The Media and Us

Abstract

Internet has created a system of mediations orphan of a specific hardware. We connect to the Internet via our computer, mobile phone, tablet, watch, glasses, our TV set… The interstitial, wearable and nomadic nature of the Internet has turned us into digital flâneurs, moving through «an imaginary city of passages» as Walter Benjamin once wrote. This article deals with some of those media passages and landscapes, in which the public and the private seem to follow one another without interruption. The fear that the Internet is establishing a «surveillance Empire» or invading our privacy, coexists with the massive use of Internet as a control system not only by the powers as such, but also by the users themselves. In addition, it is not simply an invasion of privacy. People voluntarily use Internet to manage many aspects of their personal life (from booking a hotel to break a relationship via WhatsApp).