ENGL 680M: New Media

Within the first few chapters of McLuhan’s text, I found my mouth pursing in characteristic skepticism that I associate with graduate school. McLuhan’s assertion that technology has “reconstituted dialogue on a global scale. Its message is Total Change, ending psychic, social, economic, and political parochialism” (McLuhan, 16) seemed to hearken past optimistic arguments of technological determinism. I read the familiar optimism about revolutionary and unifying possibilities offered through new media, which plagues historical accounts of new media, wanting to be caught up in the overwhelming wave of agency purported by so many technological determinist scholars. However, I found myself being pulled back by the continuing arguments of unequal access and cultural bias. I could not rationalize/ignore the continued “he” references and pictures of white male scholars and objectification of female body parts and the people of color as “other” as being part of a particular time period; more importantly, I do not believe that I should ignore them. Instead, I chose to take the text for what it is by what it sees and how it articulates itself.

Many prominent men have conveyed incredible and false optimism for new media technologies. On the completion of cross-Atlantic telegraphic cable, Edward Thornton the British Ambassador argued that the cable would bring countries and people closer together through understanding (Standage, 90). Artists and poets alike described the telegraphic cable in compassionate ways. For example, “Cyrus Field’s brother Henry wrote “An ocean cable is not an iron chain, lying cold and dead in the icy depths of the Atlantic. It is a living, fleshy bond between severed portions of the human family, along which pulses of love and tenderness will run backward and forward forever. By such strong ties does it tend to bind the human race in unity, peace and concord. . . . it seems as if this sea-nymph, rising out of the waves, was born to be the herald of peace” (Standage, 104). Technology would enable people from distance places contact with one another, or at least contact with information about one another. It was an extension of our bodies, our selves, and, most importantly, our hearts. As an extension, technology would change who we are. McLuhan argued that electric technology reshapes and restructures “patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal lives” (. We would become part of a network, part of a “we.” However, although we may witness/experience shared guilt through empathy, we also see folks struggling to define the borders of their identity. As it did with the telegraph,** emergent media prompt people to experience information overload and frustratedly assert that global materials are not relevant to their lives (Standage, 163).

Due to its networking capability, scholars have naively argued that new media can close historical, cultural divides. McLuhan asserted, “In an electric information environment, minority groups can no longer be contained-ignored. Too many people know too much about each other. Our new environment would compel commitment and participation. We have become irrevocable involved with, and responsible for, each other” (McLuhan, 24). McLuhan’s assertions about new media restructuring/aligning human perceptions and relationships illustrate large assumptions about empathy, interconnection, listening, and access. New media scholars have argued further that new media would bridge ethnic gaps that have existed for thousands of years. New media technology revolutionaries such as Michael Dertouzos asserted, “A common bond reached through electronic proximity may help stave off future flare-ups of ethnic hatred and national breakups” (as quoted in Standage, 207). Nationalism would be redefined if not eliminated. In the future our children “are not going to know what nationalism is” (Nicholas Negroponte as quoted in Standage, 207). These prominent scholars asserted that technology would reduce racism and national unity due to its ability to place people in the presence of one another. However, the telegraph, telephone, phonograph, television, and Internet have become globally pervasive technologies and clear national borders continue to exist.

In contrast to optimistic beliefs, some of the first uses of emergent media have embodied content that highlighted on cultural divides. Early developments of the phonograph were used to record and understand language dynamics of Rhesus monkey. In his findings, Richard Garner “found” that Rhesus monkey’s communicated similar to “lower grades of humanity” (Radick, 187). Garner’s findings not only point to the subjectivity of scientific conclusions, but also to the problematic assumption of media use being inherently uniting and empowering inquiry. Further, during 1895 Trilbymania erupted in the U.S. just when the amusement phonograph was being popularized (Gitleman, 67). Trilby (a novel that focused on issues of selfhood and imitation that contained blatant anti-Semitism expressed against the character Svengali) was not only made into a theatrical production, but also turned into records (http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/gitelman.html) for mass distribution. Birth of a Nation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation) has been known as one of the most influential and controversial films in U. S. cinema. Birth of a Nation portrays the Klu Klux Klan as a heroic force protecting the citizens of the U.S. against people of color, namely black Americans. Due to the technique of film editing and visual storytelling, the film has received and continues to receive extensive attention as a historic example of film innovation. Not surprisingly, some of the earliest uses of the Internet were for porn and KKK-type groups: both artifacts that reify dominant cultural stereotypes, or “cybertypes” (Nakamura, xiii).

It seems as though with every emergent media, some scholars, due to being blind by the potential agency of media, seem to forget or downplay technology being built as a means to continue cultural control. For example, the British empire to enforce its imperial control throughout Southern Europe and Asia by sending hegemonic information/messages through telegraphic lines (Standage, 103). New media can offer means for surveillance and control; places to reinforce powerful social structures. Scholars must also throw into relief “[e]lectrical information devices for universal, tyrannical womb-to-womb surveillance [which] are causing a very serious dilemma between our claim to privacy and the community’s need to know” (McLuhan, 12). Recognition of the observation possible by particular new media technologies only reinforce notions of society’s as panopticon(s). Instead of offering sympathy or empathy (McLuhan, 131), new media may provide more opportunities for objectification of the ‘other’, continuing or increasing the loss of voice and/or agency of particular groups. For example, using new media, such as video cameras, to aid in racial profiling may continue to prompt “cultural paranoia”, or the recognition of one’s “double consciousness” (DuBois, 2) and fear of embodiment of cultural stereotypes. Fear of racial or gendered passing may prompt unnecessary clarifications of sex, sexuality, and race; fear of discrimination may prompt more clever disguises, such as voice software that can distort tone and pitch or image software to choose avatars.

Many of the concerns raised above lead me to question who’s interests does new media technology serve. For whom and for what is technology an optimistic entity? To answer these questions I seek out those who invented the technologies. Gitleman noted, “modern form of mediation are in part defined by normative constructions of difference, whether gender, racial, or other versions of difference” (84). Cultural social structures help develop and define new media developed in a particular culture. Mumford argued, “women have been routinely excluded from the creation and operation of authoritarian monotechnics” (Mumford, Lewis quoted in Williams, 232); not to mention people of color. Avatars that default to white, male characters and gaming controllers that are too large for women’s hands are only two of many “defaults” of new media that do not take into account various types of people. In addition, scholars have noted that people cannot be expected to understand/use technology when they have no hand in creating it (Williams, 1994; Lorber, 1993). New media technologies are not developed in a cultural vacuum where universal needs and values are considered. Whether the purpose be to reach someone who has a dying spouse or to connect military units through a decentralized communication structure, inventors have a specific purpose in mind for particular technologies, as well as particular, inventor-similar users.

To McLuhan among others optimistically see new media technologies as means for unification, or a global village; however, debates over various degrees of technological determinism remain unsettled. Although new media can offer agency for cultural change, in their optimism, scholars must not forget technology’s continued inability to address particular social structures. The Internet “was a fluid, individualized connectivity, a medium to distribute control and freedom” (my italics, Chun, 1); however, controlling aspects of technology may be less publicized in fear of losing that control. Only through recognition of new media limitations and contained optimism can inventors begin to reconceptualize how new media may be able to transform cultural social structures.

* I use this gendered terminology to highlight the utopian/optimist messages about technology for white men under the guise of the generic “man” label. Although authors may argue they intend to be inclusive with their usage of “man,” “he,” etc., images (p. 9, 21,38-39, 58-60, 66-67, 70, 96, 99, 134-136, 139) and such begin to illustrate the social expectations/norms that continue to limit women and people of color’s lack of access to agency possible with new media.
**When a small newspaper in Michigan named Alpena Echo provided international information, patrons argued that the information was not relevant and it distracted them from more significant local news (Standage, 163).

References
Batchen, Geoffrey. "Electricity Made Visible." In New Media Old Media: A History and Theory Reader, edited by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun & Thomas Keenan, 27-44. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. "Introduction: Did Somebody Say New Media?" In New Media Old Media: A History and Theory Reader, edited by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun & Thomas Keenan, 1-10. New York: Routledge, 2006.
DuBois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folks. Mineola, NY: Dover Thrift, 1994.
Gitelman, Geoffrey B. Pingree and Lisa. "Introduction: What's New About New Media?" In New Media, 1740-1915, edited by Lisa Gitelman and Geoffrey B. Pingree, xi-xxi. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2003.
Gitelman, Lisa. "Souvenir Foils: On the Status of Print at the Origin of Recorded Sound." In New Media, 1740-1915, edited by Lisa Gitelman and Geoffrey B. Pingree, 157-74. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2003.
Lorber, Judith. "Believing Is Seeing: Biology as Ideology." Gender and Society 7, no. 4 (1993): 568-81.
Marx, Leo and Smith, Merritt Roe. "Introduction." In Does Technology Drive History?: The Dilemma of Technological Determinism, edited by Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx, xi-xv. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1994.
Nakamura, Lisa. Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Pingree, Lisa Gitelman and Geoffrey B., ed. New Media, 1740-1915. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2003.
Radick, Gregory. "R. L. Garner and the Rise of the Edison Phonograph in Evolutionary Philology." In New Media, 1740-1915, edited by Lisa Gitelman and Geoffrey B. Pingree, 175-206. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2003.
Standage, Tom. The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's on-Line Pioneer. New York: Walker and Company, 1998.
Williams, Rosalind. "The Political and Feminist Dimensions of Technological Determinism." In Does Technology Drive History?: The Dilemma of Technological Determinism, edited by Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx, 217-36. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1994.