yup. I’ve been sick for the last few days. So that’s why the pro­file has been low. I haven’t for­got­ten about the blog and I will con­tinue to post a few times a week. But as of late my diet has con­sisted of fruit ice bars and a stren­u­ous work­out has been moving from the bed to the couch. So cut me some slack. :-)

So if you’re asking “What’s up with this grad school thing? Why????” this post will hope­fully help (If you haven’t read the last post you may want to do that first, I’ll wait for you to finish before going on… ok, now that that’s taken care of). Either that or you may leave think­ing I’m com­pletely full of it (not much for me to do if you think that is the case). As part of apply­ing to the pro­gram I need to state my research goals. So I though shar­ing my draft of that state­ment might better explain my ideas:

“I am writ­ing as a can­di­date for the Mas­ters of Arts in the Social Sci­ences (MASS) pro­gram at the Uni­ver­sity of Chicago. My goal in enrolling in the pro­gram is to develop the nec­es­sary social sci­ence skills to study the ongo­ing evo­lu­tion­ary effects that pho­to­graphic and video tech­nol­ogy are having on geo­graph­i­cally dis­persed net­worked com­mu­ni­ties and visa versa.

For the pur­poses of this letter, I use the term “net­worked communities” is used to refer to any group of indi­vid­u­als that use net­worked com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools (such as inter­net chat) as a method of com­mu­ni­ca­tion within the group. While the appli­ca­tion of the term “community” to social net­works that develop through the use of these tools is a matter of great debate, it is still the case the preva­lence and diver­sity of these social net­works is expand­ing. Their meth­ods of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and inter­ac­tion are con­stantly evolv­ing based in part on the evo­lu­tion of their com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools.

One such tool is dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy. As the tech­nolo­gies that enable social net­works inte­grate visual media shar­ing tools (pic­tures, pho­tog­ra­phy and video), pho­tographs play an increas­ingly impor­tant role in inter­per­sonal net­worked com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Tra­di­tion­ally, the home user’s pri­mary used pho­tog­ra­phy to doc­u­ment­ing mem­o­rable moments. Pho­tographs serve as “memory containers”: visual cues to access the mem­o­ries of spe­cific events and times. How­ever, mem­bers of net­worked com­mu­ni­ties have embraced dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy as a method to bring visual con­text to tra­di­tion­ally text based com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools like online dis­cus­sion boards or instant mes­sag­ing pro­grams. For exam­ple, mem­bers of these com­mu­ni­ties use pic­tures as avatars, visual rep­re­sen­ta­tions of them­selves in the tools, and as replace­ments for emoti­cons (i.e. :-) , ;-P , etc.) adding new visual con­text to their pre­vi­ously one-​dimensional comments.

This use of dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy as a com­mu­ni­ca­tion tool has caused a shift in the mean­ing and intent of a pho­to­graph. For mem­bers of these com­mu­ni­ties, the pur­pose of dig­i­tal pic­tures is to convey imme­di­ate emo­tional or fac­tual data. As such the per­sonal attach­ment of these pic­tures is typ­i­cally short-​lived. Unlike tra­di­tional photos, these pic­tures are not printed or archived. Their con­tent is an imme­di­ate moment that typ­i­cally has no last­ing emo­tional sig­nif­i­cance to the pic­ture taker. Unlike those tra­di­tional home pho­tog­ra­phers, who cap­ture moments of per­sonal, last­ing sig­nif­i­cance, mem­bers of these com­mu­ni­ties act more as pho­to­jour­nal­ists, doc­u­ment­ing and com­mu­ni­cat­ing ideas to a broad audi­ence with pic­tures. The behav­ior of these new pic­ture takers sug­gests that, due to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of these new tools, home pho­tog­ra­phy has evolved more in the last seven years than in the pre­vi­ous fifty.

The rate and social scope of this evo­lu­tion only stands to increase with the con­tin­ued pro­lif­er­a­tion of afford­able, portable record­ing and trans­mis­sion devices. Mobile phones stand ready to sup­plant the “traditional” tools of net­worked com­mu­ni­ties, such as the PC and web browser, offer­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for increased par­tic­i­pa­tion in exist­ing net­worked com­mu­ni­ties as well as the rapid growth of new com­mu­ni­ties. There are more Inter­net enabled mobile phones in the world than Inter­net enabled PCs and monthly world­wide camera mobile phones sales have begun to out­pace tra­di­tional dig­i­tal cam­eras sales. Because these new tools don’t require a hard-​wired con­nec­tion to the net­work, unlike an pc con­nect­ing to the inter­net via a phone line, they allow mem­bers easy access to their com­mu­ni­ties from any loca­tion a cell phone can broad­cast from. All signs point towards a con­tin­ual rapid evo­lu­tion of these net­worked com­mu­ni­ties over the next five to ten years.

This evo­lu­tion has all ready start­ing to affect soci­ety on a broader scale. For exam­ple, when Kennedy was assas­si­nated the Zapruder film was a unique occur­rence: ama­teur footage of a global event. On 9/11, due to the evo­lu­tion and avail­abil­ity of video tech­nol­ogy, almost every net­work car­ried footage of the event cap­tured by ama­teurs using home video cam­eras. In recent months the BBC issued a call for par­tic­i­pants in polit­i­cal ral­lies to “phone in” live pic­tures of the events using their mobile phone cam­eras. The poten­tial uses of these devices are also begin­ning to raise sig­nif­i­cant legal and eth­i­cal debates. Some Pacific Rim coun­tries have already banned cell phones in numer­ous public and pri­vate loca­tions such as locker rooms due to pri­vacy con­cerns. All of these fac­tors sug­gest that this is an area ripe for social study.

My inter­est in this area of study began with my expo­sure to fledg­ling Net­worked Com­mu­ni­ties such as Usenet groups and Multi User Dun­geons (MUDs), online text based multi-​user games, as an under­grad­u­ate stu­dent at the Rochester Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy. These expe­ri­ences led me to work with RIT’s School of Print­ing Man­age­ment and Sci­ences to develop an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary con­cen­tra­tion in New Media Pub­lish­ing in order to study emerg­ing com­puter based pub­lish­ing, com­mu­nity, and com­mu­nity tools.

This explo­ration of online com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ued through­out my tenure with East­man Kodak. During that time I served as a Kodak rep­re­sen­ta­tive on numer­ous online dig­i­tal camera com­mu­ni­ties, co-​hosted a weekly Inter­net photo based chat, devel­oped a pro­posal for a “Gen-Y” media shar­ing com­mu­nity, and served as the imple­men­ta­tion and pro­duc­tion man­ager for a short lived col­lec­tion of photo based net­worked com­mu­nity tools (chat and dis­cus­sion boards). My inter­ac­tions with exist­ing and fledg­ling net­worked com­mu­ni­ties fos­tered a deep inter­est in study­ing the fun­da­men­tal social build­ing blocks that drive their devel­op­ment and evo­lu­tion. Addi­tion­ally, Kodak exposed me to the poten­tial of dig­i­tal pho­tographs as a com­mu­ni­ca­tion tool and a form of social cur­rency. These expe­ri­ences, cou­pled with a firm belief that the only way to truly under­stand the social impli­ca­tions of these new tech­nolo­gies is through the social sci­ences, lead me to the Uni­ver­sity of Chicago.

The mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary approach of the MASS pro­gram pro­vides a unique oppor­tu­nity to craft the best selec­tion of courses to study social devel­op­ments that occur at this inter­sec­tion of social inter­ac­tion, pho­tog­ra­phy, and tech­nol­ogy. My pro­fes­sional expe­ri­ence allows me to bring a unique per­spec­tive to an aca­d­e­mic pro­gram. It solid­i­fied my view that the social sci­ences have a cru­cial role to play in both the aca­d­e­mic and pro­fes­sional arenas. This expe­ri­ence will be an asset in inter­ac­tions with other pro­gram par­tic­i­pants and fac­ulty mem­bers. I will be able to present ideas and views that might not nor­mally be rep­re­sented in the Divi­sion of Social Science’s envi­ron­ment. At the same time, I look for­ward to being exposed to ideas and meth­ods that I could not pos­si­bly gain in a pro­fes­sional envi­ron­ment. This is a unique oppor­tu­nity to “empty my cup”, set­ting aside lessons learned at Kodak and embrace new chal­lenges and ideas.

I cannot speak to all of the poten­tial aca­d­e­mic appli­ca­tions of this research. That is a per­spec­tive I would gain as part of the grad­u­ate work. How­ever from a pro­fes­sional view, there is no way to develop cred­i­ble prod­uct and ser­vice offer­ings in this rapidly evolv­ing envi­ron­ment with­out sig­nif­i­cant guid­ance from social sci­en­tists. Ulti­mately it is my expec­ta­tion that the knowl­edge acquired at the Uni­ver­sity, sup­ple­mented by pro­fes­sional expe­ri­ence, will reveal new avenues of explo­ration in this area and inter­est­ing appli­ca­tions of research.

It is my hope that the uni­ver­sity sees the same poten­tial as I, both in this area of study and in me as a student.

Respect­fully yours,

Matthew Bernius”

That’s basi­cally it in a nut­shell. I think that the social sci­ences need to take an increased role in prod­uct devel­op­ment. And that’s an area that I’m really inter­ested in work­ing on. Of course, any thoughts on this are welcomed.

I’ve been going back and forth as to when I would blog about this. But since it’s kinda big and more and more people are find­ing out, it occurs to me that I should do it sooner than later. I’m apply­ing to grad school. Uni­ver­sity of Chicago to be exact. The pro­gram is the Master of Arts Pro­gram in the Social Sci­ences (MAPSS). It’s a one year (nine months actu­ally) multi-​disciplinary degree.

This has been the result of a lot of soul search­ing and wasn’t an easy deci­sion. To be honest, I’m still wrestling with the entire thing and it’s impli­ca­tions. But at the same time, in many ways I either do this now or never. So if I’ve seemed a little dis­tracted, this is part of the reason.

As for why…. That’s more com­plex. And fodder for another blog. :-)

bit’s o’ matt

Ok, this is a five minute update. Obvi­ously I am still alive. But there’s a LOT of big stuff going on in my life right now between work and per­sonal. And I have a lot to blog about, but it needs to wait just a little while longer.

In the mean­time, I got a camera cell phone like Jenny, Tina, and a few other friends. My cell number’s changed and my other num­bers are going away. So if you need to get intouch with me, drop me an e-mail

More to come…