Summary

How new technologies are represented....

This unit outlines some patterns in the representation of communication technology in advertising and other media texts. It notes patterns to be found and relates these to theories about the movement towards more informal ways of communicating in public, the mixing of informational and persuasive language for marketing purposes and the way that the commercial pressures influence the ways in which communication technology is presented. A key idea is the way inanimate technology is personified and presented as human, friendly and often business-focused.

Links:

• IT News A good place to view the use of technical terms.
• Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research Many articles on language and AI.
• Anandtech New technology reviews - good example of field-specific language use, epecially in BBS.
• "Cyborg Solutions" Company website - good example of new technology in advertising.
• Dell Company website - more good example of new technology in advertising.
• M Squared Company website - more good example of new technology in advertising.
• Eliza on the pull! Transcript of Eliza (human simulating bot) taking part in IRC.. managing to fool other participants into believing she was just a program.
• MIT Project Oxygen Optimistic and very elaborate project that claims: "In the future, computation will be freely available everywhere, like batteries and power sockets, or oxygen in the air we breathe".
• Surfing with ELIZA Humorous website with very useful information about ELIZA.
• The Infinity Machine Exploring "what the field of computing would be like if computers were able to run infinitely fast".
• START Natural Language Question and Answer System.

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