TEL 555:
Information Society and the Digital World

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Cyberspace:

A consensual hallucination
experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts...A graphical representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the non-space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding...

 

 

William Gibson, Neuromancer (New York: Berkley Publishing Group, 1989), pp. 128.

 

 

Caldwell: Theorizing the Digital Landrush

Technospeak, cybergush and new media orthodoxies

Mapping the questions

Paradigming: Pitch and Vaporware

Academic and Industrial Tropes

Institutions and voices on the future

The Screen and The Wire (and other Players)

Industrial Players:
-Computer industry and “box-centric”
-Broadcasting and “schedule-centric”
-Portals and Telecoms and “network-centric”
-Hollywood and “content-centric”

Academic traditions
-Technology Assessment
-Pessimistic and Critical Perspectives
-Popular Culture
-Grand Theory
-Cultural Studies

 

TEL 555- Information Society

Schedule

New Media Characteristics (Excerpts – Click here for more)

Networked Linkage - Vanishing of fixed place

Ubiquity

Digital: New media are digital media and are capable of:

·         Infinite duplication without degradation, 

·         Being altered in a way that is far less detectable than with analog media (compare these images),

·         Easy retrieval, calculation or computation since contents are inherently "machine readable," and

·         Digital media are frequently stored on magnetic or optical surfaces which do not have a proven permanence.

Space Binding and Distance Insensitivity

Geographical Insensitivity

Personalized

Prosthesis and Telepresence

Virtuality,  Virtual Community

·         See K.I.S.S of the Panopticon. We'll discuss some core issues here later in the quarter

Hypertext

·         The Web (WWW) basic hypertext explanation

Interactivity

Push v. Pull

Convergent: Merged Modal Capabilities, multimedia, multiple media

"Smart" Server controlled functions

Wired, Wireless, Terrestrial and Satellite-based

Electromagnetic v. Optical

General Comparison between Traditional Mass Media and New Media

Traditional Mass Media

New Media

Geographically Constrained

Distance Insensitive

Hierarchical

Flattened

Unidirectional

Interactive

Space/Time Constrained

Less Space/Time Constrained

Professional Communicators

Amateur/Non-Professional

High Access Costs

Low Access Costs

Broad Coverage

Customized

Linearity of Content

Non-Linearity of Content

Delayed Feedback

Immediate Feedback

Advertising-Driven

Diverse Funding Sources

Institution-Bound

Decentralized

Fixed Format

Flexible Format

News Values, Journalistic Standards

Formative Standards

 

 

Definitions of the Information society

 

Technological

·        Computer diffusion, tech innovation

·        Convergence of computers via networks (similar to an electrical grid-“information grid”) leading to electronic interactions that replace roads/rail/postal etc…(ISDN-Integrated Services Digital Network)

·        Techno-economic paradigm

·        Flexible specialization

Objections to the technology definitions

·        Tautological argument: the fact the technological innovations are present means that we have moved into a new society, measurement problem-technology is the index/evidence (Western ethnocentrisms) where the invention is both the cause and effect

·        Technological determinism: tech is part of the social NOT independent

·        Where is the threshold?

 

Economic

·        Shift from wealth based on production of goods to the distribution of knowledge

Problems with economic definitions

·        Hidden interpretation on statically based evidence

·        Need to consider the qualitative aspects of economic indicators (e.g. is Seattle Times research the same as Boeing research?)

·        Where is the threshold?

 

Occupational

·        Predominance of occupations are found in information work: shift from production of goods to information management

Problems with occupational definitions

·        Poor categorization of occupational roles/duties/etc…: all are bases on researchers’ estimations of how much time is devoted to information

·        Information occupations are NOT independent of social forces (e.g. more network engineers because there are more networks)

·        Information specialist vs. information workers

 

Spatial

·        Information as key strategic resource, networked infrastructure that has reorganized the world economy, and the destruction on geographic boundaries

·        Basically, a global economy

·        Time/space compression

Problems with spatial definitions

·        Categorization of networks and amount of global infrastructure

·        Should focus on flow of information/amount moving between areas

·        Networks have existed for hundred of years

 

Cultural

·        Large amount of information – the media is everywhere

Problems with cultural

·        Mediaziation of society may be an indication of the market push of name brands-symbolic significance of information – contemporary life is about symbolic exchanges

·        Postmodernism and the death of symbolic interactions: the extensive amount of media experiences destroys meaning-signs no longer have any referents (spectacle)

 

Quality and Quantity

 

·        Tough to distinguish between qualitative and quantitative measurements

·        Numbers (quantitative) do NOT indicate a new society

·        Must consider what people do with information

 

What is information?

 

·        Semantic: meaningful, subject based

·        Must consider context, social aspects, and intentions