tech1002 lecture 1: module introduction

Welcome to TECH1002 Studies in Media Technology

Introduction: Studying Media Technology

Module Team: Andrew ClayMike Howkins

week 1

Personalised Online Radio (POR)

https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started

#tech1002

Comments, questions, suggestions for next week’s ‘track of the week’

Old Media, New Media

1939 General Electric Sales Brochure

from audience to user

media history

On 25th March 1983 Michael Jackson performed his iconic version of ‘Billie Jean’ live on American television debutingthe ‘moonwalk’.

On 4th May 2007, the White Glove Tracking Project was launched online to ask internet users to help isolate Michael Jackson's white glove in all 10,060 frames of the ‘Billie Jean’ video.

frame number, x centre point, y centre point, height, width

Essay• Technological change is dramatic, but not

totally disconnected from what has come before. Discuss the continuities and transformations of media and communication developments with reference to social and technical aspects and specific examples.

Introduction: studying media technology

PART ONEExpectationsWhat we are going to doHow we are going to do itWhy we are doing it

PART TWOStudying Media Technology Mediation and Social Media

Expectations

• Attendance• Reading• Thinking creatively• Academic writing – writing to learn

and learning to write• Take control of your learning and

participate• Module learning environment

PART ONE

Module Learning Environment

Lecture Etiquette

• Make your mobile phone silent• Excessive or disruptive chatter is

not acceptable• Take notes and listen attentively• Be on time

What we are going to do

• Study of media technology:From ‘old media’ to ‘new

media’From analogue to digital

technologyWith continuity and

transformation

• Key words – technology and culture

– mediation– convergence– social media

• Thinking about media technology

• Making media technology Radio electronics

• Writing about media technology

ReportEssayExam

• Library Sessions weeks 18 and 19

• Finding information and information control

• Bibliography• Referencing

system

Theme Introduction to the module

Key Words MediaTechnologyCultureMediationSocial media

Ideas Digital technology contributes to a significant shift from audiences to users/producers of media textsTechnoid existence – technical life is an important object of social studyMedia plays a central part in the conduct and communication of everyday life (culture)

Lecture Summary

How we are going to do it

• Lectures – key themes, terms and approaches, knowledge

• Computer Labs/Practical Labs/ Library Sessions

• Directed study – one hour/week• Independent learning – reading

and research

TECH1002 Directed Study• ‘Directed Study’ is a programme of one-hour

tasks that should be carried out every teaching week

• a non-timetabled one hour per week that is part of the four teaching and learning programme hours allocated to first year modules - it is not optional 'homework', but an integral part of the module

• Week One ‘Our Media Experience Group Blog

Blackboard : virtual learning environment

Technology as Experience

• McCarthy and Wright (2004)

• Four threads of experience of everyday life with technology

• Sensual• Emotional• Compositional• Spatio-Temporal

My Media Use Diary• Tues 6 Oct• 7-8am 12 mins / bathroom / radio R4 Today• 8-9am 40 mins / car / radio R1 Chris Moyles

Show• 9-10am 60 mins / work office / internet,

laptop, email, Twitter, Blackboard• Routines, accompaniment, connection to

the outside world, work tools, social networking

Participation

Assessment

Group Work

• The lab report and essay assignments are produced in groups, but you will be evaluating your personal contribution and those of the other members of the group

Module Strands

• New media and digital technology• Mass media and broadcast technology• Media and modernity, science and

innovation• Conclusion and revision

Why we are doing this module• Foundation studies• Transferable skills• Academic writing• Knowledge

Studying Media Technology• media• plural of medium (mediums?)• media (singular) – the media, the

mass media (all the possible channels of communication)

• a medium is a single channel of communication governed by technological constraints?

PART TWO

Technology (Flew, 2002, p.37)

• technology• a complex term• tools, things• processes, ways

of doing things• ideas and

meanings, what we think about technology

Cultural technologies

• culture• a complex term• one definition is ‘whole way of life’• the conflicted way that we live, know,

and act as groups of people• media culture refers to the way that

audio/visual activities contribute to the daily lives of most people

• more specifically, culture is a meaning-producing process:

• culture can be defined as

the shared practices of a group, community or society, through which meaning is made out of the visual, aural, and textual world of representations

(Sturken and Cartwright, 2001, p.3)

Traditional media production process

INDUSTRY

TEXTAUDIENCE

PRODUCTION-REPRESENTATION-CONSUMPTION PROCESS

text

industry

audience

• Cultural technologies• Technoid existence –technical life

technoculture

Electronically mediated communication (telephones, mobile phones, the internet)

don’t study media in isolation, but study the social and cultural context of which the media is a part (Moores, 2005)

time-space relations, interactions and sociabilities, meanings, and experiences

The Concept of Mediation• Mediation – the way that we experience

the world ‘second-hand’ through media• We live a world where so much of

everyday life is mediated• ‘circulation of meaning’ (Silverstone,

1999, p.13)

• ‘the way media structure our experience’ (Tolson, 1996, ix)

Mediation• why is the concept of

mediation important?• it makes you think about

media technology as a process of production and consumption

• Media have different technological characteristics allowing life to be conducted in different ways

Social Media

• ‘What's changed is that where once tools for media creation and publishing were controlled by an elite, digital technology is increasingly putting them into our hands. We can consume, interact with, create and share media more freely than ever - and this changes the power relationship between us and the mainstream media. We are entering the age of social media’.

• Anthony Lilley• The Royal Television Society Huw Wheldon Memorial

Lecture 2007

(Mayfield, 2007, p.5)

Open source crowdsourcing: connected, communal, open

Theme Introduction to the module

Key Words MediaTechnologyCultureMediationSocial media

Ideas Digital technology contributes to a significant shift from audiences to users/producers of media textsTechnoid existence – technical life is an important object of social studyMedia plays a central part in the conduct and communication of everyday life (culture)

Lecture Summary

Your contribution

• Don’t just be a receiver of module information, participate

• Take control of your learning• Put yourself at the centre of the

module• Be a user of a learning community

not just an audience for knowledge transfer

BibliographyFlew, T. (2002) New Media: An Introduction, South Melbourne,

Oxford University Press.

Lax, S. (2009) Media and Communication Technologies: A Critical Introduction, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Lilley, A. (2007) ‘The Me in Media: Participation, Interactivity and the Rise of the People formerly known as the audience’, The Royal Television Society Huw Wheldon Memorial Lecture

2007.McCarthy, J. and Wright, P. (2004) Technology as Experience, Cambridge MA, MIT Press.Mayfield, A. (2007) What is social media? [WWW] Available from: http://www.icrossing.co.uk/fileadmin/uploads/eBooks/

What_is_social_media_Nov_2007.pdf (24/09/08).Moores, S. (2005) Media/Theory: Thinking About Media and

Communications, London and New York, Routledge.Silverstone, R. (1999) Why Study the Media?, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, Sage.Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2001) Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture, Oxford, Oxford University Press.Tolson, A. (1996) Mediations, London, Arnold.