Marshall McLuhan’s “global village” may have seemed like a distant idea in the 1960’s, but just over 50 years later we find ourselves in the midst of it. According to Baran and Davis (2012), the global village referrers to, “the new form of social organization that would inevitably emerge as instantaneous electronic media tied the entire world into one great social, political, and cultural system” (p.231). Since 1995, according to Internet World Stats (2014), the Internet has had a rapid growth from 16 million users to an average of 2,749 million as of March 2013 (http://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm). We currently live in a time where medium does matter, and the growth of technology has resulted in more individuals using electronic …show more content…
Cawkell (2000) explains this by saying, “people with a poverty of income are likely to be information-poor as well” (p. 56). Rogers (2001) included interesting numbers connecting the number of individuals that owned computers and the level of education they were at. He says, “for example, only 32 percent of high school graduates owned personal computers, compared to 68 percent of college graduates” (Rogers, 2001, p.102). Education plays a major role in the United States and the digital …show more content…
At this point in time, anyone can have a blog and share their opinions on any topic desired. Blogs are a new, creative, and affective way for politicians to reach their audience and giving even more personality to their campaign and messages. “Blogs were new, independent, alternative media, and would change how news was presented and who could report it,” says researchers Highfield and Bruns (2012, 89).
Blogs are interactive and engage readers who comment and will continue to return to the posts. Because of this it’s important to consider the influence blogs can have on an audience.
Just like anything, negative comes with the blogosphere when it comes to politicians and political campaigns. Considering blogs are open to the public and the content is not monitored, individuals can say what they please regarding any situation. Highfield and Bruns (2012) refer to these individuals as media commentators, “Australian political bloggers act as watchdogs and commentators, promoting and critiquing the work of politicians and journalists” (p.93). Although this does not refer to all bloggers, it is one side of the blogosphere. This results in politicians providing quicker responses and to be creative with image repair when
In his essay Mobile Phones, Digital Media and America’s Learning Divide, Professor S. Craig Watkins discusses the different ways that digital media affects the learning divide between middle and low-class students and also students of different races, ethnicities and cultures. Watkins’ purpose in writing this essay is to show how mobile phones are closing the learning divide as well as the digital divide. He uses facts and research that he has gathered as a member of the MacArthur Foundation’s research network on Connected Learning to back up his statements and improve his credibility as an author.
When discussing the media, we must search back to its primal state the News Paper. For it was the News paper and its writers that forged ahead and allowed freedoms for today’s journalism on all fronts, from the Twitter accounts to the daily gazettes all must mark a single event in the evolution of media in respects to politics and all things shaping. Moving on in media history, we began to see a rapid expansion around 1990. With more than 50% of all American homes having cable TV access, newspapers in every city and town with major newspaper centers reaching far more than ever before. Then the introduction of the Internet; nothing would ever be the same.
Dr. Bennett's chapter offers discussions surrounding worldwide growth of alternative media that is challenging the power concentration in large media corporations. As Professor of Communication and Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington, Bennett has presented lectures worldwide on the significance of media and rapid information systems in society. Through well researched argument, Bennett suggests that the distinction between information producers and consumers maybe becoming convoluted and how the empowerment offered by widely available networks of digital communication may possibly warrant an important adjustment to media hegemony theories. Labelling the internet as a "never-ending world-wide conversation"
Many believe the internet was an over night sensation, that one day, someone invented the internet and it spread in popularity faster than Tickle Me Elmo or the Macarena. Although the internet did have a surge of commercial popularity, with the invention of Mosaic and later with e-commerce, it was created many years ago with the development of military networking technologies. Also, the internet, unlike many pop culture fads of the nineties, will continue to see a growth in popularity and usefulness as a form of media throughout the information age. Sure, the internet became overambitious to the point where many internet start-up companies lost their businesses in the recession of the past few years. The quality of the internet, however, has increased as companies realize that there exists competition and smarter consumers that demand superiority. The internet has taken the world so far in its short commercial life; the future of the internet provides limitless possibilities of a much different future.
Advances in technology have created a digital age where people across the globe can connect and interact with each other as easily as if they lived in the same community. Globalization has driven the worldwide spread of technology, creating far-reaching connections and what has come to be commonly known as a “global village”. This term, coined by Canadian professor and philosopher Marshall McLuhan, is a metaphor used to describe the shrinking of the world into a closely connected village, free of physical and cultural borders, through the use of electronic media. The source states that this new global identity threatens to replace national and individual identities. In this quote, the author criticizes social and economic globalization, representing
Tapscott, D. (1998). Growing Up Digital: The rise of the net generation. New York, NY: Mc-Graw Hill Companies Inc. .
Throughout this course, I can’t help but think about the relevance of mass media and the book titled “The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects” by Marshall McLuhan. Although this book might be quite old (1960s) I reckon that McLuhan’s interpretation of the Global Village era is still incredibly applicable to today’s case of mass media consumption. What sparked my interest to delve in this topic further was when the Media lecturer mentioned the term “Global Village” coined by McLuhan himself that refers to when media allows the compression of time and space through electronic technology, which lets information to move instantaneously over a wide range at certain period of time. As I have spent some time reading the book in the past,
Grossman, Lawrence K. The Shape of the Electronic Republic. Composing Cyberspace. Richard Holeton. United States: McGraw-Hill, 1998, 311-327.
Walgrave, Peter Van Aelst & Stefaan. 2002. New Media New Movements? The Role of the Internet in Shaping the "Anti-globalization" movement. Belgium : Routledge, 2002.
Mainstream media such as television, radio, newspapers were the primary source of reliable information before the epoch of the internet. However, the situation has changed. The evolution of modern technology in the world today has led to the continuous increase in the methods of practicing journalism. Social and technological advancements have not only improved the pace and content of this field’s practice, but has extended its genre to online or cybernetic journalism. (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2007). News websites most of which are owned by major media companies and alternative websites with user generated content such as social networking sites and blogs are gaining grounds in the journalism field of practice. (Nel, n.d). One of the chief forces affecting the practice of journalism nowadays is online citizen journalists. Nel (n.d) defines citizen journalism as “individuals playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating news and information”. He further adds that “citizen journalism is slowly being looked upon as a form of rightful democratic ways of giving hones news, articles, etc, directly by citizens of the world from anywhere.” One of the major researches conducted in the field of citizen journalism, describes the phenomenon as “individuals who intend to publish information online, meant to benefit a community”, and this information is expected to benefit the audience or the wider population in making decisions for the improvement of their community. (Carpenter, 2010.)
Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Will Smart Phones Eliminate the Digital Divide?" The Journal (1 Feb. 2011).
However, as time has moved on, research seems to support the proponents of the Internet, and can be explained by two changes in Internet use that have occurred since its manifestation. First off, an increase in the amount of Internet users has allowed for indi...
Surveying the Digital Future: How the PC and Internet are changing the world. (1999, June). Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Center for Communication Policy.
The internet has influenced, and is still influencing the way society communicates in many different ways. The rise of the internet has caused people to communicate differently in areas never dreamed of before the internet came into existence. Education has been revolutionized through the world of the “Information Super Highway”. Medicine has also seen reform as the internet improves research and communication. Individuals are starting businesses from scratch, while others are selling household items for extra cash. This internet “typhoon” sweeping the globe has become a way of life for many individuals all across the globe.
Hence, any debate of the future becoming digital must take into consideration the reaction of the media to the technological innovations of the world, from the Personal Computers (PC) to the smallest Smartphone. Although mass media has increased with technological innovations, what driv...