New Communication and Technology Academic essay
Sophie Dowling
S2625621
The term “cybercompulsions” has been expressed as an “umbrella”term, (Rose, 1999, pp.106-107) referring to online
media behaviours that we feel somehow compelled to engage in, without being able to converse exactly why we do it.
What is it that compels us to engage in this type of virtual interactivity?
Have you ever noticed your internet usage falling into a recurring pattern? Do you go online at about the same point in
your daily routine each day? Is there a particular web site that you always peruse before starting your daily activities?
Looking back can you see consistency in your online behaviour across days and weeks? Have you forgotten the exact day
you started following that pattern or your exact reasons for it? Do you feel vaguely out of sorts if your online schedule is
disrupted or if you go too many days without logging in? (La rose, In the style of young, 1999, pp.106-107)
No this is not a self-diagnostic test of “internet addiction”(La rose, In the style of young, 1999, pp.106-107) you have
simply acquired some new media habits.
Although, new media theory is not quite as new as it may seem, new habits are being transformed from old habits. The
history of the human – computer interface is that of borrowing and reformulating, or to use new media jargon,
reformatting other media, both past and present –the printed page, film and television. But
along with borrowing the conventions of most other media and electrically combining them together, “HCI designers
heavily borrow conventions of the human man-made physical environment” (Sproull & Kiesler, 1986, New Media theory
website), so we don’t feel completely out of the norms of reality but are at ease in this virtual realm.
Little do we know that this virtual utopia is replacing reality and becoming one of the central means of communication.
The electronic media as we know it is becoming the pacemaker for social and economic development of societies. It is “the
new shaping of the consciousness”. (Brecht: 1970, New Left Review website) It infiltrates into all other sectors of
production, takes over more and more directional and control functions, determines the standard of the prevailing
technology and the happenings of everyday life. Is the internet the new black box which we all centre our daily lives
around. In years to come, will the computer replace the TV in the center of our living room, or has it already been done?
The answer is certainly yes. Mobile communication permeates the mundane activities of banking, Led tunes and slowly
panning cameras which are the visual and audible indication of the “intangible and tangled network of cables and signals
that connect and mediate buildings and people, institutions and homes, towns and continents, bodies and machines”.
(Silverstone, Roger and Hirsch, A critical introduction to new media 1991 pp.218-219) Anything and almost everything we
do in everyday life can now be done online .We can chat to friends, buy basically anything on eBay, gamble, skim the illicit
sites, find a house, You tube, watch the latest movie, listen to newly released songs, promote whatever we want and even
pick up a new love interest on the way.
We want to be drawn out of the ordinary and into a new and exciting virtual world rather than being stranded in the norm
of everyday life where we constantly follow routine. The image of these “users” is even reflected in numerous
advertisements for cable television and internet services depicting awestruck consumers being sucked into their TV or
computer screens, revealing how dreams of stepping into the “interface –of a literally unmediated experience of
information and communication”(Heim, pp.221,1996) is readily available and accessible.
Miller and Slater explore that the ready accessibility of the internet 24/7 encourages this internet habit, forming “the
condition of virtuality”.( Miller and Slater, 2000, pp.221) At first glance the terms; ‘everyday life’ and ‘cyberspace’ seem
distinct, even reconcile concepts. So where are our decisions to choose between the two? Are they lost amid this virtual
world? In Peter Lunefield’s opinion, “The choices to develop, deploy and value digital media not only shape the
technologies themselves but also are part of a feedback loop affecting the culture that creates them”. (Lunenfeld, Digital
Dialectic website, 1995) It is shaping our view of the society and instead of finding out these things and experiencing them
for ourselves; we are cooped up inside switched onto the net. Many can admit to being a ‘user’ in the sense that everyone
can confess being glued to their computer screen for hours on end. Clifford Stoll reenacts the fears of ‘capitulation’ claiming
that computers ‘teach us to withdraw, to retreat into their warm comfort of their false reality’ (Stoll, pp.47-49 1995) and
the false reality of others.
We are now finding relationships of all kinds on the internet because this ‘hyper personal interaction’(Walther, 1996,
pp.45) appeals more than relationships formed face to face. To some it is more sociably desirable than face to face
communication because we have the freedom to idealize the ability to choose which aspects of the self to disclose and when
to disclose them. This pervasive sense of interactivity allows “users” to be multiple people as concurrently with no one of
these being necessarily genuine. By separating ourselves from our bodies, from time and space, the computer opens a
realm in which the ‘multiplicity of identity that is taken to characterize contemporary life reaches more valid than the
other.’ (Lievrou and Fin, 1990 pp.6 The Handbook of New Media, Sage Publications)
In a study conducted in 1997 Scherer found that 13 percent of internet users reported some signs of dependency on the
internet, specifically that it interfered with academic work, professional performance or social life (scherer, 1997,
pp.48).Ten years later and it still hasn’t changed, worsening as the interactive empire grows larger. Will our increased use
of the internet have deterious consequences for the rest of our lives? McKenna and Bargh state “there is no simple main
effect of the internet on the average person”. (McKenna and Bargh, 2000, pp.49) Will this virtual vortex capture more of
these “users” and leave longer lasting effects?
Computers as we know them will disappear into things that are first and foremost something else: smart nails, self cleaning
shirts, driverless cars, therapeutic Barbie dolls, intelligent doorknobs, computer will be sweeping yet invisible parts of our
everyday lives: we’ll live in them, wear them, and even eat them. (Negroponte, 1998, pp.223,) The reason being why we
are so compelled to engage in this virtual utopia. Cyberspace offers us new dimensions to live in, free from the “time and
space of everyday life” (Rose,1999, pp.106-107). “We reside in cyberspace when we feel ourselves moving through the
interface into a relatively independent world with its own dimensions and rules”. (Rose,1999, pp.106-107)
Reference List
Books
(Silverstone, Roger and Hirsch, Eric ‘Listening to a long conversation: an ethnographic approach to the study of information and communication technologies in the home’, Cultural studies 5.2 (1991): 218-219, a critical introduction to new media, Fetter Lane London)
(Lievrou and Fin, 1990 pp.6 The Handbook of New Media, Sage Publications, Leah A. Lievrouw and Sonia Livingstone) Cameron Stoll, 1995 Silicon snake oil: Second thoughts on the information highway. New York Double day
(Negroponte, 1998, pp.223, New media a critical introduction, new media in everyday life. The domestic shaping of new media. Martin Lister, Jon Dovey, Seth Giddings, Iain Grant, Kieran Kelly, 2003 Fetter lane, London)
(La rose, In the style of young, 1999, pp.106-107 Impact and Issues in New Media Paul S. N. Lee, Louis Leung, and Clement Y.K. So Editors, 2004, Hampton press Inc)
(Lev Manovich PP.89 the Language of New Media, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge Mass: Press, 1999)
Raymond Williams, pp.195, Media studies texts, institutions and audiences-New technologies and media audiences, technology and society, Lisa Taylor and Andrew Willis, 1999, 1974Blackwell Publishers Websites
Websites
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(Brecht: 1970, New Left Review website Theory of Radio New Left Review, http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=430 First accessed 19th, March)
http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/unraveling.html volume 34, February, 2003,Rebecca A. Clay Print version: page 40 Unraveling new media’s affects on children Sandra L. Calvert Children’s Digital Media Center, Georgetown University (accessed 10th May)
astro.temple.edu/~zpapacha/Lecture4/frame.htm (Sproull & Kiesler, 1986, New Media theory website)(accessed 22nd March)
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3669/is_200407/ai_n9451851 2004, Kevin B.Wright (accessed 8th May)
Bibliography
Books
‘A Critical introduction to New Media’ (Silverstone, Roger and Hirsch, Eric ‘Listening to a long conversation: an ethnographic approach to the study of information and communication technologies in the home’, Cultural studies 5.2 (1991): 218-219, Fetter Lane London)
‘Impact and Issues in New Media’ (La rose, In the style of young, 1999, pp.106-107 Paul S. N. Lee, Louis Leung, and Clement Y.K. So Editors, 2004, Hampton press Inc)
‘New media a critical introduction’(Negroponte, 1998, pp.223, new media in everyday life. The domestic shaping of new media. Martin Lister, Jon Dovey, Seth Giddings, Iain Grant, Kieran Kelly, 2003 Fetter lane, London)
‘The Handbook of New Media’ (Lievrou and Fin, 1990 pp.6, Sage Publications, Leah A. Lievrouw and Sonia Livingstone)
‘The Language of New Media’ (Lev Manovich PP.89, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (
Cambridge Mass: Press, 1999)
‘Television and a Place Called Home’ (Silverstone, Roger 1994, in Television and Everyday Life, Routledge, London )
‘The Invention of Everyday Life’ (Felski, Rita 2002, in New Formations, Issue 39 pp. 15-31)
Websites(The Digital Dialectic: New Essays on New Media
(Brecht: 1970, New Left Review website Theory of Radio New Left Review, http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=430
First accessed 19th, March)
http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/unraveling.htmlvolume 34, febuary, 2003,Rebecca A.Clay Print version: page 40 Unraveling new media’s effects on children Sandra L. Calvert
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(Theories of Media Change: Understanding New Media
Garnet Hertz (Draft, last modified 13 November 2006)
F:\New commun academic essay\Theories of Media Change Understanding New Media – Garnet Hertz.htm
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