Freedomcar Case

Hi , I am Kimberly,  and together with Ryan ,Lydia, Jeanette and Renee. Today we are going to summarize and present the highlights of chapter 11 and 12 of our textbook.

First of all, let’s take a look at the overview of these two chapters.

Chapter 11 is talking about the auto-mobility, the transported self and technologies of freedom.

Chapter 12 is talking about the IFE and the topographies of modern air travel.

And both two chapters we will provide highlights with brief supporting excerpts.

After a discussion ,we think that,

The car is not just a car.

In this context, the car is also a signifier for freedom and unity, especially after the tragedy of 9/11, as seen in the rise of the ‘Flag-car’

The FreedomCAR is thus a translation of freedom articulated by the Bush Administration in a concerted effort by political government to cast itself as more than just the governing office.

With the introduction of the FreedomCAR, the objectives of liberal government is slowly ‘reinvented’.

In tandem to advancing technologies, the primitive four-wheeler has been given a 360o upgrade, fitted with ‘smart technology’ to mediate different spheres of everyday life. However, this also brought upon a new relation of power and knowledge when one is on the road. This, has also opened up the possibility for surveillance, GPS, ITS and so on.

Communicative technologies are created for the convenience of people, aiding our everyday lives, ensuring safe mobility and laying the foundation to the highway of the future.

Auto-mobility:        The authors cited the example of ABC’s exclusive rights to the telecast, and Amazon.com’s exclusive sale three months later of the SHT models unveiled on Good Morning America  as an ‘event’ set forth in the rest of the chapter.

The event seen as a convergence of technologies of transportation & communication

        “Television as a technology of communication and transportation (a material and representational mediation of house or home, ABC’s New York studio, and a National broadcast range)” pg.210 p1

        “Good Morning America as a technology of communication and transportation (the use of a plate-glass window to represent a spectatorial relation between hosts1, transporters2 and the public on the street, or the mobility3 of cameras, hosts, inventors4  and transporters to an outside, in Bryant Park)” pg.210 p1

        Glossary

        1. Hosts: ABC’s Good Morning America program hosts Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson

        2. Transporters: Segway Human Transporter (SHT)

        3. Mobility: The quality of being mobile

        4. Inventors: Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway Human Transporter  

        Using auto-mobility in the context of media and communication technologies in this chapter;  also viewing it as an idea or ideal, as a desired and valued objective for shaping and governing modern societies and selves.

           “Defining auto-mobility as the ‘mobilization’ of media – the portability of media and communication technologies, the material attachment of these technologies to technologies of transport, and the mattering of media and communication technologies within changing regimes of mobility” pg.212 p1

        “The idea of auto-mobility considered here, therefore, pertains to the self (e.g. auto-matic/self-acting, auto-mated/self-generating, auto-nomous/self-sufficient) not only as moved, motivated and mobilized,  but as having certain capacities and expectations about autonomy/freedom (the fully mobile self) that have become inseparable from technical devices, applications and technologies” pg.213 p1