The Feed, Media and the New Culture - Report Example

The Feed, media and the new culture ‘…..the big media congloms got together and gave all this money and bought the schools so that all of them could have computers and pizza for lunch and stuff, which they gave for free, and now we do stuff in classes about how to work technology and how to find bargains and what's the best way to get a job and how to decorate our bedroom.’ (The Feed, M.T. Anderson) The narrative gives an excellent picture of the techno centric world in which how reality is perceived and how it changes their perceptions, attitudes, imaginations and even the child play. The virtual images they see around are none other than the media images; a perfect example of how media and communication is changing the world, which is also true to the present world. The Feed: a constant flow of information, advice, advertorial, and plain urging to buy, buy, buy. It's the Internet and the Shopping Channel plugged into your head, so that you never really have to think for yourself (because the Feed will prompt you, fill any gaps, find information for you, suggest that you might want to buy the latest trainers jackets cars whatever). The Feed speeds everything up: as communication is instant, and you never have to miss anything, so trends come and go in the blink of an eye. Feed is not a fictional phenomenon, but a stoic reality. A reality that we experience every day in our daily rush through the consumerist world, running amok through advertising banners, pop up windows, SMS messages, advertisement jingles and even film songs and celebrity albums. The information and communication technologies, global media, internet and the new mediated culture together have set the world clock to a common time zone at the same time transforming it to a virtual society. In this new world governed by the dictums of media and communication conglomerates information travels fast than light, and sound is no more heard. It’s the image that counts, the image that your memory recalls first. No wonder the US President is much particular that his televised image should be viewed by the people across continents glued to their community television sets. Like the universal culture it has brought the new communication technologies has also universalized politics too; law is no more the utterances, whims and fancies of a dictator. Thanks to the news channels, the human rights violation in any part of the world has no longer become a local issue, but a matter of universal concern. Even though media has initiated the process of a new renaissance, taking advantage of the developments in information and communication technologies; their precipitations like the world news and news products, the mediated culture, blogging and electronic consumerism increased its pace acting as catalysts. The MacLuhan equation Marshal MacLuhan, a Canadian professor through his pioneering work Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964 started the discussions on media and their effects on the society. ‘McLuhan said the electric media would cause a social and political "implosion," raising "human awareness of responsibility to an intense degree."(qtd.in Larry Press 1995) But media investigated new possibilities by discovering the political, social and economic viability of MacLuhan observations. Barely 15 years after McLuhan propounded his classic observation; the world saw the impact of the televised image, triggering a new crowd behavior, and ‘tailoring’ reactions. The television pictures of the war on Iraq, the outrages of terrorism on the WTC and the reportage on hostages in fact changed the world view on each and aspect that affected the modern day society. Mass media Today we live in a media centric world where each and every development whether economic, political, social or cultural is initiated and determined by the media. The reality has become so virtual that it is hard to believe it, if media has not spoken anything of it. Thus media and media products have become fast moving consumer goods and found new markets across the borders. They are received with the same excitement that any foreign commodity gives to a native population. Thanks to the new marketing techniques, like the world news update, the culture magazine where the foreign culture is always glorified and the travel programme that always discovers the exotic. What else you need to reduce the distance between Alaska and Ajanta Caves when airline companies queue up to advertise with a cut in airfares. What else is needed to bond people together by a common ire when the premier news channel starts morning show breaking news about the human rights violations at a distant corner of the world? Information and Communication Technology (ICT) The internet pioneered the ICT and spearheaded a revolution just like the invention of the printing press. If printing empowered people with knowledge, the internet gave them ‘digital liberation’ (qtd. in Jones & Jones). ‘In the information age, the critical organizational form is networking. The most critical distinction in this organizational logic is to be or not to be -- in the network. Be in the network, and you can share and, over time, increase your chances. Be out of the network, or become switched off, and your chances vanish since everything that counts is organized around a world wide web of interacting networks.’(Manuel Castells 1998) The freedom to interact ‘directly and instantaneously’, (Jones & Jones 1997) ‘end to copyright legislation’(Jones & Jones 1997) and ‘increased democratization of users’ (Jones & Jones 1997) and the facility to publish one’s own opinion has made the internet a virtual village space where people all around the world meet, gossip and share views. The ICT indeed has taken the power from the media conglomerates and decentralized it through the internet. Today any body can be the proud owner of a newspaper, express his own views that is read by millions of people around the world. Blogging is the other necessary evil that the new media technology has given to us. Thanks to the web, the netizen has become a global citizen, always bothered about the political unrest in the other hemisphere. What a human world view! Electronic consumerism Electronic consumerism has increased after the entry of hand-held devices. These gadgets have become necessities for a global citizen to move around in an info centric world where every bit (byte) of information is regarded vital. Mobile phones, the mobile internet, broadband and the palmtop are the other contributions of the ICT that are going to get people close to each other in the next few years, increasing the possibility and frequency of interaction. You can comment on the latest world economic analysis by a simple SMS and become part of the global reaction; a true global citizen indeed. The virtual village is getting more and more to reality. The new culture The post MTV and the FTV generations live in a context where xenophobia is a discarded word. Music and fashion has bridged the world full of conflicting ideologies and racial prejudices. The advances in technology particularly the media and communication technologies have made it easier for the marketers to target the audience, the media messages have become much harder to avoid. This helps them to make a precise marketing model and produce young consumers who fit into that model. These experiments have been done successfully in the case of music, music albums, teen wear and accessories. But one thing remains a fact; the new cultural derivatives have contributed only to promote love, cooperation and friendship among different people around the world, despite criticisms of cultural invasions and media hegemony. Conclusion Is it our fate to end up in a Feed-like state, manipulated by the broader interests of the media and communication technology conglomerates. Whether these wider economic interests will make us unable to think for ourselves? It has become impossible for most of us to think of a life without conceiving of them in images taken from movies, songs and ads which challenge us to be better consumers rather real people. But the only hope is that the new generation has started to widen their world view collecting bizarre experiences from around the world as Anderson points out in the Feeds. The global village that came as a natural evolution of the processes that contributed to the development of media, information and communication technologies and their precipitant culture, has started contributing virtues. May it is pointing towards a new cultural renaissance. Works Cited: 1. Larry Press, McLuhan Meets the Net, Communications of the ACM, Vol 38, No 7, July, 1995, pp 15-20 2. Manuel Castells, Information Technology, Globalization and Social Development; Paper prepared for the UNRISD Conference on Information Technologies and Social Development, Palais des Nations, Geneva, 22-24 June 1998 3. Marsha Jones and Emma Jones, Mass Media, London, Macmillan, 1997 Read More