GeekinthePink

Poster illustrates the idea of the "cult of the new." He keeps speaking of information superhighways that are being created to significantly increase the flow of communication. And then he raises the question: "will this technological change provide the stimulus for the installation of new media different enough from what we now have to warrant the periodizing judgment of a second electronic media age?" My question is, why do we have to? Why do we need to justify a second electronic media age? And to whom? And who ultimately decides that yes, we are now in a second electronic media age? Can't we just call it being wedged in a perpetual electronic media age?

Am example in Poster is the violent "rapes" one virtual reality character committed. Interesting how so many people were upset and talked about punishing him. On one hand, he didn't actually do anything; and yet, the fact that virtual reality is a "simulational practice" suggests it is the nature in which people simulate the things they wish to do. Is having an avenue for this type of behavior contributing to make it more of a reality than if we were not able to walk along the informational superhighway? Because Poster says that the effects of virtual reality and the internet is to multiply the kinds of realities, it also multiplies the means in which someone can achieve them. By actively engaging in these virtual realities,and having them multiply, people may be able to blur what are their virtual desires and actual desires (if they are dissimilar in the first place) are. There's an example of this on the season premiere of Law and Order SVU tonight: an internet rape becomes real and they have to figure out how it happened. I know it's only fictional, but it is still a good illustration of the blurred lines of virtual and actual reality.

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