Cultural Studies: Sterne and Gillespie

These two articles offered a good glimpse into cultural studies approach to the Internet. Sterne’s article proposed the ideal for what should be done for these studies to be successful and urges someone to step up to take on the task. I think the biggest thing to take from his article was to provide more reason to steer away from past conceptions like technological determinism to look at technologies, in this case the Internet, as just another facet of our culture. By doing this there is a great attention to the everyday life and how it is that we use these technologies in our lives. Another important part of the article is how Sterne stresses that the Internet needs to be contextualize the Internet and think of it in terms of other technologies. Sterne suggests that the Internet will become a commodity and share the same qualities other technologies have for our everyday life. I think of it in terms of the telephone, it has become such an integral part of our culture that we don’t even think twice about the telephone; the telephone is one way for us to stay in touch with one another. Certainly the telephone had an impact on our culture at the time, but think of how nearly everyone on the planet now owns a telephone and it is something people use everyday. As the article says, “examples of media history suggest that as the Internet increases in importance and pervasiveness, it will simply become part of the mundane fabric of social and cultural life.” Like TBiggs and Taylor suggest, the article, while it extensively looks at what cultural studies should be about, he gives little insight into any actual research or analysis.

What I liked most about the Gillespie article was the idea that new technologies rely heavily on past media forms to offer familiarity or “remediates” as the article says. Gillespie uses Dreamweaver as an example of how new technologies can use metaphors and to make learning the technology more accessible. Moreover, new technologies are making media more interactive and by this I mean there is more communication or interaction between the creator and the consumer. There is also more interaction between media forms; for example, many television stations are issuing online streaming of actual broadcast media to view on the Internet.