media

A Three-Part Theory Of Media

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I often analyze media, how it works, and what it means – which any regular reader knows. This isn’t just my generally obsessive and analytical nature; media is something many of us create from the instructional (yours truly) to fiction (like my friend Serdar). Right now if you’re here you’re probably interested in media creation, and possibly even doing it – so you’re bang alongside reading yet Another Crazy Steve Theory*.

But there’s another reason to analyze media beyond making it – and that’s to understand how it affects you and others. As we’re always consuming media (even unconsciously) in this wired age, understanding how it affects us is vital to being functional. Anyone who’s ever watched someone get a crazy and dysfunctional idea from a story or a biased newscast knows the importance of understanding media.

Lately I’ve been wondering how media influences people and how they take messages from it. In addition I’ve wondered how people can “read so much” into a piece of media that doesn’t seem to mean what they say. In time, I began to see media has three different sides to it.

Here’s my theory – that media has three components.

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The Two Creative Revolutions: One Continues

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We’re experiencing a creative revolution. Self-publishing technology, POD, and word processors lets one make a novel or comic alone (though hopefully one is social enough to get an editor). A lone game designer or a small crew can make a quality game with common libraries and engines. CGI allows a film like “Manborg” to be made cheaply and efficiently.

This does not mean this explosion of work is one of quality, but it is historically noteworthy. The power to get creative work out and available is accessible by a much wider audience than in the past. To judge by the wok out there, many people are willing to take advantage of this power.

Again, we may complain about a lack of quality, but we’re not lacking for quantity, even if we may wish we were.

We have a revolution in creativity-empowering tools, but that’s not the only revolution. There’s another change that’s gone on, eclipsed by the tools. This shadow revolution, this parallel change, is the idea that all of us can be authors and coders and artists.

There’s been a revolution in our narratives about ourselves.

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Further Elder Geek Thoughts: Maturity

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Last column I explored how conventions were a place where the silly and the serious, the fun and the professional, combined. It was where you could cut loose – and then the inspiration could be channeled. It was where panels fanning over Sleepy Hollow* are then followed by workshops on writing. Conventions are a liminal space.

Serdar, my multitalented friend, noted in response that for many people, when they become a so-called adult, they often limit what they consider the fun they can have. Conventions are spaces where we can actually just like what we like, and are thus valued. Well, like what we like with the occasional stupid argument, but still.

That got me thinking about media and what is considered “age-appropriate materials” – and how such ideas are actually rather irrelevant, misguided, and confusing.

Because when we talk about what media is mature or not, suitable for adults or kids, it’s often meaningless. It’s assumptions without substance.

Assuming we have a grasp on what is “truly mature media” really is a bit immature . . .

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