What is a Digital Culture?

Digital culture is the state of our reading, writing, publishing, distributing, production, and consumption of information today yet no one quite understands it. There are many working definitions of what it means to be in the new digital culture. However, Mark Poster best distinguishes what exactly is a digital culture in his 2001 article “Authors Analogue and Digital.” Poster explains the differences in how our culture was based upon print and now we are moving towards post-print or a digital culture.

Poster explains a paradigm shift in the way people think about information. In the print culture of the past, people perceived information as fixed in time and place. For example, Poster (2001) argues “There is no escape from this characteristic, one that drastically limits the inscription of print in time and space” (81). A book is fixed in one place at one time. Although there may be thousands of copies of the same book, they are still fixed in space. But now in our digital culture, it shifts to having information available to anyone and everywhere at one time depending on the technology. Digital culture means having information available to every person’s computers, iPods, smart phones, etc.

Another aspect of a digital culture is the more participative actions of the reader or consumer. People aren’t bound to making the same thing over and over. Information may be and probably will be changed from the original. Authors and song-writers alike are sampling from other books or music to create new material. In fact, the readers are becoming the authors by having the ability to change whatever they would like. Poster (2001) admits “The author of digital texts loses the assurance of their spatial continuity. Pages of digital text have the stability of liquid” (92). Now, the reader’s and author’s intent are equally valued. In the past during the print culture, people focused on similarity. Copy and print was about making analogous configurations which meant the print culture’s authors wanted objectivity and transparency. In today’s new digital culture, we could care less about what the author intended. Therefore, digital culture means shifting away from the reader taking in and trusting the author and moving towards readers being able to create what they want by changing the author’s material.

With these two main shifts from the print culture into the new post-print or digital culture, we can create a definition. The digital culture today is one where information is readily available to everyone no matter where or when. Furthermore, it is a culture in which the reader’s intent is valued equally as the author’s. Although there still may be printed texts, people are moving away from these and using digital technology to get their information. The emergence of Amazon’s Kindle as well as Apple’s newly introduced iPad makes it easy to see the shift to a digital culture. Physically speaking, books and newspapers are no longer needed. Anyone and everyone with internet capabilities have access to them. Just as easily as they can access them, the readers can alter them. Therefore, a digital culture is when information is not restricted to time and space and can be easily changed by the reader.