The Digital Realm: The Evolution of Human Communication or Post-Modern Cultural Hell?

True confession: I don’t have a facebook profile, or a twitter account, or an iphone. I’ve never blogged, I rarely watch youtube and Rupert Murdoch, you sure ain’t gettin’ in my space. So what does that make me? A misanthropic luddite pushing 40? Am I just a stubborn “late adopter” of a super charged new media platform with my head buried in the sand? Oh gawd, what will happen? These are some of the mad thoughts coursing through my brain at this year’s Commonwealth conference in Boston. I’ve been to previous conferences in Minneapolis, Seattle, Philadelphia, Austin and it’s been mind-boggling to observe the shifts in our field over a relatively short period of time.

This conference is different in so far as the discussions around media seem to be almost exclusively about the digital realm, especially the influence of social networking media, which have even been integrated into the sessions themselves. I keep coming back to Marshall McLuhan’s old chestnut, “The medium is the message.” While I admire the succinctness of twitter’s 140 characters I am asking myself if this is really the evolution of human communication. Text can be expressive but it feels like we are a mile wide and an inch deep. We’ve massively increased our capacity to interact but what are we really saying? We have a thousand friends but little intimacy. We have access to everything but understanding of not too much. Apparently anything can become digital media for millions to consume, but just because we can doesn’t mean we should, right? I appreciate Patricia Zimmerman for raising the issue of ethics, which is consistently glossed over by the stampede of enthusiasm for new media. Have we reached the postmodern cultural hell that Frederic Jameson alerted us to in 1984? ‘Fraid so.

But I digress; the NAMAC conference for me is about seeing familiar faces and meeting new ones, listening to new ideas and challenges, sharing tools and best practices. I was comforted by the in depth presentation by David Dombrosky that put new media in a strategic framework that I could even understand. However, I believe the most important takeaway for me was that of advocacy and political action. Other than convening the field and providing capacity building services, this is probably the most valuable thing NAMAC can do. I was fired up by the motivational speeches of freepress and others to influence our collective media destiny, be it net neutrality or national broadband or public access or fighting the Big Media juggernaut. Let’s all do more to engage in policy issues at whatever levels we can. Our field and our livelihood depend on it.

I admit to feeling confused and skeptical about much of what I heard at this year’s conference. Fortunately, I feel tolerant of this uncertainty and feel OK about dwelling with it. I am asking myself: Is this relevant to what I’m doing? Assuming that it is, am I able to adapt the idea to the benefit of my program? Maybe I’ll know by our next fab confab. Geez, I sure do sound crochety. Must work on that. This better not end up on some blog! I heart you all, keep up the great work.

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Brian Hearn
Film Curator
Oklahoma City Museum of Art