Plan:
- Pre-Internet: Print newspapers, 9'OClock news, Cinema/TV/Video Recorders
- Early Internet: News websites, 24h news channels on TV, satellite tv, DVDS
- Now: Apps like Twitter; personal, portable, interactive, converged, available on every platform, streaming, Netflix, Megashare, VOD, Crowdsourcing
- Andrew Keen anti internet
- macrowikinomics
- Easier to access
- Portable
- Interactive: can put personal opinion on news etc, and see other peoples opinions- makes influencing off other peoples thoughts more common
- Faster spread of information from all over the world
- Film streaming can be better financially rather than buying DVDS
- More films available - wider variety available to user
- can download films on netflix aka portable streaming offline - can't do that w dvds unless you have a portable dvd player
Cons:
- Lost the traditional aspect of media: Newspapers less common etc - link into the guardian newspaper online plea for donations
- The interactivity of twitter etc can cause gang like opinions where people section themselves into groups based on opinions, making discussion turn into arguments because people can't accept other opinions
- ^^^ because they are from behind a screen, people are more likely to say things they wouldn't in real life: death threats, violent etc
- Older generations don't like
- Traditional film gone; no more film renting shops (xtravision shutdown) takes away from what film used to be
- cinema trips are more rare bc you can just watch illegally online; the traditional cinema vibe gone
- Owning things physically doesn't matter anymore - when streaming you never own the films you just have access to stream as long as you're contracted to
- Illegal viewing more i.e. loss of money for film companies and those who worked in the film - loss of revenue - work goes unnoticed
The proliferation of the internet has certainly made it much easier for everyone to be completely up to date with everything going on in the world at that point. Before the internet existed, if we wanted to know the latest news, we had to read print newspapers (not to mention that the papers with the most news were weekly Sunday papers), or wait for the 9 O'Clock news each night on the television. However, now because of the Internet, if anything at all happens throughout the world, whether it be finding out how Melania Trump decorated the White House for Christmas this year, or another ISIS crisis in any part of the Western world, we will find out about it in minutes through social media apps such as Twitter or Facebook, or the online news websites such as The Guardian or The Daily Mail.
Twitter in particular is heavily used for news updates, as it not only has approved news updates available on the discover page, but you can also search key words or hashtags to see what other people are saying about that situation. People seem to like this interactivity, because we generally like to see when other people agree with our opinions on certain situations, so to see other people talking about these situations with the same attitude about them as you may have, we feel almost a feeling of belonging as we share the same opinion with many other people around the world. Twitter is also easily accessible as it's available on many platforms. You can access it on your phone as a mobile app, or on a laptop/desktop computer from anywhere. This makes it so easy for anyone to receive news updates and talk about these updates from anywhere in the world, essentially keeping us constantly updated with everything going on in the world. This news doesn't necessarily have to be breaking news that you'd see on the television, the news can range from anything you want it to - i.e. you can tailor who you follow dependant on what your interests may be, for example, you may follow all of your favourite artists and even some of their fans, which will help keep you updated on their lives and anything going on with them such as new tours, new music releases etc.
However, Twitter isn't always so great because with everyone being able to give their opinion on situations or news updates, this can create a mob mentality, where people who agree with each other gang up on those who disagree with that opinion. This can cause serious disputes on the website between users, and because of the Internet allowing users to say whatever they want from behind a screen, people can be much more vicious because there is no real repercussion for their actions. This can cause disagreements to lead to death threats, racist remarks or general degrading insults which can be seriously harmful to many people. Another issue with Twitter can be that when a new news story comes out and no confirmation from actual media outlets or news channels has been made yet, twitter users can make up whatever they want and it will spread like wildfire, because people are willing to believe anything when not much information is available yet. This causes confusion and make many people jump to conclusions over a misleading piece of information. It is so easy to make up a viral story now, because if you get enough Retweets, someone is bound to believe you.
There are also 24 hours news channels available every single day, so no one has to wait for the 9 O'Clock news anymore to get the daily updates, as there will be over 100 channels on your television that show news updates 24/7. If you don't wish to participate in the social media aspect of news updates, or don't have time to watch the 24 hour news channels, you still have the option of online news websites. Take The Guardian for example, it is quite literally the online version of a newspaper. It has everything and more; the news headlines, UK and world news, sports, business, lifestyle, art, and the list goes on. You can even use the 'find a job' option, which is the online version of the few pages in a newspaper that showed you the jobs available in your area. Everything is there, but do people really use it? This is debatable, as many people do use websites like The Guardian or BBC News to keep updated on news, but recently, social media platforms have become the place to go for news updates. This is definitely becoming an issue for news outlets, as many of them are predicted to go bust soon because of this. Again, The Guardian can be used as an example for this, at the end of each article they post, they ask for a £1 donation to keep The Guardian up and running - they literally have to plea readers for donations to ensure that they don't die out due to their social media competitors. As a result of the internet, our society really has lost the traditional value of receiving news. How often do you really see someone reading a newspaper now, instead of just flicking through their phone screens?
This change in consumption of media hasn't just changed for news updates. Another area that has changed massively is the film industry. Before the internet, we would go to XtraVision on a Friday night, and rent out two films you hadn't seen before. We'd go home, watch them on our 30inch television screens through our Sony DVD players. Or, we'd go to the cinema to see the newest film out, and then probably buy it when it comes out for sale. This has entirely changed because of the Internet. Now, if we want to watch a film, we'll log onto our paid subscription Netflix accounts and watch a film by the tap of a finger, through our 50inch flatscreen televisions, or our iPad or phone screens. If we really wanted, we could do this in the car, or on a plane, because guess what? We can download our films now too, we don't even need the internet to stream them. We can watch a film from anywhere we want, without carrying a bulky portable dvd player around with us. It's so simple now. Many people will argue that this is a truly great development, which it is. We can literally watch as many films or television shows we want of any genre we want, for £10 a month. Compared to what we would've spent on purchasing the physical versions of these films, we're saving a lot of money by streaming these films rather than physically owning them, but does this take away from the traditional meaning of ownership?
Many will argue that the Internet has changed everyone's feelings about owning things; no one really cares anymore. We don't care about the quality in which we receive services anymore, as long as we have access to them, we really don't care what shape or form it comes in, whether its 360p quality, or 820HD quality. Instead of going to the cinema to see new releases, we can just look up MegaShare and illegally stream the film for free. This is a prime example of how we don't care how we receive services anymore, as we will be willing to watch a new film that was videoed on an iPhone 6 camera, and uploaded onto an illegal film website, rather than just paying the £5 it would cost to watch the film on the big screen.
Andrew Keen, for example, challenges the dominant narrative about the internet - that it's a technology that liberates, informs and empowers people. The problem with this narrative, he points out, is not that it's wrong - the network society is breaking the old centre, compounding economic and cultural inequality, and creating a digital generation of masters of the universe. Far from being the "answer" to society's problems, Keen argues, the internet is at the root of many of them. The internet is now dominated by giant monopolists (e.g. Google). We live voluntarily in an "electronic panopticon". Keen argues that the big internet companies taken together are the net destroyer of jobs - jobs in independent bookshops, taxi firms, or even in printing companies for newspapers as we mentioned earlier. The internet has finally caused the industrial economy to run out of gas.
However, despite these downsides, the internet isn't all bad. Collaboration, opens, sharing, and integrity - it's finally happening. With the proliferation of social media, we all have the most powerful tools and platforms for growth, social development and social justice at our fingertips. Social media is becoming social production. The new media are enabling the birth of a new civilisation. For example, we're innovating science and healthcare with 'PatientsLikeMe', where 80 thousand patients are crowdsourcing their data to help out doctors, scientists and their own course of treatment.
In conclusion, I believe that there has been many positive aspects of development that has come with the internet, which in turn, causes the loss of tradition. Everything is a the tap of a finger on a screen now, and it doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon. We still have a long way to go, and technology is only going to get more advanced, so we either need to move along and develop alongside it, or stay stuck in the past.
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