Network media technologies are generating new responses and effects in audiences. How are digital cultures changing?

So here's my response...

Within todays society the level of interaction with media content has grown vastly due to technological developments. These developments have changed and shaped the way individuals access, interact, and communicate with each other. Network media technologies relates to the construction and transformation of ideas to create a new online platform for the audience to access. By recycling and modernising existing ideas, it produces a new way of accessing content online in a world where the audience is becoming more active in retrieving information instantly. Over the last ten years technology, in particular new media forms such as social media and online gaming, has meant that the online presence has dominantly become the main form of entertainment and leisure time of the individual. This online presence allows the individual or ‘user’ to interact and access information instantly on the go via the use of technological advancements such as smart phones, tablets, and computerised notebooks enabling them to access the internet and content where available. This has meant that the audience has become more sophisticated as ‘users’ as they can create, consume, participate, publish, stream, download, upload, share and access content. This participatory culture formed has led many media theorists to various conclusions about the effect of new digital media on the consumer. In particular Henry Jenkins, an American theorist, expresses that the audience is no longer just a consumer, but are also producers and users. This demonstrates how the audience is becoming more active and involved in the online digital world. This immediacy demonstrated, due to the accessibility of the online platform, explains why the ‘users’ feels it has become the dominant form of media consumption compared to older forms such as books, letters, magazines, CD’s, DVD’s, film and television programmes; due to the fact that this format allows convergence and the use of intertextuality of different forms to be present all at the aid of the ’users’ hands.

“In the end, no matter how interesting, enjoyable, comfortable, or well accepted they are, these approaches borrow from existing paradigms. They weren’t conceived with digital media in mind and as a result don’t exploit the special qualities that are unique to digital worlds.” (Holtzman, 1997)

Steven Holtzman states that it isn’t the technology that has advanced our way of accessing content but essentially what medium we access it on. In terms of exploiting the medium it has to use these abilities to converge, engage, and interact with the ‘user’ by allowing them control of what they do with the content they receive and how they interpret it.

Cyberspace refers to

“The space in which computer transactions occur, particularly transactions between different computers. We say that images and text on the Internet exist in cyberspace, for example. The term is also often used in conjunction with virtual reality, designating the imaginary place where virtual objects exist.” (Dictionary Reference, 2015)

With the introduction of Web 2.0, which is a website that allows user-generated content to be created, it is now common for the ‘user’ to establish themselves online by producing a virtual profile. Using social media websites, such as Facebook and MySpace, allows the ‘user’ to form their own profile on how they wish to be presented. This could either be as a fixed identity, where the ‘user’ simply states how they are presented in the ‘real’ world, or a fluid non-fixed identity which combines these traits with attributes they desire by creating an avatar like figure. Using Marshall McLuhan’s theory of how the audience interacts online as an extension of the human sensorium, the individual does not just depend on ‘the body’ but can use a disembodied presence online as a form of communication to another individual.

“All media are extensions of some human faculty - psychic or physical…The Wheel is an extension of the foot. The book is an extension of the eye…clothing, an extension of skin…electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system.” (McLuhan, 1967)

Furthermore it allows an extension of their personality to be expressed in this form as the ‘user’ can choose to represent themselves as they are or how they wish to be represented. This can be done through the use of posting, sharing, uploading content which reflects how they wish to be seen by others, and by an online community. YouTube is a primary example of this as the phenomenon of vlogging has grown over the years. Vlogging essentially combines the older format of a blog, a written or online submission displaying opinions on certain topics, with the more contemporary style of recording and capturing footage via smart phones or portable cameras. This allows a portal of expression to take place allowing the ‘user’ to address their audience, ‘subscribers’ and ‘followers’, on certain topics or events that have taken place.

Creating an avatar-like figure, where people address an audience online that see you as how you wish to be presented, is becoming more popular in the virtual world as it can be seen as an ‘alternative’ reality in which the audience feels more relaxed as they are familiar with whom and what they surround themselves with. This avatar figure can be seen as a graphical representation of the user or their alter ego in virtual words such as video games. Most of the time video games offer the audience to play as a certain character but by adding the use of customisations allows the player to see parts of themselves in the character they are playing. The use of first person point of view also allows the player to navigate through the game as if it was them in person. This false state of mind blurs the lines between reality and the notion of what is real and what isn’t. Postmodern theorist, Jean Baudrillard, imposes that this definition of society is one of a hyperreal state in which entertainment and communication provides experiences that are more intense and familiar than scenes in everyday life.

“Baudrillard concludes that it is the interlocking of simulations that produces a strengthened sense of reality for the while world of simulations. Simulations are reified and become ‘hyperreal’. There is a cultural ‘implosion’ through which the boundaries between different spheres of activity are dissolved.” (Scott, 2006) He argues that there is a clear distinction between these two cultures therefore social interactions recede as ‘users’ are lost in the world of simulation and the virtual world. From a psychological point-of-view it can be argued that the virtual world is becoming more ‘real’ than reality itself by creating a world in which is shaped by the individual and their beliefs and their own take on how the world should be presented to them. This visual representation can be associated with realism art as it questions peoples beliefs on whether the image is a real life photo or a painting. This concept also relates to the virtual world being more ‘real’ than reality in the sense that the image could be a representation of how something should be constructed in everyday life. For example constructing an image which contains several different sources can be seen as the original as trying to create this in reality would seem a representation of that image. Once again this challenges the concept of what reality the individual chooses to live in and whether it is a fair representation of whom they wish to be.

Network technologies have created a new platform which is more engaging and interactive with the audience or ‘user’ than previous methods of media. This form of remediation and postmodernism, where the digital world has revolutionised the way people live their lives, has extended individuals interactions with one another in both online and in reality. It can also be argued that due to many people nowadays spending more time in the ‘virtual’ reality gaming and on social media websites, that the face-to-face interaction has declined therefore losing social values of how to interact and deal with issues in the everyday. The use of newer forms of technology doesn’t just establish how we view content but how we access the information that is already present to us. By updating this form of accessibility it has meant that the ‘user’ can easily navigate and form a collection of webpages, articles, images, and music all at the same time due to this new wave of technology. The use of social media has also changed the way in how people choose to be represented by their characteristics and online traits. Sharing, liking, favouriting, and subscribing to various sources online now makes it even easier for content to be shared amongst the ‘users’ audience or their own personal community or fanbase. Referring to Henry Jenkins, it can almost be said that there is no longer such thing as a consumer but more about the audience targeted as it is relatively easier to share and express your views to a larger audience in the online world that it the virtual.

References

Image 1: Netpages, Like, Share, Favourite, [Online] Available from: http://blog.netpages.co.za/2015/01/05/7-inventive-ways-small-businesses-effectively-utilize-social-networking-media/ [Accessed 12/01/16]

Holtzman, S., (1997) Digital Mosaics: The Aesthetics of Cyberspace, New York, Simon and Schuster

Image 2: Facebook, Facebook Logo, [Online] Available from: https://www.facebook.com [Accessed 12/01/16]

Houghton Mifflin Company, (2015), Cyberspace Definition, [Online] Available from: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cyberspace [Accessed 13/01/16]

McLuhan, M., Fiore, Q., (1967) The Medium is the Message, New York, Bantam

Scott, J., (2006), Social Theory: Central Issues in Sociology, London, Sage Publications Ltd

Bibliography Holtzman, S., (1997) Digital Mosaics: The Aesthetics of Cyberspace, New York, Simon and Schuster

McLuhan, M., Fiore, Q., (1967) The Medium is the Message, New York, Bantam

Scott, J., (2006), Social Theory: Central Issues in Sociology, London, Sage Publications Ltd

Jenkins, H. (2008) Convergence Culture, New York: New York University Press.

OLTER, J.D. and GRUSIN, R. (1999) Remediation: Understanding New Media, Cambridge, MA: MIT.