Creeber on Digital Culture

The rise of New Media can first be traced back to a number of movements beginning in the late nineteenth century. Modernism was one of these movements, and it was optimistically promoted by its followers as a way to change human society for the better. Creeber specifies modernism as being an umbrella term for how society responded to change during the industrial revolution. Developments in science and technology during this era were equally reflected by developments of artists and intellectuals. This period is arguably where the origins for new media lay. 

The Frankfurt school was a by-product of the modernist movement. They compared the rise of mass culture to the mass industry that dominated working society. Parallels were especially drawn with Fords production lines. Whilst he was issuing cars that were "exactly the same," and accessible to anybody, so to, argued the Frankfurt school was the "identical" mass media, irrelevant as to whether it was a novel or a television show. The growing homogeny was seen as an attack on "high culture," BBC Director General, John Reith argued.  Although the Frankfurt school's views were mainly negative, they were still willing to recognise the significance of new media forms. After WWII, analysist Barthes' used a system of semiotics and structuralism to study mass culture and media forms. He concluded that audiences were powerless, merely consuming  the output. 

Post-modernism is connected to the changes that have taken place in society post-industrialisation. Innovations towards the latter half of the twentieth century sped up the processes that would lead to mass media as we recognise it. McLuhan was one theorist who understood the potential for mass media. 

"Much of his work anticipated the power of New Media to enhance and audience's interactivity with electronic information as a whole"  

(Creeber, 2009: 15) 

Postmodernism celebrates popular culture for its lack of depth or value, instead embracing its "shallow" content, which places aesthetic and image above all else. This can be compared to the modern internet culture, where cult-like status is applied to generally meaningless memes. Increased interactivity allows anyone to become a producer, shunning the constraints of past decades where the majority of the population were voyeurs. 

Bibliography:

Creeber G & Martin R | Digital Cultures, 2009 | Open University Press