The Media Evolution

Before, information was always in printed form, be it newspapers, magazines or books. But now, with the introduction of Internet to our lives, information takes on an evolution too; now readily and easily access digitally. We can see this with newspapers, magazines or radio stations having a website to cater those goes online more would rather retrieve news online. In contrast to printed documents, new media is a major leap in how information is presented. Walsh (2006) describe it as ‘multimodal texts’ whereby there is an incorporation of different modes: images, music, moving images and either written or verbal communication. These other elements add flair to what we read and interpret, making it more interactive and fun.

Sites such as Youtube and Twitter, redefines the way information and news are retrieved. Here, Naughton (2006) states that our generation where Internet plays a dominant role are influenced by ‘pull’ technology. Instead of just being a passive audience and absorb information fed to us, we now do the opposite; we seek for information we want. The Guardian (2010) reports how blogs were resorted by journalists when their newspapers were ceased. In addition, British parties are looking into using Facebook, Twitter and Youtube to aid their political campaigns since the success of Barack Obama’s online strategy. Sifry (2010) concludes that the Internet, if not monitored will gain precedence in election campaigns. The Internet is a favourable as it is fast, has mass audience, diverse and rich in networking. (Naughton, 2006).


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References:

Naughton J 2006, Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, viewed 30 September 2010, <http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/blogging.pdf>.

Sifry, ML 2010, How the Internet is Changing Politics in Great Britain, TechPresident, viewed 30 September 2010, <http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/how-internet-changing-politics-great-britain>.

The Internet and Politics: Revolution.com 2010, The Guardian, viewed 30 September 2010, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/04/iran-politics-blogging-internet>.

Walsh, M 2006, ‘The 'textual shift': Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24 – 37.