With the inevitable changes society is currently facing with new technologies and social media becoming more apparent in our everyday lives, it is quite difficult to adapt to these changing methods in todays society. Within the 21st century the invention of new media technologies has played an inevitable role in being the catalyst for change in todays day and age. Although social media and new age technologies are without a doubt inevitable, thus giving us users no choice but to adjust to the changes society is dropping on us.
The increasing pace of technologies performance, although many people are finding it quite difficult to comprehend is without a doubt moving at pace that is so fast yet it is traceable thus providing us a chance to recognize the change and choose whether we want to be involved with the change or not. However if we choose to ignore it, we’ll soon realize that it is quite impossible to ignore the rise of new media technologies, such as social media sites like Facebook, twitter and instagram. Where these sites are used in every aspect of life possible. From a social aspect to a business aspect, where these social networking sites are used as means of communication with the public, with the clients, it is also a means of free promotion for the company.
Needless to say the inevitable changes that our society has and will always face, is without a doubt can be quite unfathomable, however it is whether be like it or not, becoming more and more apparent in our everyday lives. Thus this notion of social organization through new technologies and social media will play positive and negative effects overtime.
Blog word: social organization
References:
Eisenberg, E. (2013) Communication Networks and New Media in Organizations . [online] Available at: http://nosh.northwestern.edu/bookchapters/Eisenberg-1990.pdf [Accessed: 8 May 2013].
Thesocialorganization.com (2013) The Social Organization. [online] Available at: http://www.thesocialorganization.com [Accessed: 8 May 2013].
The Era of the Digital Citizen has begun, and there is NO Turning Back
In Today’s blog, I will briefly be discussing the role of social media in relation to the dramatic changes that have occurred within the government. Specifically I will focus on the most recent events where by social media has played a huge affect on the government as well as the people. The current and ongoing war in Syria has significantly created a lot of debate whether you oppose the government or are for the government, social media specifically Facebook has played a huge affect relaying correct and false information about the on goings in this Middle Eastern Country.
According to Warren Tomlin, social media is reinventing the government. “ From flash mobs to twitter town halls, social media is changing how citizens communicate, interact and mobilize” (Tomlin 2013p.1). Furthermore reinventing the everyday work of government and public service management, therefore Tomlin continues in saying “ the era of the digital citizen has begun, and there is no turning back.” Subsequently social media especially the Internet has and will continue to have a role in the dramatic changes the government will face, whether they welcome it or not. The Internet according to ABC presenter Hagar Cohen “is awash with misinformation, manipulated identities, fake reviews and dishonest comments.” Although Cohen is correct the public will continue to use social media and the Internet as a means of gathering information when the news doesn’t provide with enough detailed information about a bombing that occurred in Damascus.
Subsequently by the time the picture, video or post is removed so many people would have seen it and or saved the video that their would have been no point in removing it. Removing it and trying to control what people post will only make the public do the opposite of what the government may want. Nevertheless digital citizens will continue to impact politics and government in relation to dramatic changes that arise, such as the current war in Syria.
Today’s blog post refers to reality, although this weeks readings were quite difficult to understand, I will be giving it ago. According to Wikipedia virtual reality is a term that applies to computer-stimulated environments that can stimulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds. However according to science news “the virtual objects employed in this study were visually identical, they were designed to have different artificial textures that could only be detected if the animals explored them with virtual hands controlled directly by their brains electrical activity.”
Furthermore virtual reality in my opinion significantly can and most likely refers to gaming, in particular virtual games in which gamers are able to enter a virtual world where they can play in a whole other dimension. Subsequently virtual reality covers remote communication environments, which provide virtual presence of users with the concepts of telepresence and telexistence or a virtual artifact.
Furthermore augmented reality is a type of virtual reality that aims to duplicate the world’s environment in a computer. (webopedia 2013). Subsequently the goal of augmented reality is to create a system in which the user cannot tell the difference between the real world and the virtual augmentation.
Media ecology according to Wikipedia formally centers on the principles that technology not only profoundly influences society, it also pretty much controls all aspects of life. The term ‘media ecology’ (Fuller 2005, pp.2-3) is used and in circulation in a number of ways, therefore ‘media ecology’ or more often known as ‘information ecology’ is deployed as a euphemism for the allocation of informational roles in organizations and in computer-supported collaborative work.
Over time media ecology has played a central role throughout the years. The changes have become more obvious; as technology develops, their conceptual resources suddenly have more to offer to society. As stated in Andrews lecture, throughout world war 1 and after that, public opinion and communication was the new ecology, however overtime from world war 2 major media and information theories were expressed, furthermore within the 1960s the introduction to satellite communication became the new big thing amongst society. Hence “media ecology is described as a kind of environmentalism; using a study of media to sustain a relatively stable notion of human culture (fuller 2005, p.3-4).
McLuhan refers to hot media as a high-definition communication that demands little involvement form the audience, however McLuhan continues to cool media where he described it as a media full of active involvement from its audience. Therefore our access to the media is a extremely vital component within the 20th century, as media ecology is a commonplace to remark that the 20th century is without a doubt an era of technological, political, financial, cultural and social and media change within society.
This weeks blog post and readings, will assist me in my research project, as ecology will help me gain a thorough understanding of last weeks topic, Technological Determinism.
Technological determinism is the agent of social change
According to Murphie and Potts, "Technological determinism refers to the belief that technology is the agent of social change" (Murphie and Potts 2003 p. 11). This notion is believed to be extremely popular as "you can't stop progress", furthermore, the inevitable social and media changes throughout the world, is broadening our social attitudes to new technological media being developed.
Although technology is ever-changing and is constantly improved and reworked, the notion that change is inevitable is without-a-doubt completely and utterly unavoidable. "Technological determinism tends to consider technology as an independent factor, with its own properties, therefore the ever changing and prospering digital age and the continuous improvement of our media technologies can and is seen thorough the improvement of how and what we use as a reading platform.
Technological determinism tends to consider technology as an independent factor, with its own properties, its own course of development, and its own consequences. Hence Murphie and Potts emphasize that successful technical innovation, if implemented successfully it will generate a 'new society', otherwise known as the 'steam age', ' the age of electricity' and the 'information age'. Only a few years ago the idea of reading a hard paper book was the way to go and the only way our generation preferred to read, however with the development of new technologies such as e-readers, tablets and iPads, the current new generation is constantly up-to-date with the latest trends.
The notion of books dying out is debatable, the use of e-readers and all sorts of tablets to store and read our vast collection of books has become widely accepted within society. "The impact of technology is in 'the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs' (1974: 16). Subsequently, the cultural effects flowing from the shift from orality to literacy, can significantly be seen through the ever changing and the development of new technologies such as e-readers, where hard paper books are not as popular as they once were, however they will never die out as many people still enjoy holding an actual book and reading it whilst getting a whiff of the 'old paper smell' most books have.
Furthermore the continuous changing technologies within todays society, has and will continue to have a vast impact within this digital age, as the characteristics of society play a major part in deciding which technologies are adopted, and how they are implemented and controlled" (Murphie and Potts 2003 p.20).
This weeks blog entry and readings, will furthermore assist me in my final research project, as every week I will again a solid understanding of media issues. However this weeks blog about Technological Determinism will set the basis for my research project.
References:
Text:
Murphie, Andrew and Potts, John (2003) ‘Theoretical Frameworks’ in Culture and Technology London: Palgrave Macmillan: 11-38
