Media Watch 321

The Deaf Generation

2008-05-15T07:30:00.002-07:00

The deaf generation has been brought about with the growing popularity of mp3 players such as the I-pod. We have become a deaf generation in more than the obvious. Firstly it true people are losing their hearing by listening to devices such as the I-pod. I myself find it harder and harder to listen to people in loud places or even in the back seat of a car. Popular restaurants, clubs and bars I find myself asking the same question over and over again. “Sorry what did you say?” This I find rather tragic because I should only be losing my hearing at around 60yrs. It can all be attributed to my constant blaring of my music with regards to my I-pod.

However, this is not form of deafness I am able to see. People no longer talk to each other anymore. We all listen to our I-pods people can now ignore others and it’s no longer rude. One thing I found while living in Europe that seemed bizarre was people going to the mall to do their shopping while listening to their I-pod. People start to live in their own world more and more often. I did walk to school every day with my own I-pod in my ears but that was different if I had walked to school with a bunch of friends then I would never have ever listened to my I-pod. It just seems so anti-social to me but I guess these days anything goes!

I can remember another instance while on the Paris Metro when a bunch of young American tourists keep asking for directions but everyone just ignored them and listen to their I-pod. They all became deaf to the Americans. I feel that it is so sad that people have become like that! We are now deaf in all senses of the word!

My Travelling buddy the I-pod

2008-05-15T07:30:00.001-07:00

While living in Europe I found it incredibly easy to travel. There are trains connecting almost every country in central and Eastern Europe. You can also take the Euro Star from London to either Paris or where I lived Lille. With the travelling freedom that Europe offered I was mad not to see all I could but it was not so easy to find a friend who was Justas keen. So I took along the one thing I could always count on to keep me company my I-pod

While sitting on the train or plane I was never bored. I never felt awkward travelling on my own because I had my I-pod. It gave me a sense not being on my own. I could easily put my earphones on disappear into my own world.

I remember a specific trip when I went to stay with a friend who was working in Austria. I took a plane from Paris to Munich which was not so bad however, the trip from Munich to Saalbach was terribly long and the train stopped at every small town that existed. If I did not have my I-pod to listen to I would have died of boredom. Listening to my music and watching the funny little Austrian towns go by made my five hour journey pass so quickly.

That is just one of the occasions where having my I-pod with me was my saving grace. It kept me from gong insane on all my trips. Even ignoring my brother or a screaming child on the train was all possible thanks to my I-pod.

It was the most useful thing I could ever have bought!

Cell Phone Convergence: The BlackBerry Bold

2008-05-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

RIM (Research in Motion) the manufacturers of the BlackBerry smartphone announced recently that a brand new version of their phone is due to be released later this year around summer. This new version is named "The BlackBerry Bold" aka "BlackBerry 9000". This phone is of great interest to me because it is an excellent example of convergence. The features of this device are phenomenal. This smartphone provides its users with e-mail; text messaging(SMS); MMS; phone calls; instant messaging; camera and video recording; Media player; organiser; Internet browser; BlackBerry Maps; GPS capabilities and Corporate Data Access for business professionals on-the-go.

The BlackBerry also boasts high speed performance because of its 624-MHz processor. Its media player feature is made more advanced with the BlackBerry Media Sync which allows you to transfer your desktop iTunes music files. The phone also boasts WiFi capabilities, which lower your cellular costs and help you to get service in areas where network coverage is limited. The phone also has Tethered modem to upload and download files. It also includes built-in Bluetooth wireless technology. The design of the handset has been engineered with SureType keyboard technology which combines a traditional phone keypad with a familiar QWERTY-based keyboard for easier typing, similar to that of a regular PC.

Convergence is defined as the process of combining digital text, graphics, video and sound capabilities into a single device. The BlackBerry Bold truly exhibits how convergence has taken place in cell phone engineering.

Cell Phones: Africa Excluded

2008-05-14T06:39:00.001-07:00

It has been said that developing countries (mainly in Africa), are being left behind in the mobile market industry. I explore this myth. A report was published this year on http://www.marketresearch.com entitled "2008 Global Mobile Communications- Statistics, Trends and Forecasts" by Paul Budde Communication Pty Ltd. This report was interesting to me because it gave some statistics in the mobile phone market and it showed some important social implications. These were the stats for the whole world:

The report stated that in 2008, there are 3 billion mobile subscribers worldwide.
Prepaid mobiles now account for more than 60% of worldwide mobile subscribers.
The total number of fixed phone lines is increasing but wireless lines are growing even faster, with the majority of all voice calls originating from mobile phones worldwide.

The Internet site http://www.budde.com produced the following interesting mobile market information for Africa:

There are now more than a quarter of a billion mobile subscribers in Africa.
Mobile phones represent around 90% of all telephone lines in Africa.
The mobile market in Africa is growing between 50-60% every year.
Due to Africa's poor fixed-line infrastructure, the mobile networks are the best provider's of Internet service provision.
Mobile phone penetration in South Africa is approaching 90%!

These short statistics show that cell phones are playing a dominate role in telecommunications worldwide and even in Africa. These stats also show that 9 out of 10 people in South Africa own a cell phone! These stats show that many Africans are gaining access to the Internet via their phones.

The social implications are that if the 50-60% growth persists in the African mobile market we may catch up to the rest of the world and not be excluded after all.

Cell Phones: Health Concerns

2008-05-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

Widespread concerns have been raised about the possibility that exposure to the radiofrequency(RF) fields from mobile phones could affect people's health. This has been a topic of many discussions in societies across the world where high levels of cell phone usage occurs. WHO (The World Heath Organization) published a Factsheet entitled "Electromagnetic Fields and Public Health: Mobile Phones and their Base Stations". WHO investigated whether the RF fields from cell phones cause any harmful health related problems.

The greatest public concern has been that exposure to RF fields causes cancer. Some studies have shown a link between RF exposure with leukaemia and brain tumours. Other health outcomes following RF exposure include: headaches, short-term memory loss, nausea, changes in the central nervous system functions, sleep disturbances, insomnia, rashes of the skin, difficulty concentrating, dizziness and in some cases chromosome changes.

In conclusion to its investigation WHO expressed that the very low exposure levels from cell phones and research results collected, show that there is no convincing scientific evidence that the weak RF signals cause adverse health effects. We hope that in future this will still be the same conclusion.

Social Networks: The Digital Apartheid…

2008-05-14T03:07:00.000-07:00

A social network, as described in each of my previous posts, is an absolutely invaluable development in both corporate and personal life. Not only can a social network connect people across the world, it can also create significant opportunities for growth, both personal and overall advancement.

What about those who are not connected to the “networked” (Marshall) world? Is it possible that the rapid growth of the social network is actually resulting in a world with greater voids between people?

I would suggest that this is most certainly possible… While the social network brings people together, removes spatial boundaries and creates communication possibilities; it also stretches the gap between those who are and those who are not connected.

Certain areas and people are virtually separated from the world around them. They may live only five kilometres away from a major town, with all the communication possibilities imaginable, but still they are more distant than ever before and becoming more so.

The digital divide really is an “apartheid” (New Media Lectures, Dr. Mitchell) with segregation based on the lines of those who have and those who do not have network possibilities. A person only five kilometres from the aforementioned town is essentially segregated due to his/her lack of opportunity to be connected to the vast opportunities of the networked world.

As Marshall suggests, (New Media Cultures, p36) government do not always provide infrastructure for connection on the “utopian ideals of public good” (p.36). Rather, governments are able to manipulate infrastructural development to isolate people from the networked world around them, while making it possible for others to receive all its benefits.

With the advent of this digital divide, the rift between people’s identities can also be said to be widening. I would contend that the modern man is ever more identified and moulded by the technologies available to him. The networked man is essential developing into a new being, while the un-networked individual limps behind in his dust. Soon, varied language will not be the sight of misunderstanding – level of connection may be…

Picture from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/photogalleries/earthquake/images/primary/051011_earthquake1b.jpg

Mike Smith

Music on Tap!

2008-05-12T05:45:00.000-07:00

With the development of the I-pod and I-tunes we are now able to buy music on tap so to speak. Music can now be downloaded from the I-tunes store which is found on the internet. Now we can find any type of music at our finger tips from rock to pop to jazz all is a click away. I-tunes has an incredible array of music you can find almost any genre you want. Everything is available.

Now you don’t have to trawl the malls looking at cd store to cd store to find that elusive cd you have been looking for forever. Now it’s available from the comfort of your own home.

People have very different tastes of music and not everyone is a pop-addict that just follows the trends. Now we are able to find the music we like. We don’t have to go from store to store getting odd looks because we are not looking for the latest Britney Spears album.

I-tunes also sells music on a song by song biases so if you only like three of the songs off an album you don’t have to pay the full price anymore. You can purchase the songs you like and that’s all you no longer have to waste money on paying for a whole cd when you only want a few songs. I-tunes are also quicker, easier and less expensive. You don’t have to pay as much as before.

I-tunes has revolutionised the way we purchase music www.apple.com/i-tunes/overview . It has given the consumer the power we now have the ability to chose exactly what we want when we want and how we want. This has made I-tunes the future of music!

Social Network: The new business frontier.

2008-04-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

Only two decades ago, e-mail was a foreign term that meant very little to anyone… while the internet was a concept with little to no relevance in anyone’s life.
We have come a long way since the early 90’s. The world in which we live and work today is infiltrated at every level with technological aids. The social network has developed to such an extent that it has given organizations, there customers and employees an interdependency on the technological links it provides.

The intranet is a system based on the same technology as the World Wide Web. The key difference is that it is an internal system, allowing organizations to share work and work collectively on projects regardless of their geographical location. This development, as with most technology, has opened the door to vast development and allowed “collective think” to progress greatly.

As Darwin described it, each succeeding technology “liberates humanity just that much more” (Marshall, p.29). The extranet has been a continuation of the intranet that has granted an organization great freedom in interacting efficiently with their clients and business partners. Its development has aided in the progression of efficiency and cost effective means of communication.

In modern society, the internet is not only used in our everyday private lives, its capabilities have extended to such a large extent that business operation and organizations depend on it. The question is, with these vast networks and the benefits gained from new technology – who is being left out of this ever growing community?

Mike Smith

Cell Phones: Protective devices

2008-04-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

What are cell phones used for? They are used to make calls, to listen to music, to surf the internet, for instant messaging, to take photographs. However, their usage is changing. I read an article recently that the U.S government wants to use their citizen’s cell phone connections to alert them of impending terrorist attacks. This adds another element to the list of uses of the cell phone. I believe that it can now be called a device for personal “safety and protection”.

Mobile phone network companies in South Africa such as Vodacom and MTN are also trying to make cell phones “protective” devices. This is being conducted through a service called “Protect-Me” http://www.protect-me.co.za/. It is a personal safety and security service. Protect-me uses your cell phone as a mobile panic button. Once programmed your cell phone will be able to show your location using location based services (LBS) from cell phone network towers. This location is then displayed in the service control room on a computerised mapping system and the endangered person’s location details are sent via SMS to the nearest response unit who proceed to your location to secure your safety. This is invaluable protection for citizen’s living in a country such as South Africa where crime and hijacking occur.

The role of the cell phone as a “protective” device is showing us another social implication that it brings. Not only is it a communications and entertainment device, but it can now be used as a watchdog in modern society.

I-Pods: The death of socialization

2008-04-18T00:56:00.000-07:00

With more and more people owning an I-pod these days’ people are becoming less and less social. Public transport is the perfect example of this. When you get on a bus or a train or even a plane no talks to anyone anymore, everybody is listening to their I-pod. Silence and heads turned down focused on one thing the I-pod is the only thing one can see on public transport. No one ever talks to friend or perfect stranger anymore; they just listen to their music and ignore everything else.
Groups of friends will board a train and put their earphones in and listen to their favourite music for the whole trip. They don’t talk to each other discuss things such as what going on with their lives or what’s happening in the world. They just listen. I find this rather sad as making connections with other people widen our points of view and broaden how we relate to others. With the invention of the I-pod we interact less and less with others and we become more involved in our world and not the world at large.
People are slowly moving away from each other and hiding themselves in a word of new media. With the invention of the I-pod and other mp3 players it is easier for people to hide themselves because it has become the norm these days. It is no longer anti-social to sit and listen to music instead of talking to friends or others in general.
Slowly and surely new media and inventions such as the I-pod have helped with the decline of public socialisation before we know it we will not be communicating with anyone except the new media.

Cell phones: The Evolution of Communication, Introduction

2008-04-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

From their introduction into human social spheres years ago, to their present condition, one can assume that those who invented the ‘cell phone’ never expected it to evolve into the technological phenomena that it is today.
Yes, the word “phenomena” can be viewed to be extreme in describing this tool of communication, but it is undoubtedly appropriate. The cell phone has become ubiquitous, in that it is widely present in society today.

The main purpose of the cell phone was to enable users to have a more convenient way of communicating with people, thus providing portable telecommunication, or what we call ‘on the go’ communication. However, this has dramatically changed over the years. The cell phone not only provides a means of telecommunication, its ‘technological evolution’ has made it so much more. In its comprehensive list of functions the cell phone now provides its users with: telecommunication; internet connectivity; radio streaming; music playback (similar to that of the I-pod); digital camera features; video recording and reception. They also conduct similar functions to that of the PDA (personal digital assistant). Convergence of different technologies has caused the cellular phone to become a multimedia device. Some mobiles can even be described as ‘smart phones’!

The shift in the services and functions of the cell phone has brought with it several social implications. One implication is that certain groups in society believe they cause “public disturbance” due to their use without the use of correct etiquette. Another social implication of the cell phone is the introduction by governments in forming mobile phone laws which include bans on cell phone usage whilst driving. These bans show how vastly cell phones have penetrated the lives of people and thus that they must be regulated. The cellular phone has provided continuous social connectivity, in that one can now be in touch with friends and loved ones more easily and affordably. We can, send and check our email anytime and anywhere; send a text message via SMS (short message service); use instant messaging or simply make a call. Cell phones are sometimes seen as fashion accessories especially in adolescent circles. It has also been argued that cell phones may have privacy issues as they can gather intimate data about us, to the extent that hackers can find out a great deal about us and our communication channels. They have changed the way people budget and spend their money. Cell phone bills are now included in their budgets, thus having economic implications as well.

The argument above has shown how the mobile phone has penetrated every facet of the social world. Its impact on the way we communicate is just beginning. Years from now this generation will marvel at its unimaginable metamorphosis! The cellular phone…a modern day phenomenon! Is this statement really true or an exaggeration of fact?

Social Networks: More than just a communicative link

2008-04-11T01:09:00.000-07:00

In my previous posts, I have referred to social networks as a means of keeping in touch with and communicating with people. What if, however, a simple website could develop into a community of people who interact both online and offline.

“Stop crime, say hello” (http://www.scsh.co.za/ourbeliefs.html), is a perfect example of such a development which is attempting to promote a network of people with same beliefs in mind.

Stop crime; say hello is a website which aims to promote a certain ethic and concept which should in theory make South Africa a safer and friendlier place. The website puts forward its simple suggestion, that by simply saying hello and being friendly to people we can foster a safer environment and one which promotes the concept of inter-human caring.

So why would this be a social network, you may ask. The reason is not that it physically links people, or even that it links them over the virtual network that is the internet. This campaign has become a social network because it links people around South Africa and around the globe with similar intent and philosophies. Every time someone says hello to another, with the websites ethic in mind, they are essentially participating in the development of this social network.

From my perception, social networks are not simply a direct link of people (be that physical or virtual), they are far more than this. A social network can be a simple link of philosophy, belief system or intent that arises from one point of reference.

Social Networks: A choice?

2008-03-25T06:30:00.001-07:00

From my perception, I would contend that every form of technological development, including the modern social network, has good and bad elements. I would suggest that it is the users’ range of choices that causes a social network to become a positive enhancement to communication or a degrading element to society.
MXit, the Mobile based instant message service is a perfect point of reference in discussing whether communication is aided or harmed by technology. The suggestion I would like to emphasise is that its effects can be both positive and negative and that the outcome is entirely in the hands of the user.
On the positive side MXit and other technologically advanced social networks simply provide a quick, cheap and efficient form of communication to be used when needed. MXit’s mobility makes it a service that may be used anywhere and anyhow, as long as the user has his/her mobile phone and an active GPRS connection.
This mobility, however, can result in a negative outcome, when used incorrectly. There are not many more aggravating things than talking to a person who at the same time is involved in another conversation with his/her mobile phone. It is quite possible to have a serious conversation with someone while they may simultaneously be exchanging illicit thoughts or discussing what an idiot they think you are with one of their MXit contacts.
Now talking to someone while having a completely different conversation may be perceived as an incredibly good skill – I would suggest that it is blatantly rude and just another form of escapism from personal interaction. It is also likely that Mxit allows people to avoid personal interaction and develop de-humanized relationships with people.
The line between positive and negative is very narrow in terms of these types of social networks. It seems, however, that it is very easy to make the decision of where and when to use such a service. It is in fact simply up to the user whether these networks are an aid to society or simply another aspect of our lives that removes all form of healthy interaction and discussion.
Mike Smith

The I-Pod: The revolution

2008-03-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

I-pods have revolutionised the way we listen to and buy music. We used to buy CDs’ or tapes from our local music store, which entailed a trip to the store and back with no guarantee that you would find exactly what you where looking for.

Today we can easily use the internet and buy the music we want from the I- Tunes store online. Alternatively, we may illegally download it from a site such as Lime Wire, all from the comfort of our homes! We can now choose and buy a particular song that we enjoy listening to; no longer having to pay for a CD that only has one or two tracks that we enjoy listening to. With i-Music we are also guaranteed the music we want, we no longer have to travel to music stores in an attempt to find our desired song. It’s now much cheaper and guaranteed from the comfort of our homes!

Listening to music has also become a simpler process. We no longer have to keep changing the CD or tape, as we can easily just change from artist to artist with the click of a button. We can also make a playlist and listen to many different artists in order of preference. We no longer have to carry large CD cases or tape cassettes because the I-Pod is small and can easily fit into our pockets. The I-Pod can be taken anywhere. Its versatility makes it easy to use anywhere as we can listen to it on a bus, train or car!

With the invention of the I-Pod we can see just how easy and accessible listening to and buying music has become!

Social Networks: From old to new

2008-03-16T08:38:00.000-07:00

The Social Network is a fundamental and dynamic aspect of society. Fundamental in the sense that change, development and progression would have little relevance or actual occurrence if there were no arena for discussion. Dynamic in that the manner in which people communicate and the network is constantly shifting.

The computer revolution and the development of the internet, alongside the conception of mobile forms of communication has completely transformed human interaction. The “Public Sphere” was possibly the first recognized system of a social network and originally consisted of a physical place in which people could converge to discuss topical issues. The notion of a formal and physical place in which one could do this is rather bizarre to us nowadays.

The social network today is a mixture of binary digits. A computer and technologically dependant system whereby people can communicate over great distance and time. The internet, with the development of Facebook and other “social utilities” has impacted the barriers of time, distance and even social standing. Where distance previously hampered communications, now people are able to participate in conversation regardless of where they are situated. While the Public Sphere was largely dominated by the white upper class – Facebook holds no exclusion based on race, age, ideological beliefs or situation.

The question is, has this change in communication removed the physical aspect that previously characterised the public sphere? Has the distance between people de-humanised communication? There is no doubt that change is laced with positive and negative, but is it possible that one outweighs the other? What do you think?

Mike Smith