MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing
MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Media in Transition 5: "Folk Cultures and Digital Cultures"
1 hour 51 minutes Posted Apr 26, 2007 at 12:00 am.
0:00
1:51:50
Download MP3
Show notes
Digital visionaries such as Yochai Benkler have described the emergence of a new networked culture in which participants with differing intentions and professional credentials co-exist and cooperate in a complex media ecology. Are we witnessing the appearance of a new or revitalized folk culture? Are there older traditions and practices from print culture or oral societies that resemble these emerging digital practices? What sort of amateur or grassroots creativity have been studied or documented by literary scholars, anthropologists, and students of folklore? How were creativity and collaboration understood in earlier cultures? Are there lessons or cautions for digital culture in the near or distant past?