Fear and the New Media

In the second text we read, Bolter observes the following about the differing responses to the refashioning of the three dialogues within digital media between academia and popular culture that I think is indicative of what we have been discussing in class the last two weeks. In chapter 5 he says,
“The academic community, however, is reluctant to participate fully in some of these refashionings. Although scholars are prepared to study and critique new media forms and genres, they are less likely to change their own forms of expression. Popular culture at large has had the opposite reaction. For various ideological reasons, the business world, the entertainment industry, and most users of the World Wide Web have shown little interest in a serious critique of digital media, but they are all eager to use digital technology to extend and remake forms of representation and communication.”
What Bolter describes is what we have been articulating as a fear, or at least suspicion, towards the new media and the movement away from the text. I think it still goes back to our attachment to the written word and the way we honor it as individuals and as students of higher learning in the humanities. Just as Bolter acknowledges, as grad students we are comfortable discussing the possible implications as well as the benefits, but our classrooms (as a whole) have not been entirely transformed by new media. I wonder about this-- as some have already mentioned in their posts-- what other things people worried would ruin the world because they offered a new way of going about things. What, for instance might have the fears and speculation been about the Gutenberg Press? We see it as one of the most pivotal inventions for our modern world, now, but what was it then? Is it possible that we so close to the invention of the World Wide Web that we cannot see outside of it in order to be objective enough to evaluate it?
Along the same lines, while reading Manovich I thought about his observation that nothing had been documented officially (in 2002) about the history of the “new medium of cinema and produced a comprehensive record” in order to have a detailed and concise account of this new invention. This makes me wonder if just as we are discussing the upcoming new media today, are we still too close to it that we cannot get an accurate picture of it? We still cannot tell the future about how it will be instrumental in changing society. But, what is just fear and what might be a legitimate concern?
For Manovich, in regards to the digital computer, he fears that “future theorists and historians of computer media will be left with not much more than the equivalents of the newspaper reports and film programs from cinema’s first decades” and instead of an analysis of the phenomenon, “contain speculations about the future rather than a record of theory of the present” (7). Bolton’s writing described the response of these theorists that Manovich is worried about. Are we those theorists fearing what will happen to the future because of the changes we see today? Is it still the same story generations down the line? Is it part of the human condition to fear what we don’t know about digital media? Where does that fear come from?
What I found the most effective about Manovich’s approach to the issue is his active response. Instead of speculating about the future, or complaining about the past, he decides that he is going to do the very thing he wished someone would have done for cinema and he begins to create and define the new categories of new media theory in order to begin recording the history and start the conversation. Furthermore, Manovich, instead of relying on terms he assumes everyone agrees on, defines each category to begin on common ground. By doing this Manovich is careful to write the theory of new media and clearly articulate the meanings and specificity of each term. He does not suppose that we already understand the terms, which allows him to avoid loaded terms that we may think we already understand so that he can load each term with its own meaning (p 15-17).
Perhaps this is a way that we can learn to deal with our own suspicion and anxiety related to new media and digital rhetoric. If we can find the words to discuss the movement as it happens, maybe we will be less afraid of its foreignness. For now, we will have to see what Manovich has discovered and find a way to join him in the discussion.