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

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.