Manovich, Enzensberger, Baudrillard, Uricchio, Bolter
MY SUMMARY OF THE TEXTS
In What is New Media?, Lev Manovich suggests that new media is "the translation of all existing media into numerical data accessible through computers" (20). Manovich concludes that new media, because of its consequences, has moved from reflecting the age of industrialization, which stresses mass production, toward reflecting the information age, which stresses production for the individual. This movement from pure industrialization to pure individualization is demonstrated, he suggests, by the movement between film, which "asked us to identify with someone else's bodily image," to the personal computer, which now asks us "to identify with someone else's mental structure" (61).
In Constituents of a Theory of the Media, Hans Magnus Enzensberger calls for an over-powering of the "productive forces of the media industry" by appropriating and organizing those forces. He believes that there is "emancipatory potential which is inherent in the new productive forces" (13). Enzensberger believes that messages must be sent and not only received in order to have a voice in what he calls "the consciousness-shaping industry"; this is his radical, ground-level, social action that can overcome bourgeoisie power in the mass media.
Jean Baudrillard, however, wants to reject the linear theorizations of communication that Enzensberger asserts. In Requium for the Media, Baudrillard argues that "changing the contents of the message serves no purpose." What we need, he says, is a "transgressive reversal of discourse" that does not act on the basis of another code (287). Baudrillard's own conclusion is that "the symbolic consists precisely in breaching the univocality of the 'message," in restoring "the ambivalence of meaning" because Enzensberger's "revolution at the bottom conserves the category of transmitter" and "fails to place the mass media in check" (286).
In Historicizing Media in Transition, William Uricchio suggests that each media has been understood within a context that is itself controlled by a dominant thinking, and this, in turn, shapes our understanding of the media. In essence, what Uricchio is concerned with is historicity and how its production affects our understanding of media. He wants the reader to embrace Herodotus' telling of history, which relies on the notion that no one can claim complete epistemological accessibility to history and, therefore, that history is inherently unstable and can only be discussed in an uncomfortable melee of multiple perspectives, including perspectives on media and media use.
Jay David Bolter, in Theory and Practice in New Media Studies, begins by asserting that the theory of new media has been separated from the practice of new media, and the humanities "does not seek to affirm practice, but rather to critique practice" (16). Bolter desires both a critical distance, like the distance claimed by cultural theorists, as well as an engagement with the object of theorization (the practice of new media). This, in his view, advances practices and produces good theory.
MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THE TEXTS
Essentially, what Manovich is suggesting is that new media, which is now both automated and able to transcode its own computerization onto culture, works toward a standardization of perspective, even thinking itself. This is hinted at when he briefly discusses the fully automated TV camera, which controls the framing of shots, i.e. controls what we see. Given Manovich's conclusion, I think it is fair to say that the joys of individualization and freedom brought about by choices now offered to users of new media could be understood as artificial. If we are to take Manovich's concept of transcoding seriously (and we should), then we must understand that the structure of computer thinking will embed itself into the structure of our own thinking, and we will be ourselves designed; to what extent is the crucial question. This should raise our awareness of the power of new media producers to shape us and the future.
So Manovich, and even Uricchio's view of history as primarily one dominating narrative, does shed some skepticism on how much people will be able to develop Baudrillard's radical symbolic "smashing of the code" as their thinking becomes more ordered and standardized. In fact, even Bolter's suggestion for us to take on the mentality of the visual designer could be hopelessly limited if we consider that the designer is herself designed.
However, I think that Baudrillard holds a flawed assumption--that becoming a transmitter (at least in our new media environment) cannot produce a subversive breach and cannot wield the power to engage or overturn what Enzensberger calls the superstructure. Furthermore, Baudrillard's argument seems limited by his lack of a better method. I found his example of graffiti advertising from 1968 to be weak in terms of its ability to actually produce substantive, mass dialogue with a potential to "breach the univocality of 'the message.'" Nevertheless, when I consider the control exercised by news corporations and popular magazines as they dominate national discussions, I am prone to agree with Baudrillard, but I recognize that agreeing with him has consequences. We would have to, I think, on some level, resist producing alternate messages through new media, since this would be doing exactly what Enzensberger suggests--simply changing the contents of the message and becoming ourselves another transmitter. As Baudrillard says, "The media are quite aware how to set up a formal reversibility of circuits without conceding any response" (286). Luckily, I believe that Bolter provides a reasonable way out of this dichotomy of positions. And Uricchio offers us hope by telling us that new perspectives are out there to be discovered and to be incorporated into our thinking.
I believe Uricchio and Manovich and Baudrillard all compliment each other in terms of advocating the transgressive. Uricchio points out how our perspective on media can be automated because of the singular way in which history is constructed by dominate voices, and he desires the transgressive, or the revitalization of our assumptions (like Herodotus seeing Egypt). Manovich calls attention to the connection between new media's automation and our internalization of that power, as if asking us to consider the implications. And Baudrillard was advocating transgressive messages to break the univocality of the media. Clearly, the transgressive incites change and is desired. But, underneath this desire seems to me to be the desire for human freedom, the freedom to be free from outside influence. So I think that Uricchio might be suspicious of Manovich's authoritative telling of the history of media and would look for what "has not been said."
Jay David Bolter offers a perspective that can bring Baudrillard and Enzensberger closer together. At first glance, Bolter accepts Enzensberger's position and proclaims that theorists should become producers. However, it is at this point that Bolter, I think, finds a middle ground between Baudrillard and Enzensberger and says, "As a consumer, one can only redirect the intended effects of media artifacts, but as a producer one can change the artifacts themselves" (26). So Bolter suggests that new media as we know it today can both appropriate the old code (to use Baudrillard's language) and still change the code to create something radical enough to smash the code. This is, perhaps, the beauty and uniqueness of new media--it can create wholly new codes through a complex interaction of text, image, sound, etc. And this is where gaming can come into play. I think that games can simultaneously offer entertainment and produce radical subversive messages by "smashing" the traditional modes of thought and communication and appropriating the power of new media. Because games inherently involve movement and creativity, they are particularly suited to encouraging radical social action.