Media Mutations

Finding a way to track and visualize global digital cultures.

To come up with a solution to the problem about finding a way to track and visualize global digital cultures, seems to be almost impossible to me… We live in a world where the global media is just expanding and expanding. It seems like we are having a problem with catching up with the media, and telling the difference between what is real and what is not real.

The rapid explosion of “born digital” data has not passed unnoticed. In fact, the web companies themselves have played an important role in making it happen so they can benefit from it economically. — Lev Manovich

If we take instagram, facebook and twitter as examples, it’s not easy to track and visualise global digital cultures. That’s the problem we are trying to figure out because we can’t really tell what´s real anymore. In every single one of these social medias you can get comments or likes that are not from users (humans) but actually machines.

Is it possible to get lost in something that isn’t real? Do we create media that we can’t keep up with?

I can try to come up with a solution to the problem, but I feel like it could backfire. If my solution was that after a certain amount of time online you have to answer a survey question in order to remain online. If we do that maybe we could easier track and visualise global digital cultures. But then again maybe this has a bad impact on the social media? I know that I hate surveys, maybe people thinks its enjoying and finds something else to do like me. Or maybe people find it helpful to be reminded that they have been online that long. I actually don’t know…

Media as Software
The technology and the media is evolving so much and are almost able to do anything without us doing that much. If you are learning to code, you are learning to communicate with technology. And this is how humans communicate with machines. I think we are one a path where software might take over everything…