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Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure Our Culture
Almost without anybody noticing, a new cultural paradigm has come center stage, displacing an exhausted and increasingly marginalised postmodernism. Dr. Alan Kirby calls this cultural paradigm digimodernism, a name comprising both its central technical mode and its privileging of the fingers and thumbs in its use. The increasing irrelevancy of postmodernism requires a new theory to underpin our current digital culture.
- GenresPhilosophy
282 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 14, 2026
Мій науковий інтерес.
May 8, 2020
I really hate to say that I skipped quite a lot when reading this book because that reduces the validity of my review. But I also hate to see such a pool of cultural products that have been quoted and explained at length, which hide the parts that are actually talking about the concept. When you have Harry Porter, Lord of Rings and Star Wars, just pick ONE of them and elaborate would be more friendly to the poor readers (some of them may not have watched all these films so imagine how many Wikipedia and Youtube pages they would have to view to understand the discussions! (ok this is ironic to what’s in the book)) In short, this book could have been much better if it was structured in a different way. But the first chapter is an exception!
July 13, 2014
Holy Cow! Digimodernism!
So what is it? It's about creating new forms of text, and new relationships between authors and readers. The dominant features include onwardness or the growing and incomplete nature of the text... it has a beginning but possibly no end; it's haphazardness describes the possibility of multiple directions of the text meaning that it can go off in unknown directions; in short. the digimodern text does not endure... it is difficult if not impossible to preserve or archive.
I think that too often these days, research for a high schooler, and often even a college student, means glancing at Wikipedia, doing a fast Google search, and cutting and pasting some quotations together. In the best-case scenario, the student will put quotation marks around the pasted passages: because of the Internet’s constant offers of ready-for-use text, plagiarism is an ever-increasing plague. Bad writing, the mere assembling of sentences from the Net with some alterations or additions of one’s own, goes along with bad reading.
Digimodernism is like say that Twitterfiction is the latest thing. It consists of writing stories within the 140 character constraints of Twitter. I can see that in this brave new digital world, we are intent on speed rather than repetition and slow study. As a result, I think we've lost sight of the fact that reading well requires time and patience. What happens is readers can tweet back or comment immediately on the work -- if one can call it that. Readers can become authors themselves by adding to it, like one of those old parlor games.
What's happening is people are learning to want everything fast and reduced to ridiculous and unreadable minimalism. There is nothing to enjoy because the digital world provides too many options and none that are any better than the other...and that includes books.
I would like to have seen more information about literature and taking time to learn to write and the read and then be able to write a sensible comparison of what has been read. It would mean learning to read slower and appreciate the words of the author.
So what is it? It's about creating new forms of text, and new relationships between authors and readers. The dominant features include onwardness or the growing and incomplete nature of the text... it has a beginning but possibly no end; it's haphazardness describes the possibility of multiple directions of the text meaning that it can go off in unknown directions; in short. the digimodern text does not endure... it is difficult if not impossible to preserve or archive.
I think that too often these days, research for a high schooler, and often even a college student, means glancing at Wikipedia, doing a fast Google search, and cutting and pasting some quotations together. In the best-case scenario, the student will put quotation marks around the pasted passages: because of the Internet’s constant offers of ready-for-use text, plagiarism is an ever-increasing plague. Bad writing, the mere assembling of sentences from the Net with some alterations or additions of one’s own, goes along with bad reading.
Digimodernism is like say that Twitterfiction is the latest thing. It consists of writing stories within the 140 character constraints of Twitter. I can see that in this brave new digital world, we are intent on speed rather than repetition and slow study. As a result, I think we've lost sight of the fact that reading well requires time and patience. What happens is readers can tweet back or comment immediately on the work -- if one can call it that. Readers can become authors themselves by adding to it, like one of those old parlor games.
What's happening is people are learning to want everything fast and reduced to ridiculous and unreadable minimalism. There is nothing to enjoy because the digital world provides too many options and none that are any better than the other...and that includes books.
I would like to have seen more information about literature and taking time to learn to write and the read and then be able to write a sensible comparison of what has been read. It would mean learning to read slower and appreciate the words of the author.
April 6, 2012
Interesting cultural commentary, but I would've liked more focus on literature, considering Kirby makes the claim elsewhere and here that postmodernist literature is irrelevant for current college students.
November 16, 2012
It is not that Kirby is opposed to free speech or self-expression; he just perceives unique free speech in a Digimodern world as worthless, thankless, and lost within the entropy of an online chorus teaming with infinite babbling voices.
December 7, 2017
Terribly Written.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews