Reflections on the first module
Well the first module of the master has almost finished and I guess it is time for some reflections on the course: what it has taught me, and which ideas I’ve got from it for further research. For me, the main point in the course was that our reality is less “real” than it seems to be at first sight: the media and especially the new media technologies that have developed in the last third of the 21st century have resulted not only in fundamental changes of how the media can portray our reality, but also in profound transformations of our reality itself, resulting in what Castells calls “real virtuality”: a culture in which the mediation of our world intermingles with our world and begins to dominate it. While the module has introduced us into a number of important concepts that are helpful in understanding and analysing these processes, in my further research I would like to apply what we have learned onto questions from the political sphere.
I experienced the recent parliamentary elections in Germany as a primary example how strongly politics have focussed on the media. It seemed to me that content has increasingly been pushed to the background by the importance of presenting the “right picture” in the media. In my opinion, that is one reason why the run-up to the election was more centred on the personalities of Merkel and Schröder than on concrete political programmes of the parties. As the aftermath of the election shows, this media-centred focus on personalities has resulted in a political deadlock which seems to seriously paralyze German politics. If examples like this show us how media-centred politics have become, it raises questions about our traditional understanding of politics: In how far is political practice a mere adaptation to media practices? And is what we are told by politicians really a reflection of real issues and priorities and not a mere reaction to the mechanisms of media coverage? And ultimately, how can we prevent that the picture which the citizenry gets through the media informs them adequately on political issues and prevents a development into a domination of populist messages?
Furthermore, the block has taught us about the manipulation of images that results from digitalization and touched upon the issue of the loss of trust in reality that results from this. It seems logical to derive from this that a lot of the emerging distrust in politics that causes political frustration and disengagement can be seen as a result of this development. But this is a dangerous development and it would interest me to find out more about how we can maintain and re-establish public trust in politics, with the ultimate aim of keeping the citizens engaged in their political destiny.
During the course we also discussed the concept of telepresence and in a wider sense, how the abnegation of distance through new media technologies influences the way we experience the world. We found out that the loss of aura (Benjamin) results in an emotional distance to events across the globe which are brought (apparently) nearer to us. In a globalizing world, where social and political developments are increasingly interconnected, there is a need for a cosmopolitan engagement and solidarity. But what the abnegation of distance paradoxically seems to do is to result in a disengagement, because people are over-saturated with images from across the world and seem to only develop a short-time responsibility for distant events. We therefore need to find out what we can do against a culture in which we are only affected by issues as long as they are on the evening news, but forgotten as soon as they are replaced by new ones on the basis of an almost day-to-day rhythm.
Another question which is touched upon by Castells is that of compartmentalisation and individualisation that is created through new media technologies and increased media use. This can have positive and negative effects on political participation. On the one hand, technologies that have enhanced individualisation such as the video tape, the audio tape and the recently emerged mp3s run counter to a dangerous massification and uniformication which threaten the pluralism that is necessary in democratic societies. But on the other hand, new media practices, such as for instance the use of the internet, carry great danger because they threaten to result in individualisation in the sense of increased solitude. An alarming number of people nowadays live increasingly in virtual worlds, their real social contacts being more and more replaced by virtual ones, for instance through digital games or internet forums. This raises the question how we can counter this form of social compartmentalisation, which threatens public engagement of individuals.
Baudrillard (my personal hero of this course) talks about social apathy which is a result of the hyperreality in which we live, a world which is increasingly emptied of meaning by a flood of simulacra. My questions for further research seem to revolve around this issue: How can we prevent the loss of meaning and the distortion of our reality? What can we do against the increasing disengagement in politics that seems to be a result of increasing (and justified!) distrust in what we see happening in the political sphere? And finally, how can we use the media in a way that establishes connections between the individual and the political sphere, instead of letting them undermine these connections?