Advances in Information and Communication Technology - Essay Example

I. Introduction The advent of technology has brought about innumerable changes in the world we live in. Advances in information and communication technology are attributed for the fast pace globalization has undertaken these past two decades. Globalization is closely connected to post-modernity and Americanization. It is characterized by an "image industry, in which desires are created over needs" (Gibbins and Reimer 1999). They explained that media is responsible for image building with which traditional societies are continuously exposed. Media exposure tends to homogenize the aspirations of the public. The Internet, television and other media are powerful contributors to integration through globalization. The global market economy as a whole coupled with the widespread access and influence of information technology and mass media have led to an acceleration of cultural homogenization. Both information technology and mass media have allowed millions of individuals to access knowledge, information and services at the blink of an eye. This integration or homogenization through information technology has several impacts on cultures and societies. II. Discussion A. Effects and impacts of new media Individuals are able to reach out and access information on a constant and regular basis to other individuals and organizations beyond their geopolitical enclaves or territories. Technology has allowed for a borderless world wherein people can access information from others beyond their country borders. Likewise, they are able to convey their ideas and a multitude of information to others who also have the capability to access them through the use of technology. According to Richard Fusco (2002): We have entered a time when technology truly enables men and women to "extend" themselves out from their immediate sphere of influence to the entire planet. It is not simply accessing a file from another server, listening to an audio channel from a radio station in a different city, or watching a music video from a country on the other side of the world. It is much more than that. We are at the dawn of the age of total personal creative expression. Aside from going beyond geopolitical boundaries, technology has enabled individuals to bring in part of themselves and even become participants in the information process. Technology has not only allowed access to wider and more diverse information within a borderless world, but has also allowed individuals and organizations outside legitimate media and information establishments, to become players and participants in the creation and dissemination of information and their eventual access. Fusco (2002) observed that: Everyone can program their own radio and TV station with their own content or content that they collect. Each person will be able to organize the content he wants for himself and make it available for others as well. This is the ultimate way to communicate important information and new ideas. The ability to actively participate in the information process brought about exciting possibilities to younger generations. This resulted in the creation of personal websites and chat rooms, most popular of these being Friendster and more lately, MySpace. Fusco (2002) notes the popularity of personal websites and chatrooms: People put far more trust in information that they receive from a friend than they do of traditional media. As this process expands around the world, nothing will be able to be hidden from the masses. Everything will be out in the open. It will enable people to translate who they are into an electronic form that includes their creativity and what they sees as important and relevant. Information and communication technology has created an environment wherein information can be readily and freely access by anyone. This relatively new-found ability to access and disseminate information resulted in the growing popularity of alternative media over traditional media. Alternative media provide individuals with unparalleled freedom of access to information that they are unable to experience using traditional media. Everything seems to be out in the open with alternative media. In contrast, traditional media are perceived to perform selective dissemination of information. Likewise, traditional media such as television, radio and print, do not allow for interactivity which is among the features appealing in new media. In the case of information and communication technology, it has performed the role of empowering society through the employment of new media. People have recognized that they have access to the information they want whenever they want it. They can organize the information they access in accordance with how they want it organized. They are able to share these information with whomever they want. If with traditional media, the individual is often the receiver of information, the person's ability to share the information he accessed and organized in accordance with his preferences or personal judgments, have also enabled him to become an active participant in the communication process. New media has allowed individuals to become sources of information, with the ability to influence others through the dissemination they accessed in cyberspace and other information environments. The individual becomes an even more active source as he generates messages from within him and is enabled by new media to disseminate these messages to others using new media. In this process, the individual does not merely access, organize and disseminate information to others. The individual also undertakes his personal creative process and shares it to others using new media. Fotopoulos (1997) describes convergence as a phenomenon resulting from new media: "today, there is an intensive process of culture homogenization at work, which not only rules out any directionality towards more complexity, but in effect is making culture simpler, with cities becoming more and more alike, people all over the world listening to the same music, watching the same soap operas on TV, buying the same brands of consumer goods, etc." Media promotes convergence, developing more common characteristics among societies at the expense of losing their own unique cultural identities. Media has an overwhelming influence on people, and this is evident as individual tastes and preferences, perceptions and ideas, increasingly become similar among individuals of different countries. Paperless Newspapers Journalism is gradually changing, shifting from the more traditional principles of news reportage to what is called "citizen journalism". An example of this new form of journalism are the online newspapers such as Ohmy, which can be considered as its most successful form. Ohmy has an average of 700,000 visitors to its website and 2 million page views each day. This popularity places Ohmy on the same level as large traditional newspapers. Its founder, Oh Yeon Ho, remarked, "We changed South Korean politics and the media market, but I'm too shy to say that." Oh was a journalist himself and he left mainstream media because of what he considered as "conservative bias". In contrast to a traditional newspaper with its editorial board and a regular editorial staff and writers, Ohmy relies on amateurs or "citizens" who contribute articles. Oh Yeon Ho sees Ohmy as a playground for hobbyists wherein certain rules are set by "adults" so that the site would gain its credibility. Oh credits his "citizen" writers for the success of the online site, "They are highly educated and eager to change society." Ohmy also employs a built-in feedback rating which enables the best articles to rise to the top. Ohmy also enables readers to be part of the system, with the ability to reward good work with small donations. Its "tip-jar" system allows readers to click a tip-jar button so that their donations can be debited from their mobile phone or credit card account. A good article earned its writer the equivalent of $30,000 in five days through this tip-jar reward system. Originally intended as a non-profit operation, it became a for-profit firm in 2003. according to Oh, his aim was "not to earn money but to create a new kind of journalism." Although its presence has not forced any of South Korea's newspapers to close shop, it has compelled all of them to pattern their journalism to Ohmy's. Among the Ohmy-influenced changes these newspapers have adopted are feedback and conversation panes located at the bottom of online articles. Newspapers are also looking for new ways to increase their interaction with readers. According to Oh, his online newspaper has leveled the balance between conservatives as represented by traditional newspapers and more liberal journalism. American citizen journalism has met with little success. According to Dan Gillmore who left the San Jose Mercury News to found Grassroots Media, "The reality is that you can't point to many successes; Ohmy News is the only one." However, optimists are always around. Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore and his friend Joel Hyatt established Current TV, which is a cable television network. Current TV encourages its viewers to contribute their own video stories or viewer-created content (VC2). This innovation (VC2) now enjoys 30% of Current TV air time. Hyatt predicts that VC2 exposure would eventually increase to 50% or more. Current TV provides its audience with online tutorials on storytelling techniques, camera equipment and other topics that would help them get started in their VC2 productions. Website users can vote on the video clips that are submitted to organize them. The video clips are therefore judged according to their merits by the audience itself. At the start, not many people appreciated Current TV's concept. Hyatt recalled, "What people didn't understand is that there are tens of thousands of people out there who can create something great for a few minutes." Among the best videos sent to the network are those of an American traveler who was in Gaza during the middle of the Israeli pullout from the area, and New Orleans residents who documented their neighborhoods during Hurricane Katrina. The mixing of amateur and professional content is taken even further by Yahoo!. This is different to the Ohmy approach which is purely amateur (using articles from purely amateur writers). Like many major news providers, many of the articles, pictures, audio and video appearing on Yahoo! News are sourced from corporate partners like Associated Press and CNN. A small portion of these information are sourced from Yahoo! itself, such as Kevin Sites which is a one-man camera team that travels to exotic locations and dangerous war zones worldwide. However, the content coming from citizens is steadily increasing. Citizens are enabled by Yahoo! not only to contribute content but to also filter them and determine their placement. This fresh collaborative approach is labeled as "folksonomies" to distinguish it from the top-down "taxonomies" often created by human editors. As an example, a number of individuals caught in the bombing attack on London's Underground took photos using their mobile phones. They then wirelessly uploaded the photos to Flickr, which is a photo-sharing site owned by Yahoo!. The same and other users then rated the pictures which brought out the pictures taken. The photos were then placed alongside professional content across Yahoo! news sites. The process only took a few minutes to happen. Events such as the London bombing, Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina attests to the fact that citizen journalism is growing at a fast rate. And the most rapid growth sector in citizen journalism is considered "hyper-local" coverage. This includes high school sports, neighborhood crime, and similar highly-localized events. These events are considered as too small even for local newspapers to cover. According to Scott Moore who runs Yahoo's! news and finance pages, the coverage of "hyper-local" news has made them the number two provider of local news after the leading local newspapers. This transformation of bloggers from "journalists" in the classic sense of the word, to citizen journalists is perceived to be a positive thing. According to Dan Gillmor, "The more journalism the better; I don't care who does it." However, professional journalists see it in a different gloomier light. The advent of new media places newspapers in a perfect storm. Epstein (2004) wrote in The Vanishing Newspaper: "Among our newspapers as they now stand, little more can be said in their favor than that they do not require batteries to operate, you can swat flies with them, and they can still be used to wrap fish." According to the trade journal Editor & Publisher, the circulation of American newspapers has been steadily declining since 1990. The same trend is being experienced in other countries. Many young people do not read the newspaper at all. This decline in circulation is compounded by the series of scandals that the industry experienced, devaluing the contention that newspapers are the "trusted" sources of news. An example is that of Jayson Blair of the New York Times who simply made up his stories. According to the State of the News Media, the industry seems to be buckling under pressure with 3,500 newsroom professionals having been laid-off since 2000. Blogs and Conversations The Economist and most newspapers define a blog as a "personal online journal". Although not wrong, this definition is also not entirely right. As journals come in chronological order, blogs come in reverse chronological order with the more recent entries found on top. But the main contention that differentiates a blog is that although most journals are personal, private and secret affairs, blogs in contrast are social in nature. They may be open to the public or to a few individuals belonging to a select group. Blogs are technically web pages wherein its owner adds new entries. Aside from texts, the blog also contains hypertexts, and other posts such as photos and videos. Each post is stored in its own and distinctive archive page or "permalink". The post will always be found in this permalink. The social nature of blog is underlined by the blogroll and trackback. The blogroll is found along the side of the page and contains a list of links to other blogs that are recommended by the author. The blogroll enables the author to place his blog in a specific group or genre. It also mirrors the effort of a group of bloggers to increase each other's visibility on the Internet. Trackback notifies or "pings" a blog about new incoming links from the outside. It can be considered as a gossip meter. Dave Winer, a software engineer responsible for pioneering several blogging technologies and owner of the world's longest running blog (dating back to 1997), adds that blogging is also about style which contributes to its popular appeal. Winer points out "the unedited voice of a single person." Blog serves as an outlet for pure self-expression. "It beats yelling at the television. At first, I saw it as about publishing; now I see it more as a revolutionary way to communicate," according to Mena Trott who owns the company Six Apart. The significant role of the Blog in contemporary society can best be illustrated by the experience of Jung von Matt, a German advertising firm. The firm initiated a campaign in the traditional media called "Du bist Deutschland" ("you are Germany") which was inetended to fight grumpiness about Germany's sluggish economy. However, German bloggers found the campaign not to their liking. They also dug up an old photograph of Hitler next to a similar slogan "Denn Du bist Deutschland" ("because you are Germany") during a 1935 Nazi convention. This adversely affected the campaign and Jean-Remy von Matt, the firm's Belgian boss sent an internet to h8is colleagues asking: "What on earth gives every computer-owner the right to express his opinion, unasked for" When bloggers got hold of his e-mail and gave him clear answers, he promptly apologized and retreated. Blogging mirrors a democratic society where everyone has the right to hold opinions. Blogging also emphasizes the natural tendency of human beings to connect and converse with others. It is predicted that the same as everyone having an e-mail account today, they will also have a blog in the very near future. This will change the character of journalism from being a sermon to becoming a conversation. Visual Access The video revolution has also caught up to do its share of damage on traditional media. The availability of camcorder has enabled of millions of people to produce their own videos. And these millions are more than eager to share their clips to whoever is interested and the entire world. Even before YouTube was officially launched, its site already contained a million short video clips. By its official launch, people were uploading 8,000 clips per day and watching 3 million a day. Recent figures show that uploading has increased to 35,000 each day and 40 million clips are watched per day. Interestingly, YouTube's amazing growth came about by word of mouth, hyperlink and e-mail only. Web video is considered as the next big thing on the Internet. According to the Online Publishers Association (February 2006), "69% of American internet users have watched video on the web, 24% do so at least once a week, and 5% every day." Web video has become so popular that video search and feeds are now being planned by big internet companies such as portals and retailers. Traditional media companies are also becoming interested. These companies which own video libraries, and those like Disney which owns feature films are making them available free of charge (but with advertising). CBS offers some of its shows online for 99 cents. Apple Computer struck a deal with Disney to offer some of its TV shows on iTunes, the former's online music store, so that people can download them to their iPods. The popularity of YouTube has created a "clip culture". It offers a "lean forward" experience as people sit in front of their computer screens for short periods averaging 15 minutes. This is in contrast with the "lean back" experience derived from watching half-hour television shows. Like in citizen journalism, YouTube clips are provided by rank amateurs. YouTube's recent purchase by Google ushers in a new corner in media technology. Although Google is known for purchasing small technology firms sometimes to annoy its rival, Microsoft, its acquisition of YouTube underlines its goal "to organise the world's information." The move is logical with the realization that many of the information are in video form. YouTube's approach also allows for more efficient and effective in searching for video information. This approach is most helpful to Google in realizing its goals in the sphere of information and communication. Radio in Distress Podcasting is a new phenomenon which is also fast gaining a large following. It enables people to do "time shifting", that is, being able to listen to something offline at a time of one's choosing. In contrast, blogs require live internet connections to be able to access them. Podcasting is therefore less social than blogging. Nevertheless, it is so popular that the podcast, The Daily Source Code, boasts of several million listeners. Apple's iTunes lists 20,000 free podcasts. Podcasting is also beginning to expand into video. Podcasting's appeal is derived from it being a personalized experience. Listeners can program their music and talk feeds according to their preference. Podcasts also eliminate annoying advertisements. Time shifting also allows listeners to finish the whole program or continue from where they left off to do other tasks or chores. Creativity is also encouraged by podcasting because it lowers the costs of content production. The fundamental equipment are a microphone, computer and internet connection. According to Adam Curry, a former show host on MTV, who coined podcasting, does not see podcasting as a replacement for radio: "I don't really buy into that per se; what we're really seeing is a big mash-up of stuff." III. Conclusion Traditional media is currently being overwhelmed by the mass appeal of new media. Circulation and listenership are declining with the rising popularity of online newspapers, podcasts, video channels, etc. However, these new media are also opening new opportunities to traditional media, sometimes forcing them to adopts innovations that increase their interactivity with their audiences. New media and technology are instrumental in the creation of a truly borderless world. Conservatism based on traditional media concepts and practices are slowly being replaced by liberal access to information and ideas. Democratization is claimed to be among the immediate results of new media technology. However, there are those that argue that new media would also result in convergence and homogenization, which would cause societies to lose their identities and cultures. Perhaps, as can be expected with change, there are upsides and downsides to the use of new media. On the positive side, new media offers new experiences both contrived and vicarious, to individuals. New media provides interactivity and enables users to influence information and their environment. On the other hand, it may also threaten collective characteristics, traits and institutions. As with any technology, popularity is not the final measure or ample justification to the goodness of new media. References: Atton, C. Alternative Media . London: Sage, 2002. Downing, J. Radical Media: rebellious communication and social movements . Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2001. Clip culture. A start-up shows big media and mighty Google how to do web video. From The Economist print edition. Apr 27th 2006 | SAN MATEO. http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfmstory_id=E1_GRGPGTG Forde, S Meadows, M and Foxwell, K. "Community radio, radicalism and the grassroots: Discussing the politics of contemporary Australian community radio". Transformations 4 (Oct. 2002). < Forde, S Meadows, M and Foxwell, K.. 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