So we went on a class excursion today. Sounds more like something for a geology or biology student, right? Seeing things out in the field? Well media too is something that is well worth observing in its natural habitat because like it or not, in our day to day lives we’re bombarded with media.

Now, this may seem like a bit of an exaggeration if your definition of media still aligns with the traditional concept of ‘broadcast media’ as mentioned in my last post – eg. TV, film, print media, etc. However, a better way of defining media, as we learnt in our lectorial yesterday, is with the term ‘mediated communication’. Basically, media can be seen as any form of communication or message that has been ‘mediated’ or crafted in some way or into a specific format.

Keeping this in mind, it’s perhaps unsurprising that when we were sent out to the city to list every piece of media we could, a lot of my results were advertising, from tram stop posters to the logo on the free cup of tea I got at Fed Square (see below). Because of course if we see media as simply ‘mediated communication’, advertising has a lot to benefit from it; instead of just telling me that their product is happy and healthy to my face, Lipton can use bright colours and images of fruit and leaves to let me come to the conclusion myself.

My free Lipton iced tea

But advertising was not the only type of media I found. My forty-item list ranged from art to performing buskers to informative media, such as street signs, tram maps or this info station at Fed Square (see below). It’s amazing just how much ‘mediated communication’ we not only come across but rely on in our daily lives.

An info station at Fed Square

And that’s not all. Going back to last week’s post, we have to think of media not just as ‘broadcast media’ or messages aimed at a wide audience, but also media that we consume personally. Text messages, apps, phone calls, videos and just about everything contained on our personal phone or tablet can be considered media as well. I was highly amused to see the woman pictured below using her trusty selfie stick to grab a panoramic shot of Fed Square. Whether for her own collection or to send to friends, her posed smile was clearly a carefully crafted message communicating her excitement at being in a new city.

An excited tourist uses her selfie stick

We started our lectorial on Tuesday with a look at John Cage’s four minutes and thirty-three seconds, an avant-garde composition that consists entirely of silence. While my tastes are too simple to appreciate the hidden meaning behind music that isn’t music, it sparked an interesting discussion about noticing. The fact that I don’t regularly notice the forty pieces of media I listed after my trip to Fed Square serves to demonstrate just how media-saturated our world has become. Is this a bad thing? I think that’s a post for another day. Suffice to say for now, I’ve got renewed confidence in the relevance of my degree.