How ‘real’ can our interactions with each other every truly be when everything is mediated?
In our week two lectorial, we discussed mediation and what media was as a whole. It sparked a discussion on authenticity and mediation’s part in the perceived ‘death’ of authenticity when almost all interactions are mediated to some form. It was an interesting topic of discussion and one I’ll delve a bit more into here.
First and foremost, I’ll define ‘mediation’ in the terms of the discussion here. To my understanding, it is the concept of media and technology serving as an intermediary in interactions/communications with people, things, brands, just about anything. When we see a billboard as we sit on the train for a couture brand, we are having a mediated interaction with that brand. Now, onto the discussion.
In our modern society, there are very few places that aren’t saturated with media in one of its many manifestations. Most of our interactions on a day to day basis are mediated, such is the saliency of technology and the media as a whole. You can’t walk down a street without coming face to face with an advertisement to buy this, or eat that, or look like this, or listen to that. Maybe ten or twenty years ago it was possible to ‘escape’ or forgo these interactions at least to some degree, but with the rise of the internet media is now even more so a pervasive, ubiquitous almost living, breathing thing. It is not only around us, but flows “through us” (Branson & Stanford).
We make friends, fall in love, live and chronicle our entire lives through social media. We talk to our far away families on Facebook, we even attend job interviews through Skype. So few conversations can be had ‘hidden’ from the eyes of some sort of media. It begs the question of whether the world will soon mirror that of the one in the film Her, with humans dating their AI computer operating systems. It seems to me to be the world’s current trajectory.
In a premodern society, everything was done face to face. People directly experienced things, spoke to those that were closeby and on some occasions travellers would inform them of the happenings in the world. As technology has advanced, we now can experience things indirectly, watch it on a video, read about it in an online article. We can become experts in any one thing we so desire in moments with the click of a button. Ultimately, our experiences and knowledge are predominantly created or lived through media texts.
As the world figuratively grows smaller, we build imagined communities – online groups of people living a shared experience, for example. Intriguingly enough, we always regress to the mean in regard to forming ‘tribes’ of humans, regardless of the technology or environment we find ourselves in. It is perhaps this point that I find the most interesting – that we can create entire worlds without seeing a single person face to face, and yet these connections still feel just as authentic to us, and to others, as if we communicated in person. Perhaps these interactions aren’t authentic – people behind a screen are not always who they claim to be. Watch any episode of the television show Catfish and you’ll quickly learn as much – people having had relationships for years with someone they’ve never met in person, never seen on video chat, only to find out on the show that they are not at all who they said they were. It’s interesting how that physical barrier between us gives some the confidence to become an entirely new person, in their appearance or simply behaviour.
Overall, authenticity and the media is an interesting topic and I’ve barely even hit the tip of the iceberg. It’s something I’d like to learn more about so as to have more in depth discussions and views on the topic.
