Abstract
This paper includes an inventory of personal media consumed over two days, including the Internet, print media, radio, entertainment media, television, and mobile devices. The first section imagines an alien visitor to Earth’s perspective on media and explains the media included in the personal inventory form in detail. Analysis of the impact of this media in light of convergence, content, concentration, and the participatory nature of media follows. The final section of the paper discusses the effect of media on social life and sense of self.
University of Phoenix Material
Personal Media Inventory Form
We are exposed to media all day, every day. For two days, compile an inventory of all of your media exposure from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep. Using the University of Phoenix Material, “Personal Media Inventory Form” (radio, print, TV, Internet, cell phones, movies, etc.) keep track of each exposure in all media that you come in contact with for two straight days.
After compiling this inventory, compose a 1,050-word essay which answers the following questions and statements:
- Use the information from your data in the Personal Media Inventory Form. Describe to an alien who has never visited our planet your personal Media Inventory Information and entertainment ecology.
- What does your Inventory communicate about media (Convergence, Content, and concentration) in your life?
- How have new technologies on your Inventory affected your sense of self and social life?
Be sure to attach your “Personal Media Inventory Form” to the essay. Be prepared to discuss your findings in class.
Radio Print TV Cell/PDA Internet Movies.
Use the information from your data in the Personal Media Inventory Form. Describe to an alien who has never visited our planet your personal Media Inventory Information and entertainment ecology.
A relatively recent invention known as the Internet revolutionized our planet a few decades ago. The Internet is a global currency of information that connects people across vast distances. One of the countries on our planet, the United States, possesses a powerful and wealthy military – a group of people organized into an aggressive force – and one of the bodies that run the military, known as the department of defense, invented the Internet.
The Internet surpassed its origins as a military tool long ago and now manages several different functions, all under the umbrella of global communication, including advertising and selling products, providing information, and providing virtual homes for millions of people; when people visit their online homes they typically say they are “online”. One of the most popular homes for people online is Facebook.
Facebook is a hub that organizes personal profiles for people all over the planet. Companies also use Facebook to market their products. Another similar hub is Twitter, which is a live information feed that people use to communicate brief statements about what they are doing at any given moment. Blogs refer to online homes for people that offer more detail about subjects as opposed to personal details. Many blogs communicate political messages, economic forecasts, information about technology, poetry, prose, and non-fiction writing from professional and non-professional writers alike.
The Internet also houses visual sites such as Vimeo, Flickr, and Tumblr that people use to post videos, artwork, short films, and photos. The Internet functions in a flat hierarchy; this means that anyone can post anything. You do not have become an expert, pass any tests, earn any degrees, or acquire any licenses to post information online. In some cases people do need to pay some money; however, in the majority of cases, the Internet is free to use and free to participate in.
Facebook and Twitter do not charge their members any money. A smaller version of the computer – known as the mobile device – fits into a pocket or purse and allows its owner to browse the Internet at their leisure. Mobile devices also provide the ability to send text messages – written messages that appear on the screen of the mobile device – and instant messages. Instant messages resemble real conversations except that they occur remotely. Text messages and instant messages also traverse vast distances; for instance, a person can be in the United States and text a friend or family member in Africa, or Iceland, or China.
What does your Inventory communicate about media (Convergence, Content, and concentration) in your life?
A few years ago media such as print, radio, and television maintained a separate space. With the emergence of mobile devices, the Internet, and the increasingly participatory culture of media, all of these formerly disparate forms are now encompassed by the Internet. Convergence refers to the “flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of media experiences they want.
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 2006). In the personal media inventory the prevalence of the mobile device – the Blackberry – illustrates the power of this technology to knit together and host numerous previously separate forms of media. Blackberry houses the online version of all media; with this technology, there is no need to purchase the actual physical version of the print media product, for example. The mobile device allows the user to visit the New York Times web site virtually.
The same is true of all media on the list. Movies and television shows become content that can be watched on any form of mobile technology – iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Playbook, etc. What this reality communicates is the redundancy of the other forms of media besides the mobile device; barring personal preference – i.e. the desire to watch something on a big screen, or the desire to hold a sheet of newsprint – the mobile device becomes the all-inclusive content provider. The future portends the slow disappearance of separate forms of media; perhaps they will not completely disappear in rural areas or in places where the Internet remains inaccessible or heavily policed due to political interests.
However, content providers and the content itself will certainly continue to gravitate more toward maximum accessibility and visibility via mobile devices. The mobile device gives the user ultimate power over his media choices; he becomes the active participant as opposed to the passive consumer. The “circulation of media content – across different media systems, competing media economies and national borders…represents a cultural shift as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections across dispersed media content” (Jenkins 2006).
How have new technologies on your Inventory affected your sense of self and social life?
Technology’s main effect on my sense of self remains the attachment I now feel to my mobile device. I no longer remember life without a Blackberry. It has become an integral component of my daily life and my physical sense of myself. When I leave the house in the morning, my mental checklist is Blackberry, keys, wallet, and I am far more likely to forget the keys or the wallet. My mobile device has also transformed my relationship with information: I constantly receive emails, text messages, and instant messages, so that information constantly reaches me. I now spend next to no time without something being communicated to me; in fact, the only time I spend not communicating is when I am asleep.
The Internet also affects my sense of self in that I expect information to change constantly – I no longer hold facts in my head as real and absolute. I now view facts as constantly evolving and subject to change. In this sense the Internet is far closer to the reality of life; life, like the Internet, is not a static entity. It transforms constantly. What is true this week might be false next week, and so on ad infinitum.
Socially speaking the new technologies provide the pipeline to all of my social endeavors; if my Blackberry were to stop working, it would be tantamount to social Armageddon. My Blackberry stores all of my outings, engagements, and appointments, not to mention the phone numbers of all my contacts, which I no longer memorize. This is one downside – reliance on technology. I’ve recently started backing everything up, however; I do rely on this one machine to perform multiple functions.
Mobile devices also generate a certain social status; those without Blackberrys or iPhones appear slightly less in the loop. I’ve also witnessed social status attached to mobile devices in terms of who can afford them and who cannot; this is particularly distressing when I realize that fewer and fewer public phones are available now compared to five years ago. I see a gap widening, and it is an economic gap. Technology requires money, a fact I did not become aware of until quite recently.
References
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York, NY: New York University Press.