World Trade Center bombing were still being held. I headed south and west towards Tribeca; below the barricades in the frozen zone, you could roam freely, the cops and soldiers assuming you belonged there. I felt uneasy, doubting my own motives for being there, feeling the blood drain from my head in the same numbing shock I’d felt every time I headed downtown towards the site. I looped towards Greenwich Avenue, passing an abandoned bank full of emergency supplies and boxes of protective masks. Crushed cars still smeared with pulverized concrete and encrusted with paperwork strewn by the blast sat on the street near the disabled telephone exchange. On one side of the avenue stood a horde of onlookers, on the other television crews, all looking two blocks south towards a colossal pile of twisted and smoking steel, seven stories high. We were told to stay off the street by long-suffering national guardsmen and women with southern accents, kids. Nothing happening, just the aftermath. The TV crews were interviewing worn-out, dust-covered volunteers and firemen who sat quietly leaning against the railings of a park filled with scraps of paper. Out on the West Side highway, a high-tech truck was offering free cellular phone calls. The six lanes by the river were full of construction machinery and military vehicles. Ambulances rolled slowly uptown, bodies inside? I locked my bike redundantly to a lamppost and crossed under the hostile gaze of plainclothes police to another media encampment. On the path by the river, two camera crews were complaining bitterly in the heat. “After five days of this I’ve had enough.” They weren’t talking about the trauma, bodies, or the wreckage, but censorship. “Any blue light special gets to roll right down there, but they see your press pass and it’s get outta here. I’ve had enough.” I fronted out the surly cops and ducked under the tape onto the path, walking onto a Pier on which we’d spent many lazy afternoons watching the river at sunset. Dust everywhere, police boats docked and waiting, a crane ominously dredging mud into a barge. I walked back past the camera operators onto the highway and walked up to an interview in process. Perfectly composed, a fire chief and his crew from some small town in upstate New York were politely declining to give details about what they’d seen at “ground zero.” The men’s faces were dust streaked, their eyes slightly dazed with the shock of a horror previously unimaginable to most Americans. They were here to help the best they could, now they’d done as much as anyone could. “It’s time for us to go home.” The chief was eloquent, almost rehearsed in his precision. It was like a Magnum press photo. But he was refusing to cooperate with the media’s obsessive emotionalism. I walked down the highway, joining construction workers, volunteers, police, and firemen in their hundreds at Chambers Street. No one paid me any attention; it was absurd. I joined several other watchers on the stairs by Stuyvesant High School, which was now the headquarters for the recovery crews. Just two or three blocks away, the huge jagged teeth of the towers’ beautiful tracery lurched out onto the highway above huge mounds of debris. The TV images of the shattered scene made sense as I placed them into what was left of a familiar Sunday afternoon geography of bike rides and walks by the river, picnics in the park lying on the grass and gazing up at the infinite solidity of the towers. Demolished. It was breathtaking. If “they” could do that, they could do anything. Across the street at tables military policeman were checking credentials of the milling volunteers and issuing the pink and orange tags that gave access to ground zero. Without warning, there was a sudden stampede running full pelt up from the disaster site, men and women in fatigues, burly construction workers, firemen in bunker gear. I ran a few yards then stopped. Other people milled around idly, ignoring the panic, smoking and talking in low voices. It was a mainly white, blue-collar scene. All these men wearing flags and carrying crowbars and flashlights. In their company, the intolerance and rage I associated with flags and construction sites was nowhere to be seen. They were dealing with a torn and twisted otherness that dwarfed machismo or bigotry. I talked to a moustachioed, pony-tailed construction worker who’d hitched a ride from the mid-west to “come and help out.” He was staying at the Y, he said, it was kind of rough. “Have you been down there?” he asked, pointing towards the wreckage. “You’re British, you weren’t in World War Two were you?” I replied in the negative. “It’s worse ’n that. I went down last night and you can’t imagine it. You don’t want to see it if you don’t have to.” Did I know any welcoming ladies? he asked. The Y was kind of tough. When I saw TV images of President Bush speaking to the recovery crews and steelworkers at “ground zero” a couple of days later, shouting through a bullhorn to chants of “USA, USA” I knew nothing had changed. New York’s suffering was subject to a second hijacking by the brokers of national unity. New York had never been America, and now its terrible human loss and its great humanity were redesignated in the name of the nation, of the coming war. The signs without a referent were being forcibly appropriated, locked into an impoverished patriotic framework, interpreted for “us” by a compliant media and an opportunistic regime eager to reign in civil liberties, to unloose its war machine and tighten its grip on the Muslim world. That day, drawn to the river again, I had watched F18 fighter jets flying patterns over Manhattan as Bush’s helicopters came in across the river. Otherwise empty of air traffic, “our” skies were being torn up by the military jets: it was somehow the worst sight yet, worse than the wreckage or the bands of disaster tourists on Canal Street, a sign of further violence yet to come. There was a carrier out there beyond New York harbor, there to protect us: the bruising, blustering city once open to all comers. That felt worst of all. In the intervening weeks, we have seen other, more unstable ways of interpreting the signs of September 11 and its aftermath. Many have circulated on the Internet, past the blockages and blockades placed on urban spaces and intellectual life. Karl-Heinz Stockhausen’s work was banished (at least temporarily) from the canon of avant-garde electronic music when he described the attack on las torres gemelas as akin to a work of art. If Jacques Derrida had described it as an act of deconstruction (turning technological modernity literally in on itself), or Jean Baudrillard had announced that the event was so thick with mediation it had not truly taken place, something similar would have happened to them (and still may). This is because, as Don DeLillo so eloquently put it in implicit reaction to the plaintive cry “Why do they hate us?”: “it is the power of American culture to penetrate every wall, home, life and mind”—whether via military action or cultural iconography. All these positions are correct, however grisly and annoying they may be. What GK Chesterton called the “flints and tiles” of nineteenth-century European urban existence were rent asunder like so many victims of high-altitude US bombing raids. As a First-World disaster, it became knowable as the first-ever US “ground zero” such precisely through the high premium immediately set on the lives of Manhattan residents and the rarefied discussion of how to commemorate the high-altitude towers. When, a few weeks later, an American Airlines plane crashed on take-off from Queens, that borough was left open to all comers. Manhattan was locked down, flown over by “friendly” bombers. In stark contrast to the open if desperate faces on the street of 11 September, people went about their business with heads bowed even lower than is customary. Contradictory deconstructions and valuations of Manhattan lives mean that September 11 will live in infamy and hyper-knowability. The vengeful United States government and population continue on their way. Local residents must ponder insurance claims, real-estate values, children’s terrors, and their own roles in something beyond their ken. New York had been forced beyond being the center of the financial world. It had become a military target, a place that was receiving as well as dispatching the slings and arrows of global fortune. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Deer, Patrick and Miller, Toby. "A Day That Will Live In … ?" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.1 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/adaythat.php>. Chicago Style Deer, Patrick and Miller, Toby, "A Day That Will Live In … ?" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 1 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/adaythat.php> ([your date of access]). APA Style Deer, Patrick and Miller, Toby. (2002) A Day That Will Live In … ?. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(1). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/adaythat.php> ([your date of access]).

Mobile In many countries, more people have mobile phones than they do fixed-line phones. Mobile phones are one of the fastest growing technologies ever, outstripping even the internet in many respects. With the advent and widespread deployment of digital systems, mobile phones were used by an estimated 1, 158, 254, 300 people worldwide in 2002 (up from approximately 91 million in 1995), 51. 4% of total telephone subscribers (ITU). One of the reasons for this is mobility itself: the ability for people to talk on the phone wherever they are. The communicative possibilities opened up by mobile phones have produced new uses and new discourses (see Katz and Aakhus; Brown, Green, and Harper; and Plant). Contemporary soundscapes now feature not only voice calls in previously quiet public spaces such as buses or restaurants but also the aural irruptions of customised polyphonic ringtones identifying whose phone is ringing by the tune downloaded. The mobile phone plays an important role in contemporary visual and material culture as fashion item and status symbol. Most tragically one might point to the tableau of people in the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, or aboard a plane about to crash, calling their loved ones to say good-bye (Galvin). By contrast, one can look on at the bathos of Australian cricketer Shane Warne’s predilection for pressing his mobile phone into service to arrange wanted and unwanted assignations while on tour. In this article, I wish to consider another important and so far also under-theorised aspect of mobile phones: text. Of contemporary textual and semiotic systems, mobile text is only a recent addition. Yet it is already produces millions of inscriptions each day, and promises to be of far-reaching significance. Txt Txt msg ws an acidnt. no 1 expcted it. Whn the 1st txt msg ws sent, in 1993 by Nokia eng stdnt Riku Pihkonen, the telcom cpnies thought it ws nt important. SMS – Short Message Service – ws nt considrd a majr pt of GSM. Like mny teks, the *pwr* of txt — indeed, the *pwr* of the fon — wz discvrd by users. In the case of txt mssng, the usrs were the yng or poor in the W and E. (Agar 105) As Jon Agar suggests in Constant Touch, textual communication through mobile phone was an after-thought. Mobile phones use radio waves, operating on a cellular system. The first such mobile service went live in Chicago in December 1978, in Sweden in 1981, in January 1985 in the United Kingdom (Agar), and in the mid-1980s in Australia. Mobile cellular systems allowed efficient sharing of scarce spectrum, improvements in handsets and quality, drawing on advances in science and engineering. In the first instance, technology designers, manufacturers, and mobile phone companies had been preoccupied with transferring telephone capabilities and culture to the mobile phone platform. With the growth in data communications from the 1960s onwards, consideration had been given to data capabilities of mobile phone. One difficulty, however, had been the poor quality and slow transfer rates of data communications over mobile networks, especially with first-generation analogue and early second-generation digital mobile phones. As the internet was widely and wildly adopted in the early to mid-1990s, mobile phone proponents looked at mimicking internet and online data services possibilities on their hand-held devices. What could work on a computer screen, it was thought, could be reinvented in miniature for the mobile phone — and hence much money was invested into the wireless access protocol (or WAP), which spectacularly flopped. The future of mobiles as a material support for text culture was not to lie, at first at least, in aping the world-wide web for the phone. It came from an unexpected direction: cheap, simple letters, spelling out short messages with strange new ellipses. SMS was built into the European Global System for Mobile (GSM) standard as an insignificant, additional capability. A number of telecommunications manufacturers thought so little of the SMS as not to not design or even offer the equipment needed (the servers, for instance) for the distribution of the messages. The character sets were limited, the keyboards small, the typeface displays rudimentary, and there was no acknowledgement that messages were actually received by the recipient. Yet SMS was cheap, and it offered one-to-one, or one-to-many, text communications that could be read at leisure, or more often, immediately. SMS was avidly taken up by young people, forming a new culture of media use. Sending a text message offered a relatively cheap and affordable alternative to the still expensive timed calls of voice mobile. In its early beginnings, mobile text can be seen as a subcultural activity. The text culture featured compressed, cryptic messages, with users devising their own abbreviations and grammar. One of the reasons young people took to texting was a tactic of consolidating and shaping their own shared culture, in distinction from the general culture dominated by their parents and other adults. Mobile texting become involved in a wider reworking of youth culture, involving other new media forms and technologies, and cultural developments (Butcher and Thomas). Another subculture that also was in the vanguard of SMS was the Deaf ‘community’. Though the Alexander Graham Bell, celebrated as the inventor of the telephone, very much had his hearing-impaired wife in mind in devising a new form of communication, Deaf people have been systematically left off the telecommunications network since this time. Deaf people pioneered an earlier form of text communications based on the Baudot standard, used for telex communications. Known as teletypewriter (TTY), or telecommunications device for the Deaf (TDD) in the US, this technology allowed Deaf people to communicate with each other by connecting such devices to the phone network. The addition of a relay service (established in Australia in the mid-1990s after much government resistance) allows Deaf people to communicate with hearing people without TTYs (Goggin & Newell). Connecting TTYs to mobile phones have been a vexed issue, however, because the digital phone network in Australia does not allow compatibility. For this reason, and because of other features, Deaf people have become avid users of SMS (Harper). An especially favoured device in Europe has been the Nokia Communicator, with its hinged keyboard. The move from a ‘restricted’, ‘subcultural’ economy to a ‘general’ economy sees mobile texting become incorporated in the semiotic texture and prosaic practices of everyday life. Many users were already familiar with the new conventions already developed around electronic mail, with shorter, crisper messages sent and received — more conversation-like than other correspondence. Unlike phone calls, email is asynchronous. The sender can respond immediately, and the reply will be received with seconds. However, they can also choose to reply at their leisure. Similarly, for the adept user, SMS offers considerable advantages over voice communications, because it makes textual production mobile. Writing and reading can take place wherever a mobile phone can be turned on: in the street, on the train, in the club, in the lecture theatre, in bed. The body writes differently too. Writing with a pen takes a finger and thumb. Typing on a keyboard requires between two and ten fingers. The mobile phone uses the ‘fifth finger’ — the thumb. Always too early, and too late, to speculate on contemporary culture (Morris), it is worth analyzing the textuality of mobile text. Theorists of media, especially television, have insisted on understanding the specific textual modes of different cultural forms. We are familiar with this imperative, and other methods of making visible and decentring structures of text, and the institutions which animate and frame them (whether author or producer; reader or audience; the cultural expectations encoded in genre; the inscriptions in technology). In formal terms, mobile text can be described as involving elision, great compression, and open-endedness. Its channels of communication physically constrain the composition of a very long single text message. Imagine sending James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake in one text message. How long would it take to key in this exemplar of the disintegration of the cultural form of the novel? How long would it take to read? How would one navigate the text? Imagine sending the Courier-Mail or Financial Review newspaper over a series of text messages? The concept of the ‘news’, with all its cultural baggage, is being reconfigured by mobile text — more along the lines of the older technology of the telegraph, perhaps: a few words suffices to signify what is important. Mobile textuality, then, involves a radical fragmentation and unpredictable seriality of text lexia (Barthes). Sometimes a mobile text looks singular: saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or sending your name and ID number to obtain your high school or university results. Yet, like a telephone conversation, or any text perhaps, its structure is always predicated upon, and haunted by, the other. Its imagined reader always has a mobile phone too, little time, no fixed address (except that hailed by the network’s radio transmitter), and a finger poised to respond. Mobile text has structure and channels. Yet, like all text, our reading and writing of it reworks those fixities and makes destabilizes our ‘clear’ communication. After all, mobile textuality has a set of new pre-conditions and fragilities. It introduces new sorts of ‘noise’ to signal problems to annoy those theorists cleaving to the Shannon and Weaver linear model of communication; signals often drop out; there is a network confirmation (and message displayed) that text messages have been sent, but no system guarantee that they have been received. Our friend or service provider might text us back, but how do we know that they got our text message? Commodity We are familiar now with the pleasures of mobile text, the smile of alerting a friend to our arrival, celebrating good news, jilting a lover, making a threat, firing a worker, flirting and picking-up. Text culture has a new vector of mobility, invented by its users, but now coveted and commodified by businesses who did not see it coming in the first place. Nimble in its keystrokes, rich in expressivity and cultural invention, but relatively rudimentary in its technical characteristics, mobile text culture has finally registered in the boardrooms of communications companies. Not only is SMS the preferred medium of mobile phone users to keep in touch with each other, SMS has insinuated itself into previously separate communication industries arenas. In 2002-2003 SMS became firmly established in television broadcasting. Finally, interactive television had arrived after many years of prototyping and being heralded. The keenly awaited back-channel for television arrives courtesy not of cable or satellite television, nor an extra fixed-phone line. It’s the mobile phone, stupid! Big Brother was not only a watershed in reality television, but also in convergent media. Less obvious perhaps than supplementary viewing, or biographies, or chat on Big Brother websites around the world was the use of SMS for voting. SMS is now routinely used by mainstream television channels for viewer feedback, contest entry, and program information. As well as its widespread deployment in broadcasting, mobile text culture has been the language of prosaic, everyday transactions. Slipping into a café at Bronte Beach in Sydney, why not pay your parking meter via SMS? You’ll even receive a warning when your time is up. The mobile is becoming the ‘electronic purse’, with SMS providing its syntax and sentences. The belated ingenuity of those fascinated by the economics of mobile text has also coincided with a technological reworking of its possibilities, with new implications for its semiotic possibilities. Multimedia messaging (MMS) has now been deployed, on capable digital phones (an instance of what has been called 2.5 generation [G] digital phones) and third-generation networks. MMS allows images, video, and audio to be communicated. At one level, this sort of capability can be user-generated, as in the popularity of mobiles that take pictures and send these to other users. Television broadcasters are also interested in the capability to send video clips of favourite programs to viewers. Not content with the revenues raised from millions of standard-priced SMS, and now MMS transactions, commercial participants along the value chain are keenly awaiting the deployment of what is called ‘premium rate’ SMS and MMS services. These services will involve the delivery of desirable content via SMS and MMS, and be priced at a premium. Products and services are likely to include: one-to-one textchat; subscription services (content delivered on handset); multi-party text chat (such as chat rooms); adult entertainment services; multi-part messages (such as text communications plus downloads); download of video or ringtones. In August 2003, one text-chat service charged $4.40 for a pair of SMS. Pwr At the end of 2003, we have scarcely registered the textual practices and systems in mobile text, a culture that sprang up in the interstices of telecommunications. It may be urgent that we do think about the stakes here, as SMS is being extended and commodified. There are obvious and serious policy issues in premium rate SMS and MMS services, and questions concerning the political economy in which these are embedded. Yet there are cultural questions too, with intricate ramifications. How do we understand the effects of mobile textuality, rewriting the telephone book for this new cultural form (Ronell). What are the new genres emerging? And what are the implications for cultural practice and policy? Does it matter, for instance, that new MMS and 3rd generation mobile platforms are not being designed or offered with any-to-any capabilities in mind: allowing any user to upload and send multimedia communications to other any. True, as the example of SMS shows, the inventiveness of users is difficult to foresee and predict, and so new forms of mobile text may have all sorts of relationships with content and communication. However, there are worrying signs of these developing mobile circuits being programmed for narrow channels of retail purchase of cultural products rather than open-source, open-architecture, publicly usable nodes of connection. Works Cited Agar, Jon. Constant Touch: A Global History of the Mobile Phone. Cambridge: Icon, 2003. Barthes, Roland. S/Z. Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Hill & Wang, 1974. Brown, Barry, Green, Nicola, and Harper, Richard, eds. Wireless World: Social, Cultural, and Interactional Aspects of the Mobile Age. London: Springer Verlag, 2001. Butcher, Melissa, and Thomas, Mandy, eds. Ingenious: Emerging youth cultures in urban Australia. Melbourne: Pluto, 2003. Galvin, Michael. ‘September 11 and the Logistics of Communication.’ Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 17.3 (2003): 303-13. Goggin, Gerard, and Newell, Christopher. Digital Disability: The Social Construction of Digital in New Media. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Harper, Phil. ‘Networking the Deaf Nation.’ Australian Journal of Communication 30. 3 (2003), in press. International Telecommunications Union (ITU). ‘Mobile Cellular, subscribers per 100 people.’ World Telecommunication Indicators <http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/> accessed 13 October 2003. Katz, James E., and Aakhus, Mark, eds. Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 2002. Morris, Meaghan. Too Soon, Too Late: History in Popular Culture. Bloomington and Indianapolis: U of Indiana P, 1998. Plant, Sadie. On the Mobile: The Effects of Mobile Telephones on Social and Individual Life. < http://www.motorola.com/mot/documents/0,1028,296,00.pdf> accessed 5 October 2003. Ronell, Avital. The Telephone Book: Technology—schizophrenia—electric speech. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1989. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Goggin, Gerard. "‘mobile text’" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0401/03-goggin.php>. APA Style Goggin, G. (2004, Jan 12). ‘mobile text’. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 7, <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0401/03-goggin.php>

Perhaps the supreme quality of print is one that is lost on us, since it has so casual and obvious an existence (McLuhan 160). Print Machine (Thad Donovan, 1995) In the introduction to his book on 9/11, Welcome to the Desert of the Real, Slavoj Zizek uses an analogy of letter writing to emphasize the contingency of post-9/11 reality. In the example, Zizek discusses the efforts of writers to escape the eyes of governmental censors and a system that used blue ink to indicate a message was true, red ink to indicate it was false. The story ends with an individual receiving a letter from the censored country stating that the writer could not find any red ink. The ambiguity and the duplicity of writing, suggested in Zizek’s tale of colored inks, is a condition of the contemporary world, even if we are unaware of it. We exist in an age in which print—the economization of writing—has an increasingly significant and precarious role in our lives. We turn to the Internet chat room for textual interventions in our sexual, political and aesthetic lives. We burn satanic Harry Potter books and issue fatwas against writers like Salman Rushdie. We narrate our lives using pictures, fonts of varying typeface and color, and sound on our personalized homepages. We throw out our printed books and buy audio ones so we can listen to our favorite authors in the car. We place trust of our life savings, personal numbers, and digital identity in the hands of unseen individuals behind computer screens. Decisively, we are a print people, but our very nature of being dependent on the technologies of print in our public and private lives leads to our inability to consider the epistemological, social and existential effects of print on us. In this article, I focus on the current manifestations of print—what I call “newprint”—including their relationships to consumerism, identity formation and the politics of the state. I will then consider the democratic possibilities of print, suggested by the personalization of print through the Internet and home publishing, and conclude with the implications of the end of print that include the possibility of a post-print language and the middle voice. In order to understand the significance of our current print culture, it is important to situate print in the context of the history of communication. In earlier times, writing had magical associations (Harris 10), and commonly these underpinnings led to the stratification of communities. Writing functioned as a type of black box, “the mysterious technology by which any message [could] be concealed from its illiterate bearer” (Harris 16). Plato and Socrates warned against the negative effects of writing on the mind, including the erosion of memory (Ong 81). Though it once supplemented the communicational bases of orality, the written word soon supplanted it and created a dramatic existential shift in people—a separation of “the knower from the known” (Ong 43-44). As writing moved from the inconvenience of illuminated manuscripts and hand-copied texts, it became systemized in Gutenberg print, and writing then took on the signature of the state—messages between people were codified in the technology of print. With the advent of computer technologies in the 1990s, including personal computers, word processing programs, printers, and the Internet, the age of newprint begins. Newprint includes the electronic language of the Internet and other examples of the public alphabet, including billboards, signage and the language of advertising. As much as members of consumer society are led to believe that newprint is the harbinger of positive identity construction and individualism, closer analysis of the mechanisms of newprint leads to a different conclusion. An important context of new print is found in the space of the home computer. The home computer is the workstation of the contemporary discursive culture—people send and receive emails, do their shopping on the Internet, meet friends and even spouses through dating services, conceal their identity on MUDs and MOOs, and produce state-of-the-art publishing projects, even books. The ubiquity of print in the space of the personal computer leads to the vital illusion that this newprint is emancipatory. Some theorists have argued that the Internet exhibits the spirit of communicative action addressed by Juergen Habermas, but such thinkers have neglected the fact that the foundations of newprint, just like those of Gutenberg print, are the state and the corporation. Recent advertising of Hewlett-Packard and other computer companies illustrates this point. One advertisement suggested that consumers could “invent themselves” through HP computer and printer technology: by using the varied media available to them, consumers can make everything from personalized greeting cards to full-fledged books. As Friedrich Kittler illustrates, we should resist the urge to separate the practices of writing from the technologies of their production, what Jay David Bolter (41) denotes as the “writing space”. For as much as we long for new means of democratic and individualistic expression, we should not succumb to the urge to accept newprint because of its immediacy, novelty or efficiency. Doing so will relegate us to a mechanistic existence, what is referenced metaphorically in Thad Donovan’s “print machine.” In multiple contexts, newprint extends the corporate state’s propaganda industry by turning the written word into artifice. Even before newprint, the individual was confronted with the hegemony of writing. Writing creates “context-free language” or “autonomous discourse,” which means an individual cannot directly confront the language or speaker as one could in oral cultures (Ong 78). This further division of the individual from the communicational world is emphasized in newprint’s focus on the aesthetics of the typeface. In word processing programs like Microsoft Word, and specialized ones like TwistType, the consumer can take a word or a sentence and transform it into an aesthetic formation. On the word processing program that is producing this text, I can choose from Blinking Background, Las Vegas Lights, Marching Red or Black Ants, Shimmer, and Sparkle Text. On my campus email system I am confronted with pictorial backgrounds, font selection and animation as an intimate aspect of the communicational system of my college. On my cell phone I can receive text messages, and I can choose to use emoticons (iconic characters and messages) on the Internet. As Walter Ong wrote, “print situates words in space more relentlessly than writing ever did … control of position is everything in print” (Ong 121). In the case of the new culture of print, the control over more functions of the printed page, specifically its presentation, leads some consumers to believe that choice and individuality are the outcomes. Newprint does not free the writer from the constraints imposed by the means of traditional print—the printing press—rather, it furthers them as the individual operates by the logos of a predetermined and programmed electronic print. The capacity to spell and write grammatically correct sentences is abated by the availability of spell- and grammar-checking functions in word processing software. In many ways, the aura of writing is lost in newprint in the same way in which art lost its organic nature as it moved into the age of reproducibility (Benjamin). Just as filters in imaging programs like Photoshop reduce the aesthetic functions of the user to the determinations of the software programmer, the use of automated print technologies—whether spell-checking or fanciful page layout software like QuarkXpress or Page Maker—will further dilute the voice of the writer. Additionally, the new forms of print can lead to a fracturing of community, the opposite intent of Habermas’ communicative action. An example is the recent growth of specialized languages on the Internet. Some of the newer forms of such languages use combinations of alphanumeric characters to create a language that can only be read by those with the code. As Internet print becomes more specialized, a tribal effect may be felt within our communities. Since email began a few years ago, I have noticed that the nature of the emails I receive has been dramatically altered. Today’s emails tend to be short and commonly include short hands (“LOL” = “laugh out loud”), including the elimination of capitalization and punctuation. In surveying students on the reasons behind such alterations of language in email, I am told that these short hands allow for more efficient forms of communication. In my mind, this is the key issue that is at stake in both print and newprint culture—for as long as we rely on print and other communicational systems as a form of efficiency, we are doomed to send and receive inaccurate and potentially dangerous messages. Benedict Anderson and Hannah Arendt addressed the connections of print to nationalistic and fascist urges (Anderson; Arendt), and such tendencies are seen in the post-9/11 discursive formations within the United States. Bumper stickers and Presidential addresses conveyed the same simplistic printed messages: “Either You are with Us or You are with the Terrorists.” Whether dropping leaflets from airplanes or in scrolling text messages on the bottom of the television news screen, the state is dependent on the efficiency of print to maintain control of the citizen. A feature of this efficiency is that newprint be rhetorically immediate in its results, widely available in different forms of technology, and dominated by the notion of individuality and democracy that is envisioned in HP’s “invent yourself” advertsiements. As Marshall McLuhan’s epigram suggests, we have an ambiguous relationship to print. We depend on printed language in our daily lives, for education and for the economic transactions that underpin our consumer world, yet we are unable to confront the rhetoric of the state and mass media that are consequences of the immediacy and magic of both print and new print. Print extends the domination of our consciousness by forms of discourse that privilege representation over experience and the subject over the object. As we look to new means of communicating with one another and of expressing our intimate lives, we must consider altering the discursive foundations of our communication, such as looking to the middle voice. The middle voice erases the distinctions between subjects and objects and instead emphasizes the writer being in the midst of things, as a part of the world as opposed to dominating it (Barthes; Tyler). A few months prior to writing this article, I spent the fall quarter teaching in London. One day I received an email that changed my life. My partner of nearly six years announced that she was leaving me. I was gripped with the fact of my being unable to discuss the situation with her as we were thousands of miles apart and I struggled to understand how such a significant and personal circumstance could be communicated with the printed word of email. Welcome to new print! References Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1976. Barthes, Roland. “To Write: An Intransitive Verb?” The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man: The Structuralist Controversy. Ed. Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1970. 134-56. Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Second Version.” Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 3: 1935-1938. Cambridge: Belknap/Harvard, 2002. Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1991. Habermas, Jürgen. The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. I. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985. Harris, Roy. The Origin of Writing. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1986. Kittler, Friedrich A. Discourse Networks 1800/1900. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1990. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge: MIT P, 1994. Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Routledge, 1991. Tyler, Stephen A. “The Middle Voice: The Influence of Post-Modernism on Empirical Research in Anthropology.” Post-modernism and Anthropology. Eds. K. Geuijen, D. Raven, and J. de Wolf. Assen, The Neatherlands: Van Gorcum, 1995. Zizek, Slavoj. Welcome to the Desert of the Real. London: Verso, 2002. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Lukas, Scott A. "Nevermoreprint." M/C Journal 8.2 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0506/04-lukas.php>. APA Style Lukas, S. (Jun. 2005) "Nevermoreprint," M/C Journal, 8(2). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0506/04-lukas.php>.

Winters, Kari-Lynn and Lori Sherritt-Fleming. Hungry For Math: Poems to Munch On, illustrated by Peggy Collins. Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2015.Winters and Sherritt-Fleming seemingly intend this picture book to introduce those mathematical skills and concepts that children learn in their first years of schooling: shape recognition, counting, telling time, and using money. The authors append a glossary that defines such terms as “Base Ten,” “Ordinal numbers,” and “Rhombus.” Having raised our expectations that this will be a mathematically informative book, they get off to a bad start in a rhyme entitled “The Balanced Bee.” “Three circles, tall not wide,”Now, surely, if we are going to define a rhombus for the picture book crowd, we can also allow that a circle is a closed curve with all points on that curve equidistant from the centre. (In other words, it cannot be “tall not wide.”) Their presentation of the concept of time uses a variation on an old standby: “Hickory, Dickory Dock” in “Move Around the Clock.” At one time, the original rhyme was relevant to children because it referenced the nature of a clock. Sometimes, that clock had a pendulum or a sweep second hand to mark the passing seconds; always, it had hands that pointed to the minutes and the hours. Not all clocks chimed, but one could at least see the hands “strike” the hours. Most importantly, the numbers one to twelve circled the clock face and, thus, provided a visual clue to their sequence. Children learned of this sequence without being particularly aware of their learning.For today’s young child the typical “clock” is a digital strip on a microwave, or a smart phone, or an adult’s wrist strap. The numbers on it change either second by second or minute by minute. Staring at this strip which might, for example, read “1:30 p.m.”, how does a child know that “1:00 p.m.” arrived a half hour earlier, that “2:00 p.m.” will arrive a half hour hence, and that “12:30 a.m.” will arrive in a further eleven hours? The concept is no longer visually obvious. This book does not illuminate it. Despite a text which reads, “The mouse ran up the clock,” the mouse in Peggy Collins’ illustration does not run “up” anything: it hops along insouciantly through the gears and springs and winding key of a technology now unknown to children. Nor does the mouse progress systematically through the hours. The text accompanying its romp reads, “…three o’clock, four-thirty, seven o’clock…nine-thirty” …etc. Primary school teacherswould have to struggle to relate anything in this story sequence to the daily rotation of the earth, and humankind’s decision to mark its course in hours, minutes and seconds. Equally unhelpful is the rhymed story of the Spendosaur who wastes all his pennies at the candy store. The penny was discontinued in Canada two years before the publication of this book. The coin’s time honoured usefulness as a counting device or an introduction to base ten is kaput. Increasingly, we use credit cards at the shops. We buy online using computers and hand-held devices. We need not count change; we can simply enter a figure representing the cost of our purchase on a digital screen. In sum, Canadian children of primary school age scarcely remember that their parents once carried pennies in their pockets, let alone that they actually used the copper coins to make purchases. “One penny buys a chocolate-dipped pickle.” becomes merely a line of amusing nonsense.In part, uncertainty of intent may have led to this picture book’s various problems. It attempts to be both an entertaining fantasy and an engaging teaching tool. The blurring of purposes here has not quite succeeded. Reviewer: Leslie AitkenNot recommended: 1 star out of 4Leslie Aitken’s long career in librarianship included selection of books for school, public, special and academic libraries. She is a former Curriculum Librarian for the University of Alberta.