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Key New Media Theories
OLD MEDIA
The ‘Media Gods’Passive Audience‘Appointment to view’ExpensiveSeparate PlatformsCentralizedWasted Time/Cognitive Surplus
NEW MEDIA
Web 2.0User GeneratedCross PlatformInexpensive to produceDecentralizedSocial‘Making is connecting’
David Gauntlett
The Media Gods
As opposed to
‘Making is connecting’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlzu8UYidTY
NEW MEDIA
Global Village‘Cool Media’
OLD MEDIA
The Gutenberg Galaxy‘Hot’ Media
Marshall McLuhan
The Medium is the
Message
As opposed to
‘We have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace.'
NEW MEDIA
Lean Forward‘Lean back 2.0’ OLD MEDIA
Lean back
Nielsen
Lean Forward, Lean Back
As opposed to
‘On the Web, users are engaged and want to go
places and get things done. The Web is
an active medium. While watching TV, viewers
want to be entertained. They are in relaxation
mode and vegging out; they don't want to make
choices. TV is a passive medium.’
Nielsen: Lean Forward/Lean Back
Different communication protocols.
Competing (expensive) commercial software
Military/Scientific/Academic users
URLsEvery ‘page’ has an addresshtmlShared non-commercial softwareW3Non Commercial body governs the rules (such as domain names and codes)
Tim Berners Lee
The Internet
The World Wide
Web
‘No barriers’
'I have always imagined the information space
as something to which everyone has
immediate and intuitive access, and not just to
browse, but to create.'
Includes all, irrespective of wealth, social status, or geography Monopolies (like Google)
Concentrate power and make the web brittle
Tim Berners Lee
DECENTRALISATION
As opposed to
‘By design, the Web has no centre, anyone can
create….'
Open source software (Linux, HTML)
Common Standards(W3C consortium)
Copyrighted commercial software.
Tim Berners Lee
OPENNESS
As opposed to
‘Openness empowers People.'
Includes all, irrespective of wealth, social status, or geography Information Poor
& Information Rich
Tim Berners Lee
INCLUSION
As opposed to
‘The Power of the Web flows from it’s
universality.'
Secure encryption
Freedom of expression State surveillance (eg PRISM)
State Censorship
Tim Berners Lee
PRIVACY,FREE
EXPRESSION,
SECURITY
As opposed to
‘Censorship on the web...directly attacks
freedom of expression.'
NEW MEDIA
Automated ‘Creativity’Database logicVariable TextsPersonalised Information
Lev Manovich ‘DATABASE’ MEDIA
As opposed to
‘“The Internet, which can be thought of as one
huge distributed media database ….'
OLD MEDIA
Creative ‘Authors’
‘Library’ logic
Stable texts (like books)
‘Impersonal’ Information
NEW MEDIA
CONVERGENCE CULTUREPARTICIPATORY CULTURECOLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE
OLD MEDIA
SEPARATE MEDIA PLATFORMSPASSIVE AUDIENCE CULTUREINDIVIDUAL INTELLIGENCE
Henry Jenkins
CONVERGENCE
CULTURE
As opposed to
‘The Power of the Web flows from it’s
universality.'
Aleks Krotoski: The Great Levelling
The (Tim Berners Lee) Web was built around two conflicting tendencies and
these are still playing out……..
• Big (Media) Corporations
• Government
Control/Censorship
• Centralised Infrastructure
• Market Capitalism
• Intellectual property
• Surveillance
• BIG BROTHER
• Libertarian
• Utopian/
Communitarian
• Open Sourced
• Crowd Sourced
• Open Architecture
• Anti Establishment
• Hackers & Pirates
• DISRUPTIVE
eMediaElectronic versions/add-ons to ‘old media’
EG: eMail, Messaging, Online NewspapersPay to view Movies
User Generated ContentAudiences become the producersThe Wisdom of CrowdsAudiences share their favourites, tags and reviewsThe Network EffectAudiences communicate with each other directly.
Tim O’Reilly: Web 2.0
Web 1.0
The web as a
New way of publishing
existing Media Content
(Another Platform)
Invented the term
‘Web 2.0’ and said
there were six big
ideas that make it
work; the most
important to Media
being:
Web 2.0
The Web as a
Social Network
Lev Manovich
‘Software takes Command’
Automation
• Decreases “human intentionality” in the creative process.
• EG: Photoshop filters
• Blurs lines between professional and amateur.
Database Logic
“The Internet, which can be thought of as one huge
distributed media database, also crystallized the basic
condition of the new information society: overabundance of
information of all kinds…By the end of the 20th century, the
problem became no longer how to create a new media object
such as an image; the new problem became how to find the
object which already exists somewhere…The emergence of
new media coincides with the second stage of a media society, now concerned as much with accessing and re-using existing media as with creating new one”
Variability
• Old media involves human creator(s) composing a fixed/stable text that is then copied and distributed through mechanical means.
• New media (like flickr) “give rise to many different versions. And rather than being created completely by a human author, these versions are often in part automatically assembled by a computer”
Customization / Personalization
• You enter information about yourself and then the automated software creates a personalized interface to the database just for you.
• Reveals a post-industrial logic.
(Example: amazon recommendations)
Henry Jenkins: Media Convergence
JENKINS: CONVERGENCE
• ‘By convergence, I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who would go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they wanted. ’
PARTICIPATORY CULTURE
• “In this emerging media system, …consumers are transformed into participants who are expected to interact with each other ...each of us constructs our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information we have extracted from the ongoing flow of media around us and transformed into resources through which we make sense of our everyday lives.”
COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE
• “Because there is more information out there …than we can store in our heads, there is an added incentive for us to talk amongst ourselves about the media we consume. …Consumption has become a collective process... None of us can know everything; each of us knows something; we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources …. Collective intelligence can be seen as an alternative source of media power. ”
Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0: The Six Features
1. User Generated Content
2. The Wisdom of Crowds
3. Data on an epic scale (Big Data)
4. Architecture of Participation
5. Network effects
6. Openness
The Network Effect (Tim O’Reilly)
We have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned.Rapidly, we approach the final phase of the extensions of man.. the technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society.
Mcluhan: Saw The New Media is an ‘extension of man’
Hot Mediumextends single sense in high definition
low in audience participation
engenders specialization/fragmentation
detribalizes
excludes
extends space
creates ‘Horizontal’ associations
Cool Mediumlow definition (less data)
high in audience participation
engenders holistic patterns
tribalizes
includes
collapses space
creates ‘vertical’ associations
Mcluhan: Media ‘Hot’, Media ‘Cool’
Four epochs of history:
Oral (tribe) culture
Manuscript culture
Gutenberg galaxy
Electronic age (The Global Village)
McLuhan wrote that the visual, individualistic print
culture would soon be brought to an end by what he
called "electronic interdependence": when electronic
media would replace visual culture with aural/oral
culture. In this new age, humankind will move from
individualism and fragmentation to a collective
identity, with a "tribal base." McLuhan's coinage for
this new social organization is the global village.
Mcluhan: The Global Village and the ‘Guttenberg Galaxy’
“..The medium is the message.
This is merely to say that the
personal and social
consequences of any medium -
that is, of any extension of
ourselves - result from the new
scale that is introduced into our
affairs by each extension of
ourselves, or by any new technology.”
Mcluhan: The Medium IS the Message
I Love New Media
‘…men at once become fascinated by any extension of themselves in any material other than
themselves
(McLuhan, The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis 1964)
The physical fact of instant transmission has been uncritically raised to a social fact, without any pause to notice that virtually all such transmission is at once selected and controlled by existing social authorities ...
Raymond Williams (1974)
Raymond Williams : The Media is always dominated by the rich and powerful in society (Marxist Perspective)
The Frankfurt School (Marxist): Saw all Media as ‘Mass Deception’. Is the New Media any different?
Films, radio and magazines make up a system which is uniform as a whole and in every part… are one in their enthusiastic obedience to the rhythm of the iron system…any trace of spontaneity from the public in official broadcasting is controlled and absorbed by talent scouts, studio competitions and official programs of every kind selected by professionals.
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1944)
The Media Gods
David Gauntlett
We used to just watch and listen
Using our own time- and at times set for us by the Media
The Media also used our ‘Cognitive Surplus’
Media technology was expensive
The Media ‘Gods’
Media handed ‘down from on high’
Each Media had it’s own platform
But all these were centralized
Web 2.0 isn’t ‘one way’- It’s interactive
New Media co-exist with the old platforms
New Media values ‘User Generated Content’
And encourages participation from all
There isn’t a sudden change
New media enters ‘the mix’ of media usage
Tim Berners-Lee invented Web 1.0
Web 1.0 was like individual gardens
Web 2.0 is like a shared allotment
Old Media used/wasted time
New Media is more of a ‘past-time’ or hobby
New Media is ‘feminised’- part of keeping busy- not ‘vegging out’ (Active v Passive)
A tendency to celebrate certain key texts produced by powerful media industries
Media Studies 1.0 Media Studies 2.0
An interest in the massive long tail of independent media projects such as those found on YouTube and many other … forms of DIY media..
‘DIY’ and the ‘Long Tail’
The ‘Long Tail’- Chris Anderson
I Love New Media
‘…men at once become fascinated by any extension of themselves in any material other than
themselves
(McLuhan, The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis 1964)
Clay Shirky
NEW MEDIA SlacktivismLifestyle PoliticsCyberhedonismSurveillanceCensorshipPropaganda
OLD MEDIA
Activism‘Street’ Politics
Evgeny Morozov
Slacktivism
As opposed to‘The Net is NOT inherently
liberating; its liberating
potential may shrink or grow
depending on the
circumstances .'
Field Positions in New Media - T.D.Sampson
Computer
scientists
The
McLuhanists
The Media
Marxists
Dominated by scientific agendas
state and corporate development
Emphasises the determining role
of the media
Critical approach to the culture
industries
(Frankfurt School)
Defined by (negative) political
economy approach to new media
(Westminster School)
‘Pioneers’ and ‘heroes’ build the
Internet
Big influence on ‘positive’
versions of new media theory
and popular concepts.
From Manovich to Wired
Magazine
Study of ‘meaning’ and dominate
ideology in communication
process (British Cultural Studies
and Media Studies Tradition)
Representation and semiotics
French structuralism and
poststructuralism – Barthes,
Derrida
Innovation leads to the digital, the
Internet and the Web.
Software practices…
Software studies – Matt Fuller
Post-representational
approaches
Postmodernism/post Marx –
Foucault, Baudrillard Deleuze
and Guattari
Italian automatists
Hardt and Negri
Political Positions
Libertarians Liberal Pluralists ‘c’Conservative
Political Belief
People should be able to do what
they want with the minimum of
state control. The weaknesses of
the few shouldn’t prevent the
freedom of the many.
Different communities should be
able to live together with a core
of common values, such as the
rule of law and the primacy of
free speech.
It takes centuries to develop a
strong culture and institutions.
Novel ideas need to learn to fit in
with existing values.The Jury is
still out.
Philosophy
‘Information wants to be free’
Regulation and control have no
place in the new territory of
Cyberspace.
The technology can be
empowering and educational
It is a ‘great leveller’, but all
citizens must have access to the
web as a ‘digital entitlement’.
Regulation may be needed to
ensure (safe) access.
The technology will tend to
damage traditional values and
economic systems including:
Literacy, Decency, Expertise,
Authority, Confidentiality, Privacy,
and Copyright
Causes
Piracy and Censorship Digital Citizenship, Safe access Internet Porn (Paedophilia etc),
Damage to young people,
Criminality, Privacy
