Critically Assess the Argument That Advances in Media Technologies from Printing to the Internet Always Go Hand in Hand with Major Social and Cultural Changes.
Critically assess the argument that advances in media technologies from printing to the Internet always go hand in hand with major social and cultural changes.
New media is defined as “the forms of communicating in the digital world, which includes publishing on CDs, DVDs and, most significantly, over the Internet. It implies that the user obtains the material via desktop and laptop computers, smartphones and tablets. Every company in the developed world is involved with new media.” (9/1/12 http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=new+media&i=47936,00.asp).
Advances in media technology over the past decade and century have no doubt had a large influence on major social and cultural changes throughout the world, if we look back at what has happened throughout 2011 alone we can already see this is true.
The turn of 2011 showed the revolutionary wave of events in the Middle East known as the Arab Spring. The events that have been happening over the past few years in the Arabic countries has been thought to be largely down to online web-logging and social networking websites. A group of young revolutionists set up a group on Facebook called “April 6 Youth Movement” (9/1/12 http://www.facebook.com/groups/38588398289/) where protests and events were organized. Blogging and social networking was used as a medium of organizing these events as it is a lot harder for the governments of these countries to limit what their people view as it only takes a matter of seconds to duplicate a web page, where as if they see someone handing out flyers or putting up posters they can just arrest them. This social change means it is easier for people to communicate on a large scale, quickly.
However not everybody agrees; Malcolm Gladwell (11/1/12 http://gigaom.com/2011/02/03/gladwell-still-missing-the-point-about-social-media-and-activism/) says that people protested and brought down governments before Facebook was invented. They did it before the Internet came
New media is defined as “the forms of communicating in the digital world, which includes publishing on CDs, DVDs and, most significantly, over the Internet. It implies that the user obtains the material via desktop and laptop computers, smartphones and tablets. Every company in the developed world is involved with new media.” (9/1/12 http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=new+media&i=47936,00.asp).
Advances in media technology over the past decade and century have no doubt had a large influence on major social and cultural changes throughout the world, if we look back at what has happened throughout 2011 alone we can already see this is true.
The turn of 2011 showed the revolutionary wave of events in the Middle East known as the Arab Spring. The events that have been happening over the past few years in the Arabic countries has been thought to be largely down to online web-logging and social networking websites. A group of young revolutionists set up a group on Facebook called “April 6 Youth Movement” (9/1/12 http://www.facebook.com/groups/38588398289/) where protests and events were organized. Blogging and social networking was used as a medium of organizing these events as it is a lot harder for the governments of these countries to limit what their people view as it only takes a matter of seconds to duplicate a web page, where as if they see someone handing out flyers or putting up posters they can just arrest them. This social change means it is easier for people to communicate on a large scale, quickly.
However not everybody agrees; Malcolm Gladwell (11/1/12 http://gigaom.com/2011/02/03/gladwell-still-missing-the-point-about-social-media-and-activism/) says that people protested and brought down governments before Facebook was invented. They did it before the Internet came
Bibliography: New media Definition from PC Magazine Encyclopedia. 2012. New media Definition from PC Magazine Encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=new+media&i=47936,00.asp. [Accessed 9 January 2012]. Bill Kovarik, 2011. Revolutions in Communication: Media History from Gutenberg to the Digital Age. Edition. Continuum. Pg 136 13 Ways for Bloggers to Make Money with Advertising : @ProBlogger World Internet Usage Statistics News and World Population Stats. 2012. World Internet Usage Statistics News and World Population Stats. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm. [Accessed 15 January 2012]. UK Top 100 Music chart summary: w/e November 5th 2011 | DVDfever.co.uk. 2012. UK Top 100 Music chart summary: w/e November 5th 2011 | DVDfever.co.uk. [ONLINE] Available at: http://dvdfever.co.uk/?p=2862. [Accessed 16 January 2012] Jamal Edwards ..