Media Studies 2.0

William Merrin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415638630
• eBook ISBN: 9781136186066
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Media Studies 2.0 offers an exploration of the digital revolution and its consequences for media and communication studies, arguing that the new era requires an upgraded discipline: a media studies 2.0.

The book traces the history of mass-media and computing, exploring their merger at the end of the twenty-century and the material, ecological, cultural and personal elements of this digital transformation. It considers the history of media and communication studies, arguing that the academic discipline was a product of the analogue, broadcast-era, emerging in the early twentieth century as a response to the success of newspapers, radio and cinema and reflecting that era back in its organisation, themes and concepts.

Digitalisation, however, takes us beyond this analogue era (media studies 1.0) into a new, post-broadcast era. Merrin argues that the digital-era demands an upgraded academic discipline: one reflecting the real media life of its students and teaching the key skills needed by the twenty-first century user. Media 2.0 demand a media studies 2.0

This original and critical overview of contemporary developments within media studies is ideal for general students of media and communication, as well as those specifically studying new and digital media.

1 Two trajectories

The rise of mass media and computing

DOI: 10.4324/9780203083581-2

The aim of this book is to offer a reflection on the contemporary discipline of media studies. Its central argument is that media studies emerged as a response to and reflection of the broadcast era and that, therefore, the digital transformation of older media forms and our passage to a post-broadcast era requires a new, upgraded discipline to reflect contemporary changes and understand the new media reality.

Very simply we can say that the broadcast era was marked by the dominance of a small number of analogue forms with large-scale companies and institutions employing a ‘broadcast model’ to mass produce content for mass distribution and mass consumption. It was this era, these media and this model that media studies developed to study. ‘Communication studies’ emerged in the early–mid-20th century as a response to the growing social power of newspapers, radio and cinema, researching the effects of these and the mass audience's response. By the end of the century ‘media studies’ had developed as a distinct and successful disciplinary branch, focusing upon mass media production, content and reception. In the last decades of that century, however, an important development was becoming clear. Digital technologies were absorbing these older media, transforming the entire system of media production, distribution and consumption and creating what could be called a ‘post-broadcast’ era. This new era requires, I argue, a different media studies: media 2.0 demand a media studies 2.0.

This suggests, of course, that we are dealing with a revolutionary rather than an evolutionary process: a transformation of such scale that it requires a similarly radical revision of the discipline. Academics, however, dislike the term ‘revolution’. Naturally cautious, for them this term smacks of historical sloppiness and over-generalisation. Re-immersed in the quotidian complexity of everyday life, and the continuities this implies, nothing is ever revolutionary, merely repeating and extending what already exists. Except the problem of this approach is that revolutionary changes do occur and the passage to digitality, I argue, constitutes one of them. In order to make the case for a new discipline, therefore, I first need to establish the existence and significance of this digital revolution. One way to begin this is to think about the passage from the analogue to the digital and the transformation of older media into digital media.

A good place to approach this is through J. C. R. Licklider and Robert W. Taylor's 1968 paper ‘The Computer as Communication Device’. At a time when the computer was primarily thought of as a calculating device, Licklider asserts that it is not only ‘a medium’ but one whose potential impact is greater than both print and television:

Creative, interactive communication requires a plastic or moldable medium that can be modeled, a dynamic medium in which premises will flow into consequences, and above all a common medium that can be contributed to and experimented with by all. Such a medium is at hand – the programmed digital computer. Its presence can change the nature and value of communication even more profoundly than did the printing press and the picture tube, for, as we shall show, a well-programmed computer can provide direct access both to informational resources and to the processes for making use of the resources.

Licklider was right about this. Whilst the printing press impacted upon the mechanics of production and upon the process of distribution and consumption, it had only a limited effect on who could actually produce and distribute. The computer, however, had the potential to democratise production and empower the user to create: ‘a well-programmed computer can provide direct access both to informational resources and to the processes for making use of the resources’.

This was an astute position, but for it to become a reality the computer had to become culturally successful: it had to become an everyday technology; it had to eclipse and absorb other media; it had to become the dominant model of informational storage and manipulation, and its cultural adoption had to exploit this capacity. As Lev Manovich explains, this is exactly what has happened. In The Language of New Media (2001) he agrees that the computer is a more important force than the printing press, due, he says, to its absorption of all older media forms:

[J]ust as the printing press in the fourteenth century and photography in the nineteenth century had a revolutionary impact on the development of modern society and culture, today we are in the middle of a new media revolution – the shift of all culture to computer-mediated forms of production, distribution, and communication. This new revolution is arguably more profound than the previous ones, and we are just beginning to register its initial effects. Indeed, the introduction of the printing press affected only one stage of cultural communication – the distribution of media. Similarly, the introduction of photography affected only one type of cultural communication – still images. In contrast, the computer media revolution affects all stages of communication, including acquisition, manipulation, storage and distribution; it also affects all types of media – texts, still images, moving images, sound and spatial constructions.

How then to map such a shift? Manovich asks. His answer is simple and effective. New media, he says, ‘represents a convergence of two separate historical trajectories: computing and media technologies. Both begin in the 1830s with Babbage's Analytical Engine and Daguerre's daguerreotype’. For Manovich what we have witnessed since the early part of the 19th century is the rise of two trajectories, that of mass media and of computing technology, and the meeting and merger of these at the end of the 20th century. I take Manovich's analysis here as the basis for my own overview of the digital transformation. I want to follow his argument to trace in this chapter the historical rise of mass media broadcasting and networked computing. In the next chapter I will then explore their meeting and merger and the subsequent revolution in the material basis of our media.

The age of broadcasting

Although ‘broadcasting’ is often identified with electronic transmission, this is too narrow a definition. ‘Broadcasting’ was originally an agricultural term, referring to the hand-sowing of seeds by scattering them over a wide area to ensure their successful propagation. By the late 19th century the term was already in use to describe informational distribution, hence Notes on the Writing of General Histories of Kansas reports in 1883 how ‘unscrupulous newspaper correspondents … sent broadcast over the country, contradictory or false reports … ’, whilst the term also appeared in the title of the US paper, Twin City Broadcaster, published in Ardmore, Oklahoma, from 1894–1922. By broadcasting, therefore, we mean a historical mode of mass-reproduction and distribution of information for consumption by a mass audience. This model reached its height in the 20th century, with the success of newspapers, radio, cinema and television, but media studies usually traces its roots back to the birth of mass communication with the development of moveable-type printing and the passage from hand-written manuscripts to mass-produced books.

The invention of moveable-type printing by Johann Gutenberg in Mainz around 1450–55 was an epochal event, aiding the transformation of the oral and imagic medieval culture into the literate culture of the modern world. Printing wasn't new but it took advantage of new European developments such as the rise of a written culture in the 12th–13th centuries and new secular markets for books. Its success was built upon mass-reproduction – first of the individual letters, then of the pages, and, finally, of the books themselves. Gutenberg's most famous book, his ‘42 line’ bible was a hybrid form, simulating illuminated manuscripts whilst showcasing the benefits of print in the precision and quality of the error-free pages but also in the speed of production and print run of about 180 copies.

Commercial printing spread through Europe. At a time when the population of Europe was under 100 million, and only a minority of these could read, an estimated 30,000 titles (15–20 million books) were printed before 1500 and another 150–200,000 titles (representing another 150–200 million books) were printed between 1500 and 1600. Printing expanded the reading public and material available. The profitability of vernacular publishing brought a broader audience whilst also helping to fix national languages and grammar, fostering national literatures and identity and aiding the rise of the nation state. Though at first reproducing older knowledge, printing helped spread new ideas, aiding the rise of secular humanist and scientific thought.

Its greatest effect was the democratisation of information, in allowing people to follow debates and develop their own opinions upon matters that had previously excluded them and in opening authorities up to scrutiny and criticism. In the Protestant Reformation, for example, print was used by all sides to advance their cause. As Man (2002) says, Martin Luther became ‘a publishing phenomenon, unrivalled anywhere’ as his sermons and tracts ‘streamed from the presses by the hundreds and thousands across the lands’. Political authorities recognised the dangers of print. Tudor Britain developed an effective system of state control and censorship, limiting the numbers of printers, what could be published and the print runs. This lasted until the eve of the Civil War when the collapse of censorship led to a publishing explosion by both Monarchical and Parliamentary supporters. Though Cromwell and the restored monarchy re-imposed controls, the growth of publishing led to their final collapse in May 1695. The modern newspaper industry begins here with new titles appearing within days and the first daily newspaper, The Daily Courant, appearing in March 1702.

The 18th century saw the steady growth of the London and provincial press and of a broader print culture (including pamphlets, periodicals, journals and novels) distributed by courier or available in shops, coffee-houses, libraries and reading-rooms. Print's success was linked to the social and economic changes by the mid-18th century. A rising urban population, the development of commerce and the early industrial revolution saw the ascent of a new middle class, the ‘bourgeoisie’, who, excluded from power within the aristocratic system, used newspapers to debate political life, creating a ‘public sphere’ to promote reform. The state's response included a new Stamp tax introduced in 1712 and strict libel laws threatening publishers with prison leading to an interlinked fight for ‘the liberty of the press’ and political reform that would continue into the 19th century. By the 1820s press freedom had effectively been won but just as important was the victory of the idea that the press spoke for the public as the medium of a ‘public opinion’ that was now the real judge of government actions.

This ‘public’, of course, included the emerging industrial working class, the ‘proletariat’ whose own ‘radical press’ survived until mid-century when reductions in newspaper taxes (from 1853–61) allowed the ‘respectable press’ to lower cover-prices and attract its readership. Rapid developments in the second-half of the 19th century saw the industrialisation of the newspaper. Railways allowed national distribution, the rotary press (1868) and linotype (1876) increased print runs and lowered costs, and the electric telegraph, telephone, typewriter and half-tone photographic printing transformed journalism. So too did developments in style with the rise of a lighter reporting style more concerned with human-interest stories. By the century's end, therefore, newspaper publishing had moved out of the hands of individuals to become a major commercial enterprise requiring considerable investment in premises, staff, technology, printing, distribution, retail and marketing.

The early 20th century saw the rise of mass-circulation newspapers with The Daily Mail, launched in 1896 by Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe), selling around a million copies a day by the new century, prompting imitators such as The Daily Express (1900) and The Daily Mirror (1903). The Daily Mail also inaugurated the ‘Northcliffe revolution’ in Fleet Street where, in a circular process, the paper's lighter style and low cover price built a mass readership that attracted advertisers whose revenue was used to subsidise the low price. The success of this strategy would echo through the century, shifting the economics of the industry from the cover price to advertising whilst polarising the industry between downmarket, mass circulation tabloids and smaller-circulation, upmarket, elite broadsheets, each surviving by delivering specific socio-economic groups to the advertising industry.

By the early 20th century, therefore, newspapers had evolved into major commercial enterprises, mass-producing and distributing information and entertainment. The industry high point was between 1919–39 during which time total sales more than doubled, with more than half the total circulation figures being accounted for by the top three titles: The Daily Mail, The Daily Express and The Daily Herald. This was also the age of the ‘Press Baron’ – of ennobled businessmen like Lord Northcliffe, Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere who owned stables of newspapers, competing for mass readership whilst using their titles and position to promote their own opinions and political status. Claiming to speak for ‘the people’, they exploited their mass readership for personal advantage, building a power base lying not in political but in media representation: in the public they could mobilise.

Visual media followed the same path of commercial mass production. Woodcut prints appeared in Germany from the 14th century, but it was the 15th-century invention of printing from etched metal plates that laid the basis for a commercial print industry. By the late 18th century prints had moved from the preserve of wealthy collectors to become available through book illustrations. Satirical illustrated pamphlets were popular by the early 19th century and by the 1830s illustrated papers achieved a wide circulation in an increasingly imagic culture. After the invention of the ‘wet collodion’ process in 1851, allowing any number of card prints from a glass-plate image, photography also became a broadcast medium, with the success of mass-produced celebrity ‘cartes-de-visite’ from 1854 and of the 3D ‘stereographs’ produced in huge numbers for stereoscope viewers from the 1850s until the early 20th century. Glass-plate photography also revolutionised the magic lantern industry, with mass-produced photographic slides becoming available to buy or rent, bringing a new realism and educational purpose to the medium from the 1870s.

A commercial sheet-music industry had developed from the mid-19th century, closely aligned with the music hall whose stars produced ‘hit’ songs to be played on the family piano, but it took the development of sound recording (experimentally by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville's ‘phonautograph’ in 1860 and practically by Thomas Edison's ‘phonograph’ in 1877) for music itself to become a thing and thus a commodity for commercial exploitation. Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter's 1886 invention of the ‘graphophone’ and Emile Berliner's 1887 ‘gramophone’ led Edison to revisit and improve his own phonograph in 1887. The commercial success of public jukeboxes and storefront parlours in the 1890s encouraged companies to produce machines and recordings for this emerging market, establishing the basis for the modern music industry. The limitations of the technology, the novelty of the medium and disdain of established stars ensured the most common recordings were music hall parlour songs, small orchestra, band or solo instrumentals and spoken word pieces, whilst the limited playback time and popular market benefitted simple songs with catchy hooks, all of which played a major role in the evolution of popular song.

It took until about 1900 for the problem of the mass reproduction of recordings to be solved, with the production of recordings from a master, but the industry still suffered from competing cylinder and disc formats, different recording and playback speeds and differences in cutting that led to incompatibility between machines. Nevertheless sales were good, rising from 500,000 records in 1897 to 2.9 million by 1899. The early 20th century saw the internationalisation of the industry as the big three US companies expanded abroad; ever-increasing sales; the development of a range of machines, including luxury cabinet models; and a new respectability for the medium with more high-brow recordings becoming profitable. Sales boomed after WWI, with 100 million records sold in the USA in 1920 and 140 million in 1921, and although over-competition led to problems in 1923 the introduction of electrical machines in 1925 helped sales to rise again from 100 million in 1925 to a high of 150 million by 1929.

Cinema, the final broadcast form of the 19th century, took its place, therefore, within a rich, existing, exhibitionary and broadcasting culture, exploiting the same urban mass audiences. Cinema evolved from international research into the science of perception, high-speed sequential photography, celluloid manufacture and camera and projector design. Its most important precursor was Edison's single-viewer machine the ‘kinetoscope’ which was available in storefront parlours from 1894. International demonstrations of projection in 1895 led to the first accepted commercial cinema screening by Auguste and Louis Lumiere's ‘cinematographe’ in the basement of the Grand Café, 14 Boulevard des Capucines in Paris on 28 December 1895.

The early years of cinema were a period of experimentation. The novelty of ‘living photographs’ attracted a large audience, exploited by new showmen. Early films were ‘actualities’, usually unrelated scenes of everyday life, events and spectacles comprising what Gunning famously called ‘a cinema of attractions’. This dominance meant narrative cinema didn't emerge until the early 20th century in films such as George Melies’ A Trip to the Moon (1902) and Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery (1903) and over the next decade film-makers like D. W. Griffith helped to develop modern film grammar. Film exhibition also developed with parlours giving way to Nickelodeons and later purpose-built cinema houses and the early emphasis on film company ‘brands’ changed after 1910 when public pressure led to actors being credited and the emergence of a ‘star system’ employing modern publicity and marketing. The opening of new studios in California brought better shooting conditions and a new scale and scenery to US film, enabling it to compete with the European ‘feature films’. These films brought a more respectable middle-class audience, prompting another wave of cinema-building from 1913. By WWI cinema had become a global business and the most popular entertainment medium, shown in new, luxurious ‘movie palaces’.

Pressure for the concentration of production, distribution and exhibition led to the development by 1928 of the ‘Hollywood studio system’ that would dominate until the late 1940s. This was built upon a combination of oligarchical control by a small number of companies and vertical integration, with each company controlling their own production, distribution and exhibition. During this time the ‘Big Five’ conglomerates (Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., RKO and Loew's Inc, owners of MGM), together with the ‘Little Three’ (Universal, Columbia and United Artists) accounted for three-quarters of US film production. Cinema now matured as a broadcast medium. As hierarchical big businesses with a complex division of labour, the major studios became Fordist production lines, mass producing standardised products for mass consumption. Based in New York and integrated into the banking structure, these companies employed economies of scale to maximise profits, benefitting from centralised management, accounting and advertising and the control of exhibition. They colluded on spheres of influence whilst forcing a block-booking system on independent exhibitors to ensure all their films were bought. Through the 1930s and the following decades the products of the Hollywood factories achieved a global market and fame and cinema and its stars came to colonise the life and dreams of ordinary people.

One of the few competitors for cinema was radio. It wasn't the first electric medium, being preceded by the electric telegraph that had been commercially developed in 1837–38 by William Cook and Charles Wheatstone in the UK and Samuel Morse (using Alfred Vail's ‘Morse code’) in the USA; nor was it the first electrical broadcast medium, as telephone services de...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• Introduction: media studies gone wrong
• 1  Two trajectories: the rise of mass media and computing
• 2  The material revolution: becoming digital
• 3  The ecological revolution: convergence and hybridity
• 4  The cultural revolution: the post-broadcast era
• 5  The me-dia revolution: the second reformation
• 6  Mass media studies: the rise of duck science
• 7  The emperor’s old clothes: why media studies didn’t work
• 8  Upgrading the discipline: Media Studies 2.0
• 9  The 21st-century discipline: user studies and the productive turn
• 10  Open sourcing knowledge: towards a university 2.0
• 11  Conclusion: ‘shit just got real’
• Bibliography
• Index