Silicon Valley Signals: Technological Enthusiasm & the Times
ଏହି ଇବୁକ୍ ବିଷୟରେ
Companies such as Apple, Google, Hewlett Packard,, and Intel compose part of the legend that Silicon Valley has become but the roots of that legend extend further in time and geography. Others have approached the same questions and have noted its industrial roots but only reached so far back. My contention is the modern economic and cultural phenomenon of Silicon Valley crystallized because of its local geomorphology and the ensuing technological enthusiasm contributed to its historical and material conditions for such techno mediatic unfolding.
This work will distinguish itself from others not just by connecting geography to technical developments, but also by exploring the epistemological disposition that Silicon Valley claimed and spilled over into upcoming milieus of technological development and civilizational progress. By addressing the research questions through methods and concepts derived from Media Archeology methodology, a methodology originating in the field of Media Studies, I argue that the manifold inter-involvements of geomorphology and technical enthusiasm account for the force of Silicon Valley in media history, and the book takes you through various intersections of concrete pillars to build you a sound frame of mind about this mysterious region and culture.
ମୂଲ୍ୟାଙ୍କନ ଓ ସମୀକ୍ଷା
ଲେଖକଙ୍କ ବିଷୟରେ
My underlying cause is to help people realize they are bound by time and space as long as they live and to encourage them to follow the words of Arthur Ashe to heart, mind, and soul when he said, "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." That is what I did, and frankly claim, I can do again and again through the insights and methodologies gained through my time in Silicon Valley and offered in this book. I want to help you the reader find sparks of fresh serendipity to inspire you to play with the world around you because through some curiosity, claim, and leverage of hands-on experience, I promise you can contract good things for yourself and the world.
I was born in Tehran and moved to San Jose, California with my family when I was thirteen years old. I received my B.A. in Analytical Philosophy, focusing on the philosophy of language, mind, communication, and phenomenology from UCLA (2009). During my undergraduate studies in Los Angeles, I was active in student leadership, ethics club and also wrote for the university newspaper covering Entertainment Media & Technologies with the Daily Bruin. Through these experiences, I made interconnections that lead me to become interested in studying semiotics and then became interested in going to New York to work in the advertising sphere to understand this concept through the most prevalent medium of all. After some reflection, I indeed became interested in social and philosophical insights that were underpinning these mediated productions; thus, for my graduate studies, I enrolled at the New School to study Media Studies in 2011.
We were part of the School of Public Engagement, so besides completing my required research methods courses, I concentrated on research regarding media and urban environments, and where the two meet at the intersection of place learning, local oral history. In order to satisfy my track, I dedicated my courses to the study of theory behind the sense of place and then applied it to where I was in Silicon Valley. I had read my mentor's book Places of Learning: Media, Architecture, Pedagogy (Elizabeth Ellsworth, 2014), and I had developed a heightened awareness of my temporal/spatial orientation. I dedicated several courses to gathering qualitative and quantitative data about resident's place identity and memories about its past. The collection of my studies transformed into a multi-mediated thesis titled, Interconnected Veins of Land and Media Technology Enthusiasm in Silicon Valley: A Media Archeology Inquiry (2017), which the book you are reading is a completion of this work. In this work, I explore the interconnections of geographical positioning, history/types of labor, and the interplay of technical enthusiasm and faith within the Silicon Valley locale. Habits are hard to break, even for places. Through designing several simple independent research projects throughout my courses, I got to locate found specimens above-and sometimes under- its (Silicon Valley) landscape, to approximate a possible pulse about that locale to explain its technological tendencies.
I want to continue my studies to merge my academic and professional experiences at the intersections of media, migration, and urban environment so that I can hopefully produce and contribute to industry or policy applicable work. I like to continue to be proactive and dedicate my work to the migrant community, and their sense of identity and attachment with their landing destinations. I want to understand newcomer acclamation to a destination from a mediated perspective, and to propose new solutions for location-based mediations about a locale through widening the media and technology sphere. All the insights you will read from me will be for the goal of creating content and "near us", and my ultimate effort is for the optimization of content, context, and commerce for better democratization of media and a more equal/represented share of voice (SOV) from local-and diverse-communities, for the incoming "other" communities to a new locale.
Please reach out to me via my email nmoinpour-at-gmail-dot-com to get in touch for questions, comments, criticism, encouragements, and collaboration invites.
