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Media and Digital Modernism

New Communication Environments

by Sefer Kalaman (Volume editor) Bilal Süslü (Volume editor)
©2018 Edited Collection 212 Pages

Summary

New technologies have brought about radical changes in almost all areas of life. The best concept to describe this period is «digimodernism» in which there occur many transformations, from shopping to information, socialization to banking, education to communication. People, who become increasingly dependent on technology, computer and internet, are forced to attach themselves to the new social structure in a society that changes in parallel with digitalization. The Digimodern period has substantially affected the media as almost every point of life and caused great transformations. At this point, the main theme of the book is to reveal the structure of the media in the digital period.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • About the editors
  • About the book
  • Citability of the eBook
  • Foreword
  • Contents
  • Digimodern Era, New Communication Technologies, and Sociocultural Change
  • Introduction
  • 1 Development Process of Communication Technologies
  • 2 Digital Modernism and New Communication Technologies
  • 3 Future of Communication
  • Conclusion
  • Digivoyeurism: Follower Monitoring via Applications
  • Introduction
  • Voyeurism
  • New Media Geneology
  • Voyeurism and Exhibitionism in the New Media Age
  • Follower Monitoring As a Voyeuristic Practice
  • Instagram and Digital Voyeurism
  • An Application That Allows Digital Voyageism: Reports +
  • Conclusion and Evaluation
  • From Conventional to Digital: Vigilantism
  • I Introduction
  • II Conventional Vigilantism
  • (i) Vigilantism Involves Planning and Premeditation by those Engaging in it
  • (ii) Vigilantism Participants Are Private Citizens Whose Engagement Is Voluntary
  • (iii) Vigilantism is a Form of Autonomous Citizenship and, As Such, Constitutes a Social Movement
  • (iv) Vigilantism Uses or Threatens the Use of Force
  • (v) Vigilantism Arises When an Established Order Is Under Threat from the Transgression, the Potential Transgression, or the Imputed Transgression of Institutionalized Norms
  • (vi) Vigilantism Aims to Control Crime or Other Social Infractions by Offering Assurances of Security Both to Participants and to Others
  • III Digital Vigilantism
  • IV Traditional Vigilantism in the Context of Key Features – Digital Vigilantism Separation
  • i Planning
  • ii Private Agency
  • iii Autonomous Citizenship
  • iv Use of Force
  • v Reaction to Crime/Deviance
  • vi Personal and Collective Security
  • V Conclusion
  • Face-ism in Online Profile Pictures: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Adults’ Visual Self-Presentation on Facebook
  • Introduction
  • Self-Presentation on Online Social Media
  • Cross-Cultural Communication
  • Stereotypes
  • Face-ism Theory
  • Method
  • Participants
  • Procedure
  • Part of the Face
  • Eye Contact
  • Mood
  • Face-ism Index
  • Research Questions/Hypothesis
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Results and Discussion
  • Social Media in Turkey in the Context of Futurism: Twitter Case
  • Introduction
  • Technology, Communication and Language
  • Social Media as a Communication Tool
  • The Language of Social Media: Twitter Case
  • Conclusion
  • Cinema in Digimodern Era: Super Hero Films
  • Introduction
  • Digitalization and Cinema
  • Cinema in Digimodern Era
  • Cinematic Characteristics of Digimodern Narrations
  • Super Hero Films in Digimodern Era
  • Analyses of X-Men and Spider-Man as the Examples of Digimodern Cinema
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of Spider-Man (2000)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of Spider-Man 2 (2002)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of Spider-Man 3 (2002)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of X-Men (2000)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of X-Men 2 (2003)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of X-Men: First Class (2011)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of The Wolverine (2013)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of Logan (2017)
  • Narrative/Character Analysis of the Series of Spider-Man and X-Men
  • Conclusion
  • A Critical Approach to Digimodern Masterpiece: Production Relations and Public Representations in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
  • Introduction
  • From a Critical Perspective to Modernism, from the Death of Postmodernism to Digimodernism
  • On Marxist Film Criticism
  • Narration in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy from the Critical Perspective
  • Public Representations and Religious Signs in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
  • Production Relations in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
  • Conclusion
  • The Reflections of Corporate Identity in Social Media
  • Introduction
  • Importance of the Corporate Identity for the Literature Review and Corporations
  • 1 Corporate Culture
  • 2 Corporate Behavior
  • 3 Products and Services
  • 4 Communication and Design
  • 5 Marketing Conditions and Strategies
  • Corporate Identity and Social Media
  • Social Media Tools
  • An example of Expressing Corporate Identity via Social Media in Terms of the Corporate Communication: Ramon De Leon
  • Conclusion
  • Visual Culture in Digimodern Era: An Analysis of Advertisement Photography
  • Introduction
  • Digimodernism and Visual Culture
  • Analysis
  • Advertising Copy of Vogue Magazine
  • Digimodern Reading through Postmodern Visual Culture
  • Conclusion
  • Digital Images in Advertisements and “Technology” as Advertising Appeal
  • Introduction
  • The Power of Visualization: A Conceptual View of to the Image
  • “Digital” Signs in Advertisements in the Context of Technology
  • “Technology” as Advertising Appeal
  • V An Analysis of Social Media Sharings of Brands Selected as Lovemark in Turkey in 2017: Digital Images in Messages of Advertising
  • Method
  • The Problem of the Research
  • The Purpose of the Research
  • The Pattern of the Research
  • Data Analysis
  • Sample
  • Creation of Categories and Collection of Data
  • Results and Comment
  • Conclusion

Sefer Kalaman

Digimodern Era, New Communication Technologies, and Sociocultural Change

Introduction

People have communicated with each other through different methods and techniques since their existence. Communication has been one of the indispensable elements in human life that they have narrated their expressions to other individuals or societies with pictures, texts, music, dances, photographs, voice recordings, video recordings, or electronic messages. Communication, which is individually realized, has evolved into a mass structure with the increase of technological developments after the invention of writing. The emergence of newspapers, cinema, radio, and television, and their integration into human life initiate mass communication and create media concept.

These mass media, which are now called the traditional media, have an important role in human life with many functions such as informing, training, and entertaining. The rapid development of technology has paved the way for a new communication environment after the second half of the 20th century. The Internet emerges due to the invention of the computer and this causes a radical change in the field of communication. With the development of internet technology and its accession by a large mass of people in a short period of time, traditional media tools have gradually begun to integrate into Internet. In addition to traditional media tools, the Internet has constituted several communication environments and created a new communication environment called new media.

Both Internet technology and other technological developments have integrated into human life at the end of the 20th century and enabled many fields/environments to evolve from analog to digital.

These technological developments, especially Internet, indicate that a new era has begun according to many theorists or writers. Digimodernism is probably the best name to describe this new era that is expressed by the author or the theoreticians with different names. Alan Kirby (2009: 1), describing this era dominated by digital technology, has handled all environments and situations related to human life such as social, cultural, political, economic aspects from the viewpoint of digitality.

Digital modernism, briefly digimodernism, argues that digital technologies have penetrated almost all of the routine of human life, digitalized to transform ←9 | 10→many activities of life such as education, shopping, socialization, banking, sports, and entertainment. The people born in the Digimodern era easily adapt this period and its principles, that is, they are grown up to integrate into these digital technologies. People who are born in the postmodern era and continue to live in digimodern era have later adapted to the digital technologies of this era.

Digital technologies, which enable digimodernism to emerge, have radically transformed the different fields of human life as well as the media field. Digimodernism has caused major and radical changes in traditional media tools namely newspapers, magazines, photographs, cinema, radio, and television, and created its own media (new media). Online games, social networks, online internet forums, etc., are some of these new communication environments.

The newspapers, one of the oldest media tools/environments, have gradually begun to decrease their circulation in the 21st century. While some newspapers reduce the number of print newspapers, some completely abandon the production of print newspapers and continue to publish on the internet. The newspapers have adapted to internet technology in a short period of time with the digimodern era and they have maintained their activities both in print and digital journalism. Digital newspapers, reaching their readers via the Internet, have begun to be read and followed by large masses for reasons such as having an interactive structure, being easy or accessible at any time, and being free.

On the other hand, the camera, which was invented in 1826 by French Nicephore Niepce, is one of the most common communication tools today, and the first photograph taken with this machine turn into completely different things. The camera was once an analog machine; the photographs are totally different now. In this digimodern era, digital cameras are used by a large mass; the photographs are digital and kept or displayed in digital media.

The television, for which a great interest was shown by the society at the time of its invention and watched by a large mass in the following years, integrates itself into internet technology in this digimodern era. With the interactive structure via the Internet, it has become more efficient in terms of access and watching. Televisions have begun to be watched both on computers and the internet via smartphones. In addition to this, television broadcasting, which costs more money to broadcast, has evolved into another dimension with personal television channels (web TVs) created in the virtual environment and costs less.

The cinema, which is another tool of mass media and entered human life before television technology, has also had radical changes from the late 19th century to the present. In this period, the interest shown by people to the cinema has gradually continued to increase. The film-makers, who shoot films to increase the box-office gross and not to lose this interest, always use technological ←10 | 11→possibilities to increase the quality of the films and keep the interest of the audiences alive. Developments in light and sound technology, effect technology and camera technology have always been used in the film industry. Just like the development of digital technologies and the interest of the cinema about these developments result these technologies to be used in the films. Many technological improvements such as the creation of the place, the physical appearance of the actors, the lighting system of the place, the sounds of people or objects, the effects, to the creation of objects or living beings (animations), are naturally involved in the film industry. The films have now reached a completely different dimension due to the digital technologies of the digital era. It is possible to say that this development/change will evolve to an inconceivable dimension.

The new media, which is included in human life after the traditional media, is integrated with the previous mass media and transforms into a composite structure. Besides, traditional media tools have adapted to this new mass media environment in a short time and continued to develop. New media is an integrated virtual environment that includes different mass media. This integrated mass media, the media of the Digimodern era, is used by almost half of the world’s population (wearesocial, 2017: 5). With its versatile, interactive, inclusive, entertaining, and informative structure, this virtual environment has made communication as easy, fast, and inclusive as ever before. People use different environments of the new media to practice different activities. The most popular examples of these environments are obviously social networks and digital online games.

Social networks are clearly the most important mass media environment. These networks, which are used by about one-third of people (wearesocial, 2017: 5), have brought socialization, entertainment, information, and news to different dimensions. There are perhaps a few technological developments or environments in the history of communication that has changed the structure of communication. With social networks, internet technology is one of these environments.

Digital games, on the other hand, are one of the mass media that are played by 2.2 billion people and have a turnover of hundreds of billions of dollars (McDonald, 2017). Two of the most important factors why digital games are accepted as mass media: messages are sent to the game players via game characters, environments, game scenarios, etc., and the other one is that game players in these digital games can communicate with other players and share information.

All these traditional and new media are tools/environments that enable communication to exist and spread. The emergence, development, and future of old ←11 | 12→and new communication tools are discussed within the scope of the study. In particular, it has been tried to examine what kind of structures the communication tools have in Digimodern era and will evolve in the future.

1Development Process of Communication Technologies

Communication starts with people: it is a necessary condition for the existence of man and society. Without communication, it is impossible for people to maintain their social existence. People use natural and technological tools created by them in activities that they try to produce themselves and society. The organization, implementation, development, and modification of this usage can only occur via communication. The relations and communication established by artificial tools are called relations and communication with technologies. Communication is a necessary condition for the existence and implementation of this relation. Thus, the relation is not communication but the existence of the relation depends on communication. In other words, communication is not the relation itself, but it determines the existence of the relation (Erdoğan and Alemdar, 2005: 15). As Işık (2017: 11) quotes from Aristotle, man is a social entity. One consequence of this is that socialization occurs for people who live collectively and relate to the others. In other words, in order to maintain their daily life, people should be in contact with others and nature. Since it is not possible to meet all kinds of human needs on their own, it is essential to establish relations and communication on the axis of work sharing and specialization. To sum up, there is communication in every moment and everywhere in the flow of life such as shopping, education, communication. People are in communication at every moment of daily life. They constantly communicate at home, bus stop, office, on the street and at every moment and everywhere.

According to Oskay (1992: 15), a group or society formed by people who share similar experiences, problems, and similar feelings with one another, informing each other about changes in objects, events or attitudes, judgments, thoughts, and emotions expressed in community life is called communication. According to Andersen (1959), communication is a process that allows us to understand others and to be understood by others. This is a dynamic and constantly changing process depending on the situation.

Communication has become an important tool in transforming the lives of people and society into systematic structures. People have had the opportunity to communicate and to contact each other, to record the developments related to life, and to transfer their routine to other generations in a systemic communicative structure. Every one of the communication tools such as text, picture, paper, ←12 | 13→printing, newspaper, telephone, telegraph, radio, cinema, television, and computer has made an important contribution to the era in which each of them has developed, and has been effective in taking humanity a step further. In addition to that, some communication tools such as printing and information technology have caused humanity to open a brand new period (Güngör, 2011: 36). As communication technologies evolve and diversify, human relations and social practices are also affected.

Details

Pages
212
Publication Year
2018
ISBN (PDF)
9783631764954
ISBN (ePUB)
9783631764961
ISBN (MOBI)
9783631764978
ISBN (Softcover)
9783631764855
DOI
10.3726/b14540
Language
English
Publication date
2018 (December)
Keywords
New Media Digimodernism Social Transformation Digital Life Media Studies
Published
Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2018. 212 pp., 23 fig. b/w, 19 tables

Biographical notes

Sefer Kalaman (Volume editor) Bilal Süslü (Volume editor)

Sefer Kalaman is Assistant Professor at the Department of Radio, Television and Film of Bozok University, Turkey. He completed his PhD program at the Radio and Television Department of Ege University. His areas of interest include New Media, Digital Culture, Gender, Digimodernism, Privacy, Immigration, Middle East, Asia, Mixed Methods Research. Bilal Süslü is Research Assistant at the Department of Radio, Television and Film of Ege University, Turkey. He is studying for a PhD at the same department. His areas of interest include Communication Sciences, Communication Law, Moral Panic, Ethics, International Law, Armenian Issues.

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Title: Media and Digital Modernism