New Media Influence On Urban Culture

by Jeanette Mabela Mahao

If there's a camera up in here, Then I'd best not catch this flick on You Tube - Mariah Carey

That's neither here or there but you I'm tryna ask about, You like the internet, designer, fashion house - Cam’ron

You can Google me baby - Lil Mama

We argue about comic books and Internet connections - Arrogant worms

Hit you up on Facebook poke you and tag you - Secret Secret Dino Club 

These are all lyrics from chart topping hits that make reference to electronic and new media. Online has changed our lives in ways beyond imagination. Statistics show that Facebook has more than 80 million active users, has a platform of 400 000 developers and entrepreneurs and it is the fastest growing of the social networks. Analysts predict that at this growth rate, it will have the same number of registered users as MySpace by end of Q4 2008 or early 2009. 

Urban culture can be understood as the philosophical idea of the city as an ‘organisation of differences’, and Urban culture is often described as the interface - both geographically and culturally. Two practices play an important part in this definition of urban culture: ‘dwelling’ and ‘meeting’. These practices are no longer solely connected to specific places (the house, or public places like the piazza or coffee house), they now take place in a virtual world.

Credit:  Imagesbyk2

"Virtual communities" are being established online and transcend geographical boundaries, eliminating social restrictions. Rheingold (2000) describes these globalised societies as self-defined networks, which resemble what we do in real life.

"People in virtual communities use words on screens to exchange pleasantries and argue, engage in intellectual discourse, conduct commerce, make plans, brainstorm, gossip, feud, fall in love, create a little high art and a lot of idle talk."

New media is making the computer into a second self, finding a soul in the machine, can substitute for human relationships, it has the ability to connect like-minded others worldwide. New media is the marriage of mediated communications technologies.  New Media has been used extensively by social movements to educate, organise, share cultural products of movements, communicate, coalition build, and more.

Thanks to the mobile phone, location technology and social networks, nobody has to bowl alone anymore.

2008/07/07 | permalink | comments (0) | trackbacks (0)

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