Semester Project.
It took the world by surprise as millions of Egyptians stormed into Tahrir Square. The images that filled TV screens were remarkable as Egyptians of all age groups and social classes were chanting in Arabic, “freedom and social justice.” These three words were not simple words. They come from thirty years of poverty, injustice, and a corrupt monarchy. Adding to the list of reasons to revolt. This educated youth and the growth of social media has helped Egyptians organize the amazing revolution. Egyptians are very connected with the world revolving around them. As the Internet began to flourish in Egypt, the youth started to spend a lot of time exploring the World Wide Web. The Internet opened many doors for them. Allowing them to connect to the world outside of Egypt. Facebook and twitter were flooded by pictures encouraging people to engage in this massive protest calling for change and millions of YouTube videos were uploaded to the web. I chose to write about this since i am half egyptian. I have lived in egypt for a while, and i know what these people have been through, and i will always continue to inform the people more and more about this amazing country.
Link to my essay.
http://sarataw.wordpress.com
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Post 4 :
I believe it will be hard and unpredictable to predict the future of convergence. Media industries are going through a huge shift of new media and pushing aside the old media. For example, the new media would be the rise of Internet, and media outlets such as Facebook, twitter, and online news. On the other hand, old media would be TV, broadcasting, radio and newspaper. Our society today is exposed to an entire different world full with new technological products that enable the consumers and audiences to easily access information they wish to have knowledge of through these new media outlets and Internet.
According
to Jenkins, “Convergence is a word that manages to describe technological,
industrial, cultural, and social changes depending on who’s speaking and what
they think they are talking about”. Jenkins states how these technological
advances of media are highly recommended by the public these days and can no
longer live without them. The development of new media has affected how we society
consume and use these devices, especially the World Wide Web. It does not only
influence media products but also in the way they distribute their message and
technology and how our society consumes and illustrates these technological
changes. Convergence basically relies on distribution through digital platforms
of media, and offers more approaches to people to establish different
methodologies. Convergence also influences the basic reality being portrayed by
the media; for example, images and videos are very easy to be manipulated and
reshaped to the companies’ own representations of what they would like to
disclose to the public. Furthermore, this is one of their techniques in shaping
the societies ideologies and the way they think and understand these messages.
The strong connection of this new media
technology is taking over really vast. According
to Omar Merlo, and Simon McPhillips the author of Media convergence and the
evolving media business model article, they both stated that, “Media owners acting
as a conduit providing entertainment content to consumers, (2) Consumers paying
for this content, (3) Companies being given access to the media owners’
audience in order to deliver commercial messages to them, and (4) Governments
and regulators determining the parameters of the industry”. They both analyze
how we foresee the rise of media, and how we involve all different aspects of
media through advertising. They state
that advertising generates about 50% of profits for these production companies,
which is huge revenue for these companies to help sell these advertisements for
consumers to help media owners to provide a high income.
Furthermore, I also want to relate how
these new media channel and mediums help shape our societies ideologies. For example,
the 2012 presidential debate and their ads for each contestant were really
affecting. According to Gorman and Mclean, “ The Rise of the television helps
explain the post 1945 decline of the press”(p 191). In this quote, Gorman and
McLean give us a brief summary of how new media has taken over the press. The new media is now focusing on both
television news and advertising for revenues of Internet outlets, such as
Facebook and twitter and other social media outlets we tend to obtain our
information from and enjoy. The candidates themselves depend on these news
outlets to help gather the largest number of supporters they can towards their
campaigns and voting. Media is becoming
one large existing mainstream around the world, where now the majority of most
Americans during the 21st century get their political information
online and from television networks.
Gorman and Mclean discuss the reason why
the press has declined. They argue that there has been a rise in production
costs and expenses to imprint on paper, and a huge decline of people purchasing
newspaper and magazines caused by its higher prices. Journalists no more have
the ability to print many newspaper and magazines, since everything has been
able to access online and though mainstream outlets on T.V, they now prefer to
publish their stories and events online. The efficiency of these various media
outlets has lead the audience to see a narrow side of the amount of information
they consume each day.
Having other countries see all what we
publish or print online has given the world a bigger advantage to become more
unaware of the accurate facts. Any person has the ability to write what they
understand and unravel. Furthermore, each person decodes the information
received to him/her in another form of understanding and interpreting of facts,
which make Americans very diverse and different the way they ponder about
reliable media outlets. The growth of public broadcasting, online streaming,
and global media is becoming faster than ever, which plays an important role in
transitioning these huge corporations and outlets to its main ideal, which is
entertainment and leisure, and lacks most of the reality. In the end, I guess
we will be seeing a broader view of convergence, but it is hard to predict what
will be the upcoming outcome of these new technologies.
Sources:
Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture.
Media and society into the 21st century by Lyn Gorman and David Mclean.
Media convergence and the evolving media business model article. By : Omar Merlo and Simon McPhillips.
Looks interesting, ill be sure to check it out. Property in Egypt
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