EVOLVING THESIS PROPOSAL < September 19, 2001 – 1:20pm >

Contribution to the Discipline of Design:
It has often been argued that we live in an increasingly visual culture in which images and visual representations of information have taken primacy over verbal or text-based explanations. The overwhelming amount of information available to people combined with an oft reported decrease in attention spans, and also time for study and reflection, have made it increasingly important to be able to express ideas, information and important issues visually so that those messages can be quickly and clearly grasped by viewers. I believe that these principles can be applied to my own thesis topic, that of trying to understand the increasing consolidation in our mass media landscape, in order to help media consumers develop a better understand of who is delivering the media messages that permeate our lives on a daily basis.

In the wake of the tragic events of September 11, many of us have been focused on our televisions, radios, newspapers and on-line information sources to try to stay informed, to seek an explanation, and to gain some sort of understanding of what has happened, what it means for us as a country and a global community, what the repercussions will be and more. For many of us, mass media channels have been the main supplier of much of this information. As we look to these sources, I believe that it is important to be able to look critically at the messages being delivered; it is important to understand who is shaping and providing the information that we as viewers are receiving. While the task of decoding these messages is clearly beyond any one individual, I hope that my own work towards clarify the relationships between the major corporations that control our mass media landscape can be one helpful tool.

Others have worked on providing explanations of the structure of our media landscape. In Richard Saul Wurman’s recent book, Understanding USA, Explanation Graphics Designer Nigel Holmes created a section on the media in which he illustrated who the major players are, how much and what sort of media we as American’s consume, and also how much is spent by whom on particular types of advertising in this country. The PBS television program Frontline also broadcast a special entitled “The Merchants of Cool” which focused on the creators and marketers of popular culture to teens. In their companion web site, they include a section called “Media Giants” that identifies the six largest media conglomerates in this country and also identifies what areas their holdings are in. While both of these resources are extremely helpful in decoding some of the relationships between media providers, I believe that more information and additional clarification is needed.

As Krzysztof Lenk commented in a recent presentation to our graduate program, the use of contrasts is of great importance in presenting information and conveying messages. I believe that more contrasts are needed to explain the structure of our media landscape than were provided in either Nigel Holmes’ work, or on the Frontline web site. For example, information about how the American media landscape has changed over time, especially over the last 100 years, information about the international reach of these media giants and the global ramifications of their corporate interests, the size of each corporation in relation to one another, both in terms of revenue earned, and the number of people employed, and other similar explanations would all be helpful in seeking to understand what the current media landscape looks like and how and why it has evolved as it has.

In terms of presentation, I believe that an interactive tool would be the best method for delivering this type of information. Digital media allows allows for dynamic visual representations of complex information in powerfully expressive way. It allows designers to layer information in ways that allow people to explore particular areas of interest in more depth. Digital delivery of information allows for links to additional resources that can provide users with a broad range of information, references and perspectives. The distribution of this material over the web, which I envision doing with my own work, will also enable a wide and diverse audience access to the material; this in particular is an especially powerful capability inherent in this medium. Finally, I hope to use the visual design skills that I have learned, and am continuing to develop, to add additional clarity to the problem of understanding our current mass media landscape at a time when we are all increasingly dependent on that media for news, information, representation and interpretations of the world around us.