Digital Media Within Society Week 7

This week is our final lecture for Digital Media Within Society and it deals with Changing Media Worlds.

Here we assess the many development changes that have taken place with new media technologies and networks that have changed the world over the past 10 to 20 years. We also examine the world-wide media networks and how they have shaped an international global culture.

Postmodernism
Explanation link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

Postmodernism is the general term which applies to literature, art, economics, philosophy, architecture, fiction and literary critcism. It is a reaction to scientific or objective efforts to explain reality. It can be defined as the period after modernism where established values are changed due to new technological advances and a fresh understanding of what the future holds.

In Postmodernism we learn to accept a number of different perspectives from the culture or information stream. Postmodernism has taken culture and practices we had in the past and updated them to modern society and technology.






The Change in Media
Over the past 20 years we have evolved from an analogue to digital world.
Analogue television has been replaced in most cases by digital terrestrial television or digital satellite television as well as television over the internet services.
Mobile digital telephone networks are now used most commonly than traditional telephones.
We have witnessed the birth of the internet which led to the dot.com boom.
We have since moved onto Web 2.0



Marshall McLuhan argues that the technologies which carry media products change human perception of the world and practices within it. He also argues that the content of any medium is always another medium.

e.g. early cinema evolved from existing theatrical/drama conventions and gradually made it's own form. Cinema has constantly evolved ever since with more genre's of cinema now than ever. Computer games later re-mediated cinema, but the difference is that games are more immersive.




Technological Determinism.
Link description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism

This is a theory that presumes that a society's technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values. Technological determinism seeks to show technical developments, media or technology as a whole as the key mover in history and social change.

The general idea behind this is that the development of technology itself follows a predictable path beyond cultural or political influence and that the technology has 'effects' on societies that are inherent because the society organises itself to support and develop a technology once it's introduced.

Television itself has changed much over the years. Previously it was something that we could only watch without any interaction from the viewer but today the viewer can interact with many tv shows and news programs but using social media such as twitter to get their point of view across.

Social Media debates
Social media can be viewed as either Pessimistic or optimistic.

Pessimistic
People claim that social networking via social media is causing some people in society to substitute this virtual social interaction as a replacement for real physical relationships.
In the past we had to make physical contact with somebody in order to talk to them but today, many people sit at their computer or use their phones to 'chat' to people using social networks or instant messaging applications. This lack of social contact with others can become a real problem.

Social media can be highly addictive, where people spend all their time in a virtual reality, rather than in physical contact with friends and family.




Other examples of social media addictions include video game addiction where players can become highly addicted to online multiplayer role playing games. These games can also have other side effects such as over exposure to violence and sexual themes. This can be unhealthy especially to underage gamers.


Optimistic
We are living in a time when smartphones serve as a full multimedia devices offering users 100s of usefull apps. Music is freely available on the internet, ebooks are quickly replacing the traditional paper book. We can use Google live street view to help us find where we are going. We can buy blu-rays cheaper online than in stores. Social Media is wonderful, it has brought everyone closer together, the world is not such a big place anymore. If I have a problem I can voice my opinion online and it is instantly send all around the world.

The Long Tail Effect
This term refers to a ratailing stategy of selling large numbers of unique items with small quantities sold of each item.

The Amazon database helps to locate any item in the warehouse out of thousnads and it helps the customer to be aware of alternatives.



The Pros
Consumers have a much wider choice. This gives creative artists outside of the mainstream media a chance to receive more royalties.

The Cons
Due to the large size of Amazon and other similar business' it can put smaller 'niche' competitors out of business.
Amazon deals with 1000s of products so they do not really have any experts relating to any particular area. e.g. if you buy camera equipment from Amazon it is unlikely they have anybody knowledgeable to deal with cameras compared to a proper camera store that you can find on the high street. Due to lower prices, consumers abandon these expert services in favour of Amazon. This can put these specialist high street stores out of business. The amazon site itself is very slow on dial-up connections, so they assume that everyone has a decent broadband connection.

Copyright
Kevin Kelly argues that digital copies of media are essentially free and that it is pointless to expect a return as you own the original rights. It is becoming difficult to support creative work in this new world of collaboration.

Traditional forms of copyright are granted to authors for their expression of ideas for a limited number of years. When the copyright expires, these ideas are passed into the public domain where anyone is free to use these ideas. This is a case with many old films now freely available for download and are open to be re=produced by somebody else.