The Ever Changing Screen Grab

The Ever Changing Screen Grab

Intro and The Real and The Ideal

In the introduction to the Digital Dialectic, we are introduced to the concept of the screen grab. The screen Grab, a sort of picture of you computer screen as it appears in that moment, is a metaphor for this Book, but also I think for this course, NMC 331, altogether. Who knows where we will be in two weeks or three months in relation to the New Media realm so instead, we study screen grabs the hear and now of New Media. Because as we are told in the Digital Dialectic, New wont be new for long, or in other words there is always a new new. The Chapter The Real and The Ideal continues this idea in an intriguing way, well at least for me by using Plato’s Myth of the Cave. This Myth serves as the classic tale of the truths we see and the ideal truth. However I disagree with a point the book makes in regard to Plato’s myth, it says that “the materialistic rationalism that leads to the development of new digital technologies would seem to undermine our confidence in our own ideal, much less the Ideal.” To this I would disagree, Plato talks about the ideal forms, and the fact that technology keeps advancing makes me think that we are doing everything in our power to reach those ideal forms. Whether or not we can reach ideal forms by our own accord well. . . that’s a different blogging for a different day.