So I'm trying out our blog and I couldn't think of what to say, then, like a deus ex machina, the Huxtables appeared on my other computer to exemplify a topic I've discussed with my mother-in-law: a turn towards on-demand media for both news and entertainment from standard, broadcast programs has greatly diminished the occurrence (perhaps even possibility) of shared cultural experiences.
A first reaction might be to look for examples: MLK, JFK, RFK, moon landing, prisoner release from Iran, baby Jessica, Challenger explosion, 9/11, Balloon Boy. It seems more likely that we have a shared experience of viral videos and the like: Susan Boyle, Old Spice Guy, Antoine Dodson, Lady Gaga, Beiber fever. These are all just off the top of my head, but I sense a difference. I don't know what to make of it yet (though I feel like I may have posted something for last 583 about this) but the "fragmentation" of culture addressed in the NPR article seems a lot like the recognition of a "multi-centered" culture: postmodernism realized.
Great. PoMo. Check. What did we decide the next thing would be?
By the way, I tweeted the NPR article when I first saw it and tagged it with #semiotics583. My user name is "seelytweet" (which was my ancestral name before Ellis Island processing).
Did you know that you spelled the heading wrong?
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comments here about there being a difference in what we are sharing... at least it feels that way, right?
ReplyDeleteWe had a limited number of information portals then, so most of us saw the same information presented in the same way. Also, we only saw what the news media would report (confirmed, sourced information) instead of unconfirmed rumors...
Now we can still have those "news giant" portals, but they are used by an increasingly older generation and even when the current group of young adults reaches an age where they will care about the news at all, they will already be accustomed to accessing it through alternative portals...
I dunno... I do think that shared experiences are more and more created in a different way, but I guess I don't feel the fragmentation. Just the decentering? There's definitely a feeling that communities who didn't used to be heard as much are now able to have a platform. On the other hand, I think they were always there. Actually, now that I think about it, the more marginal communities are probably actually much more connected. So, instead of a giant blob of cultural experience with a cloud of disconnect tiny specks around it, now we have a marginally smaller blob of shared cultural experiences with smaller blobs around it. (Why doesn't this comment box have a paint tool???)
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