Reference:

• Steven Holtzman, Digital Mosaics: the aesthetics of cyber space, Simon and Schuster:Newyork, 1997.

• David Bell, Introduction to Cyberculture, Routledge:London, 2003.


• David Bell [et al] , Cyberculture: the key concepts, Routledge:London, 2004.


• Images from Google Image Search.


• Video link to youtube.

New Media and the Purpose of News

A news is not just meant to make us aware, it has the ability to make us act, whether it be compacting a crisis, defending a threat or supporting an aid. So it is the aftermaths of a news that counts more; so the news becomes a news when it stimulates a public arousal. In this context the way the news is presented and the medium that is relied up on are prominent factors as how the content is. The new media as a medium has the capability of bringing in news at a random rate, covering incidents from the whole world in a manner which is easily accessible and far more attractive. Here it seems that as how the news within one’s surroundings is a news before him, there are even relevant or equally important news affecting his thoughts from incidents worldwide; to those which he can’t deny or turn his face off, as the world is already globalised under the effect of new media.
Now our neighbour being killed a night seems not a relevant news as we are familiar with those young and old killed in Iraq during one of their sleepless nights. The pool of blood around our neighbours corpse hardly disturbs our mind as now we have seen enough and more of the torn away body parts of innocent Iraqi and Afghani childishness. The new media indeed brings in a lot of news and those indeed possess attractive and shocking captions; mind blowing or annoying high definition video footages but those hardly seems to bring pleasure or rarely disturbs our mind. Thus the new media regularly feeds us with the news but it hardly influence us and it now seems incapable of making us act in a way that such tragic incidents are not repeated or those noteworthy efforts on the other side are entertained.

The online communities, blogs and other social spaces in the new media have paved way to a situation that each and every personal experience and thoughts within its orbit is a news for the one who is subscribing. This indeed has diluted the purpose of a news. In such a situation every one seems like a reporter or a producer. Earlier, one consuming a news knew that he is being fed by a news broadcasting company having specific vested interests, sides or ideologies. Now in the new media with individuals having news to tell; it is hard to trace their sides, ideologies and vested interests. These features unique to a person is momentary according to his thoughts and moods when compared to the well analysed established strategies of a news enterprise. So in the surge to reach the truth news through new media needs to be interpretated far more cautiously. The interactive sessions, interpretations and analysis revolving around a news or a topic could indeed alter the genuinity of that news item as the swirling effect of different opinions and ideas could take the news far away from its originality.

The news doesn't seem to serve the purpose of a news in new media.

Reference:

• Images from google image search.

Indeed digital but still based on traditional media!

In the cyber world once in to it; the one who is having thoughts and imaginations beyond the impossible is the one who attains the high. Reality often acts as a component of distraction for these thoughts and imaginations as one’s association with the reality brings about limitations and boundaries to his thoughts. So one having a life in the reality could of course say that it is at this coinciding point of the two worlds his life is benefitted by the cyber world. But for the one who often prefers life in the cyber world and seems reluctant towards a life in the reality with boundaries and limitations, he needs to throw away all his attachments with the reality so that his imaginations and thoughts flies beyond impossibilities. The new media is indeed capable of supporting his endless thoughts and imaginations, sadly in the present state it seems that the new media and its cyber world basically relies much on the texture and formats of traditional media versions like books, news papers and other print materials. Steven Holtzman in his book Digital Mosaics defines a cyber world which is nowhere bound by the limitations of traditional media and he says that the digital world proclaiming its independence from thoughts based on traditional background could bring about an astonishingly efficient cyber world were all the dreams could come true. He says that the case is well evident from news papers and books available online and movies being redelivered in the form of multimedia CD-ROMs trying their level best to resemble the traditional print or visual copies. Presently he justifies the context saying that, such gradual steps seems to facilitate a comfortable transition from the old to the new based on familiar traditional background. [Paraphrased from Digital Mosaics-The Aesthetics of cyber space, by Steven Holtzman, page no:13, Simon and Schuster publications,1997].


Immediacy bringing in reality :

So the one subscribing now gets a feeling of owning and reading a materialised print version of the copy attaining the nostalgic experience of turning over to the next page within a hard bound cover or visualising those animated images or graphics resembling the familiar video footages; even though these remediation has a drawback that reading isn’t that comfortable on the screen. These case well provides an instance to the attempts to bring about immediacy to the text and animated characters by insisting us to forget the fact that it is digital and instead it attains more reality by resembling those material and print versions. So instead of making it more digital and bringing in new thoughts and possibilities, the digital world seems to lean more towards traditional media. So once the cyber media breaks its ties with traditional media, the new media and its world could turn out to be a world with immortality. And that is where we could see the cyber world as how it is intended at and at occasions furthermore, beyond our expectations, with its landscape being inhabited by intelligent machines, cyborgs and post humans. That is where life becomes as how it is defined in the Hollywood film Matrix, a Matrix life where we have no associations with the real world.

Link to the Matrix film trailer in you tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM5yepZ21pI&feature=fvw

Reference:

• Digital Mosaics-The Aesthetics of cyber space, by Steven Holtzman, page no:13, Simon and Schuster publications,1997.
• Images from google image search.
• video from youtube.

Media Morphosis and Technological Convergence

We all know how a frog tadpole metamorphoses in to a frog, on the course of this metamorphosis it indeed have lost its fin and tail but being a frog now it is lucky enough to possess a webbed leg as well as a sticky tongue. Fins and tails served the function of locomotion for the frog tadpole and the world it lived being aquatic was primitive but now being terrestrial it metamorphosed as the present world demands more sophistication. The case well resembles the metamorphosis of old media to new media. The world and people which the old media had to deal with was far primitive compared to the present world where no one has a single second to spare. So the old media metamorphosed in to sophisticated new media, and it is indeed capable of providing its metamorphosed frogs a dream world with endless possibilities which a tadpole having access to old media could even not imagine.

The tadpole had to go in search of its prey as how the people having access to old media had to go in search of a print, audio or visual material overcoming the factors like limited availability, high expense and involved risks of time delay on their attempt to find access to those traditional forms of media.The case is different with new media, which employs the frogs technique of tracing a whole lot of insects as its prey besides a light source. It is capable of bringing all those print, audio as well as visual information’s under a single umbrella as ‘technological convergence’ is the trait of these sophisticated media.Technological convergence brings the present world’s mind and soul towards the new media and it is not different from the case of insects being attracted towards a light source. The case is well evident from the instance of new media having its preys besides an ‘I-phone’. Now the media with its sticky tongue of technological convergence will soon be engulfing them offering those innocent victims a dream world.

Reference:

• Images from google image search.

The coinciding point of the two worlds!

The cyber space and the new media based on it should be considered an entirely different world or a dream world where only our imaginations or consciousness seems to be getting in and if at all we are benefitted the individuals in real life seems to be least benefitted and we with our consciousness in the cyberspace seems to be prominently benefitted. Once we are out of the cyber space with our consciousness back in to our real life, it needs to be explored whether those benefits from the cyber world stays within us making us more communicative and more efficient in our real social life. In this context it is noteworthy to ask a question that, how rarely these cyber culture and its new media will give us our consciousness back in to the real life? It is at this point of coincidence of these two worlds the individual seems to be benefitted. If we are just in the real world we lack the sophisticated media and if we are completely in to the cyber world only our consciousness seems benefitted. At a location other than this focal coinciding point we as individuals seem to be less communicative under the influence of new media.


Reference:

• Images from google image search.

Hackers and their heroics

In the real life heroics are attributed to one who is a warrior, a social reformer, a rebel on a noble course and so on. That is how we have Robin Hood’s, Tarzan’s and Cow Boys; but in the cyber world hackers are the real heroes as they are the most adventurous, rebellious, smart and cunning rulers of the cyber world. They are even able to attribute those real life heroic traits to any one of their multiple identities and since then they are the heroes; here it is important to explore as to whether the cyber world hero pretending to be a real life hero with his fake identities in the cyber world is actually acquiring any heroic traits in his real life too with his affectionate yet cunning pretentions and experiences while being engaged in the cyber world heroics.


Reference:

• Images from google image search.

Is it just a dream world or altogether a fake world?

Our identities in the cyberspace could well be far away from our real life time identities. Those communities, societies and social spaces in the cyber world which are actually the collective effort of such individual identities could also turn out to be fake identities in comparison to the real social and community life. So the cyber world often or at most instances is a world of fake identities, communities and information’s. The information’s communicated are trustworthy, worthwhile and meaningful depending on the motives, the kind of media and as to how whether those are real or fake identities; and it is often a mammoth task to identify them as real or fake.

Reference:

• Images from google image search.