The writing activity for this week was cancelled, yay, and so all we had to do was read the materials for this week. If you take a look at much of the media in today's society we find that culture and media co-exist, but which one affects the other? Barnes discusses several different theories that have surfaced in order to explain this relationship between culture and technology. I found that you have extremes on both sides, the technological determinists folks and the social determinists, and then some other groups that are not as extreme and some kind of in between. Basically it's a big ol' mess of 'isms'. Each side has persuading arguments that highly support their theories, making it difficult to come to one conclusion. I find that all of these theories can be applied to various situations and events that occur in society and technology.
I like to use the example of Twitter and how it has changed western culture and many other cultures communicate around the globe. Twitter is still growing and yet when something big happens in the real world, you better believe you can find it on twitters list of 'Trendy Topics'. I can remember the tweet coverage on the Chris Brown and Rhianna incident, when T-mobile was having nation-wide problems, and the huge coverage of the Iran election crisis. These are just a couple of examples but every minute of every hour of every day, you can always find big news in 'Trendy Topics' all coming from everyday people. It's amazing! Here is an example of a form of media created for people just for fun, but it has changed culture and society in a way that makes us the reporters. So, did society affect this technology or did technology affect society? I'd like to think it a bit of both.
Where do I stand? I believe that you have influences from both ends... you want to make browsing through your daily go to websites easier and less time consuming? Hey why not create an add-on in Firefox for that! DONE. Can you find your weekly shows online? Yup, that's right abc.com now includes recent episodes online of your favorite shows. How has that affected you? Well, now you don't have to rearrange plans so you can watch your show, you don't have to be left out if you miss the television airing. This relationship is a beautiful thing, where technology prospers and society prospers as well.
...or is this relationship going to cause problems???
Barnes, S. B. (2003). Computer-mediated communication: human-to-human communication across the internet. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
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