The media convergence brings out the inclusion and interoperability through various devices of computer network . The current revolution in computing and communications shows that the use of the information and technology has progressed at a rapid pace. With the increase support in the power the usage of new information technologies has proven to be cost effective.
Now, the innovations in information and technology have effect around various sectors of society on issues such as economic productivity, intellectual property rights, privacy protection, and affordability of and access to information. People need to pay extra attention now as there will be some serious long lasting consequences that may affect social and economic sectors.
People are now engaged in new way of conducting business, via electronic commerce over the Internet. It can alter economic activities and social environment as its already seen to affect some major sectors such as communications, finance and retail trade and might expand to areas such as education and health services. The application of electronic commerce applies on business, market structure, workplace, labour market,
Despite its advantages, technological convergence comes with notable drawbacks. Due to the complexity of delivering internet, video and voice services, network providers must make necessarily expensive investments in computing, networks, security and continuous software development. These costs generally will be absorbed by consumers in the form of higher rates or service fees.
According to the Manuel Castells, network society is made of society that is made of networks powered by microelectronics based information and communication technologies. Castells thinks that the societies today are highly facilitated by networks. He thinks the information society as the revolutionary organizational structure of contemporary society, involving changes in the uses of time and space (Hamilton, 2002, p. 113).
As the technology advances, Castells observes the changes in the use of time and space. For instance one of the key aspect of social change is that of the farmers relying on nature to the onset of industrialization with factories and regulatory clock-time. Now, the people are more into less rigidity and more into increased flexibility, a veritable annihilation and de-sequencing of time. The sudden communication and global transactions were promising because things like life-cycle timings were becoming ordinary; reproduction and life expectancy. And it was all successful only due to the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs).
Space and time are the fundamental, material dimensions of human lives. Physicists have unveiled the complexity of such notions, beyond their fallacious intuitive simplicity. … superstring theory, the latest fashion in physics, advances the hypothesis of a hyperspace that articulates ten dimensions, including time (Castells 1996, p. 376).
The information network was seen as a new and revolutionary social form which contributed to factors such as the restructuring of capitalism, the increase of social movements, feminism and environmentalism and multiple others. It also influenced the globalization which links closely with the information society and networks theory. Castells sees networks as interconnecting nodes across geographical locations, used to an immediate advantage but disposed of when no longer beneficial. According to Castells these networks and ICTs have had such a significant impact on the reordering of time and space that a new societal form has emerged.
Castells also states that the impact of technology on a cultural level. The technology available within the home no longer flows one-way. Communication technologies facilitate interactivity and a wide range of information is streamed into the home, creating diversity and agency. These seemingly extensive changes are shown to impact society on a micro-level within the private sphere of the home. This, according to Castells and Thompson, is a characteristic of modernity (Mackay, 2002, p. 144).
One important way in which information technology is affecting work is by reducing the im- portance of distance. In many industries, the geographic distribution of work is changing significantly.
The rapid development of technology in recent years has definitely changed our lifestyle, that we now live in an ‘information society’. We can easily communicate and spread message with people via a phone, television, computer and many other devices without no restriction of time and space. It has helped in the growth of global markets to promote efficiency over competition and the division of labour and open doors to diversified and larger markets around the world. Through which the people get access to more capital, technology, cheaper imports and larger exports. In today’s world the generation Y rely heavily on knowledge and information as the economic core unlike the agriculture and manufacturing back in the days. Technology ensures great flow of information hence better quality of communication. Hence, having a global network has proven to be one of the best invention the people.
In traditional utopias, the abundance has generally been of food, treasure, or other property. The closest equivalents for the Internet are the bits of culture, creativity, and scholarship that fall under the protection of copyright. This includes most static resources on the Internet: Web pages, software code, journal articles, photos, movies, songs, etc. The Internet and any form of digital technology solve the problem of resource scarcity for resources that can be expressed digitally by enabling the copy and transfer of intellectual property at little to no cost, creating abundance. For example, I can send a copy of an essay to a friend, and then we will both have a copy of the paper at no cost. Similarly, the friend could send my paper to hundreds or thousands of people who will all then have the paper at no cost.
This accounts for much of the Internet’s utopian potential but also creates a great deal of tension between the ideals of the Internet, the reality of common property, and business interests with competing traditional intellectual property rights claims. That is, those who make money by creating and selling pieces of digitized intellectual property are being directly confronted by the practice of unauthorized copying and dissemination of that property by Internet users and the diminishing revenue that results.
The core element of global network is the expansion of world trade through the reduction of the trade barriers such as import tariffs. With the greater imports the consumers get wide range variety of good in cheaper prices while still supporting the local domestic industries to maintain the competition. Similarly, the developing nations doing the exports also create an economic growth as the exports creates job opportunities by doing a business beyond their nations.
However, there are some drawbacks led by the global network which is mostly led by Western transnational media corporations such as the impact the on the society, culture, political views etc. For instance, as the cyberspace doesn’t have much restrictions so you can easily get access tom other people’s personal information, digital footprint, websites which may lead to several dangers as the data gets exposed. There is a risk of cyberbullying, getting virus on your device, and risk of getting hacked all due to the lack of privacy.
Our very first lecture topic was on telegraph and let me tell you this, before joining the programme I had a clue of what telegraph was and honestly speaking I wasn’t very thrilled about it. But as our lecturer Kat began talking about it, I got curious to learn more about it. Since I like reading about history and about how things have evolved so much in the past few years, I was interested to know more about it.
In today’s world, we are all aware of the power of technology and how easy it is to spread and exchange information in a matter of time through various social media apps no matter how far you are from each other. However, life wasn’t always this easy and simple especially back in 90s people had to go through various troubles to pass a message or to communicate. So how did people manage to communicate then? It was through a device known as the Telegraph. I bet some of you are thinking what is telegraph? Well, at least that’s what I asked myself when I heard about it the very first time. If so, worry not, allow me to take you on a journey to back in the 19th century to run you down through the telegraph history.
What is telegraph? Developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Samuel Morse (1791-1872) and other inventors the telegraph is a communications system which transmits the information over a wire through a series of electrical current pulses, usually in the form of Morse code which assigned a set of dots and dashes to each letter of the English alphabet and allowed for the simple transmission of complex messages across telegraph lines. The term telegraph comes from the Greek words “tele,” meaning “at a distance” and “graphien,” meaning “to write.” First of all, the telegraph was most commonly used by the military to communicate with the commanders during the battlefield and generate strategies quicker and act faster.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse, 1840
Morse’s original design of the single-wire telegraph
The biblical text Message transmitted to inaugurate the first U.S. telegraph line on 24 May 1844.
Samuel Morse and the investors of the Telegraph
Next, it was also used by the French government to keep control of the provinces and to communicate with people from further distances. It was also popular with newspaper industries as the telegraph helped deliver more UpToDate news. The workload lessened and delivering news was more efficient and suddenly people were interested in far-off places and the news. Although the telegraph had fallen out of widespread use by the start of the 21st century, replaced by the telephone, fax machine and Internet, it laid the groundwork for the communications revolution that led to those later innovations.
A military world transformed by the Telegraph
Female workers at printing company
Looking now to 21st century, with access to an abundance of information, and all the electronic devices around us we practically live in a technology and media-suffused environment. Now, everything can be done in a matter of time. For example; you can watch movies from your smartphones or laptops, you can shop online without having to get out of your bed. Communication has come far from handwritten letters delivered by horses to texting, emails or just calling via smartphones/ devices.
All in all, life has become more comfortable and its all thanks to the telegraph because if it wasn’t for the telegraph we might not have been able to experience this luxurious life. I am honestly blown away by how smart people are to come up with such inventions and super excited to see the other magnificent inventions that are going to occur in coming days.
To give you a quick rundown of the shows that I will be looking into, the format involves around 30 women standing behind a podium with light as the suitors (men) roll out to the stage one by one. If the female contestants think they’re hot, they keep their lights on or if they think they’re bummer, they buzz out.
Well, I am pretty sure that listening to the format it might start to sound a little familiar to some of you guys out there. If so then it’s because I am talking about the notorious dating game show If You Are the Onefrom China. But did you know that some people argue that If you are the one is a recycled version of boomed Australian dating show called Taken Outreleased a decade ago? The original format was developed in Australia starring James Kerley as the host but the show could not survive the other game show competitions and was axed merely after few episodes of its release.
But surprisingly, the show managed to find its success overseas to several other markets airing globally in the in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Philippines, America, Sweden, Indonesia, Japan, Spain, Finland, Thailand, Germany, Italy, France, Malaysia, Taiwan, Canada (Quebec) and Lebanon and so on.
So what makes the Chinese version more successful and why does it have a bigger appeal to the audience?
According to Robbie Stanley-Smith one of the contestant from If You Are the One, the Australian show Taken Out, is generally light-hearted and casual where the matched couples are set off for a date. The date is usually filmed and the result is shown on the next week’s episode. However on the Chinese show, If You Are the One, the matched couples are given an all cost-paid, camera free, sponsorship trip where the results are not shown the following week unlike in Taken Out.. The show seems to emphasise in a long term arrangement, with many of the questions revolving around the topic of marriage.
Even the name of the show in Chinese 非诚勿扰; ( Fēi chéng wù rǎo) means “serious inquiries only”, the phrase emphasises the cultural difference.
SBS presenter Jan Ryan asked her audiences to give out their reasons for liking If You Are the One. The answers were highly instructive and interesting such as ‘addictive’ and ‘like an episode of The Hunger Games’; the audiences definitely loved the ‘sheer honesty’ of the contestants, as the women ‘show the brutal side of love’, ‘the humorous host’ etc.
The viewers also enjoy watching it because it shows that unlike in the outside world the tables have turned and it’s in favour of the women, now they call the shots. Despite the show being savage, heart-breaking, and strangely feminist, they are hooked through the humiliating experiences of the male contestants, thereby also celebrate the courage those who do not fear public rejection.
To sum up everything, I think the Chinese version has managed to make it internationally because of the contestants as they are presented to be brutally honest, convincing and appealing to a global audience. It shows a different side of the Chinese media than that of we are usually exposed to. Moreover, unlike in the outside world, the tables have turned and it’s in favour of the women, now they call the shots.
If You Are the One has definitely helped benefit China’s public diplomacy and soft power agenda as it recorded the overseas edition using Australian participants or participants who are foreigners studying or working in China. According to Jiangsu Television’s statistics, foreign participants from more than thirty countries across six continents have appeared on the show. The involvement of foreigners shows the growing attraction of Chinese culture and language as well as helps to portray an open, inclusive better image of Chinese society.
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