Critique of Appadurai's Mediascope

When we discussed Appadurai in class we hinted on this, and I thought it was completely fascinating the ways in which he poses we view global culture, although some were a little hard to grasp at first. The most interesting of his 5 domains were mediascapes because in this day and age that is more precisely where are global culture is when you think about our technology.

Let’s Review:

Mediascape –refers to both the distribution of the electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information and to the image of the world created by these medias.

In today’s culture it has become habitual to wake up and immediately check your cell phone (most likely smartphone) for text messages, missed calls, check instagram, facebook, twitter, other social media sites that you have access to in order to not only keep up with current events in the daily lives of your peers but also to keep up with current events globally that are posted about on these websites. It is more accessible to have a laptop in order to take notes and stay in contact via email than to write letters or write your notes by hand. The Nook, iBooks, Kindle are all electronic technologies in which we are capable of using in order to gain information as well as read books. What ever happen to reading a book on paper and feeling it in your hand? That satisfaction that we loved so much as a child?

Don’t get me wrong here, I completely love my iPhone and my social media apps, and the ways in which I can easily access and distribute information via that technology, but I often wonder what has done to our culture and society. Granted not everyone is glued to these devices, but we have come to a day in age where not having the newest version of the iPhone is a weird thing even though they just came out with a model last year. I completely grasp the bigger concept that Appadurai is portrays in that he is focusing on global culture flow, and yes by all means mediascape in the forms of which I am focusing on have greatly influenced in the global culture flow. But can we ignore the way in which it has affected our own culture? Can we honestly say it was for the betterment of our culture that these technologies are so easily used and accessible?