Media and Medium - Four Questions/Four Answers

     Often today, you can nary get by a day without technology impacting you in some way, shape or form.  People around you are busy walking here and there, a smart phone in hand, some music in ear, or a snippet of text in sight.  For me, my life has been based solely around technology.  To which I must answer the following questions:

Question 1)  When has the medium proved to be the message in your media consumption?
Question 2)  What is a good example of how new media technology has acted as an extension of your body?
Question 3)  What is prime example of how you engage in the 'global village?'
Question 4)  Based on your reflections on the impact that media has had on you, do you consider yourself a technological determinist or a structuralist?

     To answer the first question, the only really big medium that has proved to be the message in my consumption of media has to be when I first got my first glimpse of the internet as a child.  At the time, the internet was just starting out (before the days of social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, etc.), but back then, it was probably the biggest eye-opener to me.  The fact that - and this is especially true, as when I was young, I had an...let's just say my mind as a kid was more expansive in terms of grasping concepts than today - I could literally communicate with people from all over the world from home (we had this ancient thing called an AOL chat room - I always stuck with the video game sub-chat because I was a huge gamer even at that point of my early childhood).

     For questions two and three, I'll need to go a bit more in-depth and talk about something that I'm pretty sure a vast majority of people know absolutely nothing about it.  In Japan, there are these vocal synthesizing programs called 'Vocaloids', which are essentially "vocalists in a box".  They are software programs designed to take pre-recorded samples from different voice actors and make them into regular singers.  There is also a free version of this synthesizing software called Utau, which allows regular folks, like you and me, to record our own "vocal samples" and, in turn, transform our voice into a vocalists'.  Now, to be fair, I can't really sing.  I always have a hard time hitting a high note (or any high note, for that matter).  But with this software, I can sing (albeit aided by the program).  For me, this is the extension of my body, or more my persona.  For example, my voice is mostly mono-tone and boring.  However, with this program, my voice sounds more like that of a singer's.  Here's a quick sample (it is in Japanese, but it does convey the same point):




     This also ties in with the third question.  With the vocal synthesizing software that I personally use, I have become good friends with other users from all over the world, from other parts of the U.S to the U.K., and even one in Japan.  Without this software, I would not have met these wonderful people or even known they even existed!

     In terms of the fourth question, I find myself to be more of a technological determinist.  Without technology - its improvements and failures - I wouldn't be the person I am today.  I constantly fumble with my smartphone so I can listen to music, look up things on my iPad in-between classes, and play video games with my friends on my computer.