The Existence of Narrative Structure in Databases and Traditional Media

The fairly new medium of databases has far less of a narrative structure than that of traditional media. It is not to say that databases entirely lack a narrative structure but its initial purpose was to collect information that were related and then created into data for users to access. It is sort of a narrative if you really think about it, only it may lack the conventions of an actual story like the setting, climax, resolution, etc. that we are use to. The similarity of traditional media and the medium of databases is that the creator of each is human.

In traditional media such as novels, the writer controls the events in the story. Similarly, we as the users organize and categorize our own data according to our preferences. According to the user, the way in which they categorize their data such as tagging photos or adding captions may form a narrative. However, tagging may not be the useful way to categorize data for other users because what one may consider funny, may not be funny for another person. Metadata is data about data that is used to organize the constantly growing amount of data.

I personally love to use databases such as Google and Bing to search for information that I find interesting or know little of. I am quite impressed at the speed I can access data on the web and how just by typing a few letters of the word or phrase I am searching, some suggestions pop up for me to speed up the searching process as if a search engine is not already fast enough. Today, the use of databases is an important tool for users of both old and new media.

Theodor Adorno's and Max Horkheimer’s essay “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” is about the standardized culture industry that we live in. "It has made the technology of the culture industry no more than the achievement of standardization and mass production, sacrificing whatever involved a distinction between the logic of work and that of the social system" (1) I agree on the most part that a lot of what we receive from the media is fed to us in a way where it is almost impossible to not conform. From blogs, forums to Facebook, Youtube, Myspace, etc, are all a part of a standardized culture industry. As much as we tell ourselves that we are expressing individuality or voicing our opinions through these forms of new media, we are actually fooling ourselves. We must remember that websites such as the ones mentioned are created for the users to follow their format. For the most part we are still restricted to fully express ourselves as individuals.

Our culture industry is far from being diversified when every new media is becoming more and more available for consumers. The use of the two way forms of communication is only an extension of our culture industry. I must admit that when blogs, forums, online dialogues, etc first came out and were less popular, we were able to see the presence of some sort of diversification but as it got more popular over the years where almost every individual has access to their own blog, forums or online dialogues, it has created a distinction between what is standardized and diversified. The aggregation of content serves us as media consumers by providing us with the collected data of our preferred websites based on our interest as we browse the web. Usually, popular websites are used as the tool for such content aggregation. For example, there are lots of advertisements on websites such as Facebook, Myspace, Yahoo etc based on our preferences. Overall, the message we receive from the different types of media still remains the same.

"Aura" in the World of New Media

In today's popular culture, it is almost impossible for any art form to maintain its "aura." The reason behind such diminished uniqueness is due to reproduction and its access to the general public or consumers. As the demand for the availability of art increases, the value of it decreases. According to the essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin, he states, "It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function. In other words, the unique value of the "authentic" work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value." (5) In the past, artwork serves as something sacred and hidden from the public to sustain its historical meaning. Every work of art is bound to the location, the spiritual value and authenticity of the time it was produced. Therefore, any duplication, no matter how true to the value and meaning it tries to sustain falls short of the “aura” that Benjamin discussed in his essay. Benjamin defines “… aura of the latter as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be.”(4)

In the world of media today, the option to reproduce is more available than that of the past. For example, Benjamin mentioned in his essay about photography, the availability of the negative allows for numerous prints, so there is no sense in asking for the original print. As for film, we see what the director wants us to see. The film is shot in the perception of the director; every technical aspect is manipulated to convey a message. Therefore, the aura is almost entirely diminished. The same can be said about machinima. It is the use of video game graphics to narrate a story. Machinima is an art that exist entirely on the combination of old and new so therefore decayed aura and the creation of its own aura is present. Today, the “aura” of artwork is almost completely diminished, as technology advance, art once produced by hand can now be produced digitally and when anything can be digitized it becomes more accessible to almost anyone.