Auto-cultivation

In Creeber’s chapter “Digital theory: theorizing New Media”, he draws a line between old and new media by situating them into different historical periods of time, namely modernism and postmodernism. Old media is positioned in modernism, which is combined with a pessimistic theoretical framework approach, carried out by the Frankfurt School. A cultural shift occurred to postmodernism, in which new media play the main role. Postmodernist theory suggests an active audience with a developing public sphere (cf. Habermans)(Creeber, 2009, pp. 11-17).

Both in Creeber’s and Jenkins’ work, the notion of New Media combined with participatory culture is ubiquitous (Creeber, 2009, p. 19 & Jenkins, 2006, p. 3). This interactivity of the consumers, such as Web 2.0., implies a difference in  the consumption of media (Jenkins, 2006, p. 17). The ‘audience’, creating their own content with relatively equal power as the ‘media producers’, now face new opportunities, but also challenges to keep the content flow. In this respect, taking into account the Cultivation Theory by Gerbner might be useful. With old media, it was clear that, as Creeber states it too, one dominate ideology was cultivating the audience. However, applying this theory to New Media results in the understanding that now, audience have to cultivate themselves. With an unequal access to the New Media and less possibility to gate keep the information flow, those who have greater abilities to participate in this emerging culture (Jenkins, p. 3), which are usually the higher socio-economic classes, become the beholders of the ‘truth’, deciding what content will be consumed.

Furthermore, the Old Media theory of the hypodermic needle effect model should not be neglected. Media, whether old or new, do not differ in the fact that they both exercise consistent effects on those receiving it. But important to recognize is that the nature of the effects are changing. With the ‘audience’ as the main content provider, the content of the media is differing,  which is usually stated by critics as a decline in quality. And off course, it is self-evident that different content implies different influences.

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

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: where old and new media collide. revised version. NYU Press.