The idea's of the Athenian Democracy
- New Media will solve problems
- New Media will lend to us having a new golden age of democracy
Genuine Fears of Society (which can be called; Moral Panics)
- Victorians were very concerned about such happenings
- Carolyn Marvins book 'When old technologies were new' details many instances of this
- She describes not just the fears of the new, but also the waves of moral fear concerning new types of crime upon the established order.
-Threats to the moral order of society, new media will affect the existing way of living.
Ultimately this can portray the way people were scared about telephones as really, anyone can hear your conversation. Much like our parents and grandparents are scared now about us having specific details and images online, on sites such as Facebook, which anyone can go on and see.
History of the Internet
- The history of the internet is deeply tied to the history of computing
- We could look at different histories, the people and the technologies and come to a conclusion about where the internet began as a whole.
War + Hippies + Capitalism = Internet
It can be stated that war is good for nothing, however this is not always the case. In the case of the internet, war is good for triggering technological development, as many armies needed the newest technology in order to beat other countries, therefore these technological developments happened quite rapidly during times of the war.
The Mathematics of war underpin much contemporary computing e.g.
- Demands of the artillery shell trigonometry
- Distributed non-hierarchical communication
Hippies and counter culture happened in the 1970's. After the 60's, there was a strong anti-establishment ethos and a drive to challenge the existing order. There were lots of universities (both in the US and europe) were very conservative in nature but students were not. Many students challenged this by dropping out of university and felt that this was ok. Ultimately, many media names dropped out of university include the founder of Facebook, Steve Jobs, as well as Bill Gates. The quotes used during this time were such as;
'find your own way'
'down with the man'
As it is known to many who know this period of time, there were many protests against all people within the establishment, including police, teachers, shop workers and everyone who had such jobs that had a say in what you did and how things were run.
US Capitalism, 1980's and Money
- US Capitalism was very friendly to technological innovation
- Venture Capitalists are people who we know in such programmes as Dragons Den. They make high profit investments in new media, which is ultimately, risky but a highly profitable venture.
- There was a constant search for new possibilities and people always wanted more!
Waves of Money
This happens in waves:
- - New technologies emerge
- - Lots of start-up companies
- - New money joins in
- - A bubble builds
- - Then the bubble bursts
- During the mid 80's there were early computers and video games, much like the games you see in arcades now. Personally, it reminds me of the film Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, were they get stuck in a hotel in Vegas where a man believes it is still the 80's and he is playing video games in the arcade, being stuck in there since the 80's.
During the 90's, the internet begun, having Microsoft as the biggest provider.
During the 21st Century, social media has begun with such online sites as Twitter and Facebook being most teenagers lives.
The Facebook worth has now got up to $100 billion which in figures can be seen as; $100,000000000
We are now currently in a wave of money but it is affected by the economic downturn.
By putting all of these things together, especially in places such as California and Seattle, it created a wonderful culture of happy people.
Kittler's theory of technological development
- He argues that all media technology is actually a "misuse of military equipment".
- He describes war as a 'problem of information processing' and information technology is developed to solve this, it is later used for entertainment.
Trends
The internet can be said to be a result of 3 combining factors;
The factors today consist of
1. Average population - in the west it is ageing, but outside the trend is much slower. On average it is 7 years less.
2. Poverty and austerity for all - many countries are going through economic hardship.
3. War is not what it used to be - maybe big wars are a thing of the past. There is often an information conflict, not just propaganda but attacking financial systems.
Predictions
1. Sandpit Networks - The web is currently 'open' but we need security to use the net for bussiness. However the web doesn't do security so this creates a problem. By having sandpit networks, it takes us a step back from problems people have relating to moral panics on sites such as facebook, when people believe their child is at risk from bad things happening. Therefore by creating sandpit networks, it allows people to not be as connected as they once were.
2. Mature Content - currently most online people are young, but eventually these people (including me) will get old. Content will therefore mature as at the moment it is very youth driven, but as these people get older, the digital natives will mature.
3. Intellectual Property - practices such as IP addresses are already in trouble as more and more people are finding ways of hacking it. This can be related to the 'annonymous' group which have managed to hack hundreds of things. Millions of people violate such things each day, even I when I get codes to download youtube videos etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment