Digital Culture

Digital Culture is a good book for understanding the New Media. It is a new recommanded book on Amzone. I have read several chapters and got some helpful notes.

"Two threads stitch together the global media scene in the twenty-first century. They are the dispersal of digital media-from computers to cell phones to digital television to the Internet-and the convergence of formerly separate media brought about by the digital revolution. "

"Digitization-in production, distribution and reception-transformed traditional media, starting in the mid-1990s: in satellite communications, in recording technology, in a new generation of television sets, in cable television, in radio and television broadcasting, and many more. From high-definition television(HDTV) to multiplexed phones to iPods to satellite radio-all these draw on various forms of industry convergence as well as digital technology. They threaten to break down the borders of older media, and challenge old structures of ownership, control, content and audience uses as well. "

"Digital media share one characteristic that differentiates them profoundly from older analogue forms: each copy of a digital text is not only perfectly reproduced but also perfectly reproducible, unlike the imperfections and degradation involved in copying older forms like audio and videotape."

"Television screens have both expanded and shrunk dramatically, from the increasingly theatre-like flat screens, now part of home entertainment centres, to the tiny windows on cell phones and iPods. The computer screen becomes a television, while television screens hook up with computers. Many former couch potatoes now use their television screens only for playing video games. New programme forms debut from 'mobisodes' and 'webisodes'-television material only available on cell phones or websites-to inceasingly interactive formats that allow views to affect the narrative, as in voting for the next Pop Idol or calling in question to be discussed on air. If we do not like such changes, YouTube and digital production technologies allow us to make our own television. Clearly, the digital revolution is still in progress, and television remains one of its main battlefields."


Michele Hilmes, 2009. A source of information. in Glen C. and Royston M., ed. Digital Cultures: understanding New Media., p46-54 1975. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Ch. 3.

Castaneda, Mari, 2007. The complicated transition to digital television in the United States, Television and New Media, 8(2): 92-106