Media and Culture Flashcards
well known for his departing catchphrase “And that’s the way it is,” followed by the date on which the appearance aired
Walter Cronkite
Future Past
Future Past
i.e. A Space Odyssey (and ipad)
“Fingertip shopping” (online shopping), household security cameras, online banking and the “electronic correspondence machine or home post office” (e-mail) – Predictions made in1999 A.D (1967)
Memex
a desk that would instantly bring files to operator’s fingertips, read codes, keep images, letter and file them for later
Bush conceived the ______ as an automated workstation containing libraries of books, pictures, periodicals, newspapers, and records of personal communications that “may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility”.
In explaining the concept, Bush notes that the human mind operates by “association”: “With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by association of thoughts in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain”.
Memex mechanizes this selection process: “any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another. This is the essential feature of the memex”.
Memex
Bush predicts…
“There will be a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record”. (reddit, stumble upon, etc.)
As We May Think by Vannevar Bush
Glasses vs google glasses
Is Technology Neutral?
Does technology determine our social structure and cultural values?
Media
socially realized structures of communication
Presumes that a society’s technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values.
Technology and new technologies are thought to be the primary cause of major social and historical changes at the macro level of social structure, and at the micro-social level in terms of their profound social and psychological influences on individuals.
Technological Determinism
“to have an effect on something or someone”
In a media studies context, it points to the ways that meanings circulate between, among, through, in, and around human and non-human settings alike
i.e. weather, a non-human agent that has “an effect on something or someone” and its meaning weather circulates between, among, through, in and around things both human and non-human.
The weather, however, does not determine a person’s mood, though it may _____ it.
Technology operates in the same manner
Affect, not Technological Determinism
Technological determinism is a totalizing claim. Technology operates in more nuanced ways. Technology has affect.
Recommendation engines on Amazon and Netflix, crowd sourcing, targeting advertising are all examples of…
AFFECT
hypothesis in the field of human aesthetics which holds that when human features look and move almost, but not exactly, like natural human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among some human observers
Uncanny Valley
when technology moves to where it is beyond us
• Predictions of the future from our POV now
• “Why zombies, robots, clowns freak us out”
cultural industries - channels of communication —that produce and distribute songs, novels, TV shows, newspapers, movies, video games, Internet services, and other cultural products to large numbers of people.
mass media
newer forms of technology disrupted and modif ied older forms—a process that many academics, critics, and media professionals began calling
convergence
the process of designing cultural messages and stories and delivering them to large and diverse audiences through media channels as old and distinctive as the printed book and as new and converged as the Internet.
mass communication
written culture
manuscript
images, texts, and sounds are converted (encoded) into electronic signals (represented as varied combinations of binary numbers—ones and zeros) that are then reassembled (decoded) as a precise reproduction of, say, a TV picture, a magazine article, a song, or a telephone voice.
digital communication
people who post commentary on cultural, personal, and political-opinion-based Web sites —had become key players in news.
bloggers
linear process of producing and delivering messages to large audiences.
senders -> messages -> mass media channel -> receivers
authors, producers, and organizations
senders
programs, texts, images, sounds, and ads
messages
newspapers, books, magazines, radio, television, or the Internet
mass media channel
redears, viewers, and consumers
receivers
news editors, executive producers, and other media managers; message filters
gatekeepers
return messages to senders or gatekeepers through letters-to-the-editor, phone calls, e-mail, Web postings, or talk shows.
feedback
the problem with the linear model of communication
cultural model uggests the complexity of this process and the lack of control that “senders” (such as media executives, movie makers, writers, news editors, ad agencies, etc.) often have over how audiences receive messages and interpret their intended meanings
People typically seek messages and produce meanings that correspond to their own cultural beliefs, values, and interests. For example, studies have shown that people with political leanings toward the left or the right tend to seek out blogs or news outlets that reinforce their preexisting views.
selective exposure
intervening substance through which something is conveyed or transmitted
media
storytelling
narrative
hypothetical moment in time when artificial intelligence will have progressed to the point of a greater-than-human intelligence, radically changing civilization, and perhaps human nature.
Transcendent Man (2009) • The singularity – when machines become smarter than us
