Category: Postdigital Regions: Space and Place

Case study: Ghost In The Shell

180mapa CW1 Essay - 1500 Words 

Within most modern day countries we rely heavily on technology, such as phones and the internet, so much so that we don’t consider it as much of a luxury or privilege anymore but we see all of these as more of an essential thing within our everyday life. As technology has been expanding and developing more rapidly within the last 25 year, especially communicative aspects of technology, so has media platforms and the type of people who consume media. Henry Jenkins defines ‘Convergence culture’ as a merging between new and traditional varieties of media and describes the term as a consent shift between the media and its audience.

Within society convergence culture is highly relevant as there is a major development within media and there has been a massive growth in different media platforms especially on the digital era such as streaming services, social medias and films.

 This theory or the term ‘Convergence culture’ was created by Henry Jenkins and this will link to the case study or film called Ghost In The Shell which demonstrates the there is a blurred line between the consumer and the company of technology as this shows how technology and the media can consume a person and brings in to question of how far you can push technology before you’re not human anymore. This links into how Jenkins explains that ‘convergence culture, where old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways.’(Jenkins, 2006, p2)This part of the topic connects to the film as it shows that new media can develop to the point where the consumer can become the product.

As interactive media is constantly developing and has changed drastically Jenkins observed this and how other theorists he describes the consistent progress and blurring of content creator and consumer as part of ‘convergence culture’ and Jenkin describes this as ‘the flow of content across multiple media platforms’ (Jenkins, 2006, p2-3) which shows us that the media is consistently progressing whether it’s a new piece of technology or a brand new content being released.

Jenkins is making his audience aware that media has developed and that as it increases the line separating the consumer and the creator starts too get smaller. As according to Jenkins convergence is demonstrating a two-way street between the media company and the active consumer.

The convergence culture nearly goes completely against the Frankfurt school as the Frankfurt school as Theodor Adorno states that the media and the ideologies within the media is corrupting us whereas ‘…produced mass culture that habituated individuals to conform to the dominant patterns of thought and behaviour.’ (Adorno,1991 , p2).  This shows that due to the different time periods and different morals these two theorists see media in a different way to one another.

Due to the constant shift in the media and technology advances there are more developments that are constantly happening within shift between creator and consumer for example the robotics industry is growing rapidly so therefore there will be more opportunities for media to develop even further than people could participate and will society will become so dependant on these advances, especially as we as a society already consume so much media as it is today. People become so absorbed with social media and their devices, whether that’s due to boredom or work, this need for having social media has become so normalised and natural for our society. Theorists have stated that ‘there are a variety of different arguments have been put forward in an attempt to define what exactly is coming together’(Grant and Wilkinson,2009).

Jenkins describes these rapid enhancements in communicative technology as leading to an effortless way to interact across the entire globe and he defines this development in technological advances a positive change, ‘Understanding these changes and participating in the debates that will shape the future of media.’ (Jenkins,H.2004), Which shows that accepting these changes can lead to improvements for a greater and constant consumption of media platforms.

Other people embrace the idea that the media has good development as people are consuming it more everyday within society. ‘rather than serving as an equalizing force, media diffusion could reinforce and potentially even increase inequalities by leading to higher status individuals digesting additional information faster’ (Zillien,N & Hargittai,E. 2009).

The media could develop to the point that it become one of the most essential things in or everyday life as we become more and more dependent on media products and media/technology will become more ingrained into every day society as well as cities and culture. As society goes on and develops so will how we see technology developments especially within humanity as media cold develop to the point where we see it everywhere.

The particular case that I think could demonstrate this topic would be the film ‘Ghost in the shell’ which centres around a women who still has the brain of a human but got experimented on by having her brain transplanted into a robots body. This shows a more futuristic society where technology and media has developed to the point where it has over run cities, however we are still shown the more run down elements of a city and the more corrupt parts of humanity has in everyday cities. This brings in the aspect that old parts of humanity can still be shown in this more futuristic society. This relates to Jenkins convergence culture as it has shown how a continuous progression of media as well as showing how far a media company will go to sell a product to a consumer.  

In this case the company owner wanted to experiment with how far they could go with turning a human into a robot without completely destroying their humanity ad in order to do this they got homeless civilians that were against or outcasted by society to experiment with transplanting their brain into a robot version of their body. As the main idea of convergence culture is a constant progression and as we are so consumed and fascinated with the media and the content that created within the media it is interesting to see how media could develop so much and go so far the it would be so embedded into society.

Jenkins stated ‘Fandom, after all, is born of a balance between fascination and frustration: if media content didn’t fascinate us, there would be no desire to engage with it’ (Jenkins, 2006) which demonstrates to us that if media was not as fascinating as it was and if it was not worth consuming and engaging with then society would not have developed media as much and there would not be as much content and different aspects of the media to be seen. This would link into Ghost in the Shell as this film clearly shows that it relies on society developing enough with technology and media to create massive developments with technology.  This film demonstrates that as it shows that technology and media is no longer a luxury but is an everyday requirement and is almost seen as unnatural if you didn’t have some form of technology on you.

Jenkins convergence culture would have been more relevant for this film as well as within the society it is set in it shows off a large development of a media system as well as robotics as most of the characters that are within this have some sort of adjustment that has been done to their body. This brings to the question of how far humanity can be pushed and whether immortality is a possibility, this would also bring to light of how much has media developed to get it to the point to where society wouldn’t need it anymore or here it’s just a natural aspect of society.

To conclude and sum up this Convergence Culture shows off that there is going to be a constant development of media with society and the line between creator and consumer could gradually get slimmer as time develops. Jenkins theory might even become more developed and relevant as time goes on and media and technology evolves. Along with this the idea that society cold become so dependant on media is a high possibility as we continue to engage with media platforms as it will continue to fascinate the human mind and keep our interests going.

References:

Jenkins, H.(2006), Convergence Culture Where Old and New Media Collide, New York University Press (P2-4). Henry Jenkins Convergence culture where old and new media collide 2006.pdf (hse.ru)

Zillien,N & Hargittai,E. (2009), Digital Distinction: Status-Specific Types of Internet Usage, University of Trier & Northwestern University. Digital Distinction: Status-Specific Types of Internet Usage* (aula.education)

Jenkins,H. (2004), The cultural logic of media convergence, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, (p35-36). Jenkins,+Henry++-+The+Cultural+Logic+of+Media+Convergence.pdf (pbworks.com)

Mascheroni,G & Ólafsson, K. (2015),  The mobile Internet: Access, use, opportunities and divides among European children, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy University of Akureyri, Iceland; Masaryk University, Czech Republic. (p22) 13255dd12a1e436207cff6c5ca527309mascheroni_and__lafsson___the_mobile_internet.pdf (aula.education)

Grant and Wilkinson, (2009),understanding media convergence, (p1) BR1-DEC17.pdf (caluniv.ac.in)

Adorno,T.( 1991), Frankfurt school, The Culture Industry,  frankfurtschool.pdf (ucla.edu)