Humans or TechnoBodies?

If we are to believe that "human is unthinkable without technology" (Shaw, 2008, p81) then we would have to believe that, in everyday living, we would be unable to achieve the simplest of tasks, without the assistance of technology. Something as simple as getting up in the morning would be near impossible and basic needs like eating and exercising wouldn't even be a thought. Is this the way it has always been or has New Media made it so we have other factors to relay on for the everyday, mundane tasks? The way in which we have consumed new technology could confirm this statement.

As technology has developed through the years, industry has found ways to make ordinary tasks seem that much easier. Looking at something as simple as a universal remote eliminated the need to have multiple remotes around the living room, meaning that they couldn't be lost as easy and you wouldn't have to get off the sofa to get another remote for example, to turn on the DVD player. This kind of ideology spread to other outlets and New Media has now found a way into our hands through our smartphones, tablets and laptops, all of which are carried around day to day, by the general public. Everything that someone needs and more can be accessed from your smartphone. Emails can be checked, video calls, any form of social media, online shopping and even checking the weather. As the consumption of these products and ideas expands, they gradually become an even bigger presence within everyday life, "We may have made these 'machines' but not, in a very real sense, they make us" (Shaw, 2008, p88)

In order to make the statement at the beginning redundant, humans have to be able to show that they can exist without the need to use technology to make life easier and cut down on its consumption, but now with humans using maybe two different technologies at the same time, for example, tweeting on their phone while watching TV, maybe what Shaw says in Technoculture: The Key Concepts has some truth to it. Maybe humans have been "cyborged by our own machines" (Shaw, 2008, p95) and humans really are becoming "TechnoBodies"?

Bibliography

Shaw, D (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts: Oxford Berg Press

A cyborgian encounter

Within this post-human age, the relationship between man and machine has completely changed with the increase flow of new media technologies.  Debra Shaw discusses in her book the extent of the constant consumption of new media and how it have changed its consumers, into cyborgs. "we are not 'minds' that observe and process an informational world that includes our own bodies but complex systems that reproduce themselves in connection with their environment." (Shaw, 2008. p82) 

The relationship between consumer and technology has changed into the environment around them. The huge influence that new media has on consumers on-line interactions. Media such as social networking sites allows people to stay in touch on a global level, making the media their environment. This 'on-line' environment is produced by the activity of the consumers and helps produce cyborg consumers that reply on it. "Technology should not be considered an adjunct to the body or in opposition to it but as a determinant of its ontology". (Shaw, 2008. p81)

Norbett Wiener coined the word cybernetics to refer to how humans are becoming more like the technology their depend on. Wiener's theory uses the comparison between human DNA and computer coding to show how we humans are becoming more machine like. This theory of what if humans were more like machines and 'transmit' signals. instead of sound waves and transmitting light, we 'transmit' ourselves through the new media available to us. Pointing out how the technology can consume an individual until it is a piece of their daily regime. This is the digital zombie/cyborg age we live in were new media has become the environment which we as consumers can never be satisfied with. 

Bibliography

Shaw, D. (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts; Oxford Berg Press.

New Media as a Cyborgian Encounter

Technology has become such a massive part of our everyday lives that it's hard to imagine a world without it. As Stiegler said:
"The human invents himself in the technical by inventing the tool-by becoming exteriorised technologically" (Stiegler in Shaw, 2008, p.81). 
Technology allows people to communicate, create and distribute, however to do this, people need to buy it. New Media allows different methods of consumption-for example, previously it was necessary to go to the cinema or buy a DVD to see a film or watch a program on a set night at a set time; it is now possible to watch it from your sofa without having to go out or, for the likes of Netflix with a monthly subscription, pay for each film. This does impact the social element of going to the cinema with other people and defeats the water cooler idea as there is no need to wait till the next day to talk about it. Instead, there are social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and forum boards or blogs (Pintrest, Reddit, Tumblr, Blogger)  for discussing media while it is still on the TV. 
Twitter during the Alan Carr: Chatty Man chat show, can be used to tweet about the show with the hash tag #AlanCarrShow, which brings a community of people together while the show is on. People with a smartphone or tablet can then get a running commentary on what is happening so that they will be up to date. Without this technology, they would be behind on the latest news and would be unable to socialise with people who have watched the show. 
With regards to social media, the ability to "like" pages of musicians, TV characters, actors/actresses, films etc. on Facebook and have it appear on the Newsfeed allows us to access any new information about the subject. For example Thor: The Dark World is out in cinemas today, but on the Amazon Facebook page, they are advertising the DVD and Blu-Ray which won't be for about 6 months. This gives the impression that it is a massively successful film if the advertisements are suggesting a pre-order. The user is then redirected to the Amazon page where the Blu-ray/DVD is posted, as well as having access to reviews to find out more information about it. After purchasing, you can then "share" the purchase on Facebook with others-which let's others know that the user purchased this, and it's worth shouting about. The idea that we need to know every little thing about a product or film comes hand in hand with New Media and the ability to use multiple devices at the same time.

 "We are, in effect, constantly 'plugged in' to the technology through which this information is disseminated while we employ increasingly elaborate technological solutions to keep ahead of the game" (Shaw, 2008, p.86)




Bibliography

Shaw, D. (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts; Oxford Berg Press

Amazon Facebook page- https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=875943229119808&set=a.444830632231072.85944.136154403098698&type=1&theater date accessed- 30/10/13

Thor:The Dark World-http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1981115/ date accessed 30/10/13

New Media as a Cyborgian Encounter

"The destructiveness of war furnishes proof that society has not been mature enough to incorporate technology as its organ, that technology has not been sufficiently developed to cope with the elemental forces of society."

(Benjamin 1936/1969, p.232)

Shaw and Benjamin interestingly draw parallels almost immediately of the machine to war, "A well disciplined army, in fact, can be compared to a well oiled machine." (p.82). Note how Benjamin (p.232) explicitly refers to technology as an organ, and not a tool. The idea of technology as an extension of the self is very well demonstrated in warfare, the "disciplined body" as Shaw refers to it as (p.82) does not refer to itself as an individual but instead classifies itself in relation to it's discipline. For example, an artilleryman does not refer to himself as a "person who uses artillery." At the very base level of language and communication the individual has inseparably identified themselves in unison with their tools.

You can go one step further in this war based analogy and even say that an army demonstrates a few of the properties Manovich (p. 18) defines for New Media;

1. Numerical Representation - instead of numbers, each artifact of a military can be debased to the raw human element. Humans serve as the binary.

2. Modularity - Instead of a picture in a webpage, you can take a tank from the context of a battlefield, a person from the context of a tank, and so on.

3. Automation - The homogenized training regime for every unit results in a population of people with the exact same skill sets. 

4. Variability - Different battlefield arrangements, an battle fought in a desert environment will not have the same arrangement as one fought in an urban environment.

The underlying structure is similar, the properties of automation and variability of New Media serve as the barracks, serving content and training an individual based on their interests. The result being an individual who uses New Media as an extension of identity, no longer a "person who partakes" but a participant. Ultimately however, a question still lingers, are we mature enough as a society to integrate technology as our organ? 

Bibliography

Benjamin, W. (1936/1969). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction (H. Zohn, Trans.). In H. Arendt (Ed.), Illuminations (pp. 217-251). New York, NY: Schocken Books.

Shaw, D. (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts; Oxford Berg Press (P.81-102)

Manovich, L. (2001). The language of new media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

iHuman

In our current culture, nearly any task is completed via, or with the help, of some technological appliance. We no longer seek to do things ourselves, opting to utilize our computer based skills. We live in a culture constantly seeking to upgrade things, and this even means ourselves.

Are humans of the 21st Century cyborgs? Is the idea of the “natural body”, without the shaping and development that technology has had on contemporary bodies, an absurd one? According to Stelarc, an Australian performance artist, “The body is obsolete” (Shaw 2008, p81). Sharing this view, philosopher Bernard Stiegler also argues that “The human’, invents himself in the technical by inventing the tool - by becoming exteriorised techno-logically.” (Stiegler, 1998, p.141) 

 Michael Foucault builds on the idea of the “docile body” (Shaw 2008, p82) in his book “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison (1977)”. In his writings, he compares the  well disciplined army to “a well oiled machine” (Shaw 2008, p82). This means that all the parts are smoothly in effect only once the “individual parts have been tailored to fit an exact function” (Shaw 2008, p82). Thus the human body, and its material, are crafted via the dictation of governments, whom exercise their global power through the control of the soldiers bodies. Likewise, the soldiers themselves are also governed by the technologies of war, meaning that human and technology equal a soldier. A distinct comparison can also be made with the body of a worker and the regimes of industrial capitalism. According to Marx himself, “machinery is put to wrong use, with the object of transforming the workman, from his very childhood, into a part of a specialized machine” (Marx 1990 [1867], p.547)

Wiener offers the observation that “we are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves” (Wiener 1950, p96). DNA is essentially our bodies code, and information can be transmitted the same way that email is transmitted globally. As new media has now created a participatory audience and collective intelligence, is it any wonder that N. Katherine Hayles wrote “it is not for nothing that “Beam me up, Scotty” has become a cultural icon for the global information society” (Hayes 1999, p2)

Bibiliography

Shaw, D. (2008) “Technoculture: The Key Concepts’; (Oxford Berg Press)

Stiegler, B. (1998) ‘Technics and Time, 1: The fault of Epimetheus’; (Stanford: Stanford University Press)

Marx, K. (1990) “Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy’; (Penguin Classics; Reprint edition)

N. Katherine Hayles (1999) “How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics”; (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London)

Technology and Us

Are we already cyborgs? in this modern age people interact with more technology than ever before and thanks to new forms of technology on the go e.g. I phone or the smart phone people are always linked to technology in some way or form. Stelarc suggests that ' human evolution is aided and determined by technology' (Shaw D,2008,p82)

Google class is the latest form of technology on the go. Google glass are a pair of glasses that can be worn on the go. These glasses come with many features but one of the most important ones is that it is linked directly to the internet and it itself could be seen as a computer. Figure 1 is an example of Google glass.

Figure 1

These shows that technology is becoming so advanced that it is already in front of us in every way but ti is also becoming even bigger and even more personal to us. this shows that Stelarc is right that the human body is becoming obsolete that are body's re becoming dependent on these technology's. 'Stelarc's work de-organizes the body by drawing attention to the way that technology extends, amplifies, invades and shapes contemporary body's'. (Shaw D,2008,p81)

This coincides with the next topic that is what could be? for one technology has advanced so far and at such a fast passes it shows no signs of slowing down. This also means that medical technology is not slowing down ether. medical technology has become so advanced that people with lost limbs can now have them back as if they were never gone in the first place. below is a link to a video of  the latest version of robotics that have been connected threw the nervasystem.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppILwXwsMng

bibliography/ webography

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppILwXwsMng

Shaw, D. (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts; Oxford Berg Press

Is an age of cyborg's upon us?

Stelarc, an Australian performance artist introduces the theory that “the concept of ‘human’ is unthinkable without technology”, is aided by the example of William Harvey’s early seventeenth century circulatory system discovery which David Shaw discuss’ as “…our idea of what a fully functioning body is.’ He uses this complex idea of the use of technology to enable affection and examination of the body to illustrate the theory that without technology and adequate tools our understanding of how it works, development of the body and medical productions needed to keep it active would not be where it is today.

Michel Foucault believes that the human body is manipulated and changed in accordance to the technology it consumes, therefore believing technology is in control and can consume and discipline a person.

The constant bombardment of media imagery and enhanced technology create an ideological appropriation of fitness, health, gender, race and sexuality etc. People can allow this to discipline their being and can base their way of life around this creation, ultimately shaping and controlling who they are today.

“Control may take the form of exercises, punishments and regimes…” Shaw states this in relation to a well-disciplined soldier or army; however, this is evident in today’s society with the regimes of information technologies such as social networking sites, i.e. Facebook and Twitter etc. where consumers of these technologies are now being consumed by the technology itself, with examples of online identities and so on.

Cybernetics is defined by Shaw as “the relationship between a mechanism and its environment.”  It is overall a theory of the existing environment being ‘produced by’ positions of the body but also being the ‘producer of’ these.

When discussing this Shaw relates to human’s being the mechanism and New Media Technology being the environment. For example, the same way radio and television transmit sound and light patterns, due to DNA within the human body, humans to an extent transmit their own ideological ‘pattern’, open to manipulation and control by the surrounding, enhancing ‘environment’.

Wiener discusses these ‘patterns’ as ‘characterized activities’ produced by humans, which could be duplicated by machinery through mechanical feedback and could overall adapt to the idea of the machine age and cyborg bodies.

“They refer to the ideal body, which corresponds to a suitably organized mind, as ‘molar’.”

Overall, through human’s relationship with technology and the cultural consumption of today’s post-modern society it is evident that technology is both produced by and the producer of the human body. Both technology and humans coexist, but alongside this also depend on each other for feedback and feedforward to transmit and generate enhancements, however, with the enhancements of technology today, there is no doubt that a cyborg age is upon us. 

Bibliography 

SHAW, Debra (2008). Technoculture: the key concepts. Oxford, Berg Publishers.

Machines 'R' us

Stelarc is an Australian performance artist, who introduces the idea that technology plays a huge part of the evolution of human. (Shaw 2008, p.81) He states, ‘we have always been prosthetic bodies’, (Shaw 2008, p.81), and Stelarc was not the only one to have views such as this. Bernard Stiegler, a French philosopher, also thought that the notion of being human without the aid of technology is impossible, but ‘we act as if it is’. (Shaw 2008, p.81)

Michel Foucault considers in his book, Discipline and Punish:  The Birth of the Prison (1977), the ‘docile’ body in the example of a soldier. (Shaw 2008, p.82) He talks about how the soldier is part of a ‘well-oiled machine’. (Shaw 2008, p.82) It is manipulated and controlled but is ‘only achieved because the individual parts have been tailored to fit an exact function.’ (Shaw 2008, p.82) This is not dissimilar to the workers of industrial capitalism, where they are used and exploited. ‘The worker’s body is a commodity’ (Shaw 2008, p.83) according to Marx.

‘Nostalgia for the worker’s body is exploited in the service of eroticized consumption.’ (Shaw 2008, p.85) Foucault brings forward the idea that the capitalist consumers can buy fitness to be part of certain social classes in. Along with new ideas of what is found attractive and healthy, this has made it a want for a lot of our contemporary culture.

‘This body is socially produced.’ (Shaw 2008, p.94)

Cybernetics is ‘concerned with the control and communication and the relationship between a mechanism and its environment.’ (Shaw 2008, p.89) Shaw discusses the idea that the ‘body is both produced by and the producer of the environment in which it exists’. (Shaw 2008, p.101) Today the technological advances such as smart phones along with social networking sites help to create a culture which is constantly documenting every part of their lives. The technologies are part of us and as Shaw states, ‘we are, in effect, constantly “plugged in”’. (Shaw 2008, p.86) Because of this terms such as Citizen Journalism have come about.  Our culture can now see things that they have produced on things like the news and internet.

This technology could be seen as a threat to what we believe the word human to mean. Consumers can either see it to be an addition of the body where the body and technology work in accordance with each other.

The concept of the Body without Organs was thought of by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guarttari. It is an anti-Oedipal body which is thought to be the ideal body. (Shaw 2008, p.93) This body ‘forces us to question why we accept limits to how we understand our bodies’. (Shaw 2008, p.94) Through this exploration ‘we produce ourselves’. (Shaw 2008, p.94)

___________________________________________________________

Bibliography

SHAW, Debra (2008). Technoculture: the key concepts. Oxford, Berg Publishers.

Technological Community

“The concept of ‘human’ is unthinkable without technology but we act as it is.” 

We cannot live without technology in our everyday lives. Shaw writes in Technoculture that technology defines whom we are as people from how we interact with technology. Shaw writes about the body doesn’t put thought into media and technology it coexists along side it. I can say growing up with technology around me has definitely influenced who I am as a person and what I am interested in.  It has also let me adapt to new software easily from all the imbed codes that I have from years of technology consumption. 

Shaw writes how handwriting was replaced with typescript and word processing. Another example is how learning skills has became so much easier by just looking it up. Creating time for people to do new things and push the body forward. Shaw talks about how the community before the advancement of technology was a machine. In the industrial age people went to factory jobs like well oiled machines it reminds us that we don’t need technology. Those jobs have now been replaced by machines that where made by machines.

It doesn’t mean that the body can’t live with out machines it means that because we are so used to it we became dependent on it. Some people cant even dream not having technology in everyday life. It has advanced so much it is hard to remember a time with out it. 

In the digital age now we can see how the community is the technologic machine. Communities are now creating technology like the internet, then other communities are seeing this and improving it then sending it back out for other communities to see it. So this is a never-ending cycle that has no ending. This is why shaw talks about the techno bodies because we are the technology. 

"the concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology" (2008 pp.81)

Humans are the technology 

D. Shaw (2008). Technoculture: The Key Concepts. Oxford: Oxford Berg Press. 81-102.

Cybernetics

Stelarc invites us to consider the absurdity of the ‘natural’ body and to consider the idea of human evolution as supported and determined by technology. He is not the only one to believe that we need to distribute the idea of the human body as a sacred structure, enclosed in skin and being something that produces but, never itself is produced by the technologies that it requires to sustain its presence.

‘The concept of ‘human’ is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is.’

Hard to escape technology because it is something that surrounds us no matter where we stand. The human existence is hard to imagine without the advancement on the technological world we live in.
Cybernetics is, essentially, concerned with control and communication and the relationship between a mechanism and its environment. Norbert Wiener, the ‘father’ of cybernetics, was generally keen about the idea of the human nervous system and the means of communication between the exterior senses and the muscles. The DNA in humans is compared with the coded information that can be communicated through technological devices. So our understanding of cybernetics is the relationship between a mechanism and its environment. Shaw believes the human species are produced by the environment they live in, but they can also produce the environment they live in. For example, new media technologies such as Facebook. Consumers can create their own personal identities online.

What it means to be ‘human’? A bloodstream is part of the main understanding of what it means to be human. It is a large part of the understanding of how a system works both circulatory system and a technological system.

Shaw, D (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts (Oxford: Berg Press)

Become a Cyborg: Humans are outdated.

Image simulations or computer manipulation is suspect to the concept of “truth.” Simply framing a composition manipulates an image through the process of interpretation and authorship; cropping out surrounding imagery to anchor the semiotics. However, how has this manipulated our cultural understandings online? Furthermore, how do 'we' as a culture '[re-]invent' (Shaw, 2008, p.81) previous conceptions of embodiment in order to participate in an uprising online cultural development? Stiegler suggests that the 'human' (Stiegler, 1998, p.141) has re-appropriated social linguistics as he “invents himself in the technical by inventing the tool – by becoming exteriorised techno-logically.” (Stiegler, 1998, p.141) Contemporary culture is pivoted by upgrade; an unwearying perception of never becoming the 'ideal.' We continue to develop knowledge and understanding, continuously improving previous work; the 'previous work' of Shaw's influence being the body. In opposition to what is referred to as the 'docile' body; one of which is manipulated, shaped [and] trained' so that it 'obeys, responds, becomes skilful and increases forces', (Foucault, 1991 [1977], p.136) Western culture recognizes media as a cultural object - we don't want the physical exertion of repetitious work, instead we wish to work with computer based skills.

This brings forth a selection of epistemological questions: Is access to infinite amounts of information on the web instead of the 'human' mind (Stiegler, 1998, p.141) “dumbing down” culture? Is this perhaps artificial intelligence? Marx insists '[m]achinery is put to a wrong use, with the object of transforming the workman, from his very childhood, into part of a specialized machine', (Marx, 1990 [1867], p.547) however surely using online sourcing as an influence can be seen as less derivative with 'participatory culture'; (Jenkins, 2006, p.) 'increased levels of audience participation, creative involvement and democracy.' (Creeber, 2009, p.20) 'Bodies are obsolete.' (Shaw, 2008, p.87) Instead of enforcing outdated repression against New Media as a propitious 'tool', surely it would be more valuable as a cultural to embrace it as a 'virtual body'? (Shaw, 2008, p.86) Data needs a new discourse; new rules and new conventions.

'By observing people who suffered from varying forms of ataxia – a breakdown in this communication resulting in a loss of control over the simple actions necessary to respond to stimulus from immediate environment', (Shaw, 2008, p.89) Weiner observed how machinery can now mimic the 'characteristic activities' (Wiener, 1948, p.8) of the body. Images can become completely constructed from pixels with no truth, indexicality or authorship. This has developed from manipulation of an image to simulation of an image. Images become remodelled, rendered and structures according to no substantial origin; for example user avatars need no aesthetic source. There is no documentary evidence that is pure of source; and this can furthermore become enforced for the 'user', giving attributes to an online experience which may not be 'truth' or physically possible outside their 'virtual body.' (Shaw, 2008, p.86)

Bibliography:

Creeber, G. (2009) Digital Theory: Theorizing New Media & Cubitt, D. (2009) Case Study: Digital Aesthetics in Ed. Creeber, G. & Royston, M. (2009) 'Digital Cultures: Understanding New Media'; (Maidenstone: Open University Press)

Foucault, M. Burchell, G. Gordon, C. Miller, P. (1991) 'The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality'; (University of Chicago Press)

Jenkins, H. 2006. 'Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide'; (New York University Press)

Marx, K. (1990) 'Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy'; (Penguin Classics; Reprint edition)

Shaw, D. (2008) 'Technoculture: The Key Concepts'; (Oxford Berg Press)

Stiegler, B. (1998) 'Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus'; (Stanford: Stanford University Press).

Wiener, N. (1948) 'Cybernetics, Second Edition: or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine'; (Cambridge: The MIT Press; second edition)

New Media as a cyborgian encounter

In a post human, cyborg age, consumers and technology are being seen as one. Consumers are considered as cyborgs because of their constant consumption and interaction with technologies. A Australian performance artist, Stelarc suggests that "human evolution is aided and determined by technology"(Shaw D, 2008. p82). Cyborg is a hybrid of machine and organism working together.

Cybernetics is a term coined by Norbett Wiener (1950). Cybernetics refer to the relationship between a mechanism and its environment and compares humans to machines. Wiener's theory also explains how humans are made up of patterns, similarity to how technologies have codes. DNA is the pattern of a human being which defines physical characteristics. Other characteristics such as personality is shaped by the environment which an individual is exposed to. Wiener contemplated what would happen if humans were to transmit themselves, the same way as radios and televisions transmit patterns of sounds and light. Humans can 'transmit' themselves to a certain extend through New Media technologies. Using New Media technologies such as Facebook or Twitter, individuals can create themselves online, which is seen through computer and phone screens.

Human beings are produced by their environment, however they can also produce the environment they are in. For example, media technologies influences consumers interactivity. Social networking websites allow and encourage individuals to communicate with lots of people, in different places at the same time. "We are not 'minds' that observe and process an informational world that includes our own bodies but complex systems that reproduce themselves in connection with their environment." (Shaw D, 2008. p92) Consumers use the Internet as an environment to create a version of themselves online. Consumers produce their online environment through how they choose to represent themselves and how they use the sources they have.

Consumers can either see technology as a threat to their bodies or they can celebrate it as an extension of the body. "Machines are not simply prostheses that we 'add on' to our minds or bodies in order to facilitate and extend our capabilities but part of the environment out of which we produce ourselves" (Shaw D, 2008. p92) Humans and technologies, working together as one body, is seen as a type of cyborg culture. Humans are using the machine part of themselves to do analogue tasks in digital ways. New Media technologies are not taking over but are helping people to easily communicate with others, gain information and live.



Bibliography

Shaw, D. (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concetps; Oxford Berg Press (p81-102)

Cybernetics and its cultural impact

 “Cybernetics is, fundamentally, concerned with control and communication and the relationship between a mechanism and its environment.” (Shaw, D. 2008. P89)

According to Shaw in the above quote, cybernetics is the relationship between a mechanism and its environment.  This means that an example of cybernetics could be the relationship between a technological advance, and the consumers who use it.  The relatively new social networking websites such as Facebook and twitter are a staple of the cultural impact of cybernetics and our ever changing relationship with technology.

Shaw compares the biological coding in our DNA and how our bodies work to how “radios transmit patterns of sound and televisions transmit patterns of light.” (Shaw, D. 2008. P89) To explain, humans have DNA which defines their physical attributes and characteristics, while technology has coding principles which control how it works.  But New Media has introduced an age where humans and technology are combining to create what some theorists are referring to as ‘cyborgification’.  As humans, we currently use technology in our lives to further enhance our experiences, for example we use Facebook to talk to and meet new people whom we would never be able to communicate with without technology.

However, our DNA may be our genetic code for how we look, our physical attributes, but our behaviour and personality is shaped by the environment in which we live.  Coding in technology controls how it works, but it cannot control what it is used for, that is down to its environment; us as consumers.  In this technological age consumers can change how technology is used, what it is used for, and even shape how it is updated.  For example ‘hashtags’ on Twitter were implemented first off by the Twitter community, and were later written into the code as an official function, recently Facebook has seen an update which facilitates the use of hashtags in the same way they are used in twitter.  These functions were never originally written into the code of these websites, but consumers implemented them regardless, thus, the technology changed due to the consumers.

  

Bibliography

Shaw, D. (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts; Oxford Berg Press (P.81-102)