Community Media - Interactive World

The words 'textus' and 'contextus' in Latin were associated with weaving, plaiting, interlacing, wrought together, interwoven ... Weaving was a complex process that was often the work of women as part of their domestic duties. The most famous weaver in Western classical culture was Odysseus's wife Penelope. To fend off unwanted suitors during her husband's absence, she tells them that she will marry only when she has finished weaving a funeral shroud for her husband's father Laertes. But each night she undoes part of her completed work in order to delay being forced to accept one of the suitors. Her 'cunning' ( metis ) is a form of knowledge, a kind of artifice, and therefore demonstrates the relationship between the craft of the storyteller and the weaving of the narrative cloth. She is similar to and different from the character role of Helen, who also weaves; but in this case the heroic deeds depicted are a representation of her story. T...

Time to Bury Public Services? The Big Theme in the 80s and 90s was privatization of industries which had been taken into public ownership, or which had evolved as ‘public services.’ The task was achieved without much political difficulty because many industries which it was assumed retained a strategic significance such as manufacturing, coal, and steel were making a loss and were now perceived to be a burden on the hard-pressed state. In other cases industries such as oil, gas, telecoms, electricity and water had evolved to make a safe profit and had become highly valued assets that could easily be (un)bundled for sale. The Post Office (once attached to Telecoms) is the last vestige of the entrepreneurial state, where a commercial public service is retained for the common good, is perhaps the final remainder of a commercial service in public hands. There was a sense that state ownership and asset sales had reached the end of the line. No politician would dare to touch social care...

Light and Shadow: What will happen to books and reading in the Age of Kindle? I had the opportunity to make use of a friend’s Kindle a fortnight ago. Dear Reader, you may be shocked at my tardiness in coming to the most fashionable gadget in recent years. Indeed, in 2010, I fought off several offers of Kindle Christmas presents from the many friends and family who know very well my addiction to reading books. I was aware of the vast library of free books and that was a temptation: having them in my pocket, rather than stuck on the hard drive, or only available with internet access. What struck me was the sleek design of the Kindle, its comfortable lightness and ease of use; but most impressive its screen technology, unglaring and flicker-free. As my large Victorian terrace house will not accommodate more purchases of books it makes sense to switch at least some of my purchases to electronic copies for certain kinds of work. But I still have reservation and feel that the potential f...