digital media ecology
The immersive, turbulent, mediatized flow.
It’s the social system technology is embedded in that matters.
digital media ecology
The overall digital environment is dictated by tech companies with ruthlessly capitalist, expansionary motives, which do not provide the most fertile ground for culture. While the magazine fashion editor may periodically use their ability to pick out and promote a previously unheard voice, the algorithmic feed never will; it can only iterate on
... See moreKyle Chayka • Filterworld
Jean Baudrillard (read Simulacra and Simulation) identified how modern society replaces reality with the symbols and signs of reality. He mapped the process in four stages: first the image reflects reality, then it masks reality, then it masks the absence of reality, and finally it has no relation to reality whatsoever.
JA Westenberg • The Entire Internet Is a UGC Reaction Video Now
As Sean Illing, a co-author of “The Paradox of Democracy,” told me, “McLuhan says: Don’t just look at what’s being expressed; look at the ways it’s being expressed. And then Postman says: Don’t just look at the way things are being expressed; look at how the way things are expressed determines what’s actually expressible.” In other words, the... See more
Ezra Klein • I Didn’t Want It to Be True, but the Medium Really Is the Message
A specific state of connectivity is not transportable; therefore, it factually belongs to the platform.
Andrey Mir • The platform paradox
... See moreEven as recently as the 1990s, most people interacted with only their relatives, co-workers, and friends each day, plus maybe their local news anchor on TV. Now, though, those same Paleolithic brains are being bombarded with the thoughts of hundreds of strangers every hour. Modern communication in all its forms has put us in contact with more minds
But it is not clear whether such systems – even if they work as advertised – can solve the problem of reliable knowledge in a balkanised public sphere. Just as commercial incentives led to fake content and filter-bubbles, LLMs likely face the same pressures in a world of sharply diminishing returns. Because the firms training them desperately need... See more
The sovereign individual and the paradox of the digital age | Aeon Essays
So: we have before us two distinct phenomena, both called “artificial intelligence,” both transformative, both rooted in attention, but profoundly different in their structure, effects, and affordances:
- The first consists of systems that externalize and perform the operations of attention—filtering information, reducing uncertainty, detecting
The Loom and the Weavers
With the proliferation of digital speech, communication reversed from information to affirmation. We post to reaffirm our standing in the digital tribe.