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).

2. ultimate remix media: culture jamming

4. media today: where are we now?

7. some observations on media today: urban, conversational, cacophony, branded content and experience

10. media dilemma: provide content or build relationships?

11. media today: how did we get here?

12. baby steps: the remote control (1950s)

16. the big leap: videorecording (1960s)

20. a long time coming: the joystick (1970s)

26. the computer mouse (1970s)

29. and… the mobile phone (1980s)

33. 1967: Cordless telephones enter the phone system. 1968: First digital wireless network, Linkabit , created in San Diego. 1970: FM stations target population segments, introducing "narrowcasting". 1971: Cellphone is invented. 1972: Polaroid camera can focus by itself. 1976: Sony's Betamax and JVC's VHS battle for home market. Sony will lose. 1978: Space Invaders , the first video game to reach mainstream public. 1979: News groups arrive on the Internet 1979: Sony Walkman tape player starts a fad. 1981: The laptop computer is introduced by Tandy. 1982: Pac-Man attracts girls as well as boys to home video games. 1983: Audio music cassettes outsell LP records. 1984: Portable compact disc player arrives. 1986: Japanese introduce Game Boy , with 8-bit operating system. 1988: Jarkko Oikarinen writes Internet Relay Chat software program. 1989: Vacationers can buy single use, throwaway cameras. 1991: 3 out of 4 U.S. homes own VCRs 1992: Text-based browser opens World Wide Web for general usage. 1993: Nokia sends text messages between mobile phones. 1996: The shooter game Quake allows users to create their own levels. 1997: The first weblogs, or ‘blogs’ 1997: From Kodak, the first point-and-shoot digital camera.

34. 1998: Music industry up in arms as fans download MP3 sound files for free. 1998: Sony's Everquest multiplayer online game attracts thousands worldwide. 1998: Net users are judges of a TV sports event: world champion ice skating. 1999: Also at the movies: The Matrix 2000: 3G (3rd generation) licenses sold for wireless internet. 2001: Personal headsets display movies, video games, spreadsheets. 2001: The iPod music player 2001: Start of Wikipedia , a free collaborative encyclopedia 2002: Cheap, hand-held computers are a big sales item. 2004: Survey: U.S. women spend more online game time than men, teens. 2005: Valve Software (makers of Half-Life ) starts Valve Developer Community 2006: Microsoft introduces XNA Game Studio Express : players create games 2006: Nintendo game controller responds to hand, body movements 2006: Study reports growing loneliness of Americans 2006: In a year and a half, YouTube posts 100 million videos; adds 70,000 daily 2006: DirecTV experiment lets viewers choose baseball game camera angles 2007: iPhone surfs Web, emails, makes phone calls, takes pictures, A/V player 2007: Cell phone can now tune into television programs 2007: More than six million “residents” of Second Life 2008: Young Japanese women (mostly) write texting novels on cellphones 2008: Apple presents MacBook Air (0.16-0.76 inches thick) 2008: more than ten million subscribers to World of Warcraft 2009: introduction internet-enabled televisions 2009: cellphone carriers warn for “digital traffic jam” during Obama inauguration

36. future media devices and what we may do with them…