The Stages of Media - Evolution to Revolution

The table above represents a perspective of how media has changed over the years. It shows an “evolution” of media as it transitioned from Traditional media to New media. Following New media it shows how media was revolutionized as it entered a Digital status.

Prior to the 1990s, media was seen as “Traditional”. It was before the Internet took place and technology started to digitalize media, as we knew it.

Traditional media was generally delivered to the public through a broadcast. Newspapers, Radio and TV channels managed to reach the masses. This form of media also did not have a specific target audience. The main channels were TV, Radio and Print media.

The first companies to be seen as traditional media include Time Warner, Disney and CBC. If you look at the mentioned companies today, you can imagine the drastic changes or “evolution” that each one went through in regards to new media.

The main business model of Traditional Media was through subscription and brand advertising. That was the main concern and main way of getting their image to the public.

The content delivery was seen in a “push” form. By “push” they just constantly pushed out their media content to their consumers.

Consumers had few choices in regards to what to look at. There was a lack of variations in topics.

Traditional Media went through a slow and steady pace of growth.

But eventual there was an evolution, and in the 1990s traditional media became “New” media.

“New” media first came to be in the 1990s. Their delivery was more narrowcast. This is due to the open options of being able to specify their audience more.

As technology changed, so did the main channels that “New” media used to reach their audience. The main channels used were cable, satellite radio, and specialty magazines.

Keep in mind, the changes do not mean that previous channels became obsolete. They are obviously still used today, but in different ways.

Companies that are recognized for using New Media include HBO, Primedia, and Comcast.

The “New” media business model relied heavily on subscription. People subscribed to receive their services.

Like Traditional Media, New Media also had a “push” approach in regards to content delivery. However, their consumers now had many choices in regards to topics.

New Media had an accelerated growth pace. Which is extremely visible due to the fact that media revolutionized in the 2000s.

Digital Media emerged in the 200s. Their target audience was targeted, unlike the previous two eras. Their main channels were the Internet and Mobile Phones. Today we walk around with smart devices on us at all times, allowing digital media to reach us at any time or place.

Examples of companies that dominated digital media are Google and Yahoo.

Unlike the previous two eras, digital media has a “pull” approach in regards to content delivery. Because of their infinite choices, consumers are pulled to digital media. People can now find topics they are interested and ignore anything else.

The growth pace of digital media is rapid.

As we can clearly see today, digital media is on a constant incline. There are new changes on a yearly bases that manage to continuously change the way that we interact with the media.

A huge example should be printed newspapers. People believe that they only continue to exist out of habit for the previous generations. A majority of the people revert to the online versions of news outlets to gain information.

There are many known TV channels that started off as radio channels. Whenever a new media outlet comes to place, old ones adapt to stay used. People who grew up pre 2000 notice this more. There are so any objects that have become obsolete due to the advances in technology.

Six Main Characteristics of New Media

There are six main characteristics of new media found in the book “New Media – A critical Introduction – Second Edition” by Martin Lister, Jon Dovey, Seth Giddings, Iain Grant, and Kieran Kelly.

As media continues to grow and evolve, it is important to be able to understand the characteristics as they change and develop over time. In the book that we studied the main characteristics include the following:

Digital

Interactivity

Hypertextual

Virtual

Networked

Simulated

Digital

Media data is transformed into binary codes. Binary code allows people to access data in a way that is easier and faster. Everything digital is made up of Binary Code – or zeros and ones. The data can be found as an output. As an output form it can be seen as online sources, digital disks, or memory drives. These outputs are to be decoded and received as screen displays.

The opposite of digital is analogue. Analogue refers to the process of storing physical properties in another physical form – like old newspaper archives.

Analogue media is fixed – it does not change. Whereas, digital media is in a constant state of flux. It is constantly flowing, changing, and improving.

Wireless connections between computers, servers, and networks are becoming more common. Despite this, many connections still depend on cables and telephone lines. These connects have to be physically dug into the Earth.

Interactivity

It is a two way form of communication. People are able to make individualized lifestyle choice from endless possibilities offered by the market.

People are no longer just on the receiving end. New media allows consumers and users to get more involved. This can be seen in simple acts like commenting on news pieces or writing a review for a place.

Interactivity includes: hypertextual navigation, immersive navigation, registrational interactivity, interactive communications, and interactivity and problems of textual interpretations.

It is a “key value” characteristic of new media. Interactivity is a powerful representation of user engagement with media texts. It is also a more independent relation to sources of knowledge, individualized media use, and greater choice.

Hypertextual

It is a reference to non-sequential connections between all kinds of data facilitated by the computer. For example the hyperlinks that you’ve seen me use in previous posts.

It is also an important part of the history of computing, especially in the way that hypertexts address ideas about the relation of computer operation systems, software, and databases to the operations of the human mind.

Networked

This characteristic is the availability of sharing content through the internet. This involves consumption. A prime example would be our consumption of media texts, and how now we have a large number of highly differentiated texts available in various ways.

Virtual

This characteristic embodies a virtual world that is created by immersion or engagement in an environment constructed with computer graphics and digital video. The users have control over their interaction. For example video games give people a virtual stage where they can interact and somewhat control their virtual lives to an extent.

Simulation

You could link this to previous points in regards to video games. Simulation games manage to immerse people in a “virtual life” that is represented or simulated through digital technology.

The definition of simulation is any synthetic or counterfeit creation. It is the creation of an artificial world that represents a real one. This is done through a mathematical model, combined with a set of initial conditions, that allows predictions and visualizations as time unfolds.

It takes the place of more established concepts. Simulations can be sued as an imitation or representation of things that are more complex. Today we have flight simulations, driving simulations, and even ship steering simulations – one can be found at the AAST Abu Qir campus in the Maritime department.

Schema

In my university class, New Media, we were given the book “New Media – Critical Introduction – Second Edition” by Martin Lister, Jon Dovey, Seth Giddings Iain Grant, and Kieran Kelly. One of the topics in the first chapter was a schema of the global term “new media’

A Schema is a diagram or an outline.

The schema of the global term New Media included

New textual experiences

New ways of representing the world

New relationships between subjects (users and consumers) and media technologies

New experiences of the relationship between embodiment, identity, and community

New conceptions of the biological body’s relationship to technological media

New patterns of organization and production

New textual experiences:

New textual experiences include new forms of genre and textual format in general. This also includes different kinds of entertainment, pleasure, and patterns of media consumption. Media consumption includes the consumption of computer games, simulations, special effects cinema and more.

On a daily basis we consume. New media gives different way for users or consumers to obtain textual information. For example, the new textual format could include online social media or blogs or more. People now go about text based content in a different way than in the past.

People no longer experience the patience of reading long thought out articles and skim.

Computer games and special effects cinema have also changed the face of consumption. These are just examples of ways that people manage to use “new media” to be thrown into a different experience – or a different way to experience.

New ways of representing the world:

Media offer new representational possibilities and experiences. This includes immersive virtual environments, which are environments that engage the consumer. For example, any interactive games or live simulations could be perceived as a new representation. There is also screen-based interactive multimedia. This could go from using an ATM machine to taking online tests. Everything is based on the selection of the consumers while using a screen.

New relationships between subjects (users and consumers) and media technologies:

The relationship between “subjects” and “media technologies” has changed drastically. There are changes in the use and reception of image and communication media. For example, before, we used to receive information at a timely manner through televised broadcasts or periodical newspapers. Now we gain information instantly. Communication has also become more instant. People are able to reach others from anywhere in the world at any given moment.

Another change is found in the meanings that are invested in media technologies.

New experiences of the relationship between embodiment, identity and community

Shifts are found in the personal and social experience of time, space, and place. Each of the previously stated has implications or effects for the way that we experience ourselves and our place in the world.

New conceptions of the biological body’s relationship to technological media:

There are challenges to see differences between what is real and what is fake – human and artificial. For example, now many sites have text boxes that we need to fill out just to prove that we’re human and not computers. (That was kind of a bad example).

There are also challenges in distinguishing between nature and technology – like those strategically placed palm trees that are actually cellphone towers.

And also, it is hard to differentiate between the body and media as technological prostheses. A prostheses is something prosthetic, to replace a missing part of the body. For example, many people have prosthetic body parts to replace what they have lost.

New patterns of organization and production:

There are wider realignments and integrations found in media culture, industry, economy, access, ownership, control, and regulation

The Evolution of Social Media 2004 - 2014

New media in itself is a huge step forward for all media outlets. The ways of communicating something to the masses are constantly growing and evolving. As a media student, it is important to stay up to date with the tools and their evolution.

With that said, social media is a rapid growing source for the entire global population to interact with. People have moved from just being members of the audience, to being senders as well. One of the biggest changes is the shift to having citizen journalism.

Here is the infographic on the “Evolution of Social Media” between the years 2004 – 2014. (I know, I’m getting a obsessive with my recent use of infographics)

In 10 years, Flickr managed to become one of the most used, and best-known photo-sharing websites to date. It offers advanced and powerful features for the users. The Flickr community is active and engaged by sharing and exploring images. Users on Flickr are able to share hundreds of their own photos without paying any fees.

In 2005 YouTube was launched, and now it’s the go to source for videos! More people are becoming famous through YouTube.

There have been 6 billion hours of video watched per month, and 100 hours of video uploaded per minute.

There are various different types of social media outlets that constantly keep popping up.

There are

·      Different blogging websites – Blogger

·      Different blogging publishing tools – Wordpress

·      Different micro-blogging websites – Twitter, Pinterest

Each of these new outlets give more and more ways for people to share their touch with the rest of the world while viewing other people’s output to the public.

I personally love Pinterest. At first, I wasn’t sure how to use it at all, and it confused me. A few years later, and I found that I had folders of images that I liked. That is basically what offers, an online folder system. Through pinterest, you choose to follow your interests and upload different images to categorized “boards”. These images are also linked to the website you found them on, which is an added plus in the Pinterest features.

For example, let’s say you have a recipe board on Pinterest. One day you’re browsing through the internet looking for recipes for whatever you’re planning on making one day. Then you find an awesome recipe for something you want to try. You could pin the image from that website to your recipe board. Then from anywhere, if you click on the image that you pinned on Pinterest, it will redirect you to the website with the recipe on it.

This works for all kinds of things, from shopping to fitness tips to quotes.  You can find anything on Pinterest. The images are also constantly increasing, adding more and more options as time continues.

In 2014 Pinterest had 40 million active users! Keep in mind it was launched in 2011 (check posted infographic). Gotta admit, that is pretty awesome.

But what’s really awesome is the evolution of Instagram! It was launched in 2012. In two years it had 200 million active users, 50 million photos posted per day, and 1.6 billion daily likes. That is insane!

Even finding jobs has evolved through social media. LinkedIn, for example, is a business-oriented social service. It helps employees search for employers and vice versa. You could even use it as a resume. Through LinkedIn you create business connections with all kinds of people.

So it’s definitely important to know what’s happening to the tools that people use when it comes to new media. Social Media is definitely something that we, as media students, should be working hard to stay up to date with.

As you can clearly see from the infographic, the numbers for these sites and new applications are booming!

Things you should know about caffeine

Here is an attempt at creating an infographic based on what we have been taking in class.
*Updated

Piktochart

An infographic is a visual representation of information. Infographics can be seen as charts or diagrams or a creative image meant to express information.

Data journalists make use of infographics as a tool to represent the story that they are trying to express.

In class we went over different websites that offer a way for people to create infographics for free.

The webite that I used was http://piktochart.com/

Piktochart offers a series of templates and options for users to pick from to create their free infographs. There is also the option to create an infograph from scratch on the website itself.

Personally, I created an infographic on PlayStation console launch prices. I was able to create a chart to show the prices of the different PlayStation consoles the year they came out and compare them the their prices in the year 2013.

The website let me choose different types of graphs. I was also able to customize the colors of the graph, the backgrounds, and the fonts for each block. There are also a series of fonts that you can choose from when creating your infographic.

Apart from the graph stating the prices of each PlayStation console, I also added a section focusing mainly on the PlayStation 4. There was an area that stated the overall number of ps4 consoles shipped worldwide within the first year. And there was a section for suggested launch prices in selected countries.

Piktochart gave me the option to select from a wide range of images. There is also a search bar when looking for an image that will select the closest picture to your search for you. There are also different types of images, from clipart to real pictures.

For the section that mentioned the number of consoles shipped worldwide, I added a clipart image of a controller. I was able to find this easily by searing “playstation” in the search bar.

In the other section – suggested launch prices in selected countries – I was able to find the flag of each of the countries I had selected.

Infographs in general are used to help the readers understand a large collection of data at an easier rate.

Infographics offer information in a more compressed form. If I were to type out each PlayStation console, the year it was created, the price of the console during that year, and the price of the console in 2013, it would take line after line to complete. But the infograph allowed me to give that information in a chart form – or a single image.

Viewers are able to understand the intended information easily in a smaller space.

Piktochart offers a series of possible charts, images, templates, and more that allow users to create a general infographic. One of the importance factors in creating a successful infograph is making something that is “catchy”. Piktochart offers a good selection, especially for beginners, in creating good infographics that are appealing to the eye.

It is important to select a combination of colors that go well together. The images should also flow easily with the rest of the infographic. There should be a sense of unity with the overall image.

Apart from that, the images used should be logical and relevant to the information being presented. There are people that are extremely visual, and the use of contradictory images could confuse them in the long run.

These are just a few of many different factors that people need to keep in mind when creating an infograph. Piktochart is a great website to start with. It also gives the option to share your infographs with other users and create a general network through the website itself.