LM111 reflection 2 Week 3

This weeks topic of ‘New Media technologies and social change’ was something that opened my eyes about a variety of things, not least the use of the word critical within the idea of being a consumer. In the reading from Lister he describes how when media and new technologies are constantly pushed at us for being ‘new’ and innovative we lose the curiosity and vigilance that might have come with very early technologies. It can be said that people do not seem to question anymore whether things are new, they may just either accept it without looking further into it themselves or just not care or pay attention to it. He then goes on to say that this is what it means to take a ‘critical approach’ to media. An example of this that came to mind when reading the text was that of Apple products, it seems that the public will buy into whatever ‘new’ tech that Apple is bringing forwards without actually looking into what is ‘new’ about it. It can be said that ‘new’ techs more likely just are just superficially new and actually are just a combination of multiple existing techs.

Something else i had not thought about was that political change can influence technological feats within the media industry. One of which was covered in the last reading: Power without responsibility: the press and broadcasting in Britain. It talks about the development of the internet via the need for intellectuals and universities to be able to share information during the cold war and space race in America. 

Bibliography:
Power without responsibility: the press and broadcasting in Britain – James CurranJean SeatonDawsonera 2009

New media: a critical introduction – Martin Lister 2009

LM111 Reflection 1 Week 2

This week covered a few topics which i found particularly interesting, these included: Media convergence, Whether being ‘Offline’ was actually possible and Analogue media vs Digital media plus the pros and cons of both.
I found what was spoken about in the seminar especially engaging as the idea of never fully being ‘offline’ had never occurred to me but made perfect sense. Whether we are just doing shopping or calling a relative, there are always going to be implications on the information that is gathered by things like the telephone company or the supermarkets. Even if we are just sitting at home reading a book, ones online profile is still active and able for people to engage with therefore making it incredibly difficult to get away from.

Another part which was enlightening to me was the difference between medium, genre and delivery when talking about about a certain type of media. Being that in the case of sound the recorded sound is the medium, the genre is say radio drama and delivery would be something like CD or MP3. So in this sense the base medium will never die out, only the genre and delivery can change unless something groundbreaking occurred which enabled humans to experience sound differently which is unlikely any time soon. “History teaches us that old media never die.” (Henry. J. 2001)

I found this weeks content very easy to digest, as even though having done this module once before, this was one of the topics i missed so in reality was all new information to me. However as preciously mentioned i found it very easy to get on with and didn’t have any questions by the end of the seminar.

Bibliography:

Jenkins, H. (2011) Convergence? I diverge, MIT Technology Review (June)

Dutton W. 2004. Social Transformation in an Information Society Rethinking Access to You and the World. pp 28-30

Miller (2011) Understanding Digital Culture. Sage: Chapter 1: Key elements of Digital Media pp 12-21