The Media Spectrum: New Forms of Media Publishing

Source: learningmatters.tv/blog/

Naughton (2006) believes that in the modern world, digital convergance, personal computing, global networking has caused radical shifts in the environment.

New trends of media that have emerged recently and has opened up a platform for society are Flickr, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, E-books, Alternative online newspapers and online journalism.

Flickr allows you to share your work, entice audience, creating galleries and widgets allowing a feedback mechanism with comments, subscriptions to get individuals to value user generated content. According to Social Media Statistics (2008) Flickr now hosts more than 4 billion images.

Renata (2008) states thatYoutube allows students all over the world can get education free of charge. Obama used this device to promote himself during his campaign and after he got elected. This is so innovative that no president of the United States has used before and it made many rethink new media and politics. Many companies can have their commercials on YouTube. From TV shows to movies to compete with Hulu YouTube is searching new horizons. Online celebrities are created and people can use YouTube to communicate with others. They can use different tools within the site to do that including friends, subscribers, comments, playlists, ratings and, the most popular, views.

Nelson (2009) claims that Facebook, MySpace have changed the way we view our relationships. Everyday millions of couples meet online either because they do not have time to look for someone in a bar for example, or do not want to date someone that they met in the workplacor simply because they are shy.

At the current rate, Social Media Statistics (2008) show that Twitter will process almost 10 billion tweets in a single year. Trending topics keeps us on our toes on hot topics that are spreading across the globe.

Sungwoo (2008) talks about the swarms of amateur online journalists are putting this technology to use, on open publishing sites such as Indymedia and on countless weblogs, adding a grassroots dimension to the media landscape. As the public turns toward participatory forms of online journalism especially in countries like Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, China , and as mainstream news outlets adopt more of those interactive features in their online versions, the media environment is shifting, slowly and incrementally, away from the broadcast model where the few communicate to the many, toward a more inclusive model in which publics and audiences also have voices.

References:

Centre for Communications and Civic engagement (2008), Centre for Communications and Civic Engagement, viewed April 12th 2010,

http://depts.washington.edu/ccce/digitalMedia/newsimpact.html

Naughton,, J (2006), ‘Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem’, viewed April 12th 2010,

http://reuteursinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/about/discussion/blogging.html

Nelson M (2009), Some bits, Nelsons Weblog, viewed April 12th 2010,

http://www.somebits.com/weblog/

Renata, E 2008, The Impact of Youtube, Blogger.com, viewed April 12th 2010,

http://youtubeimpact.blogspot.com/

Social Media Statistics 2008, Austin's New Media Lab, viewed 12th April 2010

http://www.scribd.com/doc/11481779/Social-Media-2008-Statistics

Sungwoo,C 2008, The Impact of Online Journalism, NowPublic, viewed April 12th 2010,