Cultural Studies 3 Lecture 1

Cultural Studies 3: 

Cultural Studies 3 Digital culture and life in the 21st Century Introduction & Overview Liam Greenslade http://ncad.culturalstudies.googlepages.com http://ncadculturalstudies3.blogspot.com

Housekeeping: 

Housekeeping Course Website http://ncad.culturalstudies.googlepages.com Course email address ncad.culturalstudies@gmail.com Course Blog http://ncadculturalstudies3.blogspot.com Assessment

Course Overview: 

Course Overview What is Digital Culture? To speak of the digital is to call up, metonymically, the whole panoply of virtual simulacra, instantaneous communication, ubiquitous media and global connectivity that constitutes much of our contemporary experience. Charlie Gere Digital Culture (2002)

The context of digital culture: 

The context of digital culture Convergence of 3 processes: IT revolution 1970s Restructuring of Capitalism and Statism 1980s Cultural and Social Movements of the 1960s and 1970s Castells (1997)

The IT ‘revolution’: 

The IT ‘revolution’ Knowledge technology from Gutenberg to Bill Gates Move from the amplification and emancipation of the power of muscles to the amplification and emancipation of the power of the brain. ..as with the Industrial Revolution it will have an overwhelming and comprehensive impact, affecting every human being on earth in every aspect of his or her life. Again, paralleling its predecessor, it will run at a gallop, spent not in 150 years, but in twenty-five. ... once it is under way it will be unstoppable ... Christopher Evans "The Mighty Micro" (1979).

IT ‘Revolution’ technological aspects : 

IT ‘Revolution’ technological aspects Advances in: Semiconductor technology computers (size, price, availability) convergence of computers and communications The Internet Satellite communications Mobile personal communications

Capitalism restructured: 

Capitalism restructured Shift from ‘production’ to ‘consumption’ in developed economies Rise of the ‘knowledge economy’ Globalization The decline of the nation-state Neo-liberalism and the market economy

Social & Cultural Movements: 

Social & Cultural Movements Feminism Ecology ‘No logo’ anti-consumerism and citizenship concerns Global resistance movements

The analog & the digital: 

The analog & the digital Continuous Both/and Right brain More or less Quantities Relationship & Context Connotation Semantics Discrete Either/or Left Brain On or off Numbers Content Denotation Syntax

The analog & the digital: 

The analog & the digital Digital coding has at its command a precise and powerful syntax well suited for computation and the operations of analytical logic, but this is achieved only at the cost of an impoverished capacity to express meanings. Analog coding, in contrast, displays…a rich and plentiful, if ambiguous semantics. Wilden The rules are no game (1987)

Further Reading: 

Further Reading Castells (M) (1997) The rise of the network society: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture Vol. I. Cambridge, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Gere C (2002) Digital Culture London: Reaktion Wilden A (1987) The rules are no game: the strategy of communication London: Routledge