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The New Media Theory Reader Brings Together Key Readings on New Media – What It Is, Where It Came From, How It Affects Our Lives, and How It Is Managed

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THE Presented by US Pandey Kolkata NEW MEDIA The study of new media opens up some of the most fascinating issues in contemporary culture: questions of ownership and control over information and cultural goods; the changing experience of space and time; the political consequences of new communication technologies; and the power of users and consumers to disrupt established economic and business models. THEORY READER THEORY The New Media Theory Reader brings together key readings on new media – what it is, where it came from, how it affects our lives, and how it is managed. Using work from media studies, cultural history and cultural studies, economics, law, and politics, the essays encourage readers to pay close attention to the ‘new’ in new media, as well as considering it as a historical phenomenon. The Reader features a general introduction as well as an editors’ introduction to each thematic section, and a useful summary of each reading. The New Media Theory Reader is an indispensable text for students on new media, technology, sociology and media studies courses. Essays by: Andrew Barry, Benjamin R. Barber, James Boyle, James Carey, Benjamin Compaine, Noam Cook, Andrew Graham, Nicola Green, Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Ian Hunter, Kevin Kelly, Heejin Lee, Lawrence Lessig, Jonathan Liebenau, Jessica Litman, Lev Manovich, Michael Marien, Hassan & Thomas Robert W. McChesney, David E. Nye, Bruce M. Owen, Lyman Ray Patterson, Kevin Robins, Ithiel de Sola Pool, David Saunders, Richard Stallman, Jeremy Stein, Cass R. Sunstein, McKenzie Wark, Frank Webster, Dugald Williamson. Robert Hassan is Senior Research Fellow in Media and Communications at the Media and Communications Program, The University of Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of The Chronoscopic Society (2003) and Media, THE NEW MEDIA Politics and the Network Society (Open University Press, 2004). He is the editor (eds) of the journal Time & Society. Julian Thomas is Director of the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne THEORY READER University, Australia and a Professorial Fellow in Media and Communications. He has written widely on the social and policy dimensions of new media. edited by Robert Hassan & Cover design Hybert Design • www.hybertdesign.com www.openup.co.uk Julian Thomas USP January 2012 Presented by US Pandey Kolkata The New Media Theory Reader USP January 2012 Presented by US Pandey Kolkata USP January 2012 Presented by US Pandey Kolkata The New Media Theory Reader Robert Hassan and Julian Thomas Open University Press USP January 2012 Presented by US Pandey Kolkata Open University Press McGraw-Hill Education McGraw-Hill House Shoppenhangers Road Maidenhead Berkshire England SL6 2QL email: [email protected] world wide web: www.openup.co.uk and Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2289, USA First published 2006 Copyright © Selection, editorial matter and introductions, Robert Hassan and Julian Thomas 2006 All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited. Details of such licences (for reprographic reproduction) may be obtained from the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd of 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T 4LP. A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library ISBN-10: 0 335 21710 9 (pb) 0 335 21711 7 (hb) ISBN-13: 978 0335 21710 6 (pb) 978 0335 21711 3 (hb) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data CIP data applied for Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Poland by OZGraf S.A. www.polskabook.pl USP January 2012 Presented by US Pandey Kolkata Contents Extracts viii Introduction xvii Publisher’s acknowledgements xxix PART 1 Media transitions 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Lev Manovich: ‘What is new media?’ in The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002 5 1.2 S.D. Noam Cook: ‘Technological revolutions and the Gutenberg Myth’ in Internet Dreams. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997 11 1.3 Ithiel de Sola Pool: ‘A shadow darkens’ in Technologies of Freedom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003 19 1.4 David E. Nye: ‘The consumer’s sublime’ in American Technological Sublime. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996 27 1.5 Kevin Kelly: ‘The computational metaphor’, Whole Earth, Winter 1998 39 1.6 Michael Marien: ‘New communications technology: a survey of impacts and issues’, Telecommunications Policy, 20(5), pp. 375–387, 1996 41 PART 2 Governing new media 63 Introduction 63 2.1 David Saunders, Ian M. Hunter and Dugald Williamson: ‘Historicising obscenity law’ in On Pornography: Literature, Sexuality and Obscenity Law. London: Macmillan, 1992 67 USP January 2012 vi CONTENTS Presented by US Pandey Kolkata 2.2 Bruce M. Owen: ‘The tragedy of broadcast regulation’ in The Internet Challenge to Television. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999 72 2.3 Andrew Graham: ‘Broadcasting policy in the digital age’ in Charles M. Firestone and Amy Korzick Garmer (eds) Digital Broadcasting and the Public Interest. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute, 1998 79 2.4 Kevin Robins and Frank Webster: ‘From public sphere to cybernetic state’ in Times of the Technoculture. New York: Routledge, 1999 92 2.5 Robert W. McChesney: ‘Policing the thinkable’, Opendemocracy.net, 2001 101 2.6 Benjamin Compaine: ‘The myths of encroaching global media ownership’, Opendemocracy.net, 2001 106 PART 3 Properties and commons 111 Introduction 111 3.1 Lyman Ray Patterson: ‘Copyright in historical perspective’ in Copyright in Historical Perspective. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1968 113 3.2 James Boyle: ‘Intellectual property and the liberal state’ in Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996 119 3.3 Jessica Litman: ‘Choosing metaphors’ in Digital Copyright: Protecting Intellectual Property on the Internet. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2001 123 3.4 Lawrence Lessig: ‘The promise for intellectual property in cyberspace’ in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books, 2000 133 3.5 Richard Stallman: ‘Why software should not have owners’ in Free Software: Free Society. Boston, MA: Free Software Foundation, 2002 154 PART 4 Politics of new media technologies 159 Introduction 159 4.1 Andrew Barry: ‘On interactivity’ in Political Machines: Governing a Technological Society. London: Athlone Press, 2001 163 4.2 Benjamin R. Barber: ‘Pangloss, Pandora or Jefferson? Three scenarios for the future of technology and strong democracy’, in A Passion for Democracy: American Essays, Princeton University Press, pp. 245–257, 2000 188 USP January 2012 CONTENTS vii Presented by US Pandey Kolkata 4.3 Cass Sunstein: ‘Citizens’ in Republic.com. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001 203 4.4 McKenzie Wark: ‘Abstraction/class’ in A Hacker Manifesto. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004 212 PART 5 Time and space in the age of information 221 Introduction 221 5.1 James Carey: ‘Technology and ideology: the case of the telegraph’ in Communication as Culture. London: Routledge, 1989 225 5.2 Jeremy Stein: ‘Reflections on time, time–space compression and technology in the nineteenth century’ in M. Crang, P. Crang and J. May (eds), Virtual Geographies: Bodies, Space and Relations. New York: Routledge, 1999 244 5.3 Nicola Green: ‘On the move: technology, mobility, and the mediation of social time and space’, The Information Society, 18(4), pp. 281–292, 2002 249 5.4 Heejin Lee and Jonathan Liebenau: ‘Time and the internet’, Time and Society, 9(1), pp. 48–55, 2001 266 5.5 Thomas Hylland Eriksen: ‘Speed is contagious’ in Tyranny of the Moment: Fast and Slow Time in the Age of Information. London: Pluto Press, 2001 272 Biographical notes 279 Bibliography 285 Index 311 USP January 2012 Presented by US Pandey Kolkata Extracts One: Media transitions Manovich (2002) – ‘What is new media?’ This article argues that changes wrought by new media are profound. Qualitatively different to past technologies such as the printing press or photography, emerging media, in combination with computer technology, render a fundamental shift due to an ability to affect all stages of communication. Outlining the interweaving historical trajectories of media and computing, the author traces the eventual convergence of the two technologies, explaining how developments in computers facilitated the ability to store, synthesise and manipulate diverse types of media. This, in turn, creates a new set of possibilities, translating traditional forms of media – such as images, sound and text – into new media. conversations December summarizing Cook (1997) – ‘Technological revolutions and the Gutenberg Myth’ Debunking the myth that the invention of movable type led to substantial advances in literacy and learning, Cook highlights the essential roles of both cultural and techno- logical advances in explaining social change. Questioning the revolutionary claims associated with Gutenberg’s invention, he contends that the affect of the printing press was mediated by the social, religious and political institutions of the day. Increases in literacy rates were driven more by the imperatives of record-keeping, education and work than the development of movable type, and the availability of large quantities of paper were required before large-scale diffusion of writing became possible. He suggests that this traditional, one-dimensional account of a single technology causing broad social change, as typified by the Gutenberg Myth, is an inadequate model for assessing the current realities of the developing world. The computer has already been the subject of such an analysis, being touted as revolutionising society. Cook warns of such deter- minism, reiterating the need to consider the multiple influences inherent in any techno- logical innovation. USP January 2012 EXTRACTS ix Presented by US Pandey Kolkata de Sola Pool (2003) – ‘A shadow darkens’ The legal status of new communication technologies remains a contested and complex area.
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