Class 2: Media Analysis

AdministrationLab work – will have time to catch up on first

week’s lab, regular labs from now onAdobe CS5 offer

Media AnalysisAnalysis of media form and genreTechnological/media effects determinismCritical political economyCultural studiesSociotechnical systems approach

Media form and genreAnalysis of essential elements – e.g., today’s

Manovich reading, McCloud’s first chapter on “what is comics?”

Attempts to define classificatory boundaries and identifies canonical and ideal type constructions

Little consideration of consumer/producer impact – culture often deliberately left out

More on genre construction next week

Media effects determinismMedia as pervasive causal forceCan be done intelligently – McLuhan did

as much (and we’ll look briefly at that too) but often quite reductionist in scope (e.g., X media consumption causes Y social effect)

Objectively hard to prove since most connections aren’t really as simple as X->Y

Adaptations such as two-step model and cultivation theory try to qualify simplicity, but effects are complex to measure

Critical political economyMore of an economic determinism – capital

and ownership structure determines mediaOften Marxist based, but libertarian/capitalist

models also qualifyOften similarly reductionist – does everything

boil down to simple financial considerations?

Cultural StudiesAnalysis of media in context of use –

producers, consumers alikeMore about the complexity of interactions

among stakeholders in particular contexts vs. precise measurement or investigation of global principles

Interesting stories, but are they generalizable? (not scientifically, but transferable, perhaps)

Sociotechnical SystemsMedia as sociotechnical system - less

cause/effect than mutual causation, driven by technical and social change

Emergence of industrial society and its effect on the shaping of communication forms

Radio as example – a potentially decentralized medium of production was rationalized into a mass medium

Public v. Mass Society (C.W. Mills)Localized cultural

practicesHorizontal power

structureRelatively equal

ratio of leaders/followers

“Jack of all trades”

Global culture, with little individuation

Centralized power structures

Few leaders, many followers

Specialization and division of labour

Implications for Media FormMass media for mass audiences in mass

societiesQuantity of eyeballs as basic economic

force in private media marketsMass media as central bonding

experience Mass media as centralized cultural control

DemassificationRise of the postmodern / postindustrial /

information ageIndividuals and localized communities

reemerge and gain in importanceMedia as tools of creation and expression,

not simply passive channels of receptionExamples?Problems?

A worthwhile read…Maich, S. & George, L. (2009). The Ego

Boom: Why the World Really Does Revolve Around You. Toronto: Key Porter Books.

A (somewhat disturbing) look at You in an mediasphere increasingly shaped by mass customization and narrowcasting

Manovich’s LNMLanguage of New Media - distilling the

core essence of new media into eight propositions

More of a media form/genre definitionN.B. “New Media” is not a chronological

term (although contemporary media are more likely to be “new”)

New Media vs. CybercultureProposes a distinction - new media studies

forms and codes vs. social effect (e.g., media use studies, cultural studies…)

Acknowledges cyberculture as interesting but a different field entirely

New Media as DistributionLooks at new media explicitly as channel -

digital transmission, in whatever formRepresentation in digital form is increasingly

common - examples?Limitations of this approach?

New Media as Software ControlledUse of data structures, modularity,

automation to create the cultural formDigital photography/video as example; due

to common technical standards for coding and manipulation, media objects can be shared and manipulated (sometimes automatically) with ease

Other examples - e.g., dynamic web pages, Google AdSense

Cultural conventionsUneven development - just because you can

represent and manipulate something in digital form doesn’t mean it will work will in practice (e.g., digital actors?)

“morph” or “composite” - earlier conceptual models survive transition to new media and impact its form (e.g., desktop metaphor vs. alternatives)

Aesthetics of New MediaNew media technologies create their own

established aestheticsExample: DV movies and cheaper amateur

production (e.g., http://48hourfilm.com/), YouTube, vblogging, etc.

New Media as EfficientComputing technology executes various tasks

considerably faster - e.g., 3D animation, composite photography

Efficiency opens up new possibilities that were not present before

New Media as Metamedia New media repurposes old media,

combines existing media sources (e.g., photo montage, mashups, music sampling)

Not a new phenomenon, (e.g., collage, 1920s avant-garde film) but much easier done with digital objects

New Media as Nexus of Art and ComputingComputing becomes a more right-brain,

creative process - a tool to represent and create new realities vs. simply crunch numbers (although there’s lots of that still required…)

Next week…Media genres as defined by AgreMcLuhan’s Laws of Media