What I am "passionately committed" to in research

So this Ethics of Internet Research reading today really made me think about things that are important to me about research. I value voices - especially those often ignored - and I value new lenses for looking at things we think we already understand. I value research that helps people - those I study, those I teach, those I work with. I value honesty about the process. I know research is messy and I hate it when people pretend it isn't or that they don't have any questions or concerns about their work. Just tell me the truth - I might not agree, but I'll appreciate it.

I realize that some of the things I value - newness and those that are ignored - makes researching in and about some of the spaces/places I love tricky. How do I report what I see and not get involved or "change" the space? Is it such a bad thing to change things - to make participants aware of what they are doing and to ask them to explain it to me? It's risky, it's time-consuming, it's scary. I think it's worth it.

Din is coming into focus

I think we have enough brilliant ideas to start four mags right now, but i am concerned about a cohesive feel to the mag. I noticed several common themes that came up for folks:
-Slowing down readers (inviting them into the safety of a fallout shelter, encouraging still images as appear in comic books, celebrating new ways to mess with text that force folks to go slowly).
-Materiality (hadwritten, DIY, clean/animation)
-Minimalist (don't fear white space, less we say the more we do)
-Retro (fallout shelters, handwriting, repurposing older images)
-Interaction (facebook, inhabiting a space)

One thing it seems we'll have to hash out is whether to mimic books or mimic space.

Really like the idea of a serious focus being placed on Facebook and Twitter as outreach for authors and readers.

Content:
Will we separate it:
One group - Audio
One group - Image
One group - Text

What does this do to celebration of integration of forms and modes?

Reading WWII images

I love this image of a woman clutching letters from her lost love serving overseas.

It's from: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/its_a_womans_war_too/images_html/longing.html

I think it's pretty genius as far as the use of shading, color (red everywhere - love, danger) and subtle symbols - the star banner standing in for the soldier serving overseas, the ring on her finger symbolizing marriage. Her gaze is interesting too - what's she looking at? The future, a time when he is back?

Gettin' Literary

I'm pretty psyched to get up-to-speed on the world of lit mags and am thrilled that we are joining the ranks. I'm still mulling over our call for submissions but plan to post on that tonight or tomorrow. Just wanted to get a first post up and running.