Communication Theory Media, Technology and Society

level of freneticness that has become acceptable to television viewers, and

now commonplace in nearly every rapid-cycle television advertisement

we watch, is mirrored by the fragmentation of the culture industry itself.

As Tim Jordan (1999) points out:

During the 1980s in the USA, the number of independent TV stations grew

from sixty-two to 330, while the share of prime-time audience held by the

three major networks dropped from 90 per cent to 65 per cent. ... From

hand-held video cameras that allow the production of home entertainment

to the creation of hundreds of different TV channels, the mass audience

that once constituted the consumers of immaterial commodities has been

shredded. (158)

To the extent therefore that even traditionally well-defined broad-

cast technologies are, by convergence with interactive technologies or by

diversification, becoming more personalized, more amenable to a sense

of active and interactive control by audiences as well as remarkably

expanded programming choice, it is argued by second media age

writers that a second media age is able to absorb the first media age and

reshape it.

However, as we shall see, what such an argument has to contend

with is the difficulty of distinguishing between broadcast and interactiv-

ity as a purely technical distinction, rather than a distinction resting on

forms of social integration.

Theories

The second media age thesis – the Internet as emancipation

from broadcast media

As already argued in Chapter 1, the second media age thesis has become

an orthodoxy in New Media theory, an orthodoxy which has been taken

up almost by default, in many cases with little theoretical engagement or

formulation of positions. In what follows I shall focus on the most cogent

exponents of the thesis as a way of comparatively appraising its signifi-

cance in relation to other perspectives.

In accordance with the above observations, the Internet stands out as

a comprehensive technoscience world which exemplifies ‘cyberspace’.

With its large range of sub-media (MUDs, ICQs, email and WWW) and its

ability to facilitate complexity, it offers a network medium unparalleled in

its potential and scope.

The contention that the Internet and interactive technologies in gen-

eral have embedded themselves so substantially in the daily existence of

individuals living in information societies as to have all but usurped the

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