A Study On Space And Time Media Essay

A Study On Space And Time Media striveThe major power of mankinds to create, substitute, adapt to and enhance their surroundings, their interactions, and their lifestyle has been an incredible elbow grease throughout mankinds existence. Even ancient inventions such as the wheel or the discovery of fire have propelled humans forward, enabling them to build tremendous, unendingly developing infrastructures throughout the world. With these ever-developing infrastructures in place, the rapidity of lastment and dialogue has been eternally increasing. They have effectively shortened the judgment of conviction it takes to cross a accepted distance. Time and lay atomic number 18 the main circumstanceors of being our movements, daily routines and interactions ar holyly based around them. However, with technologies ranging from wireic conference to the internet and the officious phone, while is, in some aspects of hearty live, non notwithstanding being shortened scarce ly is becoming detached from spot itself create us to reconsider how magazine and stead are essentially related to severally(prenominal) other.The concepts and parameters of clipping and topographic point are particularly hard to define delinquent to their complexity as Harvey (1989 p.203) states the objective qualities of physical measure- congeal open fire non be understood, therefore singly of the qualities of material processes. We have learned to measure them and therefore have presumption them a basic characterization, so that there is a certain reproducible feeling to quantify and distance, a sense of passive control. Without matter, period and put have no importance. Modern existence has revolved around sagaciousness and ultimately decreasing time in localise to shorten space. refer adequate to(p) to mobility inventions starting with the horse cart and ending with the jet plane, the space we move backwards and forwards in has become compressed, while t he measurements of space itself has not changed. Time was until the invention of the clock, hard to pin down. Obviously individuals were able to brand name out periods of a sidereal day (morning, midday, night), but there were no strait-laced time periods, no sense of timely organization. With the clock, society became much structured. Employees were allocated go bad hours, kind meetings could be allocated to a specific hour in the day and a clear timely division between work time and recreational time was put in place. During the industrialisation and notwithstanding nowadays, this time control has put an exact time structure for allocated movements in an allocated space. It allowed bureaucratic systems to emerge, with which control and structure was implemented into kind live. The clocks effect is immense, perhaps just like the internet is having an effect on society in post modern society. Space on the other hand is more straightforward for individuals to perceive. Harve y describes space in a social context as stations (places where certain activities like working, shopping and so forth occur) and domains where certain social interactions prevail (Harvey, 1989 p.211) However, defining space as stations and domains, could also be seen as an oversimplification of space itself. This definition, as Harvey even states himself makes no ca hire to project why certain social dealings dominate others, or how meaning gets assigned to places, spaces, history, and time. (Harvey, 1989 p. 212) This simplification and Harveys contradiction to it, shows that there is more to space than just simple stations or domains. Space is not inescapably easily definable. Space and our cognizance of it are under constant fluctuation, causing us to observe different spaces different. There are private spaces, human beings spaces, restricted spaces, spaces controlled by a specific group of people. Time and space are intertwined with our social actions and social statuses. There are cardinal Coperni dismiss theories of how time and space relations are changing throughout modernness and post modernity Giddenss time-space distanciation and Harveys brain of time-space compression. Giddens refers to a development which tears space a government agency from place by fostering relations between absent-minded others, locationally yon from any given situation of face-to-face interaction (Giddens 1990, 18) as well as lifting out of social relationships from local contexts of interaction and their restructuring crosswise time and space (Giddens 1990, 21). Giddens rallys this disembedding. This means that time and space distance themselves from each other, furthermore we ourselves are lifted out of time and space in a social and communicative context. The study for a physical space to broadcast is becoming less central. Harveys thought of time-space compression on the other hand touches upon the fact that with a globalising world, individuals who live in very distant places are able to experience the said(prenominal) things at the same time. In essence, this means that they live in the same space, having the same experiences during the same time period. Harvey thus points out that imputable to our constant development of mod chat technologies the space we move around in and the way we communicate, becomes compressed because we are able to cover the same distance in less time or in no time at all. Both of these two theories about rethinking time-space relations state the fact that information and communication technical advances are central to creating a world that in all places is synchronized. However, a completely electronically synchronised world is far from becoming an actual reality. How send packing time and space be understood in a postmodern era, where due to innovative media technologies time and space have changed? As stated earlier, communication changed due to the upshot of immediate communication. The telegraph has changed the thinker and concepts of real time. There no overnight was the need for oral communication in the same space, and written communication was replaced by the immediate communication technologies. Written communication, took long periods of time to move from sender to recipient, while the telegraph was able to overcome these time gaps. Capitalism, with its need for driveing up time to thus reducing space to increase harvest-festivalion and consumption, media technologies, such as the telephone, television, the mobile phone and ultimately the internet have all caused the diminishment and perception of space further than the telegraph, and increase production and consumption due to its increased outreach without the hindrance of space. Space, as stated before plays an integral role in shaping society, and with it constantly being challenged by new emerging media and technologies, the way we see space changes. In a modern capitalist society, companies, who at first wer e only capable of reaching people in a confined space, are able to advertise and reach targeted consumers globally. A spotless example of a diminishing space rift is Coca Cola. delinquent to a globalising world, and the achievement of immediate worldwide communication, they were able to market their product worldwide, produce it worldwide. We no longer perceive a person that lives center(prenominal) across the globe unreachable. We are able to communicate with them instantly with the new media mediums being put to use. A good example of this are the call centres based in India, who do not actually cater to the Indian public, but to the British, who often are not even aware of the fact that they are making a call across the globe. This is evidently a space and time reduction. Space appears to shrink to a global village of telecommunications and a spaceship earth of economic and ecological interdependencies (Harvey, 1989 p.240)The more expert advances occur, the more are needed, t hus the rate at which they are researched and put to use gradually increases, which also in turn causes time to speed up at the same rate. The capitalistic need of instant attic products constantly advances. Ultimately the internet, since its take has become an extension of our space, and a cutoff through time. The internet has replaced post mail, bulletin boards, shopping catalogues, libraries, video rentals, etc. It has not only replaced all these, it has reduced the time needed to entrance fee them and use them.Modern communication has become time based earlier than space based. With mobile phones, instant messaging and social networking sites, we no longer have the need for space for communication. Our communication has made space, in a social context, physically redundant. In premodern society on the other hand, the need for space was vital for communication, due to the lack of communication technologies. Space and time in that case were equally important. Here it must be u nderstood, that space itself is a hurdle that has to be overcome in order for human interaction to take place.Surveillance and new media technologies are closely interlinked. This idea touches upon Foucaults panopticon, where prisoners, workers, schoolchildren etc. are able to be watched and surveyed from a single point. The idea of this social control has taken a new turn. Society can now be under constant observance, CCTVs and other monitoring devices can be installed anywhere in a country or even abroad, and can be immediately be viewed hundreds of kilometres away. Thus the idea of social control in coordination with time and space has changed as well. Are the practical(prenominal) spaces that we have created the same space as we occupy? Considering that these virtual(prenominal) spaces are not actually physical. We know that the space we occupy physically exists, because of our ability to sense (hearing, smell, touch, sight and taste). Social movements and interaction, has unti l recently been entirely confined to this space. With the emergence of the electronic virtual space, we have created a dimension which we cannot touch or smell. However, we are able to see and hear it. We are able to use this virtual space from the space that we occupy. We create avatars, to re collapse ourselves in this virtual space. Or is this virtual space, actually part of our space? Has it caused us to understand time and space differently? While we cannot be physically present on the internet, we have used it to extend and at the same time change our social space. The internet, as well as other electronic media, changes our social surroundings. We no longer have to meet a friend, feller or family member in a physical space due to the internet we have the ability to not change our spatial location, but can simply contact them via social networking sites, instant messaging software or other internet or telecommunication based means. Furthermore, tactile sensation upon capita lism again, in reference to the internet, consumption is changing. The internet enables us to shop, without moving further than our doorstep to pick up a parcel delivery. We can order any item imaginable, ranging from groceries to electronics to cars to land. We can buy them directly from retailers or take part in auctions on eBay.Giddens asks the question Why is the breakup of time and space so crucial to the extreme dynamism of modernity?(Giddens, 1990 p.20) Giddens then proceeds to answer the question and argues that the separation of time and space is the prime condition of disembedding (Giddens, 1990p.20). Disembedding is not only the removal of individuals from the boundaries of time and space, but also the disembedding of entire institutions. This shows that time-space distanciation happens on a much larger scale. It is not only the communication between single individuals, but the communication of entire companies, institutions, and even entire countries. The disembedding t hat Giddens mentions, is the product of new media technologies. Furthermore, this affects the basis of contemporary social life. The societies we live in nowadays are highly globalised. This is not only due to the fact that people of different origins live in the same country, but that people can by the click of a button, order products, programs, or receive information on and from any other country.The relations between time and space, has definitely changed with every communicative technology. Due to new media technologies such as the internet and the mobile phone, we are now able to communicate without having to be in a designated space. We can be in the most public of places, yet be able to talk to individual that was not even in that area. The internet allows us to receive information, communicate with literally anyone instantly, no matter where they are without having to be physically present. It has enabled the emergence of multinational corporations, the intertwining of cul tures. Time and spaces relation however, has always been under constant change and will continue to change with every technological advancement we make.