Media Life is a course intended for undergraduate students across campus. Its goal is to make people aware of the role that media play in their everyday life. The key to understanding a "media life" is to see our lives not as lived WITH media (which would lead to a focus on media effects and media-centric theories of society), but rather IN media (where the distinction between what we do with and without media dissolves).
1. media as artifacts “ media are infrastructures with three components: the artifacts or devices used used to communicate or convey information, the activities and practices in which people engage to communicate or share information, and the social arrangements or organizational forms that develop around those devices and practices.”
Biggest moments in media history: 1950s REMOTE CONTROL; 1960s VCR (1990s: DVR); 1970s JOYSTICK & COMPUTER MOUSE; 1980s MOBILE PHONE: all put the user increasingly in the driver’s seat
He can think his TV on and off, change channels and alter the volume thanks to the technology and software linked to devices in his home. “ Eventually we will have built for him the equivalent of a game controller, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDiWFcA0gaw
How come bigger and smiller together? For example: in the living room (vgl No Sense of Place) This is how fragmented media blur boundaries between all domains of life (work, play, love etc)
EMPTY THEATERS AND EMPTY OFFICES: EMPTY INSTITUTIONS
EMPTY THEATERS AND EMPTY OFFICES: EMPTY INSTITUTIONS
EMPTY THEATERS AND EMPTY OFFICES: EMPTY INSTITUTIONS
Instead of institutions. We will look at individuals. At YOU. If (the properties) of media artifacts act as the interface between humans and the world, what can we say about contemporary media artifacts that are: Converged Interactive Personalized Screen-based Wireless Networked? Well, that we understand the world by SEEING it, that we have an INDIVIDUALIZED worldview, and that we want to (SELF-) EXPRESS that perspective; EGOCASTING