K Knight Research Highlights

About

Research Profile

I am a scholar of contemporary literature and new media whose research draws upon the fields of literary, cultural, film, and media studies. My interests center on the relationships between media, technologies, and subjects, both in the ways that these are represented and in the ways that they interact in “real life.” Thus, my work simultaneously addresses vehicles of representation – print fiction, film, digital texts – and the circulation and effects of media and technologies in contemporary Western society.

My research and teaching methodologies can be situated under the umbrella of the Digital Humanities, the intersection of information technologies with the study of the humanities. As a hybrid theorist / practitioner, I produce research that includes traditional written analysis along with text visualizations and other digital objects. I incorporate technological platforms for writing and discussion into the classroom and encourage students to express critical thinking through assignments that explore the productive possibilities and limitations of multiple media forms.

My work, a type of scholarly media convergence, is further enhanced through my participation in collaborative projects and I have a proven track record as a designer of projects, a project leader, and an active project participant.

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Dissertation

Overview

Media Epidemics: Viral Structures in Literature and New Media

In the 1980s and early 1990s, as western societies moved into a post-communist, post-atomic social condition, several factors developed in parallel in relation to viruses. 1983 marked both the discovery of the HIV virus and the first time that the term “virus” was used to describe a self-replicating computer program. At the same time that social awareness of HIV was spreading, the personal computer became more user friendly and was installed in an increasing number of middle-class homes. Thus, developing along separate trajectories, social awareness of biological viruses and social awareness of computer viruses were on the rise.

It was not until the mid-1990s however, with the advent of what is now commonly referred to as “network society”, that the stage was finally set for the proliferation of what my dissertation terms “viral structures.” Viral structures are located within media ecologies that may include both framed media (texts such as literature, film, etc. that “represent” the viral within their content) and unframed media (media and technologies that operate virally, without necessarily invoking the metaphor). Thus, a viral structure can be any text/technology/etc. that represents or relies upon a paradigm of infectiousness, i.e. operation outside of control structures, obscured transmission, and an engagement in production and reproduction via unconventional means. My dissertation argues that viral structures provide a productive lens through which to view power and resistance for the subject that is always, irrevocably, connected.

Media Epidemics is an interdisciplinary project that touches upon literary, cultural, film, and media studies. It is also unique in that I employ various visual and interactive rhetorical strategies as part of the argument of each chapter. Drawing upon the telescopic research methods outlined by Franco Moretti in Graphs, Maps, and Trees, each chapter has a visual or digital component that makes important claims for the chapter’s overall argument.

Chapter One Sample

Far from flat, cold, and neutral, the screen of Ring exceeds Manovich’s definition of the television screen on multiple levels. The spectator is most definitely immersed in the screen of Ring, which exceeds the typical role of the dynamic, representational screen,. The screen demands the viewer’s full attention before they even know about its deadly implications. As Asakawa watches the tape, he “[brings] his face close to the screen” (75) to focus on the details of the video. With his face close to the screen, Asakawa no doubt feels its warmth and static charge, characteristics of the screen that generally escape the spectator’s notice. This immersion is visually represented in all of the other versions of Ring. In the film versions, each of the characters ignores the furniture behind him or her and sits on the floor, leaning toward the screen as they watch the tape, light flickering on their features. This is perhaps most dramatic in The Ring Virus as we see Sun-ju from the perspective of the screen. She inserts the tape and moves her body back to watch the video. As it starts she bring herself forward again to be closer to the screen. The movement, back and then forward, amplifies her proximity to the screen. In each filmic version, the character’s proximity to the screen indicates their immersion in the content, a relationship that should not be possible given the size of the television screen.

Ringu and the manga The Ring both double the sense of immersion in the screen. In Ringu, Asakawa sits on the floor, close to the screen, and inserts the tape. Once the video begins, however, the entire frame of the film is filled with the content of the video. There is no indication of the television that encases the screen within the frame. There are no cuts to Asakawa’s reaction as she watches. Thus the presentation of the video to the film’s spectator is intended to mimic the immersive experience of Asakawa as she views the tape. In the manga The Ring, the video is represented in the art of Inagaki’s still frames. Many of the frames showing the video carry the image all the way to the edge of the page—there are no gutters framing the images. Inagaki’s unframed images are the still equivalent of Nakata’s decision to fill the entire film frame with the video—it gives the film’s spectator or the book’s reader a sense of immersion that parallels that of the spectator within the text. The screen of Ring thus exceeds the standard object “screen” in that it demands the viewer’s complete attention and total immersion in the content it is presenting. In some cases, such as Ringu and the manga The Ring, the immersion is then doubled to draw the audience into the experience.

Chapter Two Sample

To recap, the standard object viral video does not correlate with the screen grab in the areas of Advertising Transparency, Fake Headlines, Sex Appeal, Production Quality, or with the genres that Parks claims will typically go viral. There may be a correlation between virulence and Length, though videos that are long are not precluded from virulence. While Re-mixability is not a necessary component of virulence, it certainly does not hurt a video’s circulation. There does seem to be a positive correlation between virulence and Shock, Passion, and Narrative, though each of these areas requires a more nuanced definition than is associated with the standard object. At the extreme ends of the spectrum, Community has a positive correlation with virulence, though Affect is an additional correlating factor that should be considered.

The screen grab taken of the Viral Video Chart on September 24, 2009 indicates that the standard object of “viral video” is indeed a ruse of misplaced concreteness. Rather than shocking or sexy, misleading or grainy and difficult to watch, it would seem that, in general, the videos that were most popular on that day were those that surprised viewers, made them feel good, were well-produced, had aesthetic qualities, and that reinforced or allowed entrée to community groups. Each of these qualities is still fairly broad and it will be worth examining the videos more closely to try to determine which memes were those that dominated our attention “at the expense of rival memes” (Dawkins 197).