What is Media?

This week’s lectorial was quite philosophical in nature and was oriented around the question: what is ‘media’? The reading relating to this, William Merrin’s article ’Studying Me-dia: the Problem of Method in a Post-Broadcast Age’, has a specific argument about rethinking ‘media’ as objects. Whereas the lecture argued that media is not so much “things” as places and environments which most of us inhabit. The lectorial’s argument holds that constant messages seem to flow around us and immerse themselves into most of our waking lives. The tension between these two arguments comes from their idea of what ‘media’ exactly is. In particular it is interesting to explore Mirrin’s argument. Mirrin states that media is both synchronous and asynchronous. It is synchronous in that multiple ongoing messages and productions with many contributions are happening simultaneously, however it is asynchronous as replies to these messages are delayed in discovery and response.

The study of media has always been overwhelmed by the amount of content, even in the broadcast era, but as Mirrin points out, “the post-broadcast output eclipses it.” The problem with this is that we are constantly behind trend and missing things and cannot fully reflect the varieties of media activities. Mirren raises the question of how exactly we are supposed to study this mass produced media and epitomises this struggle with the following analogy: “The media researcher’s year-long project looking in detail at one carefully-isolated aspect of the media world is increasingly like studying a cup of water to understand the sea.”

This reading and lecture has brought me to the realisation about my course that it is ever changing, expanding and updating. I believe they exposed us to the above concepts so we can acknowledge that as media practitioners, we need to be adaptable and flexible to the ever expanding world of media-whether this be an environment in which we are embedded or particular artefacts like films and radio etc. We live in a world of fast turn over and need to be constantly renewing our knowledge to ensure that we keep up and don’t become irrelevant.

This week’s in-class activity was more relating to the theory of media as an environment. We were asked to set out and acknowledge and record the world of media around us (otherwise known as intentional noticing).

Here are some of my observations from the exercise:
-Swimwear Advertisment
-Work phone call
-Text message
-‘Snap Chat’
-Street graffiti
-Wall art
-Movie advertisement
-Concert poster