The unnatural interface

Today's generation have developed and 'updated' alongside the computer screen interface. By learning the functions of the window interface from a young age, users integrate with the technology until the point where interaction becomes second nature. Debra Shaw notes this connection between the body and interface, "My computer and I constitute a cybernetic system"(Shaw, 2008,pg.90). How we automatically know when to click, scroll, drag, how to search and select the content we want though the interface design, " making the interfaces "transparent" and therefore more "natural""(Bolter, 2000,pg.32). Through constant "contact with the interface" the user "learns to read, just as she would read any hypertext", the language and shared knowledge that makes up the interface experience (Bolter, 2000,pg.33)

This however identifies that though we are automated within the technological interface, we are aware it is unnatural. The "obviously mediated" functionality of the interface, the buttons, the links, the irritating Microsoft animated paperclip clearly defines the computer window from the real world. The interface is constricted by the physicality of the technological medium it is contained in. Although this lack of "the real" only furthers our desires for "immediacy", as mediation "tries to reproduce the rich sensorium of human experience" (Bolter, 2000,pg.34). There is a constant negotiation of the "visual space as mediated and as "real", a conflict between the surface and the deeper cultural meaning (Bolter, 2000,pg.41). A real life example is that of as the Disney World theme park, where fictional media content clashes with physical reality.

As Huthtamo notes "hypermediacy can also provide an authentic experience", the audience may acknowledge the unnaturalness of the medium and yet it doesn't diminish the experience (Bolter, 2000,pg.42). This is illustrated in the rise of online worlds such as "WoW" (World Of Warcraft), although the game is obviously constructed through programming and is contained within the material screen of the medium. Users still recognise it as an authentic experience, some have argued that the line between reality and the game interface has been blurred by the users "point of view". Shaw notes how we try to escape "the meat", our body's through cyberspace but we can't yet escape the reality of the medium (Shaw, 2008,pg.86).

Bolter, J.D. (2000) Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT Press)

Shaw, D, (2008) Technoculture: The key Concepts (Oxford: Berg Press)

Humans and technology

"In other words, the concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is." (Shaw, 2008: p.81)

Have we been overcome by machines or are still human? Without technology the human race wouldn't get on very well. Think about how many times you use technology, we are always using are phones and iPods and laptops we couldn't live without these appliances. Try for one day leave your phone down and not use it, I bet u struggle. This shows how new media has overcome and that we can't live without them this shows how new media revolution has took over. This is basically meaning that we aren't being ourselves and that new media and technology has become an extension from ourselves and that we actually need them instead of want them.

Although new media wouldn’t have come about if it wasn’t for us we wouldn’t have evolved if it wasn’t for technology. We have developed a lot over the pasts due to the revolution of technology I would say that we have got smarter but also that we have got lazier as we no longer find the need to do maths we just use a calculator on our phones or we don’t remember history we just google it.

Shaw looks at William Harvey's circulatory system this is telling us that the body is "produced by technology in the simple sense that Harvey had necessarily to use tools to examine the workings of the heart"(Shaw, 2008: p.82) Now a days we don't need tools to look at the heart but that we can actually use technology to look at the heart beat and to do blood pressure and all things like that.

So overall we find ourselves turning into cyborgs as we are no longer ourselves but that we are just a form of media and that we find that humans wouldn't have evolved that fast if it wasn't for technology but also that technology wouldn't have evolved that quick if it wasn't for us.

Bibliography
Shaw, D (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts (Oxford: Berg Press)

The oppression of mass media

Following the idea that if you want to understand new media, you have to look at its history, that is also found in Manovich (2002), Creeber (2009) runs through the most important theories for the analysis of media texts from the twentieth century. Starting with modernism, he mentions the Frankfurt School who held a negative attitude towards the mass media that according to them oppressed the people, an idea that never really fully disappeared and which might hold truth. However, if someone likes Strictly Come Dancing it does not mean that he never engages in any more intellectually challenging activities.

Creeber (2009, p. 14) describes semiotics as a quasi-scientific method of analysis. Structuralism used this method to ground their opinion about the oppression of the masses. However, it should be realized that in semiotics the analysts can find the meanings they want to find, even unconsciously their primed attitudes might have effects on the results. Moreover, even if a certain underlying meaning seems obvious to the objective researcher, it does not mean that the audience will view it in this way, for "bias is very much in the eye of the beholder" (Cumberbatch et al, 1986, p. 15). This negative view on mass media was strengthened by the hypodermic needle view on media effects, which was also present among the audience ever since the radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds that had such a strong impact on its listeners (Sparks, 2011, pp. 56-57).

Postmodernism introduced a more positive way of looking at media effects. After a period with belief in a 'limited-effects' perspective on media in the 1960's (Sparks, 2011, pp. 63-64), an attitude that is less extreme than the hypodermic needle and the limited-effects came to rule the area of media analysis. An example of this is the use of Hall's (1975, pp. 1-19) encoding-decoding model that focusses on the reader. This gave way to the current more positive attitude towards new media enabling democratization.

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.
Cumberbatch, G., McGregor, R., Brown, J., and Morrison, D. (1986). Television and the Miners' Strike. London: BFI Broadcasting Research Unit.
Hall, S. (1975). Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse. Birmingham: University of Birmingham
Manovich, L. (2002). The Language of New Media. MIT Press.

Sparks, G. (2011). Media Effects Research - a basic overview. Stamford: Cengage Learning.

Automated media, rise of the machines?

Lev Manovich has identified how factors, such as computerisation, have changed medias function and social significance while new media takes its place as the staple of the digital age. Manovich "reduces all principles of new media to five: numerical  representation, modularity, automation, variability and cultural transcoding", identifying the key factors which differentiate old and new media (Manovich, 2002, pg.44). All new media is now made up of "digital code" and so "becomes programmable", allowing computers to store, produce and distribute our media (Manovich, 2002, pg.49). Before technology was just a tool for media, just a calculator which aided us but with technological advancements it now shares in the creative production process.

Manovich notes how "human intentionally can be removed from the creative process, at least in part", software such as Photoshop, creates, edits and filters our content for us at the click of a button, taking most human interaction out of new media (Manovich, 2002, pg.53). Are we being limited by computers? By relying on automated technology, we take a back seat in creating media compared to the manual processes of old media. We live in a society "now concerned as much with accessing and re-using existing media as with creating new one" (Manovich, 2002, pg.55). If everyone is re-using existing media, this may stunt the creative possibility's of new media, leaving us with ideas that will never be imagined.

Artificial intelligence becomes ever more real, as computerised controls such as "software agents" filters our media for what it deems relevant, using our information and profiles to adapt new media around us (Manovich, 2002, pg.55). Creating a Big Brother mentality, as we are being monitored, controlled and restricted by computer technology. Although as seen in video games, this control is merely an illusion  by "AI engines" which "use a variety of approaches to simulate human intelligence", restricting our own choices to fit within the rules of its own digital world (Manovich, 2002, pg.54). Though digitization has also given the user more control over time and media, such as through "random access"(Manovich, 2002, pg.67). By rejecting the "human-centered" order of old media such as the fixed order of videotapes, it allows time to be "managed, analysed and manipulated more easily"(Manovich, 2002, pg.67).

Bibliography
Manovich, L. (2002) The Language Of New Media, (Cambridge, Mass, :London MIT Press)

Going Down The River in a Cardboard Box

"In contrast to analog media where each successive copy loses quality, digitally encoded media can be copied endlessly without degradation" (Manovich, 2001, 69)

Manovich begins by looking at William J. Mitchell's 'The Reconfigured Eye' (1982), In which Mitchell talks about how analog media "cannot be transmitted or copied without degradation" (Mitchell, 1982: 6) At the time of writing, Mitchell was living in a world where digital media was a break through in technology and it was looking like it was about to completely revolutionise the way media artefacts where accessed, developed and broadcast. It looked like nothing could destroy digital media and that anything which was digitally accessed was safe from complete destruction.

Mitchell goes on to refer to his view of digital media and how he believes it is completely lossless, "a digital image that is a thousand generations away from the original is indistinguishable in quality from any one of its progenitors".

He believes that digital media is invincible through generations of being passed down. For example. An old photograph will stain of the years with age and use, but if a digital image is stored on a hard drive for the same amount of time, it will be in the same condition and quality as when it was taken.

However, Manovich, speaking nearly twenty years after Mitchell, and being in the middle of the digital revolution, knows how digital media can be just as short-termed as analog media. "A single digital image consists of millions of pixels. All this data requires considerable storage" (Manovich, 2001: 70)

Even another decade later and we still cannot say that we have confidence in how computers store our media files. With technologies like DropBox, GoogleDrive and SkyDrive, surely we are just bypassing the problem instead of eliminating the problem which we built. 


Bibliography
Mitchell, W.J., The Reconfigured Eye (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1982)
Manovich, L., The Language of New Media (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2001)

Media, Technology and Convergence

"Old Media are not being displaced. Rather, their functions and status are shifted by introduction of new technology's" (Jenkins, 2008 p.16)

Jenkins explains during the course of his book that there is a dynamic shift between older mediums and technologies such as "the word-processing program converged with the typewriter" (Jenkins, 2008, p.5). Most technologies derive from older versions of the next version. Updates,  Recreations and Reinterpretations of the same thing making it feel new. Convergence being a form of forced teamwork, technology takes on a working progress of multiple abilities. Streaming platforms now a convergent of Television and Internet spaces shows the development of modern re imaginations by global brands such as BBC with the Iplayer.

Internet available Televisions known as 'Smart Televisions' have access to streaming broadcasters such as BBC, 4oD and Netflix. Although it seems like a great idea, one flaw always stands above the rest. The end user. Unable to understand or wont let themselves understand because they don't want to see it as a re-imagined form of Television. The Convergence of these technologies forces those end users to take a side they prefer

With all the technologies forming into one device creates an inevitable question, what can we put in it next? Jenkins talks about being at the New Orleans Media Experience, which was to discuss the future of media with its technologies. Jenkins suggests that those participants of the conference had taken a different approach towards the event, instead of visiting the conference to view ways of changing the media industry, they come to look for the "just right - the right investments, predictions, and business models" (Jenkins, 2008 p.7). Being happy with just getting by, business being more money making rather than life changing. If these companies insist on giving their consumers products that have all singing all dancing technologies and no one understands it, How does this help our future developments? Are they just reinventing the wheel for no reason?


Bibliography:

Jenkins, H., 2008. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide Revised., NYU Press.

Convergence Culture is here... Ready or not.

"By convergence, I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms..." (Jenkins, P.2)

Just over a decade into the 21st Century the way in which we now consume our media has come along within leaps and bounds. We are at the forefront of a digital age that has rapidly developed the way in which we live our day to day lives. None more so than how it has helped us consume media. We can all now go online, watch a film, listen to radio, listen to our music, read books and communicate with others while we do these. 

"Ready or not, we are already living within a convergence culture." (Jenkins, P.16)

We truly do live within a convergence culture whether we like it or not. We may not like it but we come into contact with it on a daily basis. As we watch television we are now reminded to follow the programmes we enjoy on Facebook or Twitter so as we are kept up to date. Some television channels inform us to watch episodes again by going online on websites such as 4oD and iPlayer. As we enjoy socializing on Facebook pages we have liked of our favourite music artists link us to their lastest music video upload onto YouTube or to tell us we can download their album online from such sources as the all mighty iTunes store. 

We seem to be connected to all forms of media even if at that moment in time we only want the function of one. This does not seem as if it will stop at anytime soon as the new generation of technology is trying to become more multi-functional than the previous. An example is the Xbox One. It is by no mean the first Xbox, it is 12 years late for that title. It is called this as it is the all in 'one' home entertainment system and there is likely more to follow.

Bibliography

Jenkins, H (2008) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York University Press)

Convergence culture, An Introduction.

Convergence culture is not simply "the flow of content across multiple media platforms", it cannot be summed up in the action of using a mobile to watch TV (Jenkins, 2008, p2). It is a new media network of shared ideas and knowledge, "a cultural shift as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed  media content" (Jenkins, 2008, p3). No longer is the individual a powerless, passive consumer, but instead multitasking, sharing, exploring and interacting with other participants though multiple media, creating the media experience they desire. Without "participatory culture", creating a "buzz", media industry's would lose their power and influence over the masses, decreasing their media contents value (Jenkins,2008, p3). Identifying the significance of social networking where new media community's come together to create a "collective intelligence" (Jenkins, 2008, p4). Although empowering the participant, giving them mediums to share and create. The media industry's still build and control the mediums, using participants for the industry's own gain, such as how Facebook users generate most of the content.

Consumers are significant in "driving the process" of convergence, they are the active core mechanism which determines how to use and connect media platforms for their own media experience (Jenkins, 2008, p8). Identifying how singular platforms no longer maintain interest, no one wants a mobile that's just a mobile; they want a more connective experience. Where each mediums quality's and functions can connect and compensate for another's, such as using "games to explore ideas that couldn't fit within two-hour films"(Jenkins, 2008,p9), creating a richer media experience. This experience is delivered through "delivery systems" which are "only technologies", they become obsolete in our fast past consumer society (Jenkins, 2008, p14). What stays constant is the "media", the "cultural systems", rooted in our culture, our media desires, constantly evolving to meet society's needs (Jenkins, 2008, p14). Convergence resolves our need for on the go access to multiple media quickly and efficiently and will only grow more complex with time.

Although convergence is by no means harmonious, instead a "perpetual tangle" of different "specialized" mediums trying to intertwine and dominate one another (Jenkins, 2008, p15). With different functions, software's and intended uses "There is no single black box", but instead a mass of devices filling our homes (Jenkins, 2008, p16).

Bibliography
Jenkins, H. (2008) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, 2nd revised edition, NYU Press

Video Did Not Kill The Radio Star

"By convergence, I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms" (Jenkins, 2008, p2)

Henry Jenkins is introducing to us the convergence, or mixing, of mediums to create new ways for the media audience to interact with different platforms. Although this seems strange to consider a generation of technology where multiple mediums aren't adapted by technology, we have to consider Jenkins' time of writing. In 2008, the first iPhone was only just released. Steve Jobs presented the iPhone as a "revolutionary mobile phone". He talks about three new products, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communications device. However, he soon reveals that these are all in the one product.

(BorisLeeHK, 2012)

The breakthrough of the iPhone is exactly what Jenkins is talking about when he talks about convergence. Jenkins says "Each old medium was forced to coexist with the emerging media (..) printed words did not kill spoken words. Cinema did not kill theatre. Television did not kill radio." (Jenkins, 2008, p14)

Jenkins talks about his living room, "I am seeing more and more black boxes" (Jenkins, 2008 p15) How long is it before we have one  device which literally does everything? Considering the technological advances of the past 5 years, we aren't to far away. Mobile phones are a cinema, doctors, supermarket, photo albums, (practically) DSLRs, banks, take aways, bibles, loyalty cards, compasses, book stores and anything we want them to be. What else needs to be converged with our pocket device to make life easier?

The "Black Box Fallacy" (Jenkins, 2008, p13) is when he talks about the technologies which are used to deliver the media, change and update, so for example, the iPhone, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4s, 5, 5s, 5c. These were all updated with new technologies, for example, voice recognition, mobile internet, finger print recognition, etc. "Media, on the other hand, evolve" (Jenkins 2008, p13)

Jenkins doesn't give much away about his opinion on how convergence is affecting our culture in the introduction but he talks technologies which we are using and seeing being developed today. I think that the Cheskin Research which he mentions would have a different view on todays technology, eleven years after their initial research.

"The old idea of convergence was that all devices would converge into one central device that did everything for you (a la universal remote). What we are now seeing is the hardware diverging while the content converges."( Cheskin Research, 2002, p8,9)

Bibliography

Jenkins, H., 2008. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide Revised., NYU Press.

Cheskin., 2002. Designing Digital Experiences For Youth
BorisLeeHK. (2012) Steve Jobs - 2007 iPhone Presentation (Part 1 of 2). [Online Video]. 22 April. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etyt4osHgX0. [Accessed: 8 October 2013].