Wednesday, 1 December 2010

New Media and Visual Culture

Characteristic of new digital media
Definition of and critical look at the mass media
Relationship between art and the mass media

Late Age of Print - coined by media theorist Marshall McLuhan
Age of Print - started around 1450, Gutenberg's printing press

Electronic book, ebook, kindle etc - is it democratic?
reader takes on role of the author?

Mass Media Definition - modern systems of communication and distribution supplied by relatively small groups of cultural producers, but directed towards large numbers of consumers

negative criticisms
- superficial, uncritical, trivial
- viewing figures measure success
- audience is dispersed and disempowered
- encourages the status quo, it's conservative
- encourages apathy
- power held by the few motivated by profit or social control
- bland, escapist and standardised

positive criticisms
- not always low quality
- social problems and injustices are discussed by the media
- transmission of high art materials reaches a broader audience
- democratic potential

Can/should art be autonomous?
Jackson Pollock, Picasso, Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichenstein, Andy Warhol

Conclusions
- new media are changing the way we consume text and image
- theorists of mass media have different viewpoints seeing it either as negative and a threat or positive and democratic
- a lot of 20thC art has used the mass media - often to be critical of it
- art theory- should art be autonomous?

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