The Medium Problem: How media can clash with intent

When starting a project the first item we create is intention, an aim to accomplish. Whether a message, story, or aesthetic, there is a need to convey something. After this we might choose a form of media, the method through which we present and convey this intent. We define how we subvert, alter, or play into this medium for our creation. Ultimately though something must be present in that medium that’s vital for our intent.

In my explorations and my own projects I found cases wherein the medium didn't have the requisite parts to fully realise the intent of its text. This is not to say they weren't able to convey their intent to their readers but rather that some part of it had been softened by the ways in which a reader interacts with this text through the medium.

As Ryan states:

“This means recognizing that the shape and size of the pipeline imposes conditions on what kind of stories can be transmitted, but also admitting that narrative messages possess a conceptual core which can be isolated from their material support.” [1].

So it is safe to say that not every narrative or intent can be applied to every form of media. So what are these conditions a medium imposes and how can we identify their impact on a story and intent?

This issue came to me while traveling the War Rooms within The Story of Emily. Throughout the experience the use of perceptual and psychological immersion as described by Alison McMahan [2] are used to plant the reader spatially and emotionally within the Second Boer War. Novel methods of isolating the reader from reality such as: temperature, food, and changing of shoes force the reader to experience presence within its narrative and virtual world.

Through this the intent of the museum is realised, without these methods of immersion those experiencing this attraction would leave with a diminished emotional understanding of the atrocities presented. However there is a point in this experience where this presentation falters. After experiencing the heat, eating Boer food, and standing within a replica of the camps the reader is taken into a small cool room where they are then seated and fitted with VR headsets to view a narrated 360° video reenactment of the conditions of the camps.

While this works perfectly well to present the required information to the reader, it fails to create the same emotive results of the previous rooms. The use of this VR section can likely be attributed to the prior successful applications of VR as an “empathy machine” as described by Milk. The idea that Virtual Reality bridges the gap created by suspension of disbelief and places the reader within the story [3].

Unfortunately by moving away from the previous modes of immersion the VR section actually reduces the effects of the experience. Where earlier we were walking in the shoes of the Boer and experiencing the heat of a South African summer we are now more comfortable, seated on cushioned chairs in a cooler room. The impacts of this are not simply comfort, this comfortable observation has been criticised as a dangerous byproduct that may actually be harmfully misleading. Bloom notes that 360° VR’s strengths of positioning don't hit the fundamental issues of the events they are trying to depict. The core terror of the lives shown are the emotions of the affected, the anxieties of relocation, sickness and mental illness, all things a headset is incapable of replicating [4].

The application of VR as the required medium of immersion is not uncommon. Against Immersion notes that immersive technologies such as VR and AR are all too commonly “privileged to the exclusion of all else” and “too regularly and simplistically conflated with immersion itself” [5]. The effects of this are clear, these mediums are chosen for their perceived benefits and endanger the impact of the project.

This disconnect between a medium’s perceived and actual benefits is not isolated to VR, it's likely all media can have such issues form around them. Silverman notes in The Perils of Playing Blind that simulations of disabilities, while generally increasing empathy and kindness in the reader towards those they simulate, often underestimates the discrimination and accessibility barriers. This discrepancy forms an incomplete picture which may then lead to reinforcing biases and discrimination [6].

With my prototype The Fahrenheit Library I ran into a problem of audience, of preaching to a choir. Likely being an obscure website it’d only attract people aware of the issue it aims to highlight. This concern of “preaching to the choir” is not solely mine. Film festivals such as Movies that Matter receive the same criticisms. MtM, a festival organised to raise human rights awareness amongst Dutch audiences, spends much of its attention “focusing the eyes that are already open.”. In both relocating to the Hague and discounting tickets for members of Amnesty International it works against its intent to raise awareness to the greater Dutch population [7].

Not only are film festivals perhaps working against their intent but also the films therein. Valenti argues that persuasive films perhaps aren't as effective a medium as others. That “Changing attitudes is best achieved through motivating new behaviors—presenting an action to emulate.” rather than through entertaining or inducing anxieties [8].

So then what can be done? If you create a documentary you're preaching to a choir and if you create a novel experience you're creating misinformation and biases. It doesn't help anyone to create nothing out of fear of ruining your own message.

This medium issue isn't the entire story of course. Given the right design circumstance and support a documentary, website, or other media can draw in thousands and sway opinions. Each of the works mentioned here have both the ability to and the history to prove that they can present their message to an audience.

Unfortunately there is no perfect medium that brings the perfect message to the perfect audience at every scale we could wish for. It's only important that we take care to identify our own biases towards media and audience and examine whether or not what we have created is as well suited to its use case as we might initially believe.