The media Flashcards
Define the term media
What is the nature of new media?
The main means of mass communication regarded collectively
Includes: television, radio, and newspapers
Also referred to as traditional media
Define the term new media
What is the nature of new media?
Digital technologies used for mass communication that have emerged from the last 30 years
Includes: social networking, blogs, vlogs, digital interactive television, text messaging, websites, online gaming etc
Are many forms of new media brand new?
What is the nature of new media?
No
Many forms of new media are an evolution of traditional media forms
Example: Reading news on www.telegraph.co.uk rather than from a telegraphy newspaper
What is a characteristic that differentiates new media from traditional media is?
What is the nature of new media?
It’s digital nature
What are the characteristics of the new media?
The nature of new media
Diverse
Interactive
Converged
Digital
Demand-led
Democratic
What are positive views of the new media?
- Boyle (2007) - creates consumer choice
- Increased interactivity
- The New media may create consumer choic as the telecommunications industry aims to produce devices that can be individualised by the user. News prievously shown on 4 channels once per hour, now there is multiple 24-hour news channels available on digital television sbscriptions (SKY), hundreds of websites and apps dedicated to news which are updated constantly. This means a wider range of news stories are being reported on however prieviously only what could be slotted into a 10-minute television news slot or a newspaper with a fixed number of pages. This allows people to find out about breaking news more quickly and are able to access news anywhere on portable devices as well as learning about a more diverse range of stories. They can also choose when and where they watch the news at any time.
- Traditional media was owned by large corporations such as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation (included The Times, The Sun, The News of the World etc). Nowdays with the development of new media individuals have oppurtunites to be involved in the media e.g. by publishing their own blog/ having a large following on YouTube. Some ‘citizen journalists’ use this to inform others about social issues. Also allows experts to easily and widely publish information about their specialism which could lead to an encyclopaedic source of information. Wikipedia is not owned by a corporation and is user-generated meaning anyone with internet access can edit/publish information.
COUNTERPOINT: Wikepedia Editor Survery 2011 found 91% of editors were male. Therefore feminists may suggest men useit for their own benefit to spread patriarchal ideology
What are neophilliacs view of the new media?
The new media
Provides consumers with choice, flexibility, as well as the potential to influence which media output succeeds and which fails
Therefore the new media has made mass media more democratic by allowing everyone to have a voice and increasing citizens’ interest in their society as they feel they can make a difference
Curran and Seaton
Neophilliacs = naive
What are critical views of the new media?
The new media
- poor quality information
- weakened social cohesion
- continuing power of international corporations
- Keen (2007) internet = cult of amateur and is leading to the demise of quality information. 2008 Scotsman reported that a study by the Scottish Parent Teacher Council showed that teachers held concerns about their students using the internet as a research tool as there is innacurate information on some websites. Wikipedia was named anunreliable source as the content is user-generated so users can publish wildly inaccurate information (e.g. Wikipedia page on Robbie Williams suggested he ate hamsters in pubs). Even if the information posted is accurate it is still dumbing down popular culture. This is evident by the sheer number of websites dedicated to celebrity gossip which would’ve made up a small % of traditional media. Little regulation over the internet has allowed this inaccurate information to occur as well as bullying harassment etc
- Unlike in prievious decades when only BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4 existed there are now hundreds of television channels spreading a multitude of beliefs and splitting the public into fragmented groups. 4 Traditional channels also continue to dominate television viewing (2013 data showing BBC 1 accounted for 20.8% of television audience)
- Cornford and Robins (1999) even new media technologies that appear to be user-controlled are owned by corporations who are able to exercise control over them (Facebook removing photographs of women breastfeeding but not women in skimpy bikinis). Demonstrating it is the decision of large corporations as to what informaton can be published
Marxists: Would see this as evidence of the continuing control of bourgeois corporations over society
What are cultural pessimists view of the new media?
The new media
Has led to a reduction in quality of popular culture, is poorly regulated, and that a few large corporations have control of most of the new media rather than individual consumers
