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)

Digital Cultures Glen Creeber

"Modernism is the umbrella term we give to the way that human society responded to the changes that took place during the industrial revolution"(Creeber, 2009, Pg 11). Modernism happened at the end of the 19th century and with it's "belief in scientific inevitability of progress" modernism created an atmosphere that would see people believe that it would improve the human life as we know it for the better(Creeber, 2009, Pg 11). Although many people believed modernism was the way forward there still was people that blamed it for the first two world wars.

Industrialization, a word that did not go down well with many modernists as they seen it as the "enemy of free thought and individuality"(Creeber, 2009, Pg 12). In many cases this was true and Industrialization would go on to bring more profit to production companies rather than individual artists, and a good example of this from Creeber's book Digital Cultures is Henry Ford. Henry Ford used Industrialization as a mains to make the production and staff cheaper and to created a single T.Ford multiple times in less time and this now a days is done by nearly every auto mobile company in the world. As always not everyone was in favour of this mass production line, The Frankfurt School was part of these people and perceived "media as a standardized product of industrialization"(Creeber, 2009, Pg 12), Theodor Adorno was part of the Frankfurt School and believed that music was getting abused by mass production and just getting repeated. 

Post-modernism was what came after the industrial revolution, we seen a shift in the economy to a service based one from it's original manufacturing based economy which inevitably saw the drop in sales and products from the "heavy industry"(Creeber, 2009, Pg 15).  Consumers of the media had changed, interactivity is upon us and it is like us as consumers no long just consume the media but we control it as well. "Reality and unreality are not mixed like oil and water; rather they are dissolved like two acids"(Creeber, 2009, Pg 17), this statement would refer to television programs and social networking sites that allow many ways in which you can interact with them like voting on who should leave a certain show and this means that the audience can change the landscapes of their own media without being in the media. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Creeber, G and Martin R. 2009, Digital Cultures, Open University Press.