This paper defines new media communications from a wide array perspective, it further outline various roles of the media in today's world, the paper went on to explain how new media technologies are impacting on the roles of the media both positively and negatively.
Without the media the world is incomplete, media complete us by serving different roles. The media play different roles within the society. Without the media people would be isolated, not only from the rest of the world but also from their governments, law-makers, and neighbouring countries and cities (Flew, 2002). Media roles within the society are; watchdog, surveillance, edutainment, infotainment, educational, informational, developmental, and entertainment as well as interpreting role. New media technologies are interactive form of communication that uses the internet, including podcast, RRSCeeds, social network, text messaging, blogs, wiki, virtual world and more. New media technologies are democratised to the information and they are helpful in the free flow of information that also make new path for development.
New media technologies are mostly digital and they often have characteristics of being manipulated, networkable, dense, compressible and interactive e.g. Internet, websites, computer multimedia, video games, augmented reality, CD-ROOMS and DVDs. Distorting is to change or to twist something so that it become strange. The assertion or the claim that new media technologies are distorting/changing/twisting the roles of the media is to some extent true but not true to a greater extent therefore this essay of mine will do an in-depth analysis on both side of the topic because they are both socially and morally acceptable.
THE DISTORTION OF MEDIA ROLES BY NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES
Prepared By LUTENDO NENDAUNI
INTRODUCTION
Without the media the world is incomplete, media complete us by serving different roles. The media play different roles within the society. Without the media people would be isolated, not only from the rest of the world but also from their governments, law-makers, and neighbouring countries and cities (Flew, 2002). Media roles within the society are; watchdog, surveillance, edutainment, infotainment, educational, informational, developmental, and entertainment as well as interpreting role. New media technologies are interactive form of communication that uses the internet, including podcast, RRSCeeds, social network, text messaging, blogs, wiki, virtual world and more. New media technologies are democratised to the information and they are helpful in the free flow of information that also make new path for development.
New media technologies are mostly digital and they often have characteristics of being manipulated, networkable, dense, compressible and interactive e.g. Internet, websites, computer multimedia, video games, augmented reality, CD-ROOMS and DVDs. Distorting is to change or to twist something so that it become strange. The assertion or the claim that new media technologies are distorting/changing/twisting the roles of the media is to some extent true but not true to a greater extent therefore this essay of mine will do an in-depth analysis on both side of the topic because they are both socially and morally acceptable Some of the people truly believe that new media technologies are distorting the roles of the media whereas other totally disagrees. The advent of New Media Technologies (NMT) has brought forth a set of opportunities and challenges for conventional media (Garrison, 1996).Media scholars such as (Lister et al, 2003) also highlighted both the distorted and the undistorted part of the argument.
First off let us consider the side that is disagreeing with the fact that new media technologies are distorting the roles of the media rather, some scholars believes that new media technologies are helping out the old conventional media in a positive way more especially the print media to be specific. New media technologies have positively brought about new apps that enhance communications and it has led to globalization.
(Annas,2006) argues that the media is what it is today because, the media is more advanced today due to new media technology because we cannot have newspapers without printing presses, television programming without equipment to transmit and receive visual images, or an Internet without the computer networks on which data travel.
New media technologies are really helping in communication (Flew, 2002) e.g. traditional forms of mass media typically enable one-way communication that does not allow direct feedback from receivers of the messages. That is, these media are not interactive. When we read a book or a magazine, listen to the new CD we just bought, or turn on the television, there is no way to use those media to directly respond to the messages we have received. We could, if we wanted, take the time to write or call the distributor, producer, or author to let them know how much we liked or disliked their book, music, or television program, but that would be using another media form New media technologies have helped the media in terms of enhancing the developmental role of the media. (Flew, 2002) stated that “as a results of the revolution of new media technologies, globalization occurs”. Globalization is generally stated as more than expansion of activities beyond the boundaries of particular nation states, it shortens the distance between people all over the world by the electronic communication (cavely,1992).
New media technologies are very much useful and they contribute positively in a very momentous manner, today we do no longer have to wait for a morning newspaper for news because we have the internet at the back of our pockets on our cell phones e.g. we have news24 app on our phones and many more apps that are accessible to currently new events around the world.
Today we are faced with new news channels e.g. sky news, Aljazeera, sabc and the most interesting part is that all these channels have a bar at the bottom of the screen with the headline of news and when breaking news happen people are informed very fast so the informational role of the media has been enhanced e.g. as soon as it was discovered that the Orlando Pirates Goal keeper Senzo Meyiwa had died it was immediately on the headline of Aljazeera which is not even based in South Africa.
We now have more options of communication and it is all thanks to “smartphones” there are tons of apps that we can get which allows us to talk and texts at a low costs or even for free over the internet e.g. Skype and viber can allow us to speak to fellow acquaintance who are overseas, another example is whattssap which is sometimes free of charge if you are on cell c network.
Because the media technologies are growing agitatedly well Apple has released I-cloud, this allow us to work from our I-pads or I-phones and it sends our updates on presentation on our computers e.g. if we download music or take pictures on the I-phone they will reflect back home on our computers. This is advantageous because it fulfil the role of surveillance people can be able to trace a person if he/she has been abducted or is lost.
New media technologies promotes transparency (openness and accountability reporting) and surveillance (the role of witnessing and the act of spectatorship) as suggested by (Schroder, 1999). This is mostly done via CCTV Footage which is usually left on the building to video record any events that will be happening but most certainly for security reasons e.g. A recent video about a house maid who had been arrested for brutally beating a small child that she was looking after not knowing that there are surveillance cameras inside the house.
New media technology expands the quality, quantity, and speed of information in technical communication networks and in general they help with sending awareness to people it also allow audience to be producers e.g. in the case of SCOAN in Nigeria the media had used the video of a person who was there taking it through his/her phone just because the media cannot be at all the place at all times.
(Neuman & Haynes ,2003:322) argues that new media technologies alters the meaning of geographic distance, because although media audience are geographically scattered or far in terms of space and time they can reduce the space by communicating through new technologies which may include social networks e.g. Facebook , twitter etc. Digitization and the rise of the Internet have blurred the boundaries between types of media and changed the broad parameters that used to be associated with all mass media. As a result, it makes more sense to speak of “new” media as breaking significantly with many of the features that characterize traditional mass media
One can certainly argue that new media technologies are not distorting the roles of the media rather they produce possibility of increasing speed of communication and opportunities for interactive communication as well as ensuring that all form of communication that were previously separated to overlap and inter connect are being advanced for better use in life(Croteau, 321).
Garrison, 1998, suggest that the new sets of media technologies have brought forth set of bad challenges for conventional media. New media technologies are extremely de-centralized, they require low investment, provide greater interaction and public participation and they are much more difficult to control ( Bonerjee,2008) based on this point let us now dwell on the other parts of the topic that is indeed agreeing that new media technologies are distorting the roles of the media.
To further this new media technologies are indeed distorting the role of the media more especially the educational role. One of the roles of the media is to expand and promote more intellectual educational system however, because of this new media technologies we turn to spend a lot of time on social networking websites e.g. facebook, twitter etc. and turn to forget about our books for studying and we even forget to interact with fellow students.( Creeber,2009)
One of the roles of the media is to inform people with current, accurate, interesting events and happenings; however, this role is no longer being performed nicely like in the olden days in print media due to wrong biased information which people are spreading all over the internet which form part of all this new media technologies. News spread very fast on the internet at an uncontrollable pace once it is on the internet it is difficult to get it out. (Annas, 1982)
Instead of being entertained by the media people are threatened or bullied. Cyber bullying is increasing on a day-to-day basis; people are being bullied on social networking sites such as facebook, twitter, 2go and many more. Cyber bullying lead to severe damage in one’s psychological or mental state to such an extent in which the victim might end up taking her own life by committing suicide due to frustrations.
Paedophiles ( people who are sexually attracted to children) and stalkers are using new media technologies to get valuable information on their prays e.g. they are able to hatch into your facebook account or twitter account and find out everything that you get up to including deep personal information and this increases their chances of catching you.
We have no privacy online anymore any picture we post of ourselves on the internet are there for good, it is not good for us to put valuable information online because someone might steal your identity online and use your credit card to purchase goods and services without you noticing. There are certain new apps that can distort even media pictures e.g. you might take a picture when you are full dressed and only to find out that somebody has distort it to an extent in which you are no longer dressed but naked Due to the advent of new media technologies there mass media news outlets are struggling with changing gate-keeping standards due to demands for interactive content produced by audience themselves, in the long run, these tendencies may be most revolutionary aspects of the new media environment (Bennett, 2003). There is often no control group for comparison with the users, so it is possible to remove the effects of other variables.
The importance of media technology is widely recognized. In fact, a body of work has focused almost exclusively on technology as a driving force of social change. While technology certainly has consequences for society, a more sociological perspective examines the broader context in which technology exists.
The advent of new media has posed a challenge to conventional media (Mustafa, k, 2009). Their effect, for example, is felt on the circulation of print newspapers, especially in the USA. Media technologies are structural constraints. Like all structures, they have been developed by humans and, subsequently, both enable and limit human action. How they do this is at the centre of a sociological understanding of media technology. I believe new media technologies have brought au with good new opportunities.
CONCLUSION
The advent of new media technologies is both a blessing and a curse; it a blessing because it makes life easier for us since, it speed up communication process and it speed up the spread of information, this is the blessing part and we can also consider it as a curse on the grounds that it makes the world to be less safer since it exposes our children to explicit that they should not see. One should remember that media technologies of all sorts have social significance because they enable and affect forms of human communication. As a result, they raise unique sociological issues. Beyond their common role as a mechanism of communication, however, media technologies do differ.
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- Lutendo Nendauni (Autor), 2014, The distortion of media roles by new media technologies, Múnich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/346642
