New Media
An inadequate description.
Throughout the course of growing up using the most modern technologies, I have come to realize that we, humans, have stretched ourselves so far, that we can not go back. This perspective I will contradict by the end giving a reader the ability to grasp what “it” is that New Media are. The purpose of this blog post is to expose others to ideas. This post is a link in a Web.
To begin my examination I’ll start with consciousness. What used to be a singular roaming train is now a far-stretched thin film of short attention spans.
The sickness is real.
Interesting is the process of social media platforms, thus, why in a time like this, with so much expansion — there is a need for guidance and proper utilization. Spread thin, to say the least.
“Our grandparents grew up in a world, where their entire world was in their front room.”
Our rooms now are too big to measure so there needs to be reform in education, the system long overdue for an overhaul. We must teach in accordance with the growing trend of expansion. To put it metaphorically, when your computer can longer run the newest adobe suite, you need a new one. I am not saying that I know the answer, but traditional forms of education have proven not to stand up to the times.
HackEdu
In “HackEdu”, by Gerald R. Lucas, “HackEdu’s goal is to identify educational hacks that we can practice to improve our teaching and learning in the digital age…
The traditional classroom conforms to a particular power structure: the teacher stands in front while the students sit quietly waiting to be filled with knowledge. The fact of digital devices challenges this traditional structure. With our smartphones, we now have access to any information the teacher does.”
That statement is profound, and I believe often avoided in total. Educators I see are struggling to deal with the implication that what they know, is already out there on the Web, and there is more that I can find out about the subject than they know. So what are we talking about here?
Gerald R. Lucas states, in “Norman Mailer and the Novel 2.0,” that “[t]oo much freedom is a terrifying prospect to those not used to it and underprepared for it.” So, why not get prepared?
A change in conciousness.
Marshall McLuhan, the communication guru of the 20th century, alloted one of the most profound examinations of communication theory. McLuhan stated that the “medium is the message.” Forget the content and what follows. Take a step back, and look at the what the medium does.
Filling a glass with milk, water, beer, or mead, it doesn’t necessarily matter what the beer does. What matters is the shape of it and how that shapes our interaction with it. If the glass has a hole in it, then we can’t keep a drink in it. The container is the foundation of further examination.
So what?
Who cares? I guess only those that want to. That is the beauty of New Media. I can choose to use it, or not. I can be a hermit, nomadic supertramp like the great Alexander, but that obviously is not the construct to follow. What are New Media?
They are the channels, modes, remixes, games — the Web. I could monotonously list every medium of information exchange, but to put it shortly, New Media are the new modes of information exhange and what these systems say is that the traditional communication model is broken.
There is not one encoder and receiver anymore because if I send a message, it can be interrupted by anyone with a common sense of coding. If I write a blog post, construct the message, and post it I am limited to the structure of the Medium’s limitations and guidelines.
We’re moving on up.
Getting closer and closer to attempting the singularity, or at least so it seems. The human race is near obsolete, or so would some contend. I am not surely convinced that day will ever come, but I can say that there is an interesting implication in all of this death defying consciousness idea.
The trend could be fallible, but when I ask a question and get an answer, it is often answered with a series of more questions. One notable concept is consciousness itself. What if we could load our entire neuron sequence into a quantum system and live forever — would consciousness be able to continue forever?
Life is a container. The human body is a container — and there so is consciousness. Something to ponder is the question of where consciousness actually lays — because we do not know. If we are just a bundle of nerves projecting images, and sounds on a screen in our inner-head, then by all means, load me up. But — what if you load someone up to a machine, and the spark just isn’t there? I’d say let life be as it is. With every question, there are ten more to be answered. What came first?
Let’s say it all WORKS!
Suppose singularity approaches and New Media is functioning at its’ highest capability for the betterment of post-human consciousness. What happens when an author becomes dangerous to that state of existence. As we have seen, time and time again, there is always an issue in privacy and security.
We build fences, walls, locks on doors, protective software — all to ensure our security, but at the cost of enabling an “other” with some of our privacy.
Should the government control the means of access to information? Apple stood their ground and fought the assessment. The war on terrorism is terroristic in nature, so I would contend it would function the same in cybersdpace. I’d rather keep my IOS safe from FBI infiltration.
Coming back to the discussion of what are New Media. They are the world that can’t be touched, but only communicated with.
- Heard, but not felt.
- Seen, but not smelt.
- Written, not read.
- Read, but not written.
Media are like relationships. So far, I have only discussed the break-ups, fears of cheating, and losing, but there is another side to all of this. The side that has made the position of women and children better. The side that has brought greater respect for the disabled and outlier humans. Connection. To me, New Media are the future of love making.
Interconnectivity and bonding.
Longing, and remorse are replaced with a tease of instant acknowledgement. A “like,” or a “share” can show someone you care. More people can hear your story than ever before, and if you die before too late, your story can live on and be viewed as many times as someone wants to.
You’re not alone. You can find someone online that will inherently agree with you, love you, and want to play games with you. You can immerse yourself in the security of a private chat room with your best-online friends. You can call skype your mom from out of state, and you can send a video reminding your kids to get some sleep.
They are the new writing. They are the new oral tradition. Not taking away from the Novel, but creating an experience based off of the idea. More broadly, literary canons being constructed by outliers.
Profit and economic inferiority.
What New Media gives us is the ability to foresee a future that isn’t reflective of a peron’s life in a screenshot of a bank statement. Time — will hopefully be reallocated to be used and not spent. Human thoughts will no longer be intellectual properties to be hoarded and/or used for an anti-intellectual to stockpile other people’s “time.”
This ironic system will hopefully fail and be replaced with something much greater.
Businessmen making decisions on the behalf of the majority of masses as to what it is people should be exposed to, that is in reference to art, with a capital “A.”
All in all.
We are humans, and we are cyborgs. We have been since the beginnings of using tools. Some may argue that, but we are. We use “things” to extend ourselves, and to do stuff better than we can with our hands. I can’t sing, but I can play guitar.
Confused yet? Google it.
