Anthony J. Pennings, PhD

WRITINGS ON DIGITAL ECONOMICS, ENERGY STRATEGIES, AND GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS

The Framing Power of Digital Spreadsheets

The power of framing in digital spreadsheets arises from the ability to define what data is included, how it is processed by functions or formulas, and the visual or numerical emphasis placed on specific inputs and outcomes. Spreadsheets exert framing power through selecting and prioritizing data, formula logic and embedded assumptions, standardization and norms, simplifying complex realities, and selective presentation of results.

The Digital Spreadsheet: Interface to Space-Time, and Beyond?

The digital spreadsheet, a visual interface, uses language and numerical information organized for intelligibility and uses media and mathematical formulas to initiate horizontal and vertical causation. The spreadsheet interfaces the conscious agent with space-time and the quantum realm to operate in the space-time reality and to “summon” new realities through the acts of writing and measurement.

Spreadsheets and the Rhetoric of Ratios

In this post, I examine the figuring of ratios as a conceptual technique for constructing systems of understanding in the modern political economy. Ratios can serve as rhetorical devices by shaping how information is perceived, interpreted, and communicated. They distill complex relationships into digestible comparisons, enabling speakers or writers to emphasize particular points or narratives. […]

Digital Spreadsheets – Techno-Epistemological Power over People and Resources

Understanding spreadsheets helps us see how they work in organizations and how they are implicated in the reproduction of information practices and institutional memories over time. I previously described the different media components of the spreadsheet that come together to create the gridmatic framework that registers, classifies, and identifies new conceptual understandings of organizational dynamics. These institutions or collectivities can be a neighborhood coffee shop or a global corporation; they can be a local Girl Scout Chapter or an international NGO.

Digital Spreadsheets – Part 5 – Ease and Epistemology

In this post, I discuss how spreadsheets in conjunction with other forms of financial and managerial representation not only produce the ongoing flows of knowledge that run the modern economy but have created a technologically-enhanced epistemology for garnering resources, registering value, and allocating wealth.

Lotus Spreadsheets – Part 3 – Identifying the Components of a Transformative Tool

I begin a formal analysis of the spreadsheet by identifying some of its component parts, a type of Cartesian reductionism, but with the intent of showing also how they all work together to create a powerful organizational and productivity tool. Spreadsheets combine a number of technologically enhanced cognition features to create, manipulate and visualize diagrammatic rationalities. In other words, spreadsheets not only appraise aspects of reality, but are constitutive technologies that can shape perceptions and empower control over the lived experiences of people and the resources that support them.

How IT Came to Rule the World, 2.4: Global Money and Spreadsheet Capitalism

Spreadsheet technology was foundational for digital monetarism because it provided a calculative tool that became universally available and provided immediate feedback via the accessibility of the personal computer.

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  • About Me

    Professor at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea since 2016. Moved to Austin, Texas in August 2012 to join the Digital Media Management program at St. Edwards University. Spent the previous decade on the faculty at New York University teaching and researching information systems, digital economics, and strategic communications.

    You can reach me at:

    apennings70@gmail.com
    anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr

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    The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of my employers, past or present.