Modernism to Postmodernism

Modernism is, according to Creeber, the “term we give to the way that human society responded to the changes that took place during the industrial revolution” (Creeber, 2009, pg.11) This brought about what the Frankfurt School called the Culture Industry and they held the opinion that the media produced as a result of this was “standardized, formulaic and shallow” (Creeber, 2009, pg.17) This media was produced for the masses and lost the individuality that high art as media had. Due to this “modernism’s reaction to modernity is often perceived as intensely paradoxical” and also hostile. (pg.12)

After the industrial revolution came postmodernism where people “become actively involved in the very production of the media; moving power away from the ‘author’ into the hands of the ‘audience’” (Creeber, 2009. Pg.20) This audience involvement ties in with the idea of audience participation, one of Jenkin’s defining concepts of Convergence Culture. (Jenkins pg.3)

Postmodernism celebrates popular culture's lack of deeper meaning and Post-structuralism allows viewers to take their own meanings as they decode the meanings embedded in the semiotics of a piece of media, rather than taking the meanings that were encoded into the text.

People can now make the media they want to see and distribute it online for millions to view, however, not everyone has access to equipment or the internet to make their own media. Those with this access have far more control over what is produced and what becomes popular in todays culture.

After the industrial revolution came improvements in technology which ultimately lead to a switch from old analogue media to New Media in digital formats. This lead to a convergence in media which has also aided people in creating their own media.

The audience hasn’t been merely passive viewers of media for some time, but they are even less so now. Especially with “Theories of ‘fandom’ (...) with the Internet allowing the fans of different forms of culture to create virtual communities that add to the original understanding and even content of their chosen interests” (Creeber, 2009, pg.19) This coming together of fans to help understand their favourite content demonstrates collective intelligence, which is more prominent in todays culture than in the days before the internet.

This shows us that the ideas of New Media and Convergence Culture are closely linked together and are also linked with postmodernism and post-structuralism and that they wouldn’t be as they are without each other.

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; Maidstone, Open University Press.

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

From changing media to changing theories

In order to understand the world, it is necessary to understand the media. More specifically, we need to understand that media are changing and that, as Manovich (2001, p.43) states, we are in the middle of a new media revolution. This change of media implies the need for a new theoretical framework to analyse the specific characteristics of the media.  

In the past, media were analysed differently. During the period of modernism, the dominant theoretical approach reflected the pessimist ideology of the ‘Frankfurt School’. It represented media as producers of a mass culture that influenced a passive and powerless audience. This vision was also reflected in the formulation of the ‘hypodermic needle’ model. According to this model, a media message will exert powerful and relatively uniform effects on everyone who processes it (Sparks, 2012, p.58). However, this is a questionable statement since little attention is paid to the fact that people differ greatly and that they can respond in different ways to the same message.

This pessimistic approach was reinforced by the quasi-scientific method of semiotics, introduced by the structuralist movement. Creeber (2009, p.14) describes semiotics as “a clear and coherent methodology by which the meaning of any text could be read objectively as a system of ‘signs’.”. Based on this, Hall (1973) formulated his encoding/decoding model. It focused not only on the encoding of a media product, but also on the decoding by an active audience, where each individual has the chance to construct its own meaning.

Hall’s model reflected the vision of postmodernists and meant a shift towards the current more positive view of the media. Creeber (2009, p.21) describes this as technological utopianism, since it suggests that New Media will improve society. However, we have to bear in mind some negative examples, such as the fact that not all New Media participants are created equal (Jenkins, 2008, p.3), the decrease in cultural identities and the invasion of the private sphere.

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; Maidstone, Open University Press.
Manovich, L. (2001). The Language of New Media. MIT Press.
Sparks, G. (2012). Media Effects Research: A Basic Overview, 4th ed. Stamford: Cengage Learning.

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.

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.

Digital Media On The Production Line

Modernism, as Creeber puts it, 'is the umbrella term we give to the way that human society responded to he changes that took place during the industrial revolution' (2009: p.11). This came about around the mid 20th century, as the world was repairing itself from one war, and preparing to go to another. Industrialisation was perceived by many modernists 'as the enemy of free thought and individuality' (Creeber, 2009: p.12)

Industrialisation really only benefited the producers of products, beginning with Henry Ford's T. Fords. This was a way to cut costs, through production and staff, but also a way that companies could produce the same product on a large scale in half the time. The birth of the production line, as apposed to single product work, revolutionised the secondary sector. However, Theodor Adorno, a member of the Germany-fleeing intellectuals from the Frankfurt School describes the way that the music industry is just simply producing the same music over and over again, and selling it to make money.

Post-Modernism comes along slightly after the industrial revolution. Post-industial (or Post-Fodist) was an 'economic transition [...] from a manufacturing based economy to a service-based economy' which saw the 'decline of heavy industry' (Creeber 2009: p.15) Audience interactivity with this new post-modern idea was first thrown about as ideas by Marshall McLuhan, this is highlighted in Paul Levinson's Digital McLuhan (1999) where McLuhan sees the audience as transforming from 'Voyeurs to participants' (Levinson, 1999: p.65-79)

McLuhan really was stumbling across something which years later, is pretty accurate. Television audiences, don't just watch what is happening on the screen, but can also play along, influence and find about more about what they are watching. From the introduction of voting on (originally) Channel 4's 'Big Brother' and ITV's 'X Factor', to the mobile game which rang along side Channel 4's 'Million Pound Drop', to programs such as BBC's 'Children In Need' showing live tweets on-screen.

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; Maidstone, Open University Press.
Levinson, P. (1999) Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millenium. Routledge, London.