Murphy, 4/11

Technology is one of the largest, if not the largest, proponents of human evolution. When technology advances, and becomes more efficient, society is forced to keep up and adapt to the new structures. When the printing press came out it was revolutionary and seen as a high-tech, speedy, a time saver, and something that could mass produce media and improved published communication. Although we still have printed press in our modern society, it is not the go-to, or main source of media (at least not the quickest source). In class we discussed how newspapers are going under today because of our cultural need to have a story in our hands as soon as it happens, if not beforehand. The newspapers cannot keep up with this desire.

This idea of fast=better brings me back to our discussion on Marx and the binary oppositions of the American ruling class. This idea that fast is better than slow, new is better than old, etc. These dictated concepts are universal constructions our society holds as ideological. With this dominant ideology in power, the printed media have no chance of thriving, let alone surviving against radio, television, and most recently and competitively, the Internet.

Some consider the study of new media and technologies to be a wase of time. Without studying them, people will not understand how to crtically analyze them and challange what they are producing. Bourdieu writes,"The failure of critical thinkers and organizations charged with articulating the interests of dominated individuals to think clearly about this problem only reinforeces the mechanisms I have described" (336). I think CMC is a great major to have, but I do not think it puts us completely out of the realm, of the advertisments. We have a better foundation to think outside of the box, but we are still under the infulence of the non stop exposure to media, advertisments, and labels.