The Newness of New Media Jakob Svensson 129

The ”Newness” of New Media Jakob Svensson 12/9 2013 1

Miller: Understanding Digital Culture Anti-determinism - society and technology cannot be understood apart (p. 3 -5) Focuses on the mundane and pervasive use of the internet that has perhaps not revolutionized the world, but become enmeshed with the structures of our society (p. 1) Online and offline cannot be separated Technologies are more than just technologies they are a set of social relations which incorporate the use of such technologies (p. 3) Affordances 2

Miller: Understanding Digital Culture Intentions as motivating factors (p. 5) - Fulfill a need or solve a problem - Bring about certain conditions in the future - Create some kind o gain (profit) The Internet What problem? What future? What gain? Infrastructures as enabling certain practices and social relations (p. 7) support certain ways of living (p. 8) - Media logics Infrastructure refers to he underlying framework or basic foundation of an organization (p. 7) And here we live in a capitalist society – very important to understand digital culture 3

Questions Do you remember the pre-digital society? 4

Questions Do you remember the pre-digital society? Are you digital natives? 5

Questions No doubt that society has changed profoundly with digital media 6

Questions No doubt that society has changed profoundly with digital media But has this lead to a better or worse society? 7

Questions Are we more active media consumers (users) online? 8

What is “new” with new media? 9

It is Digital! Van Dijk (2006) defines new media as media, which are both integrated and interactive and also uses digital code. Digital technology seems to be behind most of the newness of new media, introducing digital artificial memories and digital transmission and reproduction Digitalisation means is that all signals are chopped into little pieces of ones and zeros (bits) that with the aid of microelectronics can be transported and connected fast without interference 10

It is Fast The invention of the microchip, consisting of hundreds of thousands of connections on a surface of just a few square millimetres is, together with developments of transmission capacity through broadband wireless technology, of utmost importance in the development of digital communication. This leads to digital media no longer being fixed in time and space, and being able to combine both offline and online media, i. e. convergence 11

It is based on Computing The computer takes on a special role here New media refers to the convergence between the computer and other media technologies. In contrast to the print press, computing affects all stages of communication, including acquisition, manipulation, storage and distribution. In contrast to the camera, the computer affects all types of media – texts, still images, moving images, sound and spatial constructions. 12

The “newness” of New Media Manovich (2001) concludes that new media are based on four principles: 1) Numerical Representation, that new media objects are composed by digital code 2) Modularity, that new media are represented as collections of smaller entities 3) Automation, that new media allow for the automation of many operations involved in media creation, manipulation and access 4) Variability, that new media is no longer a fixed object ones and for all 13

The “newness” of New Media characteristics that are often referred to as new are a) greater possibilities for convergence, interactivity, continuity, digitisation, content that is individually stored and individually produced, b) greater opportunities for interpersonal communication and more personalised forms of media content. c) the principle of numerical representation implies that media has become programmable d) the principle of modularity means that media may be manipulated by discerning, assembling, adding or removing pixels, polygons, voxels et cetera e) the principle of automation makes programming and manipulating media easier and more accessible with the consequence that media are constantly in progress, with an endless variability to it. 14

The “newness” of New Media f) This to the extent that we today may simulate realities/ fictions g) and communicate through time and space through a sort of telepresence h) The speed of bridging large distances in communication also leads to a potential geographical and social reach i) not to mention the storage potential, accuracy of information transmitted as well as the selectivity of messages and addresses j) Castells (2009: 23) talks about flexibility, scalability and survivability as major features behind the success of network types of organizations as a direct consequence of new media characteristics 15

Interactivity Among these characteristics, interactivity deserves special attention. 16

Interactivity might connote different things for different analysts. For example some claim that reactive is not the same as interactive (Rafaeli, 1988). There must be a possibility to establish synchronous communication between two or more parts that all share an understanding of the context and have the possibility to both send and receive messages (van Dijk, 2006: 8) These are very tough conditions. would that entail that social media are interactive? 17

Interactivity Baym (2010) distinguishes between a) social interactivity, the ability of a medium to enable social interaction, b) technical interactivity, a mediums capability to allow users to manipulate the machine, and c) textual interactivity, the creative and interpretive interaction between users and texts. New media is perhaps more physically interactive than mass media, but it can not reach the high level of interactivity that can be attained in face-to- face interactions 18

Social Media What is often considered as new, is developments towards mobile access to the Internet and web 2. 0. Web 2. 0 constitute the architecture of online user participation and encompasses social software that enable many-to-many publication. This is often referred to as social media and online social networking. O’Reilly (2005) argues that if a website is going to be defined as social, the user must be able to contribute to the content on that site. The user will have to have the possibility to control his or hers information, and the design is supposed to be interactive and useable (ibid. ). 19

Social Network Sites (SNS) The definition of SNS is more useful (and elaborate). Ellison & boyd (2007) defines them as different from other sites because they allow the user to articulate their social networks and making them visible to other users. SNS are thus web-based services allowing individuals to create (semi)public profiles, connecting this profile to other users (often selfselected), whose contacts in turn will be made accessible by the service (Ellison & boyd, 2007: 2) 20

Social Network Sites (SNS) Four characteristics of SNS, a) profiles, b) friends lists, c) public commenting tools and d) stream-based updates. Profiles serves both represent the individual and serves as the locus of interaction (boyd, 2011: 43), underlining the centrality of the individual. 21

Convergence became a buzzword in the 1990’s together with concepts of interactivity and the information society. Literary, convergence means movement directed to the same point. The starting point for assuming media convergence was due to digital communication, i. e. the digitalization of signals 22

Convergence as the integration of the technologies of telecommunication, data communication and mass communication to create one single digital communications infrastructure. Convergence thus implies a flow of content across different media platforms as well as cooperation between media industries. Convergence also entails a migratory behaviour of media audiences, referring to that in digital environments, consumption and production of mediated messages are becoming more intertwined and personalized than before Convergence is hence an ambiguous concept too since it is used differently both with regard to what is converging and what happens when something converges. 23

Convergence Miller talks about a) Technological convergence (everything become digital media) b) Regulatory convergence countries regulating digital industries in a same way – i. e deregulating the industry c) Media industry convergence – integration horizontally (expanding to the industries) or vertically (the whole production chain) 24

Convergence Culture 1) concentration of media power (media industry convergence) 2) democratisation of media use – prosumtion Hence a culture both top down corporate driven as well as bottom up consumer driven leads to a) cross media experiences (ex. Blair Witch Project) b) participatory media culture (consumers are encourage to seek new information and experiences c) collective intelligence (together you become smart -task together ex. Linux) 25

Aura Miller p. 23 Lack of aura (Benjamin – situational context) Is it this that we miss when we are in so-called teleprescence? 26

The Economic Foundations of Information Society innovations (such as tech) takes place in periods of economic down-periods it is said – in order to revive the market et cetera – could understand ICTs in light of this post -industrialism – are going from an manufactured based economy to an economy based on services especially information is becoming important here - and this will be along lines of who control information that elites and stratification will formed around in the future individualism and consumerism are consequences- from mass culture and consumerism to individual consumerism in the information age. 27

The Economic Foundations of Information Society Information society can be derived from these discussions in which information is becoming understood as the good that economy is centred around Miller understands information society as a post-fordist society Fordism = mass production in factories, hierarchical management, disciplined mass of workers engaged in repetitive tasks and mass consumer markets looking for standardised goods at a low cost (com. Individualised consumerism) When mass society fails – a more flexible organisation - to be able to adapt quickly (ex. the rise of manpower and such labour) – more flexible workforce Have created global division of labour - labour intensive processes require access to cheap work force (global south) knowledge demanding labour requires access to skilled works force (globalised north) 28

This is an unequal society Revolving around information (and communication/ networking/ networks) – access to it, ability to use it and right to produce it Here individual characteristics are important Age (large) Sex (small) Ethnicity (widening) And positional factors on he labour market (large) education (large) residence (in terms of countries as well as urban/rural) Second digital divide? 29

Space, Place and Time space of flows – the material arrangement that allow for simultaneity of social practice without territorial contiguity timeless time - “just a click away” Some of us can do what ever we want whenever we want (almost) Place is the arena in which space and time matters To exist as a person or as a place in the space of flows is to be connected to networks that go beyond the local sphere and are not limited by it Network capital (Urry, 2008) – to be mobile but and gain from mobility - the ability to use the technological network to contact social networks and make use of them to one’s benefit (p. 195). 30