Mass Communication in Canada - Assignment Example

Mass Communication in Canada From 2000, there has been the end of the primary communications business boom formed by the digital media. More of a halting occurred with the event now popularly referred to as the “dotcom bust” of 2001. It was a comparative non-event in Canada as there was no excess of the investment in digital media creation. The bust brought about a relaxation for any business associated projects related to digital media venture like e-commerce initiatives. For many Canadian telecommunications as well as media businesses, the use of the word “convergence” was so much employed in the meeting rooms (Gasher et al, p 16). Intricacy is the epitome of the existing mediascape. There are detailed technology systems as well as human behavior. In this multifaceted and varying media world everything customary is being challenged, channels along with platforms are changing and to propagate; innovative types of storytelling and programming are still rising. Among the lessons to be remembered and learned is the indigenous capacity of Canadians to rise to challenge connected to mass media communications with new thinking along with creativity (Gasher et al, p 3). When addressing digital media, it is informative to get approval for the pure technological amendments that have happened in terms of “more, better, faster” which is the feature of the technology business proper. In digital media production along with consumption, it is these shifts that have an influence on every feature of what is performed and what is possible. From 2000, the speed of a customer desktop computer has tripled in its computing power. The price of storing media is now 300% cheaper as well as a characteristic data link to the home gets information 40 times quicker. It has been noted that if these capacities had been obtainable during the last bubble’s bursting, most of the violently positive start-ups might have had feasible business representations (Gasher et al, p 16). Screens are all over, and several are interactive as well as linked to networks. Costs continue to reduce to create and access media. A recent instance in the film world in which this technology is applied is in the reasonably new part of digital sharing of film to theatres (Gasher et al, p 38). A digital print costs so little to produce, and once someone has one, it becomes a virtual non-issue to send matching copies anyplace using Internet or satellite. The same technologies that let this venture level activity also allow high-quality digital films to be streamed straight to the home. Many major studios have asserted that they will make films accessible by means of streaming. As technological capabilities grow, the distribution gets less of an issue; any given channel (theatre, TV, internet/computer, game system and even a mobile phone) gets less significant for any given media use (Gasher et al, p 173). It is readily obvious that the changes are letting new things to be tested. It is less of an activity in imagination to welcome the ultimate form that media products along with services may take on. The essential digital capacities of customer delivery platforms have exceeded the demands of many of the available applications. This moves the employ of inventive (now better designed) media associated applications out of the area of “geeks” and early-adopters as well as into the grapple. Apart from the substantial characteristics that digital media express via their technological features, the attributes of faster, smaller, portable, and easier to use, many times with network linked devices, there is an additional primary feature conveyed via digital technology. It is the characteristic of Interactivity. This lets an interactive media device user to have a high degree of control on the messages’ content that they decide to be exposed to. It is the unique feature of new media from conventional media types (Gasher et al, p 21). Interactivity can be illustrated as a “lean forward” versus “lean back” commitment with media. Interactive is middling unto its own and building the change to include it into established media industry representations is challenging for what has been directional “one way” media. It is what has caused the control balance over to the addresses for media. Giving the audience a voice has proved to be very disruptive. A bi-product of the companion of user control and digital technology is the choice that has turned out to be available. Choice and user control came with the worldwide move to store all kinds of information including media on computer restricted storage systems. For sensible planning reasons the Internet, a set-up of computer managed storage systems, can be seen as an endless alternative system in several ways. It is media doubter because it does not differentiate in the types of media it provides access to and stores. It works similarly well with text and still images, graphics, moving pictures, as well as animation and audio with some slight, and retreating, allowances for file bandwidth and size (Gasher et al, p 170). Canadians that use the Internet now use an average of 13.5 hours weekly on the Internet. It is 2.2 hours more than they use watching television. There is an open interrelated media system with nearly no controls on it and very small supervision. The system lets the intense user control on the material they desire to access. It lets the transmission of every format of customary media along with some (Gasher et al, p 166). It allows comparatively easily made user-generated media be bonded with the already created media (notwithstanding ownership issues) and for it to be employed by the audience for the purposes of their communications. Interactive media lets all media to be changeable and response along with the choice to be almost instantaneous. These features are having a great impact on how business is conducted as well as how media institutions function. The key impact on usual media venture from new media is the loss of power on the way their business is done and the formerly expected nature of their returns models. New media is playing mayhem with customary advertising backed media like television and radio. This is chiefly true of Canadian businesses running in regulated business settings getting authority from the CRTC. The major impact on established media’s customary audiences from new media is the emergence of a growing desire for additional control as well as an obvious impatience with customary techniques of consuming media. Logically customer’s electronics along with digital services firms have stepped in to contain this need with devices as well as programming that let customers have a continued commitment with and access to their media of preference. To the farthest, Canada is moving towards a situation of ultra media -a state whereby linked digital media audiences can access any media, from anywhere and anytime. This probably is a fair description of the desire of the audience for the future. It is usually said that a new media technology will not substitute an existing technology, but it rather causes variations to happen inside it (Gasher et al, p 140). The radio did not eradicate record players; TV did not get rid of radio or movie theatres; interactive media that is delivered through Internet has not got rid of television, radio or film. Every media advance comes with new challenges as well as opportunities. Every new content option, delivery platform, and killer application has a reproducing effect on the potentials for digital audio-visual media. Every personal area of noteworthy new media technology advance has an effect on the rest. The major dissimilarity from changes in the past is that nowadays the changes take place much more quickly. Things connected with digital media are usually “here at present, changed tomorrow”. It is possible that while digital media will not essentially substitute the established mediums it will superimpose its characteristic (interactivity, technical expediency and choice) on every medium, and they will as well be shifted. Conclusion New media has been extremely disrupting to the Canadian media business. While posing challenges for customary media corporations, digitally enabled media has come with many new opportunities counting the creation of the interactive media industry. “Interactive” is the unique characteristic of new media. Media has grown to a business that is ever more audience-centered as the audience currently commands the selection power. Bandwidth considerations are getting less of a matter for delivery, as well as computing power for customers, grows in its capacity. Media utilization gravitates towards improved employ of interactive platforms that do not depend on a single location or to the display of a single media type. Promotion and distribution of media programming occur across a wider range of platforms. As the dependence on single channels and platforms decreases, the dependence upon information, quality storytelling, design and promotion grows (Gasher et al, p 20). Canadians that use of the Internet currently spend 13.5 hours averagely a week online. This is 2.2 hours more than they use to watch television. Some use time making content and are discovering new methods of connecting with one another via online communities. Customers are moving towards attaining a state of ultra media, a condition in which all media is obtainable from any place at any time. Media production no longer occurs in discrete silos as producers must consider the range of open channels to reach an audience. Regulating the media environment is increasingly complex and inappropriate. Traditional media packagers along with distributors are dis-intermediated as producers discover new ways to reach the market directly. A lot can be learned when studying the history of media advances (Gasher et al, p 21). The games business is the only established interactive medium. The music business is the forerunner of troubles for other electronic media facing growing disruption of their business representations from digital technologies. Reference Gasher, M., Lorimer, R., & Skinner, D. (2012). Mass communication in Canada. Don Mills: Oxford University Press. Read More