Digital Cultures : Glen Creeber

Creeber starts of by stating that this field of study is a "complex and diverse one"(Creeber, pg.11, 2009). In no way is he incorrect because of the vast amount of methods and theoretical approaches that New Media contributes.

I understand that Creeber has divided the 'New Media' up into different historical timeline changes, such as Modernism and 'old media', which took place during the industrial revolution and the invention of the printing press, where upon a new form of media was born. The first people to take an ideological stance upon modernism was 'The Frankfurt School' and in particularly, Adorno. They highlighted the new phase of the industrial revolution that was mass production and they often perceived the media as product of industrialization(Creeber, pg.12,2009), where upon they came up with the term 'Fordism', referring to Henry Fords first mass production system of the automobile.

This perception of mass production of the Media, called the 'Fordist Philosophy' was apparent in mass culture, where it seemed that every TV show, film and magazine were identical. (Creeber, pg.13, 2009). This group of Marxists and their theories led them to clearly distaste these 'industrialized' products, and the fact that they were only to keep mass audiences deluded in their oppression.

The next theory of the Media is Postmodernism, which brought about changes after the industrial revolution. This brought about the rise of new information technologies, leading up to the ones which we are using and producing today. Creeber refers to other writers, such as Levinson(1999), and how much of his work anticipated the power of New Media to enhance an audiences interactivity with electronic information as a whole - transforming us from voyeurs to participants.(Creeber, pg.15,2009).

This means that as far as this new information technology age has came along, we as the participants now have a more active role in what is being produced throughout all forms of New Media. If we are the participants and the producers then we responsible for what the consumers after us are being shown.

Creeber states in his conclusion that "critical understanding of the field is essential if we are to produce a sophisticated theoretical approach"(Pg.22,2009)


References - Glen Creeber, Digital Theory: theorizing New Media, 2009, (Pgs 11-22)