First of all, this is your lucky day:
I've decided to give you an extra week to complete Project #1. The new due date is Tuesday, Sept. 30 (in lecture). Please use this extra time to do a really bang-up project. I want to see you folks do well in this class!
And now, the question of the week:
In the introduction to his book Haunted Media, Jeffrey Sconce articulates two key metaphors of electronic media--the metaphor of living media and the metaphor of flowing media. Choose one of these two metaphors to discuss in relation to a media practice of your choice. Your answer should have two parts. First, explain what Sconce means by the metaphor you have chosen (using quotations from the text to facilitate your explanation). Second, apply this metaphor to a media practice that illustrates Sconce's idea. Do not limit yourself to forms of media that Sconce mentions. You may choose anything from video games to ipods to photography.
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In the introduction to his book, Haunted Media, Jeffrey Sconce writes“…[T]he concept of flow, a term now in general critical circulation to describe the unending and often undifferentiated textual procession of electronic media and their reception in the home.”
What Sconce is articulating in this passage is that the idea of electronic flow within the media is directly correlated to its advancement towards the next technology, as well as its further placement within the home of the viewer. One such example of this concept is the practice of motion picture advertising. The advancement of movie trailers, or brief summaries of films meant to draw an audience to a film showing at theaters in its entirety, has been very great over the past decade. Today, film trailers are first shown on websites (either the specific film’s home web page or a web page designed specifically for showing a collection of movie trailers), then transferred to user friendly websites like YouTube, MySpace, or Google Video. Afterwards they are placed on television in between popular television shows and finally placed before other films before the advertised movie is released. The flow of this form of media from small screen to large screen, from server to server, from internet to network television, and finally to the theater shows a perfect example of the advancement of technology within the practice and its endless possibilities. Furthermore, the reception of this practice has grown largely over the years. As the technology utilized by this media expands, the movie trailer itself becomes viewed as more of an art form. There is now an awards ceremony (The Golden Trailers) specifically for masters of this practice including categories in internet presentation, theater presentation, and television presentation. The movie trailer is also widely accepting inside the home before DVD’s and searched rather commonly on internet based search engines. It is because of electronic flow that the media too has become a flowing piece of culture.
Robert Francis Curtis
TA: Stephen Wetzel
At one point in our lives, when we used to use telephones, we have experienced or have heard other’s experiences with their “haunted” or “possessed” telephones. Either another conversation comes threw the phone or a static passes over, believed to be ghosts speaking. Just like in the movie White Noise, voices of the dead and soon to be dead are heard threw the static and frequency of their electronic medium, giving this medium life. This phenomenon is called living media, which is one of Jeffery Sconce’s key metaphors to electronic media. From the early beginnings of the telephone to today, some people believe that the telephone is a gateway to the paranormal. It is a way for ghosts and humans to make contact, thus giving the telecommunication devise a “life”. According to Sconce, this phenomenon is also created by the electronic media’s way to alter our consciousness in believing of such supernatural. “Sound and image without material substance, the electronically mediated worlds of telecommunications often evoke the supernatural by creating virtual beings that appear to have no physical form”. So not only is the medium alive by having a humanistic characteristic; evocation, but it also has the ominous “haunting” of static and talking of the paranormal.
Carly Rieder
TA: David W.
I found Sconce’s metaphor of “living” media to be very helpful in understanding an almost unconscious trait of nearly every fine art. Scone explained that media—in his case strictly television—has the illusion of being perpetually live; meaning that no matter what you watch, it’s as though it were happening at the very moment you were watching it. Sconce explains that, “At times this sense of liveness can imply that electronic media technologies are animate and perhaps even sentient.” In other words, it makes it seem as if the television itself has a mind of it’s own since it continually plays things in “real time” and hence always “has something to say.”
I really like this idea. I’ve heard it said that the past and the future don’t really exist, just the present. See. It’s still the present. And next time you read over this, it will still be the present. This metaphor clearly applies to the vast majority of media—if not all of it. Every time you see a painting, there it is; right in front of you; in the present; saying something. Read a newspaper article from the 40’s about World War II. The words are exactly the same as they were when they were originally written, but it says something completely different in this present; right now. In this present that same article talks about progress, and accomplishment even though it technically doesn’t “say” it—it still has a voice.
Danny D’Acquisto
TA: Steve (I sincerely apologize, but I don’t know his last name—He’s really nice and wears read glasses)
Jeffrey Sconce depicts the metaphor of flowing media in Haunted Media as “describ[ing] the unending and often undifferentiated textual procession of electronic media and their reception to the home.” This idea pulls the viewer in through “convergence of [the] three ‘flowing’ agents” of electricity, information, and consciousness. Together, these elements create an opposite reality for the user as to the one which they live in by the “transfer and substitution of consciousness and information between the body and a host of electronic media technologies.” In other words, what Jeffery is saying is that no matter what, the electronic media engulfs the user and transports them from their stream of consciousness, giving them an almost out of body experience, being intertwined with each other.
With that said, I now bring in my example of the classic Nintendo 64 game James Bond 007 GoldenEye. Through the television, console, and controller, the gamer takes on the life of James Bond. The player’s consciousness is pulled into the game, and into the tasks needing to be accomplished. With the ability to control movements such as running, walking, communicating, and shooting a gun, the two lives fuse together. In addition, there are the times the character dies, and in either that chase or shoot-out, the player gets a sense of paranoia, frayed nerves, and the want to keep on living as if they were actually in the game. These previously said items not only affirm Sconce’s metaphor, but also can be related to many mothers saying, “Stop starring mindlessly with your eyes glued on the television!”
Dan Gorchynsky
TA: David Witzling
In Sconce's article, the metaphor of flowing media is the connection of humans with electronics such as media. "The concept of flow, a term now in general critical circulation to describe the unending and often undifferentiated textual procession of electronic media and their reception in the home" (p. 8 (in the book, p. 83)). Flow media is a connection of our conscious to the electronic media such as television, computer, phones, etc. The information that was carried over via electronically to the media was often the imagination. It is up to the viewers/listeners to determine what is real what is not. The media affects some psychology of thinking and actions to occur such as myths of spirit of death and the outer space and their aliens.
There are many movies which examples the concept of media as a way to scare people. For example, The Ring, Feardotcom and White Noise are all examples of how people are interactive with the media and become insane with the ideas of spirits communicating with them. Some media are killing humans; some are guiding the people who say the paranormal. The spirit has an agenda to work through the human to save someone else; some are just spirits contacting their living loved ones. It is interesting how movies are made like that. The movie, which plays in a DVD player, is MEDIA. The movie is ABOUT MEDIA. It is ironic how the concept of media connects with the human conscious then is made into movies. How viewers currently view these types of movies is hard to say. People today already live with the media. It is everywhere around us now. It is impossible to avoid the media today. Back in time when media was not everywhere, people had a tendency to become paranoid or fascinated with new technology which had not existed before. Today we are used to new and evolving technology. For example, Blue ray movies came out not long ago and it was not as big of deal as when the DVD came out. The DVD really revolutionized the way we watch movies now. With VHS, we would have to rewind or forward the movie looking for a particular scene or just to play it. Video tapes did not include any fancy additional features like different endings or how the film was made. So far, there really is not a horror movie with a DVD in some sort of "lost ghost story" on it to do its killing spree. Horror movies are still made with VHS but on DVD now.
The flow between horror movies with DVD/ blue ray/ VHS and how viewers view the movie is one part of what Sconce means in his metaphor (the second part). The flow between humans and the media changes over time. Today we are not affected by media enormously like what happened a few decades ago such as Alfred Hitchcoks The Birds. We are used to having media around us. We grow up and have learned to live with and use it. If the media were removed from this decade alone, people will not know how to survive it has become so integral. We have learned to really use the media and as a result also depend on media.
Catie Eller
Steve Wetzel
Of the flowing metaphor that Scones uses he illustrates three recurring fictions that are “central to the development of telecommunications technology” The first of these fictions, which I will elaborate on, is the fiction (or non) of astral projection. Scone himself does not use the term astral projection himself, but is otherwise used in the populists lexicon frequently to describe this “uncanny form of disembodiment”. Astral projection is the idea that ones consciousness can fore go or leave the material self to travel vast distances with an extreme haste. This suggests that there are two parts of the traveler, or what scopes refers to as the communicator, the material (body) and the non-material (essence, spirit, energy). This non-material (spirit, energy) is put to the likes of the telegraph within scopes article. The telegraph enabled the isolated material (body) to send messages to other material entities via flowing energy. The idea of this thought, which emanated for the likes of the material, dematerialized to be sent in real time. From what scopes infers, this prompted the fiction of astral projecting within this new age of electricity.
The media engagement I take part in, which closely relates me to this idea, is when I am watching the Bundesliga Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings. I became very engrossed with international football (soccer) during the 2006 world cup. Germany became my favorite team, but what was I to do in the next four years with my newly founded spectatorship? I discovered via the BBC that Germany had it’s own soccer league (the Bundesliga). However, it was impossible to watch due to the fact its broadcast is notable limited. So through my desperation I finally discovered a site for 12 pounds a year that broadcasted almost every European games. For this fact I no longer wake up a 9am but 1400 GMT. I am transported to Germany via my flowing broadband connection of goodies.
Nicholas Lawrence
In Sconce’s introduction to Haunted Media, he described media as ‘living’ and ‘flowing’. The metaphor of ‘living’ media is interesting in that it points out how we as a society have personified media and in a way, have given it power. We intellectually know that this isn’t so, that the machine indeed isn’t alive, yet we treat it as an entity of its own. Many also assume that it depicts reality as it is right now, even though this may not be the case. Sconce says that “[. . .] cyberspace and virtual subjectivity remain constructs more imaginary than technological, yet pop culture and pop academia often regard them as sovereign principalities somehow more ‘real’ than the terrestrial geography and human subjectivity they are said to replace.” What he meant by this is that somehow we see what we experience through media as just as real as what we experience in real life. Cyberspace is seen as being on the same level of reality as, well, reality.
The concept that media is ‘living’ is apparent in video game culture. This is mostly because the games have gotten so interactive. Many gaming addicts have been known to throw down the controller and get mad at the game for not ‘letting’ them win. They often treat the game like a living thing that they are in a constant battle with. Some also equate their self-worth with what their standing is in the game. If they beat the game, they think they’re all that in the real world too.
Katrina Schwarz
TA: Kate Brandt
In the beginning of his introduction Sconce tells stories where people treated their media as living breathing things. He finishes up these stories by saying, “ Each of these stories draws on a larger cultural mythology about the “living” quality of such technologies, suggesting, in this case that television is “alive…. living, real, not dead.”” Sconce is trying to tell us that our culture has created this idea of media that is living. Media really is just another tool used to get information and entertain us but sometimes we confuse this media with reality. Although Sconce uses far-fetched examples of people losing their grip on real reality, I think there are more subtle examples. For instance, many people use websites like Facebook and MySpace to make friends with whom people they’ve never met. When someone makes a friend on Facebook they think, cool, we are now friends. They tell their other friends that they have met this new friend and are now buddies. In reality they have not “met” this person at all. They think they have talked to them but really they have not “talked” to them. Facebook and MySpace users have confused actually seeing a person and actually talking to a person with a false sense of meeting someone. You cannot “meet” a person by just seeing a picture of them and reading text they wrote. Facebook and MySpace are great examples of how people confuse media with reality. I think if Sconce had told a story about Facebook or MySpace it would have just as great as an effect as did the man shooting the T.V.
Matthew Axberg
TA Katherine Brandt
Sconce’s metaphor of “living media” should strike a cord of familiarity with modern viewers. The author describes this concept as assigning intelligence and deliberate actions to inanimate electronic media. He talks about the advent of the telegraph and the sense of “temporal immediacy amid spatial isolation...” bringing “psychical connection in spite of physical separation.” This was further born out in the introduction of the telephone. Imagine what those early users of this media thought about being able to have nearly instant communication with someone miles away. There was a sense of awe and maybe even a little suspicion of what that device was capable of. I believe Sconce’s idea is readily apparent in today’s films. Although we like to think our society has become more technologically advanced, there is still this overwhelming fear and awe of the media magic. Stanley Kubrick’s “2001, A Space Odyssey,” morphed the concept of living media in the image of Hal, the computer who clearly had a mind of his own. More recently, Spielberg’s “Poltergeist” again pitted us against the living media that housed demons who could hurt us through the TV. There are even stories of people believing the government is spying on them through the TV cable box. All of this reinforces Sconce’s concept of “living media” which, he states, is often described as a “…particularly persuasive electronic master, an almost malevolent entity whose powers of control are somehow believed to eclipse those of all previous nonelectronic media.”
Val Danculovich
TA: K. Brandt
T.J. Waite
One of my favorite things to do is watch television and according to Sconce a television is “Alive” because no matter what is on the television it is “Live” and first hand at your service. He feels that Living media could be the television because it kind of has its own world just like humans, and when it’s turned on that means its showing us its world and its living just like us.
I’m still not convinced that I like this idea. Its not that it creeps me out, the idea of my television begin alive, its just that for example I am most likely going to watch the Packer game in a minute or so, and yes that is live, but that doesn’t mean the TV is alive and actually physically doing something. I know that I am using the TV a lot as an example but if we were to take this blog over and start with my IPod, all would be the same. Its giving me what I want (entertainment) but that doesn’t mean its “alive” and making the music “live” and that given time, and I understand what he is trying to tell us about "live" or "living" media, but I'm just not convinced that I like the example that is used in the readings.
T.J. Waite
Sec- 401
Sec- 801
Stephen Wetzel
Are media "alive"? We sure seem to think so sometimes. Jeffrey Sconce, when discussing why we might perceive this, says that "television and its electronic cousins are, paradoxically, completely familiar in their seemingly uncanniness, so much so that we rarely questions the often fantastic conventions through which we conceptualize and engage these media." In other words because the representations of our world found in these media can often be so similar to what we experience in the "real" world we tend to interact with this media as if it were in fact part of the "real" world. One way this can manifest itself according to Sconce is that "at times this sense of liveness can imply that electronic media technologies are animate and perhaps even sentient." Meaning that because we have the impression that what we are being shown is in fact actually happening we attribute the properties of the real world as we know it to the images of the media.
An example of this that most will be able to relate to is the attempt by people viewing a movie or television show to talk to someone who is being represented on the screen. By now it is a cliche, someone is watching a scary movie and out of concern for one of the characters they try to warn them of their impending doom. They shout out "don't go in there" or something along those lines. Now of course if you were to pull this person aside and call them out on what they had just done they would likely realize that it was foolish. However, in the heat of the moment, when enveloped by what they were watching, the line between reality and a representation of reality were blurred and the medium they were so focused on became alive.
-John Olsen
TA:Kate Brandt
The flow of media is everywhere, and we see it most every day. Whether it’s TV, computer, music, movies, etc new technologies are changing the way we experience media at home. In the introduction to his book, Haunted Media, Jeffrey Sconce writes “… [T]he concept of flow, a term now in general critical circulation to describe the unending and often undifferentiated textual procession of electronic media and their reception in the home” (8). Sconce illustrates the direct relationship between electronic flow and media with many examples but one specific example came to my mind. This electronic flow can be both good and bad and the example that I thought of would be the way that we get our current news. Its not just the daily paper any more but an enormous convergence of all types of media. We have the convenience of news on the television, the Internet, electronic billboards, and the radio playing 24 hours a day. Sconce says that media needs to acquire our attention, or in “the consciousness of the viewer/listener”, in order for the media to be successful. I think that news has an easy time doing this because it is everywhere one of the newest ways it is jumping in our face is on cell phones and ipods. On the other hand the viewer with so many different sources, sites, channels, and opinions which one do you believe and trust and it can become confusing and overwhelming to sift through the daily new. “Such electrical possibilities for fusion and confusion, of course, remain central in describing both the wonders and horrors of an emerging cyberculture” (Sconce 8). This abundance of news in today’s media is a prime example of the effects, both good and bad, that the electronic flow is having on the way we obtain information in media.
Kirk McCamish
T.A. Steve Wetzel
In "Haunted Media", author Jeffrey Sconce discusses the concept of 'flowing media' as it pertains to fictional depictions of communications technology and it's contemporary factual existence. He compares the human stream of consciousness to an electrical current, or 'flow'. The imagined fictions of the correlation between the two have led to a concept of communication that can span long distances in an instant. "This 'flowing' imagination presents the possibility of analogous exchanges, electricity mediating the transfer and substitution of consciousness and information between the body and a host of electronic media technologies." (Sconce, p. 8) Sconce discusses the transmutability of consciousness in this type of communication; pure thought can be transformed into an electrical flow which is transported over a great distance and deciphered by a particular host device. "...these media enable an uncanny form of disembodiment, allowing the communicating subject the ability, real or imagined, to leave the body and transport his or her consciousness to a distant destination." (Sconce, pp. 8,9)
Shortly after reading Sconce's introduction, my cell phone signaled that it had received a text message. I believe that this particular instance, or the act of text messaging in general, is a perfect example of Sconce's 'flowing media'. I noticed that his book was written in 2000, a few years before text messaging became a major form of communication (albeit that 'instant messaging' was and still is quite popular, one needs access to a computer in order to communicate this way, whereas cell phones are far more commonly accessible). The idea of text messaging has introduced itself as the faster younger brother of email; just as 'polite' but also offering the immediacy of an almost 'real time' exchange of information between two or more people. Text messaging allows two people to hold conversations over great distances with carefully chosen wording. I've often found myself furiously texting back and forth with another person, without ever uttering a single word. Although most of those situations ended up with one of us giving up on the 'text-banter' and actually CALLING the other person. This is an interesting form of communication, in that the words that appear out of nowhere on the cell phone LCD almost come to life, a electrical incarnation of the person who sent the message. The fact that it is such an immediate and convenient form of communication allows ourselves to temporarily adopt a sort of ethereal and digital identity.
-Nick Westfahl
TA: Steve Wetzel
"The intrusive, imperious and, above all else, living presence of television is such that it cannot simply be turned off or unplugged - it must be violently murdered." (Sconce,p.3)
The metaphor that Sconce is trying to relay is the idea that media in general, (although in this case television) has such a grip on our every day lives that at a certain point our own televisions become "living" or unwanted "guests" because we use them so often. For a very small percentage of the population the constant bombardment of media (mainly television) becomes too much and they swear it off all together. For instance I knew a kid in high school named Sean who did not have a single t.v. in his house, his family simply didn't find it necessary. At the time I found this to be very surprising and almost Amish like. But now that I am older and more mature, (kind of) I realize that about 99% of the content on television is absolute garbage. Now I almost wish that I had embraced the same principals as Sean and his family because I would probably be smarter and more of an intellectual because of it. Another form of "living" media in my opinion would include sites such as Facebook or Myspace. I used to have a Myspace, and after I got rid of it I was actually much happier and found that it felt good not to be in the hold of a site such as Myspace. This didn't last long though, because as soon as Facebook started, I just had to sign up. facebook and Myspace are "living" media because they never allow you to simply relax for even a full day without checking them. Sites like these are much like television, because you come home from a long day of work or school and you immediately want a source of entertainment. Its as if, you come home and your television or computer are calling out to you. It is very difficult to turn down such a satisfying and yet annoying type of entertainment such as television or a social networking site. For instance, "reality" t.v. is the new trademark of television and yet I have noticed that often times these "reality" shows are scripted and turn out to be the exact opposite of their very name. In relation to "living" media, Sconce makes a great metaphor regarding television, "For example, shotting the t.v. set has become over the years a familiar gesture in the nation's hyperbolic loathing of television as an intruding house guest." (p.3) I really liked the way he compared television to an "intruding house guest" because often times that is how I feel when I walk into my apartment. I truly dislike most of what is on t.v., but I know that there will be that one show that I will really enjoy, so it is truly a love/hate type of situation when it comes to television. In regards to Facebook, I feel as though if I don't check it at least once a day than I am missing out on some great thing. Its as if Facebook is "living" and it is creeping into my every day life more and more. In conclusion I really dislike "living" media and I think Sconce makes some great points in his article.
Connor Murray
TA: Katherine Brandt
What scone tries to say about the metaphor of living media, is that there is this idea or theory that electronic media might be "alive". What he means by "alive" is that the electronic media has a presence because, "all television programming is discursively 'live' by virtue of its instantaneous transmission and reception." This means that even though these technologies are not human, a lot of the time it is treated, listened to, and looked upon as if it were. And since it is treated like a living entity, could it possibly be one?
One way to see this idea of "live media" is to look at the relationship between television and their viewers. A lot of times while watching a T.V. show, people will express themselves about what they are watching to the T.V. itself. It is not uncommon to hear someone say during a show things like, "don't go in there," "look behind you," or "oh my God, no!" These are just a few examples of how people might connect with the television and treat it with a "live" sense or attitude. Another is to see how they talk about it to other people. "I saw this great show the other day," or "it was so bad I had to turn it off," are two example of how even though they aren't even with the T.V., they act and explain their feelings of how it affected them--like humans talk about other people, who are living beings.
Travis Torok
TA: Steve Wetzel
In Sconce’s introduction he spends a great deal of time discussing the “living” qualities of media, and more specifically, television. However, Sconce is not inferring that our television is personally interactive or that it has competence beyond it’s own electronic capabilities. Instead, Sconce is saying that television and visual media are, “live by virtue of [their] instantaneous transmission and reception.” Because most media, especially television, happen directly and conveniently in our own home, it makes us treat the medium as another member in our families (Sconce). This delusion creates different feelings for certain viewers, whereas some believe the media is talking directly to them and then others receive the feeling that, despite the TV set being off, there is always a presence ready to be portrayed (Sconce). However, these living metaphors extend to other mediums. Devices like iPhones and GPS devises take on the roles of navigators and wingmen. Any number of capabilities that are controlled in media devises have overshadowed the human characteristic that the original idea was based on. Cinema and movies have become new social interactions as well as video games, which have developed into extensions of living as well. Sconce outlines the living characteristics of the television, but it is clear that as technology advances we will encounter more mediums “living” along side us.
Mitchell Keller
TA: Laura Bennett
In the introduction to the book "Haunted Media," Jeffrey Sconce first discusses the idea of living media. He mainly refers to television in his examples, and how people may view it as a "living" entity in their home, and possibly as an unwanted guest. Sconce refers to the example of a paranoid attack on a TV studio by a man who claimed he hated TV and that he was personally being "slandered by the programs." He goes on to show that this paranoid man's attack illustrates the media's power of animated "living" presence, and how the delusional viewer thinks the media is speaking directly to him. Sconce goes on to state that "The television industry... would no doubt like for its entire audience to consist of such schizophrenics..., since it continually tries to maintain the illusion that it is indeed speaking directly to us." The fact that it can seemingly talk to us creates the illusion that it is a living entity.
This idea has been harnessed by other forms of media as well, and is very heavily used in video games. In many video games, new and old, the characters will speak directly to you (the gamer). They will say things like "YOU need to complete this mission so YOU can unlock new gear that YOU can use later on... etc." Addressing the gamer as "you" and speaking directly to them makes the experience much more realistic and gets the gamer involved on a much deeper and more personal level.
Later in the introduction, Sconce mentions how Marshall McLuhan pronounced telecommunications media as "nothing less than an extension of humankind's 'nervous system.'" With new technologies, video games are becoming more and more realistic and the movements and reactions in the games come closer and closer to mocking human beings and their nervous systems. This realistic interface paired with the characters directly addressing the gamer create a seemingly living world that exists completely within the media.
Forrest Falconer
T.A. Steve Wetzel
In Sconce’s Haunted Media, he contends that media, particularly electronic media, is “alive.” I believe he is saying that our culture has become so engrossed within the world of the electronic that we have come to regard electronic media as actual, living beings. Since electronic media have come to occupy a substantial portion of our daily lives, it is perhaps only natural that we regard them as alive. For example, Sconce mentions internet users who become so involved in the electronic Beyond that they “shun the real world in favor of cyberspace.” I believe the internet is a prime example of Sconce’s argument. The internet, in my mind, is extremely paradoxical. It provides a means to communicate with the world at large like never before, making it almost unnecessary to socialize in person. That which has provided unprecedented freedom has turned us into virtual (no pun intended) shut-ins. Global interaction has been replaced with computer interaction. The next logical step, unfortunately, seems to be replacing all interaction with that of the computer. In a world where people spend literally years of their lives sitting in front of some kind of computer screens, it only makes sense that we would begin to see these machines as real people. Man is a social animal. With a lack of legitimate contact, we will turn to the next best thing. Welcome to the Information Age.
Joseph Otterson
TA: Laura Bennett
It is interesting to actually think about Jeffery Sconce's ideas around "Flowing" Media and "Living" Media. I find the "Living" concept extremely interesting. The idea of some medias being living breathing organisms or in some cases they are considered haunted. "In media folklore past and present, telephones, radios, and computers have been similarly "possessed" by such "ghosts in the machine," the technologies serving as either uncanny electronic agents or as gateways to electronic otherworlds." (Scounce pg 4) Live media has scared many people in the past and has even driven people to psychological issues in their every-day lives. With technology becoming more immedient and even life-like sometimes the idea is just too much for someone to grasp. The idea I feel could still stand today even though I think most people by now have come to except technology and it's ever-evolving life.
Everything if not anything is shown on the internet these days and not only can it be shown, but it can come to you in an instant. Almost faster then some things in real life. When you used to have to go to a store to shop is now just click of a button on the internet. The idea of webcams where you can watch your friend or girlfriend who lives in St. Louis do their homework or other things at that very moment to some is mind-boggling. Some people might even consider it extremely weird to watch a loved ones through the eyes of technology. And TV now has become a servant to your every needs with Tivo. Where you won't be controlled to watch something at one time, Tivo will record and you watch at your spare time. The only thing that's missing is a voice for the TV and give it feelings. Pretty soon the TV will be a living breathing talking object. Maybe one day it will want to watch it's own programs and get fussy if you don't watch it. Maybe even date other TV's. It will be part of your family, that is to say if it isn't already.
Andrew Megow
TA: Laura Bennett
In Sconce’s article of Haunted Media he talks about how media is considered to be a living “breathing” entity that, back in the day, scared people into believing that their TV sets were haunted or possessed. “ The ‘living’ quality of television transcends the historically limited and now almost nonexistent practice of direct ‘live’ broadcasting to describe a larger sense that all television programming is discursively ‘live’ by virtue of its instantaneous transmission and reception.” Having the broadcast of a show happen immediately and it happening in “real time” it gives people the sense that it is all happening in the now. Even if the program was filmed earlier that day, for example, like how most late night programs do their recording (Late Night w/ Conan O’Brien, Tonight Show w/ Jay Leno, etc.) you still have that sense that it is 11:30 at night where they are. Most people are aware of this but still have no problem accepting the illusion that it is late where they are filming the show. This is how strong media become.
Douglas Mellon
TA: Stephen Wetzel
Sconce proposes an interesting metaphor of media "liveness", the idea that electronic media is animate and sentient. He provides a few (somewhat humorous) narratives that illustrate the idea. In the first, a man shoots his television for being too loud. Sconce claims "In this scenario, the television figures as an obnoxious, deceitful... visitor within the home whom must be dispatched". The idea is that the television has a presence that can be killed. In a second anecdote, a man attacks a TV studio believing that "the media is speaking directly to him". I rather enjoy this thought and the idea that television is always speaking directly to us.
Sconce goes on to discuss the way in which the life of the media destroys the walls of reality. Our constant subjection to the imagery presented by media breaks down the scope of the real.
I find this metaphor to applicable in the modern fad of massive multiplayer online gaming. In games such as Everquest and World of Warcraft, a person places themselves into a separate reality, which over time allows for what
Sconce calls an "electronic erosion of reality". The games are highly interactive, something that leads o a person connecting with a living, breathing world.
And why shouldn't they? The world is inhabited by living, breathing people just like them. As we become part of the media, the media becomes part of reality. Sconce says that there is a "living electronic connection so alluring as to shun the real world in favor of cyberspace... that ultimately dissolves boundaries between the real and the electronic".
World of Warcraft has become alive via its design company Blizzard as well. These people, designers, game masters and artists have become part of the entity of the game world. This functions as a further degradation of reality in the association between the imaginary game world and the human beings who control it.
The game also bears resemblance to the second narrative above; players will find themselves muttering 'this game hates me' after not receiving the piece of armor they have been trying to so hard to achieve.
Andrew Tolstedt
TA: David Witzling
Elizabeth Miller
Sconce’s concept of “living media” which, he states, is often described as a “…particularly persuasive electronic master, an almost malevolent entity whose powers of control are somehow believed to eclipse those of all previous nonelectronic media.”
I see tv's as being living media, because it is something that never dies. Even back in the day, people had little black and white tv's that they could watch. We have enhanced our tv technology from little black and white tv's to those big screen tv's that practicaly take up your whole living room. The television is a form of "live" entertainment. An example of this is the Olympics that recently happened in China. You could be in China watching the olympics without actually "being" there. Another example would be to watch the National Geographic channel. You feel like you're actually in Africa, Australia, or wherever without actually being there. It's amazing how technology has changed throughout the years. Another example of I believe what is "living media" is photography. The photography concept really caught my eye since it is my major. Photography I believe is a living media, simply because it can be an everyday hobby, just like watching tv can be for some people.
Elizabeth Miller
T.A. Kate Brandt
In the book, Haunted media the author uses the metaphor "living media." What i think the narrator means is that even though media is not a living breathing thing it does having qualities similar to a living thing, especially in film. The first characteristic that film has, is that it is always changing and evolving. It started of all black and white with no sound, but now, we have movies with incredibly realistic special affects.
Film also seems alive to the viewers watching the film. As someone watches a movie or a television show they become so immersed with the character that the seem like living breathing people. The viewer tends to relate to the people and feel sorry for them if bad things happen. In all film isn't technically alive, but each film creates its own living world.
Zach Cosby
In the introduction to Sconce’s “Haunted Media” Sconce uses a story of a man shooting his television set as a metaphor for “living media”. It was not enough for this man to simply unplug the machine; he had to cause actual physical damage to it, in an extremely violent way. This action emphasizes Sconce’s metaphor. He then explains the origin of television’s “life”. Sconce says,”programming is discursively ‘live’ by virtue of its instantaneous transmission and reception.” This is to say that television has a life because it occurs as a present situation before the viewer.
This metaphor of “living media” applies to the media of video games. Video games are taken part of in a live, present setting, meaning the actual interaction and control is given to the player. The player gives the system a series of commands expecting the game to respond appropriately and furthering the experience. This response is a major factor of the “life” associated with video games. If at any time the system does not respond to the satisfaction of the player, for instance if the player loses the game because of a mistake, the player can easily place the blame on the system or some other aspect of the response of the machine. It could be said that there is a conversation of information between the player and the machine.
Nathaniel Winter
TA : Laura Bennet
Jeffrey Sconce states in his introduction that "the 'living' quality of television transcends the historically limited and now almost nonexistent practice of direct 'live' broadcasting...programming is discursively 'live' by virtue of its instantaneous transmission and reception." What Sconce means by living media is that we tend to forget that what we are watching or reading is not real (except "reality" programs). We get involved with the show so much that we feel as if we are there in the television.
One form of media we get involved with is video games. When we play video games, we blur reality with fiction. As a person continues to play, they usually focus all of their attention on what buttons to push that they neglect everyone and everything around them. Some might even start yelling at the screen, while others, just like Sconce states, will physically harm the television set. As time goes on, the technology used with video games make playing video games more realistic.
Erik Wagner
T.A. Steve Wetzel
In his article Haunted Media, Jeffrey Sconce describes media as “living,” using electronic media as his main example. He writes that today’s society has personified electronic media in such a way that it has become “animate and perhaps even sentient” (Sconce 2). Although people know rationally that the television is not truly alive, they still often stand up to yell at a referee who makes a bad call during a football game across the country, or grumpily glare at a politician who doesn’t share their views. The television’s “instantaneous transmission and reception” (2) gives it the appearance of being ever-present. Television is not the only “living” media cited by Sconce- he also writes about the “virtual reality” of cyberspace and telephony (2).
“Living” media clearly transcends television, the telephone, and the internet- in our post-modern society, video games have become an obvious form of media that is often thought of as reality. With the introduction of the new Nintendo Wii, interactive video games have reached new heights. Using the Wii, the gamer is sucked into what Sconce might consider a “vivid fantasy” (2) as he bowls or plays tennis against a virtual opponent. Furthermore, an individual who has immersed himself too much in this “living” media often begins to believe that he is only as good as his “rank” on the game. Clearly, Sconce’s idea of “living” media is accurate when describing society’s use and view of television and the internet as well as the increasingly interactive video games.
Bryn Unger
TA: Laura Bennett
Jeffrey Sconce, the author of "Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television", wrote in his introduction to the book about ‘Flowing Media’. What is meant by the term ‘Flowing Media’ is how our consciousness, much like the electricity that powers our televisions or computers, continues streaming or ‘flowing’ into our heads. Sconce described ‘flow’ as, “…a term now in general critical circulation to describe the unending and often undifferentiated textual procession of electronic media and their reception in the home” (8). Media flow in and out of our lives via news broadcasts and streaming videos every day of our lives, much like ideas flow though the consciousness of the human mind almost constantly. According to Sconses research, “…[P]sychologist William James coined the now familiar phrase ‘stream of consciousness,’ arguing that ‘river’ and ‘stream’ are the metaphors that most naturally describe the human thought process” (8). The human mind is constantly being bombarded with different thoughts and ideas, but no matter what, we will process them as our mind continues pushing forward.
Take for example the film "Memento". In this Christopher Nolan masterpiece, the main character and protagonist of the film, Leonard, has no short term memory and can’t remember anything that happened more than 5 minutes ago (at least, since his head injury occurred). Now, as he describes his memory in the film, “Everything just fades”. His consciousness is constantly flowing, as he takes in information, although he can’t retain it for more than a few minutes. Just smoothly as thoughts go into his mind, these ideas ‘fade’ away. As a viewer of the film, our consciousness is constantly flowing as we take in the information from the film and its confusing method of presenting itself to us. We try to piece older parts of the film with newer ones as we constantly have them fed to us. Our consciousness is flowing just the same as the movie is flowing out of our Televisions: at a constant rate.
Mark Scholbrock
TA: Kate Brandt
In “Haunted Media” when Jeffery Sconce refers to ‘living media,’ he points of the longevity of media - interactive or not. He especially places focus on television and the importance it has come to manifest in our culture. This form of mass communication seems to us to be somewhat immortal, and to live on after we have shut off our TVs. Sconce points out in the book, “Early viewers will always remember the eerie presence of the slowly fading dot of light appearing at the center of the screen once the set had been turned off, a blip that suggested something was still there in the cabinet even after the image itself had vanished.” He draws attention to media having maintaining a sense of preservation.
A form of living media that is widely used today is digital photography. This medium directly relates back to everything Jeffery Sconce is calling attention to. We have this desire to sustain everything we feel is good, and digital photography does just that. Not only can we take a photograph with the touch of a button, we can immediately see the image, as if already reminiscing. It has come to be that seeing things through a screen- whether it be computer, television, ipod, or cell phone-is much more fascinating than actually experiencing it. We would much rather watch somebody else’s life on television than go out and live our own. Seeing these things on television or the screen of a digital camera enforces that ideal. We take note of how things seem, and try to re-create these things. Cameras are no longer used only for historical documentation, but for preserving a memory, which in turn creates and furthers nostalgia. It is much easier to idealize a situation through a screen.
These forms of media have become part of our society; working their way into our minds in every day situations. Sconce is saying that we cannot just passively dispose of this mind-altering influence-we must directly and rigidly murder the living media.
-Heidi Sherwood
TA: David Witzling
In Jeffery Scone’s Haunted Media, he describes the metaphor of “living media.” In his example of television Scone writes, “The ‘living quality of television transcends the historically limited and now almost nonexistent practice of direct ‘live’ broadcasting to describe a larger sense that all television programming is discursively ‘live’ by virtue of its instantaneous transmission and reception.” (2) Through television airwaves signals are sent right into homes and it is as if the television set is delivering our information. Thus, “live” television is a metaphor in itself that media is living and somewhat haunts our lives. Beyond television this metaphor can be applied to other types of media as well. “Live updates” can be sent to a person on a cell phone regarding weather, sports updates or news. As Scone describes, “Central as well to the initial cultural fascination with telegraphy, telephony, and wireless, such liveness is at present the foundation for a whole new series of vivid fantasies involving cyberspace and virtual reality.” (2) It is almost as if it is the media that is at the sporting event, for example, telling the information of that game. Personifying media seemed ridiculous to me at first, but after reading Haunted Media I realize exactly how human-like media can be.
Alison Korth
T.A. Laura Bennett
In the first few pages of the introduction to “Haunted Media,” Sconce describes what he calls “living” media. Using the example of television, he describes how media can be alive “by virtue of its instantaneous transmission and reception.” This means that media doesn’t just sit there; when we view or interact with a form of media, it, in a way, becomes a part of us. Using the example of television, Sconce shows examples of how people can get angry at media, such as the man shooting the television. You see this all the time, although not in such an extreme way, when you see someone get mad at their TV while watching sports or politics.
You can see this in many other types of media as well, the most obvious example to me being video games. There have been multiple cases of people committing suicide over something going wrong in their game, and even someone who died of starvation because he didn’t want to get up from his game. These are extreme examples, of course, but pretty much anyone has seen someone get either happy or mad at a video game. This is what “living: media is.
William Ingebretsen
TA: David Witzling
The whole idea of a controlling media is interesting to me. This idea comes through in Sconce's metaphor of a "living media". A certain media that has influence on our minds is was he is talking about. He gives examples of people who want to "kill there television". One such was Frank Walsh. While reading this I couldn't help but be reminded of the school shooters of the past who were influenced by certain types of music and video games. Columbine murders Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were major fans of the first person shooter "Doom" and how many times have we heard about the concerns that come with the "Grand Theft Auto" games? Marilyn Manson's music has also been connected to Columbine and Thurston High's Kip Kinkel. Now while this all remains skeptical, Sconce makes some very interesting points suggesting the media's power over us.
FOR THE ABOVE!!!!
Kyle Arpke
TA: Laura Bennett
The idea of media being “alive” is a very true concept. People feel a sense of connectedness to media and feel as though media is a living presence. This sense of media being alive comes from the immediacy of media itself. “This animating sense of ‘liveness’ is clearly an important component in understanding electronic media’s technological, textual, and critical histories,” (Sconce 6). Media creates this sense of life through its technological advances and changes.
One current form of media that portrays this sense of “liveness” is the laptop. Laptops tend to form a connection with the users in that they can be taken virtually anywhere and used right on the spot. They allow the user to check e-mail, browse the web, or watch videos wherever possible. The immediacy of laptops creates a sense of life within itself. People start to rely on the technology as not only a piece of hardware, but an electronic companion. People know that they can trust the laptop to assist them or entertain them whenever they want. The emotional connection with the laptop instills the life within this form of media. Although it is not truly alive in any real sense, the human interactivity with these medium creates the sense of “liveness”.
-Charlie Ripple
T.A.:Kate Brandt
Jeffrey Sconce’s article discusses media as ‘living’. Specifically, he describes the living quality of television as transcending “the historically limited and now almost nonexistent practice of direct “live” broadcasting to describe a larger sense that all television programming is discursively “live” by virtue of its instantaneous transmission and reception”. To Sconce, the media that we know now is just as much a part of our lives as a real person or people. We have connections with what television shows us, and we come to care about what happens inside it. I find this connection very interesting, because these things we care about so much can be anywhere in space in time. They are living, whether they are current events being broadcasted at this very moment, or things from the past being brought back to life. Or sometimes, they can even be both. A good example of this would be award shows, especially the Academy awards. It’s a live event, broadcasted with new developments, but making history at the same time. We watch these new winners, but we’re also watching montages of great artists of the past. A television production like this is bringing old and new together, and we think of both things together as being alive as we seem them happening, but just as much alive a few years down the road when the same moment is replayed. The connection and care made through them is what makes that possible.
Cassie Hutzler
TA Steve Wetzel
In Sconce's chapter Haunted Media he speaks of Currents, Streams, and flow. When he speaks of currents he is talking about electrical currents transmitting data from one source to another, and the streams are the different types of data. And flow has three parts as he states; "1) the electricity that powers the technology. 2) the information that occupies the medium. 3) the consciousness of the viewer/listening." this flow of media across contents "appeared to carry the animating 'spark' of consciousness itself beyond the confines of the physical body." Which to me is very interesting, because the stuff he speaks about before this seemed fairly obvious, such as that when messages were first sent through a telegraph people had mixed feelings, because it was isolation yet there was a physical connection still. But when he speaks of animating the consciousness beyond the bounds of the human body that is were the topic becomes much more interesting and interpretive. Because all forms of media have electrical currents and streams, but it takes a truly special form of media to be able to have that effect on the consciousness. To me the only film that I could say that can do this 100% through out the film is Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. To me it is the only 'perfect' film it seems flawless from everything in the background to music, there are no flaws everything 'flows' perfectly right into you and you no longer are watching a narrative film, once the character Dave leaves the 'world' we are used to, you also leave the film and begin thinking outside of just the film and makes you answer psychological and philosophical questions. Many films may have this effect the first time or in a few scene but no film has had this effect on me every time i watch it. The current of the stream flows directly in and animates my consciousness.
-Marco Cannestra
TA: Kate
The metaphor of living media brought up by Jeffrey Sconce in the introduction to his book “Haunted Media” is an idea that has crossed almost everyone’s mind since the invention of mass communication technologies. As some of these technologies were introduced, many people looked at them skeptically as being magical, not understanding how they worked. Sconce explains where some of these mystical thoughts attributed to media developed through its ability to simultaneously allow for “temporal immediacy amid spatial isolation and [bring] psychical connection in spite of physical separation.” The fact that one could remain at home at yet talk to their relative hundreds of miles away through the power of the telephone was, understandable, mystifying at first; making it seem like the telephone was some how “carrying” the life of the person to another space while they physically remain where they are.
Evidence of this idea of living media can be found in many works in the science fiction arena, like in “Star Wars” when people are able to project miniature 3-D images of themselves to other spaces and then talk to whoever is around them in that space. While this may seem like a far off, futuristic technology there are many similarities between that projection and the present technology of the web cam. With the web cam, one can instantly talk to someone far away and also see them at the same time. There is also the option to record a message that can be viewed by an unlimited number of people once it is posted to the internet. In this case, the video begins to have life of its own instead of just transporting life. Conversation can be sparked by the video and inspire other video responses. Any video that is posted online is almost impossible to take down as it is adopted onto other websites or downloaded by individuals, thus living on virtually forever. With these videos out there they could seemingly never die, it is easy to see what Sconce is referring to with his metaphor of living media.
Lanae Smith
TA: David Witzling
After reading Sconce’s article on “Haunted Media”, I have formed a clear understanding on his meaning of “living media”. Sconce identifies the living media metaphor as something that speaks directly to us. “…The delusional viewer who believes the media is speaking directly to him or her” (Sconce). This sense that the television or radio is speaking directly to you is the point that he is trying to convey. Sconce says that “this living electronic connection so alluring as to shun the real world in favor of cyberspace.” I think he means that people are becoming so mesmerized by these new forms of media and how they grab their attention that they prefer to be in this virtual world than the real world.
This sense of live media can relate easily to video games today. More specifically role-playing games. For example, in Grand Theft Auto 4, you play the role of a Russian immigrant who travels to the United States in search for work with his cousin. The game allows the freedom to roam the city and do virtually whatever you want. At the same time, the game has a storyline in which the person playing the game usually becomes deeply involved in. “…Slaves to a particularly persuasive electronic master” (Sconce). This form of media engulfs the player into this virtual world where they actually believe whatever is happening in the game is happening to them. A perfect example of Sconce’s idea of “living media”.
Kyle Probst
Jeffrey Sconce, the author of "Haunted Media” mentions his idea of ‘living’ media. Not that media is a living being but that media has characteristics of all things living. He uses this metaphor in the sense that as a society we have personified our media it has become “animate and perhaps even sentient” (Sconce 2) Even though we as a viewer of a media such as television or a movie while watching this programing we can often forget that its not reality. People can get lost into the plot of what they are watching they may scream telling someone in a horror movie to turn around. Media today has learned how to tap into our emotions by a plot that makes us cry or gets us angry. Special effects and mediums have the ability to make us feel as if we are there in the midst of it all. Sconce says that “liveness is at the present the foundation...reality.” (2) which shows how media has the ability to grow and adapt the our ever changing culture and use of technology. We have now the internet and video games and endless world of new media. These media are forever growing and adapting to the wants of society endlessly making our imagination become a sort of “reality.” Medias that allow us to interact and control a virtual reality. We have now combined the two medias with things like X-Box or the Nintendo Wii. The game councils allow us to go online into a virtual world based around a game; creating our own identities and characters interacting with people from all over the world. We can often create online friends believing that the people we interact with in the games are the same people as if they were in person.
Zachery Holder
TA: Laura Bennett
In the introduction to his book Haunted Media, Jeffrey Sconce details the metaphor of living media. This idea that media, such as television, is alive has been around since the birth of media itself. When Sconce refers to media as alive he is referring to a person's ability to see it as a living thing and have emotions for it. For example, some people say they "love" their cell-phones. It could also be said that media in this day and age has a presence and is alive because of the relationship that people develop with it. A busy business executive develops a bond with his blackberry the same way a small child develops a relationship with a stuffed animal. This is what gives media "life". We can apply the metaphor of living media to any type of media, even the cell phone. Countless people develop a close relationship with their cell phone and would not be caught dead without it. They give it life by applying human conditions to it. For example, when someone's phone stops working it is pronounced "dead", even though it was never living. On the other hand, when someone hates their cell phone and wants to "kill" it they believe they must literally break it, or as Sconce says ,"...it cannot simply be turned off or unplugged--it must be violently murdered." Whether this violent murder is the result of a hammer or swift smash on the pavement is not important. Media's ability to interact with it's user creates a bond that leads the user to become attached and give it life-like qualities. This is where the metaphor of living media comes from.
Nick LaVake
T.A. Laura Bennett
The idea of media being “alive” seems like something out of a science fiction of horror book, but as Jeffery Sconce describes in “Haunted Media”, the concept is all too real. Sconce proposes the idea of “living media” in saying “all television programming is discursively ‘live’ by virtue of it’s instantaneous transmission and reception.” Now, obviously our TV’s are not “alive” in the heartbeat and pulse sense of the word, but it is the immediacy and ever presence that gives them the illusion of life. Another example of a “living media” is the cell phone. Some days I hate my cell phone. I ignore calls without a good reason and rarely check voicemails. Often I, and others, long for the days before cell phones when leaving the house meant being unreachable. Even though I have frequent desires to live without a cell phone, under the guise of perhaps needing for an “emergency”, I carry it with me at all times, wherever I go. When I have made a conscious choice not to receive calls, I rarely turn my phone off, I’ll turn it on silent or vibrate, something that will not distract me, but will still leave the lines of communication open, or “alive”. Furthermore, even if a cell phone is turned off, a caller is still able to leave a voice mail. Only when in areas lacking cell phone reception, which is becoming increasingly harder to find, is a cell phone unable to make or receive phone calls (but most phones will still accept voice mails.) Even if one were to find themselves somewhere with a cell phone but no service, most, if not all, non communication functions of the phone (calculator, alarm clock, etc.) will still operate properly. The “living essence” of a cell phone, as Sconce describes in reference to the television “is such that it cannot simply be turned off or unplugged.” We take our cell phones with us everywhere and even when turned off, they continue to function. While they may not have a pulse or a heart beat, they are clearly living, living in our pants pockets and purses connecting us with the world.
Lisa Casper
Steve Wetzel
Older people might consider my generation the computer generation because of how quick we catch on to technology today. Just about every young person in this country has the ability to use more than one form of electronic device and in a lot of cases use them at the same time. "Television and its electronic cousins are completely familiar...that we rarely question the often fantastic conventions through which we engage these media."(Scone, p.2) In today's world media is very much alive and probably make up a huge portion of our lives. Video games, internet, cell phones and T.V. are constantly absorbing our attention multiple times a day and we rarely even notice it. It’s very common to interact these media at the same time; for example you might jump on face book while on the phone and talking and texting and listen to music off your I pod or you tube. And all of these engagements at once won’t really seem to be a problem because of our ability to multi-task which can be viewed by older generations as in invasion of living.
Video games are a very good example of living media simply because with each year it advances it gets closer and closer to a mockery of the real world, a virtual world. Video games are the perfect example of “an intruding house guest”(p.3) they engage their players so deep that it’s typical for the player to blow off regular duties like home work, showering, eating, and other real life interactions. In video games you can get dressed like a real person, you can work talk to friends, kill people and even raise a family just like in reality. Which is a perfect example of Scone's idea of living media and we get so wrapped up in video games and other media that we sort of leave the real world, and live for hours at a time, in this new world.
Venise Watson
Steve Wetzling
According to Jeffrey Sconce's "living media" metaphor radio, television, and computers have a sort of "living presence." They can instantly take us to places away from our usual contact. I believe what he means by this is that these sources we use in our everyday life can connect us with the outside world. We have computers to contact friends and get information and news just like from radio and television. Like Sconce said, "..telecommunications media, is in face a variable social construct, its forms, potentials, and perceived dangers having changed significantly across media history." We use these means of media in order to keep in social construct, even though they've changed in many ways over time. There are many sources that allow us to do this, including: MySpace, Facebook, instant messengers, etc. They allow us to keep in contact with old friends, present friends, and to possibly make new ones.
Derek Reilly
In Sconce's article he discusses two ways media is portrayed, as “Living” or “flowing,” media. Sconce is saying that living media such as your T.V., ipod, video games, etc. have been given a sense of power that controls and influences us to do certain actions. As Jeffrey Sconce says “The “living” quality of television transcends the historically limited and now almost nonexistent practice of direct “live” broadcasting to describe a larger sense that all television programming is discursively “live” by virtue of its instantaneous transmission and reception.” He is trying to say hence everything these days is always broadcasted as “live” it gives off this feeling that it is real.
The first thing that comes to mind when the phrase “Living Media” is said and that is video games. Video games these day are getting so much more violent, real, and interactive. Such as the new Wii system where you are actually doing the motions of the so called “Media” on the screen. Anywhere from playing golf as tiger woods to shooting people in the war. The idea of playing these games that is given off is that it is more “real” more “alive” than ever before. People that are playing these games are getting really into them thinking they are the character doing these motions, when something does go wrong in the game people get angry at the game by swearing, throwing things at the T.V., and getting seriously frustrated. These video games are exactly what Sconce is meaning when he refers to "live" media.
Brad Schiefelbein
TA: Laura Bennett
Jeffrey Sconce’s ideas about “living media” describe a common fascination associated with telecommunication; personifying or attributing seemingly lifelike qualities to technology. The concept of creating sentient life out of machinery is as old as Frankenstein. Only recently, in the dawn of television, have these notions become more prominent. This ideology has been further extrapolated through “tales of imperious, animate, sentient, virtual, haunted, possessed, and otherwise living media…” Furthermore, the use of certain technology to communicate with the dead ironically furthers its living qualities.
The computer with its subsequent application with the internet is a perfect example of “living media”. The level of interactivity and intimacy shared with a computer make the machine into a “friend or confidant”. Messages and ads on the internet are supposedly conveyed personally to the user. In fact the internet is the epitome of live and immediate communication. With constant interaction between people and technology, operators develop an “electronic connection so alluring as to shun the real world in favor of cyberspace.” In essence the virtual world becomes more real than the real world itself. Also, our personification of the computer can be seen most evidently when it fails to function properly. We begin to curse the computer as if it will respond to our ridicule. Under some circumstance one may even strike the machine violently as to afflict pain. The line between inanimate and living in the realm of media and technology can only continue to be blurred.
[Garrett Katerzynske]
[David Witzling]
In his book Jeffrey Sconce writes about the idea of living media and its impact on us. One of the more interesting portions of the book is when a man shoots his television for being too loud. Sconce then states "In this scenario, the television figures as an obnoxious, deceitful visitor within the home whom must be dispatched", It is interesting to think that someone would have felt the need to destroy a T.V. because its too loud, It creates a sort of symbol of retaliation against the T.V. or maybe a retaliation against the media itself.
Sconce goes on to describe the T.V. as a "deceitful visitor within the home" This begins to create a picture of the T.V. being an alien like figure within the home. In a way the media kind of controls our lives. It tells us what we are "supposed" to hear even if its a little "loud" in its message. I believe that is the message sconce is trying to get across. That the T.V. is too loud, it only shows certain perspectives and only shows one point of view in most cases.
Nick Aldrich
T.A. David Witzling
The metaphor that that I feel that Sconce really hits home with especially with our generation is the media is alive. I don't even feel that it is something that can any longer be argued because it is so apparent. Sconce explains, " At times this sense of liveness can imply that electronic media technologies are animate and perhaps even sentient." This quote not only had me look up the definition of sentient, but make me realize how the Internet has become just that. When looking at the different connections Internet can give us to a live world, I feel a specific type of Internet broadcasting is sports coverage. By simply going on a website we can view a live broadcast that can literally give us the perceptive of being at a ballpark across the nation. This visually shows us how the internet as a media has come alive by being able to virtually transport us to a new area. The Internet is the newest form of media that is forever changing and constantly growing. This certainly makes it seem alive to me. It can be added to, it can become more advanced, and parts of it destroyed. The internet has a way of appealing to all senses, the images we can view, noises we can hear, are endless, making the internet the arguably most live form of media.
Matthew Prekop
TA: Katie Brandt
Kevin Witkowski
TA David Witzling
When Jeffrey Sconce talks about “living media” in his book, Haunted Media, he’s obviously stating a metaphor that describes the instantaneous media such as the internet, phones, and most notably in his book, the television. When he says that it is “living”, he is referring to the first part of the word which is “live”. He states “The living quality of television transcends the historically limited and now almost nonexistent practice of direct live broadcasting to describe a larger sense that all television programming is discursively live by virtue of its instantaneous transmission and reception” (Sconce p. 2). Because television is instantaneous, there is no longer a distance gap between people and it’s almost as if the television is the person, someone that’s alive.
The internet is a form of “living media” when using Jeffrey Sconce’s metaphor. It is instantaneous and live for the entire world to see. If you want, you can even have a conversation face to face with another person. Of course it’s not flesh to flesh, but instead, the conversation takes place in a virtual reality and displayed on a computer screen. The internet takes television one step further by not just making live video and audio a one way communication. Now, the internet allows two people to communicate back and fourth which in Jeffrey Sconce’s mind makes it “alive” and “living”.
Kevin Witkowski
TA David Witzling
"Started as a girlish prank, perhaps, the spirit manifestations rapidly assumed a public life of their own. As the two girls secretly instructed others in how to produce the phenomena (or as others devised their own techniques), this diverting charade expanded its influence in parlors and auditoriums across the country...". Jeffrey Sconce mentions that "spirit manifestions rapidly assumed a public life of their own.". This is not so far from other forms of media--the telephone, television, vcr machines. However, it seems like it applies more to the technologies that have been put on the market in the past few decades or so. For years, there seemed to be small, but minor improvements in inventions, like the telephone. But as we let technology into our lives more than ever, consumers are not content with small, minor improvements. They want the best new thing. So pretty soon, everyone could get caller i.d., call waiting, three way calling, cheaper long distance. However, now that we have portable electronics, like cell phones, ipods, mp3 players, etc., we want improvments to happen faster. We are not just happy with advantages like making phone calls and texting. People want unlimited texting, cameras on their phones, and even the internet on their phones. The technology is changing so fast, that within a few years, the prices drop so much on an improvement, that millions of people are soon able to afford the newer and better improved ipod or cell phone.
I also find it very interesting how Sconce makes note of the fact that mediums were either able teach each other or come up with their own unique ways of talking with the dead. Many people of the day I'm sure thought that what these women were doing seemed magical. This is not unlike how technically illiterate people of today look at those who can text message, use the internet, listen to ipods, and use other such devices that the illiterate themselves have sometimes never have touched.
~Mallory Davidson
(Katherine Brandt)
In the introduction of Jeffery Sconce’s book Haunted Media; he creates a metaphor referred to as “living media”. The concept of media is by no means tangible, so how is it that media can be considered living? “Each of these stories draws on a larger cultural mythology about the ‘living’ quality of such technologies, suggesting, in this case, that television is ‘alive…living, real, not dead’” (2). What Sconce is trying to get at is the idea that we consider media (particularly television) to be alive to some extent. Media sends out its message right away and we take it in just as fast. There is also an initial cultural fascination when a new form of media arrives on the scene. For example, when film first debuted the films would simply be for the sake of showing off the new media and not focus on a narrative plot line. This is what Tom Gunning refers to as a “Cinema of Attraction”. There is also the idea that media evolves with the audience that watches it. Take television for example, back in the day (I’m not sure what day, but at least half a century ago) the programs on television were either news related or made for family viewing. These days television has grown into a beast of colossal proportions, we have hundreds and hundreds of channels so you can watch whatever genre of show you wish to watch. The media is adapting to us the way an organism adapts to it environment.
Nelson Schneider
TA: Kate Brandt
Jeffrey Sconce discusses two types of metaphors of electronic media in his book Haunted Media. One of these metaphors is that of living media. It’s the idea that a type of media has a life of it’s own that it’s living out, regardless of if we’re viewing or interacting with it or not. In relation to the television, Sconce says that “all television programming is discursively ‘live’ by virtue of its instantaneous transmission and reception.” As soon as you turn on your television you are viewing that moment in your TV set’s life. The fact that the television is actually a living thing has been slightly blurred. People shout and scream at the TV, like during a sports game, like it’s a living being, knowing full well that there will be no response. Or when an electronic device breaks down its referred to as being ‘dead,’ like it had been alive beforehand.
Video games are a media that people often associate with living. If a player is unable to beat something in the game, they blame the game itself like it has it’s own agenda and is out to get them, rather than blaming themselves. Also, people’s emotions are greatly affected by the status of their game. Because of some inanimate object, a player may become frustrated or angry, not unlike how we react to other living things like human beings.
Tanisha Richter
TA: David Witzling
When Sconce uses the term "flow" in his introduction to "Haunted Media," he refers to the continuous path of information: electricity "flows" through a device, the device transmits data (images and sound among other things), that data is received by people and interpreted by the brain, and the reception of that information causes a physical or mental reaction in each person. In Sconce's own words, the idea of media presence often evokes "a series of interrelated metaphors of "flow," suggesting analogies between electricity, consciousness, and information that enable fantastic forms of electronic transmutation, substitution, and exchange."
The radio is a perfect example of a medium that illustrates the metaphor of "flow." Electricity essentially runs each radio station, allowing the equipment to function, storing files, and operating microphones in order to be able to transmit information. Transmission occurs by physical waves (radio waves) being sent through the air and collected by multiple antennas. The information is then broadcast through a speaker system, causing sound waves to vibrate the air. These sound waves are picked up a person's ear drum and converted by the brain into electrical signals. Ultimately the media is converted by the brain into ideas that we can understand. This whole process evokes the idea of media flowing - actually physically flowing - into us. And after pondering the process that media takes to reach our brains, the metaphor of "flow" seems more like an actuality.
Eric Grycan
TA: David Witzling
When Scone talked about living media he was saying that the "quality of television transcends the historically limited and now almost nonexistent practice of direct 'live' broadcasting to describe a larger sense that all television programming is discursively 'live' by virtue of its instantaneous transmission and reception." This describes the living quality of not only television, but of all media. It says that media makes us feel as if it was made just for us. That there is a "delusional viewer who believes the media is speaking directly to him or her."
This can be best shown through the invention of the ipod. The Ipod allowed consumers to purchase a device that was just for them. It could even have there name on it. The contents of the ipod could also be coustomized to fit that consumers needs/wants making it feel like it is just for them. The fact that u can always change and adapt your ipod also makes it feel like its alive. And now with the newest edition of itunes, the ipod can create music playlist by itself making it seem like it has a mind of its own. Thus making it seem like it's almost alive.
Kate
In the introduction to his book titled Haunted Media, Jeffrey Sconce makes a point in which he describes electronic media as “living” media. This idea of “living” media, according to Sconce, has to do with the presence of immediate transmission and reception of information by many different media outlets. People find a “living electronic connection” in media which allows them to blur the boundaries from what is real and what is not (or in other words, what is electronic). Sconce describes the use of computers as living media but to a different extent than that of television, “but here the interactivity and intimacy of the computer more often transform the machine into a friend and confidant” (78). The use of the personal computer or more specifically, the use of the internet allows for immediate transmission of information which exemplifies the notion of “liveness”. This nourishes the idea of intimacy between people and the machine that they are using in order to communicate with others. Computers help people receive information faster than ever before and now with advanced cell phones like the iPhone, “living” media communication is not only possible from fixed locations. Newer technology like this is making it possible for “living” media to be available not only at home, like the television once was, but also on-the-go. Interaction between the computer and the people while processing information is another thing that makes the computer and the internet "living".
Marisela Rodriguez Gutierrez
TA: Steve Wetzel
Jeffrey Sconce author of the book "Haunted Media" discusses the metaphor of living media in the introduction to his book stated above. Over the years, media has become more and more common in our day to day lives. Our society is being consumed by the 'non real' world of television and movies and video games and yet to us, they are so very real. It is more likely today to have multiple television sets, or as Sconce called them "intruding house guest[s]," in one household than it was twenty years ago (3). The "obnoxious, deceitful, cloying, banal, and/or boring visitor" that is the television can be seen as a "living presence" or possibly as another appendage to ourselves that cannot be "killed" by simply "be[ing] turned off or unplugged" but by a "violent murder" (3). Computers are another example of this idea of living media. It has become our nature to turn on the computer as soon as we arrive home and check our email or our favorite website. But unlike the t.v., the computer has been transformed into a "friend and confidant" because of the "interactivity and intimacy" that it holds (3).
One media that Sconce did not mention that can be applied to the group of living media are video games. Much like television and computers, video games reel a person in to the point where they may actually believe they are in the game. Millions of American children, teenagers, and adults spend hours upon hours in this fantasy world created by the gaming industry and are completely absorbed by it. It almost becomes their 'second life' where they go to block out the real world. People set aside time each month, week, or day, as they might do for a friend or significant other, for the simple act of playing a game. Our world today has based our lives around the living media.
Sara Nesbitt
Kate Brandt
I feel cliché for doing this, but I’m going to pick one of the examples you listed as my medium, because it’s the best one, I think. This is just a disclaimer.
My cousin once traveled to Chicago to meet up with four of his best friends he had never met before. I say never met, meaning they had never met face to face, with their true God given faces. They’ve only met before as a wolf, a tiger, a grizzly bear, and a badger. Their electronic personas were more real to eachother than their actual physical selves.
Ever since video games appeared in homes, there was never really any mistaking them for reality. No one mistook a game for truth like people do with a camera. The two worlds are very separate in societies minds. But sometimes, more so now with the introduction of the web, the virtual world of controllers and pixels becomes more real than the world outside of it.
I think video games can compare well with the Spiritualism movement talked about in Haunted Media. Communicating with people through their virtual personas was much like communicating with the dead through electromagnetic currents.
“Spiritualism was a philosophy that proposed the dead were in communication with the living through mediums who ‘channeled’ the spirit world.” (Sconce, 24)
The medium nowadays to speak to the spirit world is the virtual games people play. The dead are the electrons running in front of the viewer’s face in which he/she is able to manipulate by the pressing of keys or buttons on a controller. These flashing patterns of life take on the characteristics of a real person in the viewer’s mind.
“Did followers realize the phenomenon was not supernatural yet enjoy the social interaction of the séances so much that they played along in an elaborate folie en masse?” (Sconce, 26)
I think what sconce was theorizing about the spiritualists a century and a half ago is exactly what addicted gamers like my cousin are doing. They want to believe that these virtual worlds are a reality. By playing them, they can sink away from the natural world and dive into the fantasy world.
Until the fantasy world becomes reality.
The flow of media describes the electric flow of ideas between the television and its receivers. The flow depends on not so much the content that is being shown, but "...how the public imagination of a given historical moment considers these flows of electricity... to be homologous, interchangeable, and transmutable (pg83)." This means that how the material is interpreted at any given time that is more important. Image the Challenger Shuttle explosion. There are many explosions on television, but that one, and the ideas and events it inspired, are the flow of that particular piece of media. As all the flows come together, we have a very complex web that is a amalgam of all media and its effect on society. Flow can also refer to the flow of one technology to another, such as how the challenger explosion has passed from television, to magazine, to internet, and so on. An example of flow today is the viral video. Remember the Numa Numa guy? Do you remember where you first watched his video? I don't, but I know I've seen or heard or imitated the thing a million times. Viral videos are shared by email, on tv (Vh1), or simply by the guy in the office that says "LEEEEROY JENKINS!!!!!" (if you haven't seen that video, you haven't lived. Or you're mature). The buzz that surrounds a viral video can travel from person to person as the video travels from computer to computer. A whole new culture has evolved in the last few years, flowing from everywhere.
Steve Wetzel
In Jeffrey Sconce’s introduction to Haunted Media, he presents a conjoined media experience, “suggesting analogies between electricity, consciousness and information that enable fantastic forms of electronic transmutation, substitution and exchange.” This is known as “flow”. According to Sconce, the metaphor “flow” takes the three analogies above, and explores them to illuminate the interdisciplinarity factors that make media the interactive experience that it is. The terms “current” and “stream of consciousness” accompany the concept of flow and represent the viewer’s relationship to the media, as our consciousness becomes the progressive aspect of the interaction.
The greatest example I see is seen in surfing the web. When first introduced, the web was seen as a way that technology could connect us using electricity. Although it isn’t thought of as in depth now (due to the habit of being “online”), it still represents physicality amongst users (and a computer as that medium). With this, web surfing is a more tangible representation of our stream of consciousness. We become more active in our stream of consciousness as we navigate from webpage, to webpage to similar website. All in all, the navigation would not “flow” without the interrelated material presented.
Jeffery Scone, in his book Haunted Media articulates the metaphor that media is “living” and at times “sentient.” In reality we find ourselves living around and through media. We project ourselves on the web, we find ourselves sitting in front of television and interacting with computers, likewise we find ourselves employed in the business of media. As we live around and through media we consider ourselves alive but rarely have people realized that media itself is alive. We are all ignorant to the motors of this finely oiled machine. People go through life assuming that football will magically shows up on their television every Sunday night just like they assume that their bodies keep working if they eat and sleep. What people fail to realize is that behind what they see in the mirror every morning there are a bunch of complicated chemical processes and electrical signals keeping them alive just like there are a bunch of electrical signals and people keeping media alive. Our bodies can be easily compared to media in this way. Football doesn’t just show up on our televisions, it takes a lot of processes that we don’t see when flipping the switch on the remote. Let us start with the man on the field filming the game. He was hired on an independent contract to provide a live feed of the game. He is just one of 35 other people filming the game. His camera is wired to a 1200 watt power supply. His camera is also wired to an optical cable streaming the video and audio to the central hub. The signal that he sends is picked up on a switch board which is hooked up to monitors where people choose what will be shown on live television. The feed that is chosen is sent to another monitor where a sensor makes sure no naughty words get through. From this point on this signal is broadcast across the globe using satellites and cable. This signal is transmitted to your house where you sit. You flip a switch and you are connected to this feed and watching live football. I would say that media is very comparable to a human body. You have a nervous system: wiring. You have a circulatory system: energy cables and power source. You have sensory intakes and outputs: the people keeping things in order and the people watching. You even have an immune system: The man taking naughty words out of your everyday programming.
Media even evolves and adapts like humans have. Somewhere right now someone is getting a face lift while someone else is upgrading to a high definition television. Getting new glasses is even comparable to upgrading your graphics card on your computer. Imagine that, everything is clearer and better looking now that you made the switch. You upgrade yourself just like media upgrades itself.
Here is an interesting fact: There are now robots out their that can visually identify and talk about the things they see. Even more amazing is that these robots look and act human. They will shake your hand and greet you, wave goodbye when they have had enough of you, and tell you about the weather. Media is constantly upgrading and evolving and with each step we get closer to something smarter and more equivalent to that of the human being. I believe Jeffery Scone, more literally than metaphorically is correct when he says that “At times this sense of liveliness can imply that electronic media technologies are animated and perhaps even sentient.” I also believe that you shouldn’t be surprised in 40 years when your Playstation 12 wakes you up early one morning wanting to share a pot of tea and talk about its feelings.
Kyle Jenkins
TA: Kate Brandt
“Kill your TV” is numerously seen on the bumper’s of cars, this message indicates that television is a waste of time, and is going to be there in your living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms regardless if their being watched or not. These plastic and glass behemoths aren’t going anywhere. It’s up to you as the consumer to realize there are more important things in the world than this talk box and to literally kill your TV. Sconce goes on to say that “All television broadcasting is discursively live by virtue of its instantaneous transmission and reception. This is Sconces method of saying that there are continual signals for a television to accept and broadcast to whomever is willing to watching them thus reinforcing his metaphor of living media.
Blog’s are a form of live media, they are created for the sole purpose of transferring information from one human to another, there are lots of devices like this, telephone’s, pagers, instant message software and much more, but blog’s are new, they are sweeping the internet world at lightning speed everyone seems to have one, new blogs are born every second and old blogs die at the same rate. This gives blogs life spans, and anything with a lifespan can be metaphorically described as living, hence living media.
Nick Edmonds
TA: Laura Bennett
Jeffery Sconce has a very strong opinion that television and other media is “living”. He states “Each of these stories draws on a larger cultural mythology about the ‘living’ quality of such technologies, suggesting, in this case, that television is alive…living, real, not dead”. I understand how live television can be ‘living’ but I don’t see how it is ‘living’ all the time. It is definitely a ‘living’ from of media though. I think that television is one form of technology that will never die. When I say this everything improves all the time. Take for example the Ipod, over the last three years it has developed from a simple black and white mp3 player, to a colored touch screen device. Now it is still the same concept as it was from the very beginning but it has gotten much more advance. I would say the Ipod is another form of living media. An example of a media that I would say has died is the landline telephone in homes. I would say a majority of the people out there have cell phones and receive most of there phone calls on cell phones. I was thinking about my house doesn’t even have a landline because we all have cell phones there is no use for the landline phone.
Amber Blanchard
TA: David Witzling
Haunted Media is described as certain types of media that are "possessed" such as cell phones, tv, and or radios.
Closed eyes, plasticine face, blank expression... but perfect. A perfect face, or so say advertisers. The cover of McLuhan's book exemplifies the sort of "mechanical" robots that he claims advertisements create. With their calculations, formulas, and graphs, businesses can treat the human psyche like a well-oiled machine: they can manipulate, coerce, and push just the right buttons until we become numb and lifeless, just like the bride on the cover. We can go one step further and focus just on advertising's adverse effect on women: the women of advertisements all look the same, perfectly beautiful beyond reality, representing something that doesn't really exist: the incorruptible, unblemished beauty. The women of statues and paintings, of men's desires. Also, the women of advertisements always seem to be completely submissive. "...it seems rather to be born of a hungry curiosity to explore and enlarge the domain of sex by mechanical technique, on one hand, and , on the other, to possess machines in a sexually gratifying way (McLuhan 94)." The women of advertisements are like dolls, dolls that can be manipulated and played with.
In the early 2000s, the general public, after 60 years of advertisements, is much more media savvy. Unfortunately, big business is still ahead of the game. Most ads today are much more subtle in their approach. They attempt to befriend you, make you seem like you're on the inside of the joke, and that you could never be fooled by this ad - you're too smart for that. They make it seem as if they are giving it to you straight - outrageous claims don't exists as much. "Here's what brown can do for you." The UPS ads feature a man and a whiteboard explaining how it makes so much sense to ship with UPS. It's really very simple, and anyone who doesn't agree must be ignoring simple logic. Of course, they're still trying to sell something, even if they do make you feel smarter. That's why my book would be called "The Consumer's Best Friend," because that is what ads try to be: cool, funny, charming, and unassuming.
Kurt Raether
Steve Wetzel
In Sconce's article Haunted Media I believe he defines the "living media" as "liveness that is present for a whole new series of vivid fantasies involving cyberspace and virtual reality". Sconce would agree that something can be called "living" if it alters one view of seeing within a screen. For example a medium that would qualify as living is a "nano pet". This invention would force people to use their imaginations when using the nano pet. The nano pet was a interactive platform similar to a hand-held video game. The size of this nano pet was small enough to hook onto a key chain. One is able to take care of a creature of somekind from a premature status until the animal is mature. This invention called upon its users to pay attention to his or her pet on a daily bases. One could argue that the pet is living because one has to "feed" and "diet" the animal with a push of a button. If one forgets these responsibilities mentioned above, the pet would die and the user would have to start all over. Sconce illustrates living mediums as having no physical form. Though one could say the "nano pet" has no physical form, it lives because it forces one to imagine and actively be aware of whats happening in the screen. The "nano pet" users were forced to believe in a virtual reality of somekind in order to have success with the medium.
-Dee Griffin
T.A.: David Witzling
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