The American Democracy within Media and New media
The American identity is always being reconstructed. It wasn’t until 1790, when Thomas Jefferson created the
first U.S. census, that the idea of an American-immigrant was acknowledged as a key role in American democracy, and American identity formation. Due to an increase in immigration, because of America’s positive rights of citizenship, in 1850 certain distinctions such as race and country of origin became a demographic factor of interest. This happened prior to the introduction of non-White individuals and lead to a debunking of our understanding of who are minority groups in America. This made it much easier to see who was making there way into society as well as which places need more immigration laws to limit their arrival.
During these times, census data was used for more custodial purpose, such as epidemiological research, and planning the future construction, or gentrification of America. Not until the transition from this style of fixed and ‘truthful’ data to new media versions. This transition has been highlighted as an instance where new media began to squeeze out old, as Lev Manovich states, in the Language of New Media, “For the next 1890 census, the Census Office adopted electric tabulating machines designed by Herman Hollerith. The data collected for every person was punched into cards; 46, 804 enumerators completed forms for a total population of 62,979,766. The Hollerith tabulator opened the door for the adoption of calculating machines by business; during the next decade electric tabulators became standard equipment in insurance companies, public utilities companies, railroads and accounting departments”. This was a time that the predecessors of ‘new media’ began to define the American social infrastructure. This began the process of transforming the ‘real’ into the form of simulacra.
Ultimately, this has lead to the rise of ambiguous ‘polls’, generated by interest driven companies. Polls have allowed Americans, especially ‘real’ Americans, to bask in the comfort of hyperreality because, if they do not like how the census data (as a representational face or identity of America) looks they can always confide in the ‘poll’, such as the infamous ‘who would you rather have a beer with?’ poll. In American democracy, polls have facilitated the belief system of ‘real’ Americans that hyperreality has simultaneously engendered. However, this ambiguity that once lead to a satisfying outcome of ‘real’ Americans by concealing the fact that the ‘other’-American population is on the rise, according to recent census data, has backfired. For the 2012 election, many ‘real’ Americans were blinded to this fact, due to an engendered sense of hyperreality, and have adopted a volatile attitude toward the up-and-coming majority—the collective ‘other’-Americans, specifically the ones who have been considered immigrants since the start of
the 20th century—the era of moderntiy.
Conversely, new media, as a more accessible source for political attitude development, has been used by ‘other’-Americans who have begun to fight the power-dynamics that have defined them so much. For example, the creators and contributors to www.altoarizona.com have provided a space and vehicle to house the socio-political-cultural dynamic that continues to define America and American culture. It is an example of a mechanism we would like to call, ‘realities’, as a converse of hyperreality, because it does not attempt to simulate reality, but, rather, it is a simulated reality—in this case via website—that explicitly intends to define reality by perpetuating the desire for a ‘better reality’ by uncovering the once concealed narratives of the oppressed.
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