Digital culture and theory

The rise of the Digital culture of today was and still is a development and reaction of certain events throughout the life span of 'new' and 'old' media. Glen Creeber discusses how the effects of the development of old media and modernism to the rise of new media during a post-modernism period, which has lead to the Digital age being a product of all past cultural revolutions and is merely a stepping stone to the next cultural and media change. Looking at the events that inspired change between modernism and post-modernism Creeber shows how the technological changes and cultural conditions of the time periods made new media inevitable.

Early nineteenth century modernism was the start of how society reacted to cultural changes after the industrial revolution. This industrialization lead to the growth of mass culture and the tension between modernism and mass culture. Even though both rely on each other, during this modernism period people saw modernism as away to analysis the difference between high cultural society rather than the mass produced standardized society. Drawing upon the work of the Frankfurt school and their approach to mass culture, Creeber used their discussion on the fordist philosophy to show how the same method had effected different mediums and their products. Newspapers and television broadcasting had to adjust after the industrial revolution. BBC's John Reith argued "broadcasting should be used to defend 'high culture' aginst the degrading nature and influence of mass culture." (Creeber, 2009 p.13)

After the Frankfurt school the Structuralist movement used semiotics in combination with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure on linguistics, they helped analysis texts through a system of signs which is still used today. "by 'decoding' these 'signs', Semioticians could gradually unravel the means by which an audience were being manipulated." (Creeber, 2009, p.14) these helped show us how media was understood going into the start of the twentieth century/ post- modernism.

Post-modernism is most associated with the post-industrial economy change from a production-economy to a service-economy. Much like Margaret Thatchers approach to the British economy, this was due to the decline in heavy industry. With the economy changes, society changed to a consumer society which was enforced by the rise in technology and new media, this had its own effect on society. "consumption and leisure now determine our experiences rather than work and production. This means that consumer culture come to dominate the cultural sphere" (Creeber, 2009, p.15)

This shows that the advancement of new technology and the effects they had on culture and society gave way for the growth of new media and in turn has already gave way for more development in certain media branches, for the digital age to come.

Bibliography

Creeber,G. (2009) Digital theory: theorizing New Media. Berkshire. Open University Press.