Culture

"Our approach doesn't presume that new platforms liberate people from old constraints but rather suggests that the affordances of digital media provide a catalyst for 

reconceptualizing other aspects of culture."

Remember Susan Boyle?

Not only did Susan Boyle surprise the UK (and eventually the rest of the world) but she is a fantastic example of how we can understand the cultural practices that have both fueled the rise of these sharing technologies and evolved as people discovered how these platforms might be used. The authors of Spreadable Media claim that we are now a part of a "networked culture" and I would agree. The Susan Boyle video exemplifies the fact that the general population today is more collectively and individually literate about social networking online. The success of Susan Boyle was not driven directly from a broadcast company. People today are constantly circulating and discussing content throughout a variety of online networks. 

With the advent the Internet came the creation of a new culture online. These new cultural practices were not created by new technologies. In the past people have shared clippings from newspapers or made scrapbooks. It's not a new culture to share information. The Internet, however, has made it possible to share information much faster than ever before. There is a greater speed and scope online which allows things to gain traction much faster and spread like crazy due to the reconceptualization of culture in the digital age. 

Think of how many people know what the fox says due to our online culture today.

On the flip side, some people would say that today's Internet culture is counter-intuitive. S. Craig Watkins in "May I have your attention?" says that normal daily tasks that users perform as their primary responsibility while in a computer environment are constantly interrupted by online technologies such as IM or email. Most people that receive a message will automatically return it. Sure, that means that culture spreads much faster, but is also means that people are getting more and more distracted in environments such as school or the workplace. Watkins writes, "A number of employees repeatedly losing as many as twenty minutes of time in the workplace can be costly. In the classroom, where time and resources is already limited, the regular loss of even a few minutes can be disastrous" (p. 180). Is it worth a quickly connected culture if workplaces and schools are getting hit hard?