New Media

  • Sentient: The ability to feel and perceive things
  • AI (Artificial Intelligence): The development of computerised systems which are able to perform activities and tasks which a regular human can do as well as performing like a human being.
  • the transformation of social interaction (audiences);
  • the transformation of individual identity (audiences and representation);
  • the transformation of institutional structures (industry); and the changes in textual content and structure (language).
  • The transformation of audience consumption

The way media has changed across the decades:

  • Speed
  • Access
  • Storage

Alex Krotoski

  • The idea of how our minds process information is interesting, with the suggestion that we do not think in a linear or sequential way, but associatively and sensorily, so that information is linked to patterns, consequences, almost like nodes of hyperlinked information.
TOPICNOTES
The Printing Press (Gutenburg) in the Medieval period mid 1400’s
Impact of new technology in South Korea as a result of promoting greater digital interaction (speed, connectivity, spread etc)
On-line / digital connection stats – Average amount spent on social media in 2022: two hours and 27 minutes, a day in 2022
– Facebook leads the world in monthly active users, with all four of the top four apps, followed by TikTok, Amazon, Twitter, and others in 2022. 2.93 billion active users.
– Average of 8.39 hours of 13 to 18 use social media.
– In 2021, over 4.26 billion people were using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to almost six billion in 2027
China, with 1,021 million users, is the country with the most social media users as of 2023. India ranks second with 755 million, and the United States makes it to the third spot with 302 million users.
Theodore Vail– The Network effect
Norbert Weiner Loop Theory
Robin Dunbar – The Dunbar NumberThe Dunbar number suggests that connectivity for individuals, communities or groups is typically 5 o 6, with an upper limit of 150.
So who benefits from greater connectivity?
 Companies, organisations, institutions – ‘small elites dominate’ (Andrew Kean)
Clay Shirky– An American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies and journalism.
B.F Skinner– Skinner believed that free will was a illusion and that actions of humans were dependent on consequences of previous. This is the theory of reinforcement.
Vannavar Bush
Tim Berners–Lee
Conclusions, suggestions, reflections and predictions
Marshall McLuhan– The Global Village – ‘a sophisticated interactive culture’

The Exchange of Data (The Great Hack:)

Search for Truth

  • “Nothing is what it seems” – Carolyn – The Great Hack (Postmodernism)

Behaviour Management

Propaganda / Persuasion

  • Use of social media to persuade peoples opinions on political matters.

Regulation

Jaron Lanier

  • Produced 4 books: – One-Half of a Manifesto (2000) / Post-symbolic communications (2006)

New Media

Sentient: Able to perceive or feel things.

  1. the transformation of social interaction (audiences);
  2. the transformation of individual identity (audiences and representation);
  3. the transformation of institutional structures (industry); and the changes in textual content and structure (language).
  4. The transformation of audience consumption

Speed: Comes to you immediately when requested.
Access: Any where with an internet connection, anyone with a device.
Storage: Storing more information and media across multiple devices and a lot of it.


The idea of how our minds process information is interesting, with the suggestion that we do not think in a linear or sequential way, but associatively and sensorily, so that information is linked to patterns, consequences, almost like nodes of hyperlinked information.

The transaction is not based on monetary exchange but is the release of data.

Summary table for The Virtual Revolution:

TOPICNOTE / COMMENT
The Printing Press (Gutenburg) in the Medieval period mid 1400’sthe impact of new technology
Impact of new technology in South Korea as a result of promoting greater digital interaction (speed, connectivity, spread etc)mental health
internet addiction? Choices made?
‘A world without consequences’
‘Senses over meaning’
On-line / digital connection stats16 million new members on Netflix due to the pandemic.
Over 1 billion hours of youtube footage is watched a day by users all around the world.
“Regular” users of tiktok open the app 8 times a day and spend on average 95minutes scrolling over 200 separate videos.
13.8% of social media users on the internet use Instagram daily.
210 million snaps on snapchat are made a day.
8.39 hours is the average daily use for screens, 13-24.
Theodore VailThe Network effect
Norbert Weiner Loop TheoryLoop Theory – predictive behaviour
But is behaviour shaped and altered through networking and digital communications (pushing / pulling
)

Issues around privacy and individual psychology (mental health / wellbeing) and the environment

Virtual worlds / virtual identities (hypperreality, simulation, implosion – Jean Baudrillard)

(Judith Butler ‘gender performance / David Gauntlett, Anthony Giddens etc ‘fluid & multiple identities’

The
Robin Dunbar – The Dunbar NumberThe Dunbar number suggests that connectivity for individuals, communities or groups is typically 5 o 6, with an upper limit of 150.
So who benefits from greater connectivity?
 Companies, organisations, institutions – ‘small elites dominate’ (Andrew Kean)
Clay ShirkyIn July 2005, Shirky gave a talk titled “Institutions vs collaboration” as a part of TEDGlobal 2005.
Shirky compares the coordination costs between groups formed under traditional institutions and those formed by groups which “build cooperation into the infrastructure.”
Vannavar Bushassociative not linear thinking
the demise of long form reading

So changing rules for logic, rationality, truth, understanding, knowledge.

Baudrillard implosion (a culture imploding in on itself rather than expanding and developing?)
Tim BernersLeethe inventor / creator of the World Wide Web – developed and given to everybody for free?!! Why? What did he hope it would achieve? Is he satisfied or disappointed with how it has developed and made an impact on society?
Marshall McLuhanThe Global Village – ‘a sophisticated interactive culture’
The impact on political and economic decision making
Conclusions, suggestions, reflections and predictions

New Media

New Media is a means of mass communication using digital technologies such as the internet. This includes more recent developments such as VR (Virtual reality) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) that consist of an augmented reality.

A notion of CHANGE & TRANSFORMATION as a way of thinking about NEW MEDIA which can be linked to the key ideas of a media syllabus. For example,

  1. the transformation of social interaction (audiences);
  2. the transformation of individual identity (audiences and representation);
  3. the transformation of institutional structures (industry); and the changes in textual content and structure (language).
  4. The transformation of audience consumption

In summary, this could be described as the changing nature of symbolic interaction and a lot of the work on this blog is essentially discussing this concept.

The main differences between physical and digital is the access that we have to resources, they are no longer linear. New information can also be spread faster, its more immediate which creates more of a demand for an answer.

Key Terms:

  • Speed
  • Share
  • Time
  • Feedback
  • Access
  • Storage
  • Space
  • Connectivity
  • Participation
  • Discover
  • Retrieval
  • Knowledge
  • Process
shareactivecreativehost
example or commentTechnology has allowed me to share information that i know with other peopleThere are more tools and resources such as photoshop to be able to nurture creative ideas
story

re-connectpersonalisestream
example or commentI can now connect withy people that i used to know that i may no longer be in touch with through social media
experiencestorescaleimmerse
example or comment
interfaceliveadaptbinge
example or commentMedia has created a sense of impatience and people can access things immediately – for example netflix programmes can be watched in a whole sitting
conversationre-performcirculateendless

example or commentpeople can control how they appear on social media, their profiles, almost performative like – creating their own identity

Marshall McLuhan – The Medium is the message:

This means that the the technology (medium) is more important then the content.

“Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication”

New Media

Sentient – able to perceive or feel things.

Artificial Intelligence – the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.

To start off with, prioritise the notion of CHANGE & TRANSFORMATION as a way of thinking about NEW MEDIA which can be linked to the key ideas of a media syllabus. For example,

  1. the transformation of social interaction (audiences);
  2. the transformation of individual identity (audiences and representation);
  3. the transformation of institutional structures (industry); and the changes in textual content and structure (language).
  4. The transformation of audience consumption
  • Speed
  • Access
  • Retrieval
  • Storage
  • Time
  • Space

Alex Krotoski: The Virtual Revolution

she looks at the pioneering work of Vannevar Bush – ‘As we may Think‘ (1945) that describes a memory machine that would make knowledge (and thereby understanding?) more accessible.

TOPICNOTE / COMMENT
The Printing Press (Gutenburg) in the Medieval period mid 1400’sthe impact of new technology
Impact of new technology in South Korea as a result of promoting greater digital interaction (speed, connectivity, spread etc)mental health
internet addiction? Choices made?
‘A world without consequences’
‘Senses over meaning’
On-line / digital connection statsAccording to recent social media data, the number of people using social media worldwide is 4.59 billion—which equates to about 57 percent of the total global population.

Reports estimate that the number of global smartphone users will continue to increase and hit 6.8 billion by 2023.

In 2023, the number of smartphone users in the world today is 6.92 Billion, which translates to 86.41% of the world’s population owning a smartphone (Source)

8.39 hours is the average daily use for screens, ages 13-24.

Facebook is still the leading social media. 2.93 billion users.

16 million new members on Netflix during the pandemic.
Theodore VailThe Network effect
Norbert Weiner Loop TheoryLoop Theory – predictive behaviour
But is behaviour shaped and altered through networking and digital communications (pushing / pulling
)

Issues around privacy and individual psychology (mental health / wellbeing) and the environment

Virtual worlds / virtual identities (hypperreality, simulation, implosion – Jean Baudrillard)

(Judith Butler ‘gender performance / David Gauntlett, Anthony Giddens etc ‘fluid & multiple identities’

The
Robin Dunbar – The Dunbar NumberThe Dunbar number suggests that connectivity for individuals, communities or groups is typically 5 o 6, with an upper limit of 150.
So who benefits from greater connectivity?
 Companies, organisations, institutions – ‘small elites dominate’ (Andrew Kean)
Clay ShirkyAmerican writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies and journalism.

Argued audience behaviour has progressed from the passive consumption of media texts to a much more interactive experience with the products and each other. Source (Media Studies Website)

Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.
Vannavar Bushassociative not linear thinking
the demise of long form reading

So changing rules for logic, rationality, truth, understanding, knowledge.

Baudrillard implosion (a culture imploding in on itself rather than expanding and developing?)
Tim BernersLeethe inventor / creator of the World Wide Web – developed and given to everybody for free?!! Why? What did he hope it would achieve? Is he satisfied or disappointed with how it has developed and made an impact on society?

Berners-Lee understood that the Web needed to be unfettered by patents, fees, royalties, or any other controls in order to thrive
Marshall McLuhanThe Global Village – ‘a sophisticated interactive culture’
The impact on political and economic decision making
Conclusions, suggestions, reflections and predictions

B.F Skinner:  American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher.

  • The theory of B.F. Skinner is based upon the idea that learning is a function of change in overt behavior. Changes in behavior are the result of an individual’s response to events (stimuli) that occur in the environment

New Media

POTENTIAL QUESTIONS

Media products are shaped by the economic and political contexts in which they are created.
To what extent does an analysis of your online, social and participatory Close Study Products (The Voice and Teen Vogue) support this view?
[25 marks]

Media effects theories argue that the media has the power to shape the audience’s thoughts and behaviour.
How valid do you find the claims made by effects theories? You should refer to two of the Close Study Products (Tomb Raider Anniversary, Metroid: Prime 2 Echoes, Sims Freeplay) in your answer.
[25 marks]

The target audiences for video games change because of the historical and economic contexts in which they are produced.
To what extent does an analysis of the Close Study Products Tomb Raider: Anniversary and The Sims FreePlay support this statement?
[25 marks]

Media producers must respond to changing social and cultural contexts to maintain audiences. To what extent does an analysis of the online close study products do the voice and teen vogue support this view [25 marks]

New Media

To start off with I would like to prioritise the notion of CHANGE & TRANSFORMATION as a way of thinking about NEW MEDIA which can be linked to the key ideas of a media syllabus. For example,

  1. the transformation of social interaction (audiences);
  2. the transformation of individual identity (audiences and representation);
  3. the transformation of institutional structures (industry); and the changes in textual content and structure (language).
  4. The transformation of audience consumption

In summary, this could be described as the changing nature of symbolic interaction and a lot of the work on this blog is essentially discussing this concept.

Dan Gillmor is a useful theorist to look at, you can read his book We Media by clicking on this link – provides an overview of how new media technologies have had an impact on relationship between citizens and government / institutional power.

New technology and media developments:

  • Speed
  • Knowledge
  • Time
  • Space/communication
  • Understanding
  • Access
  • Participation
  • Reality
  • Privacy
  • Choice
  • Interactivity
  • Storage
  • Retrieval

Suggested Essay Structure?

Remember to focus on key issues around new media – privacy, knowledge, understanding, education, friendship, behaviour, thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, politics, economics, employment, war, conflict, food, the environment, space, science (essentially social change)

  1. Overview: New media always creates change (printing press, telegram etc)
  2. Q: so how has recent technology changed (society, individuals, organisations, ideas, beliefs etc etc)
  3. CSP 1 – show knowledge of CSP
  4. characteristics of new media (in reference to CSP 1)
  5. theoretical / conceptual analysis of new media (loop theory, network theory, Dunbar number, McLuhan, Krotoski)
  6. Critically thinking about new media (Baudrillard, McLuhan, Krotoski, B. F. Skinner, Zuboff, Lanier – are all essentially critical of new media technologies. But Gauntlett, Shirky, Jenkins are all very positive about new media technologies)
  7. CSP 2 – show knowledge
  8. Draw parallels and conclusions
  9. Suggest future pathways / developments

Revision

CSPS

The Close Study Products (CSPs) will address the requirement that students engage with products
which:
• possess cultural, social and historical significance
• reflect and illuminate the theoretical framework underlying the study of media together with
the theoretical perspectives associated with them
• illustrate a full range of media products in terms of perceived quality, form and structure
• provide rich and challenging opportunities for interpretation and in-depth critical analysis,
enabling students to develop a detailed understanding of how the media communicate
meanings and how audiences respond
• cover different historical periods and different global settings
• be intended for different audiences
• demonstrate emerging, future developments of the media
• cover examples of media students would not normally engage with
• at least one media product produced before 1970
• at least one media product produced for a non-English speaking audience
• at least one media product produced outside the commercial mainstream
• at least one media product targeting, or produced by, a minority group.

Revision Guide

A-Level Syllabus

4 Media Concepts

Media Language, Media Audiences, Media Industries, Media Representation.

Media Language

https://www.aqa.org.uk/resources/media-studies/as-and-a-level/media-studies/a-level/subject-specific-vocabulary

Semiotics:
• Sign – something which can stand for something else – in other words, a sign is anything that can convey meaning
• Signifier – the thing, item, or code that we ‘read’ – so, a drawing, a word, a photo.
• Signified –  the concept behind the object that is being represented.
• Dominant signifier – main thing we see
• Icon – A sign that resembles what it represents.
• Index – A sign that works by a relationship to the object or concept it refers to for example an image of a ball can be indexical of sport.
• Code –
• Symbol –
• Anchorage –
• Ideology –
• Paradigm –
• Syntagm. –

Barthes’ ideas and theories on semiotics:
• Signification
• Denotation
• Connotation
• Myth.

Narratology:
• Narrative Codes
• Narration
• Diegesis
• Quest narrative
• ‘Character types’
• Causality
• Plot
• Masterplot.

Todorov’s ideas and theories on narratology:
• Narrative structure
• Equilibrium
• Disruption
• New equilibrium.

Genre theory as summarised by Neale
• Conventions and rules
• Sub-genre
• Hybridity
• Genres of order and integration
• ‘Genre as cultural category’.

Lévi-Strauss’ ideas and theories on structuralism:
• Binary oppositions
• Mytheme
• Cultural codes
• Ideological reading
• Deconstruction.

Postmodernism:
• Pastiche
• Bricolage
• Intertextuality
• Implosion.

Baudrillard’s ideas and theories on postmodernism:
• Simulacra
• Simulation
• Hyperreality.