According to Russo and Watkins, Digital Cultural Communication (DCC) is a novel field that aspires to create a link between the community and cultural institutions by using new media to generate audience-based cultural interactive experience (2005, p.2).
By placing the growth of cultural communities within the DCC framework, the institution takes on a more symbolic curatorial practice and gains via the formation of new community-based content that form new digital set.
The community gains through superior production and consumption (Russo & Watkins, 2004, p.573). The community is thus able to use its information literacy abilities to create and consume its own unique cultural content that can be in presented in different forms (e.g. blogs, wikis, narratives and other forms) to the audience.
Thus, the institution is no longer the only keeper of cultural experiences; instead, it offers co-creative system for the community and relays creative cultural content to the audience through numerous media such as broadcast, physical and internet (Russo & Watkins, 2005, p.4). This paper will thus discuss the social and cultural impact of new media in the performing industry.
Digital Cultural Communication emerged following the evolution of the Virtual Heritage in 1995. The transformations in cultural tourism and entertainment continue to influence the cultural sector. The unlimited access to cyberspace; broadcast media; video and interactive games; virtual reality technologies; the web; and mobile technologies have contributed immensely to the consumption of cultural media.
As the proliferation of these new media technologies continue, site-specific experiences that are similar to museums, such as theme parks and interpretive centers, create challenges to the manner in which the viewers in the museum perceive their experience. The new media uses technology in a theoretical manner to attract viewers into their knowledge base (Russo & Watkins, 2005, p.4).
According to Russo and Watkins (2005), viewers receive more information in arbitrated, figurative forms while small amount of information is received through bodily or sensory experience. The link between cognition and visual experience thus turns out to be decisive in understanding the electronically and technologically arbitrated culture (p.5).
One of the challenges for the modern cultural institution is to make sure that cultural content is preserved and that the value and resilience of context is relayed in a similar way to the relic itself. The reason why immersion is so illusory within the cultural setting is that it curbs the prospects for communities to interrelate with institutions. As they engage in immersive and efficient interaction, this enables efficient communication of intentions or values to the viewers (Russo & Watkins, 2005, p.5).
Cultural institutions produced buildings, public spaces, and disciplines during the modern age that offered arbitrated social narratives. These narratives were usually transmitted through socio-cultural and political discussions. As a result, cultural institutions dominated the broadcast of cultural narratives within the public sphere. The cultural institutions came to have this power as a result of the associations between technology and the society in the late 18th century.
During this period, scientific culture (considered as a novel discipline) depended on the idealistic societies. Thus the edict to convey knowledge to the public was the main theme of the social and technological practices during this period. From the late 19th century, museum employed a range of technological platforms to convey cultural knowledge to the public. Museum expositions were utilized as a communicative form to convey common laws (Russo & Watkins, 2005, p.6).
Since the inception of the contemporary cultural institution, community artifacts and stories have been amassed and as a result, social relations have transformed into cultural capital where its messages reflect activities with the society (Pearce, 1995, p.22). Within this setting, the commoditization of cultural content enabled institutions to manage the value-chain of information.
The apparent disparity between these early emblematic conquests and the new media setting is that the amassing of cultural relics in the current cultural institution was considered a form of cultural violence (Fyfe, 1998, p.330).
This happened as result of the manner in which cultural information was attained. The genuine artifacts enabled conceptual to be sustained, thereby placing nations, people and territories and creating frontiers to social and cultural processes. Within the new media setting, society, individuals (and to a certain degree), institutions and broadcasters are collaborating to provide cultural information.
When individuals and communities posses the means of production-for example Cyworld blog- their knowledge and ability to access information turns out to be a robust medium that other people can use to consume cultural knowledge. Cultural institutions have encountered serious challenges since the emergent of broadcasting and the internet.
These challenges include attracting audiences to their exhibition sites and offering cultural interactive knowledge that are both amusing and unique. These institutions (cultural) posses both key artifacts and modern resources that they can use to convey their knowledge to a wide audience. For example, the Singapore National Library launched a new site that aim to turn into a prominent site to be used for research activities by the South-East Asia and Singapore (Choh, 2004, p.6).
The Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Library and China have entered into a mutual partnership to create understanding, awareness, and approval of artifacts and culture of both parties via mutual research and study; artistic cooperation and exchange; and interaction and exchange among its citizens.
The examples illustrated above reveal the increasing phenomenon where cultural institutions have accepted to use internet as a medium to distribute their public programs and collections. Thus, a number of cultural institutions have developed delivery models that only grant access but exhibit and permit individuals to interact with the collections of community co-created content (Russo & Watkins, 2005, p.8).
During the late 19th century, perception, time, and memory were assumed to play a vital role to the advancement of a communal memory. This depiction turned out to be challenging when members of the society lost their ability to recognize that the depiction was developed from recollections and perceptions. It has been suggested that when humans become aware of an act, they usually disconnect from the present and replace themselves in the past (Deleuze, 1988, p.222).
Thus, when humans transforms from real to virtual being, they are able to make and re-make personal or communal experiences. According to Halbwachs, memory is based on tangible social experienced and linked to the temporal and spatial structure. Thus he argues that memory can be created by recalling places and placing images or ideas in patterns of thought owned by a specific social group (1992, p.78).
Cultural institutions (e.g. libraries and museums) emerged during the Victorian epoch and were used by the ruling elites as tools to educate the masses. The museums and libraries were used to narrate the story of the institutions (Cassia, 1992, p.28). in the modern media setting, rather than the societies being described in terms of communal values, the internet facilitates societies of practice that take part in a mutual enterprise through joint engagement (Wenger, 1998, p.23).
According to Agre, the interactions that materialize from within this mediated setting engage in some extent of communal cognition where people learn from experiences of others, set uniform strategies, create a collective vocabulary and evolve a unique and joint way of perceiving ideas (1998, p.25).
An apt example of this communal cognition at work is the local library, museum or gallery. As societies discover new methods to illustrate their own narratives, they usually rely on reflective memory to produce a past that will create a touristic desire (Trotter, 1999, p.20).
The advent of information and communication technology (ICT) has enabled the delivery of cultural content on numerous platforms where the consumer is at liberty to make choice. The audience is now able to access content without any restrictions (Russo &Watkins 2005, p.9).
Moreover, the new media has strengthened the positions of most media firms within the media industry. ICT is thus currently employed to broadcasters to re-arrange cultural content on numerous platforms and to enable enhanced partnership within the media industry (Russo & Watkins, 2005, p.9).
Thus, novel models of production, delivery and learning can be created when relations between audiences and systems (such as Cyworld) are reconfigured through cultural and institutional networks. Media dispensers are now preoccupied with the need to shift beyond documenting and displaying information into developing content and an effective permeable community interface.
Turpeinen depicts the emergence of personalized and community-generated media as a prototype where individuals and the public in general utilize computer-arbitrated social networking (such as Cyworld) to inform and exchange their narratives and to boost interaction among their peers from other communities (2003, p.34).
This type of interaction can create novel paths to be used by the community to acquire knowledge and improve life at the same time. As a result, the different cultural institutions will have to compete for audience share. The digitalized cultural programs will thus promote the creation of digital culture, thereby creating new audiences in the community (Turpeinen, 2003, p.38).
Marinho explores the balance of distribution between digitally created content and community co-generated cultural content (2003, p.19). He proposes that the unique attributes held by each form creates unique problems.
Content delivery channels are commodities (instruments and services) whereas community communication is the cultural asset (content) which is transmitted along these channels and is a strategic asset to both parties. The prospect for media companies to run both distribution and social communication is severely limited when communities play active roles in the process of generating content (Marinho, 2003, p.20).
Marinho is convinced that such a situation can happen because the union of telecommunication and media will dominate the whole value chain that include creation of content, programming, packaging and distribution. He states further that when such cultural unions continue unabated, cultural content become more and more dominated by communication firms, which have limited abilities to dispense their contents (2003, p.44).
The cultural context of Cyworld
There several examples that show that web-based new media used in social and cultural communication have had swift impact on individuals and societies than the traditional communications types. The South Korea’s Cyworld was launched in 1999 to provide online space to individuals. Cyworld is credited by many for initiating a blog culture in South Korea.
It has managed to draw a substantial population of the Korean Youth since over 80% of Cyworld members are in their 20s (Choi, 2005, p.174). The website can be customized by a user and entails images, commentary, and links to other internet sites. Cyworld is a modern blogging site that interlinks private homepages, persuading users to create a network with their peers.
This website is currently an e-society and boasts of over 12 million subscribers and visitors (which exceeds 25% of South Korea’s Population). It is worth to note that there is nothing unique regarding customized homepage services. Cyworld offers several vital lessons from the business sector that is likely to be crucial to the cultural e-community (Cameron, 2005, p.4).
Once users are granted membership, they are allowed to customize their websites- commonly called Hompy among Koreans. The mini-hompy is a small online space that has several subsections such as: Homepage; Diary; Profile; Jukebox; Mini-room; Guestbook; Gallery; and Album.
The user has the freedom to disclose and personalize subsections selectively and upload any content as long as it is legal (Choi, 2005, p.174). In addition, Cyworld has a search function which enable users to look for particular people by using their email addresses, names, birth dates or gender type.
However, the most vivid feature of Cyworld is stressed by the fact that the online site embraces both the contemporary communal traditions and the personal traits of modern Korean culture. For example, whereas Iloveschool.co.kr attracts mainly limited to graduates and other intellectual groups, Cyworld is a personal network-based online platform that grants its users boundless opportunities to create and run their own private space that they use in online social interactions (Choi, 2005, p.175).
Cultural homogeneity is highly valued within the Korean society. Strong family values and bonds are the main hallmark of most Koreans. According to the Korean culture, the phrase chon describes the degree of blood relations among individuals. For instance, there is no Chon (o-chon) between married couples. On the other hand, there is 1-chon between parents and children. These relations have hierarchical structures. For example, a 2-chon relation exists between grandparents and their grandchildren.
A 3-chon reaction exists between individuals and their nieces, aunts and uncles. A similar relationship structure is used within Cyworld where users are free to create different chon levels for their online friends. For example, a user can invite a friend to become a 1-chon. Once the invitation is acknowledged, the user and the invitee turn into virtual 1-chon in spite of the fact that they have no blood relations.
Thus, the integration of the phrase 1-chon in Cyworld suggests a robust and close union between the user and the invitee. It also conveys a sense of commitment and responsibility to the user although the 1-chon relation within Cyworld is abstract rather than traditional (Choi, 2005, p.178).
Thus, communication in Cyworld entails both the technological and social background of Korean society. Cyworld has effectively gelled these two aspects since neither of them posses a communicative supremacy over the other. Cyworld is not an alternative means of communication, but rather, an annex of pre-existing communication systems in the contemporary Korean youth culture (Choi, 2005, p.184).
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