Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Medium-Media-Me

A medium is a tool that connects people together. I think that this definition can apply well to anything that can be defined as a medium.

A medium can and will be replaced by something that can connect people more quickly or more reliably.

The only instance of a medium going backwards is text messaging through cell phones. It seems that that is a bit of a reversal of technology, when you can call someone and have a direct conversation versus having a conversation that you must wait for the text for does not seem like a logical leap, but it is wildly popular.

I think Postman believes with every step that the medium goes forward through is degrading our society one step further. Almost everything has two sides though on which you can see the positive and negative possibilities. There are many many possible ways to communicate and connect with people now and that ultimately has to be much better for all of us as a whole. I remember waiting for my mom in high school to pick me up after I would call her collect and do that "we-had-a-baby-its-a-boy" thing during the state your name "i'm-out-of-school-come-get-me" etc... and now that's not something anyone would think of as a solution... it's fun.

5 comments:

  1. first: it's funny how commercials can stick in your head years after they've stopped airing (sometimes i find myself singing the 'woohoo hoo hoo hoo' theme from those vonage ads in 2005. it was annoyingly catchy even back then)

    and second: i like that you mention technology moving backwards through the text message. it definitely does seem anachronistic considering that the telephone in my pocket allows me to talk to family on a different continent - without wires! (not cheap, but talk about cutting edge). but i also think you could say that texting cell phone to cell phone is a new media all together. like your picture above implies, the shorthand of text messages rarely looks anything the words they represent. text has changed radically from the days of the first printing press. maybe gutenberg's bible would have included more "OMG"'s if it hadn't.

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  2. Technology going backwards is an interesting thought.
    Would you differentiate between IMing, texting, and twittering? Or are they all really the same thing, with slight variations, hence the different names these services go by?
    I have to admit, it is convenient to be able to communicate via texting, such as when I want to speak with someone but can't because I'm in a meeting or similar situation. So, even though I do have the ability to speak to the other person and hear their voice over my cell phone, based on the situation I'm in, I can't, so I choose to hear from them electronically. Though when possible, I will call the other person; I do like to hear people's voices and have a good conversation with them.
    Technology just makes things more confusing, doesn't it?

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  3. haha i loved that have a baby its a boy thing. man i hated scam calling collect in middle school.

    the more we talked about it, i really am coming to the assumption that postman was just a really grumpy old man.

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  4. Something to which I attempted to allude in my own blog post that I think gets at the heart of both Postman and McLuhan is the question of how a medium like test messaging changes how we communicate. Rather than considering the factors of time and reliability, what other features does text messaging afford? To extend conversations over a period of time; a remove which allows us to more easily ignore certain requests or inquiries made using this certainly less direct form of communication; the ability to edit our conversation, a feature previously only available in less instantaneous (letter-writing) or limited (IM, email) environments. I know I take advantage of these merits. Do you?

    To return to our discussion regarding the definition of a medium, I agree with Jessie that medium does create some type of connection through its ability to communicate. I think the next step is to consider in which direction the specific medium affords communication and then consider the type of connection enabled: is it one-way? Two-way? As a portal as we discussed blogs or social networks? Is it "n-to-?" Is there a feedback mechanism? Initially, "connection" gave me a warm fuzzy... until I started down the road.

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  5. Indeed, how do media change our communication?! How are these comments different from our discussion on the very same topic in class?

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