New Media

Media has been defined as a communication channel through which messages, education, data, news, or entertainment are disseminated (Diamond, 21). Over the years, the use of media has been revolutionized with many people and organizations shifting from using “old media” to “new media”. This is because real media provides quick and real time information which is unfiltered and can be accessed by millions of people in a remarkably short period.

Therefore, many people and organizations prefer using new media so that they can have access to the most recent information which can be truly insightful and helpful in making quick and informed decisions. For example, during an electioneering period the use of new media helps citizens to monitor the progress and casting of votes online instead of having to wait until they are published. In this way, it is easy for one to establish the transformational phase of live television in regards to news and other programs. Given that live television captured the attention of people by the fact that it was reporting events that were happening, the same thing has been taken to the next level by reporting the news from where events are happening. Mobile television crews have taken the initiative to follow events and report from specific sites. With the levels of engagement the television reporting of news has transformed into, various brands of television programs have been discovered upon which they engage a vast majority of the audience.

In looking at one of the episodes of the documentary “Orwell Rolls in His Grave”. I will focus on the United States presidential election of 2000. This was a contest between Republican contestant George Bush, the son of former president George H.Bush and the democrat candidate Al Gore who was the Vice president then. The sitting President, Bill Clinton, was moving from office after serving the maximum two terms allowed. Bush closely won the election, with 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266 with one of the electors evading the official tally. This election was a controversy over the award of 25 electoral votes of Florida and a subsequent recount where the winning candidate received less of popular votes that the runners up (Skinner et al., 11). This was an election marked with a controversy in the history of the United States elections. It became clear that had the votes been counted based on later statements by the judge overseeing the recount, Gore could have been the winner of the US elections. The media became candid and put all efforts to give a non biased coverage of the whole controversy.

In this case, power can be related to spectacle and narcissism in regards to the particulate element in play. Placing media as that particulate element, power, spectacle and narcissism can be integrated in terms of their tangibility when it comes to audience diffusion. In terms of power, media has power over people and on the other hand, people have power over the media. It is interconnection between platforms and entities. This means that an entity makes up the audience upon which the media targets. Considering the fact that “liveness” of some media like the television is directly targeting the audience, the audience has the power to air its opinions on platforms like social sites or through short message service. In this case, the media, as powerful as it is, places more power to the audience by allowing it to participate in programming.

The connection between power and spectacle is brought up clearly by analyzing the platforms of the media that people use and purpose . Spectacle can mean the ability to see and be seen. In the media platforms like live TV and social media like Facebook and YouTube, people are able to interact with each other on various levels. The business elites, the political enthusiasts, and the entertainment organizations are able to stay close to their fans, customers and associates. In this case, Klinenberg, (59) discusses that the power given to these people by the media helps them to obtain spectacle status. Therefore, the ways people interact depict power to control what they need,and they are able to keep track of their significant aspects of life.

With power and spectacle joined together by the activities, audiences engage in and the personal pleasures they derive from them, it is noteworthy for a connection to be formed between the interests people serve and the mechanisms that push them to taking certain actions. In this case, the media does not necessarily dictate how people should behave but, people get the notion that the media requires them to behave in a particular manner. The relationship amongst, power, narcissism, and spectacle is effected by the fact that individuals use media as part of their everyday lives but on the other hand, they feel like the media is precisely looking over or dictating what they should do.

Media is a link between one entity and another; a communication channel that an information generator would use to serve information user. Audiences are not necessarily the people listening, watching, or reading; they can be the people who react to television shows, radio music, and newspaper articles. The fact that the world is changing to the digital era has not disqualified the viability of print media. Therefore, print media is part of media despite the fact that people cannot react to the articles immediately in magazines and newspapers. Typically, audiences use the media to get information, stay updated, and to critique their politicians. Theoretically, audiences use the media to stay connected with the happenings around the global village. Practically, audiences use the media to do everything. Audiences use the media to get medical assistance and to link up with their doctors, they use media to research on events and gain the knowledge, they broadcast their own programs and news, they use the media to stay in touch with loved ones and friends, and they use the media to influence the government’s take on various socioeconomic issues. The media is a link that provides audiences with various platforms and services that the audiences can react to in order to make the necessary change (power) in their lives.

In respect to the social lives that people adapt in terms of traditions and culture, mobile global publics provides both connectivity and disconnectivity in convergence terms of networks. This aspect of mobile global publics can be translated to coupling and decoupling in the way people interact with each other and the media they apply in the interactions. It is evident through the concept that publics are transforming to be more mobile through the increasing flexibility to slip from private to public modes of interaction and the possibilities of merging of new publics into existing tendencies as well as dissolving them into the system. It, therefore, means that the mobile global public’s concept is a theoretical approach that describes the mobility of publics from the initial ways of life to emerging transformational medium made possible by technology.

According to Dayan et al., (28) sensational news can be anything with respect to the entity at hand; however, mobile publics portray a certain class and age of audiences to be insatiable of sensational news. Klinenberg, (89) argues that there is a reason the fight for space has changed space to be more of a lifestyle rather than an element of war. Virtual space is one of the areas different people are fighting for, while others are using it to fight. Politics is a subject that is associated with dirty practice in terms of censoring and bullying media houses on what to report. In response to this problem, mobile publics has gained role to play in the quest for democracy. In this consideration, Skinner et al.,(48) argues that various individuals can now broadcast events that are precisely regarded as tormenting and publicly unviable to be aired by media houses. YouTube, although online based, is one of the platforms that mobile publics use to broadcast as a means of exercising democracy.

The telecommunication industry has enabled audiences to get in touch with their lives and events that happen around them. In this case, technological companies, on the other hand, make devices that can access the internet over cellular or Wi-Fi connections. According to Skinner et al.,(31)., it is not enough for the audience to keep in touch with the television; therefore, other platforms like the internet have been deployed, not only to interact with television but to make an impact on the world of live broadcasting and independence in reporting. Media houses and other news agencies not only use the digital media to get their news coverage, but also rely on their audiences to provide them with feedback, footage, and insight in regards to real time events. Currently, audiences can react to events more lively because of the channels available for transmission of feedback and footage. The way people interacted with television in the analog era has changed with the digital era; this is because, previously, audiences relied on television, but currently, television and audience rely on one another.

The interaction between television and audience takes place in a variety of platforms; amongst them, the internet and cellular networks. According to Diamond, (71), the interaction between television and the audience is made possible by the internet in airing television programs and using social media to keep in touch with the broadcasters”. Concerning the interaction between television and the audience, television production is controlled by likes, tastes, and preferences of the audience. Contradictory production, concerning the views of the audience, would have negative consumption.