Media history

Media has grown and evolved in a very short period. The creation of the Intrnet is still a brand-new thing, yet, we have done so much with it so far. The way media is even presented to us is ever shifting as well. Everything is not all good with the explosion of new media, however. In my personal experience, media has been made to be an excellent tool to help people come closer together, get news and entertainment faster and more conveniently, as well as share with others and help those in need. On the other side of that same coin, companies have been able to abuse the media, stealing private information from socials, cyber-attacks can effectively destroy someone’s lively hood as well as cancel culture. The spread of misinformation has also grown more out of hand. In this essay, I will be covering, media technologies associated with recent media history, integrate those technologies with my own personal history, and analyze the historical, economic, and technological history through a personal history lens. 

I think that before I can talk about my own media history experiences, I must cover the media technologies associated with recent history. With the publication of the internet in the early 1990’s the sharing of information has grown more rapid than ever. Suddenly, news was easier to obtain, recipes could be found online, people could meet new people or chat with friends in chat rooms or on blogs, and physical books started to become a thing of the past. Now, TV which is also a relatively new media, is struggling to keep up with the internet. Companies are creating partnerships in order to have suede monopolies over internet, streaming services are beginning to dominate the world of cable television, YouTube has created jobs for thousands of creators and redefined daily entertainment and the delivery of information and there is even talk of movie theatres being wiped out as a whole. Let’s not fail to mention social media, used to keep people connected and share their lives. All these things can be done over recent media making the need for human interaction less and less by the day. On top of that, people have become more comfortable with convenience and are more easily susceptible to fake news. There’s no doubt that there are pros and cons to new media but things on the personal level look a little different. 

I am not much of a picture person which is why the pictures associated with my media history may seem so loosely related but I definitely do enjoy a lot of new media which has impacted my life on a very core level. I am an avid videogame player. Ever since my dad introduced me to videogames at a really young age, I’ve loved them. The stories, the entertainment value, the lessons, all of it plus the content I consumed on tv shaped who I am today from my personality to my friendships and my ideals. For the longest time, social media was not allowed in my household, so I ended up shaping myself and my actions after videogame characters or movie characters. This history with media has formed my understanding of the world and created my passions. I want to be an actor, or a videogame designer, or a storyteller, or a hero to those in need all because of the content I often consumed. Eventually I was introduced to anime through new media which shaped who I am even further, falling in love with character like Goku from DragonBall or Naruto from his anime of the same name. Eventually, however, I did get social media behind my parents backs because I wanted to stay up to date with my friends and establish a cool social media presence for myself which ended in good and bad relationships, heart break, sadness, and many other mixed emotions. Finally, I’ve gotten to a point where social media isn’t a big part of my life but videogames and streaming very much are. I have even moved on to creating dating profiles on the internet. 

Finally, to evaluate the way I see the historical, technological, and economic history of media. I think that we have come so far in a short period, with the help of many smart people coming together and always creating and always sharing through the media we have created. So many amazing technologies have been made to benefit us yet, they are not always used for good. From an economic standpoint, I see that the government and corporations have been finding easier ways to manipulate the masses through the shortened attention span created by things like social media. News has been made to be less about the content and more about the amount of clicks it can produce to get money, Misinformation is rampant, and people are quick to jump on the bandwagon. The internet can be considered a lawless place sometimes because new media is created so quickly that laws have not yet been put in place to fully handle the new media. This has brought rise to cancel culture which I believe to be the best and worst thing to happen to the internet, people who do wrong are held accountable but if people fall prey to false information then someone innocent could have their lively hood ruined because these days, if you do not have an internet presence, then you simply do not exist. On the Brightside, I believe that history from now on will be much easier of keep track of and way more detailed than in the past. Events such as 9/11, that I remember always talking about in class as a kid, will always be remembered. In fact, we are living in history right now. Covid 19 is a part of my history forever. 

New Media is a blessing and a curse from the way it’s abused to all it enables us to do, and I cherish all my experiences with it. Even still I have pictures to further exemplify my history with media. 

The fist photo is a picture of me at the release of a new Star Wars film. This was an event to create a shared experience through the media that is theatre. 

Next is a photo of Star Wars invading a history museum that I went to as a field trip. Notice how media, has created something so popular as to be easily integrated into a historical space. 

Then we have the time that my mother and I went to go see a theatrical performance of the avengers. Even at live events, the need for some sort of media presence takes over. I even recorded part of the event which took away from the overall experience. 

The next picture is me posing as spiderman for Halloween on my college campus. This shows the impact that media such as marvel and Star Wars has played in my life. I was even posted on the school’s website. 

The photo following that more closely shows how anime has played a role in my life as a diverse media. 

The photo following exemplifies one of the passions that was formed in me by media such as Star Wars, and anime, acting. It also shows the friends that were made while going through my acting journey. 

The next three pictures expand on the last one, showing the waking nature of things that happened as a result of my acting passion, meeting strange new characters, becoming a strange new character and even getting to travel to big cities. 

The picture of the block with my name on it, shows how the medias I grew up with has allowed me to make my mark in history all thinks to media inspiring me to get into acting. 

We then have a picture of how media has evolved to further allow more immersive alteration to make people enjoy their interests. For instance, this is me using a filter that gives me a face from anime. 

The next picture was an assignment that I first got in college when doing classes for film. This shows how media has influenced my passions into wanting to make it into a career. 

The three pictures following are of a girl I met online through a dating app. She comes all the way from Japan, and I believe this shows how far reaching media really is. 

Then we have three pictures of friends that I haven’t seen in a very long time but through media, I have been able to keep in touch with them. 

This is a picture of me and my dog after I first got him from the pound. I found him utilizing a website, which proves how media can help animals find good homes and happiness. 

Finally, we have a shot taken from a website about cheat codes for a videogame I was playing. I took this picture to help me memorize the cheats which allowed me to get even more fun out of a game that I payed for. This would have been much harder without new media.