Understanding New Media

This report is based upon the books: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman’s Brave New World, by Lance Strate; and Understanding Media: Extending Marshall McLuhan, by Robert K. Logan. Together, McLuhan and Postman’s philosophies form the foundation of what we call media ecology, which can be defined as the study of media as an environment to humans. Media ecology is mainly concerned with the effects of media technology on man, as it is believed that media technology is an extension of man, and is a symbolic form of communication, conciseness, and culture. Lance Strate and Robert K. Logan are scholars who take their respective philosophies further to better help us understand new media, as it evolves.

Marshall McLuhan was the first to introduce the notion that technology is an extension of who we are. Drawing from that idea alone, we can deduce that man’s nature is to create. Today, after a little over a century of electric technological development, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace. “Rapidly, we approach the final phase of extensions of man—the technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society…” (Logan, 2010) Today, it can be argued that the majority of human communication and overall interaction takes place on a cyber plane of existence, the internet. Through the internet we have created social media, which is a multitude of online communities, in which large groups of people can share information and form social and professional relationships. When broken down, the word, “social media,” is self-explanatory. The word “social,” stems from the Latin word “socialis,” meaning united, living with others, or companion. The word “media” is a plural of medium, which stems from the word, “medius,” meaning channel of communication. Social media is an extension of man’s ability to talk, interact, and be. However, its effects on man are related to the predictions of Postman and McLuhan.

I consider myself to be of the wireless age (internet, iPad, laptops, smartphones, etc.). In some instances I cannot imagine what life would be like without my many electronic devices. According to McLuhan and Postman we relentlessly strive for convenience and amusement, which in turn causes us to be numb to the effects of technology. Logan’s whole point to understanding new media is to understand how we interact in our new media environment, and how that interaction differs from the ways we have interacted previously. McLuhan had many predictions about the internet revolutionizing the 21^st century.  He believed that medium would interconnect us; shortening the gap between consumer and producer; the elimination of space and time barriers to communication; and arguably the melting of national borders.

Neil Postman predicted that if unchecked the very media we are accustomed to today, will consume us in our undying pursuit for entertainment. Today, with technological advancements, media has spread from the television to the computer. Another aspect is that people now live in a society that is thoroughly obsessed with notoriety. By popular demand, reality television has come to dominate show business; leaving higher quality information to downplay it’s content to further appeal to the general public. If it isn’t gossip it isn’t note worthy. This is the same for everything we do through media: political races have become less of a political shift and more of a spectatorship, religion has been reduced by pop culture; advertising has reached an all-time-high; and the people could careless about why.

Through Postman, Strate points out that prior to the internet revolution and going back to before the 20^th century there was a balance between two forms of communication, literacy and spoken word. Today, communication has been split into many parts. The demand for entertainment information has grown exceedingly, which according to Strate puts us into a state of “hyper-irrationality.” This can be seen in the use of smartphones:

Social media technology, e.g. smartphones and tablets, allow people to interact and multitask within their environment. This has changed the way we take in information. People can participate in a family reunion on Facebook, follow their favorite celebrities’ movements on Twitter, and read an online news article from the Huffington Post app all in one sitting. This is to say that our attention has become fragmented. Through McLuhan, Logan points out that because of our relentless strive for convenience, we become numb to the effects of technology. In actuality, the effect is numbness. Younger generations, mainly millennials, are less likely to stop and pay attention to what someone has to say, and are more likely to skim over a news article, contract, or book. “There is a time for amusement and a time to be serious, and as our media and technology have expanded our ability to amuse ourselves, we have lost our ability to distinguish between the two, blurring the boundaries in favor of amusement” (Strate, 2014)

            Obviously new media, namely the internet, has a number of effects on today’s society, both good and bad. For example, in our everyday lives we present ourselves based off of a generally shared sum of beliefs and prejudices, we call culture. Our daily lives are a constant oscillation between presenting and spectating. We have to constantly take into consideration the opinion of others. This is to say the media has a tremendous influence on the human psyche. Today’s society is made up of a network of social media that has in turn introduced us to a new way of living. In regards to the Internet and all of its social networking glory, the planet earth has virtually become the size of a marble. This in turn has redefined the word “neighbor,” as it no longer refers to a person belonging to the same community as another; for anybody with a username and a password is considered a neighbor. According to Laura E. Buffardi and W. Keith Campbell, it is speculated that because of the vast popularity of social networking sites, demands for individuals’ attention are increased in priority. “The concern is that these web sites offer a gateway for self-promotion via self-descriptions, vanity via photos, and large numbers of shallow relationships (friends are counted—reaching thousands, and in some cases millions), each of which is potentially linked to a trait of narcissism.” (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008) With the general population of users who partake in social networking sites ranging in the hundreds of millions, social interaction has not only changed, it has become secular, in the sense that social interaction is no longer genuine just another goal or task to accomplish.

It is said that more than half of communication is nonverbal. Nonverbal communication is a series of unspoken symbols or behaviors; messages sent without using words. This could mean smiling vs. frowning, or the tone in one’s voice when engaging in a conversation. Those who partake in social media excessively lose touch with such language, causing awkwardness and miscommunication when engaging in face-to-face communication. This leads most to abstain from face-to-face interaction, for nonverbal communication is not needed to communicate one’s thoughts via social media. Another point to this is a concept introduced by Strate that compared to other forms communication, writing is impersonal. This draws back to our desensitization towards communication with each other. Younger generations prefer to communicate via instant messaging instead of face-to-face or over the phone. Instant messaging is undoubtedly convenient; however, it’s downside is that we leave out a great deal of communication. Strate says that although one includes feelings in what one writes those feelings are not translated, or received on the other side.  This leads to information being taken out of context and ultimately causing the message to be miscommunicated. 

The Internet is roughly 25 years-old, only a few years older than myself; still it's a medium that has given birth to a whole new medium, social media, and is still growing itself. Social media such as Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Vine, are changing just about every level of our culture from the way we watch television to the way we elect government officials. Today, social networking sites are apart of everything we do in our daily lives. In some ways, having an account to some of the better-known social networking sites is essential to branching out in your respective community. One aspect of new media is that social media grants us great power, but at the same time poses a great threat to us as well. Of course this includes the dangers to pouring your entire life into social media, giving way to social disorders (the way we interact with each other) and legal obstructions. But social media allows us to act almost at the speed of thought. Things can be reported worldwide within 10 minutes of it happening.

Social media has been fully integrated into our physical world, meaning that everything we do on social media is in someway just as real as if it was said, witnessed, or made into action on the physical plane. For example, a college may look up a high school student’s social media account to get a better sense of who that student is. This can result in the student being rejected, because of explicit and/or illegal content found on the student's profile. Or it can better the chances of the student being accepted due to community service or showing evidence of entrepreneurship.

The internet has without a doubt changed the way we communicate and exchange information. The internet has become a fundamental block in most first world countries and has become a permanent part of human civilization. When discussing the significance of the internet we often bring up the pros and cons of its relevance to our society. Most would describe the internet as double edge sword. On one side, the internet is extremely convenient; since its conception, we have been able to do things we could only imagine: virtual reality, CGI, instant messaging, various types of remote control, etc. On the other side, with all of these technological advancements with the internet, we are introduced to new armies, new government functions, and crimes.

The biggest concern I would say most people have is the lack of privacy that comes with the internet. I believe this aspect of the internet is generational; the younger generations are exposed to the ways of the internet, namely social media, at an early age, and therefore are less conscious of the dangers older generation are concerned with. I find the internet’s growth to be exciting and terrifying at the same time. I enjoy how all of my Apple devices are completely connected. What I do on one device can be reviewed or continued on another. Even so, I am also uncomfortable with how Facebook takes the initiative of recoding my activity on the web and logging that information to my Facebook profile, and thus onto user’s newsfeeds.

            Studying McLuhan’s theories, I have come to understand that media as an extension of ourselves. In Understanding New Media: Extending Marshall McLuhan, Logan takes the ideas even further as he explain that media begins to extend itself. This leads to the notion that media, technology in general, is evolving. Most people might refer to the past 14 years as the computer age, which is a true statement in its own right. However, I believe we are entering a new age within the computer age, social media. Technological advancements like Google, the iPhone, and Twitter has changed the way we communicate and receive information completely.

Video sharing functions from when YouTube was first introduced have become nearly obsolete. This is to say that, video sharing has become a standard for social networking sites. Video sharing within a social networking site has the potential to cancel out the middleman, which in this case is YouTube. Search engines have even gone as a far as tracking users’ Internet activity, in order to reflect their interest. For example, I intern at Marvel Entertainment, LLC., so a lot of my time spent on the web is related to comic books, specifically Marvel Comics. Instead of random advertisements about stuff that may be uninteresting to me, I get advertisements about Marvel Comics. The awesome feat of technology, though, still lies in McLuhan’s famous quote, “the medium is the message.” We become so fascinated with the functions of technology; we forget to appreciate the very existence of technology. We are able to visually and orally communicate with someone who lives on the other side of the planet. Digesting that known fact, it’s astounding to imagine what may come in the next five to ten years.

Bibliography

Buffardi, L. E., & Campbell, W. K. (2008). Narcissism and social networking web sites. Sage Publications. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/335108/Narcissism_and_Social_Networking_Web_Sites

Logan, R. K. (2010). Understanding new media: extending Marshall McLuhan. New York: Peter Lang.

Strate, L. (2014). Amazing ourselves to death: Neil Postman's Brave new world revisited. New York City: Peter Lang.