In the article “Supersaturation, or The Media Torrent and Disposable Feeling,” author Todd Gitlin makes many accurate and astute observations regarding the increasing level to which media has entered our lives. From early art in 1700 Holland right up to the emergence of television and the internet, Gitlin examines the rapid and seemingly unstoppable invasion media has had on our lives, from print, to film, to television and finally the internet. However, pertinent as Gitlin’s examinations are, the evolution of the internet in recent years leaves some of his observations sounding dated. The following seeks to add a much needed amendment, addressing the way the internet has dramatically changed the notion of media saturation in our society in the years since Gitlin’s article was published.
Gitlin goes to great lengths in describing the impact of various forms of media and their immersion of our daily lives; CD players, print media, television, film, and photography are all being increasingly used. Gitlin even begins to discuss these various media’s integration. However, his mention of the internet in regards to media integration seems somewhat misguided today: “Neither... has the internet diminished total media use” Gitlin 141. Although he goes on to state that “the internet redistributes the flow of unlimited media,” it seems as though Gitlin did not anticipate the complete amalgamation of media types the internet would bring about. The internet today, I would argue, neither diminished, nor redistributed media use, inasmuch as it revolutionized it. The internet has immersed our society in a hypermediated world, but even more importantly, the internet has changed us from media consumers to media producers.
Although Gitlin’s article certainly downplays the enormous impact the internet was to have since the time of his article’s publication, many of his points remain extremely potent. The emergence of the social phenomena Facebook provides an excellent example of how many of Gitlin’s observations have been actualized. The site offers an entirely hypermediated experience; users can incorporate video, audio, text, and images in a variety of ways to express themselves. But beyond the incorporation of these medias, the interactive consumption of media on Facebook is unique from the passive consumption inherent in television, film, and print talked about in Gitlin’s article. Gitlin quotes Raymond Williams pre internet observation that “we have never as a society acted so much or watched so many others acting... what we have now is drama as habitual experience” (qi. Gitlin 141). Since Gitlin published his article, society en mass has realized William’s observation in their own lives. Today, over 600 million users from around the world are actively (and voluntarily) participating in this acting and watching, through Facebook. Our society no longer passively watches media content and then reenacts like Williams observed, today media consumers are producing their own content. Gitlin claims that “life experience has become an experience in the presence of media” (Gitlin 143). Today, it would be more accurate to claim that life experience has become an experience in media. Facebook is just one of many examples.
In concluding his article, Gitlin unintentionally offers a prescient summation of Facebook, “the fashioning of replicas extends across at least thirty thousand years of human history. Throughout this time people have lived, through images and simulations, ‘with’ gods, saints, demons, kings and queens... friends, and enemies... each opens a portal to an imagined world, beckoning us to cross a gap between the image here and what is, or what might be there” (144). Today, thanks to the communicative and hypermediated capabilities of the internet, we have become those kings, queens, friends, and enemies, each of us creating replicas of ourselves through our profile pages.
It is extremely informative to observe just how quickly and drastically our mediated worlds have changed in only a few years since Gitlin published his paper. While many of his observations remain true today, it is incredible to witness the exponential growth and expansion of our mediated world.
