Significance of New Media in Contemporary Society

Question 1

cultural optimist view - how many TV channels do media audiences have a choice of?

Answer 1

500
UK
2013

Question 2

cultural optimist view - consumers more informed

Answer 2

access information/reviews about anything
user-generated sites enable ordinary people rather than professionals to make online reports & learn from fellow consumers

Question 3

cultural optimist view - more user participation

Answer 3

172 million active websites in 2015

interactive sites give consumers more opportunities to participate in using/producing media content

Question 4

cultural optimist view - greater democracy

Answer 4

ordinary people have more power to make positive contributions to build democratic societies
greater opportunities to report, criticise & comment

Question 5

cultural optimist view - greater democracy; campaigning websites

Answer 5

enable protest groups to reach worldwide audience rapidly

wikileaks, coalition of resistance, facebook groups

Question 6

cultural optimist view - greater democracy; social movements

Answer 6

use new media to spread their ideas, build support & coordinate protests

Question 7

cultural optimist view - greater democracy; culture of questioning

Answer 7

holding to account elite hierarchies for their actions
sheffield united football club; forced to withdraw an offer to convicted rapist ched evans due to social media campaigns and online petitions

Question 8

cultural optimist view - greater democracy; mainstream media

Answer 8

difficult for mainstream media to ignore stories they might have dropped in the past
video shot on phone by protestor at london demonstration showed it was police brutality that killed Ian Tomlinson which the police tried to cover up

Question 9

cultural optimist view - greater democracy; new media

Answer 9

become a tool to fight against oppressive and corrupt regimes
arab spring 2011; series of uprisings against oppressive regimes in arab countries, images from phones showing violent acts of repression & torture were loaded to social media was used to coordinate/publicise protests
kony 2012; exposed the situation of children in uganda was viewed 100 million in first week

Question 10

cultural optimist view - more access to information; social media sites

Answer 10

enable information from a range of sources to be brought to the attention of people who have missed them

Question 11

cultural optimist view - more access to information; health

Answer 11

people able to gain information about their health conditions, check symptoms online or check risks of medication (NHS choices)
gives patients more information rather than solely dependent on doctors

Question 12

cultural optimist view - global village

Answer 12

new media allowed users from around the world to connect with each other, making the world one village

Question 13

cultural optimist view - global village; new media promotes

Answer 13

cultural diversity
reduces national barriers
blurs boundaries between local and global
brings different people together
greater understating between different cultures

Question 14

cultural optimist view - postmodernist

Answer 14

new media contributes to social diversity as globalised culture allow people to shape their identities and make lifestyle choices
opened new channels for communication and enhanced social networks

Question 15

cultural optimist view - social life and interaction enhanced

Answer 15

people can stay in touch
meet anonymously 
construct alternatie identities 
express themselves 
re-restablish lost contact
create online communities 
bring people together from all over the world

Question 16

cultural optimist view - ofcom; visitors

Answer 16

facebook has 36million unique visitors per month in the UK

Question 17

cultural pessimist view - problems of validity of information

Answer 17

difficult to know source of messages in new media, hard to validate information
no jornalista, TV crew to verify whether images are real
factual public information is disguised advertising for products
material recycled without checking the information/sources

Question 18

cultural pessimist view - problems of validity; kony criticisms

Answer 18

oversimplified issue
deflected attention away from cruelty of ugandan army
never mentioned kony left 6 years ago
focused too much on views of white western people
ignores views of local black people

Question 19

cultural pessimist view - cultural/media imperialism

Answer 19

new media has imposed western (american) cultural values on non-western cultures
undermines local cultures and cultural independence

Question 20

cultural pessimist view - threat to democracy; sovereigns of cyberspace

Answer 20

power of giant multinational corporations (amazon, apple, google), control internet access, channels, social networking, technology
they hold the power over us that once was held by governments
part of political system, though never elected/accountable to public - power without responsibility
as the internet becomes popular = power of the commercial companies providing the services increases

Question 21

cultural pessimist view - threat to democracy; examples of sovereigns of cyberspace effect

Answer 21

amazon & finance companies starved WikiLeaks of funds by blocking online donation without any justification
google can make a website invisible by blocking it in its search engine
shows their power in constraining free expression

Question 22

cultural pessimist view - threat to democracy; censorship and control

Answer 22

undemocratic repressive regimes (china, iran) control new media use
internet face government censorship & surveillance
majority of websites carry mainstream material, online comments within the dominant ideology
majority of news online comes from establish newspapers

Question 23

cultural pessimist view - threat to democracy; websites criticising the status quo

Answer 23

under-resourced
don’t attract adverts
marginalised

Question 24

cultural pessimist view - threat to democracy; examples of censorship and control

Answer 24

majority of china’s social network censor messages that cause political problems
british government propose laws to monitor content of emails & social network

Question 25

cultural pessimist view - threat to democracy; what affects new media than old media

Answer 25

issues of control/ownership
social construction of news
agenda-setting

Question 26

cultural pessimist view - lack of regulation

Answer 26

undesirable things can thrive unchecked by national bodies (ofcom)
ISIS use new media to advertise globally & spread its messages to recruit
cyber-bulling, pornography, the dark web

Question 27

cultural pessimist view - commercialisation

Answer 27

new media is about making money for companies producing technology, internet connections, provide websites/services, those that advertise
internet advertising is bigger business than traditional media advertising
social network sites is a way of target adverts at people who give information about themselves rather than connecting people

Question 28

cultural pessimist view - commercial surveillance

Answer 28

storing information about consumer preferences

cookies; bombard people with adverts based on their browsing habits/purchases

Question 29

cultural pessimist view - no real increase in consumer choice

Answer 29

digital divide means many people unable to access consumer choices
digital media doesn’t bring to people attention stories they didn’t know they wanted to be informed about only what they want to read/look
people rely on their news from recommendations from like-minded friends/contacts on social media so not exposed to broad range of news agenda
dumbing down & tabloidisation of popular culture to attract large audiences
celebrity culture replaced serious programmes, infotainment replaced serious news

Question 30

cultural pessimist view - increased surveillance

Answer 30

new media operate to increase social control
america; teacher lost her job over Facebook picture of her with wine/beer
north yorkshire police posted images of graffiti on social media to ask local residents to help catch culprit
metropolitan police used facial-recognition app to identify people in 2011 london riots
used to monitor/control social protestors to condemn non-conformist behaviour
mobile signals locate users enabling agencies to find out where people are

Question 31

cultural pessimist view - undermining of human relationships & communities

Answer 31

increase in social isolation as people have lost the ability to communicate in real world
spend less time talking with family/friends, more time in the virtual world
will be loss of social capital