Radio: The Underdog

As a nation we have access to so many different types of media, as a result of this many forms may get put to one side. One interesting part of this module for me was convergence, how year on year medias are coming together and producing something brand new. Radio is sometimes seen as a dying media, and many believe that it will not survive among the crowded media market. Radio out of all forms of media is considered to be one of the oldest yet most powerful forms, would it have come this far however without converging with all other media formats, who knows. As a radio student i obviously would argue no, it opens the minds eye and encourages imagination, there is something quintessentially personal about turning on the radio rather that staring mindlessly at a screen. Although looking at the statistics from RAJAR you can see that radio listening is on the rise year on year. Media forms are personal to all of us we sometimes represent ourselves by what station we tune in to, what television shows we watch or the papers we read. i would argue that radio is the most personal of all media; David Lloyd claims that a radio station defines a person’s identity audiences proudly say they are a listener of a certain show or station, ‘I am yet to hear anyone say proudly I’m a ITV listener, the specific radio relationship is a strong one.’ (Lloyd, 2015, p8.)

In 2016 radio covers all areas of the media, integrating with sites such as YouTube as well as the use of webcams becoming used more and more, along with that radio has large fan bases on social media posting photos and videos. The other main stage of convergence within radio was allowing listeners to tune in digitally useing their phones and laptops. The most exciting thing about convergence is we don’t know what to expect within the future the possibilities are endless.In years to come which form of media will die out and would they all still be around today if it weren’t for convergence?

• Lloyd, D (2015). How to make great radio. London: Biteback Publishing
• (2016).Quarterly summary figures. Available: http://www.rajar.co.uk/docs/2015_12/2015_Q4_Quarterly_Summary_Figures. Last accessed 02/03/2016.

 

 

Final BlogPost

Network Society and the Media was a really interesting topic for me as I explored every angle of media and how we perceive it.

What I enjoyed was that all the post topics were related somehow, and that the previous posts could be something to keep in mind when writing the next one. One topic of this module that i enjoyed the most was “Online Visibility.” I found it fascinating how people visibility is different to other people and the way the moderate what they put on the internet. It really made me think about how one post on Facebook could affect your future career for instance.

The way “Online Communities” and “Online Visibility” links pretty well. By having platforms to express ourselves like YouTube and Facebook, it does fall into the online visibility category and what we post very much affects how other people see ourselves online too. The way we reserve ourself online and can almost become keyboard warriors is almost frightening but funny at the same time. Something id like to look into more is convergence and the research into that.

 

Final post!

The module network society and the media expands on various interesting topics such as convergence, the transformation of news ect. One of the topics i really enjoyed was the networked self and ideas of community. This specific week was interesting to me as it gave  strong insight on how we portray ourselves online in regards to what online community we are a part of. This topic easily relates to regulation and social media and also privacy and surveillance. How private are we? Who sees what we post? Privacy and regulation and social media link as it is referencing to social media such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat ect. as us as users put content out there, regulations on social media are more relatable to this generation as we are revolved around the internet. Social media has become an essential part of peoples everyday life.

Internet memes and remix cultures was also an intriguing topic as it requires the audiences participation on what is trending and what is ‘popular’ in the internet world. Memes can be viral meaning that they spread rather quickly and become sort of famous. The convergence topic links really well with internet memes as Esteves & Meikle said it is the form and practise of storytelling, artefacts of remix culture. In conclusion the internet is a vast space of unimaginable content, it is so useful and relevant to everyone.

 

The Final Post

Network Society and the Media has really opened my eyes, as to what makes up the industry in the 21st century. I’m glad that I have been able to take advantage of this module as I feel that without this knowledge, working in the media sector would be challenging due to communication.

The privacy of people online and in real life is a topic in which I find the most interesting. I am intrigued with what others can see and what they use this information for. I was lucky enough to have presented for this weeks presentation, which allowed me to scratch beneath the surface to find out more about this subject. It’s interesting, because even now and after the hours of research that I have put in, I still remain on the fence, as to whether the government and special forces should be able to use our information to enforce certain laws and regulations – but I guess, if you haven’t done anything wrong, then theres nothing really to worry about?

I discussed in brief, during my presentation, about mobile phone offloading. This is when a mobile company offers free wi-fi in a public place, but sells your information, habits and location to third party companies. You could argue that this is in return for free wi-fi, but in most cases the land owners will pay for these services to be placed in the facility.

This fits in nicely with the topic “Online Visibility”. It is all dependant on how visible you are online, as to what information third parties are able to gather about you. If certain social media accounts are locked down, then they will find it hard to track habits etc. But mark my word, they will still find a way.

Overall, I think that the module was useful and although some lectures were not one hundred percent relevant to my degree (Radio Production), i found them interesting. My saying is, you can’t know to much!

Is the government’s access to our online content that harmful?

One topic I found particularly interesting was brought up during a presentation I was a part of. We discussed the topic of how safe people thought their personal details were online. When discussing the fact that government has access to what we post and what we choose to hide from public viewing, the debate of whether the government having full access to our online activity can be considered as an act of terrorism.

terrorism – noun:
the unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

Going by the official definition of the word terrorism, the government’s ability to view our online content is not terrorism but in certain situations it may be seen as such. For example, the government being able to view content without consent could be seen as unfair and if used against us, a form of intimidation.

The way in which this argument can connect the topics discussed in this module is through the way that the government uses their intelligence in order to change things. Doug has mentioned in a few seminars that we, as University students, are now in the top percent of people with access to such a large amount of information. We have so many options with what to do with this information. The way in which this connects to the government being able to access our online information is the fact that they will be able to do so many things with our information, and act upon some of the ways.

Throughout this module we’ve delved into deeper social issues and somehow have always come back to the use of the internet. As a seminar group we’ve discussed how copyright laws, personal identity, and convergence has all been affected by the use of the internet.

Are we free?

 

During this module we had the chance to travel in time from the beginning of the internet, of this new era, until today where we take for granted our phones, our data and our privacy.

We discussed lots of topics and we explored the hidden faces of all of them, but I have find fascinating how one particular question kept jumping out during our seminars: are we really free on the interent? Do we really feel free to post what we want? To do the researches that we want without being watched or controlled?

And in every seminar we always started from a “Yes, we are free” point to end up realizing that no, we are not free. That governments control us. That nothing is left to fate. That even the smallest advertisement on our Facebook feed is there for a reason. We are free to be ourselves on the internet but at the same time internet keeps showing us what it thinks we should see, what we think we are interested in, without giving us much choices.

That is why I think that the concept of freedom is linked to every topic we discussed, so to the module itself, highlighting how our critical thinking can help us to take a step back and look at the internet and at social networks in particular under a different light.

It was all a dream!

I have a dream of free world, a world that I’m free on the internet,a world where I’m not being control or persuade, a world that I can share my work but not in the capitalism way, a world that I can trust in the newspapers, a world that I’m not being supervise for every search that I do.

I have the idea that I’m not the only one ( at least I hope I’m not). In this module we learn a lot about how the things work and we wake up from our numb state, I talk by my point of view, but I was not aware of the fake freedom that we have, the illusion of choice this things that happens in the media.

I was so in to it, agree with things that I didn’t read, giving access to all my privacy and I didn’t notice, that was terrible, because the time they get your privacy, is the time they can control you.

That was the scariest thing that I ever realise, not controlling my life. That was the time that I wake up of that dream that the life was beautiful, and I start to get septic.

It’s a shame but it was all a dream.

What does it mean to live in the Network society after all?

As I prepared to gather my ideas and write this post I came across this interesting piece. To give a brief idea what it is about, the article mentions some ‘millennials’ who used to be very active (we can even say addicted) in social media and eventually got tired of it. They felt they were too exposed, they felt bad about themselves because all their friends seem so happy. Lena Dunham said Twitter is ‘cancerous’. Completely understandable. Some of them went back online later on but with a different approach – less inclined to share ‘every emotion’ they have or to follow thousands of people on Instagram. One person even talks about the relief of being away from her phone.

Too much exposure lead people to value their privacy. Being part of big communities made us look for self-knowledge. We, as a society, are trying to find a balance between what is new and what we were used to.

 

Convergence seems to me just a fancy name we give to the chaos we’re stuck in. Using one single device to call your mom, read the news, stalk your ex-boyfriend can makes us more clever but too dependent somehow. Yes, we can have the world in our phone, and yet, why does it feel so good to get rid of it for a while?

I guess living in the networked society of today means we are still learning how and where to set the boundaries in the way we communicate with each other. This society is fragile and in constant change. What once seemed easy and fun is now perceived as overwhelming and stressful. The internet is part of one natural process of evolution we are still going through.

This post ended up being more reflective than conclusive, so did this module. Nevertheless, this is what has always pushed mankind to develop themselves, isn’t it?

Final Post

I think all of those that what we are analysis  come from the internet, without internet we got nothing, in modern society, every information connect to the net, the Internet has made it easy for people to communicate with others because it is cheap and convenient and is also easily to sharing information with each other.

So i would like to analysis more about the online communicates, now we have many communication tools.Richard Branson says: “if you do something, let people know.” The Internet is no longer just a place of content. It is the latest technological breakthrough in communication following the telegraph and the telephone. Internet users are able to communicate with each other from all around the world instantaneously. With the necessary tools, users can share photos, send virtual birthday and Christmas cards and develop better relationships with family and friends.

Internet is a wonderful stage to show yourself, or even just a chat tools, indeed, it is very useful.Although some  network hackers cheat customer information to do something bad, can not hide the network brings more benefits to human.If we If we pay　more attention to the privacy of personal Internet , it will be endless benefits．

Society is Forever Changed

I think that this class has reinforced in me the idea that the Internet truly has changed the world. Before taking this class I knew this fact, but I did not realize the degree to which it was true, or all of the intricacies that exist in the digital world that we now all live in.

We now exist in a digital society. Everyone’s thoughts, information, documents, even friends, are all online. With this, people’s lives are often on view for the world to see. This opens a whole argument concerning privacy and copyright. Who has access to what you put online? I think that as we continue to share more of our lives on the Internet, people should be focusing more on privacy and making sure that other people, as well as their own governments, don’t have the ability to monitor them.

I think that convergence of many different forms of media shows the wide reach that the Internet has. People share things on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and many more platforms. The multitude of platforms has made the Internet marketable for news organizations as well, and most people now get at least part of their news from some form of online media.

The fact that all the themes we’ve discussed over the past few weeks are connected is proof that the Internet reaches into each part of our lives, and there are many issues that come with this. It is up to our generation to figure out how to effectively regulate and use the Internet to our advantage, while maintaining a freedom and privacy that is necessary in a democratic society.