7 June 2005

MyMedia

Back in November of last year, I posted about an animation pondering the possibly weird world of media in the future. It's an animation called "Epic" and had some interesting ideas in it: in 2014 people will be surrounded by dynamically generated and dynamically compiled, personal media. This concept has been floating around for a while, but the Epic animation ties it in to current companies to give it a realistic edge. Google will provide the network grid, Blogger and iPod will provide personal broadcast "towers," and Amazon will provide the personalized recommendations. The New York Times and Microsoft die, and all media consumption reverts to trivial gossip. They have an update that tacks on events in 2015, but adds little to the concept.

I keep considering how the opposite (of degenerate personalized media) might happen. These cocoons of self-interest may be our generation's Frankenstein or primary dystopia: a warning of the possible excesses of media addiction if current trends are taken to the extreme. Dystopian predictions are good for the feedback and cathartic outlet they allow. They may be too extreme to ever happen, but they allow us as a society to examine the possibility and examine the fears that may be building in our subconscious.

[ posted by sstrader on 7 June 2005 at 12:49:00 PM in Culture & Society ]