"Behind the Screens"

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Media and Semiotics

What is media? My guess is that this is a topic of some contention, and probably the central question of media studies. I readily admit that I am no expert, with most of my media studies education coming from my subscriptions to NPR's podcast "On the Media." http://www.onthemedia.org/ So here I'll just share some of my general thoughts and observations, and I ask that readers consider this, like all posts, just the beginning of a dialog. This one is about gaining a working definition of "media."

In popular usage, the term "the media" has come to refer to news media. Print, radio, televesion, and now internet sources of news. I want to use the term much, much more broadly.

What I mean by media refers to signs and symbols that convey information. Here, I'm taking a cue from semiotics, a field which I hope to study in much more depth. Here are some web resources that I'm currently using the get a basic background in semiotics:
1) wikipedia article on semiotics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics

2) middle school Media Literacy class blogs by Steven Miraglia - http://grade6medialiteracy.blogspot.com/
I really respect this educator!

3) Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler - http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/semiotic.html

Here are some salient quotes from the introduction of Semiotics for Beginners (accessed 3/26/10):

"...we have no way at all of representing smell or touch with conventional media." Conventional media also has no way of adequately representing taste. Thus, the media generally appeals to the senses of sight and sound.

"The everyday use of a medium by someone who knows how to use it typically passes unquestioned as unproblematic and 'neutral': this is hardly surprising since media evolve as a means of accomplishing purposes in which they are usually intended to be incidental. And the more frequently and fluently a medium is used, the more 'transparent' or 'invisible' to its users it tends to become. For most routine purposes, awareness of a medium may hamper its effectiveness as a means to an end. Indeed, it is typically when the medium acquires transparency that its potential to fulfil its primary function is greatest."

"The selectivity of any medium leads to its use having influences of which the user may not always be conscious, and which may not have been part of the purpose in using it."

It took me a little while to process this image, but I understand it to represent a feedback loop. The unintended consequences of the use of a medium end up altering the intended consequences of the use. In my own usage, I often experience this phenomenon while composing electronic music. I'll have an idea of the sound I want to produce in my head. But then when I interact with the software I'm using, play with various parameters on the synthesizer, or compose a beat while I listen to it looping, and my mental image, as well as the sound produced, are altered. More on this interactive process of composing later. More quotes of interest from Semiotics for Beginners:

"An awareness of this phenomenon of transformation by media has often led media theorists to argue deterministically that our technical means and systems always and inevitably become 'ends in themselves' (a common interpretation of Marshall McLuhan's famous aphorism, 'the medium is the message'), and has even led some to present media as wholly autonomous entities with 'purposes' (as opposed to functions) of their own. However, one need not adopt such extreme stances in acknowledging the transformations involved in processes of mediation. When we use a medium for any purpose, its use becomes part of that purpose. Travelling is an unavoidable part of getting somewhere; it may even become a primary goal. Travelling by one particular method of transport rather than another is part of the experience. So too with writing rather than speaking, or using a word processor rather than a pen. In using any medium, to some extent we serve its 'purposes' as well as it serving ours. When we engage with media we both act and are acted upon, use and are used. Where a medium has a variety of functions it may be impossible to choose to use it for only one of these functions in isolation. The making of meanings with such media must involve some degree of compromise. Complete identity between any specific purpose and the functionality of a medium is likely to be rare, although the degree of match may on most occasions be accepted as adequate."

This point is crucial. Here I might call for a distinction between media and medium, what I before referred to as media and technology. Media would be the signs and symbols produced by any given medium. The medium is the technological vehicle that transmits media. So media would be a television program, the medium the TV. Or this blog=media, the internet and a computer=medium. In the broader sense of technology, our mind is also a technological medium. More on that later. However, given the feedback loop model above ('the medium is the message'), this distinction may lack substantive meaning, especially in the context of burgeoning technological innovation where the technology itself gains substantial symbolic value.

"Whilst technological determinists emphasize that semiotic ecologies are influenced by the fundamental design features of different media, it is important to recognize the importance of socio-cultural and historical factors in shaping how different media are used and their (ever-shifting) status within particular cultural contexts."

"....why should we study semiotics?...Semiotics is important because it can help us not to take 'reality' for granted as something having a purely objective existence which is independent of human interpretation. It teaches us that reality is a system of signs. Studying semiotics can assist us to become more aware of reality as a construction and of the roles played by ourselves and others in constructing it. It can help us to realize that information or meaning is not 'contained' in the world or in books, computers or audio-visual media. Meaning is not 'transmitted' to us - we actively create it according to a complex interplay of codes or conventions of which we are normally unaware. Becoming aware of such codes is both inherently fascinating and intellectually empowering. We learn from semiotics that we live in a world of signs and we have no way of understanding anything except through signs and the codes into which they are organized. Through the study of semiotics we become aware that these signs and codes are normally transparent and disguise our task in 'reading' them. Living in a world of increasingly visual signs, we need to learn that even the most 'realistic' signs are not what they appear to be. By making more explicit the codes by which signs are interpreted we may perform the valuable semiotic function of 'denaturalizing' signs. In defining realities signs serve ideological functions. Deconstructing and contesting the realities of signs can reveal whose realities are privileged and whose are suppressed. The study of signs is the study of the construction and maintenance of reality. To decline such a study is to leave to others the control of the world of meanings which we inhabit."

This is why I want to go to grad school. When I say I'm interested in going to grad school for 'media studies,' I'm referring largely to this semiotic approach, combined with a strong practical element. Thus, the ideal program for me would balance this social scientific theory with practical application through media production, my particular focus being on sound related media and technology. The former (theoretical) part I estimate to be personally enriching, the latter part (technological) geared toward assembling useful skills in the 21st century's economy and culture.

This post is becoming longer that I intended, but I want to close with one more piece of personal meaning. Shortly before he died, my grandfather, a pastor and theologian who loved to engage those around him in intellectual debate, asked me "What are the most pervasive, most often used symbols in the world?" "I don't know...crosses or something?" "No," he replied exasperated at my ignorance, "WORDS!" Grandpa had gained the knowledge and wisdom embodied in semiotics, and was trying to impart some if it to me. Thus, I see this study as a continuation of my conversations with him; the continuation of the theological and intellectual tradition of my German-American ancestors going back over five generations; and the continuation of my own study of music, religion, culture, technology, and media. As such a potential well of personal and intellectual meaning, I am truly grateful to have encountered semiotics. As I hope to pursue graduate programs as I've described above, I'd also be wonderfully grateful to any who can give me guidance in the process of finding such programs. Your help, feedback, comments and suggestions are always appreciated.

Knowledge and Wisdom

Went to a party this weekend at UNIT, a Tokyo club that has regular drum n' bass events. As dnb has been my genre of choice for the past four years or so, and it had been a while since I had been to a DJ event, I checked out their latest party last weekend.

The headliner was DJ Terry T with MC Demolition man. Check out Terry T's myspace: http://www.myspace.com/djterryt. His record label is called "Knowledge and Wisdom." Though I'm undecided about the capacity jungle drum n' bass to promote knowledge and wisdom (as opposed to just being fun for some and noisy for others), the exposure to his music and the concept of his record label provided me with an opportunity to reflect on knowledge and wisdom, twin concepts that I think are essential for media literacy and awareness. For years, I have been thinking of these concepts as knowledge and understanding, but I'll take the cue from Terry T and go with knowledge and wisdom in this post.

Knowledge refers to the gathering of information. It is what we learn when we study for a test, memorize a list of vocabulary words, gain technical skill necessary for music production, or consume statistics about deomographics or poll results. Knowledge refers to the content of information. It is "what" we learn.

Wisdom, or what I call understanding, is a much deeper process. It refers to the graceful, intelligent, and intuitive application of knowledge in one's life. For example, one might have knowledge of the negative effects of consuming too much sugar and fat. Even with the knowledge that excessive sugar and fats don't contribute to a healthy diet, and even with a desire to live healthily, one may continue to eat too much sugar and fat. Yet one who has developed wisdom with regards to health and nutrition will refrain from eating these unhealthy foods excessively, though perhaps consume them in moderation.

Here is a more nuanced article about knowledge and wisdom, summarizing the work of Russell Ackoff. I found it at the top of a google search of the terms "knowledge and wisdom." http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm
As a student of religion in college, it became necessary for me to make a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. In my studies, I found myself coming back to the same question time and time again: what is the relationship between scholarship and practice? Scholarship of religion in secular academic institutions is divorced from the practice of particular wisdom traditions, and for good reasons. Though I'm glad to have gained some general knowledge about various religious traditions and religious studies itself, both analytical and content knowledge, I realized that what I was seeking was wisdom. And that this pursuit was, to a large degree, something seperate from the learning I was doing in my classes.

The pursuit of wisdom has been largely relegated to religious and philosophical institutions for much of human history. One of the things that concerns me about the media and technology boom of the past century is the displacement of these traditions. In many cultures, it is becoming more and more difficult to derive meaning from traditional religious symbols. Our current media/technology-scape provides us with a deluge of knowledge. Many of our wisdom institutions are having trouble adapting to this new cultural landscape, though they are indeed trying. What remains to be seen, and what I'm interested in exploring in this blog, is how new wisdom traditions will be created to respond to the need for organization of the massive amounts of knowledge flowing through our lives.

Posts to follow:
-My Childhood: Religion and TV
-The Center for Religion and Media @ NYU
http://crm.as.nyu.edu/page/home

The Loss of my Keyboard

This post is regrettably late. Unfortunately, stupidly, I spilled some liquid on my Macbook Pro keyboard and have lost the use of the "n,m,h,y,6,numlock,?' keys. I know, I know, I can quote the forums: "Don't play with liquids around a $1k+ piece of equipment [which more or less coordinates and controls your life]." BTW, this was not emotionally helpful as I was looking for solutions to fixing my keyboard, although I know this episode will teach me to be more careful around my central-life-coordinating-computing-machine in the future.

Immediately, I began going through symptoms of computer withdraw. I still had limited use, minus the keys on the keyboard, and I wanted to blog. But I couldn't bear the thought of writing an entire blog post (or three or four) having to paste in the letters I am missing, or simply do without them. However, this might have been an interesting experiement in mindfulness, avoiding using four letters and still coming up with something coherent to say. In any case, I opted out of blogging, and instead used my mouse to navigate me to some more "It's Always Sunny..."

Next day, I shut the machine down and brought it to a Mac store for consultation. Of course, before they even looked at it I would have had to sign a form accepting the possibility of the loss of all my data for the price of about $100 in service charges, only so they could diagnose whether it would be necessary for me to pay about $300 to replace the keyboard, or $1,300+ to replace the whole circuit board. Despite devoting an entire day to the repair process, I decided to bring my computer home, back up my data, and consider buying a keyboard. Now I'm using my work computer to put down my blog thoughts.

I don't know if this is healthy blogging behavior, but I have a spurt of posts I'd like to put up. I'll put down a list of topics here to guide my future posts:

-Knowledge and Wisdom
-Media
-Technology
-A Survey of "Mindful Media" on the Web
-A Day in the Life: a Mindful Media Experiment
-Our Planet TV
-A Survey of Blog Sites and Why I Chose This One

The Problem of Mindfulness

Sometimes mindfulness can be stressful.

In fact, the thing I like most about a lot of media (my newest favorite being the series It's Always Sunny In Philidelphia downloaded from iTunes) is the mindlessness of it.

So after that first post - a grandiose statement I had been conjuring in my mind for a couple months and wanted to make it come out perfect - I was feeling a bit stressed. It took me about 4 hours or so to decide which blog site to use (later post on why I chose blogspot and my disappointment when I learned it's owned by Google), create my account, and write the post. Like a pendulum, I swung back from the positive mindful and aware mindset I had been hoping this blog would help me achieve, and actually found myself indulging in all sorts of mindless media, along with beer and potato chips.

Those well practiced in mindfulness may have some tips on how to get over this problem, i.e. stress caused by extra awareness that makes it difficult to practice vigilent mindfulness. I must admit that my knowledge and practice of mindfulness is pretty limited. My Mom, now a mental health counselor, introduced me to the concept. I've picked up Tich Nhat Han books a couple times in the past 5 years, only to read a couple pages and then put them down, finding his approach too difficult for me for precisely the reason above. He encourages us to practice mindfulness all the time, to embrace the moment of whatever we are doing. "While I am washing the dishes, I know that I am washing the dishes. While I am walking, I know that I am walking." But I don't always want to be mindful. Sometimes, I like to let my mind wander, to imagine, to day dream, to dwell on the past and the future. The brief moments when I've experienced mindfulness have been through vipassana or zazen meditation. I've toyed with these practices after getting some basic instruction from Western teachers about how to sit and focus on the breath in vipassana, or "let your thoughts pass" in zazen. But I have only practiced them in spurts, daily for a week or a month or so here and there. I can't seem to really commit to them long term.

However, I feel that I've gained a little insight from the little sitting I've done about mindfulness and concentration. With vispassana, I discovered that my thoughts of course wander after a breath or two, but the key to concentration is constantly bringing my attention back to the breath. After about a month of practice, I was able to concentrate on two or three or more breaths at a time before my mind wanted to wander. With zazen, I've experienced my thoughts passing, allowing them to float by like clouds without really being attached to their meaning or significance. In other words, being aware of my thoughts in a detached way. When in a particularly sublime state, I am able to concentrate on the space between thoughts and let my mind go blank before I feel the next thought arising.

This is the sort of mindfulness I am aiming for with this blog. A detached awareness and prolonged concentration that keeps me coming back to reflecting on media use and abuse, with the hope of someday making my use of media and technology more intentional and mindful. So I will set aside time for this reflection, but I don't have faith in myself to be mindful all the time. Perhaps I can at least become aware of when I'm using the internet, computer, cell phone, etc. in a state of clarity, or when I'm using them to simply stroke my ego and tune out the real world.

Manifesto

Mindful media. Intentional technology. Ideas worth considering. Why?

Media and the technologies that distribute them powerfully influence our daily lives, habits and cultures. The past century witnessed exponential developments in media and technology, and many people have seen the transitions from print media to radio to television to internet within their lifetimes. Evidence of the powerful effects of media and technology is all around us if we choose to become conscious of it.

Look around you and notice the number of brand logos in your immediate space. I counted 12, though I know there are hundreds in my apartment at large. Everyone reading this as a blog post will have to count at least the blogspot logo in their browser as advertisement regrettably encroaching into this blog and your mind. This simple exercise demonstrates the pervasiveness of advertising in both physical and digital space. Yet we are generally unaware of the ubiquitous existence of these signs and symbols, as well as the power they command in our lives.

In the true sense of a "web log," I aim to use this site in a variety of ways:

1) To increase mindfulness about the use of media and technology for myself and others by posting about my day-to-day interactions with them.

2) To participate in the cycle of consumption and production of media.

3) To reflect on this process.

4) To contribute to a field of knowledge about the role of media and technology in daily life.

As the blog develops, I hope to perform a variety of experiments in the use of media-related technology. In the process I hope to gain working definitions and a deeper understanding of media, technology, culture and mindfulness. I also intend to use icons to distinguish posts as consumption, production or reflection, or a combination of these.

By practicing mindfulness while engaging with media, by using technology intentionally, I hope to align myself with a cosmic force and use my own power to ease suffering in the world, create cultures of beauty, and contribute to forming the conditions for peace around the world.