The Beginning

Today is the day. I have officially become a blogger. I feel free to discuss my wildest thoughts and feelings with the world. I feel exhilarated knowing that I am one step closer to becoming a journalist.
Setting up this blog was actually fairly difficult. I'm using “Blogger”, obviously, which is an 'idiot proof' blogging website, as my photography teacher would say, but I had a great deal of trouble starting mine. Sure, it was easy to put in all my information and click enter, pick one of their templates and start writing, but the key was that I wanted to make my blog unique.
The first thing I struggled with was naming my blog. I spent two weeks straight tossing and turning in my sleep trying to come up with something. I thought of idea after idea. 'An Adventure in Discovering Media', 'Media, “Is It In You?” Oh Ya It Is', both of which I liked, but I didn't love.
I then thought about what I had learned in the past two weeks of class. One thing stuck out in particular. Every one of my teachers had at least mentioned a fellow named Marshall McLuhan. I read a large article called “The Playboy Article” that made McLuhan's theories vaguely clear to me.
Nights came an went until that one particular night when I read the article and as I was trying to sleep it came to me. “Step Into The Unknown”. It was perfect. The concept is a little hard to explain but I will attempt the best I can.
Marshall McLuhan came up with a concept known as 'Narcissus Narcosis'. He explained this using a metaphor. People are in their own environment, like fish in water. If you add something to the water the fish do not notice, like human beings don't notice as new technologies and in turn new forms of media are added to their environment. Or, as he would say it, “a syndrome whereby man remains as unaware of the psychic and social effects of his new technology as a fish of the water it swims in. As a result, precisely at the point where a new media-induced environment becomes all pervasive and transmogrifies our sensory balance, it also becomes invisible.”
So, I challenge all of you to read my blog, and 'Step Into The Unknown' by discovering the new media that is being added to your environment every day.

Works Cited:

“The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan”, Playboy Magazine, March 1969, Available: http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~gisle/links/mcluhan/pb.html