Media- topic 6- the new media

What is the new media?

The new media refers to the screen based digital technology involving the interfation of images, text andsound and to the technology used for the districutionand consmotion of the new digitized media content.

What devices does the new media include?

Computers, tablets, smartphones, and the internet, e-books, CD's, email, blogs, youtube and interactive games on playstation and Xbox.

What devices did the traditional media include?

Books, newspapers, magazines, radios, phones to make calls, yellow pages

What is the difference between traditional and new media?

Traditional mediais prinitd at specific times and is in the local area alone, Whereas new media is instant and worldwide.

What is digiality?

Digiality- the idea that all data is converted into nuumbers which can be stored and distrivuted through screen based products.

What is interactivity?

Interactivity- people are noe able to interact with the media. This includes things such as commenting on youtube or liking a celebrities tweet. This causes the particiaption culture here individuals have more control over the media content Jenkins points out that globally we can pull our knwoledge of the world together actively and share ideas.

What is hypertexuality?

Hypertexuality- evereything on the internet  is linked together this allows us to easily search and interact with information.

What is disperal?

Disperal- there is a great range of choice for individuals throug the meia. It is not justt mediaa produces who can put programmes together, but it tends to be individuals uploading onto sites such as youtube. People can select  what they personally want to watch and interact with it on a personal device.

What is virtuality?

Virtuality- people exist in a make believe worlf online, they can create fake accounts ot live in made up fantasies through computer games.

How can digiality be cirticised?

Trasditional channels scuh as the BBC are still the most popular forms of TV.

How can interactivty be criticised?

In traditional media people would write letters and send them in to competions or phone to enter. Meaning people have alwys been able to interact.

How can hypertexuality be critcised?

90% of the internet is the dark web which is difficult to access.

How can disperal be criticised?

Most youtube channels are not very watched,

How can virtuality be criticised?

Most peoplee still focus on their real identity.

What are the social class differences in the use of the new media?

• The middle and upper class are the biggest users of the new media as they can more eaisily afford it, and the working class who are less able to afford it do not use it as much. It was shown that internet usage decreased in line with socio-economic status. 1/3 of the population markerd by scio-economic disadvantage is more digitally excluded than the rest of the population
• There is evidence of a digital divide between the information rich digital haves, who have access to online information and services and the information poor digital have nots. Helsper shows that a digital undefclass was forming in Britian with those with lower eduucation levels and no employment lagging behing in their access to the internet.
• Livingstone and Wang suggest that the digital underclass is worsening as they found people progress in aqiring digital skills has ceased to improve, with those in lowe social classes particulary at risk.

How does age affect the usage of the new media?

There is a substantil generation gap in the access t and use of the new media. This is not suprising since Boyle points out, yuonger people have grown up with the leatest developments in the new media, have learnt to use the internet at home. as school and from their peers, and are consequently more media-savy than previous generations. However, there are still clear patterns of social ineaulity amongst young people. Jones points out that 16-24 year olds from the most disadvnataged social backgrounds are likely to remian relaively infrequent users of the internet.

How do gender differences effect the usage of the new media?

There are some significant differences between men and women in the way they use and relate to the new media. For example Ofcom found:

• Fixed gamesconsoles and tablets are more popular among males than females, but e-readers are more popular among women for their reading.
• Men speen 3x as much time as women watching videos online.
• There is a higher take up of smartphones among males.
• More females than males reported high additction to their mobile phone.
• Young women make significantly more phone calls than young men and also send and recieve more texts.
• Women are less likely to use the internt than men withing a given 3 month period, but women are slightly more ikkely than men to use social networking sites.
• Women are less likely to use the internet to relax or to keep up to date with news.

How does location effect the digital divide?

The most significant digital divide is between the information rich and the information poor countries, and the existence of the global digital underclass. Many of those living in the worlds poorest countries lack resources to build the digital network required and private businesses.

What changes have influenced the decline in traditional media?

• Cheaper, more mobile and widely accessible digital technologies, such as smartphones.
• Technologes expanding live coverage such as mobile phones recording at the scenes of news events.
• Use of the new media to form the content of the traditional media such as news on mobile phone apps.

What effects are there of the decline of traditional media?

• There are shifts in traditional news flow cycles- for example there has been a rise in citizen journalism, where members of the public rather than professional journalism companies, collect report and spread news stories.
• Heightened accountability- citizen journalism has made media organisations much more accountable to the public, as their reports are scrutinised by the public.
• Evolving news values- the new media has enabled media organisations to provide more immediacy through instananeous live coverage provided by citizen journalism.

How does the new media change the patterns of media ownership?

• McNair suggests that new media has meant that elite groups have less power to influence news agendas. Citizen journalism can push their own values through bloogind and social networking sites.

What changes have there been in agenda setting?

Previous agenda setting in th new meant that news corporations would have dictated what was imorptant only selecting certain news stories. However, citizen journalism has the capacity to shape traditional news agendas, as media corporations cannot afford to ignore stories made newsworthy by citizen journalism. 

How have relationships with media audiences changed with the rise of the new media?

• The new media must be more responsive to their audiencees, allowing more nterztice comments, feedback and complaints, and more pesonalized, cutomized content suited to their tastes.  For example replying on twitter.
• The new media has also forced te traditional media to more accountable for their audiences.

What is the cultural optimist/ neophiliac view of the new media?

In the Uk media audiences have a choice of over 500 Tv channels and 172 million active websites. Consumers are also now able to access information, complaints and reviews about a range of different devices. Neophilliacs argue that the new media can give  more power to odanairy people and have made postive contriburions to bulding more democratic societies. They believe that it is a good thing we have more media choice as it gives individuals more power. Mcnair argues that information, like knowledge, is power. McNair argues that the internet means anyone can set up and maintain a blog or a website which can the be viewed by anyone at any time. They argue that social media has given us much more freedomof choice where we can access millions of vieos from a range of perspectvies. We are also ableyo connect globally meaning realtionships can be formed which were not possible before. The new media gives us more opportunity ro make informed choices about things such as our health.

What exampes are there of the neophilliac view?

• 38 degrees is a website where individuals can campaign for things and get peoples signitures.  This gives people more power to campaign for what they believe in
• Kony was a person of concern, and people came together for the social issue.
• Sheffield united sacked Ched Evans from the football club as he was accused of ****- also showng people come together for social issues.

How can the cultural optimist/ neophilliac view be criticised?

• There is a digitial divide- so it is not avilable to everyone e.g. countiries like north Korea and the elderly.
• Advertisement still influences the new meda so we are not making imparital choices.

What is the cultural pessimist view?

It argues that it is often difficult to know the source of messages in the nre media, who they come from and who is sending them. It is therefore, hard to validatae infromation to know whether or not reports are true and whether videos or photos are faked and doctored. They also argue that citizen journalism can be exploited for advertising meaning it is also difficult to know if this is trustworthy and valid. They also argue that major new companies are still able to dictate what information is important to audiences. The media also causes the media imperalism of non western cultures, which is the imposition of Western vultural vlaues on non Western cultures, undermining local cultures and cultural independence. The cultural pessimist view argues that unelected commercial comanies like Google have large amounts of power, companies like gooogle can sometimes prevent people from havinf freedom of speech, and Amazon for example, dropped wikileaks from their servers. Cultural pessimists argue that the media has given governments and advertisement agencieis greater control, for example they can now track our interent usage. The new media has given rise to negative things such as child pronography and drug dealins. Major coporations still have the most control over the interent with people using webstites for the daily mail for example

How can cultural pessimists be criticised?

• The dark web can be  used for good thing such as policitical resistence. Many people may use dark web to avoid surrvieleance.
• Traditional media  has become more accountable to people, for example the response from twitter over the pepsi advert.