New Media and Socio-Cultural Formations

摘要

New technologies of communication affect the social and cultural constellations in society. This essay adopts a perspective linking the three key concepts of networks, culture, and communication to examine these constellations and the effects of new media on them. Culture and networks are seen as interwoven, with cultural forms disseminating in networks, but also shaping them. New media alter the conditions of communication taking place in networks-with communication taking place across space and time, dyadically, within groups, or one-to-many, depending on the media at hand. The mass media of printed materials, radio, television, and the Internet, then, disseminate cultural forms in addition to the direct communication in interpersonal networks. Due to their social and economic conditions of production, writing and print media foster the development of first elite cultures, then high languages and national cultures, and finally life-style subcultures. The broadcast media of radio and television make for a blurring of social boundaries and for the homogenization of knowledge in complex modern societies, at least before their increasing specialization in the late 20th century. The Internet, in contrast, caters to international subcultures and fosters cultural fragmentation.