Whenever I feel like I've got a handle on a class reading that's usually when I run into trouble. So let's roll the dice.
I think Baudrillard's piece is trying to say that there is now a convergence between new media technologies and society needs which could be addressed by them. But I think he's asking where it goes from there in terms of interactivity. He states that Marxist theory may not be able to be applied to media in general, although I'm guessing it can still be applied to the mainstream media business.
Picking up where I left off with my last post:
"The mass media are anti-mediatory and intransitive. They fabricate non-communication - this is what characterizes them, if one agrees to define communication as an exchange, as a reciprocal space of a speech and a response, and thus of a responsibility (not a phychological or moral responsibility, but a personal, mutual correlation in exchange). We must understand communication as something other than the simple transmission-reception of a message, whether or not the latter is considered reversible through feedback. Now, the totality of the existing architecture of the media founds itself on this latter definition: they are what always prevents response, making all processes of exchange impossible (except in the various forms of response simulation, themselves integrated in the transmission process, thus leaving the unilateral nature of the communication intact). This is the real abstraction of the media. And the system of social control and power is rooted in it. "
Right on Jean. That was probably true at publication in '72 up until present day, But now Google,
The poster child of the web, is pushing hard for the alternative, two way communication using print (this blogging platform), interactive video (Youtube)... unfortunately the issue of control has been replaced by ownership. With Google services you are in control of your message (yes even in McLuhan's
framework, because you can customize the various media platforms with plug-ins and devise your own
delivery methods, i.e. I could project a youtube video on to the side of an elephant if I got tired of my
17" LCD Fujitsu monitor), but they own the content, which they use to generate contextual PPC
advertising which they get paid for, handsomely (Google earned $6.67 zillion billion on ads in the 4Q
'09)
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