Media Life in a Hypercomplex Society

Singapore.
The final presenters in this session at ICA 2010 are Mark Deuze and Peter Blank, introducing the idea of media life - a way of living through the media; a point of view. Mark begins by showing images from weekly protests in Bil'in, a Palestinian town against the wall being built in Israel - in February this year, protesters dressed as the Na'vi from Avatar, for example, recently, they dressed as the Palestinian football team; and during protest marches, on their banners they carry photos of previous protest marches. (Avatar director Jim Cameron has become involved in a few other protest actions, in fact.)

In order for protest actions to be successful, then, campaigns need to orient themselves to the media; politicians respond more to what's covered in the media than to what is actually taking place. This media life is also characterised by the omnipresence of cameras and mobile phones at any event, documenting what takes place - for individuals to be successful, they have to be present in the media.

Earlier, we thought that the systems world (the world of rules) was colonising the life world (the world we experience); more recently, we thought the opposite; now, we see media colonising the life world - and now, we have entered media life, in which life is understood through the media. We are in a hyperconnected society (as the opening keynote also pointed out), leading to a hyperreflexivity through which meaning is both lost (what we talk about matters less) and gained (we gain self-knowledge).

In a hypercomplex society, our life worlds have boundaries, but the complexity makes these boundaries shift: this makes us urge the closure of boundaries again, which is translated into redundancy (a kind of harmony, through which we see how the parts of our lives are related). In recent times, it may have become possible to know oneself, as media put our life world at a distance where we can see it.

Technorati : ICA 2010, change, hyperconnectivity, media, media life, society
Del.icio.us : ICA 2010, change, hyperconnectivity, media, media life, society