Modern technology and new media are transforming the society, its way of life and communication patterns. Neill Postman statement that ‘technology becomes a culture’ is true because modern man cannot live and perform effectively without new technologies and new media. The society should surrender to technology because it will not be able to function and grow without these changes and innovations.
New media and technology fasten information interchange. If two centuries ago, it took a month to two to deliver important news from one countries to the other, today it takes a second to transmit any information via the Internet or satellite technology. For instance, news is a powerful force for us all socially. The war in the Balkans is far from the first time that the brutal realities of life-the death and atrocities and moral uncertainties of any conflict-have become semiotic as well as visceral. Iraq was has been both a deathly fight between the signified (conflicting ideologies, ethnic groupings, beliefs, most importantly weapons and soldiers). New media and technology allow global society to view and understand political changes and conflicts in these countries and respond to global violence and misbehavior of some nations. In the Internet era we can all read first-person reports from all sides of the argument. We can enjoy Out There News, the award winning web site, and hear different voices (Jenkins 23).
People around the world are now increasingly aware of a counter culture-not in the 1960s sense of anti-establishment, mass politicized revolution-but of world views which do not necessarily find a voice in the mainstream media, or in our local media. They can find news and information and decide to believe in them, or not. Lots of newspapers did-they used the stories coming through the Internet as fact; just as they all use CNN or BBC World to ‘see’ the stories; to add to their editorial packages. the society should surrender to technology because it allows everyone sort of knows that news and information is relative, dependant on belief, public opinion, aggressive marketing. Technology improves communication between people and makes their life easier and more pleasant. It frees society from waiting for a morning newspaper or evening news. New media allows people to find online news and read any information from all over the world. More fundamentally, this vision posited a universal network of individuals connected and communicating and sating individual needs and desires through the ether. New media creates a community of people (Jenkins 239). This view is already a common-place descriptor of ‘net heads’, heavy consumers of the new media. Technology connects the centre and the periphery and allows people belong to many communities.
The society should surrender to technology because technology bring the new media and the IT revolution into the cannon of the old values and ineffective ways of communication, to explain in lovely books with lousy advances a new medium in terms of the previous new boys-television, radio, video etc. The market is intolerant of time wasting; there is not enough time to read out of date research. So society needs to get closer to technology, needs to be faster and easier in use. It needs to have an interactive relationship with the purveyors of information, of ideas, of retail. It needs to have a long-term strategy for its research.
Works Cited
Jenkins, H. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide NYU Press, 2006.