We are no doubt living in generation "igen". Media and technology have had almost as big a part in raising us as our parents. The commercial for windows with the cute little girl doing everything on the computer is no exaggeration and I feel it goes to show a very important point: people transform to technology, technology doesn't transform to the people. I choose the word transform for a significant reason: we don't merely adapt or learn new things, once we gain new technology our entire culture is transformed to accommodate it; for example twitter and Facebook. These things weren't created due to the need of the people, but the people have been changed due to the 'need' of these technologies.
...My computer spell check just told me I spelled facebook wrong because it didn't have a capital 'f'. I rest my case.
The readings this week really emphasize this technological relationship people have gained with media and culture. Marx and Engels show that no technology is ours by choice to receive, it is planned, produced and marketed by select individuals, i.e. material production equals mental production. Jenkins shows the true extent of media technology affecting our daily lives. We communicate through and by technology, we communicate about popular culture we receive through media technology, which both emphasize Marx's point. Furthermore, Althusser's ideology is the undercurrent throughout both Jenkins and Marx, as ideology is the undercurrent for everything anyways.
Technology, Media and Media Technology are the products of ideology by way of their producers and their consumers. Maybe we aren't so much living in the "igeneration" as we are living in "iDeology". idisease is spreading with rapid iforce and if we don't take am iminute to idecide where to draw the iboundary, we might end up a bunch of ihumans.
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You take an original approach to this weeks works. While more of our focus was on classism and culture you bring up the great point that we often times overlook how prominent a role technology plays in society. How do you think Jenkins theory of participatory culture has changed from Marxism and who determines ideology? Does technology eliminate classism? Just want to make sure you get the class aspect of what we covered this week! :)
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