Page 21 - Communication Cultural and Media Studies The Key Concepts

ANTI-GLOBALISATION

Analogue artforms retained a nostalgic aura of authenticity, both
artistic and legal. A ‘metaphysics of presence’ (see difference) made
artists feel better about analogue images that you could actually see in
their material form, on film, canvas or paper, unlike the entirely
virtual digital images. Although paintings were faked and photos
doctored throughout the analogue era, digital images could be
manipulated more readily than analogues, i.e. more cheaply, and
without lifetime professional skills, using commercially available
software. A consequence of this is that greater sophistication is
required of readers and users – the naive (analogue) idea that photos
depict some actually existing scene is a matter for scepticism, not least
because increasingly users have the digital means to manipulate,
improve, subvert and embellish information for themselves.
On the flip side, it is still the case that one of the triumphs of digital
art is to make the result look like analogue, so that extensive press
coverage is given to advances that allowa digitally animated movie/
games heroine to look like a real woman, or a hairy monster to look
truly hairy. This is the phenomenon that Marshall McLuhan called
‘rearviewmirrorism’, when a new medium copies the one it is
destined to supplant – for nowat least, digital is copying analogue.

See also: Digital/analogue distribution

ANTI-GLOBALISATION

The word globalisation suggests an image of a world that is becoming
whole, where borders are being dismantled and where no country will
be excluded – a smooth, homogenous sphere without nationalist
conflicts or class stratification. But globalisation has not shown itself to
be a system of fair or complete distribution. The speed of technical
diffusion depends upon the knowledge, economic circumstances,
government and cultural character of a time and place. The flows of
resources and capital occurring as a result of globalisation are strategic,
discriminatory and influenced by countries, industries and individuals
with power. Some are able to use the processes of globalisation to their
advantage while others become increasingly marginalised and are
excluded economically.
Resistance to globalisation has manifested in a number of forms,
out of disparate and sometimes conflicting interests. Early anti-
globalisation sentiments focused on the loss of jobs for workers in
industrially advanced societies as corporations increasingly sought

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