Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Media by Appointment

Hello class:

In Paul Levinson’s New New Media, the evolution of all media is brought to the foreground. According to the first chapter the foundation of new new media depends solely on the level of freedom provided in regards to accessing information.

It is evident that people have chosen means which provide “on demand” services. The swift from watching television during specific time frames to accessing websites for the same content at various moments is the most evident turn from new media to new new media.

We have discussed previously multiple times the fact that technology adapts to our needs, while it also creates demand for further services.

The illusion of controlling time is externalized by this rapid need to reproduce programs addressing to one’s preferences.

It is certainly convenient, but what do we lose in return?

Margaret Maria Roidi

4 comments:

  1. Intereating point Margaret, and something that I have often though of myself when seeing how much media is becoming available to us at any place and anytime we want. To me, the on-demand lifestyle promotes a problem of attention. In previous times, when we were watching television or listening to the radio, when something of interest came on we would either listen or watch, or stop what we were doing and switch our attention to whatever it was. There would possibly be no other time to see it or hear it that we could anticipate. With the on-demand lifestyle, we no longer need to learn how to switch our attention and focus on something new in an instant. We do what we want when we want for when its the right time for our attention. We dont get to choose what will happen to us in the course of the day and I think the on-demand lifestyle goes against the mostly unplanned way that life works.

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  2. Just like a friend of mind she is texting during her labor with step by step updates when will it stop ?

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  3. As we have mentioned in this class many times, there is always something gained and something lost...

    It is nice to racall the movies of the 50's and 40's portraying the old days where a family would gather in the living room around the television (even radio...).

    These days are now long gone; nothing can replace the on-demand - immediate gratification - feature of modern tools.

    Margaret M. Roidi

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  4. It does seem to me that the broadcast represented a loss of control in contrast to earlier forms of print media, intensifying the "massiness" of the mass media and mass society, and that digital on-demand technology is a beneficial correction, although maybe we were better off missing more programming and spending time doing other things.

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