One of the twenty-first century’s most complex definitions: Media.

Media can be interpreted in different ways:

POWER
It can be power through regulation, censorship and public opinion. We used to perceive media through an outdated linear model where the sender’s message transmits through a medium and then would eventually be received by a passive audience. However, due to a multitude of factors such as modernisation and globalisation, audiences are active where the message can be relayed back and forth from receiver to sender.
This can be seen through the importance of public opinion. For instance, a television show’s creators rely on ratings and feedback to whether they find what the people are viewing is “entertaining” or “informative”.
Although, there’s an apparent shift in this power, there are still regulations and censorship that are still enforced for television, video games, cinema and literature in order to protect vulnerable audiences such as children and the elderly. However, the relevance of regulation and censorship are further debated, since the internet itself is beyond anyone’s control.

TECHNOLOGY
We’re now at an age of innovation and convergence. Remember the times when we’d access the internet, communication with a person, music, games, photos and documents from numerous devices? Nowadays, we can do all of the above from just a smartphone. Almost anyone with a smartphone can be a filmmaker, photographer, editor, journalist, advocate with the help of apps and social media.
Since the introduction of social media, we’ve been able to connect from people from different ends of the world. As simple as one tweet can attract a following and possibly someone you idolise. It’s a small world after all!

ENTERTAINMENT
Who knew there’d come to a time where cat videos, face swapping apps, people falling over, creating avatars of ourselves, social experiments, every reality show, reaction videos, colours of things, hashtags, doge and being rick roll’d would be such entertainment? The content that has become viral are the weirdest and straightforward, yet most relatable (most of the time) finds in the World Wide Web.

FACT VS. FICTION
The internet is infamous for blurring the fact from the fiction. For instance, you can create a virtual identity of yourself. I can find out a stranger’s favourite music and their hobbies by skimming through their timeline, but yet again, that could just be a way for them to be perceived as “interesting” and what not. Even television shows and movies present viewers with stereotypes and stigmatisations that we can sometimes accept as reality.
The news can even provide us with a particular framing of events, a subtly biased script and feature a number of stories that we often accept as the entire truth.

In order to grasp a reality of how media is consuming us, we split into groups of 5 and hit the Melbourne town to audit the media we observe.
Location: State Library

Advertisement on Trams, people listening to their music and on their phone; texting, calling.

 

A handout on being distracted on your phones (ironically I was crossing the road while I was busily taking photos of media around us).

                                                                     

                                 A notice at the entrance of State Library about an upcoming event.

                                                                     

Look up! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nah, it’s Superman and Batman on a building for their upcoming movie.

                                                         

A passer-by would be looking down on their phone and then encounter a vibrant advertisement (and his striking looks) plastered on the grey, concrete floor.

                                                                       

“Now a motion picture”, an awesome film by the way.