New media – a technology or culture?
The computer revolution we are experiencing today is nothing ever seen before. If the emergence of printing machines influenced the distribution of texts and the invention of photography influenced the production of books and still images, then computers affects all types of media - texts, still images, moving images, sounds, etc. Today, all of our culture is being shifted into computer-mediated form. Everything from books, movies, and photos can be produced, distributed and communicated through computers. It is interesting how new media is affecting almost every part of out life today.
How did new media become new?
Manovich said that new media became new when the two paths of convergence of computing sciences and media technologies met. At first there were computing machines, which helped to calculate. Then people developed new technologies, which made the calculation processes faster and able to do more difficult tasks. At the same time media technologies were developed. Film and photo cameras, printing presses, television, radio – they all were a prerequisite for the creation of computers. According to Manovich new media was finally created, when people learned how to translate all existing media into numerical data, which was understood by computers. The computing machines could now solve much more difficult equasions, which as a result appeared as an image, film or music to the user. Therefore it could be said that new media is a merge of technology and culture.
In order to analyze the relations between new media, technology and culture, there should be an explanation of all these three terms.
Technology
The National Academy of Engineering defines the term “technology” like this:
“Technology is the process by which humans modify nature to meet their needs and wants. Most people, however, think of technology in terms of its artifacts: computers and software, aircraft, pesticides, water-treatment plants, birth-control pills, and microwave ovens, to name a few. But technology is more than these tangible products. Technology includes all of the infrastructure necessary for the design, manufacture, operation, and repair of technological artifacts, from corporate headquarters and engineering schools to manufacturing plants and maintenance facilities.”
Murphie and Potts (2003) cite McLuhan who also stated that all technologies are the extensions of human capacities: “Tools and implements are the extensions of manual skills and computer is an extension of brain.”
If to talk about new media simply as a technology using the previous statements, it could be concluded that new media is an extension of human capacities. In a sense it is true. If to think of technological artifacts of new media for example video camera, mp3-player, smartphone – each one of them helps to overcome some human shortage. Video camera records every detail of the environment it is filming and allows to review, copy and alter it, which humans are not able to do with their memories for example. They tend to forget. Mp3-players can remember and replay music, audio books, voice recordings etc just from one device, not to talk about any other new applications meant for mp3-players today. Smartphone is basically a small computer, which allows a person to communicate to anyone or anything in basically any place of the world without having to physically be there. And as Manovich stated it is an extension of the brain.
If only by looking at the new media as a technology, the picture is quite narrow-minded. There is something more there than only machines put together by humans. New media has broadened the possibilities of a Man further than ever before. It has changed the ways of communication, commerce, marketing, personal life, privacy and much more. Therefore it could be said that it has influenced people’s habits, sense of privacy, relationships and work organization. Almost every part of our lives has been influenced by the emergence of new media. Therefore can it be said that new media is a culture changing phenomenon or is it a culture in itself?
Culture
Culture is a term, which can again not be easily defined. Murphie and Potts cite Ray Williams, who is basically the founder of the discipline ‘culture sciences’ said that ‘culture’ is among the two or three most complicated words in English. As they bring out, the term could be easily defined as the signs, beliefs and practices of a group of society, but they say it to be too vague in generality. The other definition they bring out is one by Brian Eno: “(Culture is) everything we do not have to do”, in a sense that it is not our basic need for survival but it is something that people do or have. This could be argued, as people are social beings and need the feeling of unity and belonging, therefore it kind of is a need for security and insurance of being accepted and safe, which is actually a part of Maslow’s hirarchy of needs. Therefore I would stay with the first definition of the signs, beliefs and practices of a group of society.
Wikipedia offers three mainly used definitions for culture:
· Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture;
· An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning;
· The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group.
All these definitions explain the essence of humans, culture is something from which a person comes from, how he perceives the world and everything in it. It influences his behavior, values, goals and ways of communication. Therefore it could also be said that culture influences the way a person uses the computer. The purposes, goals, ways of communication may vary depending on from which culture a person is from. Also from which social group is he from. For example younger people take computers as a natural part of their lives, chatting, playing, communicating and sharing with other people via the Internet, but older generations may only use the computer for checking mail and reading news.
It could be said that new media has created its own culture or even cultures. For example if to look at hackers – a group of people with their own rules, ways of behavior, beliefs, folklore, almost everything which could define them as a culture. Hacker culture has been born through new media. Blogs, computer games, forums, social networks – they all can have a potential to be a separate culture. Facebook has been even called the 3rd biggest country of the world, with the population of 500 million. Therefore maybe new media could be considered at least as an expression of culture, if not the culture itself.
How do new media, technology and culture merge?
Manovich says that new media can be seen as consisting of two layers - cultural layer and computer layer. It means that in one way the content of new media can be seen by humans as a collection of images, which could be interpreted as some kind of a narrative or comprehensive content related to the persons culture. In the other hand the computer "sees" the same content as numbers and programs it as it is used to. It is again interesting to see how computers and numerical representation can form the media into something that could be easily understandable for humans.
Potts and Murphie claim that people have always used technology as in part of their culture. They have used it for fighting for their lands, in the forms of tools and weapons. Civilizations are born with the technologies of building and writing, also cooking and music making is dependent on technology today, as well as contemporary mass culture, communication and production.
If to add all these statements together, it can be seen that while describing new media, nor technology or culture could be left aside. The technology gives the frames and tangible products to the new media and culture defines the content.
Conclusion
It is interesting to realize that every piece of information seen on computers today are actually numbers, which are created as visual symbols by the computer. At the same time, each of these symbols has some kind of meaning to the user and creates an association or a narrative for him.
New media can not be clearly defined as a technology or as a culture, because it involves both of these aspects. Technology is something, which gives the tools to new media, through which the media is produced, distributed and exhibited. At the same time culture gives the content to the new media.
References
TechXav – World Premier Tech Magazine. If Facebook Were A Country, It Would Be The 3rd Most Populated. http://www.techxav.com/2010/03/19/if-facebook-were-a-country/.
The National Academy of Sciences. National Academy of Engineering. http://www.members.nae.edu/nae/techlithome.nsf/weblinks/KGRG-55A3ER?OpenDocument.
Wikipedia. Culture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture.
Manovich, Lev. 2001. The Language of New Media. Massassuchets: MIT Press. http://www.manovich.net/LNM/Manovich.pdf.
Murphie, A. Potts, J. Culture and Technology. 2003. Palgrave McMillan. http://books.google.com/books?id=EXkpIWWLV_IC&lpg=PP1&ots=IQjwxUxUMP&dq=culture%20and%20technology&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
