Media Blog | Category | Media In Everyday Life

The Media Front – Lectorial 2

Date March 12, 2015

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One hour down in our media lectorial (it’s a word) and we are sent forth from the depths of our dimlit den to prey upon the world. Like Mr. Burns releasing the hounds our teaching staff decided to unleash roughly a hundred admitted clue-less students into the unprepared media ridden world. To lighten the blow we were separated into groups, in an attempt to cover as much area as possible. Our battalion (group 2) was assigned the Queen Victoria Building with the objectives of gaining entry and taking note of every source of media they were armed with.

Without a moment to lose we shuffled out from behind our desks, checked once, twice, three times that we were the right group and staggered out of the RMIT building not sure who was leading the way and who we were waiting for. We took a sharp turn south, narrowly avoiding Colonel Sanders’ signboard and brushing away progressive propaganda posters with hand singles reminiscent of the original Karate Kid. This job was going to be much harder than we thought with socialists and self-promoting sou chefs outflanking us.

Our every move caught on video from the overhead security cameras we stumbled over graffiti and discarded food packaging barely catching a glimpse of the happy green man before he transformed into a flashing red symbol of rejection. The few behind us weren’t so lucky, including the suited man chatting with his handsfree and the schoolgirl identifiable by her blazer emblem. This media was everywhere and it showed no sign of slowing down, from the digitalised welcome sign at Melbourne Central to the relentless advertising on the skating rhinoceros.

It was becoming claustrophobic, printed media everywhere telling me not to smoke, not to litter, not to put my feet up and to keep a keen eye for cyclists in the area. Luckily I was able to find salvation in the street-art of one man, knelt down, brushing the grey pavement with a coloured bundle of horse-hair. Spirits were once again high as we arrived at our destination, stopping to discuss the journey we found we could already have enough inside information to fill one double-sided page of A4 paper divided under subheadings such as “up high” and “in your hand” – perfect because that’s just the inventory we had.

Inside QVB the media were waiting to ambush us, they’d conscripted an army comprised of all mediums. The air-cover was provided by banners and billboards bombarding us with logos and images of attractive youths in clothing. From the left came a wave of interchangeable motorised screens, juice-bar menus that rolled to the frontline special after special after terms and conditions after specials. At the same time bringing up the rear were radio waves of top 40 hits, catchy jingles and news updates.

In order to get through this we attempted to fit in. Tyler took out his camera to “snap some pics” of complimentary magazines, Matt recorded some customer interaction and I attempted a panorama of the media lined arcade but captured a few blurry and disembodied passers by in the process. It was amazing the amount of media we had access to in both public and private domains. This is modern life, a society littered by strategically placed screens and interactive software at your fingertips.

It was a successful mission from which we’ll take away a keen eye for noticing media in everyday life. There is quite a contrast between media in Melbourne and media in my hometown Wagga Wagga. Rural society can still be defined as modern media life with access to books, newspapers and maps but is lacking in comparison multiple streams of stimulus in such a concentrated area, and the QVB is only one of few. I’ll have to remember when visiting back home to set my watch, my phone and my laptop back twenty years.

60 Seconds Late – Connection 2

Date March 11, 2015

Posted by jarrodmcdonald

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Imagine this…

You walk into a packed theatre only moments late. Traffic on the bridge and a lack of parking. As you shuffle through the rows of red chairs exchanging nodding apologies you hear something. Rather, you hear nothing. It’s oddly quiet. Not silent but there’s no hyped audience chatter, no band preparation and there certainly isn’t the parading avant garde ruckus you expected.

Reaching your seat you offer an awkward smile to the young bespectacled chap beside you. He offers the same smile back. Uncomfortably you shuffle into your chair and lower your body not to draw further embarrassment. Peering over the balcony you see the full orchestra lead by a solo pianist. They just sit there. Staring. Smiling. Shuffling. Stretching. Don’t they know the curtain is up? Why is the audience so still?

You start to hear your own breathing as it escalates. The young man beside you scratches his head and it echoes strangely through the quiet theatre. Everything in the space stands still. Slowly you become aware of your near surroundings. The soft wisp of the vent overhead. The hum of the street outside. The smell of competing perfumes rise and fall eventually becoming overwhelming as a collective. You reach for your nose and an elderly man three rows back coughs.

Heads turn one by one, unnerved, intrigued or blank to find the source of the impeding sound that cut the tension. It’s been well over a minute now. Car-horns and screeching tyres that were once so distant now seem to rock the room. The few children in the audience are growing uncomfortable, nagging their parents who quickly shhh them and return their blank stare to the stage. The solo pianist unmoved, his orchestra patiently attentive, in waiting. Is there something wrong?

As you look around your stomach makes an involuntary groan, thankfully it is drowned out by somebody’s unfortunately timed flatulence. This time no-one turns. All eyes are on the stage, but bodies are moving. A few tap their feet to the rhythm of nothing in particular. Some whisper to their other halves. One lady near you even pulls out a mirror and begins to adjust her make-up. A short grey-haired lady in the front stands and turns to exit.

Suddenly with one swift, smooth motion the pianist stands turns to face the audience and stoops into a low bow. Instantly drawn to the onstage movement the audience returns to the ample quiet when you first arrived. Awkward disjointed claps call and respond from around the theatre. The pianist with a flick of his hand in appreciation returns to his seat and counts in the next piece.

You arrived 60 seconds late to a rendition of 4’33” by John Cage.

A piece written with intention to show that there truly is no such thing as silence, Cage instructs the performer, of any instrument or group of instruments, to not play for the duration of the score. Cage’s three movement piece has been at the centre of controversy since it’s conception in 1952. People have continuously questioned if it can be defined as music, offering conservatively that it should be categorised as conceptual art. It draws on the tension between performer and audience and while creating no sound of it’s own still brings to the audiences senses the six top paragraphs of visuals, sounds and even smells.

Listen to the piece below and take note of everyone you hear, see, smell and feel. Is what you’re seeing media? Anti-media? Think of your opinions of the piece.

Did You Miss Anything? A discussion of hyper and deep attention- Lectorial 1

Date March 5, 2015

Posted by jarrodmcdonald

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Rumour has it you didn’t make it to the Media Lectorial today. Maybe you got lost. Maybe you slept in. Maybe your cat died. Maybe you thought daylight savings started. Maybe you’re a dyslexic agnostic insomniac and you stayed up all night wondering if there really is a dog. Anyway, after asking the stupid question “did i miss anything?” Here is your stupid answer.

According to poet Tom Wayman you missed everything and nothing:

Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours.

Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human experience
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder.

A less sarcastic man would answer quite simply: “we wrote a list of ten things we wanted to achieve from this course and then discussed a paper by N. Katherine Hayles on Hyper and Deep Attention.” You may have no idea what hyper and/or deep attention is, more unfortunately some of you may not know what a paper is. Fortunately though I will discuss the meanings of hyper and deep attention below and include a link to the meaning of paper here courtesy of dictionary.com.

Firstly Hayles proposes that developments in programmed, interactive and mass media are begin to impact on how businesses in developed societies function and how the members of their society communicate, defining their social context. This change in it’s essence can be shown in her study of the correlations between deep attention, hyper attention and their uses for the individual and their community.

Hyper attention is seen as an ability to focus on multiple stimuli, or rather being able to quickly transition from one stimulus to another. It is associated with a desire for interaction and incentive, while also resulting in an intolerance for boredom. Inversely, deep attention steers focus towards one source of information and the ability to immerse oneself in that source, possibly still with multiple lines of thought but all focus on interpretation of one stimulus. Hence, it encourages an eye for detail, unconsciously removes distractions and can detriment multi-tasking.

The transition Hayles identifies as steering away from deep attention towards traits of hyper attention, particularly with the younger demographic. So what effect does this this have on Media?

It would seem that it changes the ways we produce media, we receive it and ultimately how we perceive it. A increased demand from audiences to be stimulated and provided with information in a shorter time frame impacts various sections of the media industry from advertising, to programming to how film and audio are edited. A perfect example of producers responses to this are “Vines” or seven second videos. It’s flexibility to impact through various formats, particularly social media and availability to be created and spread by anyone makes it a successful stimulus in a hyper attentive world.

Now here’s a video insert for no other reason than to stop you getting bored (if you made it this far).

As younger audiences develop this attitude studies have shown that more youths are simultaneously accessing multiple streams of information including hard media. In Hayles’ paper she shares data from the Kaiser Family Foundation that found 30% of children alternate doing homework while accessing external media. This increases the importance of media to constantly provide interesting stimuli, interaction or offer incentives.

As I write this I’m listening to my iPod – a playlist of Childish Gambino, Allday and Seth Sentry – and if a song becomes boring or slows my process on this blog I skip it, simple as that. However, if the song were to be interactive, say like a choose your own adventure and I could choose the verse, chorus or loop that came next I would indulge and involve more with the stimulus. Also if they were to offer incentives, say every time I finished a song to the end my fan rating would go up, while I wouldn’t necessarily be more indulged I would make a habit of seeing a song through to the end, a trait drawn from deep attention.

These weapons of mass production are noticed most in the entertainment and games industries. This desire for multiple streams and types of stimuli means that video games must alternate between and consist of high impact gameplay, stimulating interface and image, intricate and/or interactive storylines and also offer incentives for continued gameplay. Many designers and individual games have managed to adapt efficiently to this style and with success; Steve Johnsons’ research also as part of Hayles paper proposed that video games through their structure of escalating intensity, stimulus and reward encourages gamers to progress, relying on a similar chemical urge to that of gambling.

This understanding of hyper and deep attention will help with my processes of creating and particularly editing material as I’m aware of the relationship and perspective of audiences. As the scope of Hayles’ research incorporated many forms and mediums of media production and consumption it becomes relevant to a various aspects of the industry. However, this analysis is very specific to time, demographic and to a lesser extent place, an investigation of current methods of youth’s interaction with western media.

In conclusion the shift from deep to hyper attention has a correlation with development of media and indeed wider society. However, is this shift the cause for a change in in the media industry? Could it be the vice-versa, that new media, relying on multiple streams of simultaneous stimulus has brought this shift? Are the younger generation the cause, or simply just a cog in the wheel that happens to be spinning in the same direction? I don’t know, so if anyone has anything to suggest/add, please let me know.