Notes: The History and Theory of Media/Technology Change

ABSTRACT

This is project intends to:

1. Transcribe and upload relevant citations from key texts related to history and theory of media/technology change,
2. Make these citations searchable in database format, and
3. Visualize this information in a manner that graphically highlights interconnections and gaps between technologies, chronologies, geographies, and theories.

CURRENT STATUS - PHASE 1 - TRANSCRIPTION

Currently in Phase 1: "Transcribe and upload relevant citations from key texts related to history and theory of media/technology change." As of 09 June 2006, over 30,000 words in over 500 citations/notes from thirteen texts (painfully and lovingly hand-typed, ~99% of which are currently not online) have been transcribed and encoded in entries with relevant keywords and source information. These entries have been tagged in a custom syntax that is both programmatically parsable and human-readable:

[pagenumber] {keyword1, keyword2, keyword3} The citation is here, directly from the text, with original emphasis and hopefully all "ƒåñçy" characters maintained. [And it sometimes includes some of my own comments.]

This format is designed to ease the future import of these citations and sources into a topic map, semantic network or database (during phases 2 and 3).

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT PLAN - PHASE 2 - SEARCHABILITY

This database of citations is currently searchable through an offline index/concordance via NoteBook, which features 14 auto-generated indexes to browse through this information. These indexes are currently not online because (to the best of my knowledge) NoteBook does not support exporting of indexes to HTML.

These texts are in the process of being integrated into a more useful structure. The key method of navigation through this text will be through {declared keywords}, which will be likely defined into different primary types:

• mechanisms / physical artifacts / technologies / instruments / "media"
• dates / date ranges
• places / locations
• concepts / theories / ideas / statements

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT PLAN - PHASE 3 - VISUALIZATION

The third phase of this project includes the visualization of this information in a manner that graphically highlights interconnections and gaps between technologies, chronologies, geographies, and theories.

Some examples of concept, topic, or semantic maps are as follows:

Basic Topic Map:

Graphical visualization of text similarities by Magnus Rembold and Jurgen Spath:


FreeMind mind mapping software:


Peter Cho:


txtkit by Schoenerwissen/OfCD:


Ciro Cattuto: