the Stream
[[concept]]
The Stream is a model of interactions on the internet introduced by Mike Caulfield in The Garden and the Stream- A Technopastoral (keynote). It is contrasted with the idea of the Garden.
According to Caulfield, most forms of social media or internet interactions are structured as a stream of time-serialized content. He compares this to a conversation (the Stream is inhospitable to strangers)
References
The Garden and the Stream- A Technopastoral (essay)
the predominant form of the social web... is an impoverished model for learning and research.... “the web as conversation”
you don’t experience the Stream by walking around it and looking at it, or following it to its end. You jump in and let it flow past. You feel the force of it hit you as things float by.
your actions in [the Stream] — your blog posts, @ mentions, forum comments — exist in a context that is collapsed down to a simple timeline of events that together form a narrative.
the Stream replaces topology with serialization. ...the Stream presents us with a single, time ordered path with our experience (and only our experience) at the center.
the Stream is “inhospitable to strangers.”
A web seen as a tool for self-expression rather than a tool for thought.
The web not as a reconfigurable model of understanding but of sealed shut presentations
[the Stream is] an incomplete experience, and it’s time we fixed that.
Mentions
| File |
|---|
Created 2025-03-23 Last Modified 2025-03-26
