Week 5 - Reality- actual, potential and virtual

The nature of mixed realities arises from the relationship that we as individuals and collectives have between our experiences and reality. Through this, media that is used to extend memories while also preserving them through archives highlights the 'medium' role that media technologies have in being in the middle of everything people do. The use of these technologies and their affects to reality refer to individuals as technical animals (Murphie 2011: 29 Mar) through the exploitation and intervening nature of these technologies in restructuring the reality of our lives by prolonging them through the use of the virtual.

A significant emphasis is placed on the idea of the network as an inescapable social event and as a concept - calls for a substantial reworking of the concept of ecology (Murphie 2004: 88) Here, the mixing of ecologies is evident as a process of restructuring networks that through all our interconnectedness assist in constructing a new reality through media technologies. Think particularly about online multi player role playing games such as World of Warcraft that create a virtual environment for individuals by transforming the nature of reality as a device that connects players worldwide that frames their experience through an online platform of connection. Media technologies intervene in our realities but getting in the middle of how we choose to connect with things in the world. Similarly this is evident in the mobile phone that interjects and makes us a part of different networks while transforming our experience.

The way in which an individual or collective constructs different realities is made possible through the use of media technologies. These technologies; through their different functions, produce possibilities for realities to take place that affect habit, perception and memory through their intervening nature. They offer a variety of different sensations to how peoples experiences can be affected by the use of these technologies that through media bring together our different realities and how they can be transformed from our perceptions over time.

References

Murphie, A. (2011) Advanced Media Issues Lecture. 28 March.

Murphie, A. (2004) 'The World's Clock: The Network Society and Experimental ecologies', Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 11, Spring

Week 4 - Global Mnemotechnics: Globalising Memory, Thinking and Action

Memory is an external part of our bodies, it is outside of us and so are the technologies used to store them. In order to sustain and protect our own memories, we use technologies to store and archive our personal experiences so they can be easily accessed and never forgotten. Although does increased dependence on these technologies actually make the individual lose more knowledge than we put into the equipment? What is certain is that as individuals and as collectives we all have a certain sphere, environment also know as umwelts, where we inhabit memories and habits that are an extension of us and our extended mind (Murphie 2011: 21 Mar) Although coming from different backgrounds and perceptions of the world, our umwelts can cross through shared experiences and create a commonality between one person and another.

Memory and the media have a special relationship that fuses experiences and cognitive technologies to influence events as they shift through time (Stiegler 2006) These technologies allow us to access stored memories as well as maintain them through time, preserving them for the future. From the past, in which we draw to propel us from the present into the future and our engagements with the world allows the individual to influence their future experiences (Murphie 2011: 21 Mar) From this, memory acts as not only a link from past > present > to future, but reinforces the ambiguous nature of human memory and how media can preserve this for each individual.

Most importantly, we place particular significance on hypomnesis (the extended memory which is technical) and anamnesis (the recalling of natural memory) The former is used to help deficiencies in human memory where media and technologies are used to extend it. Despite this, Stiegler places importance on mnemotechnologies as a cognitive technology serving memory (Murphie 2011: 21 Mar) It is the self conscious remixing and synthesising of our technologies to generate different results. Although there are some arguments that state more knowledge is being lost due to the use of cognitive technologies on human memory, there is no denying that media technologies transform memory and experience for every individual.

References

Murphie, A. (2011) Advanced Media Issues Lecture. 21 March.

Stiegler, B. (2006). Anamnesis and Hypomnesis. Available: http://arsindustrialis.org/anamnesis-and-hypomnesis. Last accessed 21st Mar 2011.

Week 3 - Media Ecologies, Social Ecologies, Other Ecologies

A significant part of contemporary cultural life is how interlinked and overlapped things are with each other. But exactly how do these processes and events come together, especially in regards to media? Through time and technological change such as the industrialisation of the world beginning in the 1800's, processes have been combined together to not only create a better and more efficient way of living but also to signify that huge ideas in the shift of the world through time can impact greatly on social and cultural changes. A good example of this is the introduction of the camera in the late 1800's and how it evolved and changed the way people not only were photographed but also how it was used to further the development of these new technologies. It allowed people to interact with them and familliarise themselves as opposed to being scared of new technological flows of development.

It is also crucial to realise that almost always the introduction of one technology becomes the stepping stone for an improvement of it in the future and also the mixing of media ecologies, all of which are combined to improve our ways of life. Photographer Etienne Jules Marley used film, a camera and a film projector to catch unstable movement in photos, and highlights the overlapping of media forms due to the proliferation of media through space and time (Murphie 2011: 14 Mar) They are all part of media ecologies, and how they affect media change in cultural contexts , highlighting the evolution of these processes and practices. Also how the overlapping of ecologies constructs a new influential technologies.

In some respect, it seems as though media ecologies possess some characteristics of being technologically deterministic in that their introduction in society causes so much change that it affects and changes routine for society, people and culture. These affects are traced back thousands of years, to ancient Egypt where hieroglyphics were used to reinforce memory and became a benchmark for the evolution into the Phoenician alphabet in conveying monotheistic ideas as a part of the information revolution (Levinsen 1997: 3) This media ecology highlighted the power of memory and the conveyance of ideas to affect literary change and show how media communications are connected to highlight the importance of technological change and convergeancy and how through time causes significant changes to society.

References

Levinson, Paul (1997). 'The First Digital Medium' in Soft Edge ; a natural history and future of the information revolution. London: Routledge. 3-5.

Murphie, A. (2011) Advanced Media Issues Lecture. 14 March

Week 2 - Foundations, Thinkers, Ideas

The effects of media on cultural and social change were a main focus in the topics for this week and how they have since developed. It gave an insight into the nature of change and how everything is constantly changing, particularly the way that we communicate and share things through media.

Media itself was referred to as anything in the middle of anything else (Murphie 2011: 7 Mar) and how the medium is at the centre of culture and technology, influencing society and how order changes due to technological innovation. This idea was particularly important with the introduction of technological determinism, an agent of social change whereby a successful technological innovation creates a new type of society (Murphie 2003: 12) This is an interesting point that shows how influential technologies are in restructuring society and culture deeming them helpless to technological change, or is it the society's decision to incorporate or abandon this new technology. Although it is evident that both technologies and society both influence each other, ultimately they alter our patterns of perception and contribute to the global village (Murphie 2003: 14) they both hold a strong power in the advancing of new technologies that are made to suit the needs of society, as technology is thought to be a technique which has anything to do with our bodies becoming an embodied form of media (Murphie, 2011: 7 Mar)

Despite the strong connection that media, society and culture and technology have in influencing each other, it is difficult to define which aspect holds more power over the other. It is evident that the introduction of technologies is masterminded by society to suit or solve certain needs or problems, they might not always be accepted, and other technological changes might flourish more than others. Although technology can be altered and suited to meet the needs of different societies and socially shaping itself to mould to different societies and cultures, there is no denying that it holds considerable significance within a collective and an individual.

References

Murphie, A. (2011) Advanced Media Issues Lecture. 7 March

Murphie, A. Potts, J. (2003). Theoretical Frameworks in Culture and Technology. London: Palgrave Macmillan. p12,14.

Week 1 - What is a Media Event?

This week marked the beginning of the course and an introduction into what we would be consuming ourself with over the next twelve weeks.

Firstly a large focus was put on 'media events' and their significance within this course but also about their nature. A media event's main characteristics revolve around change; that is sudden and and quite obvious which happens accidentally and spontaneously, and how the media always has to adapt to this change throughout time. Events differ and aren't viewed as static objects, they are ever changing and discussed about as being never ending forms that are part of a larger complex web within society.

As well as change, a media event also affects a change in media usage and cultural change. It would alter the way that media coverage attracts mass media organisations, particularly the element of immediacy when dealing with spontaneity; the "breaking news story" exemplifies this as a crucial event within the viewers lives on television and even disrupting normal segments with live news that alters the way information is shared with the public.

A significant portion of media events fall into the category of weird global media events. This is defined as the singular eruptions that delve into regular media events, which are sudden and come without any warning. The most obvious example of this would be September 11, and the news coverage that broke through routined segmenting but also kept replaying the plane hitting through the Twin Towers because people in the media were unable to share any detailed news with society; instead it caused confusion since the news broke out of our conventional events within society. It became something in everyday life and through these weird global media events, they highlight the importance they have on the media, cultural and social effects due to these events being inflicted upon society.

While media is rapidly changing as the years go by, it has a large impact on how news in distributed to society and affects the nature of reality at how we as individuals and within a greater society relate to data and information and how this is represented to us through the ever changing media systems. These changes affect the present and future of established industries while highlighting the imperative nature of media and communications within a greater society.