"There is no theory of the media" (278)
Baudrillard is writing in the context of McLuhan and Enzensberger's ideas about media and theory, which makes this statement somewhat puzzling. Buadrillard perhaps offers evidence for this claim by explaining the relationship between the media and ideology. Maybe Baudrillard meant that the theories of others such as McLuhan are flawed; in the process of trying to prove that theory doesn't exist, I think he ultimately creates his own theory (even if it is a sort of "anti-theory").
For example, he revises McLuhan's idea that the medium is the message by explaining that "the essential Medium is the Model. What is mediatized is not what comes off the daily press, our of the tube, or on the radio: it is what is reinterpreted by the sign form, articulated into models, and administered by the code" (283). While I think that Baudrillard successfully adapts McLuhan's and Enzensberger's ideas for his own view, I had trouble understanding some of his ideas and actually wrote "...none of this is really making any sense to me..." in my notes.
I found the last article, "The End of Books" by Robert Coover to be the most interesting (probably because it was short). When Coover talks about students using computers to write documents as leading to the end of books, I thought about my personal dependence on my laptop. When I was an undergraduate I had to have a hardcopy of everything I read so that I could write on the document. Electronic texts bothered me because I felt distanced from them. As a graduate student (who has to pay for printing) I quickly adapted to reading articles online and now I prefer it. I like being able to carry only my computer with me and have all my notes for my classes on my jump drive or desktop. I enjoy the quickness of copy-and-paste as opposed to physically organizing hard copies of documents in order to see connections. I think that perhaps Coover meant that through hyperfiction (allowing the reader to get something different out of a text each time they encounter it) paper books will become obsolete, but I took it to mean that people simply won't have any use for physical books (except as a novelty): electronic copies will take their place.
As a side note...
I also enjoyed what Coover said about writing students being ultra-conservative and his description of how some students freaked out at the idea of not having any structure/guidelines for their writing and attempted to create hyper versions of traditional structures. I am fully aware that I am that type of student, as I am further discovering while contemplating my New Media project...
4 comments:
I agree that Buadrillard at least begins to form his own theory on Media. He keeps coming back to the encoder and decoder/ producer/consumer etc and a power balance or relationship between the two. From what I understood He sees the encoder's power growing with mass media because the decoders ability to respond is limited. I guess I am not sure I understood this article all that well, but that was what I gathered from what I read.
Ultra-conservative English majors? Is that an oxymoron? On a serious note, I don't think Baudrillard is trying to create a New Media theory as much as demonstrate that the media is still to grounded in old structures to necessitate new ideologies. He says, "changing the content of the message serves no purpose; it is necessary to modify the reading codes . . ." The conclusion of the articles seems to suggest that as long as we are just emulating old practices, print etc. with new media we can just keep using the old communication theories.
While I would agree that Bualdrillard is not attempting to create his own thoery, I believe he is beginning the process of creating a new theory. Just like we will always need to reference the old when creating the new, old theories will be applied to new mediums. BUT they will need to be altered to fit the new mediums, which will lead to the formation of new theories from the old. So by insisting that there is no theory of media he is opening the door for new theories. So Stephen I guess I agree with you but I don't agree with you.
Baudrillard sees possibilities, buy only tangentially. The mention of the vandalism on the billboard shows a type of response that recognizes that the "decoder" is really not just a "decoder." These moments of resistance open up the possibility that speaker and hearer/reader/viewer can BOTH decide to keep the possibility of action open to the act of communication. You don't just get to agree or disagree. Real change outside of the boundaries of the communication "rules" are possible.
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