Two A's

I thought that everyone did a great job on their hypertext response projects. It was interesting to read all the different opinions on cultural commons, remixing, and to what extent democracy should prevail in hyperspace, and I thought many of the pages deserved A’s. I particularly liked Adam Ringler’s response. I thought that he did a great job with his essay- it was well written and the page was very easy to navigate through. He made a good point on his page “Democracy, Intellectual Property and the Internet” stating: “tenuous relationship between democratic culture and the concept of intellectual property derives from the fact that supporting this concept of intellectual property seems to stifle democratic spirit .” Though it was a concept that we had touched upon in class before, he used his own opinion to push the topic further. He then continued to say that both sides provide a valid argument- which I think we all can agree with to some extent. He took the time to find other examples of mash-ups and remixes, going beyond what was required for the assignment. The Avatar/Poccahontas mash-ups were hilarious! I also enjoyed listening to the mash-up of songs that he created with his friends; it was an interesting twist on some old songs. I also found Adam’s response to the Zapatista’s movement to be interesting. I thought his connection between their movement and John Perry Barlow’s “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” fit perfectly. All in all, though there could have been more pictures, I thought his overall project was very successful and went above and beyond what was required.
In addition to Adam’s response, I also thought Randy Holaday did a great job on this project. His hypertext was also well organized, making the links easy to navigate through, and his prose was also well constructed. He had a different narrative style than Adam- his narrative voice was much clearer- which I thought made the hypertext very interesting to read. Randy also used examples other than those required to support his work, strengthening the points of his paper. I especially enjoyed his “At What Point Should Free Speech End” page. In the opening paragraph, Randy admits to not knowing what the “answers to these questions are”, which though unconventional in a research paper, gives him a lot of breathing room- which he uses to expand upon both sides of the argument. I also thought he gave a good overview of the Zapatista movement. The video that he used on that page about the oppressed youth in Iran added a lot to the explanation.