Digital Democracy

What is Citizen Journalism?

Citizen Journalism is when members of the public sell news stories, this is mainly done through social networking. Nowadays, anyone can witness an event and then report on it, this began to be used after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 when witnesses posted videos, photographs and accounts of what happened on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Emily Bell, the editor in chief of Guardian Unlimited, described it as being "almost second nature for citizens caught up in news events to record it on increasingly handy digital equipment". This describes events such as the 7/7 bombings in London and the Tsunami of boxing day 2004, in which news stories were made out of videos, photographs and eye-witness accounts of what happened in these kind of disasters.

What vision of the future did the "Googlezon" video present?

The Googlezon video presented a view of the future that involved Google and Amazon forming to become an internet based company called "Googlezon". This theory of the future presents the idea of a Google Grid which would control all the media for one person, the Google Grid would know everything regarding each person's emails, websites used, social networking activities. This would allow Googlezon to know what one person's interests are from their website history, emails, blog conversations etc. Googlezon would use this to give that one customer news on what they were interested in. By 2014, Googlezon is shown to have monopolised the media market, overtaking Microsoft and putting the fourth estate out of business.

What are the advantages and disadvantages for consumers regarding the visions of the future?

The main advantage for the consumer is that there is a constant flow of news coming through about the things that each consumer is personally interested in, there will be no need to look through a newspaper for an interesting story, it will be directed straight to you via the internet. Another advantage is that it is easily accessible, by 2014 almost the whole country will have a connection to the internet and will find it much easier to access the media via their Personal Computer and therefore won't need to go to the local shop and spend extra money on a newspaper.

The disadvantages for the consumer is that they will have hardly any privacy in what they do on the web, Googlezon would know what they do, what their interests are and would almost be controlling them. Also the news stories on the internet would be extremely bias due to citizen journalism. Despite there already being political leanings and bias' in the media today, by 2014 it will be massive, the reporters will be out of business because Googlezon would have replaced the fourth estate and therefore the news will have only been reported on by regular citizens who are incapable of writing a good, professional article, only a biased, opinionated article.

What issues are there for newspapers and journalists?

The main issue regarding the newspapers and journalists is that they will be put out of business, the Googlezon video showed the fourth estate being extinguished due to Googlezon. This also means that journalists won't be able to work either, Googlezon won't need any paparazzi, any journalists etc. because the news stories will consist entirely of citizen journalism.

Newspapers-In Decline???

The "fourth estate" is the press, Edmund Burke claimed that it is the most important estate of all, the other three are the courts, religion and parliament. Burke argued that the fourth estate acted as a check on abuses of power in the other three estates.

New media technology is responsible for the decline in newspapers because nowadays, it is a lot easier to access news on demand. Instead of going out and buying a newspaper, someone can now find out the news on the internet or watch one of the many 24-hour news channels on satellite TV. However, some newspapers, such as the Guardian, have evolved to meet the new media technologies, producing their own online news website.

"Maybe the internet is already the cyberspace of the fourth estate" means that the internet has usurped the newspapers role of news provider. Some newspapers like the Guardian have already made this step forward.

Feedback #1

Well done - there are some excellent posts on your blog. In terms of the film industry, you used key terminology and made specific observations about the changes to the industry, although you need to back up with secondary sources (quotations /articles)



B1

How has digital technology changed the film industry??

PRODUCTION:- The main way that digital technology has changed the film industry's production is through the use of special effects. Special effects began with with the use of "in-camera" effects, these were the equivalent of pro-filmic stunts filmed in front of the camera. Another development in the production of film is post-production special effects, mainly Computer Generated Imagery (CGI). CGI is the application of computer graphics to special effects in films. CGI is used for visual effects because effects are more controllable, for example, when filming a battle scene, it would be simpler and easier to control to use CGI rather than lots of extras. Also CGI allows the creation of images that would not be feasable using any other technology.

DISTRIBUTION:- New technologies have affected ditribution in the film industry, this is mainly due to the use of the internet to download movies from. The ability to download films from the internet has developed the film industry with movie trailers publicising their films on the internet. Another way that digital technology has improved the film industry is by the introductionn of Digital Video Disca (DVD's). DVD's have helped to change the film industry because it is much more appealling to go and buy a disc which holds a film on and then watch different scenes without having to constantly rewind or fast forward. The new ways of films being distributed using dugital technology such as shipping on hardrives or via satellite networks, this has led to over 4000 digital cinemas being set up in America. Also, digital cinematography is a lot cheaper than making film prints, which can cost up to $2000 each.

EXHIBITION:- Digital technologies have changed the exhibition and popularity of modern film, especially special effects. Special effects have created a new motive for audiences to go and view films because of their special effects and extensive use of CGI. For example, King Kong was a popular film because of the publicised special effects and how the film revolved around it. Digital tecnology has also helped exhibition of the film industry because it has allowed film producers and directors to make bigger and better films with more scenes that create visceral pleasure for the audience.

The key issues for audiences and institutions...

• Digitality-The way of encoding information,using a series of electrical pulses and binary on or off (electrical pulses style code,with a make up of '0's and '1's.
• Interactivity-Interacting, a two way feed, can respond to it. The way information is now compressed into smaller amounts of information so it can "go through the air". Used in electrical functions like television, and satellite TV as well as ISDN modems for internet, with smaller compressed chunks it allows for information in a smaller bandwidth, creating more information in one feed.
• Hypertextuality-This is the idea of having information and programs organised in the liquid form. the information isn't on one continuous long loop,its small pieces of information that can be seen in any order, for example, on a DVD, you can choose a certain scene to watch whereas on a normal cassette you would have to watch the whole thing through. this also applies for web linking,skipping chunks of information to access new ideas. The order of the text is no longer controlled by the producer.
• Dispersal-How the information is shared, to do with the market share and size. How much access the users have and how they are used by the producers.
• Virtuality-This is the idea of how new technologies allow new virtual worlds that mimik and represent the work, how and why?
• Convergents-This is the fact that new media technologies are merging into one. For example how phones are now able to access the internet, e.g. the iPhone. A key new concept of media technology, where will it go from now? Now because of interactivity, more media technologies can be converged in to one small thing.
• Audience-This is who and how the new media technologies are being bought and advertised. How does the audience use the technology? Does it change the way they use the information? Is it consumer demand that has driven the increase of mdia technologies? Who has access to the technologies?
• Regulation and Control-Is there control over the new technologies? For example, copyright such as file sharing, these problems create a problem for the producers, if someone downloads a song off of limewire then the producer loses money from what the sale would have been.
• Ownership-This makes a difference because large companies are able to manufacture massive products that will affect what you buy, for example apple is dominating the mp3 market.

Moral panics and concerns with online technology

There are a number of social concerns of the development of social networking, these are mainly because of the ability to access people’s details. Online blogs like “MySpace” and “Bebo” can contain private information that can be used for a number of criminal offences, from fraud to paedophilia, shown in some cases in Second Life. There are also other concerns about the increase of people’s lives revolving around technology. For example, obesity is an increasing problem in the youth of today and this could be seen as being because of teenagers spending time talking to their friends online, using modern technology, instead of physically going and meeting them.
The growing popularity of social networking is changing the way that we interact in that we all use it more and more. As well as targeting the youth culture, social networking is beginning to cater for the older generation with websites such as “Friends Reunited”. Also interaction using this kind of technology is changing by social networking and mobile phones starting to merge together. The iPhone, recently introduced by Apple, has built in internet which enables the user to access portable social networking and the ability to make phone calls and send text messages.
There are issues with censorship and control, mainly with the ability to access another’s personal information (name, address, e-mail address). The censorship and control in social networking was shown as having loopholes, in Second Life, users were able to form secret groups and have meeting without the owners knowing and perform illegal acts such as drug trafficking.

What is the future for online technology??

Tell Me The Future:

• Chris De Wolfe is strongly associated with social networking because he is a CEO and is a co-founder of MySpace. He believes that social networking is going to continue on allowing people to "put their lives online" and that this is going to continue to the extent that online and offline worlds will become blurred. He also thinks that the future of social networking will become a lot more personal, portable and collaborative, this increases the demand to make everyone's web experience personal. Wolfe also believes that there is so much that can happen to the future of social networking that at the moment we are merely looking at "the tip of the iceberg for what the social web will look like in the future. The impact of portable hardware will be that there will be social networking relationships with every mobile phone company in the world. Wolfe also expects that half of MySpace's future traffic will come from non-PC users.
• Chad Hurley is involved in video and is a co-founder of Youtube. The goal of his company, Youtube, is to allow every person on the planet to participate in Youtube by making the process of uploading videos onto Youtube a mere phone call. Hurley is a positive determinist because he believes that what is coming to the future of companies like Youtube is positive and will link the world together, "record and share video with a small group or everyone around the world".
• Maurice Levy says that the challenge for advertisers is that, with all media soon being digital and almost any advertising possible, advertising will depend even more on a huge amount of creativity. Also with people not wanting to be interrupted for a commercial break, advertising companies will have to find genuine and honest ways to appeal to the public with the needed creativity. Linear media is swiftly being taken over by Liquid media, prescribed time, for example, the time of a television programme, is now becoming multitasking time. You are now able to move more seamlessly in and out of different settings using Liquid media.
• Norvig draws the parallel between Edison inventing electricity and the development of online technology by noting that when Edison invented electricity, he knew that it would be in demand but didn't foresee that it would evolve into such a wide range of electrical appliances such as iPods and mobile phones. Similarly, information now flows so freely that it will also be changed and improved by unforeseen appliances.
• Despite more and more developing countries gaining full Internet connectivity, penetration to more rural areas are continuously restricted due to the lack of infrastructure. Also, there is a problem that a computer is unaffordable for the average villager in a developing country. Overall progress can be achieved though by installing wireless connections in the developing world. However, this will make it extremely difficult to achieve Economies of Scale, which will limit the development in the coming years. This is evidence of a "digital divide" because it shows how late countries in Africa were in achieving internet connections, only in 1991. Also, this divide is shown by the fact that PC's are normally unaffordable in African households, but in the typical English home, there is at least one available connection to the internet.