The second half of my Media 1 lectorial was condemned to a philosophical, and almost esoteric, debate concerning the new forms of communicative media vs. the pre-19th century procedure of all social connections being ‘in person’, otherwise referred to as ‘in real life’ (irl if you’re up to date with the internet terms). Brian Morris presented to the class a simple slide which read “What is Media?”, and in this post I aim on exploring just that.
Morris firstly asked the class to embody what media is to them in five words, before I expand on the responses of my peers, I would like to mention my own selection of text: Connection, Communication, Expression, Creativity, Everywhere. Everywhere being the most important one. What followed from this exercise was a quick session where we were instructed to express our words and the reasons for choosing the. Some of the answers I found most interesting were: omnipresent, culture, code, change, control, power, education, and politics.
Morris then switched to a slide which read “Debates about mediated vs unmediated communication” which informed us of the contrast between the pre-modern society’s social interactions which consisted of direct contact with one another and the post 19th century where there were forms of technology such as the news paper, maps, texts and books, which enabled civilisation a wider range of techniques to collaborate.
Succeeding this discussion, a new term was defined for me: Imagined Communities, a concept coined by Benedict Anderson as a way to analyse nationalism. An imagined community, is not a hallucinatory street where ghosts live, but rather it is an intellect of people belonging to a certain nation, such as that of Malaysia or Australia, who share no “real” direct contact, however withhold similar idea of a socially constructed community; based upon their belief of being part of the certain group. This relates to media as nationalism is known to have spread with the rise of the newspaper and many other forms of modern communication methods.
This allowed me to ponder my own Imagined Community, otherwise known as the internet, or more specifically social media. I do not want to discuss the weight of friendships created on the internet as I do not have much experience in that realm, though I would like to discuss the nature of the world wide web, and just how worldly is has become.
I remember being on the internet as a child, I would play on sites such as DressUpWho.com and Club Penguin, during these innocent times I was part of a very exclusive yet widely expanding clique of children who are not ‘users’ of the internet as a tool for education and business, but have been raised on the internet. Any young adult under the age of 25 would understand that having such an intimate relationship with the most modern form media to date allows us into a a very distinct social group, or imagined community which I like to refer to as: The iGeneration.
The iGenertion connects itself through ideas and common tropes, such as a constant usage of the internet and modern media from a tender age. We are not consumers of the media, we are the media, it is constant, ubiquitous, omnipresent, and everywhere. I check my facebook a total of (I’m guessing) 40 times per day, I know the National Blinds radio commercial off by heart, and I can’t walk three feet without seeing an add for Chemist Warehouse. Our world is a matrix, an advertisement, it feeds symbols and red flashing lights, saying buy, watch, listen.
The idea of the media’s powers and it’s omnipotent nature are going to be discussed in my next post where I overview all the media I came across in Melbourne Bourke Street Mall, and the different forms and effects it conjures.
Thankyou for reading!
-Amber