The aim of this module was to explore different cultural, economic,
technological and social that try to explain the extensive effects that
have occurred to society as a result of the general use of new media
forms. I have learnt a lot about these different effects through the
weekly blogs I have done.
I have learnt that video games
are changing society extensively. Over the past fifty years they have
evolved into one of the most popular forms of media entertainment. Games
even have an impact on journalism! Furthermore, society appears to have
been taken in by the world of gaming with individuals like Jane
McGonigal arguing that ‘reality is broken’ and that gaming is the answer
to ‘global happiness’. It has been interesting to see how gaming has
come to impact society in such major ways in recent years, more than it
was ever believed possible.
I have also learnt about the
digital divide that is evident in society today as a result of new
media forms. The gap between those who have access to technology and
those deprived of access has widened considerably over recent years.
There are many people in the world who are at a great disadvantage as
they cannot or do not have access to new technologies such as the
internet and the ranging opportunities they bring. These people are
‘socially excluded’ and are on the wrong side of the ‘digital divide’.
I
have considered the ways in which technological innovation has effected
out privacy – possibly putting it at risk. Hacking has advanced, and
even with ‘ethical’ hacking it can never really be known what a hacker’s
true intentions are. With technology always advancing, hackers are
always going to find a way to breach systems. Thus, every society’s
privacy is always likely to be at risk so long as hackers have ways to
break through even the most advanced systems.
I have
learnt about how the social media is being used in some societies to
express anger about relevant situations such as starvation, unemployment
and corruption. Social networking has provided a way for individuals
within society to get their messages across to almost everyone in the
world. Facebook has become a battleground for authorities in Tunisia and
web activists. In more general terms, social networking sites have
become centre stage for the “marginalized Arab masses”. Individuals are
using social media to plan protests and spread pictures of police
brutality etc. On the other hand, in some countries social media is
helping stop revolutions and rioting, in attempts to keep their
governments safe. Police use social networking sites to monitor
activities and try and prevent them before they happen. Either way,
social networking has had huge effects on society.
Society
today has also seen an increase in citizen journalism as a result of
new media technology as it has made it easier for ordinary people to
become ‘citizen journalists’ and for others to access citizen
journalism. Citizens now seem to be the ones that are reporting breaking
news. With social networking sites, and the increasing prevalence of
mobile phones, citizens can now report on stories as soon as they happen
especially if they are present at the scene.
New
advancements have also led to an increase in the fear of cyber warfare.
Governments and militaries all across the world are preparing themselves
for ‘the beginning of a new and dangerous era of cyber warfare’. The
actual effects of cyber warfare remain to be seen!
How stories are told has also changed. The ways in which data is used
to tell stories has changed drastically with the advancement of digital
journalism. Data and numbers are manipulated by journalists to get them
the results significant to them. These days, journalists are required
to have specialist skills, to do with coding and development, or
numeracy and understanding especially if they are writing stories that
will be published online. This means that society is getting information
given to them in different ways now.
This module has also made me really think about whether the media is
biased or not. I have come to believe that it is very difficult for
journalists to obtain objectivity or impartiality anyway. All
journalists have a political point of view. This is not something they
automatically leave behind when they step into their job. I would like
to believe that respectable journalists are well informed about the
subjects they are covering. In believing this I would further argue that
it is near-impossible to be well informed about a subject and not have
an opinion.
And last but not least, I have learned how to blog post effectively and have mastered it (Only joking). I really have learnt a lot about the digital culture!
One aspect that I believe should have been covered is how digital
culture has affected marketing, specifically how there has been an
increasing trend towards marketing using new means of social media to
advertise.
Marketing now makes use of many different
types of electronics such as computers, mobiles, digital billboards,
game consoles etc. to connect with consumers. Internet marketing is one
of the main aspects of digital marketing. This has also advanced from
emailing to social networking in recent years.
Timmerman writes
how “the evolution of media is hard to ignore in an age where digital
marketing no longer means the traditional pull and push channels like
website updates and email marketing. Digital marketers today need to be
well versed in the latest technology channels and communication tools
which include mobile, tablets, internet TV and of course social media
outlets”.
List of some of the ways marketing has changed in recent years:
1.
Marketing and the tools it used are always changing to quickly that
essentially, marketing teams have now had to become research teams as
well. It is no longer just enough to attend marketing conferences once a
year as you will never be able to keep up this way.
2. Also, because the tools used are always changing, this means that initiatives have also had to change.
3. Businesses now have to accommodate changes in the use of social media (its increased used by consumers)
4. Marketing departments have now also had to become media and education departments.
5. How marketing money is spent has also changed.
It
is evident that marketing has changed extensively as technology has
advanced. More and more people today use social networking sites.
Whereas a few years ago advertising and marketing products on social
media websites may not have been the most effective way of reached target markets, in today’s day and age it is. Social
networking has allowed for communication, collaboration and interaction
like never before. Companies are now connecting to consumers via these
social networking sites and are starting to engage with them on a more
personal level. Robin Parduez notes how because of this consumers start
to think that companies care about their opinions and needs and how
“eventually, the budding rapport leads to interest in the company's
products / services and customer conversion”.
But it is not just in relation to social networking that marketing
has changed. Research has indicated that people are using a range of
different platforms e.g. iPads, television, mobiles, internet, all at
the same time. Parduez notes: “these devices make it possible for users
to stay connected over the Internet at all times, so marketing is also
adapting to tap into this growing mobile customer segment”.
It
has become a matter of urgency to market to the general public on as
many different platforms as possible. This has not only created new
opportunities for marketing, but it has also caused some challenges as
there is now much more to consider from a marketing strategy point of
view. All aspects now need to be covered, not just one or two.
Ethical hacking is popularly known as “white-hat” hacking. It is very
much the same as hacking in general as it involves the same tools and
techniques being used. However, there is one major difference – ethical
hacking is legal. Ethical hacking takes place with the permission of the
target and the task is to find out if a hacker can find any
vulnerabilities within the system that need to be addressed so that
maximum security is reached. Ethical hacking also allows for dealers to
legitimise their claims about how secure their products are.
But
is ethical hacking really ethical? I think it is very difficult to ever
understand the true intentions behind anyone’s actions, in the same way
that I think it is very difficult to ever understand the true
intentions of “ethical” hackers when they are hacking into weak systems.
I don’t think we ever really know what someone’s intentions are. I
mean, as a teacher teaching a student how to hack, how can you know that
student is learning how to hack for good reasons? You don’t, but you
just have to assume that they are which to me seems like a very big risk
because if a student uses the knowledge to commit crimes then it is not
benefitting society in any way, it is endangering it.
The
media are always coming across new stories about cyber crime and
hacking. A study has recently indicated that almost 90% of attacks
happen from the inside. This just proves how we can never be sure of
anyone’s intentions. It also shows how easy it is to break the trust of
those you work for and infiltrate an attack on your own company if it
doing so is more beneficial to you or serves your intentions better. In
allowing an “ethical” hacker to hack into your system, you may be
putting your trust in the enemy. I mean you never know, the ethical
hacker you have employed may find a weak point in your system, not
report it to you and use it against you for their own benefit in future
(usually financial benefit).
Technology is always
advancing. Hackers are always coming across new tools and techniques to
hack, but these very same tools and techniques, in the wrong hands, can
violate our basic rights to privacy. Jamil et al. (2011) sum up my
argument very well in the following statement:
“Technology
has continued to grow at a high rate over the years and continues to do
so; scholars are putting themselves in vulnerable positions by helping
individuals to hack. The mind is a very powerful tool that has no
control, the control will continue to grow proportionally with the
desire to get knowledge of something that is impossible to achieve in
its entity, but not forgotten in its entirety. Hackers will always find
ways of getting into systems, whether they are doing it for good or
bad”.
We all want to believe that ethical hackers have
the best intentions at heart, but the fact is we can never really know a
person’s true intentions. Furthermore, technology is always advancing
so that hackers will always find a way into a system if they are set on
doing so. It may take several years, but in the end anything is
possible. This means that our privacy will always be at risk.
Reference:
Jamil, D and Khan, M. ‘Is ethical hacking ethical?’, International
journal of engineering science and technology, Vol. 3, No. 5 (May,
2011), pp. 3758-3763.
Media fandom is a term that came about in the late 1970s and is used
to describe fans of stars from televisions shows and movies etc. It has
been further extended to describe fans of computer and video games as
well as science fiction. Moreover, it is now said that: “Media
fandom has expanded beyond its original intent. Many issues such as
community, space and identity are discussed and bring together many
Internet communities who share common interests. Creating new links
between cultural, media and Internet studies, media fandom began
discussing the class, gender, nationality and sexuality of many
television characters. It tries to understand and make meaning out of
those characters by maintaining and creating online community
relations”. Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse have written a
noteworthy book on this matter entitles Fan fiction and fan communities
in the age of the internet. The essays in this book talk about fans of
Star Trek through to fans of Harry Potter and delve into the world of
fan fiction. These essays consider the purposes of online communities
for different fictional shows and stars and how they are created in the
first place. Furthermore, this book considers the ways in which
technological advancements have affected fan communities. One of
the most popular fan communities right now is for Game of Thrones –
admittedly even I love this show and am a big fan! Fan communities for
this programme have been created on Facebook, fanfiction and gamerhub.
This programme gets an average of 32,000 new fans a day!! Just take a look at the infograph bellow created by socialbakers:
Peter Lang has also written a noteworthy book titled Digital fandom:
new media studies. "Digital Fandom augments traditional studies of
popular media fandom with descriptions of the contemporary fan in a
converged media environment”. What this book does is show how changes in
the study of fandom “can be applied in a larger scale to the study of
new media in general, and formulates new conceptions of traditional
media theories”. Indeed, media fandom has changed considerably over recent years, advancing as a result of technological innovations. References: Chris
Taylor. ‘Game of Thrones' Social Media Fandom: Bigger Than Westeros?’
URL:
http://mashable.com/2013/04/04/game-of-thrones-social-media-fandom-as-big-as-westeros/ Questia. ‘Media Fandom’ URL: http://www.questia.com/library/communication/media-studies/media-fandom Google books. ‘Digital fandom: new media studies’ URL: http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Digital_Fandom.html?id=9LdS5WwGOvwC&redir_esc=y
In 2011, Jane McGonigal, a visionary game designer wrote the book
entitled Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can
Change the World. This book ultimately reveals how we can exploit the
power of games to boost global happiness. In this book she argues that
the power of games can be used to fix what is wrong with our world i.e.
real world issues such as poverty and global warming. She also gives
examples of how some games have already changed the following sectors:
business, education and non-profit organisations. This book was written
not only for gamers, but also non-gamers alike and ultimately states
that the future belongs to those amongst us who have the ability to
understand, design and play games. But is what McGonigal reveals
in her book honestly true? Is reality really broken? And is gaming
really going to “make us better”? Firstly, I think the fact that
globally we play around 3 billion hours of video games in a week speaks
for itself. So many of us take a step back from reality and into the
world of video gaming to seek some sort of happiness from all the
problems that surround us on a daily basis. Not only this, but more
human effort and attention is going into designing these artificial
worlds just so that people can continue to lose themselves in a world
that is nothing like our own. More time is going into creating new
worlds than into trying to fix what is wrong with this one, and some may
argue that this is the case because there is no solution to many of the
major problems we face. Thus, it is easier to just create a new,
virtual world where things aren’t so bad and we are happy. So in this
sense yes, reality is broken because video games are what make us
happier at the moment and there is more of them than there are solutions
to world hunger! McGonigal explains how games can change the way
we approach things we know we should be doing to make a “better” life
for ourselves. We crave, she argues, “satisfying work” that allows us to
be “optimistic about our own chances for success”; that involves
“social connection”; and that allows us to feel “curiosity, awe and
wonder”. Could gaming make us better? Well I think there is some
element of truth in this. If nothing else, what gaming shows us is that
we are capable of doing something. We spend so much time and effort
into creating characters and doing things we probably wished we could do
in reality; and this to us seems more meaningful than much of what we
do in our everyday lives. However, if we put the same amount of effort
into our daily lives as we do into creating a virtual world for
ourselves then maybe reality wouldn’t be so bad. If you could do it in a
game, I’m pretty sure you could also do something similar in reality.
Thus, we would be happier with our own lives, not within a virtual world
that is non-existent. I don’t think we really need a virtual
world to make us happy, but I do understand why some may think that
gaming is a way to “global happiness”.
Citizen journalism is based upon public citizens “playing an active
role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and
disseminating news and information” - S. Bowman and C. Willis, 2003
Society
today has seen an increase in citizen journalism. New media technology
has made it easier for ordinary people to become ‘citizen journalists’
and for others to access citizen journalism. Citizens are the ones who
tend to report breaking news more quickly than traditional media
reporter. With social networking sites, and the increasing prevalence of
mobile phones, citizens can report on stories as soon as they happen
especially if they are present at the scene. Many see the rise in citizen journalism as a good thing. It is
believed that ordinary individuals can add a wider berth to stories as
they can provide information that may not have been made available to
the public otherwise. They can do this by creating a blog, or commenting
on a post. It’s a way of ensuring that the “truth” gets out. Peope tend
to not trust mainstream media too much, and there is an increasing
tendency amongst individuals to go onto news blogs rather than read
mainstream newspapers.
Social media allows citizens to bring “breaking news” to others, before mainstream media gets the chance too. “Most
people are still happy to rely on mainstream news organisations to sort
fact from fiction and serve up a filtered view, but they are
increasingly engaged by this information, particularly when recommended
by friends or another trusted source” – Nic Newman, 2009 Citizen
journalists also give out information that is clearer, and straight to
the point. They give a basic view on something rather than try to hide
the truth in amongst fancy vocabulary. It is because of citizen
journalism that I think we are becoming more of an information society.
But is the rise in citizen journalism necessarily a good thing? Some
argue that it is not. In some instances I agree. Citizen journalists
are not trained; it is not their job to report on current events.
Whereas a trained journalist has to follow rules and regulation an
ordinary citizen does not. They do not need to find credible sources to
back up any allegation they might make in a blog or an article. If they
wanted to they could make up an event or a situation in their head and
write about. It is often found that such stories are often related to
race. I remember reading numerous articles claiming that Barak Obama is
not only a secret Muslim but that he also was not born in the United
States. Even though these articles are clearly false, it has not stopped
citizen “journalists” repeatedly reporting that these allegations are
true! “Legitimacy may be unknown with a blog or user-created
site and, indeed, there have been cases where individuals have gamed the
system, deliberately posting material they know not to be true” – John
Kelly, 2009 Personally I know there have been numerous rumours
spread across social networking sites about the deaths of famous
celebrities which have all turned out to be vicious rumours spread by
people.
When Mark Zuckerberg first founded Facebook, I am sure he did not
think that he would be giving a stage to Arab protestors so that they
may express this anger with the starvation, unemployment and corruption
going on in their countries. I also do not think that he intended for
his social media website to become a battleground for authorities in
Tunisia and web activists. But this is exactly what has happened! The
results have been devastating and have been some of the most violent
demonstration the country has ever seen!!
We use Facebook to
update our relationship status or to upload pictures of ourselves, they
use Facebook to upload videos and Twitter feeds of the street
demonstrations that are going on around them.
“We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.”
There
have been some outrageous pictures uploaded onto Facebook of police
brutality and this has only angered people more. Social networking sites
have become centre stage for the “marginalized Arab masses”. It has
become a place for them to share their anger and to spread their message
all across the world – the message against censorship. Thus it would
seem as though social media has acted as an “important resource for
popular mobilization against the regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben
Ali” (Todd Landman, 2012).
Wael Ghonim: “I want to meet Mark
Zuckerberg one day and thank him, actually. This revolution started -
well, a lot of this revolution started on Facebook. If you want to
liberate a society, just give them the Internet. If you want to have a
free society, just give them Internet”.
It is not just Tunisians who have taken political advantage of social
networking sites. Algerians, Palestinians and Egyptians have too! In
Egypt Twitter and Facebook, those tools were used to coordinate and spread the word about the demonstrations that were scheduled for January 25, 2011.
However, it has been argued that social media and the internet in
general is not enough to cause a revolution and overthrow a government.
“Europeans and Americans were quick to label the uprising a ‘Twitter
revolution’” says Doyle McManus in the Los Angeles Times, “But Tunisia's
uprising was made possible not by the internet, but by widespread,
pent-up anger at Ben Ali's family-run kleptocracy- feelings that
extended to the military”. Nevertheless, it is obvious that social media
did play a significant role in Arab revolutions!
On a slightly
different note, in Britain, recent reports have argued that social
networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter could help improve the
overall security of this country. It has been argued that police forces
should co-ordinate their forces online and ensure the 24-hour staffing
of social media accounts. With the police keeping a close eye on
different social networking sites, they may also be able to respond more
quickly to active situations such as the 2011 riots by “crowd sourcing”
events as they happen.
