New Media/Old Media

COMM1120B, Lecture 2

Dmitry Kuznetsov; September 13, 2023

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The End of Mass Communication?
Previously…

• Explored the de nition of Mass Communication:

• As opposed to interpersonal communication - communicating with Many;
• As a set of institutions - limited number of gatekeeping trend setters;
• As a societal problem - fears of social control, media persuasion.
• Considered the impact of “New Media” and “Convergence” on Mass Communication (Cha e &
Metzger, 2001; Turow, 2020):

• Blurring of boundaries: user/producer, media/non-media;

• Potential reduction of the power of mass media institutions (e.g., newspapers);
• Noted that such institutions still exist and still carry some power.
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Relevance of Legacy Media, Presence
of modern “mass” communication
Previously…

• Mass Consumed media products

from “new” media such as Squid
Game

• Societal and Political importance

of analogue newspapers:

• Novaya Gazeta in Russia

• Apple Daily in Hong Kong

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Mass Communication
Littlejohn & Foss, 2009, Media and Mass Communication Theories

“The process by which a person, group of people, or large

organisation creates a message and transmits it through
some type of medium to a large, anonymous, heterogeneous
audience. The message is typically rapid and public.”

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Future Lectures
Technological Change, Mass
Communication, and Society
• Lectures 4-8 cover one segments of
the development of mass
communication;

• Organised according to technologies

(e.g., printing, telegraph, radio);

• Consideration of their societal impact;

• Extracts knowledge valuable for
modern day media practitioners and
scholars;

• Examines current state of these

industries.
How to understand technology?

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How to assess its impact?
Developing an analytical framework
Today’s Agenda

- The Problem with “Novelty”

- Tackling Technology
- Coming back to Mass Communication
- Essay Guidelines
- Tutorial Arrangement

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The Problem of
“Novelty”
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Calling Something “New”
Chun & Keenan, 2006

• Guaranteeing that it will be old;

• Placing it within a cycle of
obsolescence;

• To disappoint and be replaced

by something that again
promises to be “new”;

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But we study “development”
How to deal with “Novelty” of Media Technology?

Once novelty fades, media still remain, shaping our imagination, politics and
everyday life.

Just as the novel quickly became anything but novel, new media — even after its
newness has faded — remains in ways that shape our imagination, our politics,
our everyday life. To understand and embrace these impacts, we need to
grapple with what is at stake in calling — and in dismissing — any medium as
new. (Chun, 2006, p. 2)

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No Medium Exists in Isolation
Bolter and Grunion (1999, p. 15, cited in Gitelman, 2004)

• Digital media can be understood through the ways they honour or revise preceding
media of photography, lm, or print;

• No medium does its cultural work in isolation from society or other media;
• The novelty of media stems from how they refashion older media, and how older
media change when facing the challenge presented by newer media;

• Gitelman (2004) proposes the following:

• Any technological logic media possess are only apparently intrinsic, shaped by
social and economic forces;

• However, they can be in uential, and their properties do matter.

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2. Tackling (Media) Technology

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Assessing Technology
Four Perspectives

• Technological Determinism
• Social Construction of
Technology
• Social Shaping of
Technology
• Domestication of
Technology

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“To understand (new) media and their potential
consequences, we need to consider both the technological
features of a medium and the personal, cultural, and
historical presumptions and values those features evoke”.

Baym (2015, p. 21)

2.1. Technological Determinism

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Technological Determinism
We are at their mercy.

• Technology has inherent characteristics that shape its evolution and its
impact on society;

• Technology is the agent of change;

“Technology marches in seven-league boots from one ruthless, revolutionary
conquest to another, tearing old factories and industries, inging up new
processes with terrifying rapidity”. Throstein Veblen (1875-1929);

• Technology impacts humans both individually and collectively;

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Technological Determinism
An ever-present narrative (Baym, 2015)

• Socrates saw alphabet and writing as great threats to the verbal tradition of
Greek society;

• He lamented their negative impact on individuals: “This discovery of yours will

create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their
memories”;

• “Compulsion to repeat the same ideas” regardless of how society has

changed (Spiegel, 2004, p. 140, cited in Baym, 2015).

• Fischer’s Impact-Imprint Perspective (1992): technologies change history by

transferring their qualities to users, individually and collectively.

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The Impact/Imprint Perspective
Claude Fischer, 1992

• Technologies change history, transferring “their essential quality”;

• Technologies thus imprint themselves on users’ individual and collective
psyches;

For example:

• Video games lead to violent behaviour;

• Quick editing of TV shows creates short attention spans
• “Rather than ‘using’ it, people may be ‘used by it’ (Fischer, 1992, p. 12)
Technological Determinism
The Power of Novelty / Reductionist Tendency

• “A technology enters a society from

outside and ‘impacts’ social life”
(Fischer, 1991, p. 12, cited in Baym,
2015);

• Discussions of direct e ects

dominate when technologies are
new/recently introduced;

• People may not understand the

technology, or could be unfamiliar
with the relevant protocols;

• Actual uses tend to be “collapsed”

(e.g., “Television”, “The Internet”,
“Writing”)
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 Technological Determinism
Utopian and Dystopian

Utopian Reactions:

- The world can be improved by technology, transforming reality for the better. Each new
technology is better than the last, improving our daily lives, o ering new opportunities,
guiding our society towards a better place.

- Example: Removing constraints of geography, enriching out relationships.

Dystopian Reactions:

- The world is made worse by technology. Technology brings with it loss of control over
about lives, dependency. They promise positive change but only make our existence more
di cult.

- Example: Destruction of cultural variety, creation of inauthentic relationships, tribalism.

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Technological Determinism
Powerful yet Disempowering? (Maruks,1994)

• Can we reduce all negative elements of our lives to technology?

• If yes, then we simply need to get more and better technology!
• But, are we unable to solve our problems without inventing new or better
technology?

• The key issue is not whether something has an e ect (Markus, 1994)

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“[…] It is the degree to which the outcomes,
whether positive or negative, are the inevitable
results of technological characteristics […]”

Markus, 1994, p. 122, as cited in Baym, 2015. Emphasis added.

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 Notable Thinking in
Technological Determinism?
Harold Innis (1894-1952)
Time & Space

• Media shapes civilisation;

Time-Based Media

• Clay, stone tablets, manuscripts, parchment;

• Durable, Long-lasting, Limited;
• Emphasis on tradition, concrete wisdom;
Space-Based Media

• Radio, television, newspapers;

• Transportable, Widespread, Ephemeral;
• Emphasis on abstract thought; rational and
impersonal thinking.

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Harold Innis (1894-1952)
The Monopoly of Knowledge

• Focused on examining media used in

ancient empires;

• Suggested that certain media can lead to

the development of dominant class;

• Example: complicated writing systems

require a special educated class of
scribes;

• Leading to a monopoly (or oligopoly) over

knowledge.

• This power is dependent on control over

media production and content (e.g.,
production of manuscripts).

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Think back to Mass Communication as a
“Societal Problem”. Monopoly of
Knowledge?
Marshal McLuhan (1911-1980)
The Medium is the Message

• Technologies have characteristics that are

transferred to those who use them (Baym,
2015)

• Emphasis on studying the medium and its

characteristics, rather than the content.

• Characteristics of a medium a ect

individuals and society.

• Think of same content, but di erent

medium. Film vs Book?

• Think of a medium without content. A

Lightbulb?

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 Marshal McLuhan (1911-1980)
Four-Part Test / “Tetrad”

Can be used for evaluation of the social

impact of media technology

Enhancement: What does the medium

enhance or amplify?

Obsolescence: What becomes obsolete

or driven out of prominence?

Retrieval: What is retrieved that had

nearly been forgotten from an earlier
time?

Reversal: What does the medium reverse

or ip into when pushed to extremes?

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A Closer Look at McLuhan
Literally

• May 18, 1960

• CBC-TV Show “Explorations”
• Discussing New Media and
Global Village

• Namely appliances such as the

television

• Considers the change from the

“literary man” to the “technology
man”
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Group Discussion
Technological Determinism Nowadays?

• Nick Carr (2008) suggested in the Atlantic that Google was making “us” stupid.
• Tracy Alloway (2009, as cited by the Telegraph) proposed that Facebook had
the ability to “enhance intelligence”

• Can you think of any other current media technologies (devices, apps,
platforms etc.) that are discussed in such terms?

• What do you think about predictions by Carr and Alloway? Did they come
true? Do they make sense in hindsight?

• Did anything stand out to you about what McLuhan argued?

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Break

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2.2. Social Construction of
Technology

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Social Construction of Technology (SCOT)
The Other Extreme

• Technologies arise from social processes;

• Humans, not machines, are agents of change (Nye, 1997);
• Technologies are invented;
• Inventors are embedded in social contexts;
• Social contexts enable the creation of technologies
• Thus, the inherent features of a particular technology are not as
consequential.

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“From a SCOT perspective, inventors are embedded in social contexts that
make it feasible to use a garage to create a personal computer or a bicycle
repair shop to invent an airplane. The choices that designers and
developers make as they develop technology are seen as dependent on
their social contexts which are, in turn, shaped in part by communication.”

Baym, 2015, p. 37
Social Construction of Technology
Use & Reception

• Uses and appearance of technology is also dependent on social construction;

• Baym (2015) identi es two societal factors that can in uence the development
technology:

1. Market: nancial interest (competition, monopolisation) may both hinder

and boost development;

2. Regulation: government agencies may nance particular tech, or restrict

its use through developing certain legislation;

• Adoption of technologies can also be impacted by various social, economic,

or cultural factors.
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The SCOT Perspective

The original intention behind developing a technology

is not as important as how it is eventually adopted,
modified or subverted by various social groups.

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 Social Construction
There are no simple answers

• Polar opposite of technological

determinism;

• However, it can also be reductive;

• Can ignore and disregard the novelty
brought on by progress;

• Similarly, could continue to “ask the

same questions” regardless of the
speci c technology involved;

• Example: Video Games and Books are

both content carriers, but they do
function di erently.

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2.3. Social Shaping &
Domestication

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 Social Shaping Of Technology
The Middle Ground

• Consequences of technologies arise form a mix of a ordances and the

emergent ways in which people make use of them.

• A ordances: how material and design features of a technology request,

demand, allow, encourage, or refuse certain actions rather than others (Davis
& Chouinard, 2017).

• Simply: What actions are enabled and discouraged by a technology.

• Emergent: Unexpected, happening and developing in the process of using a
technology.

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Social Shaping Of Technology
Balance of Di erent Forces

• Technologies are built with certain use expectations (e.g., a television is meant to
enable viewing of visual content);

Machines do not make history by themselves. But some kind of machines help
make di erent kinds of histories and di erent kinds of people than others […]. [They]
can and do accelerate certain trends […]. Douglas (2004 [ 1991], p. 21, as cited in
Baym, 2015)

• People, technologies, and institutions all have power;

• Social Shaping is a process without a single dominant shaping force (MacKenzie &
Wajcman, 1985/1999, p. 29, cited in Baym, 2015, p. 42)

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“From the social shaping perspective, we need to consider how
societal circumstances give rise to technologies, what specific
possibilities and constraints technologies offer, and actual practices
of use as those possibilities and constraints are taken up, rejected,
and reworked in everyday life.”

Baym, 2015, p. 42
 Domestication of Technology
Novelty Wears O

• Previously amazing things can quickly become ordinary;

• Life without such technologies can become unimaginable;
• Those not using particular tools not only inconvenience themselves, but also
others. Think of not using WhatsApp in Hong Kong, or WeChat in Mainland
China;

• The “Domestication” approach highlights this tendency for the novelty to wear
o ;

• An extension of Social Shaping, it focuses on how technologies become

deeply embedded in the practices of daily life, individually and societally.
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Social Shaping & Domestication
A calmer assessment of technology, avoiding simplicity

• Consequences of technology for social life are emergent;

• Social formations, interactions, and changes continuously take place and
shape how technologies are used;

• However, these approaches are not deterministic;

• Technology and Society in uence each other;
• When studying mass communication, it is important to remember this;
• Technological features, social practices of their use, and the context of their
implementation are all important.
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The Four Perspectives
Brief Summary (Baym, 2015, p. 22)

• Technological Determinism - technologies are causal agents, entering

societies as active forces of change that we have little power to resist;

• Social Construction of Technology - people are the primary sources of change

in both technology and society;

• Social Shaping - technology and society are continuously in uencing one

another;

• Domestication - overtime, people stop questioning individual technologies,

the become taken-for-granted parts of everyday life, no longer seen as
agenda of change.

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When reading the chapter
A more detailed picture

• More information on
historical development;
• Impact of Communication
about Technology
• Consideration of Moral
Panic as matter of SCOT
• A narrative of the internet’s
domestication
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Group Discussion 2
Social Shaping and Domestication

• In her work Baym (2015), uses the Twitter # as an example of social shaping of
technology.

• Can you think of other examples where user behaviour and interaction, rather than
initial design, determined how a media service, platform, or technology ended up
being used? (Hint: think of accepted behaviours on interactive media you use, or
“protocols”)

• Think of a technology (such as a media platform or device) that seemed revolutionary

when you rst got it, but has since become so normal that you do not even think of it.

• Can you recall how long it took for it to be “domesticated? Did you notice it
happening?

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3. Returning to Mass
Communication

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More Nuanced?
More academic, less certain,
still questionable.
A (somewhat) more nuanced look at Mass Communication
Re-evaluating the end of mass communication

• Overall the article presents a more sober, nuanced look at the connection
between “new media” and “mass communication”

• But it still starts with a relatively reductive premise, collapsing various uses
into one term.

• “Wide range of new media, online platforms, and communication

technologies” (Weimann et al., 2014, p. 805).

• “Being unable to distinguish among them and relate each one separately to
the theoretical and empirical traditions, we preferred to use the broad
category of ‘new media’” (Weimann et al., 2014, p. 805).

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Highlight Part 1: Users vs. Audiences
Re-evaluating the end of mass communication

Many authors cited by Weimann et al (2014) were less enthusiastic about the
revolutionary e ects of “new media” on mass communication. Some found that:

• Users engage with media in diverse ways,

• Creating and consuming content,
• Actively engaged in their cultural and political environment;

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 Highlight Part 1: Users vs. Audiences
Re-evaluating the end of mass communication

Other research they summarised observed that previously observed trends and
in uences stayed relevant:

• Audiences were found to be susceptible to the impact of the media;

• Restricted as content creators by media institutions, and
• Preferring to be engaged with media that rested within the social, communal
and political perimeters.

This does present a less deterministic outlook on the impact of technology. The
use the term “audience” in relation to older patterns and “users” in relation to
newer developments is quite notable, if not consequential.
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However, are users and
audiences different groups?
Highlights Part 2: Social Construction or Social Shaping?
Re-evaluating the end of mass communication

• Weimann et al (2014) examine the issue of the digital divide;

• Digital Divide: less privileged groups in society could be left behind during the
information revolution due to their “impaired economic ability” (Cha ee &
Metzger, 2001, p. 377).

• Earlier examinations of the digital divide saw it as a “transitory glitch” that will
be resolved quickly.

• Later conceptualisations added complexity, framing digital divide as a

continuation of existing social divisions.

• The authors also highlight of social and nancial class on uses of media.
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Highlights Part 3: Moving Between Extremes
Re-evaluating the end of mass communication

Occasionally the article falls back into determinism:

“In the conventional media, the institutional gatekeepers could determine who
and what are worthy of exposure and publicity” (p. 819)

“In the new media environment, it is enough for a person to have a computer,
Internet access, and fundamental pro ciency in language and online
communication in order to produce content and proliferate it on virtual platforms
and social networks” (p. 819)

“People from a lower socioeconomic position […] gain less from this use and do
not utilise sophisticated tools such as online information searching” (p. 819)

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Highlights Part 4: The Novelty Fades
Re-evaluating the end of mass communication

‘‘Networks and associated technologies are not neutral artefacts but

are political and social spaces in their structure as well as in their
content levels’’ (Brazilai-Nahon, 2006, p. 269)
“New media will continue to re ect the uneven power distribution
and hierarchical status in any given society groups and within
countries” (Weimann et al., 2014, p. 819)

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Dulled Impact
Summarising Cha ee & Metzger (2001) and Weimann et al (2014)

• Cha ee and Metzger suggested a shift in power from elite groups to a

greater proportion of media users, with potential for more democratic access
to the media.

• However, media ownership concentration has increased, leading to a lack of

diversity and potential bias in media content

• Despite the rise of new media, power dynamics and resistance remain
relevant.

• Media institutions still play a crucial role in shaping public opinion and
controlling information ow.
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Conclusion
Coming Full Circle

• Media are the results of social and

economic forces;

• Their technological logic is only

apparently intrinsic;

• Media are also in uential;

• Their material properties can
determine conditions of
communication; and

• They may express and constitute

social relations
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4. Essay Guidelines

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Essay 1 - Media Log (Oct 19)
Recording and Analysing your Media Habits

• Examine your media habits;

• Log your media consumption (or creation) behaviour;
• Analyse it with reference to ideas explored in class;
• Consider the in uence of technology (new and old) on your life.
• How did you stay aware of the wider issues in your social circle or society at large?
• Did you rely on “older media institutions”?
• Do you think your media habits are “typical”?

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Essay 1 - Media Log (Oct 19)
Questions you can consider

• What media devices/applications/services did you use?

• What content did you consume?
• Did you create any content?
• Did your media behaviour vary based on the device you used?
• What was used for interpersonal communication?
• How about your engagement with “mass” Communication?

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Essay 1 - Media Log (Oct 19)
Grading Criteria

• Clarity of your argumentation: cohesive, supported, focused, organised,

and structured. Ideally, you would establish a clear narrative within your work,
demonstrating your argument or perspective through e ective use of cases
and theoretical material. (10%)

• Integration of Class Materials: You demonstrate your grasp of the course

material by referring to relevant sources, clearly de ning your concepts, and
creatively applying them in your work. (10%)

• Writing & Formatting: readability, lack of major grammatical errors, proper

formatting, in-text citations, and bibliography. The focus is on ease of
understanding not complexity. (5%)

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Essay 1 - Media Log (Oct 19)
Miscellaneous Details

• Length: 800 words, could go to 1000. Citations don’t count.

• Format: A4, 12pt Times New Roman, Double-Spaced ❗❗❗
• Due Date: Monday, Feb 20th. I suggest submitting before the lecture.
• Citations and References: Cite all your sources using APA7, Include a
References List ❗❗❗

• Submission Procedure: Submit Essay to Veriguide, then submit it to

Blackboard alongside the Veriguide Acknowledgement Letter.

• Grade Weight: 25% of your nal grade

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General Recommendations
What works for me

• Use a citation manager (e.g. Zotero);

• Think of a simple system to log your media habits (e.g. a spreadsheet?)
• Write formally, but don’t overcomplicate.
• Try to read your essay aloud when proofreading it.
• Don’t try to include every idea we have discussed.
• Remember: the essay is pretty short.

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Blackboard
In case you haven’t checked

• Remember to sign up for

tutorials!

• Link on blackboard
• Also readings, lecture slides.
• And the feedback form link

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Print
Next Lecture

• Discussing the origins of print

(will try to cover not just the
west);

• Examining the development of

print mass media;

• Exploring the use of printing

presses for alternative,
subversive communication;

• Discussing current state of the

industry.
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Feedback Form
I do read the comments

• Questions about readings?

• Suggestions for the course?
• Fill in the form: https://forms.gle/
GjgP5hJLCWU8T6wx9

• Or e-mail me:
dmitrykuznetsov@cuhk.edu.hk

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