I'm currently reading through my notes from my MA degree, editing and
updating them and reviewing quotes to see if it is worth re-reading
particular concepts. I'm increasingly aware of the dates in which a
lot of these books were written, well over 10 years ago now - and yet,
I sit through tweetstream after tweetstream of new media related
events, I can't help feeling that I've heard it all somewhere before.
We are truly inoculated from our past experiences. Stop waffling and
taking half-baked opinions for granted, look at the past, we need a
purpose and we need dedicated evidence. Otherwise we're just wasting
time - it's been said before, with definitely more succinctness and far
better examples.
“Technology catalyses change not only in what we do but in how we
think. It changes people’s awareness of themselves, of one another, of
their relationship with the world.” (Turkle, 1984: 3)
New Media “…enables a system of multiple
producers/distributors/consumers, an entirely new configuration of
communication relations in which the boundaries between those terms
collapse. A second age of mass media is on the horizon.” (Poster,
1995: 3)
“What is new about new media comes from the particular ways in which
they refashion older media and the ways in which older media refashion
themselves to answer the challenges of new media.” (Bolter & Richard,
1999: 15)
Theories associated with the arrival of a post-industrial society:
Daniel Bell and Post-Industrialism
The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973)
“...argues that the post-industrial society emerged from changes in
the social sector. He sees the economy and occupational structure as
influential here, but does not see politics or culture as significant
factors in the change.” (Nayar, 2004: 49)
Manuel Castells and the Informational City
“In a series of works on the informational society Castells identifies
an 'informational mode' of development. This is a new
sociotechnological paradigm, with information processing as the main
activity. Information processing influences all the processes of
production, distribution, consumption and management.” (Nayar, 2004:
52)
Jean Baudrillard and Postmodern Simulacra
“Baudrillard's work has been enormously influential in media studies
of the new age, has constantly emphasised the image, the development
of 'virtual' models of reality and the commodity-consumerist culture
of contemporary life.” (Nayar, 2004: 53)
“Baudrillard's central argument is that in the age of perfect
reproduction and endless repetition of images, the distinction between
the real and the illusory, between original and the copy, between
superficiality and depth has broken down. What we now have is a
culture of 'hyperreality'.” (Nayar, 2004: 53)
Arjun Appadurai and Globalised Culture
“Appadurai's work (2000 [1990]) argues that the central problem of
contemporary globalising processes in the 'tension between cultural
homogenization and cultural heterogenization.” (Appadurai, 2000: 94,
in Nayar, 2004: 56)
Bolter, J. and Richard, G (1999) Remediation - Understanding New
Media, Cambridge, MIT Press: MA
Nayar, P. K. (2004) Virtual Worlds: Culture and Politics in the Age of
Cybertechnology Sage: London
Poster, M. (1995) The Second Media Age. Blackwell: Cambridge
Turkle, S. (1984) The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit,
Granada Publishing: London
