Remediation, Hyper-mediacy, and Immediacy Abounds

Video Games: Madden NFL 13 is one of the most popular video games in the world. The players of the video game become the football players in the video game. The appeal is in the transference of average person into superior athlete, from mere mortal to immortal. It is a remediation of many elements: the players (real or video) athletic past, the viewing of past games, the experience of being a coach or an owner, if played on line it remediates play and the group experience as well as the remediation of dreams.

This is a quote form the Madden NFL 13 website, “With Physics You Can Feel, Madden NFL 13 delivers Next Generation gameplay today. Powered by the all-new Infinity Engine, true player impact and authentic momentum transfer ensure that no two plays ever look or feel the same.” The video game is trying with all it’s might to give the player a virtual reality experience with out leaving home. The platforms on which the game is played—television, computer, ipad, facebook, and the phone—are remediation of the pinball machine, the television and, the computer.

The hyper-mediation manifests itself in the copious amount of statistics that will appear on the screen. It also hyper-mediates in the respect that you can trade, buy and sell players to improve your team. A virtual draft occurs with multiple choices of how to improve your ability to win and to potentially enhance the future of your team.

The immediacy happens in the playing of the game. This is where the video player can become totally immersed in the action and forget for a short time that this is not reality.

Social Media: Facebook is simply remediating the letter, the phone call, coffee with a friend, boring episodes of looking at the photo albums of a trips your friends took, nonsense conversations you had to listen to because the person speaking nonsense was next to you, the family reunion or any other social gathering that you attended, a politically motivated/unsolicited phone call, a wedding, party, a funeral, television, video game platforms and it also remediates loneliness.

It is hyper-mediated by advertising, the bossy friend telling you all of these “nice” people you should be friends with and the causes you should join.

The photos create the immediacy. While researching this I kept finding myself getting dragged down memory lane and well as snooping into the lives of my friends. I forgot I was supposed to be working…damn you facebook!

Movie: Facebook the movie is a remediation of Facebook. The commercials before the movie hyper-mediated me. Being drawn into the story of the movie caused immediacy.