Digc202- Week One Blog Post
Perhaps what I hadn’t considered in studying globalisation and new media over the past few years; was the complex history of globalisation. Histories don’t have a definitive starting point, yet in my new media studies to date, I’d never questioned published works that began a timeline with the Gutenberg printing press or Tim Berners-Lee. Understandably, authors make necessary omissions for the sake of being succinct, however this notion of several histories, as opposed to singular histories (discussed by Moore) with infinite starting points is quite new to me. McLuhan discusses the idea of perspectives, sensory engagement and roles in a rapidly evolving environment by analysing Shakespeare’s King Lear. By doing this, he makes parallels to the current evolving new media environment and our fixation with starting points. Wilson started this week’s lecture by proposing that Nationalism and sovereignty are relatively new constructs, rather than the “modern” notion of globalisation. With current globalisation being strongly facilitated by electronic communications, it’s easy to forget that the total integration and homogenisation of communities dates back to the Roman Empire (and earlier). In dispelling technological determinist perspectives, it could be suggested that it’s communication at the centre of globalisation. This would be the path that Kelly follows, arguing that computers themselves will become redundant, that it is the people behind the machines that are creating the “Network Economy”. The piece is reminiscent of Richard Florida’s “Creative Class” and is surprisingly relevant for a new media piece written a decade ago.
