Lecture 18: Digital Media PDF

Week 10: Digital/ Internet Media A timeline 1978 first use of the term convergence to describe the intersection of the media industries. 1984 Apple launches the Macintosh personal computer. 1988 Less than one-half of 1 percent of U.S. households are online. 19...

Week 10: Digital/ Internet Media A timeline 1978 first use of the term convergence to describe the intersection of the media industries. 1984 Apple launches the Macintosh personal computer. 1988 Less than one-half of 1 percent of U.S. households are online. 1989 Tim Berners-Lee develops the first browser and programming languages that allow people to share all types of information online. 1992 Neil Papworth, a software programmer in England, sends the first text message. 1994 Marc Andreessen and his colleagues at the University of Illinois introduce the Mosaic browser. 1995 David Filo and Jerry Yang launch Yahoo! as a search engine company. 1996 Internet advertising reaches $200 million. Congress passes the Communications Decency Act. 1998 One in four U.S. households is online. Congress passes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Larry Page and Sergey Brin launch Google. 1999 The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sues Internet file-sharing company Napster for copyright infringement. In 2001 File- sharing company Napster shuts down 2000 The number of Internet businesses explodes. 2003 RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America announce campaigns to aggressively fight online piracy. 2004 Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook as a social networking site. In 2004 there were 1 million users; the number increased to 2320 million in 2018. This was an increase of 231,900%.  2005 File-sharing company Grokster shuts down, settling a landmark intellectual property case. 2006 Internet advertising reaches $17 billion. 2007 Apple introduces the iPhone. 2008 Google celebrates its tenth anniversary. 2010 Apple introduces the iPad and the iPhone 4. 2011 Apple launches iCloud. Apple’s App Store reaches 25 billion downloads. Twitter hits 100 million users. Apple CEO Steve Jobs dies. 2012 Facebook has 1 billion monthly users. 2013 President Obama signs an executive order promoting cybersecurity. TODAY Four out of five American adults use the Internet. Fifty-two percent of online adults use two or more social media sites. Businesses spend more than $51 billion a year for Internet advertising. 1. What is digital media? - Digital media refers to all forms of communication media like text, audio, video and graphics that is electronically transmitted over the Internet or computer networks. - Digital media is therefore technologically based. - Among its important features are interactivity or two-way communication and group formation. 2. What has digital media done to the world? - One of the major developments surrounding the digital media is the emergence of the Internet. - The emergence of the Internet has made it possible for all previous media including new ones like social media to be delivered electronically via the Internet. - Because of this the economics of the media have been transformed. - The Internet has made it possible for people to access information and entertainment from all over the world, at any time of day or night. - This has led to a decline in the popularity of traditional media, such as newspapers, magazines, and television. - The Internet has also created new opportunities for people to create and share their own content, such as blogs, videos, and podcasts. - The Internet has also had a major impact on the way businesses operate. Many businesses now rely on digital media to reach their customers and promote their products and services. 3. Digital communication has changed the media - Through the Internet today, we can receive all types of media-print, broadcast, movies etc without any barrier or obstacle. - The Internet has also led to the emergence of new media products such as Facebook, X (Twitter) etc. - Because of the interactivity it brings, the Internet has led to the emergence of netzines and social media. - A key feature of all this development is that the Internet has no central control. - The emergence of the Internet has meant also that media audiences are both consumers and producers of information and media content. - An example of audiences creating media content is citizen journalism. Citizen journalism refers to the act of non-professionals, often ordinary people, reporting news and information, usually through the internet and social media platforms.  4. Digital media creates Inter-dependence - Enables communication & collaboration regardless of distance and location. - Facilitates rapid global interdependence. - Empowers businesses to operate on a global scale. - Allows worldwide collaboration on projects (e.g., scientific research). - Provides exposure to and engagement with diverse cultures. - Offers swift responses to global crises, like natural disasters or pandemics. 5. Digital media and convergence - In its simplest definition to converge is to come together, to assemble. - The fact that all the previous (old) media are delivered electronically via the computer illustrates or indicates a convergence. - Media convergence is the merging of different types of media into a single digital platform. This can include traditional media (e.g., print, TV, radio) and new media (e.g., the internet, social media, mobile devices). - You can get radio over the internet as live stream, as well as podcasts or recorded programme. - The computer itself depends on telecommunication and therefore, the coming together of telecommunication and computer is also a convergence. - At the same time media companies are merging such as AOL Time warner and CNN. This is also economic convergence. - Here are some examples of media convergence: 1. Watching a TV show on a streaming service like Netflix 2. Reading a newspaper article on a website or mobile app 3. Listening to a podcast on your phone 4. Watching a live stream of a concert or sporting event online 5. Posting a photo on social media and sharing it with your friends and family Some of the benefits of media convergence: 1. Convenience: Media convergence makes it easier for us to access the media we want, when we want it, and where we want it. 2. Choice: Media convergence gives us more choices about the media we consume. We can choose from a wider variety of content and platforms than ever before. 3. Interactivity: Media convergence allows us to interact with media in new ways. For example, we can comment on articles, share videos with friends, and vote on polls.  4. Creativity: Media convergence empowers us to create and share our own media content. We can write blog posts, create videos, and record podcasts. 6. World Wide Web - Sending email, creating blogs and websites, sharing audio and video files became possible because of technological developments. - Those technological developments made the creation of the World Wide Web (WWW) possible in 1989. - The person behind the creation of the WWW is Tim Berners-Lee who had a Physics degree from Oxford. - Berners-Lee created computer program languages called HTML - The first web page was created on December 20, 1990 by Berners-Lee, but was not made publicly available until August 6, 1991. - (Hypertext marking language) and HTTP (Hypertext transfer protocol). - HTTP allowed us to create and send text, video, graphic information electronically. - It also made it possible for us to create our own websites.  - Marc Andressen and his colleagues at the University of Illinois defined the browser and introduced software that made it possible for us to put text and picture in the same online document. - Mosaic was soon replaced by Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer as browsers. - The next important development is the emergence of search engines like Yahoo and Google that have transformed the way we relate with media. - Yahoo was founded in 1995 and makes money through subscription and advertising. - Google was founded in 1998 and is now the leading search engine on the Internet The first web page (above) was very simple, but it was a major milestone in the development of the internet. It paved the way for the creation of the modern web, which we use to access information, communicate, and entertain ourselves every day. http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html 1. What happens to the old media? - When the Internet arrived we saw that all the older media-newspapers, radio, TV etc. have also appeared on the web. - In addition, there are blogs, chat-rooms, and email discussion groups etc. that have also emerged on the Internet. - All together these are often referred to as the new media. - Is their arrival therefore a signal to the death of the old media? - Scholars have argued that from the history of the old media like newspapers, radio and TV etc. none died because of the birth of the other. - Instead, whenever new forms of communication appear the older forms don’t just die but evolve and adapt to the situation. - Each medium contributes to the development of its successor. 2. New technologies take 30 years to settle - Paul Safo has advanced what he calls the theory of 30-year rule. - He says each technology has three stages or phases of ten years each. 1. In the first ten years, there is excitement and big surprise about the technology but not huge penetration or access. (Remember when TV arrived?) 2. In the second stage of the next ten years there is wider access to the technology than before. 3. In the third stage of the next ten years the technology has become commonplace and no one is surprised by it anymore. - By this theory, American society is entering the third stage of on-line communication because it started in 1988. 3. Digital Divide - - The digital divide refers to the gap between individuals, households, businesses, or geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard to their access to information and communication technologies (ICT) and their use of the Internet for various purposes. - Even though access is becoming widespread about 21% of Americans don’t have access either because they cannot afford it or are just scared of it. - The gap between those with access and those without is what is called digital divide. - Those without access are also called ‘Truly Disconnected Adults’. 4. Commerce, Information and Entertainment makes the web different - What makes the web a different medium from the old media is that I combine commercial activity with the provision of information and entertainment. a. Commerce: Many web users are now abandoning the shopping mall and buying or selling on-line. - When we look at Amazon, E-Bay, Dubizzle. one can say that the web is a truly market place. b. Adverts: As well as other general information advertisers have also followed audiences on-line. - Ad robots enable companies to listen to discussions in chat rooms and follow members with ads. - Search marketing tools are also available so that once you Google a product some ads about it also appear. c. Entertainment: Today huge entertainment in audio, video, text, game form etc. is found on the web.  5. Chasing the audience: - As cellphones now have Internet capability and are widespread they have become the advertiser’s latest channels of reaching out to audiences. - We are all bombarded by adverts through cellphones. 6. Challenges before the Internet a. Open access: As the Internet becomes widespread one of its big challenges are the billions of unwanted emails called spam. - Of the 135 billion emails sent out daily in 2005, two thirds are said to be spam mails. b. Storage capacity: Many Internet users are getting frustrated with the issue of limited storage place. - The solution sought is through data compression. c. Personal privacy: While all media and commerce services are on the web there is also concern about privacy. - Banks and on-line markets have developed secure way of protecting credit card information. - In some countries such as the US, governments and security agencies can monitor communication on the web. Suggested readings: - Digital divide o https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/08/womens-education- digital-divide/