The document discusses key concepts in digital media and interaction design, focusing on the singular nature of 'the digital' as a medium and the implications of procedural design. It addresses the complexity of human-machine interaction, the risks of computer-mediated communication, and the role of ethnographic research in improving design. Additionally, it explores challenges related to digital artifacts, user interface evolution, and the concept of 'cyberspace.'

1. Marc Bousquet // Murray, Affordances of the Digital
Medium
Media Studies 208, Emory University
Digital Media and
Culture

2. o Why is Murray insisting on “the digital” as a singular
medium, rather than the plural, media?
o How does the concept of “interaction design” position
creativity in “the digital medium”?

3. o The designer designs procedurally, employing the
computer’s “ability to represent and execute conditional
behaviors”
o Programmers abstract and generalize to manage
complexity. Are there consequences to this feature?

4. o What are “legacy media”? Is linearity a common
characteristic of them? How have different media either
embraced linearity or modified it?
o Do you think the differences between mechanical and
digital reproduction are important?

5. o Simulations are attempts to represent complex natural or
social systems, which have many independent actors
o Coding now “more like the ecology of a pond than the
command structure of an army”

6. o Human-machine interaction as a sense of participation,
scripted by programmers on both sides
o Is scripted interaction a feature only of computing?
o Can you distinguish between “interaction” and
“participation”?

7. o Is all social interaction “participatory”? Is “communication”
intrinsically participatory or even dialogic?
o What are some of the social, political and economic
consequences of computer-mediated communication?

8. o Murray describes the computer’s participatory affordance
as a risk of fraud, surveillance identity theft and
intellectual property crime. Is this “mental model” at odds
with other models you have for computer-mediated
interaction?

9. o What happens when humans use the computer in ways
other than the designers intended?
o How can ethnographic research improve design?

10. o Computing affords encyclopedia on a previously
unimaginable scale, but also with unprecedented potential
for access
o Prior mediations of the encyclopedic impulse are retained
in computer interaction design

12. o What are some of the challenges for managing all of these
digital artifacts?
o How do decisions regarding taxonomy, granularity,
segmentation affect accessibility?

13. o How does spatialization improve the user interface? What
was the interface like before WIMP?
o What does the term “cyberspace” mean to you?
o How would you go about paper testing a game idea?