Today we had the amazing opportunity of seeing Warner Brother Studio’s Back Lot, along with its museum displaying costumes from movies and TV shows. As I walked through the displays, showing outfits from shows I had watched and loved- Smallville, Hart of Dixie, Gossip Girl- I was in awe and started to realize how strange it was that something I had watched on a screen 2,000 miles away was suddenly right before me. The tangibility of the pieces gave a reality to the shows that had previously been all fictional, a separate world. As I walked outside up to Rosewood City Hall, a setting in the show Pretty Little Liars, it felt odd and surreal. Here I was, standing in a place captured onscreen as a fictionalize universe.

The strangest of all was the upstairs of the museum, which had a giant display of artifacts and costumes used in the Harry Potter movies. There was the Marauders Map Harry used in the 3^rd movie, the Basilisk fang from the 2^nd, a Dementor’s cloak, Harry’s robes, and even the talking Sorting Hat, which a lady promptly placed on my head. Here I was, getting “sorted”: every child’s fantasy, including mine. The whole experience was an indulgence in fantasy, which, now that it was physically in front of me instead of plastered on a television set, seemed more real.The transition from watching a show or movie on screen to being on the set and seeing the props and costumes used was a magical experience, and I can better understand why hoards of people tour sets and get VIP passes behind the scenes. It brings them closer to these made up worlds which they have grown to love through a screen. It brings reality to the fantastical.

Today during our meeting with a magazine editor, a rapidly escalating issue was brought to light: the decline of the physical, material magazine/newspaper, as the Internet and online media rises to the forefront. Facebook, Email, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, Tumblr, and Pintrist, all outlets of communication, have contributed to an online “golden age,” which has already caused the United States Postal Service to suffer (no more snail mail except when Grandma’s birthday comes around). News is increasingly becoming an online medium, with alerts from Twitter, Google News, and CNN.com. Newspapers, suffering at the hands of the Internet craze, are being put out of business left and right. Why pick up a paper when news is readily available on your Iphone through a search engine?

The same problem is affecting magazines, which, in their glory days of the ‘90s, were the premiere source for style, business, and the latest gossip. Now the latest trends and chitchat are all on the Internet, where any blogger can write on a subject or post a photo. In an attempt to meet the demands of the general population, most of whom are Internet users, many magazines have begun using online formats, and soon, may use this method entirely as the printed word becomes obliterated in an online world.

The future of digital technology is upon us: people swiping their ipads to browse the latest Vogue, reading Buzzfeed to discover the newest trends, and tuning into an online broadcast of BBC. When we can access our information at the click of a mouse or tap of a screen, libraries, schools, magazines, news and media must struggle to keep up with the ever-changing fast paced technology of the age. It will be interesting to see who can keep up–and who will fall to the wayside. One thing though is clear: in a time where anyone can share anything, the competition in the field of media will only become greater.