Tag Archives: access

Disasters and Social Media

Posted on June 24, 2013 | Comments Off on Disasters and Social Media

Sent to me by a friend and way too cool not to re-post:

http://socialmediatoday.com/mike-allton/1514366/can-social-media-help-during-disasters

Infographic depicting how social media are used during/after disasters

Infographic depicting how social media are used during/after disasters

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Digital Dead End

Posted on March 14, 2013 | Comments Off on Digital Dead End

Book cover for Digital Dead End

“Rendering oppression visible makes it available for intervention and change” — Virginia Eubanks, Digital Dead End, p. 28 

As I sat reading Digital Dead End earlier this week, I overheard a conversation between some of my friends who were in the same room. They were discussing the availability of keyboards, “mouses,” and other hardware at a local charity. I listened purposefully, then, as the conversation turned toward the lack of available software. My friends did not discuss the lack of available training, although I know that is an issue for the many people with economic struggles in my area. And that, in essence, was the most important concept I took away from this text: Distribution is not the problem as far as ensuring access to technology. The much larger problem is how we think about technology in combination with social justice. Eubanks alleges that “continued emphasis on the development of science and technology as the route to greater prosperity and equality for all American is a familiar but dangerously underexamined species of magical thinking” (p. xv). In other words, if we are to work toward social justice as digital rhetoricians and technology scholars, we must work toward structural change–and this includes changes in our ways of thinking about technology, what it does, and what constitutes “access.” 

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Sustainable travel

Posted on February 27, 2013 | Comments Off on Sustainable travel

Some time ago, I attended a talk by Chandra Mohanty in which she mentioned that cosmopolitanism–and traveling, specifically–is a lifestyle that occurs at the expense of marginalized people who are incarcerated, or held in place, in order to make the system work. (Think, for example, of the many essays that have been written about the post-Katrina tourist scene in New Orleans, where locals work in festive restaurants and go home to slums. Or, where bus companies provide “Katrina tours.” See In the Wake of Hurricane Katrina for more.)

My initial reaction was resistance. I love to travel! My secondary reaction was resignation: Of course I’m resistant to changing this construction since I’m privileged. Now, months later, I’m trying to take a more nuanced perspective …

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New article!

Posted on January 11, 2013 | Comments Off on New article!

I’m very excited that an article a long time in the works has just been published in TCQ! Read “Transcultural Risk Communication on Dauphin Island: An Analysis of Ironically Located Responses to the Deepwater Horizon Disaster” here: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/X8YWCwC3gSIvjmATCxiJ/full

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Infographic time! Just for fun.

Posted on May 24, 2012 | Comments Off on Infographic time! Just for fun.

The Anatomy of a Hacker Attack … in case you wanted to know:

http://www.rackspace.com/blog/the-anatomy-of-an-attack-interactive/

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