Change and continuity

From this section to the end of Part 1 (1.3–1.6.6) we now change our tack. So far we have considered, as promised at the outset, what it is that we take to be ‘new media’ and we have gone as far as to suggest some defining characteristics. We now take up the question of what is involved in considering their ‘newness’. Enthusiastic students of media technologies might wonder why this is a necessary question. Why do we not simply attempt to describe and analyse the exciting world of media innovation that surrounds us? Writing in this manner would be at the mercy of what we referred to in the introduction as permanent ‘upgrade cul- ture’ – no sooner published than out of date because it failed to offer any critical purchase on the field. There are plenty of existing sites for readers to catch up on latest developments most of which are designed to facilitate the reader’s consumption. Our purpose is to facilitate critical thinking. In order to do that we need to get beyond the banal pleasures of novelty to reveal how the ‘new’ is constructed. Our aim here is to enable a clarity of thought often dis- abled by the shiny dazzle of novelty. We hope to show that this centrally involves knowing

something about the history of media, the history of newness, and the history of our responses to media and technological change. But there is more to it than that. Here is a checklist and overview of what is to come, and why, in these last sections of Part 1. • ‘Newness’ or what it is ‘to be new’ is not the simple quality we may take it to be and can

be conceived of in several ways. This is discussed in 1.3–1.3.2.

• New media ‘arrives’, has already been provided with, a history, or histories and these often seek to explain new media’s ‘newness’. Some of these histories are what are known as ‘teleological’ while others argue that a better approach is ‘genealogical’. Essentially, to consider the nature of the ‘new’ we have to become involved in theories ‘of’ history (or historiography). This is explained, with examples in 1.4and 1.4.1.

• Frequently, ‘new media’ (or indeed any media, ‘film’ for example) are thought, by some, to each have a defining essence. It is then argued that to realise this essence, to bring it into its own, requires a break with the past and old habits and ways of thinking. This too, is often associated with a sense of ‘progress’. Each medium is better (affording greater realism, greater imaginative scope, more efficient communication etc.) than those that proceed it. We examine these ideas as a ‘modernist concept of progress’ in 1.4.2. • Far from being the latest stage in a linear progression, much about new media recalls

some much older, even ancient practices and situations. They appear to repeat or revive historical practices that had been forgotten or become residual. There is something like an ‘archaeology’ of new media. This is dealt with in 1.4.3–1.4.4.

• New media are frequently contrasted (usually favourably) with ‘old media’. It is as if there is an implied critique of old media in new media. Old media are suddenly thrown into a bad light. This issue is raised in 1.5–1.5.1, and leads us to:

• The discursive construction of media and The Technological Imaginary. Here we explore, through a number of case studies, the various ways in which media technologies are invested with significance as they are expected to realise hopes, satisfy desires, resolve social problems etc.; 1.5.2, 1.5.3, 1.5.4, 1.5.5and Case studies 1.4–1.7.

• In this way we are brought to face a key question and a debate which typically becomes urgent as new media and new technologies emerge: do media technologies have the power to transform cultures? Or, are they just dumb tools, pieces of kit which reflect a society’s or a culture’s values and needs. In short, are ‘media’ determined or determining? As our media and communication technologies become more complex, powerful and pervasive, even (if contentiously) intelligent and self organising, this is an ever more impor- tant question and debate. Through a discussion of an earlier and informative debate between two major theorists of media (Raymond Williams and Marshall McLuhan) we open up this issue in some detail in 1.6–1.6.6. This will prepare us to consider theories about culture, technology and nature (particularly those coming from Science and Technology Studies) which offer to avoid this vexed dichotomy.

1.3.1 Introduction

Media theorists, and other commentators, tend to be polarised over the degree of new media’s newness. While the various camps seldom engage in debate with each other, the argument is between those who see a media revolution and those who claim that, on

the contrary, behind the hype we largely have ‘business as usual’. To some extent this argu- ment hinges upon the disciplinary frameworks and discourses (1.5.3) within which proponents of either side of the argument work. What premisses do they proceed from? What questions do they ask? What methods do they apply? What ideas do they bring to their investigations and thinking?

In this section we simply recognise that while the view is widely held that new media are ‘revolutionary’ – that they are profoundly or radically new in kind – throughout the now exten- sive literature on new media there are also frequent recognitions that any attempt to understand new media requires a historical perspective. Many reasons for taking this view will be met throughout the book as part of its detailed case studies and arguments. In this sec- tion we look at the general case for the importance of history in the study of new media.

1.3.2 Measuring ‘newness’

The most obvious question that needs to be asked is: ‘How do we know that something is new or in what way it is new if we have not carefully compared it with what already exists or has gone before?’ We cannot know with any certainty and detail how new or how large changes are without giving our thinking a historical dimension. We need to establish from what previous states things have changed. Even if, as Brian Winston observes, the concept of a ‘revolution’ is implicitly historical, how can one know ‘that a situation has changed – has revolved – without knowing its previous state or position?’ (Winston 1998: 2). In another context, Kevin Robins (1996: 152) remarks that, ‘Whatever might be “new” about digital technologies, there is something old in the imaginary signification of “image revolu- tion”.’ Revolutions then, when they take place, are historically relative and the idea itself has a history. It is quite possible to take the view that these questions are superfluous and only divert us from the main business. This certainly seems to be the case for many new media enthusiasts who are (somewhat arrogantly, we may suggest) secure in their conviction that the new is new and how it got to be that way will be of a lot less interest than what comes next!

However, if asked, this basic question can help us guard against missing at least three possibilities:

1 Something may appear to be new, in the sense that it looks or feels unfamiliar or because it is aggressively presented as new, but on closer inspection such newness may be revealed as only superficial. It may be that something is new only in the sense that it turns out to be a new version or configuration of something that, substantially, already exists, rather than being a completely new category or kind of thing. Alternatively, how can we know that a medium is new, rather than a hybrid of two or more older media or an old one in a new context which in some ways transforms it?

2 Conversely, as the newness of new media becomes familiar in everyday use or con- sumption (see 4.2and 4.3) we may lose our curiosity and vigilance, ceasing to ask questions about exactly what they do and how they are being used to change our worlds in subtle as well as dramatic ways.

3 A final possibility that this simple question can uncover is that on close inspection and reflection, initial estimates of novelty can turn out not to be as they seem. We find that some kinds and degrees of novelty exist but not in the ways that they were initially thought to. The history of what is meant by the new media buzzword ‘interactivity’ is a prime

example of the way a much-lauded quality of new media has been repeatedly qualified and revised through critical examination.

The overall point is that the ‘critical’ in the critical study of new media means not taking things for granted. Little is assumed about the object of study that is then illuminated by asking and attempting to answer questions about it. An important way of doing this – of approaching something critically – is to ask what its history is or, in other words, how it came to be as it is. Lastly, in this review of reasons to be historical in our approach to new media, we need to recall how extensive and heterogeneous are the range of changes, developments, and innovations that get subsumed under the term ‘new media’. This is so much the case that without some attempt to break the term or category down into more manageable parts we risk such a level of abstraction and generalisation in our discussions that they will never take us very far in the effort to understand one or another of these changes (see 1.1). A better approach is to look for the different ratios of the old and the new across the field of new media. One way of doing this is, precisely, historical. It is to survey the field of new media in terms of the degree to which any particular development is genuinely and radically new or is better understood as simply an element of change in the nature of an already established medium.

Old media in new times?

For instance, it can be argued that ‘digital television’ is not a new medium but is best under- stood as a change in the form of delivering the contents of the TV medium, which has a history of some fifty years or more. This would be a case of what Mackay and O’Sullivan describe as an ‘old’ medium ‘in new times’ as distinct from a ‘new medium’ (1999: 4–5). On the other hand, immersive virtual reality or massively multi-player online gaming look to be, at least at first sight, mediums of a radically and profoundly new kind. This, however, still leaves us with the problem of defining what is truly new about them.

Before we accept this ‘new/old’ axis as a principle for distinguishing between kinds of new media, we have to recognise immediately that the terms can, to some extent, be reversed. For instance, it can be argued that some of the outcomes of producing and trans- mitting TV digitally have had quite profound effects upon its programming and modes of use and consumption such that the medium of TV has significantly changed (Case study 1.7). It could also be claimed that the increased image size, high definition, programmes on demand, interactive choice etc., of contemporary television effectively transforms the medium. Whether we would want to go as far as saying that it will be an entirely new medium still seems unlikely, if not impossible. On the other hand, the apparently unprecedented expe- riences offered by the technologies of immersive VR or online, interactive, multimedia can be shown to have histories and antecedents, both of a technological and a cultural kind, upon which they draw and depend (1.2, 1.3). Whether, in these cases, however, we would want to go as far as saying that therefore VR is adequately defined by tracing and describing its many practical and ideological antecedents is another matter.

The idea of ‘remediation’

A third possibility is that put forward by Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin (1999) who, following an insight of Marshall McLuhan, effectively tie new media to old media as a structural condi- tion of all media. They propose and argue at some length that the ‘new’, in turn, in new media is the manner in which the digital technologies that they employ ‘refashion older media’, and then these older media ‘refashion themselves to answer to the challenges of new media’

Case study 1.3: What is new about interactivity?

(p. 15). It seems to us that there is an unassailable truth in this formulation. This is that new media are not born in a vacuum and, as media, would have no resources to draw upon if they were not in touch and negotiating with the long traditions of process, purpose, and signifi- cation that older media possess. Yet, having said this, many questions about the nature and extent of the transformations taking place remain.