Post 10: Review Post

Shit. I almost forgot about this.

This paper has definitely been one of the most interesting papers I've taken during my four years at University. When you tell people you're a media studies student, they generally expect you to just watch films and shit, but this paper threw that cliche out the window and instead made me think of media as more than things you watch or listen to on some sort of media playing device. The fact that these media playing devices generally play video and audio just shows how the term "media" is generally seen as referring predominantly to audiovisual media. These days I pretty much see everything as some form of media after taking this course. Doing Andre Nusselder's book for my book review helped that out a lot. While before I generally stuck to the audio-visual connotations of media, now media includes various things such as language, the screen, interfaces etc. It's also revealed to me the extent that everything is mediated.

Furthermore, I've quite enjoyed some of the interesting philosophical issues that have been discussed throughout the year. That techno-dystopia/utopia one led to some interesting discussion (I still think Robo-Craig may be a distinct possibility in the future) as well as the debate about surveillance that just happened to coincide with Moment of Truth at the town hall. I've even brought up many of these topics with some of my other friends. I've also enjoyed rambling on these blogs rather than doing some formal response, as I can communicate my ideas in a more colloquial way.

I can't really think of any changes that could be made to the course (other than maybe move to a less obsolete classroom), as I think the workload was fair. In fact I didn't really need that extension for the book review, as it was cancelled out by the fact that I went out of town for a few days and all it really did was give me more procrastination time.

Post 9: Ubiquitous Media in the City

I probably seem like a technophobe the way I've written about technology on this blog (though I'm not), but regarding media in the city, a couple things come to mind. The first is that freaky as fuck Geisha from Blade Runner.

At least for the present, electronic screens in the City tend to be little more than animated billboards. They're kinda boring to be honest, and the fact that these screens seem to only be used for commercial interests shows an unfair advantage with them, as only rich people and companies can afford to use them to disseminate ideas. The last time I saw a public screen in town that wasn't just a glorified billboard was when the Rugby World Cup was on, and they set up screens on the Viaduct. 

The second thing that came to mind was surveillance (and yes, I know that topic was two weeks ago) 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10567293/Sophisticated-surveillance-coming-to-Auckland

That article discusses Auckland's plans to implement facial recognition cameras around Auckland. While the justification of cutting down crime sounds legit, going back to the whole idea of panoptic surveillance, I'd feel uncomfortable knowing I'm being watched wherever I go. Like is Auckland City really that crime-ridden? I'm already paranoid enough that my Smartphone can let people know where I am if I use the GPS, so knowing that someone can be watching what I do and know who I am while I'm doing it just drives that up even more.

So basically what I'm trying to say is, while media's growing ubiquity around the city may sound like something pretty cool, especially if we get something like a public TV or whatever, one should have a look at what this ubiquitous media's being used for, which at the moment seems to favour those in control, either those with money (such as the corporations who use those animated billboards), or the government (regarding surveillance). If there was some way to democratise these ubiquitous media developments, maybe I'd be a bit less pessimistic. But right now, we have all this awesome shit that clearly plays favourites.