New Media Culture Technology

What drew me into this reading was the relatinoship between technology and social/cultural pursuits. A recurring theme I find blindingly regurgitated by left wing pinkos (such as these guys) is that we are all mindless consumers, victims of 'consumerism' and 'corporatism' etc. etc. and that this is bad with no real offer of fact to back up these claims. Yet here is an article that may give some credence to such claims, however further investigtaion reveals that this is in fact not the case, or even if it is, it's really not that bad...

"Technology no longer served the interests of humanity, but rather we served the interests of technology and the corporations that were connected to those technologies. Part of the effect of the technologies most associated with cultural pursuits, according to Adorno and Horkheimer in particular, was an obliteration of cultivated thinking. Whether it was film or popular music, the populace was blinded by the sheer sensation and drawn in by the banality of the entertainment to not see their true interests." (Marshall, p.3)

However with the advent of the microchip and the creation of the digital divide, such conclusions seem less bleak. McLugan provides us with some intriguing insights. Particuarly when applied to new media.

1) McLuhan thought of technology as an extension of our senses. Moreover, he saw emerging
with electronic technology the capacity to connect intelligence or the actual outering of the
nervous system into an elaborate network.

2) McLuhan's terminology of hot and cold media. Cool media allowing for audience interaction and the audiences as participants complete it's form and meaning.

3) McLuhan's insight that it is more significant to think of medium rather than content. If we concentrate on what the medium does we can extrapolate its future in terms of its uses and how it transforms the social world, and how things such as games an the internet shape us indiviudually and socially.

This reminds me of a quote by a young boy I posted previously "As we grow technology grows with us, like brother and sister." New Media Technology is not a one way consumption culture. It is interactive and participatory, connective and empowering.

The two weaknesses in McLuhan's technological determinist approach to the way technology shapes society are most definatley valid, as too much emphasis should not be placed on one factor in shaping society and social or political factors should not be overlooked. But McLuhan's thinking still gives insight into how technology emerges.

We use technological apparatus to develop new relatiionships with the world. Be it GPS guidance in cars, digital cameras, DVD's or MP3 players, Marshall explains that these seemingly diverse technologies are all related. According to Marshall, the regularity of the use of the digital machines is that we have naturalized the expansive presence of the digital and the microchip in the way that we move through the world. The interaction with the digital technology become second nature to our being and normalize ideal forms of interaction.

New technological apparatus evolve through complex political, social, economic and cultural conditions, and our social, political, cultural and economic institutions evolve with them in a new form of Techno-Darwinism.
Technology is not evil, its evolution.