Davis: Introduction

Maddie Baum
Davis: Introduction

A) In the three videos that we were assigned to watch, I found that each video had something new when discussing media. In the first video, online media and the data that we collect was described to be incurably flexible, easily organized and almost in our own control. It was showing the relationship between the user and the technology that we use; that it is interchangeable and that we help the computer and the computer helps us. It explains how we teach the machine and the machine teaches us as well, which I found to be incredibly interesting. Now what is new about the users of this type of media is that because technology is constantly improving and becoming easier; the relationship between machines and people can be to broader ranges of ages, not just millennials or tech savvy people. What is new about the culture and their media emerging is that culture with media is international, so we are constantly improving our technology through other cultures and other people.

In the second video, the new media was being described as the introduction of the internet and networks; emphasizing the introduction of YouTube and how it has connected us internationally over time. Examples such as "Charlie bit me", showed how we connect through certain videos. The video also explained how we interchangeably learn from each other through these videos which is also important to know when producing new media. What is new about the users of this media, or YouTube, is that any age can use it and connect with anyone or share information or videos with anyone that they would like. What is so great about YouTube and emerging culture is that it allows individuals to learn culture through video by internet access very easily.

In the third video, the speaker discussed how ridiculously easy it is now for us to connect, organize, share, publish, etc... through our current devices. What's important about this is that the technology that is constantly improving is making it easier and easier for us to do this.  The speaker talked about knowledge and knowledgeable; explaining how media are not just means of communication, but mediate relationships. The speaker specifically focused on his college student class and their relationships with access to media. What is "new" toward users is that there are constantly new distractions or reasons as to why we should all be paying attention to media and at what time. The emerging culture toward this is how we are being provided with more and more distractions through our machines.

B) Now that time has passed since these videos have been released, what has changed in each media and our relationship to each is similar across the board. It is the improvement overall of our modern day technology and the abundance of media that we are exposed to every day. Our relationship to all of these media types has become more reliant and dependent. I think that technology will only improve from here, that being said. I think that our society will become so reliant on technology that we will be almost incapable to live without it in a sense.

C) Two concepts:
             1. Information technology tears our perceptions, communicates our picture of the world to one another, and constructs remarkable and sometimes insidious forms of control over the cultural satires that share our sense of the world.
             2. "Yin & Yang" Technologies can serve as the vehicles for spells, ghosts and animist intuitions. They can also provide launching pads for transcendence, for the disembodied flights of gnosis. "analog and digital.