‘Do new media displace the ‘heritage’ media?’

I recently started to watch Black Mirror, a TV series depicting the power of technological devices on humans and which in the future, as Dutton explained, could lead to a society ‘where autocratic human elites use television and internet for continuous surveillance and control’ (Dutton, 2004: p.42). This kind of TV show makes us realise how powerful and influential new technologies can be and how it affects our modern societies. Moreover, we can notice constant improvements in technological devices and their increasing importance in many aspects of our lives, as well as the struggle for old media to survive among these new media devices. But, do social media and networking displace old media such as television (especially among the young generations)? In a recent report* from Ofcom, it is stated that live TV is still watched by 80 percent and 73 percent of children aged from 6 to 11 and 11 to 15, respectively – making live TV the mostly watched programme. This report also shows that 88 percent of children from 11 to 15 are using social networking. These figures illustrate that watching TV is still common among children even though they use social media. However, it is difficult to say if, in a long-term future, the old media will not be used anymore as it depends on ‘unpredictable social, economic, organizational, cultural, and political forces’ (Dutton in Dutton, 2004: p.42). It is, therefore, also difficult to know if our societies will look like places as described in Black Mirror or other ‘nightmarish science-fiction narratives’ (Dutton, 2004: p.42). Our debate during the seminar this week has also demonstrated the complexity of the way the media can positively or negatively impact the people or the way it serves or harms democracy.

Bibliography

Dutton, W. (2004) Social Transformation in an Information Society: Rethinking Access to You and the World [online]. UNESCO. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001520/152004e.pdf.

*Ofcom (2016) Digital Day 2016: results from the children’s diary study [online]. Available from: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/multi-sector-research/general-communications/digital-day.

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