Response 2

All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the message. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments. All media are extensions of some human faculty – psychic or physical.-Marshall McLuhan

If media shape us, then what shape do we see through the media? How do the vehicles/technology of many-to-many media shape what kinds of selves are possible?

Pick 2 autbotography projects and review thoroughly. How does each create a new and strange mirror on what it means to be human? What kind of self is possible, or reflected, or satirized, or created via the new technologies? For each project explain what the new tech is, and then how it shapes what kind of self is possible. Do you think race, gender, class, culture, age or other factors influence these new selves? Do the very poor have access to these new selves?

What kind is society is created by the proliferation of these new selves?

As you work, consider the ways your own self is portrayed, defined, or enabled through the technologies you use. (selfies, surveillance, iPhone credit cards, school IDs, etc)

• Post Title:  Response 2—FirstnameL
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