Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Pervasive News Proximity. McLuhan called it the global village; I refer to our times as being characterized by UCaPP - Ubiquitous Connectivity and Pervasive Proximity. In contrast to Gertrude Stein's famous "there is no there there," the UCaPP concept suggests that there is no there at all, since everywhere is here, that is, what happens there affects me in a real, complex - albeit indirect - way here. In my work, I speak of a Theory of Effects that necessitates stepping out of an ego-centric standpoint to (begin to) understand the totality of effects that we each enable and bring about around us. Think of it as a digiSelf out-of-body experience, during which we step out of ourselves into a cognitive anti-environment that allows us to observe all of - or at least more or - what we contribute to our complex world.The same thought processes and principles should apply to the newsmedia, as well. Although most of us are surrounded by more news and information than we can possibly assimilate in a conscious fashion ( What is the (Next) Message?, December 19, 2006. [Conversation] [Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes ~ Edu_RSS Most Recent - RSS old] 1:36:30 PM      Google It!.