Response to CMS, Value, and Interface
Considering that this article, to me, reads like stereo instructions (Beetlejuice reference, anyone?), I was able to pull up a few original ideas. Knowledgeable as he is, I do not believe that he skillfully relates this knowledge to readers. The one brief section that I was able to understand is near the beginning, when he assigns “presence” a value. My interpretation may be wrong, but I believe that he is asserting that the imaginary value assigned to the posts on BleacherReport.com lie in the online presence and attention that the authors are receiving. Behind the interface, authors and their content are merely the “presence” that draws in readers, ad companies, and big profits. Because of that, McKinney chooses to further address the interface itself, but that’s where I get lost.
1 Comment
L. M. Freer
March 11, 2014I agree with you about the muddled argumentation–but I actually think that’s because we’re not seeing the entire conversation. McKinney’s post rests upon a whole body of knowledge that remains implied/implicit throughout his analysis. I’ll try to tease some of that out for you all in class. But once we’ve done that, if anyone has any better examples of the core ideas at work (namely, a Marxist analysis of the ways in which digital content creation is and is not labor), I’d be open to hearing about more transparent/intelligible resources.
You definitely got his example right–but I think the bigger import of what he’s saying maybe needs more explanation than I provided or than he does.