History Essay

The foundational technical development selected for this essay is the development of digital media. Media’s technological development has continued, albeit numerous hiccups, for quite some time. In recent years though, the protocols, infrastructure, and encoding technologies have been put in place to facilitate faster, more reliable, higher bandwidth dissemination of digital media than before. We now receive information and data in seconds thanks to mobile broadband, high bandwidth internet, workplace connections, and wireless networks, which have become far more commonplace. This technological development has changed the way society communicates: making the communication process fast and efficient. Before, it would take days for information to reach the intended recipients, and now, it only takes seconds for the same to happen.

Research and development of digitized content, such as audio, video, graphics and text transmittable via the internet and other computer networks, started when problems became synonymous with analogue media. In the earlier days, communication was restricted, as there were a limited number of sources of information. Newspaper and magazine publishers would control information dissemination. With the advent of computers and the internet, digital media was born (Palfrey and Gasser, 2008). People started using computers to store information and with the internet, they started exchanging information hence multiple sources of information. The changing of analogue data into digital data saw the birth of what is now called “digital media”.

This technological development is foundational because it is the centre of communication. Digital media has been present in the world for a while but has constantly improved. Digital media invention has made it easier and faster for the world to communicate despite the physical distances involved. This means more people can present the news from TV, newspapers or magazines in web pages for viewership. This is revolutionizing how the way the world communicates and how information is circulated. Nowadays, people can even fast-forward through television commercials and watch television shows online.

Digital media is very much still in use and is actually being advocated for, as it is this generation’s medium of communication. Digital media keeps undergoing further development with the changes in the protocols, infrastructure, and encoding technologies, which affect all media. In addition, the mobile broadband, high bandwidth internet connections and the wireless network have improved the quality and efficiency of digital media. The use of digital media in the entertainment industry is an evidence of the progress. More people are downloading music via iTunes than buying CDs (Pavlik, 2008). Other developments that have spun off the development of digital media are the social media websites, which are now a big thing in the world. Websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ have grown because of the possibility of people sharing information and videos via computer and the internet.

The positive consequences of digital media include the culmination of fast communication and quality data being sent and received all over the world. Moreover, digital media has reduced cultural boundaries because many people from different parts of the world keep sharing information and communicating via social media. Digital media has negative effects. One is the loss of jobs in the media industry because computers and the internet will effectively be doing the jobs of hundreds of media specialists. In addition, the entertainment industry is losing millions of dollars every year because of illegal downloading of music and movies via websites.

In conclusion, the good of digital media out-weighs the bad; hence, it is arguable that digital media, as a technological development, is a positive one that is aiding globalization. Digital media continues to show the relevance of the internet with even books being available, free on the internet.