Computer Networks
Computers by themselves are useful tools. But once they are interconnected, they surge in usefulness and suddenly become media. One computer is connected into a network which is then patched into a network of networks. Computer networks have the potential to break the monopolies of media institutions. With networks, there is a shift from centralized, one-way media to dispersed, infinite-way communication. Every audience member in the world can at the same time be an information provider. Channels of information creation and distribution become cheaper and broader until we have limitless bandwidth and storage capacity. This technology comes with a cautionary note. Every emergent media technology has been hailed as the harbinger of popular expression. Yet each new media is used for commercial ends by those in control of power. Newspapers, radios, and television have become institutionalized and continue to institutionalize as they are purchased by larger and larger conglomerates. Advertiser-supported media has become a top-down business. The audience is, after all, not the consumer in television. That role lies with the sponsor. The sponsor purchases advertising time and decides what it is they want to support. Television, and other media forms, are dominated by these sponsors supporting what they perceive is what their consumers want, or what they want their particular product to be associated with. The question is whether computer networks will go this route.
Computer networks are prone to some of the same problems as traditional media. Though anyone can place something on the World Wide Web, it becomes increasingly difficult to make that web page known to the general Internet audience. Large media-entities are able to create flashy, innovative sites that make personal sites look frumpy, and quickly passed over. An analogy can be drawn between television and the Internet. Anyone can videotape a subject, and with a little time, edit it into a program. But compare the quality of what the private individual can make within their budget (an 8mm video camera, perhaps two VCRs for dubbing) versus television companies with hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But computer networks have several saving graces. Distribution becomes limitless. Television, radio, and even newspapers (due to high publishing costs) have limited bandwidth. Computer networks can carry virtually limitless amounts of data at piddling costs, "the electromagnetic spectrum is not scarce but nearly limitless" (Gilder 129). That private videomaker can not distribute his video independently unless he is very wealthy.
From its beginnings, media has always been distributed through networks. Though the networks of today differ greatly from those of before, the basic concept remains the same. There are many definitions of what a network is, and there are numerous types of networks. Media is connected to, and makes use of, more than just one of these types of networks. With the use of today’s expansive and complicated technology, more of these networks are being made accessible to media companies. This essay will be looking at what networks are, the essentially symbiotic relationship between them and media, and will analyse the effects of this relationship on the world at large.
For years, the population has been exposed to different forms of media. Newspapers, magazines, television, films, radio, and more recently the Internet are ways of promoting ideas, spreading news, and advertising products.
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"
With an entity as vast as the Internet, it is not surprising that a variety of unanswered questions will arise. I’m positive that the Internet will continue to confound scholars as it continues to quickly evolve. By analyzing the views of the celebrants and skeptics, I have been able to understand the potential that the internet has. By using the PEC, I have been able to understand how democracy and capitalism relate to the issues of the Internet. In the future, I hope that society can develop a further understanding of the Internet and move toward the Internet that the celebrants had hoped for.
At approximately the same time that media was being engulfed in corporatism came the internet boom. The first organization to really take initiative with this new medium was th...
Networking is a multi-billion dollar global market whose growth is spurred by the belief that the Internet is changing the way we work, live, play, and learn. Over the last year, there has been a key shift in the role of the Internet and in how the Internet is perceived. What was once a fairly complex tool used by an elite group of highly technical individuals is now a technology driving economic change globally by creating new jobs and market opportunities.
In today 's world the media has enormous power. Media industries are operating in a market increasingly globalized and more monopolistic. In addition, the media come daily in our homes, deeply affecting our way of seeing the world. Adults and children and youth spend many hours a day watching television, transforming this activity into a more in all daily activities. Even more powerful is the ongoing revolution such as the development that has had and continues to have a means of communication such as the Internet.
In the past years societies have seen an explosion in the type of programming commonly call “Social media”. Social media, which literally means “websites and applications used for social networking,” is the most widely used by everyone in society. In the earlier period year’s media has had an intense effect on society, an effect so immense we don’t even notice its presence sometimes. Media is crucial to any society: we are all surrounded by media. Each and every day people interact with media of many forms. Media is also generally defined as being a channel of communication. Media has the supremacy to influence millions of individuals through countless formats. Media is everywhere in daily...
The internet is a vast network of computers that connects many of the world’s businesses, institutions, and individuals. It allows millions of people throughout the world to send and receive messages to each other, share information, and play games (Naughton 4). It was initially designed to aid the government and help people expand academically, but it is now becoming more commercialized and used in ways that it was not made for.
The Internet’s influence on our lives has spread throughout. According a 2009 US Census survey 74% of Americans use the internet and have access within their household.A number that has increased every year since 1990 and will sure grow in the future. In this survey they relieved that they did various activities on the internet including social media, (Facebook and Twitter) researching and reading news articles, watching YouTube videos, shopping and so much more all can be done with a computer or Internet enabled phone. With this ease of use and convenience it casts a shadow upon the future of printed and broadcast information. The Web’s instant and vast knowledge bank has changed ...
Local Area Networks also called LANs have been a major player in industrialization of computers. In the past 20 or so years the worlds industry has be invaded with new computer technology. It has made such an impact on the way we do business that it has become essential with an ever-growing need for improvement. LANs give an employer the ability to share information between computers with a simple relatively inexpensive system of network cards and software. It also lets the user or users share hardware such as Printers and scanners. The speed of access between the computers is lighting fast because the data has a short distance to cover. In most cases a LAN only occupies one or a group of buildings located next to each other. For larger area need there are several other types of networks such as the Internet.
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 is one of the greatest inventions of humanity. It is a massive network of computers, each with the ability to access any of the others. Ungodly amounts of information can be found on the Internet. It is the ultimate form of media, a combination of newspaper, radio, and as the average bandwidth is increasing, television. Using
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...
It is undeniably, today we are living in a drastic world and within second, several new interventions are happening around the world. Media technology is one of them where it has changed our lives with giving the freedom to do whatever we want. We look at our daily life, we can see a reflection of technology everywhere in our lives, such as TV, telephones, computers, cell phones, text messages, email, internet, online banking, booking a vacation, GPS, online shopping, online education, online books and online gaming. Media is an intermediary in order to transport information used to communicate such as radio and television. Brault.S, et al. mentioned that Medias as one of the methods to spread the information for all people without modification of the message while technology is the way that support people communicate over distance in space and time. In other words, it is known as social media which describe as internet or online space created to make easy for them to communicate, collaborate and share the content across the network of contacts.