Digital Culture: Theorizing New Media

Modernism and postmodern contexts alongside with theorist and methodologies of new media coincide, to attempt to define the development of old and new media throughout time. There is no set definition or definable split between Modernism and old, and Postmoderism and ‘new media’. Glen Creeber has taken the approach of analysing Digital Theory and the series of events which have taken place throughout this time which have contributed to the development of the media, technologies and overall cultural condition, giving a general rise to this postmodern, ‘new media’.

Creeber discusses how modernist’s believe industrialisation to be the enemy to individuality and unique cultures within society as the emergence of new technologies and sceientific theories within the media industry create a banal and derivative world, whereas with the example of art and the individuality artists create find a unique place in the market and take away the stain of an everyday, mass culture.

“As the growth of technology and science transformed our conception of society and ourselves, so artists and intellectuals sought new ways to represent and articulate the fragmentation of this ‘brave new world’.” (Creeber. G, Digital Theory, 2009. P12)

With reference to David Harvey’s take on this transformation being a ‘struggle’ for a unique or distinct creation within the world, he stated that this“…had to be an individual effort forged under competitive circumstances’ (emphasis in the original, 1990: 22). And it was partly modernism’s belief in the power of art and the artist to transform the world.” (Creeber. G, Digital Theory, 2009. P12)

A European Marxists point of view demonstrated during the early development of the media by ‘The Frankfurt School’ explored the mass culture and mass production within the media within America and concluded with media becoming a standardized product of industrialization and the culture industry becoming just as standard with no stimulation for individuality or uniqueness for audiences and a ‘Fordist’ mass production being a corrupting influence of mass culture. Everything these Marxist theorists analysed about the media appeared to becoming more and more identical such as TV shows, magazines etc.

“In particular, the context of modernism gives us a theoretical insight into the way in which the media was understood and the ideological impulses which inevitably influenced its critical theories.” (Creeber. G, Digital Theory, 2009. P14)

Structuralism and semiotics have let theorists understand the encoding and decoding of images and texts but more importantly enlightened how audience manipulation by these texts and through research has shown audiences as powerless and bombarded with mass media, making their wants and needs undefined and clouded by the constant injection by the messages of producers.

In conclusion, Creeber has shown a number of events to illustrate how the theories and methodologies associated with old and new media and by organizing modern and postmodern contexts has clarified that their indeed is no rupture between old and new media but simply a series of events giving rise to new media.

Bibliography

Creeber, G. (2009) DIGITAL THEORY: Theorizing New Media & Cubitt, D. (2009) Case Study: Digital Aesthetics in Ed. Creeber, G. & Royston, M. (2009) Digital Cultures: Understanding New Media; Maidenstone, Open University Press