To begin our lecture on Monday, we were spoken to by Paul about work attachment. It was scary. He talked us through all the rules and regulations we’re going to be needing to follow when we apply for it, and what the process involves. I’m generally pretty bad at paperwork, and I’m also a socially awkward duck, and so this whole thing is really intimidating to me. But what really made me sh*t my pants right there in the lecture was realizing how soon I needed to start thinking about this. If I want to get a good placement, I probably may need to start looking in this upcoming semester break.

So, after the intense and nail-biting speech given by Paul, we looked into the actual topic for this week; mediums and media technologies. I really needed to pay attention in this lecture, as this is the topic that my group is doing for Project Brief 4 (not that I don’t pay attention in all the other lectures, I’m a good student). We looked at three areas:

• Medium Theory
• Technologies and Culture
• Communication Revolutions

With each topic, we were given a related quote. The quote that really stood out to me was:

“How do technologies from the printing press to the Internet function culturally? How do they affect the manner in which we think about ourselves and our world? From which cultural shifts do such new technological forms arise?”

-Murphie & Potts (2002)

Going back to my opinion that I keep mentioning that media is a network, and a way of communicating, I feel that because these mediums are used specifically to communicate, with such a strong connection between the world, there is bound to be lots of culture. The internet meme, for example. And with such a convenient method of communication, it’s slowly getting easier due to sharing, yet more difficult due to more competition, for new technological forms to arise.