Media Unlimited

Media or the amalgamated "THE Media" are (or is) everywhere around us, filling our senses and our thoughts, shaping how we feel and reason and act more than we are aware or would care to admit. This is increasingly true for every new generation that is being born as the media torrent permeates additional pores of our existence.

Writen in the pre-YouTube or even more importantly pre-Wikipedia and pre-Facebook era, Todd Gitlin's "Media Unlimited" occasionally already feels dated when dealing with the contemporary. In a strange way, however, even this fact speaks of our society. My need to click "Refresh" and get more up-to-date statistics or more relevant celebrity references just reinforces the awareness of how quickly we have become accustomed (if not addicted) to our over-connected world.

On the other hand I enjoyed the historical perspective provided through the works of great social analysts of the the development of our current state. Although I am usually inclined to be critical of media influence this book leaves me with a feeling of inevitability and, with it, indifference. I can still be critical of a certain aspect, snippet, channel, consequence of our media experience but when it comes to media's overwhelming entirety, judgement escapes me.

It seems like media have become another natural element. Like the availability of air that has led to the evolution of lungs that we breathe with, the media do shape us further. Either nothing about human civilization is natural or it is all natural progression and this book leads me to believe that perhaps as a species we are no longer evolving physically but through our technology and with it our media society we are becoming something new. Maybe it is too early, or perhaps beside the point, to judge what that is. Maybe it's what Media want me to think...