Networking by metaphors

Session: Theorizing mediated spaces

ICA Annual Conference, Dresden, June 2006

Marianne van den Boomen

Marianne.vandenBoomen@let.uu.nlInstitute Media & Re/presentation, Dep. New Media & Digital CultureUniversity Utrecht, The Netherlands

Where is my mail?

• Brand new permanent connection, just ‘click & go’• But: no mail in the inbox

There is the mail...

• Brand new permanent connection, just ‘click & go’• But: no mail in the inbox

• Online? Cables, hardware? • No, a matter of software configuration

• Missing link, hidden steps• Small conceptual error• Computer illiteracy? No, literacy!

Analysis: 1. icontology

• Inclination to take the icon literally, iconic metaphorical seduction

• The function of desktop icons: reduction & delegation• Double faced sign:

• Towards user: signifying job, metaphor for result• Towards machine: executing job, indexical reference to code

• Substituting complex processes with an ontological state/result• Representing ontological simplicity, depresenting complexity• Icontology = user friendlyness, at interface value

Analysis: 2. expected immediacy

• Expectation of immediate result• One-click ideology and general cyber discourse (instant messaging, one

click shopping, automatic updates, plug & play etc)

• Software is supposed to represent that it works, while depresenting how it works

• Failure and rupture show implied labour of configuration and processing

Analysis: 3. transference & transmediation

• Conceptual transference from work to home configuration

• Ubiquitous situations of transference:• standardized computer interfaces and operation• network transferences & transmediations

• content (copy, mail, downloading)• modality (file -> print, sound -> files) • format (Word -> PDF, .wav -> .mp3)

• Identical digital one-to-one copies? Only on the 0-1 machine level, not on human readable level

• Interfaces: transference/translation by analogical representations

Metaphors in action

• Metaphorical transferences:• Metaphorical seduction, icontology & depresentation• Transmediation as cross-domain transfer

• Lakoff & Johnson: conceptual metaphor• Cross-domain mapping from source to target• TARGET-DOMAIN IS SOURCE-DOMAIN (time is money, argument is war)

E-mail is postal mail

SOURCE-DOMAIN

POSTAL MAIL

• postbox• letters, packets, junk• sending, receiving• opening, reading• sorting, disposing• delivery by postman• postal distribution system

TARGET-DOMAIN

E-MAIL

• mail program• messages• push the send or get button• click the message subject• move to folder or delete• mail server at provider• connect to provider, ‘fetch mail’

Material mediation metaphors

• Katherine Hayles' material metaphors:• connect not two concepts, but symbols/signs to material artifacts• actually change things/states in the world

• The mailbox icon has a double reference:• conceptual, human readable (source/target-domain, understanding)• material, machine readable (blackboxed digital machine domain, action)

• Digital domain: software & hardware• no direct access for humans, but mediated: conceptual, analogical translations represented on the interface• analogical translations of digital patterns are apertures in the blackbox

Discourse metaphors

• Discourse of instant immediacy

• Discourse metaphors: do not directly provoke material changes but might do so indirectly, by framing collective thought, articulation and action

• Michael Reddy's 'conduit metaphor': THOUGHTS ARE OBJECTS ('I gave you that idea')

MESSAGES ARE CONTAINERS ('This letter is full of insults')

COMMUNICATION IS SENDING ('His ideas came through')

The toolmakers metaphor

• Michael Reddy's 'toolmakers paradigm': THOUGHTS ARE TOOLS MESSAGES ARE TRANSLATIONSCOMMUNICATION IS LABOUR

• Conceptual & material & discourse metaphors: • beyond the mind & the screen• material metaphors: open up the digital black box• discourse metaphors: open up the social and political blackbox• the politics of metaphor: negotiation & controversy