COMM2624 MEDIA 1 · •David Gauntlett, Making Media Studies: The Creativity Turn in Media and Communication Studies (2015) 17 GAUNTLETT’S TAKE ON MEDIA STUDIES - RELEVANCE FOR

M E D I A 1

C O M M 2 6 2 4

W E E K 2

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R E M I N D E R S

• getting access to Adobe Creative Cloud: need this and your laptop for this week’s workshops (student subscription approx $17 per month)

•Media 1 Tech Survey - pls complete if you haven’t already - link is from Workshop#1 post

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S T U D I O V I S I T S email/blog post coming tomorrow

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Brian Morris - WHAT IS ‘MEDIA’?

T O D A Y

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But before than … some ‘just in time’ discussion/clarification re PB1 and the Assessment in the Course

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W E E K 2

W E E K 4

W E E K 8

W E E K 1 3

Project Brief 1

Project Brief 2

Project Brief 3

Project Brief 4

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*Blogging Wks 2-4

*Blogging Wks 5-8

*Blogging Wks 9-12

(0%)

(30%)

(30%)

(40%)

BLOGS

*See Learning Blog

Brief

3 posts per wk

Must cover:

-Lectorial + Readings

-Workshop Activity

-Initiative

reflection-thinking more

than describing

Note: PBriefs and Blogs will be given equal weighting at each assessment point

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W H AT I S M E D I A ?

B R I A N M O R R I S

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First 5 things that you think of when I say ‘media is …’?

Make a QUICK list

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W AY S O F A P P R O A C H I N G /A N A LY S I N G / T H I N K I N G A B O U T M E D I A …

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Sender Medium Message Receiver

mass communications tradition: -assumes a fairly linear one directional flow -behavioural or effects model (influence of psychology/marketing)

-technology/institutions more important to study than reception and content of message

-content analysis was main extent of ‘textual’ interest

Moving away from this model of media and communication

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M E D I A ‘ T E X T S ’

• sites where meanings are generated through the manipulation of materials and codes

• do not simply ‘picture’ (i.e. window on the world) or ‘reflect’ a reality where meaning resides

• we can consider ‘texually mediated communication, action, and social relations’ as integral parts of all our social environments

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- D O R O T H Y S M I T H , T E X T S , FA C T S A N D F E M I N I N I T Y ( 1 9 9 0 )

We get passports, birth certificates, parking tickets; we fill in forms to apply for jobs, for insurance, for dental benefits; we are given grades, diplomas, degrees; we pay bills and taxes; we read and answer advertisements; we order from menus in restaurants, take a doctor’s prescription to the drugstore, write letters to newspapers; we watch television, go to the movies, and so on and so on. Our lives are, to a more extensive degree than we care to think, infused with a process of inscription, producing printed or written traces or working from them. The omnipresence of these documentary or textual processes is now being entered by the technology of computers.

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Debates about mediated vs unmediated communication

Modern society

Social world predominantly experienced through: -face to face interactions

-direct experience

predominantly through media/texts - maps, books, newspapers, photographs …

Pre-modern society

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Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections of the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (1991)

‘imagined communities’

Modern/mass media technologies (e.g. newspapers)

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– B R A N S T O N A N D S TA F F O R D 2 0 1 0 , T H E M E D I A S T U D E N T ’ S B O O K , 5 T H E D , N Y: R O U T L E D G E

“The media are not so much ‘things’ as places which most of us inhabit, which weave in and out of

our lives. Their constant messages and pleasures seem to flow around and through us, and they

immerse most of our waking lives”

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M E - D I A

• Shift from a broadcast to post-broadcast era/paradigm

• see, for example, William Merrin, 9 March 2010, ’Studying Me-dia: the Problem of Method in a Post-Broadcast Age’ from his blog Media Studies 2.0, Access at

http://mediastudies2point0.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/studying-me-dia-problem-of-method-in.html

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# W K 2 R E A D I N G

• David Gauntlett, Making Media Studies: The Creativity Turn in Media and Communication Studies (2015)

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G A U N T L E T T ’ S TA K E O N M E D I A S T U D I E S - R E L E VA N C E F O R U S ?

‘For me, media studies today consists of a diminished blob of the old themes, but with two new peaks of exciting and vital activity on either side. One is basically inspiring and optimistic, and is about people being empowered through everyday making and activity. The other is basically troubling and pessimistic, and is about data exploitation, surveillance and extreme new forms of computerised capitalism.’

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• D AV I D G A U N T L E T T ( 2 0 1 5 ) - T H I S W E E K ’ S R E A D I N G

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Similarly, we need to make things with media in order to think more thoroughly about the opportunities and risks associated

with certain materials, tools and services, both within themselves, and when out in the world

• D AV I D G A U N T L E T T ( 2 0 1 5 )

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Brian Morris, 2010, ‘Unwrapping Shibuya: Place, Media and Punctualisation, Space and Culture, 13 (3): 285-303.

E X A M P L E

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‘in this place and space, media inscribes urban bodies with meanings and subjects attempt to write themselves’

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M E D I A A U D I T G R O U P ‘ M E D I A N O T I C I N G ’ E X E R C I S E

-in a small group spend 45min-1hr listing & recording ALL the MEDIA you come across which may include …

… recorded sound, amplified sound, phone messages, each time you use Facebook or other apps, print publications, posters, screens and other images you encounter

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M E D I A A U D I T G R O U P ‘ M E D I A N O T I C I N G ’ E X E R C I S E

THEN -write a blog post that lists ALL the MEDIA you come across and include some selected samples of what your recorded.

-have 3 lines reflecting on the process of finding and noticing the presence of media in the sites you visited?

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