Connects to Unit Outcome(s):
- Identify and explain the economic, technological and cultural influence of the media in their own and others' lives;
Builds capacities in:
- Analytical thinking and innovation
- Critical thinking and analysis
- Active learning
- Word count: 500 words + 1 or more images
Example Biographic Wiki Page - Robbie Robbie Fordyce - Biographic Wiki Media Memory: Mac SE II Photo of Robbie as a child, with a Mac SE II on his desk One of my earliest real memories where I was aware on some level that I was using a technology to access culture was when I used my old Mac SEII. It was a hand-me-down computer from my dad that I used to play games like Angband and the Bard’s Tale. This was before the days of household internet – at least in the south end of New Zealand at the time. We didn’t really have videogame stores, except for one Dick Smith store on the other side of town. Getting games for Mac computers was also difficult because most people had 486 or early Pentium computer that would run DOS or Windows. A Mac was mainly an educational brand, and its early computers didn’t have a hard drive, requiring users to mount an operating system image off a 3.5-inch “floppy disk” with a data capacity of 400 KB (less than half a megabyte). This meant you had to trade for games with people who you knew who also had a Mac. For the group to get a new game, someone had to go overseas to buy it and bring it back. We had an unofficial group of people who would trade these little plastic discs back and forth as what was called a ‘sneaker-net’ of ten-year old kids trading games amongst each other. Thinking about this moment with McLuhan’s approach, I think it retrieves an idea of real-world connectivity. Even though computers tend to focus on digital networks, because this type of device wasn’t so good it did mean that people had to find workarounds to get things like games to work, and we were really dedicated at this. We would trade info and tips about how to get the games to work properly, share cheats (because no one was any good, and we didn’t have the internet). This focus on interaction and socialisation that the Mac SE II required in order to work made the community seem more alive than it would have been otherwise. Media Memory: VHS player We had an old VHS player growing up, which we used to record things from TV and watch later. It's an odd idea if we look back on it now, but the reality was if you wanted to watch something specific and you weren't able to be in front of a TV at the time it was shown, there wasn't really a way to watch it. In 2003 my little sister recorded the Academy Awards. To her it seemed like a media event that she should archive so that she could go back and watch it again if she needed to. When I was back home, I picked up the tape because I think it's evidence of how people approached media not all that long ago. It was a time when people focused on archiving and holding on to moments, ensuring that they would have their own copies, and their own records. Hundreds, if not thousands of people, would have recorded that same show, so all over the country there would be people with their own copies of the Academy Awards 2003 that they kept. People did this with radio too, recording songs onto cassette tapes off the radio and creating their own mixtapes, or if they were lucky they'd have a stereo with a CD player or two cassette drives, and could record from these. We'd watch or listen to the same shows over and over again until the film got stretched out and stopped working. I think the VHS tape was something that enhanced personal archiving. The tapes and the cassettes would only cost a few dollars, so it was cheap to do. People would create large archives of really low-res content, creating their own media libraries of songs, shows, films, and other things, and it was meaningful to people as a media practice. Without VHS tapes and cassettes and the focus on owning your own copy of something, I feel like society might have had a different relationship to television - maybe it would have been less intense, maybe it would have been worse. Photo of a VHS tape of the 2003 Academy Awards being opened Example Biographic Wiki Page - Robbie Robbie Fordyce - Biographic Wiki Media Memory: Mac SE II Photo of Robbie as a child, with a Mac SE II on his desk One of my earliest real memories where I was aware on some level that I was using a technology to access culture was when I used my old Mac SEII. It was a hand-me-down computer from my dad that I used to play games like Angband and the Bard’s Tale. This was before the days of household internet – at least in the south end of New Zealand at the time. We didn’t really have videogame stores, except for one Dick Smith store on the other side of town. Getting games for Mac computers was also difficult because most people had 486 or early Pentium computer that would run DOS or Windows. A Mac was mainly an educational brand, and its early computers didn’t have a hard drive, requiring users to mount an operating system image off a 3.5-inch “floppy disk” with a data capacity of 400 KB (less than half a megabyte). This meant you had to trade for games with people who you knew who also had a Mac. For the group to get a new game, someone had to go overseas to buy it and bring it back. We had an unofficial group of people who would trade these little plastic discs back and forth as what was called a ‘sneaker-net’ of ten-year old kids trading games amongst each other. Thinking about this moment with McLuhan’s approach, I think it retrieves an idea of real-world connectivity. Even though computers tend to focus on digital networks, because this type of device wasn’t so good it did mean that people had to find workarounds to get things like games to work, and we were really dedicated at this. We would trade info and tips about how to get the games to work properly, share cheats (because no one was any good, and we didn’t have the internet). This focus on interaction and socialisation that the Mac SE II required in order to work made the community seem more alive than it would have been otherwise. Media Memory: VHS player We had an old VHS player growing up, which we used to record things from TV and watch later. It's an odd idea if we look back on it now, but the reality was if you wanted to watch something specific and you weren't able to be in front of a TV at the time it was shown, there wasn't really a way to watch it. In 2003 my little sister recorded the Academy Awards. To her it seemed like a media event that she should archive so that she could go back and watch it again if she needed to. When I was back home, I picked up the tape because I think it's evidence of how people approached media not all that long ago. It was a time when people focused on archiving and holding on to moments, ensuring that they would have their own copies, and their own records. Hundreds, if not thousands of people, would have recorded that same show, so all over the country there would be people with their own copies of the Academy Awards 2003 that they kept. People did this with radio too, recording songs onto cassette tapes off the radio and creating their own mixtapes, or if they were lucky they'd have a stereo with a CD player or two cassette drives, and could record from these. We'd watch or listen to the same shows over and over again until the film got stretched out and stopped working. I think the VHS tape was something that enhanced personal archiving. The tapes and the cassettes would only cost a few dollars, so it was cheap to do. People would create large archives of really low-res content, creating their own media libraries of songs, shows, films, and other things, and it was meaningful to people as a media practice. Without VHS tapes and cassettes and the focus on owning your own copy of something, I feel like society might have had a different relationship to television - maybe it would have been less intense, maybe it would have been worse. Photo of a VHS tape of the 2003 Academy Awards being opened