Saturday 9 June 2012

Media, History & Cultural.

Module Lecture: Daniel Chong

This Rough Magic- media, history and culture



The area discussion for the second class which is week 2 is about the introduction of media, history and culture. So, what is media, what is history and what is culture?

Based on the article This Rough Magic- an introduction to media, history and cultural by  Ivan Philips, reader is aim to understand their own forms of 'magic' and to embrace them which means to understand the meaning in their own words.

What is Media? The origin word 'medium' is come from the Latin word medius which means 'middle'. It is referring to something in-between. According to the media theorist Marshall McLuhan, he said that a medium is/as an 'extension' of the human/mind body. For example, the clothes is the extension of our skin, a hat extends the hair, a car extends the leg and etc. Besides that, media is a device that is part of the communication process. It also reflects an awareness of media convergence.

What is history? Of course it is related with the past/the stories of the past. With its distant origins in the Indo-European root wid, it means 'to know' or 'to see'. The word 'history' is originate from the ancient Greek histor, which means 'learned man'. When mutated into the Latin historia, it means 'knowledge obtained by enquiry'.

What is culture? Culture is used to describe aspects of individual experience or character. There are numerous examples of cultures such as 'pop culture', 'drug culture', gay culture' youth culture' and so on.
Culture shared customs, beliefs, and behaviours. It is also the general idea of boosting the mind. According to Arnold, culture is divide into 2 which is high culture and low culture. Low culture that hard to find in recent years are the 'popular culture' today. The examples are comic books, Mickey mouse, Rock'n Roll, horror films, Karaoke, Gangsta rap and etc. In addition,Arnold also opposed culture to anarchy, perhaps what he meant by 'anarchy' was the lack of cultural control and standards. So, for the conclusion, Culture is anything that is not nature.



There are some examples of high culture and low culture in Fashion 

High culture:


Elegance

Formal


Low culture:



Hip hop 

Jeans