David Gauntlett’s blog on the change of how media is created and learned and how we can adapt and change the way we think about media as an academic study or a method of relaying information.
It got me thinking, it prompted me to think back to a conversation I had with my uncle this past week. In the conversation we talked about how we feel media has moved to a new age, this meaning that not even a decade ago, we used to only look at media at home through our computers and TVs. The only ‘mobile’ media source we had were books or newspapers but they weren’t really how they are today which is ‘On the fly’. Today we are able to experience media through our phones, tablets or laptops. All these things available through a 3G, 4G or wireless network, which has picked up its effectiveness over the most recent years. We read and watch things more on the fly more than we ever have. Now we can watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead on our phones on the train on the way to school or work. We are also able to stream sports such as Football, Rugby or NBA live through our phones, there was a time where this wasn’t common practice. It is in a change of our thinking, we are able to keep in touch with each other through social media anywhere we go, well anywhere that has an internet connection, now we can watch the latest YouTube videos on our phones when we’re travelling. I remember a time where the only place we got to watch YouTube was actually sitting down at a computer or laptop and actually going on the site.
So what does this mean and how does it relate to us as Media students? Well everything we make now must be accessible via mobile devices in terms of media. If we create a video, it better be available to view on YouTube. If we’re streaming it better be available to watch on a phone or tablet app.
And how is it going to be taught? Gauntlett touched on this with his blog posts about his book ‘Making media studies’ saying that media has evolved to what it is now from its roots as a very small, bare-bones profession. Now jobs and institutions exist that wouldn’t have a few decades ago or at least would be very rare. We have to change the way we think about media, we have to make it ‘both a subject, and a method’. To create new media we have to be creative in the way we go about making new media, we can’t rehash ideas that have been used over and over again. We have to adapt to this growing profession. Not only we have to be creative but we have to know our audiences’.
I’ll use E-Sports as an example. Over the past half of a decade E-Sports has grown exponentially with games such as Dota 2 and League of Legends having people compete for prizes of millions of dollars. The style that was introduced when E-Sports was first introduced some years ago was very laid back and edgy. There were jokes in the broadcast that wouldn’t get past censorship screens on TV, but that was what audience liked. The audience being fans of the video games: Gamers. Understandably the E-Sports scene had players competing for millions of dollars and the organisers felt it was proper to be more professional, so they had the hosting panels wear suits and conduct interviews very much like they do in sports and the community did not like this.
As to quote Pyrion Flax (a Dota 2 personality) in an interview (I’ll post the link after this) ‘We got here by not being like that (professional Sports) we got here by being different’
Ultimately, we should change the way we think about media and how we are to be more creative in producing more media as it is evolving and I think Pyrion Flax put it beautifully ‘we got here by being different’.
