Novelty to Necessity?
Friday, September 25, 2009 by Anonymous
The area of debate within new media technology centres predominantly around one question:do we define technology as novelty or necessity? In digital capitalism: Networking the Global Market System（1999），Daniel Schiller identifies that “the utopian promise of new information technologies tends to be derailed by the capitalistic framework within which they are located.” In the electronic information age, products of new technology are not only praised by their technical functions, but also by their commercial values. By having a variety of expectations, new media technology can be both novelty and necessity.
From my point of view, difference between novelty and necessity are mainly derived from reliability of the new technology and our expectations. If the product of new technology has quality that people can rely on, then it would be widely adopted. In early days, mobile phones were “fat and simple”, they were big in size and they didn’t have many functions. However, these qualities had been acceptable to the public at that time , because they were novelties. The only expectation for mobile phone would be the function of communication . It is not hard to believe that the intention of consuming mobile phone depends a lot on aspect of necessity. For such reason,people are able to keep in touch with each other by using mobile phones ,and most of all it is an easy way to communicate .
Within the popular culture, One may argue that products of new media technology change rapidly in order to meet our higher expectations. People from different age, gender or occuptation group possibly have different expectations. for example, business people consider devices with multifunctions more important, where as students are likely to consume relatively cheap devices. Technology can be novelty as well as necessity. Not surprisingly,when mobile phones encounter fashion brands, these innovations chanllege people's expectations. For instance, the Samsung Armani phone, LG Prada phone or Motorola D&G phone, despite of their expensive and stylish features,they are all multi-functioned and high in quality.mobile phones nowadays have developed into more attractive devices : touchscreen, bluetooth, expandable memory.Whether they are luxurious toys or fashion accessories ,it would not be a big concern .
From my point of view, difference between novelty and necessity are mainly derived from reliability of the new technology and our expectations. If the product of new technology has quality that people can rely on, then it would be widely adopted. In early days, mobile phones were “fat and simple”, they were big in size and they didn’t have many functions. However, these qualities had been acceptable to the public at that time , because they were novelties. The only expectation for mobile phone would be the function of communication . It is not hard to believe that the intention of consuming mobile phone depends a lot on aspect of necessity. For such reason,people are able to keep in touch with each other by using mobile phones ,and most of all it is an easy way to communicate .
Within the popular culture, One may argue that products of new media technology change rapidly in order to meet our higher expectations. People from different age, gender or occuptation group possibly have different expectations. for example, business people consider devices with multifunctions more important, where as students are likely to consume relatively cheap devices. Technology can be novelty as well as necessity. Not surprisingly,when mobile phones encounter fashion brands, these innovations chanllege people's expectations. For instance, the Samsung Armani phone, LG Prada phone or Motorola D&G phone, despite of their expensive and stylish features,they are all multi-functioned and high in quality.mobile phones nowadays have developed into more attractive devices : touchscreen, bluetooth, expandable memory.Whether they are luxurious toys or fashion accessories ,it would not be a big concern .