Media within a Framework of Public and Private Spheres - Coursework Example

Media Essay Name Institution Course Instructor Date Media Essay Introduction The digital media, new media and social media do not only represent the ever expanding space of communication, but they also represent the diversity and global history of communication. The diversity of media has reduced the entire world into a small village, whereby, people are able to witness events from all corners of the globe including regional and local locations. Due to the establishment of the worldwide communication systems, elements such as ethics, knowledge, lifestyles, moral values and aesthetics are easily exchanged which leads to the establishment of a common ‘third culture.’ In this context, the third culture refers to the intangible and invisible force that unites the world’s diversity. Therefore, it is true that the media communication plays an important role in shaping the modern global culture (Dahlgren 2009). Moreover, digital media, new media and social media have contributed immensely to the creation of reliable communication systems including the establishment the international communication system. However, before the emergence of media diversities, international communication systems had already been established. For instance, in 15th century, the Antwerp silver traders, Nuremberg merchants and Venice traders exchanged their ideas on capitalism through the use of commercial letters. Later on, the emergence of the steam engine led to the commercialization of print and mass media thereby creating internationally-recognized media agencies such as the Associated Press and Reuters among others. The eventual evolution of the media led to the creation of media diversities. Nowadays, the trending diversities of media include the digital media, the new media and the recently established social media. Many scholars have conducted research on how the different media diversities affect the outlook and culture of the world. As a result, several theories have been formulated to explain different media concepts and how these concepts shape the modern world. Some of the notable concepts include the public sphere model, the transformational theory, the medium theory, Poster’s First and Second Media Age theories, among other theories. Despite the vastness of the theoretical concepts, there is still insufficient literature that critical evaluates the theories with reference to the framework of specific media diversities (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010). This paper seeks to critically review and analyze the terms digital media, new media and social media within a framework of two major theories. It will achieve its objective by comparing and contrasting the given theories and providing examples of current media and public communication practices in the context of the analysis. Background The introduction and commercialization of mass and print media influenced rapid evolution of communication around the world. In this regard, the Continent of Europe was the first to use the cable systems and world wires as reliable forms of communications. The systems connected Germany, France and United Kingdom with their respective colonies in Asia and Africa, thereby promoting international communication. In the 20th century, new ideologies of global communication emerged characterized by the creation of transnational organizations of media such as the Eurovision and the Intelsat among others. Thereafter, the world embraced the new media operating systems such as the MTV and CNN that transformed the entire outlook of global communications (Mangold & Faulds 2009). Unlike the earliest forms of media systems, the 20th century systems were fast and reliable delivering information around the world in a very short time. The advances in technology have drastically improved the 20th century media systems and created the modern media diversity. The modern media diversities are represented by the digital media, the new media and the social media, among others. At the same time, the diversification of the media systems continue to inter-connect and intra-connect many parts of the world thereby reducing the world into a small village. However, the idea of the world being a small village is not new occurrence considering the fact that similar fantasies were described by Plato in Timaeus. Plato’s ideologies coupled with principles from philosophers and scholars such as Aristotle and Francis Bacon laid the foundation for the development of different concepts to explain the connection between the world and the communication systems. For instance, Francis Bacon presented a model that distinguished between ‘globus terrestris ‘and ‘globus intelletualis’ as major components that determined the world’s connectivity. Furthermore, the ideologies postulated the future existence of a single world society that is connected through common reasoning and enlightenment. The postmodernist philosophers transformed common reasoning into a simulation that promoted a common world spirit based on realistic concepts. The confirmation of the concepts came with the reduction of the world by the media systems. That is why landing on the moon made a great impact on the evolution of communication systems because it was the first time people viewed the earth as a common habitat with no borders. The world ideology changed from a mere metaphysical theory to a realistic concept characterized with new global relativism which consequently triggered the macro-structuralisation debate. The debate led to the creation of various economic and political alliances on the issue of globalization (Mangold & Faulds 2009). Despite the continuing debates on the modern and postmodern processes off globalization, there exits political risks, democratic achievements and market expansion economical concepts that influence the modern global and local (dualism) context of communication (media theories). Cultural protectionism is one of the notable examples of such influences. It is due to such influences that the public opinion is no longer seen as a particular state concern, but as a global community concern. From this description, it is easier to deduce that there are several media theories for instance the international media theory and the public sphere theory. In this particular context, the international media theory brings the concept people belonging to the world of global citizenship (it is a theory based on the existence of a world civil society). On the other hand, the public theory that explains the existence of spheres such as the private and the public spheres which are closely related, but operate distinctively. It is light with the above described models, that the following sections describes how new diversities in media are connected with the framework of the media theories. Contextual analysis Definition of digital, new and social media This section defines digital media, new media and social media and contextualizes on how the three media diversities influence the modern world society using theoretical concepts. Digital media refers to any type of media encoded technically in a format that is readable by a specific machine. The digital media is mainly associated with the computers, whereby, the computers are used to create, modify, view, preserve and distribute digital media files. The notable examples of digital media include soft-wares, digital audio and video files, web pages, e-books and databases, among others (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010). On the other hand, the new media refers to the constant and continuous access to real-time media content anywhere on a given digital interface device. Also, it includes innovative participation and real-time interactive feedback. Research shows that the new media is characterized with high unregulated generation of content. Contrary to the digital media and the new media, social media refers to the interaction of people socially by creating and sharing ideas via network systems and virtual world communities. To an extent, the social media integrates both the aspects of the digital media and the new media. It is because; the social media uses mobiles and computer-based soft-wares (an aspect of digital media interface) to form an interactive platform that allows real-time generation and sharing of content between different individuals (an aspect of new media). Studies show that digital media, new media and social media require internet connection for them to operate effectively and efficiently (Dahlgren 2009). Moreover, based on this aspect, it is clear that they are not so distinct as earlier stated because they all rely on the internet connection. Furthermore, they are nowadays interconnected such that one of them cannot be used solely without the incorporation of the other. However, despite their interrelatedness, they all have different impacts based on the frameworks of media theories such as the public and private spheres. Public and private spheres in the context of social media It is now recognized that social networking or rather social media phenomena is behind the incorporation of individualism in the public spheres in the concepts of the new media. However, there are approaches nowadays that aid scholars in evaluating the nature of individualistic incorporation (Shirky 2011). Social networking is a new type of internet communication which comes with different benefits and antecedents. According to the research findings, social networking represents both professional and non-professional individual-based cacophonic anarchy voices that are related to organs of traditional private spheres such as radio broadcast, TV broadcast and newspaper publications. This means that social networking is just an evolution of traditional methods of sharing information which are not new in the context of public spheres. According to Habermas’ description, a realistic public sphere is represented by a situation that favours an ideal speech. Based on this concept, it is clear that social networking is just a part, but not a complete venture of the public spheres. It is because; social networking is characterized by both informal and formal approaches of sharing content and information. In this regard, social networking defies the concepts of public spheres by merging them with private spheres and informal content. However, social networking has changed the traditional outlook of public spheres because they are no longer socio-spatial public interaction media sites, but a socio-cultural repository of public ideas, projects and debates. The civil societies are now accustomed to the use of public spheres presented by the social networks to influence government decision making (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010). Public and private spheres in the context digital media In the context of the private spheres, the digital media coupled with personal computing and internet connection has disrupted the traditional methodologies of politics, journalism, commerce, entertainment, publishing and education, among others. It is because, the disruption destroys the privacy of information sharing established by the traditional methodologies. Therefore, digital media threatens the future of private spheres. For instance, the recent research findings enlist digital media as the main threat to the Intellectual property rights and copyrights whose benefits rely entirely on privacy. In this regard, the digital media systems open a portal that allows free-flow of information and content thereby denying the content creators access to legal rights of ownership. Contrary to the private spheres, the digital media has proven to be an indispensible platform of content in the public spheres. The digital media has created a ubiquitous environment, whereby, it has introduced a new era that does not rely on paper information anymore (Mangold & Faulds 2009). This means that all the information and content are passed from one individual to another across the world via the compute. In other words, the computer is one of the main devices that are used in production and consumption of digital media content. Considering the democracy of the public spheres, the digital media comes in handy to ensure that content is not only shared by the world society, but it is done easily and quickly without restrictions. However, the private sphere still poses a major threat to the use of digital media systems due to the recent advances in intellectual property rights and copyright laws to impose restrictions and protect content privacy. Until the restrictions are imposed, the digital media still impacts the world’s society and cultural practices in multifaceted ways. Public and private spheres and new media Research conducted on the modern state of technologies suggest that new media is digital in nature, whereby, it is characterized by many aspects of digital media systems. The aspects include manipulability, workability, and networkability. Other aspects of new media closely associated with digital media include interactivity, comprehensibility and density. In this regard, the devices associated with such aspects include websites, video games, internet, CD-ROMS, computer multimedia files and DVD, among other devices (Dahlgren 2009). Moreover Basing on this characteristics, it is clear that new media is basically an important discovery in the context of public spheres. This means that new media allows interactivity of the world society via the digital devices. Some of the notable examples include Wikipedia which is a profound website (online accessible encyclopaedia) that uses internet connectivity to enable people around the world to access unlimited amount of content. Wikipedia is important because it helps both the professional and nonprofessional members of the society with no charges. This means that new media is an important aspect of the public sphere. However, it still impacts the private spheres negatively. For instance, Face book another notable example of new media has been accused by the society of eroding moral values. Also, it encourages virtual interaction and discouraging physical interaction of individuals. At some point, researchers suggest that virtual interaction will deny people the courage to express their concerns publicly (Shirky 2011). Therefore, at a certain point in future, ne media may affect the freedom of the public spheres. Contrast and comparison between private spheres and public spheres The private spheres in the context of media entail the traditional processes of regulating the access of the society to certain information for either financial benefits or security purposes. On the other hand, the public spheres offer the platform for the society to share information freely and publicly (Mangold & Faulds 2009). The private spheres represent the traditional ways of sharing information around the world. Therefore, the private spheres are closely related to traditional types of media such as radio broadcasts, TV broadcasts and publications among others. The early forms of media supported the flow of information around the world but they were prone to regulations and restrictions. Whereby, if a given piece of information was analyzed and deemed controversial it was not published or broadcasted. Moreover, these types of media supported political and economic propagandas rather than revealing the truth to the public. They limited the unification of the world into a common single society due to political indifference, language barriers and economic struggles. Contrary to the private spheres, the public spheres are nowadays represented by the internet media. The internet media in this context refers to digital media, new media and social media. These media platforms have enhanced the freedom of communication and expression around the world by establishing a common language. Nowadays it is simple to share any information on the internet without fear of restrictions. Moreover, it has enhanced the speed and accessibility to vital content (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010). By doing so, it is has interfered with the concepts of the private spheres. In a nutshell, the public spheres are overtaking the private spheres as far as media is concerned. It is prospected that in the near future the public spheres will control the nature and diversities of media. To further support this argument, there are several examples of current media and public communication practices such as the employee-organizational communications which show that the internet media of public spheres are not only important in promoting communication in a business environment, but also an indispensable framework of individual and organizational success. For instance, it is nowadays easier for the employees to air their concerns and grievances about the organization via the internet media prompting immediate action by the management. According to the CEO of IBM, internet media has enabled many business organizations such as IBM to overcome the threats of business failure or rather underperformance due to an internal misunderstanding with the employees (Shirky, 2011). Therefore, public spheres are proven to have a significant role in the growth of business organization. In this regard, they create accessible and reliable platforms for both employees and employers in sharing vital information in a business organization. Contrary to public spheres, private spheres are considered as inhibitors of success in business organizations. It is because; the media frameworks of public spheres discourage the establishment of employee-to-employee and employee-to-management relation that is vital in the overall performance of the organization due to the restrictions. This means that it limits internal communications and establishes few communication channels in the business organization (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010). Therefore, employees and the management cannot easily share ideas. The communication limitations brought by private spheres are attributed to the major downfall of many business organizations while others are facing the same threats such as Comcast and AT&T in the United States. Conclusion In conclusion, the paper critically reviewed and analyzed the terms digital media, new media and social media within a framework of public and private spheres. It achieved its objective by comparing and contrasting the difference between the concepts of public spheres and private spheres and provided examples of current media and public communication practices in the context of the analysis. Finally, the paper showed that public spheres as models of communication have replaced the traditional communication models of private spheres using an example of current media and public communication practices. Bibliography Dahlgren, P. 2009, Media and political engagement, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Kaplan, A.M. & Haenlein, M. 2010, ‘Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media’, Business horizons, vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 59-68. Mangold, W.G. & Faulds, D.J. 2009, ‘Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix’, Business horizons, vol. 52, no. 4, pp. 357-365. Shirky, C. 2011, ‘Political Power of Social Media-Technology, the Public Sphere Sphere, and Political Change’, The Foreign Aff., vol. 90, p. 28. Read More

The advances in technology have drastically improved the 20th century media systems and created the modern media diversity. The modern media diversities are represented by the digital media, the new media and the social media, among others. At the same time, the diversification of the media systems continue to inter-connect and intra-connect many parts of the world thereby reducing the world into a small village. However, the idea of the world being a small village is not new occurrence considering the fact that similar fantasies were described by Plato in Timaeus.

Plato’s ideologies coupled with principles from philosophers and scholars such as Aristotle and Francis Bacon laid the foundation for the development of different concepts to explain the connection between the world and the communication systems. For instance, Francis Bacon presented a model that distinguished between ‘globus terrestris ‘and ‘globus intelletualis’ as major components that determined the world’s connectivity. Furthermore, the ideologies postulated the future existence of a single world society that is connected through common reasoning and enlightenment.

The postmodernist philosophers transformed common reasoning into a simulation that promoted a common world spirit based on realistic concepts. The confirmation of the concepts came with the reduction of the world by the media systems. That is why landing on the moon made a great impact on the evolution of communication systems because it was the first time people viewed the earth as a common habitat with no borders. The world ideology changed from a mere metaphysical theory to a realistic concept characterized with new global relativism which consequently triggered the macro-structuralisation debate.

The debate led to the creation of various economic and political alliances on the issue of globalization (Mangold & Faulds 2009). Despite the continuing debates on the modern and postmodern processes off globalization, there exits political risks, democratic achievements and market expansion economical concepts that influence the modern global and local (dualism) context of communication (media theories). Cultural protectionism is one of the notable examples of such influences. It is due to such influences that the public opinion is no longer seen as a particular state concern, but as a global community concern.

From this description, it is easier to deduce that there are several media theories for instance the international media theory and the public sphere theory. In this particular context, the international media theory brings the concept people belonging to the world of global citizenship (it is a theory based on the existence of a world civil society). On the other hand, the public theory that explains the existence of spheres such as the private and the public spheres which are closely related, but operate distinctively.

It is light with the above described models, that the following sections describes how new diversities in media are connected with the framework of the media theories. Contextual analysis Definition of digital, new and social media This section defines digital media, new media and social media and contextualizes on how the three media diversities influence the modern world society using theoretical concepts. Digital media refers to any type of media encoded technically in a format that is readable by a specific machine.

The digital media is mainly associated with the computers, whereby, the computers are used to create, modify, view, preserve and distribute digital media files. The notable examples of digital media include soft-wares, digital audio and video files, web pages, e-books and databases, among others (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010). On the other hand, the new media refers to the constant and continuous access to real-time media content anywhere on a given digital interface device. Also, it includes innovative participation and real-time interactive feedback.

Research shows that the new media is characterized with high unregulated generation of content.

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