Week 5: Connecting/Narrating/Branding Me
As Bec Newman quotes in her blog, “our life is lived in, rather than with, media”.
Unfortunately however, not quite like TRON (Steven Lisberger, 1982).
In recent years, communication via various forms of media has increased considerably - particularly the massive amounts of time spent using them. In doing so, users are carefully (or sometimes not so carefully) creating and affecting their online identity or personal brand. Simply interacting with others on platforms such as Facebook is contributing to an ever-growing record of information being stored all over the web, which for the most part is accessible by almost anyone.
Having personal information so readily available to the public domain tends to blur the line between our online persona and one’s ‘true self’. This merging of our online communication and our personal lives has resulted in such a great effect that media is shaping our everyday interactions, not unlike Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (Deuze, 2011).
Interestingly, this relationship between media and the influence on personal interaction seems to be of little concern to many members of the online population - as Deuze states: “we become blind to what shapes our lives the most” (2011).
References:
Bell, G. (2006). “The Age of the Thumb: a Cultural Reading of Mobile Technologies from Asia”, Volume 19, No. 2, pp. 41-57.
Deuze, M. (2011). “Media Life. In Media, Culture & Society”, Volume 33, Issue 1, pp. 137-148.
Niccol, A. 1998. The Truman Show. Directed by Peter Weir. Produced by Scott Rudin, Andrew Niccol, Adam Schroeder. California: Paramount Pictures. DVD.
Lisberger, S. 1982. TRON. Directed by Steven Lisberger. Produced by Donald Kushner. California: Walt Disney Pictures. Blu-ray.
Tags:
Chosen Blog, New Media, Connecting, Narrating, Branding
