New Media Technologies: Communication Theories

1. New Media Technologies: Communication Theories COM 300 Kathy E. Gill 24 April 2007

2. Agenda • Housecleaning • Recap • New Media Theories • Networks • Discussion Leaders – Group 2

3. Housecleaning • Grades • Feedback • Questions: • How many seniors? • How many have never had to write a cite?

4. Adoption - Rogers

5. Summary Adoption • How does an understanding of technology adoption stages relate to concepts like this week’s readings?

6. More New Media Theory • Lev Manovich: professor, UCSD, author of The Language of New Media (2001) and Soft Cinema: Navigating the Database (2005) • Marshall McLuhan: Canadian, author of Understanding Media (1964) and The Medium is the Massage (1967)

7. Manovich’s Five Characteristics (1/6) • Numerical Representation • Modularity • Automation • Variability • Transcoding

8. Manovich’s Five (2/6) • Numerical representation • “zero’s and one’s” • Copying does not lead to degradation (format change, however, can) • Analog v Digital • Early complaints about CD v LP

9. Manovich’s Five (3/6) • Modularity • The “whole” consists of many “objects” • Google Images • PPT and Excel • HTML page (javascript, JPGs, etc) • Individual blog posts

10. Manovich’s Five (4/6) • Automation • What computers do best! • Photoshop automation; database driven websites • RSS readers • Object management and search (Google)

11. Manovich’s Five (5/6) • Variability • Website customization possible by automation • Presenting data (shaping appearance) based on output device: monitor, PDA, cellphone • Scaling (zoom – Google Maps)

12. Manovich’s Five (6/6) • Transcoding • Two distinct layers: cultural layer and technology layer … the intersection is a field called Human-Computer Interaction • Which takes precedence – culture or technology?

13. McLuhan (1/3) • Believes media (technologies) affect cultural (social) change • Differentiates between a medium and its content • Same content (words) is a different message when delivered in print, face-to-face, or on television – what is less important than how • “We shape our tools, and they in turn shape us."

14. McLuhan (2/3) • Historical Construct • Tribal Age (oral culture – intuitive) • Age of Literacy (invention of phonetic alphabet – emergence of logic) • Print Age (invention of printing press – linear thinking – science – individualism) • Electronic Age (ushered in with telegraph, poster child: TV – global village – decline of logic and linearity)

15. McLuhan (3/3) • Compare our immediate knowledge of the 2007 VaTech shooting with the 1556 Chinese earthquake that killed 830,000 (or even daily events in Iraq) • If, as he suggests, print created individualism and nationalism … what might networked communication create? Will familiarity breed contempt or collaboration?

16. But to understand networks… And their impact on society and the economy … We first need a basic understanding of economics.

17. Supply and Demand • Most widely used economic model • Describes how consumers and producers interact to determine the price of a good and the quantity that will be produced/sold

18. Demand Curve • Shows the quantity of a good (or service) that consumers are willing to buy at each price • Assumes “all other things” remain constant (static) • Law of Demand: curve slopes “downward” (P on the vertical axis)

19. Supply Curve • Shows the quantity of a good (or service) that businesses are willing to sell at each price • Assumes “all other things” remain constant (static) • No “law of supply”

20. Supply-Demand

21. Types of Goods (1/2) • Non-rival - a good that can be used by more than one person at the same time (an idea) • Non-excludable - it is not possible for the “owner” to exclude others from consuming this good (non-patented idea)

22. Types of Goods(2/2)

23. Network effects (1/2) • Static analysis: • One person’s decision to adopt a new piece of software (or other technology) has no effect on someone else’s welfare or decision to adopt • Assumes no network externality

24. Network effects (2/2) • Dynamic analysis: • The value of the software (or technology) depends upon the decisions of others (interoperability, for example) • Assumes there is a network externality

25. Locked In! • Consumers may be locked into a network because of “cost of exit” (switching) • Contracts (cell phone 24-month policies) • Training (learn a new system – ugh) • Data conversion (from Word to Word Perfect, for example) • Search cost (finding the new product) • Loyalty cost (frequent flyer programs, “minutes carry-over”)

26. Tipping • As market share increases for any one product (system, technology), there are increasing returns (externality) from increasing consumer demand, leading to dominance by one system

27. Examples • AM v FM radio • Beta v VHS • Mac v Windows • QWERTY v DVORAK • What about .. • “Google”? • Windows? • AT&T Wireless/Cingular?

28. How Does Open Source Fit? • Assumes many minds greater than a few • Assumes transparency leads to higher quality • Enabled by virtual computer network

29. Examples (some conceptual) • ARPANET development of standards for telecom protocols • 1998: Netscape releases Navigator source code • Apache (web server) • Open Source Parking • Firefox, Mozilla • Wikipedia

30. Summary • There is an intrinsic relationship between content and technology: both contribute to meaning • Churchill : “we shape our buildings and then our buildings shape us” • Network effects can shape society (but maybe only short-term)

31. Discussion Leaders • Count off – groups • Leaders pick a computer • Small groups “move” but leaders “stay put”