Technoculture: The Key Concepts - Shaw

All tasks that we currently perform can be technology related, putting aside the obvious example of me typing this blog on the internet we can look at our memories. It could be said that we now share our memories with technology, for example think of how many phone numbers you know off the top of your head. Our phone books on our mobile telephones now store all of our numbers, so there is no need to memorise them at all. How about when we go out somewhere, more people than ever takes photos on their phones and even share them via social networking with other friends. This could be said that technology is sharing your memory for you.
In their book Shaw states, "The concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is" (Shaw, 2008: pp.81). This is saying that culturally we have completely adapted to not even notice that technology helps us constantly, you could even say that we have assimilated technology into our bodies.

Technology has advanced to the stage that it can help us monitor out own bodies to try and maintain our health. If we look again at mobile phones, health apps like 'My Health Checker' remind you to weigh yourself, test your BMI and such while it draws up a graph to tell you how you are doing and what condition your body is in.
An interesting thought could be that the human body could not be explained without technology. During the book Shaw looks at William Harvey's findings of the circulatory system, there had to be a level of technology there for Harvey to explore the human body. From this it could then be said that the human body evolves as technology does, due to the fact that we cannot explore the human body anymore further until technology advances.

In a Marxists view of it, "The worker's body is a commodity to be bought and whose value is determined by the value of the market" (Shaw, 2008: pp.83). This suggests that we, like technology, are simply produced on a production line with no sense of awareness.
There are genuine fears of technology controlling us, we only have to look a film culturally to see our fears as a society. For example if we look at the films, 'The Terminator' (1984) and 'The Matrix' (1999) we can see two fictional societies that have been taken over by technology, machines run the world. If this fear does exist culturally, who is to say we won't end up on a production line.


Bibliography

Shaw, D. (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts (Oxford: Berg Press)

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. 

Digital Cultures: Theorizing New Media.

New media, according to Creeber has such a 'complex' and 'diverse' field that it is almost impossible to conclude it with a single definition. (Creeber & Martin, 2009, p.11).

Attempting to explain New Media, Creeber talks about Modernism and Postmodernism. Modernism is the "umbrella term" which refers to how the humans "responded to the changes that took place during the industrial revolution". (Ibid, p.11).

From Creeber's book, we learn that the modernism's reaction towards modernity was contradictory - a celebratory reaction, 'Fordism'- Henry Ford's T-ford "successes in the automobile industry" and then there was the 'pessimistic' reaction, The Frankfurt School. (Ibid, p12)

  

Ford used mass production techniques, allowing cars to become 'more accessible' and 'cheaper' while being produced more rapidly. Consequently, this mass-production resulted in all his T-Fords being identical. This is where the pessimistic theorists of The Frankfurt School start their dispute -- claiming

Ford's philosophy "evident in all aspects of mass culture", meaning the production of new products are no different to the previous products. (Ibid, p12)

The Marxist theory of The Frankfurt School expresses their detestation towards the 'industrialised' products, claiming they only offer a substitute to the needs of what the mass actually needs, for example, Theodor Adorno's theory on popular music. John Reith, first director General of the BBC generally disapproves with the Marxist theory of the Frankfurt School but actually supports their claim on mass culture, he states : 

"It is ocassionally indicated to us that we are apparently setting out to give the public what we think they need -- and not what they want -- but few know what they want and very few know what they need" (cited by Briggs 1961:238)

(Creeber and martin, 2009, p13)

In contrast with modernism, Postmodernism is the phase following the industrial revolution. A post-industrial (post-fordist) economy is an "economic transition" which took place "from a manufacturing based economy to a service-based economy" which eventually lead to the "decline of heavy industry." (Ibid, p. 15)

This shift in ideology from the pessimistic view of The Frankfurt School was essentially detected by the work of Marshall McLuhan.

Creeber mentions the argument developed by critics about the "landscape of postmodernism and New Media are turning citizens of democracies into apolitical consumers,  no longer able to distinguish between the stimulated illusions of media and the harsh realities of capitalist society.." (Ibid, p20), which creates a platform for McLuhan's famous argument of 'The Medium is The Message', which is something we can clearly identify with in today's society. McLuhan's theory promotes the idea that the audiences are more influenced with how the information is presented instead of what is actually presented. Also, these critics argue that "postmodern obsessions with images over depth produces a superficial and artificial environment" where consequently, "little is taken seriously". (Ibid, p20)

REFERENCES:

• Creeber, G & Martin, R (2009) DIGITAL THEORY: Theorizing New Media