I feel as if I need to email this to the people who ran my media class in high school, they could learn a little something something from these writings. In particular, Gauntlett’s citations from anthropologist Tim Ingold strikes me as essential:

→ “it’s about learning with media, rather than learning about media”

To put it simply, the subject of media was not run particularly well at my school, which could be attributed to a range of problems. Deemed school-wide as the bludge subject, classes were often packed with students looking for some free time (an excuse to play game on their laptops) or an easy workload (extensions were given out at a consistent rate). Teachers possessed a distinct lack of authority in the class (in year 10 we had our own fight room in the back (see embedded), and once centered a whole class around our own stand-up comedy show) and struggled to engage the class in all possible areas.

FIGHT SELFIE

A photo posted by Sam Harris (@samuelharris) on May 21, 2013 at 10:42pm PDT

I once got 90% for an assignment I didn’t submit. The end of year exam in year 11 had a crossword on the back for students who finished early, and at that, the crossword didn’t have even half the words in it that you had to find. I dropped the subject the following year. But I suppose in a way it wasn’t entirely the teachers’ fault. The content of the course was tedious, usually a single OneNote page distributed by an illiterate email, more often than not a fill-in-the-blanks surrounding media techniques (media techniques, alwaaaays media techniques), never a proper engagement with ‘media’ itself, and when it came to the practical application of anything learnt in the class the level of creativity from the majority of students (bludgers) was substandard (though when the few students actually did good, they did really good). The subject itself fought valiantly to stay relevant but in the end never attempted to change with the continually changing landscape, and ended up drowning in its own mess.

Gaunlett’s Introduction (first reading) comes to me as kind of vague (a problem that would likely be overcome by actually reading his book) but he seems to be saying a lot and doing not much, big concepts, little coherence. My lack of understanding in a way may also come from the fact that I still haven’t fully grasped the idea of what media is. So far to me it seems to be whatever people want it to be, lacking a sense of clarity in not so much a single definition, but a general sense of direction. There seems to be a lot of “think of media as this” or “don’t think of media as that” and I’m beginning to feel overwhelmed.

Here, his ideas about the “twin peaks” stand out as key info; one attending to the inspiration and optimism of everyday creativity (the constant sharing of images, thoughts, arguments on social media; a platform created to encourage us to express ourselves), while the other focuses on the troublesome and pessimistic nature of data exploitation and the idea of “computerised capitalism” (it’s not hard to see what he means by this, a quick google search on metadata in Australia will get you well on your way to understanding). But Gauntlett is less concerned with the idea of them competing against one another and more concentrated on their coexistence. To perfectly summarise, he attempts an analogy: “with the necessary skills, you can make some effective weapons out of wood, and maybe you even live in a society where the use of wooden weapons is enjoying a resurgence, and some people have been seriously injured; but these observations could not be used to prove that trees are a bad thing“.  The two peaks are situated side by side.

In the second reading, “What kinds of knowledge do we need now?”, Gauntlett attempts to lay down concrete theory by providing a series of steps surrounding the important kinds of knowledge in understanding media today:

“→ How things work (technical and economic knowledge)
→ How things feel and fit (emotional and embodied knowledge)
→ How to make a difference (creative and political knowledge)”

or put simply: know your limits → know your surroundings → allow yourself to be creative.

I guess what I’m trying to say is I wish my high school media course was anything like this course now, more interested in the current state of the media industry, focused on its evolution and the idea of learning with media rather than just about. A proper commitment to the material at hand. This is the first step to a more holistic knowledge.

(also funny to see how ashamed Gauntlett seemed to appear about having his computer asking him questions, as if he realised his mistake but thought it too late to change anything).