Media Reflections - Assignment Example

? Media Reflections Media Reflections The media shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and interaction since itgives the information regarding and or that is required by the society and its constituents. The specific work of the media is to keep people informed on different aspects of life including social, economic, and political aspects of life among other areas. These includes passing on information of numerous political, economic and social issues that would influence the interactions and association of people in different perspectives. For example, U.S is known as the most influential country in the world. Its education, economics, politics, science, culture, and technology, among other areas paint the world’s social economic fabric. What is known with Americans is about the world is more inconsistent to the influence they have and how it control resources. An erroneous rule of thumb for foreign correspondents covering the world’s news is that “all everyone cares is about earthquakes and rebellions”. On the other hand, most Americans get their news from television and newsletters including magazines. However, television is the last effective media in communicating in-depth news with great knowledge due to its distortions and sparseness. If numbers can mean anything, journals and newspapers are not doing their job in getting Americans informed that they have a lot to learn from other newly developed countries. Most average sized newspapers are found to publish a maximum of one thousand words in a day for foreign news. This discards much of the total words furnished by the syndicates and news agencies. There are estimated less than four hundred full time correspondents for United States news organizations internationally serving the U.S. This is fewer than the number of correspondents who were at work at the end of the Second World War. The printing press was found to have numerous effects on people’s association and interactions. It was found to foster nationalism while at the same time promoted individualism. People could not engage in association in the mind of being a liability. The printing press also set up the literacy rates among the working people and on the middle class people. Knowledge was democratized among all members of the state. People could obtain knowledge on specific areas with much support from the printing press (Harrison, 1996). The printing press was as well found to have speeded up the dissemination and the preservation of knowledge among all members of the state. In relation to the internet in the modern day media, these functions of the printing press correspond to the specific effects portrayed through the study of the internet today. Interaction among individuals is greatly enhanced by the internet while many of the internet users. The internet shapes the users knowledge through the interaction by different people. It democratizes knowledge with no limitation to all users (McLuhan, 2006).  Information is known to be in form of power. This is now known than ever in the third world countries and they are therefore calling for new international order of information. The newly developed countries have their demands going unheeded due to the lack of a substantial change in the world system of information dissemination. The American media in particular, are highly influential. The feature films, popular press, commercial TV and the hit parades were all invented in U.S. they were then imported and copied by the rest of the nations. Very little of the Anglo-American news film agencies and news select the images for the perception of international political information in the world. Information is no longer treated as a commodity but as a service at the disposal of every person. In the same way, if a new world order of information is established, the third world nations must consolidate their information media as well as the western highly developed technological states must assist. People make use of the media in criticizing the values of the societal period that they live in. the history of media describes different values associated with each era in the development of media. Advancements in the media technology have become the calibration marks for the key paradigmatic shifts. According to different studies on the development of media, there are three proposals on the historical ages of transmission technologies. First, is the “age of writing” also known as logo sphere? Second is the graph sphere, which is the age of print, nations and law, and political ideologies. The newly born stage is the video sphere, which is the age of models, media broadcasting, opinions, and persons. The technologies of transmission take on a position in the people’s culture of vertiginous power as media get the credit for not only shaping the information they consume and distribute but also our powers of perception, social and economic systems, our political, and our general construction of transparency. Media and its broad effects have been around ever since humankind has been organizing themselves into tribes and developing methods of passing information to one another. Tribes have tried to develop means of extending the scope of their naked voice beyond their hearing range, and giving substance and form to one’s thoughts. Such paintings like the Paleolithic at Lascaux are no less practical expressions of media than magazines and TV shows today. However, the schematic analysis of media and the recognition of its impact on all aspects of social living are not dated long time but a decade old. The printing press in the 1830’s is claimed to have destroyed feudalism that introduced the modern world. Plato and Derrida back have emphasized the effects of writing two centuries, though the wide-ranging attention given to the media today and their effects is unprecedented. Before the development of the present day means of media communication, newsletters containing information from wars and other economic to social customs could be handwritten and circulated to people within a state. Publication of information about some contemporary affairs was initiated in North America in the eighteenth century, though they did not resemble the newspapers of today. The newspaper was the first newly discovered means of communicating information the US in the 18th century with the BOSTON NEWSLETTER being the first to be edited. In the nineteenth century, in the 1920’s, radio became the news medium. Information could be transmitted as radio broadcast across many states (Ehlen, 2005). This marked a great transformation and advancement in the media industry. Radio broadcast was developed to make advancement from the newspapers that were only constituted with writing. From this point of transformation, media began expanding rapidly. More than a half of the American families had an access to a radio whereby they could get information from their homes. This marked the development of a wireless and paperless transmission of information across nations. The Kodak Company was founded by George Eastman and made a significant transformation to the media. Photographs could be taken using the Kodak Brownie that was a form of a camera, though different from the modern cameras. This type of camera was first produced in 1910 and lead to the development of more advanced cameras. The introduction of camera leads to more developments and as a result, movie theatres were invented. Certain values in the society would be displayed with majority of the films intending to polish out bad values within the society. The first full-length film was aired for only twelve minutes and was displayed publicly as a celebration of the new era. Information could be communicated with the accompaniment of pictures (Postman, 2005). In 1936, TV live action in home was invented. The black and white TV was introduced as the television model; however, with development, later this system changed into and then later came the color TV. Media was very much advance at this time and this allowed broadcaster to transmit more media to an increased number of persons. Walkman radios were later invented. People could now take their music with them with the revolutionary portable media. People could watch movies and listen to music of the choice at their homes. This was made possible with the introduction of radio cassettes and the video players. These preceded the CD Players that could play better quality music in people’s homes. The 1980’s era introduced the home CD player. Along came digital cameras that were first made by the Kodak and Apple companies. The media industry went on with developing until nearly the end of the nineteenth century where computers were introduced. Consumer computers preceded the personal computers that have now been developed to have a mouse. Microsoft windows have been installed to the computers for efficient use. Computers have now advanced rapidly and have come from massive machines to small makes that comprise laptops with more power. Computers are used all over the world in different parts of people’s daily lives. Many media appliances are outdated and majority of them are hardly found in the recent days. The modern media is described to have advanced into a digital era unlike the late days whereby it was known as an analogue era. The media industries have stepped in to regulate themselves and avoid government regulations. This has been facilitated by the availability of many researchers and professionals in the industry. Inventions of new and advanced means of communication to facilitate the media work in a more efficient way have been enabled and are carried out within the media industry. Unlike sometimes back in the media industry, the industry has initiated self-regulations whereby no government intervention interferes with its operations. The Picture Production Code Motion was the set of industry moral censorship guidelines, which governed the production of many motion pictures in the US. The motion picture producers and distributers in America adopted the code in 1930. The production code indicated the acceptable codes as well as the unacceptable contents for the pictures that were produced for public audience in the United States of America. The media industry was under the control by the production codes that sought not only to determine what was portrayed on the screen but also aimed at promoting the traditional values (Rohde and Mulvihill, 2011). The picture production code was divided into two parts whereby the first part comprised of a set of principles that concerned morality. The second part was made of particular applications. Some of the restrictions featured, for example, the ban on homosexuality could not be directly mentioned or displayed on picture. Newspapers were also part of the media development as discussed earlier. These were periodical publications that contained news regarding current events, diverse features, informative articles, editorials. Newspapers were edited and printed on relatively low-grade paper like newsprint. The art of newspapers was greatly affected by the global recession which was combined with the rapid growth of many web based relevant means. Newspapers, in most cases published cases and information on local and political events, crimes, personalities, businesses, society, and entertainments. The newspaper was typically funded by advertising and paid subscriptions. These means of funding the newspaper had also some effects on its contents. Much of the newspapers contend was taken up by advertisements. Very little information on the current political or social events could be communicated (Hadden and Luce, 1923). Newspapers have greatly informed us on various facts and issues in different perspectives. On featuring The New Times on its effort to censor the story about David Rhode who had been kidnapped by the Taliban, it managed to keep out of the news. That was much straight with the comparison of keeping it off from the Wikipedia. The executives in the newspaper believed that publicity would raise the values of Mr. Rhodes to his captors as a barging power and decrease his survival chances. On persuasion to another publication and a broadcaster not reporting, the kidnapping usually meant making a phone call by a specific editor to another. Wikipedia on the other side operates in the philosophy that anybody can be an editor and that information should be made public. On taking an in-depth of the story, Mr. Rohde was kidnapped on November in Afghanistan along with their driver (MacChesney, 2000). Two days later, a Wikipedia user changed the entry in an attempt to emphasize his work. Other attempts to add information regarding the act came from three similar internet protocols that corresponded to a certain internet provider and the Wikipedia administrators who assumed to be the same user. It is worth concluding that means of passing of information has changed a great deal over centuries. Notably, the same changes have been bared with a series of challenges from political leadership and governments (Eribo, 1997). However, different and consistent bills have been passed with series of amendments to allow the application and excising of free media and freedom of media to inform the public. It has been noted that the form and type of information that is usually passed through to the public has great influence on the economical, social, and economic development of societies; thus, nation. Different nations across the continents have been having different media bills with other nations infringing on the media referendum. Such nations are usually associated with high degree of dictatorship in their political leadership (Oates, 2013). These have led them to under development both socially and economical due to poor systems of governments. It is worth noting that freedom of media and access and dispatch of information is vital. Development nations such as the United States have ever since maintained freedom of media and access of information to the public and these have led to their developments in all aspects. Therefore, nations should come together to enforce free media laws and free access of information to the public. These freedoms will help also in cubing insecurity especially terrorism across the world. Additionally, media industry should be allowed to grow since it is a means of providing entertainment and growing talents among the children. Moreover, it provides employment to millions of people around the world as means it facilitates interaction among different people from different parts of the world (Norris and Inglehart, 2009). Therefore, it growth will surely provide numerous and essential benefits at individual, society, national, and international levels. In this essence, media interaction should be allowed even between nations. References Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Ehlen, J. (2005). Humans as geologic agents. Boulder, CO: Geological Society of America. Eribo, F. (1997). Press freedom and communication in Africa. Trenton, NJ [u.a.: Africa World Press. Hadden, B., & Luce, H. R. (1923). Time. New York, etc: Time Inc.. Harrison, T. M. (1996). Computer networking and scholarly communication in the communication in twenty first century university. Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press. MacChesney, R. W. (2000). Rich media, poor democracy: Communication politics in dubious times. New York: New Press. McLuhan, M. (2006). Understanding media: The extensions of man. Routledge [u.a.. Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2009). Cosmopolitan communications: Cultural diversity in a globalized world. New York: Cambridge University Press. Oates, S. (2013). Revolution stalled: The political limits of the Internet in the post-Soviet sphere. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Postman, N. (2005). Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business. New York, N.Y. [u.a.: Penguin Books. Rohde, D., & Mulvihill, K. (2011). A rope and a prayer: The story of a kidnapping. New York, N.Y: Penguin Books. Bottom of Form Read More