tech1002 lecture 1: module introduction
DESCRIPTION
Week 1 Lecture for TECH1002 moduleTRANSCRIPT
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.