CEM210 - Our Culture and the Technology Generation

Culture has changed and developed so much over the years, it can now mean so many things to so many people. If you look back at the last few centuries the split between high and low culture has merged, this is linked to social classes being less divided and popular culture becoming for the masses not just the lower classes.

Years ago opera was a very high cultural entertainment but now there are all sorts of cultural crossovers for example the television programme ‘Popstar to Opera Star’ is a combination of ‘The X factor’ type reality show (which is a one of the most popular programmes on TV currently so is aimed at the masses) and classical Opera, this is just one example of many to show how culture is still dived into high and low culture but they are increasingly crossing over.

In the seminar this week we discussed culturally significant events/things in our life, we all had personal things but we decided on certain books (Harry Pottter, Malerie Blackman, 1984), major world events (Iraq war, 9/11, tube bombings), and a huge significant thing was technology, we are the generation who started to grow up with computers and mobile phones, so things like internet and Facebook came up a lot in our discussion. 

Many people believe technological development is one of the key factors of cultural change, I think that this is true, especially for my generation and generations onwards, technology is going to develop even more on a huge scale, which means culture is going to grow. 

The internet has changed social exchanges, people can communicate instantly and in a very informal way, i’m not sure that this is a good thing because young people are learning to be lazy as its effortless to communicate with their piers. People are also starting to depend on technology, I find this slightly scary because its not a natural commodity and you see all these films set in the future where technology does everything for us, I feel like we will forget what is like to live without technology.

“Technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure. A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided.” - Neil Postman (1990)

References:

Measuring the value of culture: a report to the Department for Culture Media and Sport 2010

Dr. Dave O’Brien

‘Managing Britannia: Culture and Management in Modern Britain’ Protherough, R & Pick, J. (2003) Imprint Academic