Media Medication

Media Meditation # 3

January 26, 2009 is a day that I will always remember. It was on this day that I flew across the Atlantic Ocean and landed in “Firenze” my new home for the following four months. Waiting for that day to come was torture. I was excited, nervous and really scared.

I had no idea what to expect, I didn’t speak Italian, I knew no one, I had never lived on my own let alone in a foreign country. Luckily my excitement was able to surpass my fear and gave my legs the power to walk onto the plane, and say goodbye to my family that day. What happened after that (my experience abroad) is almost impossible to explain to anyone who didn’t experience it with me. I studied at Florence University of the Arts and went through a program called Study Abroad Italy. I lived with seven other girls in an apartment on Corso de Tintori 6 in Firenze, Italy. The eight of us hailed from all over the United States and established a bond that was unlike any other friendship I have ever experienced in my 21 years of existence. When you are forced to live with others in a foreign country and adjust to the cultural changes and are subjected to the socialization of another culture, you naturally become one another’s support systems. I also traveled, experienced and learned lessons with these girls that I haven’t experienced with my own family. Theses girls are the only ones who will ever truly understand the individual meaning I took away from my time in Florence, Italy. I consider myself lucky to have ended up with such awesome girls as my roommates. However, it was challenging at times being so far away from all my loved ones, and I would like to thank the many social media sites out there for helping me stay so connected while I was so far away.

It is difficult and very expensive to call home when you are 6 hours ahead of time. Since I didn’t have the luxury of picking up the telephone and calling home at my own convenience, I turned towards the Internet for all of my communication. The Internet according to the novel Media and Society written by David Croteau and William Hoynes, “blurs the distinction between individual and mass audiences, as people use the medium for individual communication, small group communication, and mass communications”(Media and Society 303). The text also states, “Any individual with the appropriate technology can now produce his or her own online media and include images, text, and sound about whatever he or she chooses” (Media & Society 303). I choose to do this through facebook, twitter, blogger and skype to stay in touch with my family and friends. This “virtual community suggests that communities no longer need to be geographically based. People all over the globe can, according to many proponents of electronic interaction, become ‘virtual’ neighbors through the space-bridging technology of the Internet” (Media& Society 305).

It is hard to describe to someone what the Duomo looks like. My family and friends didn't have any idea how beautiful Florence was until their limbic brain was activated by the images I sent them through these different mediums. My communication efforts while abroad proved to be quite the technological shift and emotional transfer. Without the Internet I would have never been able to share my thoughts, emotions and adventures with my family back in America.

Walking along the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy!