Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Egypt's Rise with Social Media Outlet's / Post 4





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 EgyptFacebook 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. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juWvuNEZx1A




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.  


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