The Mediated Self

The mediated self revolves around the idea of solipsism. When one is mediated they are deeply consumed by what is believed to be "their" world. In other words, a mediated self is a person who is deeply consumed by the "blob" as De Zengotita stated in his book and that person pays little to no attention to what the true reality of life actually is. Being a mediated self has a tremendous negative impact in our lives as we become unable to distinguish real from what was inserted in our brains to make us believe is the truth and the reality of things.

First of, in 'Mediated' De Zengotita argues that the prevalence of modern mass media has created the mediated self and this is firstly seen in his description of the blob. He goes further on as to state that to the blob, the "media only covers a person or an event's deed that may challenge it with something it cannot absorb or escape...something real" (p27). Due to this, he criticizes modern media because in this situation he believes the blob ended up prevailing because of our indifference.

Secondly, he mentioned how people would start being nostalgic of the times they did not live to see. For example a 90's baby would be nostalgic about the 60's and he mentions that such only happens not only because of the "TV and movies pumping reflexivity into their brains" but also because "the parents have invited them to share in their self-consciousness" (p39). Furthermore, he mentions how our society has started to value children because they are "the affirmative complement to illness and death on the other horizon of our lives" "children connect us to the real and through their eyes the world becomes a mysterious necessity once again" (p43).

Thirdly, De Zengotita mentioned how because of the blob we have started to idolize tv stars "real heroes must become stars if they are to exist in public culture at all" (p107). As an example of the statement he mentions that today we see twelve year old girls being the exact replica of the tv shows or in other words "they are media queens" (p83) because they know everything the media has to offer inside and out and they become who they are based on it. This is then problematic because it has come to a point that even politics , talk shows and realities become scripted.

On page 132 De Zengotita talks about Dean's campaign and he mentioned previously how in the 60's, politics was just presentations but what started to be noticed especially in the Dean campaign was the fact that "the took the politics of self-expression to a new level of self-consciousness" it was no longer about Dean but it was mainly about the movement, the participants, "the "Deaniac's" themselves".

Furthermore, being mediated makes us busy or as De Zengotita said it leads to chronic busyness. and chronic busyness leads to a numbness that makes us mute and because of the blob we now prefer quality to depth "Depth is to your life what dead air is to a talk show. After you've made the big self-defining decisions that transform you into an adult, you don't want depth—you want routine, and the busier the better" (p185). However, we end up muting certain relevant issues and events and our busyness comes from us planning to make time for our shows of interest on television. As an example to support this statement, he talked about when he went to visit one of his classmates, he was asked for his reason of visit and this ended up being a shock because there is this belief that when you want to drop by to see someone you know, like a friend there must not be any reason and what ended up surprising him even more was the fact that when he asked if they could go hang out or "grab a couple of beers" (p181) the friend grabbed his appointment book and tried to find a spot he could fit him in.

Lastly, De Zengotita mentioned that we are so mediated that we no longer find beauty in the little things like nature. "We turn to nature because we want to be with and in something that wasn't put there for us, something indifferent to us, something massive and gritty, something vast... something incomprehensible... We long for the beyond. We want to be in awe" (p211) but nature no longer holds that because we can now get to see it on television and this is problematic because the blob is shaping our view towards nature to think there's nothing much left of nature. However, if we were to be deprived of it then maybe we will realize what a catastrophe it will be.

As a result, De Zengotita's criticism of the mediated self is due to the fact that technology came about not too long ago yet it has rapidly grown and with that growth, people really had no choice when faced with a situation because their choice would be mediated or it will be a thought that was infiltrated to them by the media and also people are becoming too focused on themselves and whatever media gives them their perspectives that they pay no attention to what goes on in the rest of the world. Therefore we started to praise children for their innocence and self-consciousness because "the mediated self appears to children as if it were real" (p45).

Works Cited

Zengotita, T.D. (2005). Mediated: How the media shapes your world and the way you live in it. New York: Bloomsbury.