2. Day 2 Friend “Summer MediaLife” on Facebook Media Life Perspective Continued
3. The Media Life Perspective We live IN media not with it. There is no life outside of media. There is no way to make sense of yourself outside of media.
4. In the media life perspective, since we don’t have to worry about the distinction between biology and technology, we’re free to focus on determining what a good, responsible, beautiful media life looks like. – Mark Deuze
7. Questions: In what ways do the lines between technologies and the body disappear when we think about media? How you think media shape our understanding of the world?
11. What is media? Ever since we started using language we started living in media. Language was used to coordinate lots of people. Grunting is good enough for small groups. Civilizations brought about language. As soon as you start talking, things can get miscommunicated.
12. “Media are infrastructures with three components: the artifacts or devices used to communicate or convey information, the activities and practices in which people engage to communicate or share information, and the social arrangements or organizational forms that develop around those devices and practices.”
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14. Pop Quiz over Syllabus In T101 you are encouraged to bring media devices to class. True or False. True.
DJ Earworm: United State of Pop 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS85JWOnuQU
This is a frame of mind. You might disagree with me. That’s good. You should make up your own mind. That’s what college is about. However, go with me for a while and let’s see where this takes us. Our lives are made up of conversation and communication. This conversation is hackable and remixable by anyone because of the technological world we live in today. That makes today’s world dynamic, unpredictable and permanently under construction.
The point of this course: I’m going to give it away at the beginning: Is to make you question what is real. Suppose we all have our own realities. Through media, we can plant an idea in someone else’s mind and that then becomes reality. Also, this class is about creating an ability to see that ideas have been planted in our minds already. The movie shows that suicide is not an answer. Suicide is a metaphor for unplugging. If we all of a sudden don’t know what’s real anymore and unplugg or disconnect we are committing suicide like Maul did. Another solution is to do what Cobb does, plant ideas for a while to make some money so that you can enjoy those things that have meaning for you. For him it was his kids. You try to live passionately for what you care about.
Remember the Media Life Perspective is a perspective. You don’t have to agree with me. You are in college. You should make up your own mind about it. Please at least open your mind to the premise and let’s see where it takes us.
Whatever media are they share a couple of characteristics. No matter if it’s a new tv, smartphone out of the box, gaming system, etc.
We should not overestimate the impact that media have in our lives. Think about Egypt and the debate about whether or not social media ‘brought about’ revolution there and in other places in the middle east and Africa. Littleton Colorado shooting at columbine. Video games were blamed for the killers shooting people. In the Arizona shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a book was blamed and heavy metal music.
What is more powerful? The technology? Do they make us do things? Or is it people? Don’t people ask for crappy TV? The media content that exists is because we create it. We build the technology. Both arguments are wrong. Because technology is us. This is abstract but technologies are remixes. Technologies are made by other machines today. Very few humans are involved in the making of technology anymore. Technology evolves just like nature does. It becomes more and more complex and more and more difficult to track its origins. Computer software comes out in versions. Windows XP, Vista, 7. iPhone OX 4, etc. Technologies evolve like we do. This debate should be off limits during the course of T101. It doesn’t make sense in the media life perspective.
Multi-tasking is impossible. Our brains can’t handle more than one thing at a time. People say information overload is a big problem today (TMI). It was the same 400 years ago. The brain simply can’t process more than a couple of words at a time. We are, however, very good at processing images. Why do you think we have to learn in school how to read and write but not how to watch TV? We process sounds a little bit better than we do reading words. The terms “media multi-tasking” and “information overload” are not new to the current era of technological advancement. They’ve always been problems humans have dealt with. We are wired to prioritize so we’re not eaten by a lion when we watch how cute a little birdie is in a tree. We are concurrently exposed to media. When we’re exposed to it we’re not always aware of it and we’re not making deliberate choices.
Describe Middletown and Ball State study. The only thing really that has changed over time is that the gap between how much time we spend with media and how much we report spending is getting bigger. We don’t spend more time with media today than we did 50 years ago. What this means is that media are disappearing from our consciousness.
TV exposes children to ideas that they would otherwise never ever share with them if they had the choice. Violence like murder in the news. Luckily we probably won’t ever have a face to face experience of murder in our life time. Media also reveal to us secrets about our world and about who we are. Violent crime rates are falling but coverage of violent crimes has skyrocketed. Contributes to a feeling of fear or paranoia.
Media images, stories and songs supersaturate households, workplaces, elevators, shopping malls bars, airports and all other in-between spaces of today’s world. Most of the content is created by you and me in our endless text messages, emails, chats and phone calls as well as through our online social networks. The majority of the world owns a cell phone. Telecom networks span almost every inch of the globe and sales figures for any and all kinds of media device are growing steadily around the world. Also work, home and play have converged through a continuous exposure to media. This helps accelerate our engagement with media in today’s world.
Media are everywhere and we are everywhere. You can’t avoid people like we used to be able to.
People rarely read in print any more. We often read everything we want or need to read from a screen be it a mobile device, computer or tv screen.
Human synth: http://www.veoh.com/watch/v18914113Qk8tcW3y
In a social gathering, at a party, people act in order to be photographed. Or they act in relation to a photo or news story or sports game they saw on tv. How did you know how to act they way you do in a classroom? We can’t do anything about this but we can do some fun things with it.
