READING ASSIGNMENT 4
THE SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTEXT FOR DESIGN
Raymond Williams came to redefine the word for Culture; the rearm now meaning the process of human development and it became more associated with intellectual achievement, learning, and the arts.
-Raymond viewed cultural experiences as a "network of relationships," which the meaning of communication artifacts cannot be separated from the social environments and practices in which they reside. More recent theories question the notion of "one way of life" and focus on the process of meaning production and circulation, rather than on a unified vision-on how things mean rather than what things mean.
FORMATIVE AND ILLUSTRATIVE ROLES OF DESIGN
-Penny Sparke states "Design is apart of a dynamic process through which culture is actually constructed."
-The role of design is powerful. It assigns to design considerable responsibility for the transmission and production of culture.
SOCIAL SCHEMAS
-Schemas are mental structures that contain general expectations and knowledge about people, social roles, events, and places. These structures tell us how to behave and what to think in certain situations and are formed through our social encounters, in real life or as represented by the media.
THE TECHNOLOGICAL CONTEXT FOR DESIGN - MATERIAL MATTERS
- Materiality - or the physical qualities of a representation that give it individuality and allow it to be categorized, is an important aspect of what signs mean. The specific visual, spatial, auditory, kinesthetic, and temporal characteristics or form are content.
-Medium - Is a mode or system of communication that extends our ability to exchange meaning.
MEDIA AND TOOLS
Media refers to the character of our culture at particular times in history, as well as to our general expectations of information, how it behaves, and what it means.
