In The Bedroom...

Don't get too excited. All I am about to say is that the bedroom is just another type of media. I have rarely, if ever, distinguished between whether or not my artifacts are mass media. Obviously the bedroom is not mass media, at least for most of us (just kidding).

The bedroom is media because it sends a very distinct message about its inhabitant's personality, life, and lifestyle. Some people hang massive posters with favorite celebrities, role models, video game characters, aspirational objects, or sports teams. Other people may put up posters, blankets or display accomplishments in the forms of trophies or certificates. Of course, there are many other possibilities of how people can send messages about themselves through their habitats.

The bedroom is especially important for students in college. This is the only space in our lives that is actually our own so we tend to make it more personal with our own effects. This drives us to be more individual and unique in our own rooms, partially because the actual rooms themselves are so similar. This is similar to the formulaic nature of mass media today: all the TV shows are very similar, as are movies. Examples could include television mystery shows like all the CSI shows, Law and Order, Bones, House, etc which all follow the same routine. In terms of movies, romantic comedies seem like the best examples. All of our dorm rooms are very similar, if not the same, and we find our own ways to differentiate them in the details. These details then send messages to others about our inner selves.

Another aspect, a less permanent one, of our rooms is how presentable we keep them. Are we organized and put together? Is everything neat and put away? Or are we disorganized and messy so no one can sit in our room comfortably? The answers to these questions are part of the message that our rooms send about us. And this is what makes the bedroom a type of media.