New Media and Culture Lecture

Lecture 5

New Media and Visual Culture

1. characteristics of new digital media 

2. definition of critical look at the mass media 

3. relationship between art and the mass media 

Late age of print

The term comes from the mid theorist Marchall Mcluhan the age of print began around 1450.

Gutenbergs printing press.

similar to a wine press but with moveable type blocks began the start of mass produced printing

19th century allows for popular print media to become available cheaply to the masses

the ability for people to produce information in print starts here

print allows people to become literate like they weren't before.

prior to the late age of print literacy mean being able to read and write.

computerate - extension of literate 

printing in this age was use for bank statements and other important documents

nowadays we use computers as consumption of info but also and production of info..

The Reader

'the rolled of the reader'- the electronic book

people no longer read print electronic viewing is taking over i.e people use the internet to read articles and are also able to comment  with their opinions

e books allow you to use the news how you choose you can skip back and forward link to individual stories, these allows us to shape and change information we receive 

Computer Media

'Hypertext' and 'hypermedia' allows you to jump straight to a story.  it can give you the feline of being lost in information were you cant get back to were you started

in schools students build their own learning with the internet rather than being thought by a teacher.

its dizzying how much information is taken in, screen size effects this and a sense that struggle or compensation with the internet as in we always have to be on the move an get through the information as fast as we can were as with a book you can get into it and slow down with it.

Definition of mass media 

modern systems of communication and distribution supplied by relatively small group of cultural producers but directed toward large numbers of consumers i.e. a small number of people communicating to a large audience.

pros and cons of the mass media.

1. superficial uncritical trivial

2. viewing figures measure success

3. audience is disempowered 

4. encourages the status quo (its conservative)

5. audience is dispersed 

6. encourages apathy

7. power held by the few motivated by profit or social control (propaganda)

8. Bland, Escapist and Standardised 

9.Encourages escapism, seen as a drug of the nation

Positives of mass media

1. not al mass media is of low quality 

2. social problem and injustices are discussed by the media

3. creativity can be a feature of mass media

4. transmission of high art material reaches a broader audience

5. democratic potential

Nothing radical happens with the internet or TV because due to the fear of loosing audience.

if your part of an audience that watches for instance Emmerdale you seem to be part of a collective, the audience is disempowered, i.e if you phone in a radio station they can cut you off, also Wagner had a campaign on FB and then he got kicked out.

artistes use of mass media art in the age of mass media

he explores what happens to art just for the few in this age of the mass media how does that relationship shift

'LEEDS 13' 

Benneton campaign..Oliviero Toscani……---an ad campaign on the surface to buy products,,but thats not what their doing the outfit is an army one stained with blood,,,this campaign traded on horror and disaster unity social cohesion, electric chair, social issues like aids/hiv --there fore its doing much more than advertising its more about politics 

LEEDS 13 - pretended to go and spend their grants on a piss up and faked photos, when they released this as a scam there was a debate about whats art.

Key Questions

can art be autonomous? (exist on its own vacuum)…i.e. its doesn't have its own politics and doesn't need new media.

Should art be autonomous? (for some yes…)

Jackson Pollock

his work is just about aesthetic appeal no politics or any thin, but theres a theory that the CIA paid him to produce this work in the time of the cold war.

Picasso had a deep relationship with the mass media..

warhol electric chair (1967)  Ambulance Disaster..the negative effects of the mass media a conditions known as compassion fatigue…if images of shock value are repeated they loose their shock value the same way he made maralyn monroe loose her ...