Advantages and Disadvantages of New Media

Advantages and Disadvantages of New Media

Media theorist Marshall McLuhan said that “The medium is the message.” He is stating that the medium has control over us in what we see and do, and this term can be used with new media.

What is New Media?

“New media is defined as interactive forms of communication that use the internet, including podcasts, RRS feeds, social networks, text messaging, blogs, wiki, virtual world and more!”

http://aids.gov/using-new-media/basics/what-is-new-media/

Advantages of New Media

There are a lot of advantages of new media, for instant we can tweet and check our status updates on facebook from our phones. We have the whole internet in the back of our pocket. We no longer have to wait on the morning newspaper because we have the internet, the news channels have breaking news now, channels like RTE, SkyNews, Fox and CNN have a bar on the bottom of the screen with the headlines of news and when breaking news occurs it covers it also with the internet we have a wider range of sources on some topics we can search till we find unbiased opinions of the news. We can directly call people using skype free calls over the Internet. It’s great for people who are living in America or Canada and can talk to ones at home. We have more options of communicating now thanks to smartphones there is tons of apps that we can get which allows us to talk and send texts for free.  We can create media ourselves with the Internet we can create our own blogs and post our views of global events.

Apple have released I-cloud this allows to work from our I-pads or I-phones and it sends our updates on presentations on our computers, if we download music or take pictures on the I-phone they will be on our home computer. We can see that the “medium” of new media is the Internet and it has control over us because of the amount of hours we spend on it a day.

Disadvantages of New Media

New media has a lot of disadvantages to it as well for instance we spend a lot of our time on social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter etc. that we don’t interact with our fellow students or work colleagues as much. News spreads fast on the Internet at an uncontrollable rate once it on the Internet it’s hard to get it off.  Also if we are searching news topics online we can find some extreme views on the subject that we might find disturbing. Another disadvantage is cyber bullying children at school could be getting bullied non stop when they go home and go on to sites like Facebook and Bebo and there still getting bullied this could cause the child to get depressed or worse kill themselves. Paedophiles and stalkers can use social networking websites to get valuable information on there pray, during the riots in England people could go on YouTube and watch footage of it. The people in the riots took pictures and posted them on the likes of Twitter and Facebook. Terrorist use the Internet to post video of potential attacks. We have no privacy online anymore any picture we post of ourselves are on the Internet for good it’s not safe for us to put any valuable information online because someone could steal your identity online use your credit card to buy anything. We can see that we our controlled by the Internet but it can be danger for some who put themselves at risk be outing their information online for people to look and steal. 

Multimedia Communications Analysing Media Texts Articles

Multimedia Communications

Analysing Media text.1            http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0922/cage.html

The headline is called “Outrage in Britain of boys fighting in cage”

The audience that this article is aimed for parents, people who are curious and charities, the purpose of this article is to show people that 8 year olds are fighting in cages in Britain.

The language that is used in this article is to make parents that have children aware of what is happening to these children and for people who are interested in it. The language that is used is straight to the point it’s for everybody to read, it’s suited for people of all ages. There is a serious tone to this article and it stays like that throughout. There is figurative language used in this article “I would liken it to a game of chess, it's about outsmarting your opponent rather than overcoming them."

The image is used to show people the seriousness of this article. The picture shows two boys fighting in a cage with their faces blurred. The colour is dark. The picture links in well with the headline and text. This will interest the reader because they will want to know why the children are fighting. The tone of this image is serious. The people in this photo are two boys fighting in a cage with parents looking on all the faces are blurred.

This is fact because the father of one off the sons is quoted saying
“He loves the sport. It's not one bit dangerous, it's a controlled sport. He likes to do it, he's never forced to do it, he wants to do it, so leave him to do it," Mr Hartley told the BBC.
"He'll never get hurt, it's a controlled sport. He could never get hurt.
"Until he gets a bit older and he starts doing physical contact, kicking and punching, then maybe, but at his age it's wrestling, like grappling."

Multimedia Communications

Analysing Media text.2       http://www.list.co.uk/article/38290-gary-barlow-told-x-factor-must-get-better/

The Purpose of this article is to show fans of the X-factor, reality TV and celebrity gossip that year’s judges have been told to improve the show. The language is aimed at people who love those types of shows and for people who are just curious about it. The reader will be interested in this article because it mentions the celebrity judges and of course it’s about the X-Factor. The language used would be emotive as used in the title “Gary Barlow told X-factor must get ‘better’.”  When the audience reads this headline they will want to know why the show has to improve.  

The image that is used with this article is a picture of Gary Barlow, the picture links in with the headline and article perfectly because he is mentioned in the headline.  The reader will be interested in this article because it shows a singer, a celebrity.

This article is fact “The TV boss was unhappy with the quality of the performance on last weekend’s show and was left raging after being told the viewing figures were 11.4 million – two million down from last year.”  We can see that this is fact because keywords like ‘was’ and ‘were’ are used. This shows that the article was unbiased.