A Theory of the Media - Enzenberger

A Theory of the Media

Enzenberger

Does new media open the door to the possibility of social change?  Can the fragmentation it causes be re-assembled into a collective that overcomes the controlling messages of traditional media?  

I'm thinking about something in political science they call "soft power", that is the ability manipulate a subject not through force but by ideas, most commonly cultural ideas.  Much like factory food production works,  the strategy is usually employed by taking top down created messages, usually starting with an organic seed of an idea, and reformulating and reprocessing it to scale. It is then introduced at the lowest income/education levels of society, in the hope that it mimics the overlying message and creates a mirror image of it.  That is the traditional method of wielding soft power, both domestically and aboard.  

But what if the process of creation, distribution, and promotion of ideas through media was more organic all the way through, organic meaning coming from individuals or groups of individuals who are unmotivated or less motivated by profit or political gain?  This way the stranglehold on the ability to mobilize and influence is loosened and that ability is more democratically available.  This is where I think the concept of new media fits nicely.   

At the time of Enzenberger's writing, new media was either just being birthed or in its infancy stage.  Recording equipment was just becoming available to the consumer after the technology had mostly been exclusively in the hands of large for-profit entities for most of the media age.  At that time media creation was democratized but its distribution potential was extremely limited, exemplified by the popularity of the "home movie".  These home movies were mostly distributed among immediate personal networks.  It took 20-30 years for that new media to further evolve with digital capture, reproduction, and distribution aided by parallel development of augment broadband network capacity.  During this time of market driven development, new media lost significant popular momentum since its original debut, those who historically held the power of media were given time to figure out how to co-opt it as their own and  either hedge against it by dampening its effects or by adopt it into their strategy.  Despite this, when (near) fully democratic access to creation, distribution, and promotion hit the scene, with major money and brand backing from companies such  as"South-East Asia Inc.'s" video recorders ($115),  Google Inc's Youtube ($0), and Facebook Inc's social networking platform ($0), adding the to media conversation became as purely financially expensive as pair of high-tech sneakers.

This wide availability of technology has caught on hugely with a certain segment of the global youth population.  While people who grew up with the old media model have made the transition into this new interactive media environment, this generation has completely embodied it.  The challenge that those of us who still work off a hybrid model mentality see with the new media is preserving quality. Sure there are billions of people creating and uploading videos every day to the internet but most of them lack the insight, experience, and production values to be of lasting cultural value, rather than mere personal/informational/political value. That's the difference between viral video and Kurosawa flicks.  But that is small barrier to overcome and there is anecdotal evidence of progress on that front.   We continue to hold out hope for new media because we know that "the message is the medium" and the new medium is democratically held where the old medium is not.