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Life in MediaChapter 1
Media life
We do not live with media but in media. Media are everywhere and cannot be switched off.
3 essential qualities of people’s experience in and with media:
1. Media disappear – the way people use and think of media tends to be highly
intuitive, ritualistic, and blissfully unaware of the innerworkings of media.
2. Media are what people do – everything people do in their life either directly or
indirectly involves media of some kind, subtly structuring and stimulating what we
observe, feel, process, and perform.
3. People love media – our primary relation with media is both intimate and emotional,
as people take their media intensely personally, having a range of strong emotions
about media (ranging from passion and excitement to frustration and fear).
Elements of media studies (extensions of above):
Living in media, even our most intimate feelings and experiences somehow involve
media;
Media structure our lives in ways that have become rather invisible, their influence
difficult to disentangle;
“the” media includes a variety of industries, including media firms, technology
companies, and telecommunications companies, all working together as well as
competing for our time and engagement;
Using media tends to include some kind of production of media (from sharing
personal data each time we log on to composing and sharing countless posts,
memes, blogs and vlogs online);
In media, participating in private also makes your life public to some extent;
To be certain about what is genuine, authentic, true, or real in media can be
complicated and frustrating;
, We can appreciate how we clearly love media, considering how we use media not
just for fun, information, education, and work but for anything in life, including to
channel our deepest infatuations, passions, and desires; and
All this sometimes makes us feel a bit uncomfortable, and we even may want to do
something about it – without necessarily throwing out our devices or logging off
indefinitely
Life in a Day
Eight Key Insights Informing Media Studies for a Life in Media
1. Media are pervasive and ubiquitous.
o Pervasive - we cannot simply switch media off.
o Everything is mediated: all our experiences, relationships, and ways of making
sense of the world around us involve and are shaped and influenced by media.
o Living in media entails considering media in all their omnipresence – to see media
as an environment rather than a series of discrete technologies.
o Life in media means looking at media as ubiquitous – where not being exposed
to or not using some form of media has become quite rare, and most of our
media use involves multiple media simultaneously.
o Both Life in a Day films remind us of the ubiquity of media, especially when
showing scenes in places far away from the hustle and bustle of cities around the
world.
o Life in media is inattentive rather than focused.
o In media you are (not) special - a life in media contributes to making us feel more
remarkable and unique while simultaneously contributing to a more superficial,
more-of-the-same kind of universal experience.
2. Media have long histories that are complicated.
o We have always lived in media, and it is not our media that are new but rather
their intimacy, pervasiveness, and ubiquity, as exemplified throughout these two
films and the lives of the people featured in it.
, o Technologies and devices have components and functionalities that came from
and were inspired by older media.
o New media practices tend to follow old media habits.
o Sampling of songs, stories, films, or games from previous media.
o Intertextual referencing – different media texts refer to each other at different
levels and across genres.
o The intertextual relationship between artists, advertisers, and audiences makes
everyone a participant in the remix culture of our digital environment.
o Other examples of the remix culture that is particular to media are mash-ups and
parodies in film and video production and all the countless gifs and memes
circulating online.
o Life in a Day was originally inspired by the work of the English television and film
director Humphrey Jennings
3. Media raise all kinds of ethical issues.
o Digital inequality around the world - someone who does not have access to
certain technologies is less likely to develop advanced skills and experiences;
a person who does not engage in a particular way online is also less likely to
engage in other ways, all which results in a less than ideal media experience.
4. Media are a source of profound pleasure and fun.
o Media primarily are a source of pleasure, joy, and fun.
o Life in a Day affects us emotionally; can make us forget what we’re doing with
media, making us vulnerable to commercial exploitation.
5. People seem to be increasingly comfortable with media.
o Use of media has become second nature.
o Success of the worldwide crowdsourcing approach shows the ease with
which people show themselves in media.
o Mass self-communication in the 21st century has become the primary way
people use media;
, o Which in part explains the huge success of the crowdsourcing approach in Life
in a Day.
o All around the world, social networks and online communities are the most
visited and most used places online.
6. People seem to be relatively confident about their media.
o People are becoming more media literate and thus more comfortable in using
their devices not just as users but also as makers of media – as seen in Life in
a Day.
o Basic personal media devices can quite efficiently record, store, and share our
experiences to the extent that these can be featured in a professional motion
picture.
o Non-profit organizations offer free-to-use smartphone applications with the
purpose to enable and educate all people to produce their own multimedia
stories.
7. People seem to accept surveillance as familiar and ordinary.
o Inference we can make about the two editions of Life in a Day – how common
surveillance is in modern society.
o During the pandemic, the Life in a Day project was able to collect detailed
digital recordings of people’s private lives, willingly shared by the tens of
thousands of participants around the world – omnopotic surveillance.
o In a life in media everyone is (or can be) monitoring everyone else – using
readily and widespread available technologies such as smartphones and
mobile internet.
o The two films showcase the everydayness of massive mutual monitoring via
media, making us aware of our own participation in global systems of
surveillance.
8. People seem to have little concern about doing the work for media.
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