OUGD504 // Study Task 06: New Media Theory

New Media: A Critical Introduction by Martin Lister, Jon Dovey, Seth Giddings, Iain Grant, Kieran Kelly

This extract is focusing on how new media has hints of nostalgia, and how progress isn't something that is straightforward and constantly going at a fast pace. The digital age isn't something completely seperate from whatever came before. It is something different and more complex, but it may never transcend the old. "Certain uses and aesthetic forms of new media significantly recall residual or suppressed intellectual and representational practices of relatively ... [or] extremely remote historical periods." this quote is saying that periods from history are recalled through new media in many different ways, such as the way things are designed or the uses.

It is being said that the significance of digital culture can be understood better when parts of the past are involved. "Antique" things such panoramas and old style cameras have found a place in new media and have influenced it, making a link between them.

Perhaps it is because having an entirely digital world is boring, and it eliminates the creativeness and endearing qualities of an older time. These things have been lost or suppressed over the years, then made a comeback for a new, younger audience. They seem to mark the difference between old and new media, as it shows the developments of our times.

In terms of graphic design, this could influence design in many ways depending on the designer's perspective and opinion. On the one hand, a designer could read this theory and think that they are going to use it to appeal to a large audience who are keen to be overtaken by nostalgia. It is obviously something that is popular with people who have lived it in the past, or with whom have not experienced it but wish they had. From another perspective, a designer could want to try to abolish the stream of old media, because it is in the past and we need to move forward wholeheartedly. It may be holding us down in terms of digital growth if we cling on to how things used to work... more developed ways of doing things are now invented for a reason.
Personally I think that small instances of nostalgia are entertaining and interesting to a young audience that I am a part of. Why completely forget what happened only 30 or 40 years ago? Why can't it still be relevant, and why not take advantage of it in design?