Summary Lectures Introduction to New Media and Digital Culture/ Inleiding nieuwe media en digitale cultuur
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Course
Inleiding Nieuwe Media en Digitale Cultuur
Institution
Universiteit Utrecht (UU)
Complete lectures Introduction to New Media and Digital Culture/ Inleiding nieuwe media en digitale cultuur in English, 2018/2019, first year Taal- en Cultuurstudies.
Aantekeningen hoorcolleges Inleiding nieuwe media en digitale cultuur
-Hoorcollege 1 Ma 4 feb
→ Why study new media?
→ How to study new media? (historically comparative)
→ What can we say about the role of new media in our lives? (McLuhan vs
Williams)
-Why study new media?
->Are everywhere (doesn’t necessarily mean they are important)
->More importantly: Have an important impact on our lives, which is not obvious from the
get-go. -> Locally (for example Kijkduin + Pokemon Go, social media in the classroom) and
globally (data being sold such as Cambridge analytica with political ads and facebook data,
Trump on twitter; making presidency more transparent, difficult questions in short texts,
bypassing democracy/the state (Arab Spring) by negotiating in public, twitter impact).
-We are looking at new media more critically; intentions, possible views, possible outcomes,
not like social scientists at the influence of new media on society/individuals.
-Need to be careful: our job to develop a more critical perspective on new media (not only
positive, not only negative). ->Don’t believe the hype; not new stuff out there, but a broader
perspective on the role of new media in our lives, how to study new media etc.
-How do we study new media?
->What are its characteristics, What is it, How is it used, What is the impact?
-> Perspective of the user. New type of use/production. New media are converging user and
producer in one.
-> More generally on the impact of new media; potential impact (locally, globally, culturally,
economically, etc.)
→ 3 levels: 1. Formal characteristics of a new media “text”. 2. Production,
distribution, and use/reception.
-Comparing histories; what’s new? What is its potential impact in comparison to old media?
(for example tv vs games; lean back media vs lean forward media. In connection to different
ideologies.) -> “The question of the new requires a historical problem, a temporal and
spatial framework in which there are risks of setting up the new as culmination, telos of
fulfillment of the old, as the onset of utopia or dystopia. The conceptual problem is to enable
a historical differentiation of old and new without a totalising narrative.” (Mark Poster in Lister
et. al., 2009, p.58)
-Howard Rheingold (p. 52-52 boek): virtual reality as combination of development process,
which started with the cave drawings in Lascaux.
--”Primitive, but effective cyberspaces may have been instrumental in setting us on the road
to computerized world building in the first place.” (Howard Rheingold in Lister et. al., 2009,
p.52)
->Teleology: the seed was planted for virtual reality in these cave drawings in Lascaux.
From Lascaux cave drawings to virtual reality via logical and progressively developing steps.
→ Teleology: Looks at history with a certain goal; assumes phenomena have certain
predestined purposes that they develop towards.
, “Old media”= “primitive” versions of the more “perfect” new media. The past is merely a
lesser developed stage in the linear and logical development process towards the future.
→ Problems: What do we do with contrasting/coincidental developments? What is
the telos (purpose) and why? Individuals, groups, societies use and develop
technology in a widely different way. It relies on an infallible believe in progress
(making “old media” a mere benchmark for the next version, obsolete).
-Alternative histories:
->Genealogy (p. 58-59 boek): “the most satisfactory resolution” (Mark Poster). Not looking
for a point of origin but instead presents history as a web of connections between different
phenomena, institutions, practices, etc. -> Not a clear line, but a messy web. This
perspective offers us new ways of establishing histories of new media that do not rely on
teleological relationships to old media.
-Remediation: “The ‘new’ in new media is the manner in which the digital technologies that
they employ ‘refashion older media’, and then these older media ‘refashion themselves to
answer to the challenges of new media.” (Lister et. al., 2009, p. 47). -> one medium in
comparison to another media have a dialogical relationship; not one way process, but two
way and overlap between media in characteristics etc. (for example games; very cinematical
but certain games have great influence in movies; two way)
-Media archaeology: drawing short-circuits, trying to make connections (games and the
cinema of attractions (focused on the spectacle; showing off technology); focus on
spectacle, not on story. By comparing games to cinema of attractions you see new things in
both.)
“The past has become a vast reservoir of styles and possibilities that are permanently
available for reconstruction and revival.” (Lister et. al., 2009, p. 64).
-Deja vu: “So, the history in question this time is (...) of the terms in which societies
responded to and discussed earlier ‘media revolutions’.” (Lister et. al., 2009, p. 65).
→ “Technological imaginary”: social and psychological desires (and fears)
accompanying the establishment of a new media phenomenon. Desire for something better
(the technofile): the couch potato vs. the active gamer, passive indoctrination vs. interactive
construction. / Fearing the new; addiction, identification with the aggressor, lacks the
aesthetic quality and emotional depth of a book, escapism.
-A psycho-analytical concept describing how desires for a better society (wholeness,
completeness) are projected onto new information and communication technologies. (same
process with fears= moral panic) -> Helps us to see what we (dis)value in our social reality
and other (older) media. (for example Jane McGonigal: games don’t distract us from real
lives, they fulfil our lives. ->Projecting hopes for the world on games; games can make the
world better.)
-What can we say about the role of new media?
Technological determinism (McLuhan) vs. social constructivism (Williams).
-McLuhan outdated, but interest in his work resurged (and thereby his influence) with new
media. (Lister et. al., 2009, section 1.6.2.)
->McLuhan (boek p. 82-85): new media extend our senses, they transform our human
condition (mental functions)-> medium = the message (for example Robocop; augmented
reality in helmet that extends his senses and changes his perspective).
, They do this in a dialectic/cyclical process called remediation (Jay Bolter and Richard
Grusin). Broad understanding of media; not interested in the content, but in the technology
(physical aspect). Technology = everywhere, we can not move beyond technology.
Imbedded in our lives. Not interested in the intentions/content/meaning/producers of specific
media, but he says that the medium itself is transforming our worldview: “it matters not (...)
why we are taking the train journey, or where we are going in the train. These are irrelevant
side issues which only divert us from noticing the train’s real cultural significance. Its real
significance (the message of the medium itself) is the way it changes our perceptions of the
world.” (Lister et. al., 2009, p. 83). Acknowledges different phases in history: 1. “primitive”
oral culture. 2. culture of literacy. 3. print culture (industrial printing press). 4. electronic
culture. “For the ‘message’ of any medium of technology is the change of scale or pace or
pattern that it introduces into human affairs.” (McLuhan, 1964/2001, p. 8)
-Remediation: The content of any medium is always another medium -> “The content of
any medium is always another medium. The content of writing is speech, just as
the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph.
If it is asked, ‘What is the content of speech?,’ it is necessary to say, ‘It is an
actual process of thought (...)” (McLuhan, 1964/2001, p. 8) → end of strict
separations; “What is important about electric light for McLuhan is the way that
it ended any strict separations between night and day, indoors and outdoors and
how it then (...) remediated already existing technologies and the kinds of human
organization built around them: cars can travel and sports events can take place at night,
factories can operate efficiently around the clock, and buildings no longer need windows.”
(Lister et. al., 2009, p. 84).
→ Determinism: media as important determinants (mediators) of the environment of our
human condition, without us being aware of this. They change who we are as humans. -
>Danger; may start to escape our attention that technology is not the sole cause of historical
change. (Williams)
-Determinism is not progressivism: “Many people seem to think that if you talk about
something recent, you’re in favor of it. The exact opposite is true in my case. Anything I talk
about is almost certainly something I’m resolutely against. And it seems to me the best way
to oppose it is to understand it. And then you know where to turn off the buttons.” (McLuhan
in Benedetti & de Hart, 1997/1966, p. 70)
->Raymond Williams: Founding father of the currently dominant perspective into new
information and communication technologies in cultural studies and media studies. Not
interested in technology, but in the content of the technology and the way it is used; why
media are developed and intentions (not what), social/cultural/political/economic variables
shaping media, why and how media are used. The change in who we are as humans is by
the people behind the media, not the technology itself. New media do not cause radical
changes to occur; it’s business. Changes are the result of human agency; we can also
change it ourselves.
Summary:
-McLuhan: Formal characteristics of a new media “text” → Role/impact of new
media in local and global social, cultural and economic processes.
-Williams: Production, distribution, and use/reception
-> Formal characteristics of a new media “text”.
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