15-20 Minute Paper
Simone Natale
Humboldt Foundation Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Cologne, Germany
Biography
Simone Natale is Humboldt Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Media Culture and Theater, University of Cologne, Germany. His present research focuses on the relationship between media technologies and the imaginary.
Abstract
This paper aims to propose a critical and cultural analysis of predictions and forecasts regarding the future of digital media. Predictions and forecasts on digital media are usually presented as “innocent” and unbiased. However, they should also be treated as cultural visions with their own ideological, political, social, and cultural bias. It is important, in this sense, to address not only the question of which will be the media of the future and how new media will change our society, but also why certain representations of the future are created, developed, and supported, and, also, how such representations might influence our choices and our understanding of technological change.
Firstly, I will point to the recurrence in the history of media of predictions about the future of technology. Secondly, I will address some recurrent patterns followed by contemporary predictions on the future of digital media. Finally, I will argue that predictions and forecasts about digital media and digital culture are embedded in a well‐established pattern by which technological change is considered as a positive or as a negative force – and, sometimes, as a combination of the two. In order to allow speculations on the future of digital media to provide a valuable contribution to contemporary discourses on technology and culture, we also need to approach our imagination of the future from the perspective of critical theory and cultural analysis. By considering the ideological, cultural, and political implications of predictions, scholars in media studies will be able to take full responsibility for their claims and their vision of the world to be.