“It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something”. That was a quote from the movie Crash that I thought would fit nicely into my discussion, Crash had to do with race and racism but I think it also fits in here Throughout time technology has gotten better and more advanced and without it our society would probably be lost, just imagine: no texting, no satellite TV, or internet. Those are 3 things that are in mostly everyone’s daily lives, I know there in mine and if they weren’t who know what I would be doing. McLuhan's places us in the digital age, which in a sense is getting us away from the stuff we used to do like talk on the phone, some people who are far away from each other can go on dates over the internet through little Avatar characters. There’s a whole website a found dedicated to that sort of thing. Back in the “old days” maybe 10 years ago when you had to ask a girl out on a date over the phone or in person, you can do through an instant message, email, or text message. Instead of playing video games like XBOX360 or PS3 over a friend’s house or in the same room we can do it from our houses, or thousands of miles away through online gaming. I think it makes us a little bit less human in a way. . The clip I chose to show was actually a movie trailer for the film Eagle Eye starring Shia Labeouf.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFrSFoHWKM8
I thought this movie was a great example of the mad side of Media Ecology, and technological advances in our society. It shows that the technology we use every day and trust can be a bad thing. It can be turned against you. Imagine you cell phones, computer, satellites, things we use in everyday life our used to track you down. It’s like a Big Brother type thing. I’m not saying this is a realistic thing that can actually happen in present day today. But the farther we get away from touch, the more real I think it can become. I’ve seen the movie I don’t want to ruin the ending for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet so I’ll just leave you guys with that.
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I agree with Jim that there is definitely a crazy side to Media Ecology. I think that for a variety of reasons it is important to continue to find ways to improve and advance technology, one major reason being for medical purposes to find cures for certain diseases, viruses, and so on. But for other reasons, with the growing technology, a lot of negative activity occurs and impacts our society, and this is seen in the clip from the movie Eagle Eye. I remember another movie entitled “Phone Booth,” where a similar storyline occurred, when the phone was being bugged and the wrong person was being followed and blamed for something that was not their fault, and I think these types of films only have a negative message for the world around us. When technology and certain types of gadgets were first created—cell phones, pagers, telephones, e-mail, and so on—they were not meant to be abused, and yet so many types today they are and should not be. Whether it is prank phone calls or people hacking into e-mail accounts or stealing phones or sending fake text messages, the technology is being misused and abused, and it is the complete opposite of the positive message that McLuhan was trying to set with the Media Ecology theory. I do not know how our society can break away from this terrible turn that technology has taken, but it needs to stop.
ReplyDeleteEagle Eye relates to media ecology because in the movie a supercomputer controls basically everything that is electronic. “McLuhan’s probes stimulated others to ponder whether specific media environments were beneficial or destructive for those immersed in them.” Clearly in the film, the media environment was destructive. Like Jim said media ecology can has a mad side. But besides the fact that Eagle Eye was just a movie that technology could potentially be very useful and continuing to strengthen our global community. “Many see a benefit in the resulting of decentralization of power and control.” If in real life this technology did exist and did not go “evil” I see it “creating more than it destroys.”
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of representation in film and other media about a mad side to media ecology. I think Mcluhan would view this as inevitable because we are, according to him in a transitional phase, and I guess according to him that next phase is like a one mind kind of idea, where we are one with the cyber world, or technology to some extent. This seems extremely scary and kind of sci fi to me, but you don't realize what is happening when you are in it,as we are. The clip from eagle eye is also a good example of the global village where,as McLuhan says everyone is in everyone else's buisness and they are a bit testy. I think the film really explores a world with no privacy, where you as a human being are an open book, and you could definitely say these guys are testy.
ReplyDeleteMedia Ecology of today's world is certainly defined by our dependence and need for technology in almost all aspects of life. McLuhan would have definitely been intrigued by the number of different mediums interacting with people's lives and the messages each one of them conveys or represents. In addition, it seems as though McLuhan would be skeptical of this technology and how it can negatively affect the world we live in. While side effects of this new technology, such as surveillance, can be a positive thing, it seems as though its potential for negative results outweighs the good. It is important to take this skeptical approach in understanding and interacting with new technology. As shown in the trailer for Eagle Eye, surveillance can control every aspect of your life in a very negative way through many different mediums. As more and more mediums are accepted into our electronic and digital age, we are subject to an even wider range of messages which we must learn to decipher and live with.
ReplyDeleteExperiencing 1 week when I first moved into my house with no internet seemed like hell. The computer that I use at this very moment to write this comment seemed useless with no internet access. All the information we seek and need is in the Global Village. Everything is online and therefore making it so easy for us to gain information we need for assignments online. How many of us would leave the internet and go to the library to find information that we could find online in roughly 30 seconds. Technology has gotten so powerful we don't even realize what the consequences are. Technology has advanced so much that our lives evolve around it and what it has to offer. And as shown in the trailer, it seems that our privacy is shrinking day by day and we're actually allowing it to happen by attaching ourselves to the new and advanced technology that only develops to be better and more advanced in the future.
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