Unit I

Understanding Society
• Sociologist Gerhard Lenski (1924 - ) defined societies in terms of their
technological sophistication

• Society is a large grouping that shares the same territory and is

subject to the same political authority dominant cultural expectations

• As a society advances, so does its use of technology (application of

science to daily problems)
• Industrialized societies have more control over the impact of their
surrounding and thus develop different cultural features
• Sociologists generally classify societies along an industrialization
spectrum from preindustrial to industrial to postindustrial
 Types of societies

• Development Based
• Pre-Industrial Society
•Industrial
• Post-Industrial
 Pre-Industrial Societies
• Small
• Rural
• Dependent on local resources
• Few specialized occupations
• Hunters and Gatherers
• Horticulture
• Pastoral
• Agriculture
 Hunting and Gathering
Origin First type of society to emerge

Indigenous Australian tribes

Subsistence Hunting and gathering and the Bambuti in the
Democratic Republic of Congo

Technology Simple handmade tools

Culture and 1. Nomadic bands based on kinship

Social Common property ownership
Structure 2. Strong dependence on environment
3. Scant division of labor based on sex
and age
4. Moved as resources became scarce
 Horticultural
Origin 9,000 years ago
Subsistence Domesticating plants - developed capacity to grow and
cultivate plants
Technology Handmade tools (digging sticks, hoes, spades)

Culture and Less nomadic bands;

Social Structure more conflict among bands
less division of labor based on sex and age
Nature of life Stayed in areas where rainfall and other
conditions allowed them to grow stable crops –
River Basins
Started Permanent Settlements
More stable
 Pastoral
Origin About 9,000 years ago
Subsistence Domesticating animals
Technology Meat cutting tools; knowledge of grazing,
land, breeding, weather, water supply
Culture and Live in villages; some trade; women at
Social home while men attend herds; greater
Structure economic surplus
Were also nomadic at times following their
animals to fresh breeding grounds
Nature of life Breed livestock for food, transportation,
creating surplus of goods
 Agricultural
Origin 10000 BCE
Subsistence Permanent land cultivation

Technology Plow and animal energy

Culture and Increased productivity;

Social Structure complex division of labor; Land ownership
separate political, economic, and religious
institutions; social classes; emergence of trade
and money

Nature of life Dawn of Civilization

Feudal societies
Peasant as working class
 Industrial
Origin About 250 years ago
Subsistence Application of science and technology to
production
Technology Power-driven machines – one machine can
perform the work of many human beings –
time – during a short span of time compared
to human beings – every day essentials –
clothes, printing
Culture and Economy shifts to open market; women are
Social less subordinate; institutions become more
Structure specialized;

Nature of life Agricultural productivity soared, products

 Modernity
• Transition from traditional to modern society
• Daniel Lerner “Passing of the Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East” –
1958 – Modernization Theory – Mass media propagated development – required
educated people – education – health care – other forms of development – good
roads, communication systems, NEEDS OR DESIRES INCREASE – need more
money – work – women came out – working women – modern or developed
societies
• Huge gap among have and have-nots – economically -
• Growth of Capitalism
• Profit oriented
• Increased productivity
• Rise in technology
• Rise of urban centers
• Change in social systems and structures
 Understanding new media
• Growth of Media and Computer Technologies
• August 1839 – Palace of the Institute in Paris – Daguerreotype – Louis Daguerre
• 1833 – Charles Babbage – The Analytical Engine
• Development of modern media and development of computers
• Development of modern mass society
 January 1893, the first movie studio – Edison’s “Black Maria”
 December 1895, Lumière brothers showed their new Cinématographie
camera/projection hybrid
 The Hollerith tabulator - electric tabulators
 1911 - Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company
 “International Business Machines Corporation,” or IBM.
 Universal Turing Machines
 Understanding New Media
Live Text Sound Picture Video Interaciveness

Print

Radio

Film

TV

Internet
Merging of Media and Computer

• Daguerre’s daguerreotype and Babbage’s Analytical Engine, the

Lumière Cinématographie and Hollerith’s tabulator – merge into one.

• All existing media are translated into numerical data accessible for

• the computer.

• The result: graphics, moving images, sounds, shapes, spaces, and texts

• become computable, that is, simply sets of computer data.

• In short, media become new media.

• The computer becomes media processor

 Post- Industrial
Origin Around 1970
Subsistence Development of service industries
Sellers of services – consultancy
Storing and distribution of information
Technology Intellectual 0r information based
Knowledge is power
Based on the access to ICTs – incorporated in various aspects
social economical development- or education – society –
divided – DEVELOPED NATIONS, UNDER DEVELOPED
NATIONS, DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Culture and Social Greater social instability;
Structure Less social and cultural consensus; Reduced gender
inequality; Individualism increases;
 Information Society
• Information society is based on the production of information and
services in contrast to industrial societies that are rooted in the
production of material goods
• INFORMATION IS CENTRAL TO GROWTH
• Economy of information societies is driven by knowledge and not
material goods
• Without technical skills, people in an information society lack the
means for success.
• Usage, creation, distribution, manipulation and integration OF
INFORMATION
 Understanding New Media
• Understanding new media means understanding how they interact with a
series of social, economical, political, cultural and psychological processes,
giving rise to a new kind of world.
• Rise of the new media is associated with their ubiquity; they are found
everywhere: in living rooms, offices and schools, in the streets, in playrooms
and bedrooms.
• New media cannot be defined on black and white or compartmentalize in a
very small domain because it is a conception arising from various other fields
which added together produce a humongous domain.
• Thus new media is nothing but the amalgamation of all types of media into
one new form, all the conceptions, ideas and theories of the original media
are embedded into the new form.
• New media has something new every second
 Definitions of new media
• ‘New media’ broadly refers to computer and communication technologies
(Chen, Wu, & Wang, 2011; Rice, 1984)
• ‘a wide range of changes in media production, distribution and use’ (Lister,
Dovey, Giddings, Grant, & Kelly, 2003, p. 13)
• Few tend to define new media by highlighting its technical characteristics
including digitality (i.e., numerical representation), hyper textuality,
dispersal, virtuality, modularity, multimodality, hybridity, interactivity,
automation, and variability (see Anderson & Balsamo, 2008; Lister et al.,
2003; Manovich, 2001; Nichols, 2008; Pratt, 2000).
• Gee (2001), Jenkins (2006) and Lievrouw & Livingstone (2006), state that the
socio cultural characteristics should be greatly underlined rather than the
technical issues in the context of 21st century new media era.
 New Media

• According to the New Media Institute, the term "new

media" is a catchall term used to define all that is
related to the internet and the interplay between
technology, images and sound. In fact, the definition of
new media changes daily, and will continue to do so.
New media evolves and morphs continuously.
 Why the term ‘new media’?
• Why not online media, digital media ….?
The term digital media seems to focus primarily on the technological
element of the media.
To refer to the media as online media constructs them as primarily
connected media.
Everything related to electronics is electronic media it must not be
confused with the term new media because electronic media is a part of
new media.
The term new media can include all kinds of media formats as long as
they are indeed evolving.
The term new media further signifies a shift in media logic, which
denotes a certain degree of novelty.
New media is any media
– from newspaper
articles and blogs to
music and podcasts –
that are delivered
digitally. From a website
or email to mobile
phones and streaming
apps, any internet-
related form of
communication can be
considered new media.
- Christine Bord, Southern New
Hampshire University
 New media includes…
• Websites
• Online news sources
• Video games
• Podcasts
• Internet Ads
• YouTube videos
• Blogs
• Email
• Social media networks – Facebook, Insta, Snapchat,
Tiktok…
• Music and television streaming services – OTT platforms
• Virtual and augmented reality
How is new media different from
old media?
• Digital/convergent
• Interactivee
• Hypertextual
• Networked
• Virtual
• Simulated
Principles of new
media
 Principles of new media –
Lev Manovich
1. Numerical Representation
2. Modularity
3. Automation
4. Variability
5. Transcoding
 Numerical Representation
• All new media objects, whether created from scratch on computers
or converted from analog media sources, are composed of digital
code; they are numerical representations.

• Digitization consists of two steps: sampling and quantization. First, data is sampled,
most often at regular intervals, such as the grid of pixels used to represent a digital
image

• The frequency of sampling is referred to as resolution.

• You can change things – media becomes programmable – changeable
 Modularity
• Elements maintain separate identity
• Consistent modular structures – pixels, polygons, characters…
• Separate identities
• Can be combined into larger sets
• They can be modified
• Photos-videos – Website content
• [New] media elements . . . Are represented as collections of discrete
samples (pixels, polygons, characters, scripts). These elements are
assembled into larger-scale objects but continue to remain their
separate identities.” • “Because all elements are stored
independently, they can be modified at any time.” • (Manovich 30)
 Automation

• Elements can be created and modified automatically

• Automatically generated objects takes human out
• Use of filters, effects ---
• “The numerical coding of media (principle 1) and the modular
structure of media object (principle 2) allow for the automation of
many operations involved in media creation, manipulation, and
access. This human intentionality can be removed from the creative
process, at least in part.” • (Manovich 32)
 Variability
• Not fixed, can exist in different versions
• Can customize
• Digitally delivering the news we want
• “A new media object is not something fixed once and for all, but
something that can exist in different, potentially infinite versions.”
“With old media . . . Numerous copies could be run from a master,
and, in perfect correspondence with the logic of an industrial society,
they were all identical.” • (Manovich 36)
• “Changes in media technologies are correlated with social change. If
the logic of old media corresponded to the logic of industrial mass
society, the logic of new media fits the logic of postindustrial society,
which values individuality over conformity” (Manovich 41)
 Transcoding

• Computer logic influences cultural logic

• Computer layer affects the cultural layer
• “Cultural categories and concepts are substituted, on the level of
meaning and/or language, by new ones that derive from the computer’s
ontology, epistemology, and pragmatics. New media thus acts as a
forerunner of this more general process of cultural reconceptualization.”
(Manovich 47)
• In English: old media and new media affect each other back and forth.
Computers make us look at old cultural forms and habits differently,
while old cultural forms and habits find their way into computer culture.
 Traits of New Media – Henry
Jenkins
1. Innovative
2. Convergent
3. Everyday
4. Appropriative
5. Networked
6. Global
7. Generational
8. Unequal
The Newness of New
Media
• New textual experiences: new kinds of genre and textual form,
entertainment, pleasure and patterns of media consumption
(computer games, simulations, special effects cinema).
• New ways of representing the world: media which, in ways that are
not always clearly defined, offer new representational possibilities
and experiences (immersive virtual environments, screen-based
interactive multimedia).
• New relationships between subjects (users and consumers) and
media technologies: changes in the use and reception of image and
communication media in everyday life and in the meanings that are
invested in media technologies
• New experiences of the relationship between embodiment, identity
and community: shifts in the personal and social experience of time,
space, and place (on both local and global scales) which have
implications for the ways in which we experience ourselves and our
place in the world.
• New conceptions of the biological body’s relationship to
technological media: challenges to received distinctions between the
human and the artificial, nature and technology, body and (media as)
technological prostheses, the real and the virtual
• New patterns of organisation and production: wider realignments
and integrations in media culture, industry, economy, access,
ownership, control and regulation
 Changes in communication
technologies
• Computer-mediated communications: email, chat rooms, avatar-
based communication forums, voice image transmissions, the World
Wide Web, blogs etc., social networking sites, and mobile telephony.
• New ways of distributing and consuming media texts characterized
by interactivity and hypertextual formats – the World Wide Web,
CD, DVD, Podcasts and the various platforms for computer games.
• Virtual ‘realities’: simulated environments and immersive
representational spaces.
• A whole range of transformations and dislocations of established
media (in, for example, photography, animation, television,
journalism, film and cinema).
 Evolution of
convergence study
 Media Convergence
• Media convergence is the merging of mass communication outlets like print,
television, and radio, the Internet along with portable and interactive
technologies through various digital media platforms.
• Media convergence allows mass media professionals to tell stories and present
information and entertainment using a variety of media.
• Converged communication provides multiple tools for storytelling, allowing
consumers to select level of interactivity while self-directing content delivery.
• Convergence is defined as the interlinking of computing and other information
technologies, media content, and communication networks that has arisen as the
result of the evolution and popularization of the Internet as well as the activities,
products and services that have emerged in the digital media space.
 Media Convergence theory
• Media convergence is a theory in communications where
every mass medium eventually merges to the point where
they become one medium due to the advent of new
communication technologies.
• Smartphones (converging camera, music, the internet, books,
and all other media together)
• Online Radio (converging radio with the Internet)
• E-books (converging paperbacks with the digital technology)
• News Websites and Apps
Models of Convergence
Nicholas Negroponte Model of
Convergence
• The first introduction of the concept
‘media convergence’ into media
research might have occurred even
earlier, in 1979, when Nicholas
Negroponte presented a convergence
model based on three intersecting
circles
1. Broadcast and motion picture industry
2. Print and publishing industry
3. Computer industry
 Flynn Model of Convergence

• Flynn (2000) identifies three areas of

convergence in the digital world
1. Devices
2. Networks and
3. Content
• Flynn claims, that if there is no consumer
adaptation of the resulting hybrid,
convergence will not take place
 Gordon Model of Convergence
• Gordon (2002) identifies five types of convergence:
1. Ownership (merging)
2. Tactical (cross promotion)
3. Structural (within departments)
4. Information gathering and
5. Storytelling convergence (new ways of presenting content)
 DDS Model of Convergence
• Dailey, Demo and Spillman (2003) have presented a model of
convergence called ‘The Convergence Continuum’.
• The model has been created because of the authors’ belief that there
is a lack of a common, behaviour-based definition of convergence and
a lack of a common instrument for measuring convergence effects.
• They therefore suggest a model for convergence in newsroom
content sharing with the purpose of making it easier for researchers
all over the world to compare results.
• 5 Cs of convergence – Cross promotion, Cloning, Coopetition,
Content Sharing and Convergence
Seven C’s of
Convergence
 Lawson-Borders Model of
Convergence
• Convergence could be described as a wedding of technology and
content delivery by means of computer technology
• Lawson-Borders has identified seven ‘observations’ of convergence all
beginning with the letter
1. Communication
2. Commitment
3. Cooperation
4. Compensation
5. Culture
6. Competition, and
7. Customer.
 Henry
Jenkins
Media theorist Henry Jenkins argues that
convergence isn’t an end result (as is the
hypothetical black box), but instead a process that
changes how media is both consumed and
produced
Convergence generally means the intersection of
old and new media. Jenkins states that convergence
is, "The flow of content across multiple media
platforms, the cooperation between multiple media
industries, and the migratory behavior of media
audiences."
 Convergence – Henry Jenkins,
2006

The flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation

between multiple media industries and the migratory behavior of media
audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of
entertainment experiences they want (…). Convergence is a word that
manages to describe technological, industrial, cultural and social changes
… (Henry Jenkins, 2006).
 Henry Jenkins Model of
Convergence
Divides convergence into five areas, technological, economic, social or
organic, cultural and global convergence
1. Technology Convergence - is when different kinds of technology merge.
The most extreme example of technological convergence would be one
machine that controlled every media function.
2. Economic convergence - is when a single company has interests across
many kinds of media
3. Social / Organic Convergence - multimedia multitasking, or the natural
outcome of a diverse media world.
4. Cultural convergence - is when stories flow across several kinds of media
platforms and when readers or viewers can comment on, alter, or otherwise
talk back to culture.
5. Global Convergence is when geographically distant cultures are able to
influence one another.
 Convergence Culture
• Convergence culture is a theory which recognizes changing
relationships and experiences with new media.
• Generation of immediacy
• Content is automized
• Niche markets with highly focused purposes
• Readers have large appetite but a short attention span
• Supersaturated
• Blurring of the audience/ content producer distinction resulting in the
changing of labour divisions
 Collective Intelligence
• Collective intelligence can be seen as an alternative source of media
power.
• The enhanced capacity that is created when people work together, often
with the help of technology, to mobilise a wider range of information,
ideas and insights
• Thomas Malone, the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at
MIT and the founding director at the MIT Center for Collective
Intelligence, coined the term. In his book, “The Future of Work,” Malone
has theorized that businesses of the future will look very different from
today’s organizations because of collective information gathering.
• Artificial intelligence involving computers and other types of automation
have produced collective intelligence as different types of groups
connect to produce a body of knowledge.
 Participatory Culture
• The way media consumers are able to annotate, comment on, remix,
and otherwise influence culture in unprecedented ways.
• Jenkins defines participatory culture as one which allows free
expression of artistic talent and civic engagement sharing one's
creations with others. In the process, everyone becomes a produser
(producer and user).
• Users also establish social connection with others by sharing their
creations.
 Participatory Culture
1. RELATIVELY LOW BARRIERS TO ARTISTIC EXPRESSION
AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT.
2. HAS STRONG SUPPORT FOR CREATING AND SHARING
ONE’S CREATIONS WITH OTHERS
3. HAS SOME TYPE OF INFORMAL MENTORSHIP WHEREBY
WHAT IS KNOWN BY THE MOST EXPERIENCED IS PASSED
ALONG TO NOVICES
4. MEMBERS BELIEVE THAT THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS MATTER.
5. MEMBERS FEEL SOME DEGREE OF SOCIAL CONNECTION
WITH ONE ANOTHER
 Cultural Imperialism

• Cultural Imperialism, defined by Herbert Schiller as the way

developing countries are “attracted, pressured, forced, and sometimes
bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even
promote, the values and structures of the dominating centre of the
system (White, 2001).”
• Cultural imperialism can be a formal policy or can happen more
subtly, as with the spread of outside influence through television,
movies, and other cultural projects.
 Model of Media Convergence (Dupagne and Garrison, 2006)

• The authors break convergence into four areas that have varying degrees of
influence on each other and on the process of convergence
• Economic convergence
• Technological convergence
• Regulatory convergence, and
• Convergence effects
• According to the visual/graphic model of convergence offered, effects are
produced by all three of the other categories, yet the model indicates that
convergence effects have no influence over the others.
• This may be the case now, but as consumers take advantage of the opportunities
that convergence provides, they will certainly influence economics and
regulations, and with their purchasing and usage power, consumers will have a
hand in which technologies thrive and which go the way of the 8-track.
• The model demonstrates that while there is no simple way to define convergence,
there are many interrelated components that help understand convergence.
 Model of Medi Convergence (Dupagne and Garrison, 2006)

Economic Convergence

Content Diversity
Curriculum
Technological Convergence Structure
Convergence Effects Media Use
Newsroom
Practices

Regulatory Convergence
 Diffusion of
innovation theory
Overview of Rogers’ Diffusion of
Innovation Theory.
 Unit 1
• Reading
• Read on Media Conglomerates
• Group Discussion
• Identify the pros and cons of participatory culture as per the explanation of
Henry Jenkins
• Group Reading and Presentation
• Group work and presentation of ‘Convergence Culture: Where old and New
Media Collide”
References
• Media Definitions
https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/new-media/20286
https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultural-theory-and-theorists/fan
dom-and-participatory-culture/