How we know what is real

       Are our memories a part of us? 


          It has been long thought that our memories are imbedded in our minds, retrievable at our own pleasure and will. We rely on our memories to know who we are, where we come from and what we have learned.

           However as with many other aspects of brain function we have come to rely on media devices to jolt or in fact be our memories. The knowledge that we acquire, often through media unities, is often not stored in our memory rather the process of how to access that information is retained.

            The very nature of FaceBook is allowing the act of remembering to become obsolete. No longer have do event times and dates needed to be stored in our natural memory. Past events are able to be displayed for instant recall and even past conversations are able to be instantly accessed.  The act of retrieving information through a no human source is how we know what is real.

           Memory itself has often been questioned by academics especially within the law and psychology fields. Psychological studies have defined meemory has the encoding, storing and retrieval of information. This process best works when there is a definitive need for the memorization of a specific piece of information.

           Eye witness accounts are often relied on by court however their reliability is called into question as psychological demonstrations have revealed the malleability of recall memory.

             This also calls for us to question whether memory function could ever have been called reliable and accurate. The act of documenting and achieving events has been around for as long as humans have existed. From cave drawings to inscriptions to photography we can see the human need to preserve memory. This is many ways implies that there has always been a need for additional materials to assist memory.

            So how do we know what comes from our own mind and what is urged on by semiotic triggers? How we know what is real? Simply; we don’t. We are so tied to media that differentiating the two is impossible. Although I leave you with one last thought, just because we can’t know if our memories are true or accurate doesn’t make them any less powerful and important.

References

Robinson, Michael D.; Johnson, Joel T.

Recall memory, recognition memory, and the eyewitness confidence–accuracy correlation.

Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 81(5), Oct 1996, 587-594.

The Human Memory - Memory Recal/Retrieval http://www.human-memory.net/processes_recall.html Accessed 21/3/2012

Embody

Media; The most important ecology of all              

              Last week I described the notion of a Media Ecology and the difficulty that is face when defining such a term. This week I aim to delve deeper into the complex practicality of media ecologies.

              Melissa Deitz (2010) stresses the importance and effectiveness of the current media ecology, with the example of wikileaks. The revealing of such a large quantity of documents would not have been effective had it not been for social media networks, online news outlets and specifically designed websites. This network allowed for society to access, receive and send the data.

             The acceptance of who holds the power within the ecology needs to be addressed in order to ensure that all revenues within the system can prosper.

                Another look at the connection between natural ecologies and that of the media comes from Thomas Rawlings which rectifies that an ecology is “all about the relationship of energy” (Rawlings, 2011). Within the media world this can be seen in the relationship between internet sites that are in direct or indirect competition. The balance that these unities embody will all for a natural flow of information and ultimately survival.

            Neil Postman outlines that a major difference between the natural environment and that which is in the media environment are that the entities in the media world are implicit and informal. He urges that to accept such an entity we need to forgo the idea that media technologies are merely a machine and rather a growing environment.

            In order to appreciate and get the most out of any environment, we as humans must understand the web of interaction that it has developed and work within it and not against it. The media environment shapes the way the world interacts and develops, by feeding off the energy of the resources available; through such an ecology humans can grow as a society.

References

What is Media Ecology? Media Ecology Association. [ONLINE] http://www.media-ecology.org/media_ecology/index.html [Accessed 8 March 2012]

Rawlings, Thomas (2011) ‘Games as a happening, as a service (Notes from my talk at Goldsmiths), A great Becoming http://agreatbecoming.com/2011/02/03/games-as-a-happening-as-a-service-notes-from-my-talk-at-goldsmiths/ [Accessed 15 March 2012]

Deitz, Milissa (2010) ‘The New Media Ecolgy’ On Line Opinion: Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate. [ONLINE] http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11410&page=1 [Acessed 15 March 2012]

Accessed through What is Media Ecology? —Neil Postman, “The Reformed English Curriculum.” in A.C. Eurich, ed., High School 1980: The Shape of the Future in American Secondary Education (1970). (accessed 15/3/2012)

Ecologies

Media Ecologies

Media Ecology as a tern is a relatively new idea to social studies as its focus revolves around the influences that technology has on society. First established by Marshall McLauen in 1964, the introduction of the term did not occur until 1968 when Neil Postman.

To understand this terminology we first have to look at the terms separately.

·         Ecology refers to the interaction of organisms and their surrounding natural environment.

·         Media refers to all the tools used to transmit, receive and store data.

Furthermore it is important to understand what is meant by society itself. Society is a difficult term to define and many theorists have offered their analysis. However in laymen’s terms a society is an organized group. This can be from the inner organization of oneself to a larger scale organization like a country.

So back to Media Ecologies...Together these terms literally refer to how organisms i.e. people interact with the tools used to manipulate data.

So how can media be an environment? The media is an ever changing and growing mechanism and cannot be simplified down to individual factors much like a natural ecosystem. To be a high functioning environment all forms of media must work to complement each other not to fight within itself. How the media will accomplish this; is to early to determine?  

Due to the recant nature of the terms and the rapid changes scene by the environment study of media ecologies as a whole is difficult. Postman originally suggests that studying media ecologies should in no way differ from environments.  Now days media technologies have been created for vast and varying reasons makes the act of studying such a topic have no concrete format to follow.

Media Ecologies is the study of the current state of the Media Environment.

References


-Media Ecology. Society. Media. Ecologies- Wikipedia, 2012. [ONLINE] Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_ecology. [Accessed 8 March 2012]

-What is Media Ecology? Media Ecology Association. [ONLINE] http://www.media-ecology.org/media_ecology/index.html [Accessed 8 March 2012]