{"id":191,"date":"2014-04-03T00:26:40","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T00:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=191"},"modified":"2014-08-11T22:14:07","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T22:14:07","slug":"how-large-are-your-headphones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/how-large-are-your-headphones\/","title":{"rendered":"How Large are Your Headphones?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Always Already New: Media, History and the Data of Culture<\/em> by Lisa Gitelman, looks back so that she can look forward.<\/p>\n

I felt that this was a timely book as my son who is in his mid-20s came for a visit from Chicago two weeks ago.\u00a0 He had taken the train and as we met him at the Amtrak station, the new beard didn\u2019t make me smile as much as the \u201cBeats\u201d audio headphones he had on his head.\u00a0 Large, bright red headphones hooked to his iPhone.<\/p>\n

Gitleman addresses the changes and trends in new media by looking through a lens of past media trends and developments.\u00a0 What was \u201cformerly new can teach us something about what\u2019s currently new.\u201d\u00a0 I smiled at my son because when I was a younger man, I loved music and quality sound.\u00a0 I was an audiophile.\u00a0 When music moved from records to cassettes, I insisted on the very best TDK or BASF tapes for my \u201cillegal\u201d copying.\u00a0 Later, I was one of the first on the CD bandwagon because of the excellent quality of sound (I skipped much of the 8-track movement because more often than not, you would hear two songs at the same time!).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But more important than the player, were the speakers.\u00a0 I used most of my money to buy huge speakers to spread out around my listening room.\u00a0 And when it came to headphones, I acquired the best, largest I could find \u2013 the Optimus Pro 60.\u00a0 As audio times changed, and as people moved to iPods and earbuds, I stood as a lonely bastion, holding on to my large headphones, though moving up to the Bose Acoustic Noise Canceling headphones.\u00a0 Finally a few years ago, I realized how far earbuds had developed.\u00a0 The quality was now very nice \u2013 so I bought some and use them more often than my Bose headphones.\u00a0 Again, I was cool!\u00a0 Only to find out that all the younger generation now is moving back to large, obvious, contraptions on their ears that I finally had left!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure Gitelman could tell us something about this trend and change but unfortunately her work doesn\u2019t include this modern audio adjustment.<\/p>\n

The most fascinating thoughts come around how \u201cthe internet both structures and performs its own history.\u201d Media, even before their purpose is publically defined and accepted is influencing its own operations and future, dictating what the use will actually use it for \u2013 whether a need exists or not.<\/p>\n

Another key concept was her examination of how media follows a path from public to private.\u00a0 We all have heard the quote (whether true or not) that Ken Olson of Digital Corp. was reported as saying in 1977, \u201cThere is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.\u201d\u00a0 Oh, how she proved him wrong!<\/p>\n

As media continues to write its own history, only time will tell of what we don\u2019t anticipate as becoming private and only public \u2013 think of drones, 3D printers, home theaters, pretty much anything that we saw on Star Trek is becoming available for private home use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Always Already New: Media, History and the Data of Culture by Lisa Gitelman, looks back so that she can look forward. I felt that this was a timely book as my son who is in his mid-20s came for a visit from Chicago two weeks ago.\u00a0 He had taken the train and as we met […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,84,76,83,75],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-earbuds","tag-gitelmanpingree","tag-headphones","tag-media","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1508,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions\/1508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}