Punjab Technical University
BSCMCAJ-602
Contemporary Media Technology SEMESTER 6
Study Material for PTU Students
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN MEDIA WORLD Mass communication and Journalism is institutionalized and source specific. It functions through well-organized professionals and has an ever increasing interlace. Mass media has a global availability and it has converted the whole world in to a global village. A qualified journalism professional can take up a job of educating, entertaining, informing, persuading, interpreting, and guiding. Working in print media offers the opportunities to be a news reporter, news presenter, an editor, a feature writer, a photojournalist, etc. Electronic media offers great opportunities of being a news reporter, news editor, newsreader, programme host, interviewer, cameraman, producer, director, etc. Other titles of Mass Communication and Journalism professionals are script writer, production assistant, technical director, floor manager, lighting director, scenic director, coordinator, creative director, advertiser, media planner, media consultant, public relation officer, counselor, front office executive, event manager and others.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology
PTUDEP SYLLABUI-BOOK MAPPING TABLE Contemporary Media Technology ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Syllabi. Mapping -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CONVENTIONAL MEDIA SCENARIO Unit 1 Pages 1-21 (Radio, TV & Newspaper). 2. NEW INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES: Need and Cultural contexts.
Unit 2 Pages 22-38
3. IT & INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Unit 3 Pages 38-51 4. MOVING ON DIGITAL ERA: Unit 4 Pages 51-68 What is Digitalization? Internet < E-Commerce, Broadcasting, Cable TV, Video Technology Impact of TV Digital Media & Entertainment Technology Telecommunication Revolution New Technological Devices New Communication Revolution 5. GLOBALISATION PROCESS: Cultural Globalization Perspective, globalization
Summery
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Unit 5 Pages 68-85 Impact
of
Pages 85-87
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology
CONTNET THE CONVENTIONAL MEDIA SCENARIO (Radio, TV & Newspaper). 2. NEW INFORMATION OMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES: Need and Cultural contexts. 3. IT & INFORMATION MANAGEMENT 4. MOVING ON DIGITAL ERA: What is Digitalization?, Internet < ECommerce, Broadcasting, Cable TV, Video Technology, Impact of TV, Digital Media & Entertainment Technology, Telecommunication Revolution, New Technological Devices, New Communication Revolution 5. GLOBALISATION PROCESS: Cultural Globalization Perspective, Impact of globalization Summery Questions for Practice Suggested Readings
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Pages 1-21 Pages 22-38
Pages 38-51 Pages 51-68
Pages 68-85
Page 85-87 Pages 87-88 Page 88
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology
INTRODUCTION This book covers the contemporary Media technologies and information technology. Media Technologies are both evolutionary and revolutionary. With newer technological innovations replacing the old technologies, the Mass Communication scenario is changing at a very fast pace. This course intends to acquaint the students with the contemporary media technology. The topics in the book deal with the conventional media scenario. The students will learn the new information communication technologies. The book also covers IT & information management. In recent years, the word telecommunications has been used so often, and applied in so many situations, that it has become part of our daily lexicon. So, learning about moving on digital era is also necessary, which will be covered in the book. Globalization has immensely changed the present media scenario and thus the book deals with the impact of globalization on the media.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology
SYLLABUS Contemporary Media Technology Objective: Media Technologies are both evolutionary and revolutionary. With newer technological innovations replacing the old technologies, the Mass Communication scenario is changing at a very fast pace. This course intends to acquaint the students with the contemporary media technology. Contents: 1. THE CONVENTIONAL MEDIA SCENARIO (Radio, TV & Newspaper). 2. NEW INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES: Need and Cultural contexts. 3. IT & INFORMATION MANAGEMENT. 4. MOVING ON DIGITAL ERA: What is Digitalization? Internet < E-Commerce, Broadcasting, Cable TV, Video Technology Impact of TV Digital Media & Entertainment Technology Telecommunication Revolution New Technological Devices New Communication Revolution 5. GLOBALISATION PROCESS: Cultural Globalization Perspective, Impact of globalization
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology
CONTEMPORARY MEDIA TECHNOLOGY OBJECTIVES
To know about the conventional media scenario To learn about new information communication technologies To know more about IT & information management. To know the procedure of moving on to the digital era
INTRODUCTION
Our world is undergoing significant changes and the bland are leading the blind. Politicians speak in sound bites while newspaper headlines compress the complexities of the world into clichés. Ours is a world in which television talk-show hosts have replaces political commentators as the principal interlocutors of prime ministerial and presidential aspirations at election time, and a world where sleaze have triumphed over sophistication in the media. Politics and public information about it is increasingly ‘packaged’ for ready consumption in a manner more akin to entertainment than instruction or information- hence the advent of a new word ‘infotainment’. Live television brings the dramatic doings of the globe into our living rooms instantaneously. It is a fast world, with fast morals and fast media and seemingly vast problem. On the surface, such phenomena as tabloid journalism and ‘real-time’ television are harmless attempts to explain a complicated world full of complex issues in a manner which helps the public to understand them better, and in an entertaining and exciting manner, so that informed decisions can be made about the collective well-being. As such, it could be argued modern journalism serves the public well as a force for their democratic ‘right to know’, imparting news and information in ways, which serve their democratic ‘need to know’. World events demand better, fuller and more conceptualized reporting than they currently receive. So, does an informed citizenship in an increasingly globalize world. Reducing foreign news coverage to an alleged ‘lowest common denominator’ may well in fact be a recipe for over-simplification to the point of serious distortion and misunderstanding. In reality, does the practice of covering world events in twelve column inches or a three-minute news segment encourage prejudice rather 7 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology than empathy, national pride rather than international harmony, and emotional rather than rational judgment? UNIT 1.
CONVENTIONAL MEDIA SCENARIO- Radio, TV & Newspaper The present era of media convergence demands knowledge and expertise across a diverse range of media technologies and systems. We live at a moment when every important idea, story, brand, image, sound and relationship is apt to travel across every available channel of communication. This spread of media content is fuelled top-down by the consolidation of media industry and bottom-up by popular access to new tools of grassroots media production and distribution. Yet, there is no moment in human history when a single medium operated in isolation. Each medium has its own affordances, its own market, and its own cultural status. These different media interact with each other to constitute the communication environment. Different media interact differently with people across the world. Nowadays we are confronted with the immense density of information and media technologies, which has an impact on our consuming behavior, and our senses and cognition. Our senses and cognition are affected through audio and visual, written and pictured forms for example of infotainment, newstainment and docutainment. There are several ways of getting information: - Newspapers and magazines, - Television, radio, internet, and last but not least - SMS The greater the variety of information channels, the greater the challenge to select the way of getting information. 1.1. Radio Radio is the transmission of signals, by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space. Information is carried by systematically changing (modulating) some property of the radiated waves, such as amplitude, frequency, 8 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology or phase. When radio waves pass an electrical conductor, the oscillating fields induce an alternating current in the conductor. This can be detected and transformed into sound or other signals that carry information. The radio communication is based on the audio technique. The challenge of the audio technique is two-sided: the communicators have to catch the attention of the audience, the recipients have to keep focusing on the spoken word. Therefore the main requirement for the communicators of the radio -news is to complete the task of providing the information to the recipient and to secure the “remembrance” effect. Media-sciences define several concepts of communication. Lasswell explained the process of communication and the effects of media in simple words “WHO says WHAT in WHICH channel TO WHOM with WHAT EFFECT?” Guglielmo Marconi of Italy invented a way to transmit sound without using wires. By 1901, Marconi succeeded in creating a wireless communication link between Europe and North America. In 1906, Lee Forest with John Fleming perfected the ‘audion’ or the vacuum tube, which made clear transmission of voice and music possible. These developments paved the way for the first ever broadcast that took place on Christmas Eve, in 1906 in USA. Later it took ten years of hard work to perfect the radio. Radio established its place very fast in the minds of listeners. Heavy doses of infotainment including music, drama, talk shows, etc supplemented with news made radio popular overnight. Soon radio industry developed wide spreading networks and by the 1930’s radio became prime mass medium. Radio broadcasting 9 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology was introduced in India by amateur radio clubs in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Lahore, though even before the clubs launched their ventures, several experimental broadcasts were conducted in Bombay. 1.1.1. Radio programmes may be classified into two broad groups 1. Spoken word programmes, which include news bulletins, talks, discussions, interviews, educational programmes for schools and colleges, specific audience programmes directed at women, children, rural and urban listeners, drama, radio features and documentaries. 2. Music programmes, which include disc jockey programmes, musical performances of all types and variety programmes. 1.1.2. Strength of the Radio 1. Radio reaches messages to illiterates, neo-literates and highly educated receivers simultaneously. 2. It is a fairly affordable to be owed by everyone. 3. The want of visual effect is compensated by sound effects, both natural and mechanical and so live effect is moderately high. The quality of voice and sound makes the communication fairly enjoyable. 4. Musical sound effect enlivens the communication and often breaks monotony. 5. It has the capacity to deliver instantaneous messages. 6. Radio does not require captivity. Listeners can receive messages even when they are working. Farmer may listen to farm programmes while working in fields, a busy executive may listen to news bulletin even while driving or a housewife may listen to her favorite programme even while working in the kitchen. 7. Radio does not require power line for operation and so people in remote villages devoid of power lines can also receive messages from this medium. 8. Once a transistor radio is purchased, messages flow constantly and no cost is involved for reception of messages. 1.1.3.Weakness of the Radio 1. Communication through radio lacks visual component and so does not demonstrate but suggests.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology 2. Spoken messages are subject to interpretation of listeners according to their imagination, experience and predisposition; hence possibility of misinterpretation is very high. 3. Listeners need lot of imagination and therefore understanding of message depends largely on the characteristics of the receivers. 4. Communication is time limited and presents tiny fragments of topics in a haphazard mosaic. The medium has also limitations because of its audio nature. 5. Receivers cannot put off listening parts of message for subsequent listening at their convenience. 1.2.Future of Radio Radio’s future is a mystery. It is not easy to predict the future of radio. The future of radio would depend on changing regulatory scenarios, technological developments and change of listener’s appeal. Radio’s current localization and specialized programming will continue. Technologically, radio transmission will improve greatly. FM will continue to grow faster and bigger. Radio listeners have indeed grown manifold, and the network is expanding a great deal and now it offers a daily service for many hours transmitting news, comments, songs, music, comedies, and thrillers, sports, besides special programmes for children, youth and farmers. One of the best advantages that radio has over other media is that it can serve and entertain an audience, which is otherwise occupied. For example, people can listen to it while working at home, in the fields and factories and even while traveling. Radio communication is relevant for different stages of the news selection: i.e. attention, pre-knowledge, attitudes, feelings, motivation, hearing- ability, recall-strategies. Communicator: Is a person or a group of people, who chooses messages, produces, and spreads these messages. Communicator has the intention of declaring something by shaping, selecting and controlling this process. Communicators are therefore called gatekeepers. Message: It is everything what the communicator is sending through a medium to the recipient. Its meaning is transmitted by symbols and signals, which are producing or stimulating psychological and social processes of the recipient. A medium is a material transporter of these meanings, symbols and signals. 11 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology Recipient: Is a human being who receives the news, demander or user of the information, and the partner of communicators. Some scientist make the difference between recipients who “decode” a message in connection with “understanding” and the others who just receive that message 1.3. Radio– the Challenging Media Nowadays radio is the most accessible information channel in the world. According to one classic definition radio is a mass medium is transferring only acoustics and signals, it is connected to time and fix-broadcasting-dates, radio is brief (every information-sequence is broadcasted one time), radio can be independent of spaces, it can potentially be received from everyone at the same time. What is further making radio interesting for is, that the imagination of spoken language is often abstract – it is not easy to “imagine” in pictures. That’s why it can be said, that radio is rather a concentrating media – as far as the recipient is motivated to consume information broadcasted on the radio. The spoken word has a longer during effect, then motioned pictures. It said that the thought (spoken) word is even not imaginable in pictures. That’s probably why listening news and information on radio is an act of concentration, rather than an act of distraction. Writing for hearing existed already in the Middle Ages - what is left today is, the speaker has to have personal and speaking-performance-skills and sometimes also acting skills. The basic rule of writing for the audience is to create a pronounceable message for the communicator in order to transmit it the most understandable way to the audience, not to produce as many information as possible in the shortest period of time. For the remembrance it is necessary to activate the 3 elements: media-factors, as well as situation and recipient-factors. According to the studies, all these factors are not equally important for the process of remembrance: Remembrance or recall of radio-news is dependent of the items, but also of the position of the news-information: it seems to be much easier to remember the first news-information. Speaking about different items is also positively influencing the recall and the remembrance. The broadcasting should be supported by commentaries, repetition and previews like teaser and bumper. 12 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology Formal media factors like Original tones, headlines and sound-elements are not directly and strongly influencing the remembrance. From the recipient’s point of view, remembering the news depend more on the interest, motivation and previous knowledge. Finally there are some indications that the daytime, the activities, like driving car or relaxing in the sofa, and the background-acoustics are influencing the process of remembrance. Throughout the time the radio has not very much changed the technique, but it has broadened the audience. Radio has become a mass-media and it has maintained the role of information provider. The radio-broadcasting today is even the most accessible information channel in the world. And it even can be used as a “weapon” against misunderstanding and disinformation. 1.4. Television Television (TV) is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic ("black and white") or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission. Commercially available since the late 1930s, the television set has become a common communications receiver in homes, businesses and institutions, particularly as a source of entertainment and news. Since the 1970s the availability of video cassettes, laserdiscs, DVDs, have resulted in the television set frequently being used for viewing recorded as well as broadcast material. A standard television set comprises multiple internal electronic circuits, including those for tuning and decoding broadcast signals. A display device which lacks a tuner is properly called a monitor, rather than a television. A television system may use different technical standards such as digital television (DTV) and highdefinition television (HDTV). Television systems are also used for surveillance, industrial process control, and guiding of weapons, in places where direct observation is difficult or dangerous. Unlike other forms of mass media, television has become one of the most powerful media of Mass communication. With a modest beginning in the 1930s, it has grown into a massive network of mass information and mass entertainment in today’s world. The attraction of the ‘visual ness’ of the medium makes people remain glued to the TV set for hours. Television captures our imagination and is 13 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology the most complete and dramatic of all mass media. In addition to providing news and events, television also packages fiction, drama, culture, economy and many other things. Thus, this idiot box (because it provides everything on a platter and we need not do any thinking) has been increasing its hold on us. 1.4.1. History of Television The inventions and discoveries in the late 1990s and early twentieth century, which gave us radio, films and the telephone, also lead to the invention of the television. Vladimir Zworykin, an American scientist, who developed an all-electronic television system in 1923 and perfected it by 1928, took the first big step in the development of TV. However, only experimental TV broadcasts were conducted in the early days. In 1938, TV sets became widely available and since then there is no looking back. In India, television arrived with small scale experimental telecasting from Delhi in 1959. Slowly the half hour programme experiment grew. While Doordarshan was the only channel available through 1980, the TV in India has completely changed with the arrival of private TV channels. 1.4.2. Strength and weakness of Television It has all the strength of radio except that it needs captive audience, has not attained portability and miniaturization and needs power line for inexpensive working. TV viewing is essentially a family affair and so helps family unity. It is far from slow and availability is constant. Repetition of message does not gain expense except nominal fees for cable connections. Television like radio, is in all sense a ‘now’ medium. Television gives cursory overview of the events and is never capable of providing in-depth analysis and reporting. It is severely time limited and presents tiny fragments of topics. Television programmes skip and jumps demands constant change of mental gears from programmes to commercial, from documentary to cartoon and news. Also contents are high in entertainment and low in information. Power line is needed for its inexpensive operation and battery operated television sets are most expensive. 1.5.Films Films refer to all documentary, educational, feature, informational and advertisement cinemas. A film is considered a mass medium because it reaches to a very large audience. It is not as immediate as newspaper, television or radio, but reaches a large number of people over a long period of time. Film does not have a well-defined audience like other major mass media. It also lacks the overwhelming 14 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology presence as enjoyed by radio, TV and newspapers, etc. but still it has one very big advantage that is it commands attention. Once inside the darkened theatres, audience members forget the outside world and become captive to the charm of the film. The larger than life format of film (from 16mm, 35mm, 70mm, cinema scope to the most recent I-max format) provides the film producer absolute control over emphasis, order of presentation, continuity, dramatic effect and timing. Thus, film has become a superb medium of entertainment, instruction and persuasion. When individual photographs or visuals are shown one after the other at a very fast rate, then we get an illusion of motion or movement. Cinema works on the principles of ‘persistence of vision’, which means that the eye retains an image for fleeting seconds after it is gone. Efforts had started very early to create illusion of motion. Many devices were invented for this purpose. Long back Leonardo da Vinci developed the camera obscura. In 1671, Kircher developed the ‘magic lanterns’. Photography and projection were united when Stanford developed the ‘Zoopraxinoscope’. Soon Thomas Alva Edison invented the electric bulb and many other such developments took place. Then came the Lumiere brothers who produced and started having commercial shows of short shoot and show films. Soon others followed and by the beginning of the 20th century, film became the second mass medium after newspapers. Very soon films became a form of family entertainment. Movie theaters opened everywhere and people wanted to see more interesting contents. So feature films came into existence. The combination of all these factors made cinema a booming industry. Film has had an enormous impact on the audiences. One reason is it is not imposed. It does not come to us and instead we go to theatres to watch films. Usually the films deal with universal themes so language barrier is minimal and we can thoroughly enjoy film of another language if we like the theme. India is in fact the largest producer of feature films in the world. Commercial cinema is all glamour and fantasy. The usual ingredients are sex, songs, dances, crime, fights, melodrama, and comedy, all bordering on unreality. Then also, these films set trends in styles and tastes, dominate the popular radio and television entertainment programmes, provide spicy reading material for film magazines, which are published in large numbers. 1.5.1. Strength and weakness Cinemas are replica of dramas in natural settings and so influence audience. Even myths are depicted as if they are real. Cinema is an audio-visual medium and is 15 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology rich in live effect and demonstrates as well as suggests. Details are extensive through sound, music, visual effects, and skillful production, editing and roleplaying. Dramatization of the presentation sets tempo and mood of the audience. And most significant attribute of film is that it reaches messages to illiterates, neo literates, and moderately educated and highly educated people having basic visual literacy. Selection of sets and props in films sometimes confuse the audience, makes the communication abstract and creates misunderstanding. Crime and obscene adversely affect the society and so realistic censorship is required for the welfare of the society. Cost of exposure is moderately high especially in case of commercial cinema. 1.5.2.Future of films
In its century old existence cinema has faced few shakes ups. First it was television. Skeptics thought no one would watch films in theatres, as so much was available on television within the comforts of one’s home. But soon it was found that TV depends too heavily on films and films form a considerable part of TV programming. Then came videocassettes! Now it is videodiscs. These eliminate the necessity of “going out” to the theatres to be entertained. But the fact that cinema is thriving proves that mass media share a symbiotic relationship and are not mutually 16 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology destructive. Of course, cinema is not sitting idle. It is facing the threat posed by other media head-on. Highly decorated theatre halls complete with shopping complexes, are now attracting more audience. Multiplexes, like PVR Delhi are another way of film fighting back. Then there are 70 mm and cinemascope. Faster frame rate is another novelty. Hollywood has started delivering films to theatre halls over satellite. Another recent innovation is the I-max screens, which are ten times larger than the traditional 35 mm screen. Dolby stereo system, 16-track recording, etc. also have added more allure to films. Interactive films, where audience member can have a say about how a film should end, is another novel way of attracting more audience. So it can be safely concluded that film, as a medium of entertainment and communication and as an industry, would continue to grow and hold an important part in our social system. 1.6.Newspapers By 2000 B.C., papyrus plants were made into watery pulp, pressed into long rolls, dried, and then inscribed with hand-written symbols. In the first century A.D., parchment began to replace papyrus. The use of animal material made possible folding and stitching of the writing surface, thus making rudimentary bound books with heavy wooden covers possible for the first time. The Chinese used a combination of vegetables materials including bark, rags, and husks to make the first true papers for artistic purposes. The making of paper spread to Europe during the Middle Ages, where monks to inscribe Biblical material used it. Handwritten books became available to the very rich, but the arduous task of copying precluded wide dissemination of written material.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology
Though the Chinese were engaged in printing before Johann Gutenberg’s first efforts in 1450, Gutenberg is associated with ‘invention’ of printing because he brought the various printing technologies together in a way that made quality reproduction of books and pamphlets possible with greater speed and lower costs. Gutenberg’s techniques prevailed for centuries. Even after the evolution of highspeed rotary presses, and, still later, electronic photo-offset techniques that rendered raised metal printing obsolete, Gutenberg’s basic concepts survived. Today, some specialized printing is still performed on flatbed presses modeled after Gutenberg’s. Ironically, Gutenberg died a personal failure and his son-in-law Johann Fust actually carried out the printing operations that made Gutenberg famous. These printing operations further ignited the imagination of others, who set up similar presses and gave birth to the craft of printing in Europe. Guilds of craftsmen controlled production in the mid-fifteenth century, and the acceptance of printing, as a recognized craft was another step in the printing ‘revolution’. Today we understand that information can fuel revolution. But when printing was first introduced, no one could understand what changes it would work on society. An Englishman, William Caxton, learned from the European craftsmen and set up his country’s first printing press in 1476. Caxton is credited with printing the first 18 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology books in English, but he did so only at the pleasure of the rulers and the patronage of the wealthy. Thus, as printing spread in England, it was carefully controlled. The first printing press to cross the Atlantic went not to the British colonies, but to the Mexico City, where the Spanish archbishop authorized the printing of religious works beginning in 1539. A mere 20 years after the Pilgrims landed in the colonies, bringing their bibles with them, the first printing press at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was used to publish Bay Psalm Book. The audience for books was limited by common illiteracy, the small size of the colonial population and little leisure time among the first settlers. Early publishers, conceded in Boston, Philadelphia and New York were not concerned with the masses, which had neither the education nor the money for books. The laboring class was not encouraged to read, nor were many of the settlers who pushed westward. It was more than a century after the first press was in operation the books finally became popular medium in the United States of America. Franklin is credited with establishing the first subscription library scheme. The best book collection is early America was assembled by Thomas Jefferson - a collection that provided the foundation for the library of congress. By the 1850s, books were being written by American authors for consumption by a mass audience. By the 1950s, the boom in paperback sales had begun, and today the majority of books sold in the United States are soft cover. Among the areas of specialized book publishing today are the reference books, professional book, textbooks, children books, technical, law or medical books, entertainment, religious or hobby books. A newspaper is a regularly scheduled publication containing news, information, and advertising, usually printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007 there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world (including 1456 in the U.S.) selling 395 million copies a day (55 million in the U.S). The worldwide recession of 2008, combined with the rapid growth of web-based alternatives, caused a serious decline in advertising and circulation, as many papers closed or sharply retrenched operations. General-interest newspapers typically publish stories on local and national political events and personalities, crime, business, entertainment, society and sports. Most traditional papers also feature an editorial page containing editorials written by an editor and columns that express the personal opinions of writers. Other features include display and classified advertising, comics, and inserts from local 19 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology merchants. The newspaper is typically funded by paid subscriptions and advertising. A wide variety of material has been published in newspapers, including editorial opinions, criticism, persuasion and op-eds; obituaries; entertainment features such as crosswords, sudoku and horoscopes; weather news and forecasts; advice, food and other columns; reviews of movies, plays and restaurants; classified ads; display ads, editorial cartoons and comic.
UNIT-2. NEW INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
2.1. What is New Media?
New media technology is any type of application meant to transfer information via digital techniques, computerized systems or data networks. First established in the 20th century, new media technology is most readily associated with information transfers meant to be manipulated in some way. Most forms of this 20 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology technology are interactive and contain compressed data designed to be accessed in a variety of markets. The most prevalent examples of new media technologies include Internet-based concepts like websites or digital mediums such as CD-ROMs and DVDs. Anything that is considered old media, such as television, film or paper-based products, are not part of new media. The concept for new media technology got its start in the 1960s. With the rise of modern computer technology, the idea of information exchange through the medium became a powerful application. Artists and designers worked to bring new concepts to fruition such as digital-based artwork and video games. These technologies became highly prevalent in the 1980s, slowly replacing traditionally media, primarily through the implementation of personal computers and video game systems. This was also supported by publishing methods that allowed for easier image manipulation techniques and online publications. According to new media technology standards, certain commonalities exist between all types of modern mediums. Geographic distance is compromised due to the fact that the technology can be utilized in nearly every market around the world. The level and speed of communication is increased because of the ability of the new media arena to utilize the Internet. Additionally, the interactive level of information exchange allows users to adapt to new methodologies while supplying their own input. Also, previously isolated forms of communication, such as video and telephony, can be merged together using new media technology. Business has increased dramatically in certain markets due to the onset of new media technology. Two-way dialogue about products, facilitated by the technology, helps marketers and producers find ways to better offer consumers what they want. Ideas such as interactive advertising promote new venues for products to reach a wider marketplace. For example, certain companies utilize social networking sites to seek out and target possible clientele. In addition, public relations can take advantage of what new media technology offers to provide direct interaction. 2.2.Impact of New Media technology on society The exponential rate of technological change that has transformed media and communication structures globally is reflected in the degree of attention paid to the convergent media nexus by the international community. With the rapid growth of new media technology including the Internet, interactive television networks, and 21 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology multimedia information services, many proponents emphasize their potential to increase interactive mass media, entertainment, commerce, and education. Pundits and policy makers also predicting that free speech and privacy will be preserved and our democratic institutions will be strengthened by new communication opportunities enhanced by digital media. This is because access to and use of digital media technologies such as PCs, the Internet, computer games, mobile telephones, etc., have become a normal aspect of everyday life in the world community country. Media experts also recognize that there is a revolution in media industry everywhere in the world brought by new media technology or convergent media that changes the way of communication in society. What then is a convergent media? And what impact it has on our society? The idea of technological convergence generally referees to shifts in the use of different technologies from diverse scientific and technical spheres that have been brought together to create new objects and new uses for those objects. The idea of digital convergence specifically referees to the movement of telecommunications, print, broadcast and computing into new domains for the purpose of creating products that tie together all of these elements to bring about new forms of communication and information storage. In a converged media world, consumers increasingly call the shots. They use iPods to make their own music playlists. Personal video recorders allow them to customize television schedules. Digital Audio Broadcasting or DAB Digital Radio pumps static-free music to their homes and cars. These consumers pull stockmarket updates, text messages, wallpaper, ring-tones, and short-form video into their mobile phones. They come together in online communities, generate their own content, mix it, and share it on a growing number of social networks. No longer a captive, mass media audience; today's media consumer is unique, demanding, and engaged. Broadband access and the Internet Protocol (IP) have made this new breed of consumer possible. Broadband Internet access is promoting major growth across all regions, with broadband reaching 448 million households globally by 2009. Telecommunications carriers are investing heavily in IP, laying fiber to homes and betting substantially on the promise of next-generation, content-based services. Broadband and IP will be the foundation through which consumers organize their work, leisure, and social time and they are also the solvent penetrating the walls of 22 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology the until now separate video content, communications, and advertising industries. Now that video content is no longer tied to a specific access network or device the rules are radically changing for all value chain participants. In the broadest sense, convergence is a process whereby media companies break out of their traditional forms and formats to deliver richer news and information services more in concert with the way that consumers are choosing to access and use such resources. It is a response to changes in the media environment brought on by technology and the information economy. Convergence is defined in four ways: 2.3. A convergence of services: the same content is formed to suit several platforms e.g. news may be distributed both via ordinary newspapers or radio slots and streamed via the internet A convergence of networks: the same platform may contain several types of content e.g. telephone cables are used both for internet and telecommunication A convergence of terminals: terminals (e.g. computer, TV) are all multifunctional, although some are more feasible for certain types of services than others e.g. we prefer to send mail or SMS via our mobile phone rather than via our TV, while films are watched on the big TV or cinema screen rather than via the small display on the mobile phone A convergence of markets: we see trans-border mergers and acquisitions between the media, telecommunications and ICT industries e.g. the large-scale merger in 2000 between Time Warner and the internet provider AOL (America Online). 2.3.1. Convergent Media and the Age of Participation In this new-media culture, people no longer passively consume media (and thus advertising, its main revenue source) but actively participate in them, which usually means creating content, in whatever form and on whatever scale. This does not have to mean that people write their own newspaper. This has profound implications for traditional business models in the media industry, which are based on aggregating large passive audiences and holding them captive during advertising interruptions. In the new-media era, audiences will occasionally be large, but often small, and usually tiny. Instead of a few large capital-rich media giants competing with one another for these audiences, it will be small firms and individuals competing or, more often, collaborating. Some will be 23 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology making money from the content they create; others will not and will not mind, because they have other motives. For example, people create stuff to build their own reputations. With participatory media, the boundaries between audiences and content creators become blurred and often invisible. In the words, one-to-many, that is, from media companies to their audiences are transformed into conversations among the people formerly known as the audience (people say media companies used to lecture audiences/readers). This changes the tone of public discussions. The mainstream media don't get how subversive it is to take institutions and turn them into conversations. That is because institutions are closed, assume a hierarchy and have trouble admitting fallibility, whereas conversations are open-ended, assume equality and eagerly concede fallibility. In essence, in the participatory era, media will no longer be delivered one way from a media company to an audience but by audience members to other audience members. The distinction between content creators and consuming audiences first gets blurry and then disappears completely. Instead of media being delivered as a sermon or lecture, it becomes a conversation among the people in the audience. How can audience or readers do that? Today's media revolution, like others before it, is announcing itself with a new and strange vocabulary. Blog, Podcast, Wikis, Wikipedia, Vlogs, and Folksonomies. A weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a type of website where entries are made (such as in a journal or diary), displayed in a reverse chronological order. Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although many focus on photographs, videos or audio. The word blog can also be used as a verb, meaning adding an entry to a blog. Podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio programs or music videos, over the Internet using either the RSS or Atom syndication formats, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. The term podcast, like radio, can mean both the content and the method of delivery. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster. Podcasters' web sites may also offer direct download or streaming of their files; a podcast however is distinguished by its ability to be downloaded automatically using software capable of reading RSS or Atom feeds. 24 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology
New media is a broad term that emerged in the later part of the 20th century to encompass the amalgamation of traditional media such as film, images, music, spoken and written word, with the interactive power of computer and communications technology, computerenabled consumer devices and most importantly the Internet. New media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content anytime, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community formation around the media content. What distinguishes New media from traditional media is not the digitizing of media content into bits, but the dynamic life of the "new media" content and its interactive relationship with the media consumer. This dynamic life, moves, breathes and flows with pulsing excitement in real time. Another important promise of New Media is the "democratization" of the creation, publishing, distribution and consumption of media content. Thus, a high-definition digital television broadcast of a film viewed on a digital plasma TV is still an example of traditional media, while an "analog" paper poster of a local rock band that contains a web address where fans can find information and digital music downloads is an example of New media communication. Most technologies described as "new media" are digital, often having characteristics of being manipulated, networkable, dense, compressible, interactive and impartial. Some examples may be the Internet, websites, computer multimedia, computer games, CD-ROMS, and DVDs. New media is not television programs, feature films, magazines, books, or paper-based publications - unless they contain technologies that enable digital interactivity, such as graphic tags containing web-links.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology 2.4. History of New media In the 1960s, connections between computing and radical art began to grow stronger. It was not until the 1980s that Alan Kay and his co-workers at Xerox PARC began to give the power of a personal computer to the individual, rather than have a big organization be in charge of this. "In the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, we seem to witness a different kind of parallel relationship between social changes and computer design. Although causally unrelated, conceptually it makes sense that the Cold War and the design of the Web took place at exactly the same time." Until the 1980s media relied primarily upon print and analog broadcast models, such as those of television and radio. The last twenty-five years have seen the rapid transformation into media which are predicated upon the use of digital computers, such as the Internet and computer games. However, these examples are only a small representation of new media. The use of digital computers has transformed the remaining 'old' media, as suggested by the advent of digital television and online publications. Even traditional media forms such as the printing press have been transformed through the application of technologies such as image manipulation software like Adobe Photoshop and desktop publishing tools. Andrew L. Shapiro (1999) argues that the "emergence of new, digital technologies signals a potentially radical shift of who is in control of information, experience and resources". W. Russell Neuman (1991) suggests that whilst the "new media" have technical capabilities to pull in one direction, economic and social forces pull back in the opposite direction. According to Neuman, “We are witnessing the evolution of a universal interconnected network of audio, video, and electronic text communications that will blur the distinction between interpersonal and mass communication and between public and private communication”. Neuman argues that New Media will: 1. Alter the meaning of geographic distance. 2. Allow for a huge increase in the volume of communication. 3. Provide the possibility of increasing the speed of communication. 4. Provide opportunities for interactive communication. 5. Allow forms of communication that were previously separate to overlap and interconnect.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology 2.5. Globalization and New Media The rise of new media has increased communication between people all over the world and the Internet. It has allowed people to express themselves through blogs, websites, pictures, and other user-generated media. Flew (2002) stated that as a result of the evolution of new media technologies, globalization occurs. Globalization is generally stated as "more than expansion of activities beyond the boundaries of particular nation states". Globalization shortens the distance between people all over the world by the electronic communication and Cairncross (1998) expresses this great development as the "death of distance". New media "radically break the connection between physical place and social place, making physical location much less significant for our social relationships". However, the changes in the new media environment create a series of tensions in the concept of “public sphere”. “Public sphere” is defined as a process through which public communication becomes restructured and partly dis-embedded from national political and cultural institutions. This trend of the globalized public sphere is not only as a geographical expansion form a nation to worldwide, but also changes the relationship between the public, the media and state. "Virtual communities" are being established online and transcend geographical boundaries, eliminating social restrictions. Howard Rheingold (2000) describes these globalised societies as self-defined networks, which resemble what we do in real life. "People in virtual communities use words on screens to exchange pleasantries and argue, engage in intellectual discourse, conduct commerce, make plans, brainstorm, gossip, feud, fall in love, create a little high art and a lot of idle talk". 2.6. New Media and the Third World Countries 'Everyone knows information is a form of power. The Third World countries now know this more than ever.' The Internet is used for almost everything today, 'digital technology can have an impact on the flow of investment, goods and global services in the global market place' and if a country cannot participate and connect in these technologies then they are left behind. The Digital Dividend Organization (DDO) held a conference in 2000, which discussed the issues of digital divide and Third World countries. 'The DDO noted 27 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology that there are more telephones in New York City than in all of rural Asia, and as much as 80% of the world's population has never made a phone call. The net connects 100 million computers, but that represents less than 2% of the world's population.' (Caslon Analytics, 2004) From these statistics, it is clear that most of the world is being left behind, while 2% of the population slowly gains complete technological power. In 2000 the world's leading powers decided to address the growing problems of the digital divide at a summit in Japan. The countries involved, US, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Canada and Russia, admitted that there wasn't enough being done to solve the problem. All countries agreed to work together with plans to donate money, technology and IT experts to help the cause. Aside from these major countries helping to bridge the digital divide, there are also several initiatives that have been put in place by a number of large companies. The fact that these big companies have recognized that there is a problem with Third World countries and their access to new technologies is a big step in the direction to bridging the digital divide. However, it is unrealistic to assume these countries will ever have the technological advances the modern world does, but to give them the opportunity to become a part of the Internet highway will be more help to them then we will ever know. 2.7. Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology
Most traditional communications media including telephone, music, film, and television are being reshaped or redefined by the Internet. Newspaper, book and other print publishing have to adapt to Web sites and blogging. The Internet has enabled or accelerated new forms of human interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking. Online shopping has boomed both for major retail outlets and small artisans and traders. Business-tobusiness and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries. The origins of the Internet reach back to the 1960s with both private and United States military research into robust, fault-tolerant, and distributed computer networks. The funding of a new U.S. backbone by the National Science Foundation, as well as private funding for other commercial backbones, led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies, and the merger of many networks. The commercialization of what was by then an international network in the mid 1990s resulted in its popularization and incorporation into virtually every aspect of modern human life. As of 2009, an estimated quarter of Earth's population used the services of the Internet. The Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage; each constituent network sets its own standards. Only the overreaching definitions of the two principal name spaces in the Internet, the Internet Protocol address space and the Domain Name System, are directed by a maintainer organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The technical underpinning and standardization of the core 29 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology protocols (IPv4 and IPv6) is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization of loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical expertise. 2.7.1. History of Internet It was 1957 when the then Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite. Americans were shocked by the news. The Cold War was at its peak, and the United States and the Soviet Union considered each other enemies. If the Soviet Union could launch a satellite into space, it was possible it could launch a missile at North America. President Dwight D. Eisenhower created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in 1958 as a direct response to Sputnik's launch. ARPA's purpose was to give the United States a technological edge over other countries. One important part of ARPA's mission was computer science. In the 1950s, computers were enormous devices that filled entire rooms. They had a fraction of the power and processing ability you can find in a modern PC. Many computers could only read magnetic tape or punch cards, and there was no way to network computers together. ARPA aimed to change that. It enlisted the help of companies, Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) to create a computer network. The network had to connect four computers running on four different operating systems. They called the network ARPANET. Without ARPANET, the Internet wouldn't look or behave the way it does today -it might not even exist. Although other groups were working on ways to network computers, ARPANET established the protocols used on the Internet today. Moreover, without ARPANET, it may have taken many more years before anyone tried to find ways to join regional networks together into a larger system. In 1973, engineers began to look at ways to connect ARPANET to the packet radio network (PRNET). A packet radio network connects computers through radio transmitters and receivers. Instead of sending data across phone lines, the computers use radio waves. It took three years, but in 1967 engineers successfully connected the two networks. 30 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology Technicians joined the Satellite Network (SATNET) to the other two networks in 1977. They called the connection between multiple networks inter-networking, or the Internet for short. Other early computer networks soon joined. They included USENET, BITNET, CSNET and NSFNET. In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee developed a system designed to simplify navigation on the Internet. In time, this system became known as the World Wide Web. It didn't take long for some people to mistakenly identify the Internet and the Web as the same thing. The Internet is a global The first four computers in ARPANET interconnection of computer networks; the all used different operating systems. World Wide Web is a way to navigate this The system's designers had to come up with a common set of rules the network massive network. In sailing terms, it's like would follow in order for the computers comparing an ocean to a ship. to communicate with each other without crashing the system. These rules are called protocols. The first set of protocols was collectively called the Network Control Protocol (NCP). In 1983, ARPANET switched to the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol suite (TCP/IP), the same set of rules the Internet follows today.
Most early Internet users were government and military employees, graduate students and computer scientists. Using the World Wide Web, the Internet became much more accessible. Colleges and universities began to connect to the Internet, and businesses soon followed. By 1994, Internet commerce had become a reality.
Today, the Internet is more complex than ever. It connects computers, satellites, mobile devices and other gadgets together in a massive network millions of times more intricate than the original ARPANET. And to think, we owe it all to a silver beeping ball that once orbited miles above the Earth's surface. The concept of data communication - transmitting data between two different places, connected via some kind of electromagnetic medium, such as radio or an electrical wire - actually predates the introduction of the first computers. Such communication systems were typically limited to point to point communication between two end devices. Telegraph systems and telex machines can be considered early precursors of this kind of communication. The earlier computers used the technology available at the time to allow communication between the central processing unit and remote terminals. As the technology evolved new systems were devised to allow communication over longer distances (for terminals) or with higher speed (for interconnection of local devices) that were necessary for 31 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology the mainframe computer model. Using these technologies it was possible to exchange data (such as files) between remote computers. However, the point to point communication model was limited, as it did not allow for direct communication between any two arbitrary systems; a physical link was necessary. The technology was also deemed as inherently unsafe for strategic and military use, because there were no alternative paths for the communication in case of an enemy attack. As a response, several research programs started to explore and articulate principles of communications between physically separate systems, leading to the development of the packet switching model of digital networking. These research efforts included those of the laboratories of Vinton G. Cerf at Stanford University, Donald Davies (NPL), Paul Baran (RAND Corporation), and Leonard Kleinrock at MIT and at UCLA. The research led to the development of several packet-switched networking solutions in the late 1960s and 1970s, including ARPANET, Telenet, and the X.25 protocols. Additionally, public access and hobbyist networking systems grew in popularity, including unix-to-unix copy (UUCP) and FidoNet. They were however still disjointed separate networks, served only by limited gateways between networks. This led to the application of packet switching to develop a protocol for internetworking, where multiple different networks could be joined together into a super-framework of networks. By defining a simple common network system, the Internet Protocol Suite, the concept of the network could be separated from its physical implementation. This spread of internetworking began to form into the idea of a global network that would be called the Internet, based on standardized protocols officially implemented in 1982. Adoption and interconnection occurred quickly across the advanced telecommunication networks of the western world, and then began to penetrate into the rest of the world as it became the de-facto international standard for the global network. However, the disparity of growth between advanced nations and the third-world countries led to a digital divide that is still a concern today. Following commercialization and introduction of privately run Internet service providers in the 1980s, and the Internet's expansion for popular use in the 1990s, the Internet has had a drastic impact on culture and commerce. This includes the rise of near instant communication by electronic mail (e-mail), text based discussion forums, and the World Wide Web. Investor speculation in new markets provided by these innovations would also lead to the inflation and subsequent collapse of the Dot-com bubble. But despite this, the Internet continues to grow, 32 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology driven by commerce, greater amounts of online information and knowledge and social networking known as Web 2.0.
2.8. Internet and Information Revolution It all started in October 1969. Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, were ready for a critical experiment. They had a computer and communications node, while colleagues installed similar equipment up the coast in Menlo Park. They planned to test whether they could link the two computers over telephone lines to operate as one system. The researchers began to tap in the message: 'log in' to make the link. The system crashed. Thus was the beginning of Internet revolution. By the end of the month they achieved the link. Of course, the purpose in those days was to ensure that nuclear missile systems could be kept operative even if part of the network was put out of action in a war. The commercial importance of this breakthrough was not fulfilled for another 25 years - just as the invention of the steam engine by James Watt in the 1780s did not become really useful and developed until the launch of the rail engine two decades late. The significance of the Internet is that it takes the computer and 'information technology' onto a new stage: computers now communicate with each other. The Internet, which had its roots in the need during the mid-1960s for linking military computer researchers in United States, was established to permit military exchange information. This was the origin of Arpanet, the network of the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA). In 1975, Arpanet, which had grown from four to about one hundred nodes, was handed over to the Defense Communication Agency. Meanwhile, in the 1980s, the National Science Foundation developed its own academic networks (NSFNET), providing researchers’ access to super-computers at Cornell, Illinois, Pittsburgh and San Diego. It comprised high capacity telephone lines, microwave relay systems, lasers, fiber optics and satellites. The NSF network became a backbone connecting several other networks of educational agencies, government agencies and researcher organizations. The cost of the backbone was borne by NSF, with members funding cost of their local networks including cost of outsiders who enter the system. 33 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology By 1990, NSFNET had replaced Arpanet. This later developed into the INTERNET, a network of networks. Up to this time, access to the networks was ‘universal’ and free in academic and research institutions. In 1992, NERN or the National Education and Research Network, or ‘enhanced internet’ permitted the exchange of more and lengthier material, even full-motion video. Doctors could send x-rays and cat-scans to faraway colleagues in other countries, students could access the library and have whole books transmitted to them, and farmers and weather pundits could receive maps from satellite phones. The department of Science and Technology (India) established the ERNET in India, serving to link the institutes of science and technology across the nation. Later, the universities and other teaching and research institutes too were linked together. Other networks the government of India established included NICNET (for administration and planning), Indonet (for access to specialized information through satellite communication), and Railnet (for the Indian railways ticketing, scheduling and planning activities). Commercialization of the networks began when the internet was opened up to the private service providers like Prodigy, Delphi, Genie, America Online (AOL) and Compuserve. The World Wide Web was developed at the European center for Particle Research in 1989, but took off only in 1993 when software developed at the University of Illinois and subsequently elsewhere, created ‘browsers’ and graphical interfaces making the search and interrogation of ‘pages’ on the WWW possible. Hundreds of ‘sites’ were placed on the Web, but the number of commercial (.com) sites soon outnumbered the education (.edu), government (.gov) and organization (.org) domain names. Newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and cable television from around the world set up their own websites, offering news services, headline news, accompanied with colorful graphics. The services were offered free to begin with, but gradually most of the services were restricted to ‘subscribers’. By mid-1998, most major Indian newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, political parties, commercial firms, banks, etc. had their own sites, so did most state governments. All India Radio, Doordarshan, police departments, municipalities, and nongovernment organizations. Advertising and commercial interests have taken over the internet, and e-commerce is on the upswing.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology 2.8.1.Advantages of the Internet The Internet provides opportunities galore, and can be used for a variety of things. Some of the things that you can do via the Internet are:
E-mail: E-mail is an online correspondence system. With e-mail you can send and receive instant electronic messages, which work like writing letters. Your messages are delivered instantly to people anywhere in the world, unlike traditional mail that takes a lot of time. Access Information: The Internet is a virtual treasure trove of information. Any kind of information on any topic under the sun is available on the Internet. The ‘search engines’ on the Internet can help you to find data on any subject that you need. Shopping: Along with getting information on the Internet, you can also shop online. There are many online stores and sites that can be used to look for products as well as buy them using your credit card. You do not need to leave your house and can do all your shopping from the convenience of your home. Online Chat: There are many ‘chat rooms’ on the web that can be accessed to meet new people, make new friends, as well as to stay in touch with old friends. Downloading Software: This is one of the most happening and fun things to do via the Internet. You can download innumerable, games, music, videos, movies, and a host of other entertainment software from the Internet, most of which are free.
2.8.2.Disadvantages of the Internet There are certain cons and dangers relating to the use of Internet that can be summarized as:
Personal Information: If you use the Internet, your personal information such as your name, address, etc. can be accessed by other people. If you use a credit card to shop online, then your credit card information can also be ‘stolen’ which could be akin to giving someone a blank check. Pornography: This is a very serious issue concerning the Internet, especially when it comes to young children. There are thousands of pornographic sites on the Internet that can be easily found and can be a detriment to letting children use the Internet.
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Spamming: This refers to sending unsolicited e-mails in bulk, which serve no purpose and unnecessarily clog up the entire system.
If you come across any illegal activity on the Internet, such as child pornography or even spammers, then you should report these people and their activities so that they can be controlled and other people deterred from carrying them out. Child pornography can be reported to:
Your Internet service provider Local police station Cyber Angels (program to report cyber crime)
Such illegal activities are frustrating for all Internet users, and so instead of just ignoring it, we should make an effort to try and stop these activities so that using the Internet can become that much safer. That said, the advantages of the Internet far outweigh the disadvantages, and millions of people each day benefit from using the Internet for work and for pleasure. 2.9. Stand-alone technologies to ‘convergence’ Stand-alone technology or media refers to a device that is self-contained, one that does not require any other devices to function. For example, a fax machine is a stand-alone device because it does not require a computer, printer, modem, or other device. A printer, on the other hand, is not a stand-alone device because it requires a computer to feed it data. Electronics that are capable of operating independently are stand-alone. The concluding decades of the 20th century witnessed revolutionary developments in the mass media, telecommunications and information technologies. The old mass media technologies were stand – alone isolated technologies: radio, television, cinema, the press and book publishing were looked upon and used as distinct and discrete technologies. Telecommunications (primarily the telegraph and the telephone) developed on their own, and were never considered as ‘mass media’. This was also the case with developments in computers and other information technologies, which too were not taken to be ‘mass media’. A computer was just a computer, a telephone was just a telephone and a television set just a box in the corner for watching broadcast programmes. This separate and stand- alone identity was reinforced in government administration, where the mass media, telecommunications and computer technologies were under three different 36 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology ministries: Information and Broadcasting, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), and the Department of Electronics. This was further reinforced in the Indian university system where department of communication and journalism remained isolated from developments in telecommunication and computer science, which of course had their own separate departments. Besides, ownership of such technologies too was generally restricted to one or two of the media. In Europe and the developing countries, radio and television were government-owned and government-run, though the press and book publishing remained the responsibility of the private sector. Film-making was in both the public and private sector: the feature film industry was in private hands, while newsreels, documentaries, short films and animation films were the responsibility of the public sector. Few attempts were made to combine the different print and electronic media; cinema films were shown on the small screen with the help of a ‘tele-cine chain’ (an electronic device which can read the newspapers on television, or listen to the radio on television. The ‘two-in-one’ combined the radio and the audio- recording and playback technologies. The video-recorder was an add-on to television, and to begin with was used primarily for ‘time shifting’. This was the beginning of the asynchronous element in the new media. No longer were listeners and viewers tied down to the exposure of radio and TV programmes at the same time as others; this greater control of the electronic media was gradually leading to the ‘demassification’ of the media. The audio and cassette recorders, the walkman, and later the personal computer were further examples of greater audience control over content, as well as over the time and place of media exposure. The earlier concept of a ‘mass audience’ was giving way to a newer concept, which took into account factors like flexibility and a synchronicity. Further, in telecommunications, the telephone and the telegraph remained isolated from the mass media, except as ‘carriers; of information. Audio and cassette recording and playback technologies extended radio and television, giving them the facility of ‘delayed’ or flexible exposure. Simultaneity of listening and viewing gave way to media access at one’s convenience. Communication satellites, cable, optical fiber, wireless technologies and computers changed the very nature of mass media and telecommunications. When the computer appeared on the scene in the 1970s and 1980s, it was a stand-alone desktop technology; interactive, but discrete. Computers could not ‘talk’ to each other; compatibility was a critical stumbling block. Apple-Macs, Apricots, 37 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology Tangerines, Amstrads and IBM’s were often incompatible, and could not read or understand one another. Magnetic tapes and later floppy disks had to be used to transfer or copy data or graphics from one computer to another.
UNIT 3. IT & INFORMATION MANAGEMENT 3.1. Information Technologies in India: A brief History India did not lag behind in the introduction of the new technologies though the progress was tardy, and largely restricted to the elites in urban areas, and to teachers and researchers in national science and research institutes. The first computers to be installed in India were imported in the 1960s and 70s. Most were second and third-generation IBM mainframes using transistors. The major importers were government departments and large corporations. By 1978, India had 800 mainframes maintained by the public sector company, Computer Maintenance Corporation (CMC), after the withdrawal of IBM. The decade also saw the emergence of a few Indian producers: ECIL, ICIM, Bull-PSI, and others. Developments in micro computing, the convergence of computer controls with telecommunications, communication satellites, fiber optics and digital switches, as well as liberalization in import policies, led to the rapid growth of the computer industry India, all the while it remained ‘as assembly-oriented industry’. The mushrooming of computer training institutes and university degree courses in computer science provided the much-needed personal needed for creating the software and maintaining the hardware in the growing industry. 3.2. New Computer Policy-1984 The Rajiv Gandhi government initiated the ‘information revolution’ opening up the Indian market to foreign investors, gradual privatization and deregulation of first telecommunications and later other industries, reducing import and excise duties on electronic goods, computer hardware and software, and providing other incentives to the development of the information industries. The man Rajiv Gandhi chose to lead the revolution in telecommunication was Sam Pitroda, a non-resident Indian technocrat who had made good in the United States, and who passionately believed that India could leapfrog into the age of information, if only it embraced the new information technologies.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology He was appointed Chairman of the Telecommunication Commission, and later telecommunication adviser to the Prime Minister. He established the Centre for the Development of Telematics (C-DOT), which would design and fabricate digital automatic switching equipment for rural (RAX) and urban (MAX) telephony. Pitroda lived up to his reputation of getting things done, but in the process he trod on many bureaucrats’ toes. One section of the media wowed him; the other lambasted him for the hype he created about the potential of tele-communication for the nation’s development. Pitroda shared Rajiv Gandhi’s vision of a modern India competing with advanced industrialized nations in the new age of information, the post-industrial age. However, while urban India was swamped by multinational brands of consumer goods, the latest hardware and software, value-added services like cellular telephony, paging, and a plethora of cable and satellite channels, the rural areas and the urban poor were untouched by such happenings. Liberalization and restructuring of the economy in the early 1990s both under the Congress and the United Front regimes, so as to promote foreign investment and private business, reenforces this urban approach. Leftist economists dubbed this approach an instance of ‘selling out to the multinational’. 3.3. The Private Phone STD/ISD Booth Phenomenon Perhaps the most striking development in Indian telecommunications in recent years has been the phenomenal growth of what are popularly known as ‘STD booths’ in cities and small towns across the land. This was the beginning of the privatization of the basic phone services. Licenses were freely given by the Department of Telecommunications to small-time shopkeepers and operators: unemployed graduates, the handicapped, and women. All that was required was a hole in the wall for a telephone connection. In mid-1998, Maharashtra alone had over 20,000 STD/PCOs, around 15,000 local PCOs, and around 30,000 villages’ public telephones. 3.4. National Telecommunications Policy In May 1994, the government of India announced a new telecommunication policy which threw open the basic telephone service to the private sector. Value-added services (such as electronic mail, paging. Cellular telephony, video conferencing, audio and videotext services, data services and VSATs) had already been liberalized two year earlier, in July 1992. Foreign companies were permitted up to 495 equity, with two operators (one private company competing with the public 39 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology sector unit) for each circle in the basic telephone service, and two private operators primary objective of the New Telecommunication Policy was to provide telephone connections to all villages in India, and to offer telephones on demand by May 1997. The most successful of the new services has been ‘paging’ which has achieved the most extensive penetration, with nearly half a million subscribers in 27 cities. Up to four operators for paging in each city have been given licenses. Cellular services remained concentrated in the metros, with a total of around a million subscribers served by 22 companies running 42 networks. VSAT system comprises small earth stations that communicate with one another via a central earth station (the ‘hub”). A signal from one VSAT is up linked to a satellite, down linked to the hub and then relayed to another VSAT via the satellite. Different branches of a bank or any other organization or by agents or distributors use these systems. The main VSAT operators in India are Hughes-Escorts Communications Ltd. (HECL), a leading user of this technology is the National Stock Exchange. The VSNL, the public sector organization for overseas telecommunications is a partner with other national and international companies for plastic and automatic international roaming voice telecommunications such as Iridium and ICO- Global. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) was constituted in February 1997 as an overall regulatory body to monitor the nation’s telecom services and to sort out disputes among operators and between the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and private operators. The Indian Paging Service Association (IPSA) and the Cellular phone Operators Association of India (COAI) represent the interests of the paging and cellular phone companies. The Government recognizes that the result of the privatization has so far not been entirely satisfactory. While there has been a rapid rollout of cellular mobile networks in the metros and states with currently over 1 million subscribers, most of the projects today are facing problems. The main reason, according, to the cellular and basic operators, has been the fact that the actual revenues realized by these projects have been far short of the projections and the operators are unable to arrange financing for their projects and therefore complete their projects. Basic telecom services by private operators have only just commenced in a limited way in two of the six circles where licenses were awarded. As a result, some of the targets as envisaged in the objectives of the NTP 1994 have remained unfulfilled. The private sector entry has been slower than what was envisaged in the NTP 1994. 40 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology The government views the above developments with concern as it would adversely affect the further development of the sector and recognizes the need to take a fresh look at the policy framework for this sector. In addition to some of the objectives of NTP 1994 not being fulfilled, there have also been far reaching developments in the recent past in the telecom, IT, consumer electronics and media industries world-wide. Convergence of both markets and technologies is a reality that is forcing realignment of the industry. At one level, telephone and broadcasting industries are entering each other’s markets, while at another level; technology is blurring the difference between different channel systems such as wire line and wireless. As in the case of most countries, separate licenses have been issued in our country for basic, cellular, ISP, satellite and cable TV operators each with separate industry structure, terms of entry and varying requirement to create infrastructure. However this convergence now allows operators to use their facilities to deliver some services reserved for other operators, necessitating a relook into the existing policy framework. The new telecom policy framework is also required to facilitate India’s vision of becoming an IT superpower and develop a world class telecom infrastructure in the country. 3.5.The objectives of the NTP 1999 are as under: Access to telecommunications is of utmost importance for achievement of the country’s social and economic goals. Availability of affordable and effective communications for the citizens is at the core of the vision and goal of the telecom policy. Strive to provide a balance between the provision of universal service to all uncovered areas, including the rural areas, and the provision of high-level services capable of meeting the needs of the country’s economy. Encourage development of telecommunication facilities in remote, hilly and tribal areas of the country. 3.6. Information Technologies: Developments in India Prior to liberalization of the computer industries, the Indian government’s policy was on ‘self-reliance through import substitution’. The setting up of the Electronics corporation of India (ECIL) and the Computer Maintenance Corporation (CMD) under the public sector signaled this policy, as much as the side –lining of the 41 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology multinational IBM. Liberalization by the Rajiv Gandhi government in the mid1980s and by the Narsimha Rao government in the early 1990s gave a fillip to joint ventures with multinational companies. Import duties for hardware and software were slashed and incentives offered for private investment in the industry. Over forty multinational companies such as Texas Instruments, Motorola, Honeywell, IBM, Digital, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft have set up operations in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gandhinagar, Pune, and other cities, primarily for exporting software. Indian software exports are tied to the Unites States market, which accounts for up to 58% of export destinations, with Europe at 20%. India’s total computer software exports in 1997-98 was US$1, 743 million, an increase of 50% over the previous year, and is expected to cross US$2,500 million in 1998-99. Computer Software is thus one of the global software business is 16.7% for customized software, but only .05% of the product and package market. A second area of impressive growth has been in the education and training sector. Indian software education is also an export item: the National institute of Information Technology (NIIT), its leading institution, is an exporter of educational software and provides courses through offices in Southeast Asian capitals. National institutes offering advanced training in computers number 1,675, training over 55,000 professionals every year. Around a hundred doctorates in computer science and over 2000 M.Techs and 14,060 B.Techs. Besides 2,250 M.Scs and 2600 B.Scs and 16,200 diploma graduates are trained every year. The Indian information technology industry is growing at the annual rate of more than 40%, with software alone worth US$1.2billion. ‘Body shopping’, a common practice in the United States and other countries, involves employing Indian software professionals overseas at low wages. More common is the practice now of contracting companies in India to service foreign clients; most of this exported software is in the form of customized work for corporate clients in the United States. Technology Parks are being established in collaboration with Singapore, South Korea and other nations in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, and other cities to promote the software and applications industry. 3.7. The Information Revolution How did the Information Revolution differ from the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century? The Industrial Revolution ushered in the factory system at the hub of which was the division of labour. Mass production of goods and their mass 42 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology distribution in the markets of the world were the driving forces. Both depended on massive labour recruitment. This was the origin of the need for the mass media, which would promote the mass- produced goods to potential customers in cities and villages. The Manufacturing industries were labour- intensive, while the new service industries were capital intensive, new modes of energy like steam, gas and electricity, the railways, the automobile and the aircraft. The concept of ‘information society’ gained widespread currency in he 1970s and 1980s to explain the social, economic and technological changes that were taking place during those decades in advanced industrialized societies. The social changes included the entry of entertainment media, and computers in the home and the growth of telecommunication that is working from home. The divisions between home and the factory or office were breaking down. The main work telecommuters did was gathering, processing and storing information with the help of personal computers. Where the economy was concerned, more workers were involved with information-related industries travel, tourism, hospitality, banking, insurance) than the production of commodities for a mass consumer market, This was because such production had been move to developing countries where low- paid labour was easily available. Later this was known by the euphemism, ‘outsourcing’. Industrialized economics were therefore gradually turning into ‘information economics’; they were non-polluting, were capital-intensive, and were oriented to ‘service’ rather than ‘production’. But it was the technological changes that made the new kind of social changes and economic changes that economic change possible. The innovations in information and communications, technologies brought about by the integration of telecommunications, mass media and computing, promised greater flexibility, greater efficiency and lower costs. In sum, these societies were on the way to becoming information cent red societies. Their primary resource was information of all kinds rather than production of consumer goods. Some sociologists believed that ‘information revolution’ was taking place, a complete break from the ‘industrial revolution’ of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Japanese writer, Yoneji Masuda, pioneered the use of the term ‘information society’ to describe a society which would eventually ‘move to the point at which the production of information values becomes the formative force for the 43 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology development of society’. Daniel Bell, the American sociologist, and author of ‘ The coming of Post- Industrial Society’, preferred the term ‘Post-industrial society’ to describe the same socio-economic process, and Alvin Toffler and John Naisbett, authors of ‘Future Shock’ and ‘Megatrends’ respectively, popularized the concept of ‘information society’. However, the information that has been transformed into a resource and a commodity is technology –mediated, most of it in digital form. Since different countries are at different stages of the adoption of information technologies, we have several ‘information societies’ rather than only one type. Indeed, every society is in a sense an information society, for information and communication is what holds it together, despite its many diversities and rivalries. An alternative view suggests that the information society is a continuation of the industrial society rather than a revolutionary break from it, as consumer-oriented free-market capitalism is still at its heart. Others like Martin (1995) would rather label it a ‘broadband society’ since it is telecommunication (rather than computers. Vincent Moscow of Canada has opted for the more vivid term, the ‘pay-per society’ 3.8. The Information Superhighway This image or metaphor for a wired universe interlinked by networks of the computers was popularized by AI Gore, the Vice-President of the United States, in the early 1990s. The information highway is an electronic net work that connects libraries, corporations, Government department and individuals. The information superhighway can be defined as ‘an information and communication technology network, which delivers all kinds of electronic service –audio, video, text, and data- to households and business’. It is usually assumed that the network will allow for two –way communication, which can deliver ‘narrow-band’ services like telephone calls as well as ‘broad-band’ capitalist such as video-on-demand, tele-shopping, and other ‘interactive TV’ multi-media applications. Services on the superhighway can be: One-to-one (telephones, electronic mail, fax, etc.) One –to –many (broadcasting, interactive TV, videoconferencing) or many-to-many (bulletin-boards forums on the Internet) The example of the ‘Information Superhighway’ is the Internet, which had its roots in the need during the mid-1960s for linking military computer researchers in the United States. The United Stated Defense Department established a computer 44 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology network that permitted military contractors and universities involved in military research to exchange information. This was the origin of Arpanet, the network of the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA). In 1975, Arpanet, which had grown from four to about one hundred nodes, was handed over to the Defense communication Agency. Meanwhile, in the 1980s, The National Science Foundation developed its own academic networks (NSFNET), providing researchers’ access to super-computers at Cornell, Illinois, Pittsburg and San Diego. It comprised high capacity telephone lines, microwave relay systems, lasers, fiber optics and satellites. The NSF network became a backbone connecting several other networks of educational agencies, government agencies and research organizations. The cost of the backbone was borne by NSF, with members funding cost of their local networks including cost of outsiders who enter the system. By 1990, NSFNET had replaced Arpanet. This later developed into INTERNET, a network, Up to this time, access to the networks was ‘universal’ and free in academic and research institutions. In 1992, NERN or the National Education and Research Network, or ‘enhanced Internet’ permitted the exchange of more and lengthier material, even full- motion video. Doctors could send x-rays and cat-scans to faraway colleagues in other countries, students could access the Library of Congress, and have whole books transmitted to them, and farmers and weather pundits could receive maps from satellite phones. The Department of Science and Technology (India) established the ERNET in India, serving to link the institutes for science and technology across the nation. Later, the universities and other teaching and research institutes too were linked together. Other networks the government of India established included NICNET (for administration and planning), Indonet (for access to specialized information through satellite communication), And Railnet (for the Indian Railways’ ticketing, scheduling and planning activities). Commercialization of the networks began when the Internet was opened up to private service providers like prodigy, Delphi, Genie, America Online (AOL), and compuserve. The World Wide Web was developed at the European Centre for Particle Research in 1989, but took off only in 1993 when software developed at the University of Illinois, and subsequently elsewhere, created ‘browsers’ and graphical interfaces making the search and interrogation of ‘pages’ on the WWW possible. Hundreds of ‘sites’ were placed on the Web, but the number of commercial (.com) sites soon 45 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology outnumbered the education (.edu), government (.gov) and organization (.org) domain names. Newspapers, magazines, radio, television and cable channels from around the world set up their own websites, offering news services, headline news, accompanied with colorful graphics. The services were offered free to begin with, but gradually most of the services were restricted to ‘subscribers’. By min-1998, most major Indian newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, political parties, commercial firms, banks, etc, had their own sites; so did most State governments, All India Radio, Doordarshan, police department, municipalities and non- governments organizations. However, one could not wade through the excess of information on offer without encountering ‘banner’ advertisements on almost every home page. The information offered was replete with propaganda and hype. Surfing the net often turned into an irritating experience, especially with the frequent breaks in power supply and the monopolistic service provider VSNL’s tendency to let the sites ‘hang’ intermittently. The accessing of e-mail too had turned into a nightmare: one cannot read one’s mail without having to leap over ‘junk mail’ (also termed ‘spasm’ or unsolicited mail). Entertainment rather than information is the primary motivation for accessing the Net; games, pornography and sex chat lines and crossnational prostitution have proved extremely popular in the United States and elsewhere. The lack of control over the net has led to the development of ‘blocking’ software (such as NetNanny and Surf Watch) to protect children and young people from obscenity and pornography on the Net. Advertising and commercial interests have taken over the Internet, and e-commerce is on the upswing. Perhaps one of the greatest success stories has been the ‘virtual’ bookstore, Amazon.com. It has no physical bookstore anywhere in the world, but has more titles for sale than any other, with offers of up to 40% discount on online using one’s credit card. The marketing of other products too, especially computer software programmes, browsers, computer games, and CD-ROMs has caught on. Once security of payment is assured through introduction of encryption technology, the Web is bound to be transformed into the largest cross-national shopping mall in the world. The Internet has already been turned into the latest medium for advertising, marketing and public relations. Free e-mail facilities offered by Hotmail, Yahoo, Altavista, IndiaSite and other search engines are not free at all: ads clutter their home pages, and unsolicited direct mail (termed ‘spasm’) has to be tolerated. However, the numerous positive benefits of the internet must not be overlooked. It has helped to network non-Government organizations in India and across the world, 46 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology social action groups fighting for human rights, the environment, and AIDS awareness in different continents. Communities like the overseas Chinese, nonresident Indians, and groups with similar interests have come together to form ‘electronic communities’. The Internet has thus become a force for lobbying with authorities on various issues at local, national and international levels. It was instrumental in bringing the world’s attention to the attempted genocide in BosniaHerzegovina, and to the struggle of peasants’ movement in South America. Electronic mail assists families scattered across the globe to keep in touch. In the United States, males represent 66% of Internet users and account for 77% of Internet usage. On average, Web users are upscale (25% have an income over$80,000), professional (50% are professional or managerial), and educated (64% have at least college degrees). The upper and middle socio-economic strata dominate internet and e-mail usage in India. The typical Indian Internet user is young, educated, and has easy access to computers at his institutes or workplace. The home PC has yet to find a market in the country. 3.9. Build-up of Globalization Like the ‘information superhighway’, ‘globalization’ is yet another hype term in information technology. It assumes that the phenomenon of the industries is worldwide, that users of information technologies make up the majority of the world’s population with no obstacles to access anywhere. While millions across the world access the internet (56 millions in the united states compared with 12.2 million in Asia-Pacific, 10 millions in Japan, five million in china and around a million in India at the close of 1998) it is often forgotten that these belong to elite educated groups in the richer countries. By no means is access universal; nor it is affordable to the vast majority of the world’s population. There is indeed a yawning gap between the information-rich and the information-poor, and this gap is growing since the costs of access are nowhere getting any easier or cheaper. According to one estimate, in 1996, 64% of all hosts in the world were in the United States; 17% were in Western Europe; four percent in Asia; Eastern Europe, Africa and Central and South America accounted for around one percent each. Another estimate suggests that out of the 13 million were in the United States; the UK and Germany had around 600,000 each; South Africa had just over80, 000 and India had around 2,000. At the end of 1996, a search suggested that barely three out of the over 1,400 internet-based electronic newspapers were from the continent of Africa. What is more, most internet sites and databases are located in the United States; so Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as VSNL in India and ISPs in other countries 47 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology have to lease links to American backbones. United States ‘carriers’ charge $20,000 for 2mbps circuit monthly rental, as against only $3, 000 to ISPs in the united states itself. 3.10. E-Commerce and E-Banking Electronic Commerce involves the production, advertising, sale and distribution of production via telecommunication networks. It includes intranets and extranets. Ecommerce via the Internet has already made inroads into traditional business and trade at both local and global levels. Shopping via the internet (e-shopping) especially for computer hardware, software, books, music cassettes and compact discs is becoming commonplace among Internet users in the United States. By the turn of the century, it is estimated that e-commerce would be worth over $300 billion. The United States is pushing for e-commerce to be a free trade zone and devoid of any tax regimes whatsoever. 3.11.Social and Cultural Implications Telecommunications and information technologies were developed in advanced industrialized societies to serve their needs and interests. These societies needed capital-intensive labour saving technologies to make up for high labour costs and low populations. The ‘new’ technologies brought about speed, efficiency and a nonpolluting environment. As the technologies became cheaper with greater volumes of users, business and administration needed fewer and fewer workers. Thus several workers were rendered redundant or were provided part-time jobs. The worst sufferers were women who worked as typists, stenographers, telephone operators, packers, etc. the low paid jobs were the first to go. Two Bombay economists, Sudha Deshpande and L.K. Deshpande, suggest that since the eighties, when liberalization was introduced in India, female employment has increased. The female work participation rate-the ratio of women workers to their population has increased to 9.74% in 1991 from 8.3% in 1981. In urban areas, there were 178 women workers for every thousand male workers in 1991 compared to 139 to 1981. However, the increase in female employment was most likely in the lowpaying traditional manufacturing industries rather than in high paid technologyoriented services. Computer technologies change the nature of work and employment. Work takes on a new orientation, related more to the storage, processing, retrieval and distribution of information than to traditional modes of labour and industry. Information is thus 48 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology turned into a commodity, which has a market price instead of being a public resource and a public good available to all in the community. Further, computer technologies tend to work and service into something impersonal, mechanical, routine, though less laborious; certainly more efficient, neater, faster, but one that lacks the personal touch. The vulnerability of the new information technologies to attacks by hackers, crackers, and viruses as well as to breakdowns without prior warning is rarely touched on. Computers can go on the blink at airports, railway stations, and supermarkets and even in hospitals leading to chaotic situation. This is especially so in countries like India where breakdowns in power supply are frequent and unexpected. It is widely assumed that corruption is reduced with the introduction of computers in administration, but the securities scam in Bombay demonstrates that computers can play a role in promoting corruption too. Information technologies make it quite easy for governments, revenue and police departments to keep a close watch on citizens, and to invade their privacy. At the same time, they also afford challenges to hackers to break into the computers of government and private organizations, as the recent breaks into the computers at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Bombay, and the Bioinformatics Centre at the Pune University indicate. 3.12. I.T. Regulations in India India has a detailed and well-defined legal system in place. The Indian legal system is based on English common law. The Indian judicial system has a unified structure, with the Supreme Court, the High Courts and the lower Courts constituting a single judiciary. Indian laws do not cover aspects related to the off shoring and the Internet, which have emerged recently. The arrival of the Internet has resulted in a new set of complex legal issues. This was followed by off shoring, which led to further complications. The Indian government has responded proactively in this sphere and has laid the foundations of the required legal framework. The first draft of the Information Technology (IT) Bill was introduced as early as 1999. The IT Act, which finally came into existence in 2000, includes laws and policies concerning data security and cyber crimes. Apart from the IT Act, the Indian Copyright Act of 1972 deals with copyright issues in computer programs.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology At present, there are no data protection specific laws in India. However, in the absence of specific laws, the Indian Judicial System offers a few proxy laws and other indirect safeguards. In the following section, we briefly discuss the IT Act and other laws, which companies can use to safeguard proprietary information. In May 2000, both the houses of the Indian Parliament passed the Information Technology Bill, which has subsequently become known as the Information Technology Act, 2000. The Act covers cyber and related information technology laws in India. The IT Act has made amendments to the Indian Penal Code of 1860, the Indian Evidence Act of 1872, the Bankers' Books Evidence Act of 1891 and the Reserve Bank of India Act of 1934, to update them with the provisions of the Act. The information security issues under the IT Act are the following: Section 43 According to Section 43 of the IT Act, if a person without the permission of the person in-charge of the computer system, accesses, downloads any data, introduces virus or causes denial of access, will be liable for a penalty of up to rupees 10 million. Section 65: Tampering with Computer Source Code Section 65 of the IT Act deals with the issue of tampering with computer source documents. According to Section 65, anyone who deliberately or purposely hides, destroys or alters any computer source code or induces someone else to do so shall be punishable with imprisonment up to three years, or with fine, which may go up to two lakh rupees, or with both. Section 66: Hacking Section 66 of the IT Act deals with the issue of hacking. According to Section 65, hacking is committed if someone, with the intention of causing wrongful loss or damage (or with the knowledge that such damage or loss is likely to result) to the public / any person, destroys / deletes / alters any information residing in a computer resource, diminishes its value or utility, or affects it injuriously by any means. If a person commits hacking, he/she is liable to be punished with imprisonment up to three years, or with a fine, which may go up to two lakh rupees, or with both. Section 72: Breach of Confidentiality and Privacy Section 72 of the Act relates to the disclosure of certain information by any person who has gained access to such information in pursuance of a power granted under the Information Technology Act. In case a person who has secured access to any 50 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology electronic record, book, register, correspondence, information, document, or other material discloses any of these to any other person, he will be punished with imprisonment for a term, which may extend to two years, or with a fine, which may go to ten lakh rupees, or with both. The above provision does not apply to the disclosure of personal information regarding a person in a website or by his email service provider, etc.
UNIT 4. MOVING ON DIGITAL ERA 4.1. Digital Media Digital media usually refers to electronic media that work on digital codes. Today, computing is primarily based on the binary numeral system. In this case digital refers to the discrete states of "0" and "1" for representing arbitrary data. Computers are machines that (usually) interpret binary digital data as information and thus represent the predominating class of digital information processing machines. Digital media ("Formats for presenting information”) like digital audio, digital video and other digital "content" can be created, referred to and distributed via digital information processing machines. Digital media represents a profound change from previous (analog) media. Florida's digital media industry association, Digital Media Alliance Florida, defines digital media as "the creative convergence of digital arts, science, technology and business for human expression, communication, social interaction and education". Unconsciously, you do work in digital media these days. In the near future, your careers will depend upon your ability to use digital media to your advantage. It's not just the creative department or media; it will drive how every person in the company creates and operates, from human resources to accounting. Today, digital is not a department-it's a competitive advantage. No longer is digital a "department" within an agency-it's an essential competitive advantage for everyone in the company. It is time to get on with it. Second, you might want to create a “first.” It was easier to discover new lands back in the days when guys like Christopher Columbus could accidentally bump into continents. Today, countless uncharted digital territories still wait. Now is your chance to conquer one. Third, you should get outside your comfort zone. The best way to get smart about the digital space is to constantly expand into new forms of media by actually working with them. Take on assignments outside your area of expertise. 51 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology Become a media-person in thinking, with specialist application as needed. Fourth, you might want to embrace technology in your personal life. You shouldn't spend life tethered to a BlackBerry, but you also don't want to become known as the slowpoke that can't access e-mail out of the office. Don't allow personal resistance to technology to become a pain for the people you work with. In this case, it's not OK for the cobbler's child to go barefoot. 4.1.1.Examples of Digital Media The following list of digital media is based on a rather technical view of the term media. Other views might lead to different lists.
Cellphones Compact disc Digital video Digital television e-book Internet Minidisc Video game World Wide Web and many interactive media
4.2.Communication Revolution What we take for granted today, satellite television or cellular telephone or even a humble Walkman, were part of sci-fi a mere quarter of a century ago. Even as we debate a new convergence policy in India and wonder whether we need a content regulator, the viability or desirability of direct-to-home television and broadband, a socio-economic revolution is quietly taking place. Close to 400 million Indians watch TV regularly. Our tele density has grown from 1 to 3 in less than a decade. India is fast emerging from the backwaters of poverty and scarcity to a front-runner in the digital area. One opportunity, which exists, is in media and entertainment. If the government of India through its myriad arms is able to create an ecosystem conducive to growth and the development of digital entertainment, there is no reason why we cannot turn this into a truly Indian century. 52 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology While India has a mere 8.5 million Internet connections, there are over a billion Internet users worldwide. This number is expected to rise to about 1.5 billion in the next three years. What is responsible for this phenomenal growth and the manner in which the world is beginning to communicate? As the micro chip increases in power at a lower cost and more memory is crammed on to silicon wafers (or whatever replaces them) we will see a convergence of telecom, broadcasting and data communication driven by quantum leaps in light wave and wireless communication. A few years ago Moore's Law stated that computer chip power would double every 18 months but we have seen that it is actually happening much faster. Today the Internet provides the equivalent of 50,000 daily newspapers in all languages, including online editions of several print newspapers that have web editions. In fact, many newspapers and magazines offer their subscribers access to online editions for continuous updates. Nothing has changed journalism more than the advent of the blog (weblog) and what we are seeing are just the beginnings of blogging. Already it is becoming a favoured form of disseminating news and information. Soon there will be a proliferation of the video blog. A version of peer-to-peer TV streaming is already on the Internet. These developments are still in their blossoming stages but have the potential to change the whole concept of mass communication. New digital technologies are causing a standard shift for the media and entertainment industry. By leveraging newer technologies, we have seen media companies not only make up for lost revenue but also add many new streams. The very nature of the music industry has been changed first by Napster and more recently by Apple I-Pod. Despite the opportunities which digital media presents, the industry's energies have been largely spent on the 'non compensated trading' or copyright theft of content. The inconsistencies of global copyright laws and lack of technical standards in digital rights management have also retarded the development of a viable and robust economic model. This is changing fast both on the technology as well as the regulatory fronts and should help the transition of the old media giants into more skillful gladiators. 53 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology The other change agent is sheer demographics. Teenagers today are the first real citizens of the digital world. Unlike their parents, they have grown up in a world in which electronic delivery of information and entertainment is natural and more accepted than conventional forms like the newspaper, tape or film. Being a powerful consumer group with increasing purchasing muscle, they are also determining both content and its access modes around the world. It is these digital generations that will take the world online further and eventually wholly, embracing the universe in a virtual abundance of information and entertainment. 4.3.New Information Technologies Throughout the world, new information technologies are making it possible for the information ‘have nots’ to catch up and plug in to this increasingly globalized and accessible system, whether it be in Thailand, the fastest growing mobile communications market in the world in 1995, or in places like Hong Kong and Singapore which have joined the top ranks of the world’s economic centers. Despite the costs involved, and the electrical power needed to drive the technology, expenditure needed for communication is in fact comparatively cheap, or certainly affordable, and is becoming more so. As one scholar has pointed out, this situation may help ‘the poor to move beyond being simply a passive audience. Cheaper and more accessible technologies allow individuals and groups to become their own message makers. Alternative communication networks link together grassroots and policy groups throughout the globe, working on environmental, peace and relief efforts and forging together interests and activists into a new global civil society. 4.4. Global Market Environment The post-second world war era was marked by revolutionary technological advancement in the field of the telecommunications. The information explosion provided the impetus for this technology to disseminate news and information across national boundaries. The electronic and computer systems have vast potential for information storage, retrieval, and delivery. Thus, it revolutionized the media in the developed world in Europe, North America, and Japan. With the introduction of the communication satellites in outer space, the TV, and the radio, the impact of information revolution could be felt in the remotest villages in the Himalayas and the Sahara. 54 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
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The scientific and technological revolution led to the borderless outflow of information to the Third World countries, and the advanced industrialized nations, grasping the scope of this technological advancement, have set up control over information flow. Over 5.5 billion people on this planet own over one billion radio receivers and 500 million television sets. The world receives information from 150 major news agencies, 30,000 radio and television stations, and 8,200 daily newspapers with a total run of 446 million copies a day. This global picture hides major regional imbalance. For instance, there are only 4.5 newspapers per 100, and one television set for 3,000 Africans. This is several times less than the corresponding figures for the Europeans and Americans. What is worse is that eight African countries publish no newspaper at all, 113 have only one each. The television is non-existent in nearly 30 Asian, African and Latin American nations. Further, 18 African and 16 Asian nations have no news agencies of their own. Asia, Africa and Latin America, where about two-thirds of the world population lives, account for only 5% of the world television sets, and 12% of world’s newspapers. This statistical detail gives us an insight into the truth. The figures clearly provide us a feeling of the extent of the disparities that exist, and the dominance of the north in the field of information, thus making the countries in the south dependent on them. 4.5. Need for self-reliance Self-reliance in news and information distribution, both in disseminating news to the outside world, or in getting news and information from various places in the world, for internal consumption, is essential for the following reasons: 1. To provide the media a national identity and personality 2. To facilitate the analyses of the world events not from the perspective of the west but from the national perspective 3. To foster better understanding among the developing countries, which is far more essential now than ever before 55 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology 4. To prevent the unwarranted entry of foreign and alien ideas, cultures, and life-styles, that always tend to contribute to shaping public opinion in favor of foreign countries, particularly of the west, and 5. To provide an objective account of the news and developments that was considered newsworthy by the indigenous media. 4.6. Media Trends and International Relations With the end of the cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States of America, there seems to be a new, more relaxed and more cooperative environment prevailing in the world politics. But the situation is very deceptive. Developments in the US, on the domestic front, and their balance of payment position, and in Russia, on the political and economic front, have dampened the dominant outlook presented at the beginning of the current decade. The fight to influence the developing countries has ended. Most of the communist countries are now desperately trying to get aid and cooperation possible for reconstructing their own countries. In India, the new economic policy has been formulated and is being implemented now. The economy is opening up for the participation of the foreign companies. But this is not shaping up as planned, already there are misgivings, internally, and fears expressed about the stability of the country by the foreign investors. Ironically, in such a fluid situation, the experts from both the west and third world countries, like India, are discussing such issues –like environment protection, AIDS, etc to salvage mankind from being wiped off form the face of the earth. All these issues are reflected in the television and radio programmes. Satellite communication has wired the whole earth. People sitting in any town in any country can hook their TV sets to the satellite and watch programmes of their choice. Due to spread with which things are happening, decades or even centuries could be compressed in a few years time. The media of the Third World does realize this change in the national and international political and economical spheres. Exchanges of the TV programmes, especially educational programmes, are quiet frequent, though the flow is still imbalances, because more western programmes are seen on the TV screens of the Third World countries. The truth remains that despite the large-scale changes brought about by technology, imbalance persists in the media and coverage of the developed west vis-à-vis the developing countries of the Third World. 56 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology 4.7. Cable Television DTH stands for- ‘Direct-To-Home television’. DTH is defined as the reception of satellite programmes with a personal dish in an individual home. DTH does away with the need for the local cable operator and puts the broadcaster directly in touch with the consumer. Only cable operators can receive satellite programmes and they then distribute them to individual homes.
A DTH network consists of a broadcasting centre, satellites, encoders, multiplexers, modulators and DTH receivers. A DTH service provider has to lease Ku-band transponders from the satellite. The encoder converts the audio, video and data signals into the digital format and the multiplexer mixes these signals. At the user end, there will be a small dish antenna and set-top boxes to decode and view numerous channels. On the user's end, receiving dishes can be as small as 45 cm in diameter. DTH is an encrypted transmission that travels to the consumer directly through a satellite. DTH transmission is received directly by the consumer at his end through the small dish antenna. A set-top box, unlike the regular cable connection, decodes the encrypted transmission. The way DTH reaches a consumer's home is different from the way cable TV does. In DTH, TV channels would be transmitted from the satellite to a small dish antenna mounted on the window or rooftop of the subscriber's home. So the broadcaster directly connects to the user. DTH can also reach the remotest of areas since it does away with the intermediate step of a cable operator and the wires 57 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology (cables) that come from the cable operator to your house. In DTH, signals directly come from the satellite to your DTH dish. Also, with DTH, a user can scan nearly 700 channels! Entertainment is one area which garners a lot of interest in India. Analog signals gave way to cable TV which reigned over the market for a long time. The latest is DTH services. Conditional Access System (CAS) was introduced to provide services to legal customers. DTH started about nine years back and has grown tremendously since then. There are around seven major players like Dish TV, Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, etc. in the market with combined revenue of about $2 billion. The amount of advertising and marketing done in this industry is surprising. People are migrating to DTH for the reason that it provides better quality than normal cable TV. Also, you can choose the channels that you want to watch. With HDTV gaining momentum, DTH is the best option for it. Apart from the cities, DTH companies are targeting towns and villages too. At places where installation of wires for cable TV becomes impossible, DTH comes to the rescue. The response that small towns are generating is positive. This creates an altogether new untapped potential that is ready to be exploited. 4.8. Impact of Television This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it is nothing but wires and lights in a box. — Edward R. Murrow Critics blame television for everything from obesity to the murder rate. While TV is easy to criticize, and much of the criticism is justified, we also need to keep in mind that television benefits society in many important ways. Watching disturbing news footage on television may exacerbate post-traumatic stress and nightmares, according to a study. The research revealed that people were most likely to have dreams with imagery directly related to the attacks – such as smoke and explosions – if they spent many hours watching television reports of the attacks. This type of dream content indicated a difficulty coping with the events, the authors of the study claim. 58 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology The researchers say their dream analysis shows that viewing television coverage of a traumatic event can intensify stress and trauma. Some psychologists, however, object to this conclusion, contending that dreams do not necessarily reflect a person's mental state. Today, the average American watches close to four hours of TV each day. Based on this, by age 65, the average U.S. citizen will have spent nearly 9 nonstop hours glued to "the tube" everyday. It has been found that most viewers do not turn on television to watch a specific program. They simply decide to "watch television" and then find a program that looks interesting. We also know that most children and adults watch TV in a kind of relaxed, transfixed state of awareness. In the view of some psychologists the fact that people aren't critically thinking about what they are seeing while in this state means that situations (and commercials) are passively accepted on somewhat of an unconscious level. Some go so far as to say that because of this, TV has a kind of hypnotic influence. 4.8.1. Why We Watch TV We like to be entertained. We like excitement. We like to see handsome men and good looking women. We like to vicariously (and safely) experience the experiences of other people. We like to be drawn into fantasy worlds that we will probably never be able to experience firsthand. But, maybe most of all, we like to passively relax in front of "the tube," select our vicarious experiences, and let them flood over us without any real effort on our part. What's wrong with that? Nothing, in moderation! In fact, to stay mentally and physically healthy, it's important to spend some time relaxing each day. Plus, it's been proven that it's healthy to laugh and release our tensions. With TV we can enjoy the humorous escapades of our TV friends. And then there's the information we gain from TV. 59 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology We first realized the impact of TV during the mid-1900s. U.S. citizens had been reading about the civil rights struggle for decades. But, it was only when TV came along in the 50s and 60s and viewers saw in TV news footage what was really happening, that the country amassed political pressure to take action to change thing U.S. citizens had also read about war for decades. But when they started seeing newsreel footage of dead, maimed, and wounded American soldiers every night on TV as a result of the Vietnam War, the majority of the country soon tuned against the war. All these things had been reported in great detail in newspapers for decades; but reading about them was one thing, seeing them was another. Before television, children had no idea what most foreign countries or their peoples looked like, or how they lived. Most exotic animals and fish were only names in books. Letters, numbers, and words were things that you started learning when you got to first grade. However, because of television, most children are now familiar with these things even before they start school. Television is one of the most prevalent media influences in kids' lives. According to Kids' Take on Media, a survey conducted in 2003 by the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, watching TV is a daily pastime for 75 percent of Canadian children, both boys and girls from Grade 3 to Grade 10. How much impact TV has on children depends on many factors: how much they watch, their age and personality, whether they watch alone or with adults, and whether their parents talk with them about what they see on TV. To minimize the potential negative effects of television, it's important to understand what the impact of television can be on children. Over the past two decades, hundreds of studies have examined how violent programming on TV affects children and young people. While a direct "cause and effect" link is difficult to establish, there is a growing consensus that some children may be vulnerable to violent images and messages. Researchers have identified three potential responses to media violence in children:
Increased fear—also known as the "mean and scary world" syndrome Children, particularly girls, are much more likely than adults to be portrayed as victims of violence on TV, and this can make them more afraid of the world around them.
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Desensitization to real-life violence-Some of the most violent TV shows are children's cartoons, in which violence is portrayed as humorous—and realistic consequences of violence are seldom shown.
Increased aggressive behavior- This can be especially true of young children, who are more likely to exhibit aggressive behaviour after viewing violent TV shows or movies.
Parents should also pay close attention to what their children see in the news since studies have shown that kids are more afraid of violence in news coverage than in any other media content. Fear based on real news events, increases, as children get older and is better able to distinguish fantasy from reality. 4.9. Effects on healthy child development Television can affect learning and school performance if it cuts into the time kids need for activities crucial to healthy mental and physical development. Most of children's free time, especially during the early formative years, should be spent in activities such as playing, reading, exploring nature, learning about music or participating in sports. TV viewing is a sedentary activity, and has been proven to be a significant factor in childhood obesity. According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation almost one in four children, between seven and 12, is obese. Time spent in front of the TV is often at the expense of more active pastimes. A Scientific American article entitled "Television Addiction" examined why children and adults may find it hard to turn their TVs off. According to researchers, viewers feel an instant sense of relaxation when they start to watch TV—but that feeling disappears just as quickly when the box is turned off. While people generally feel more energized after playing sports or engaging in hobbies, after watching TV they usually feel depleted of energy. According to the article "this is the irony of TV: people watch a great deal longer than they plan to, even though prolonged viewing is less rewarding." As well as encouraging a sedentary lifestyle, television can also contribute to childhood obesity by aggressively marketing junk food to young audiences. Most food advertising on children's TV shows is for fast foods, candy and pre-sweetened cereals. Commercials for healthy food make up only 4 per cent of those shown. A lot of money goes into making ads that are successful in influencing consumer 61 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology behaviour. McDonald's, the largest food advertiser on TV, reportedly spent $500 million on their "We love to see you smile" ad campaign. 4.9.1.Sexual content Kids today are bombarded with sexual messages and images in all media— television, magazines, advertisements, music, movies and the Internet. Parents are often concerned about whether these messages are healthy. While television can be a powerful tool for educating young people about the responsibilities and risks of sexual behaviour, such issues are seldom mentioned or dealt with in a meaningful way in programs containing sexual content. 4.10. The Good Things about Television Television is an inescapable part of modern culture. We depend on TV for entertainment, news, education, culture, weather, sports—and even music, since the advent of music videos. With the recent explosion in satellite and digital specialty channels, we now have access to a plethora of both good quality and inappropriate TV content. In this crowded television environment, the key for parents is to search out high quality TV programs for their kids, and whenever possible, enjoy them together as a family. 4.10.1.Television offers lots of benefits including:
Because of its ability to create powerful touchstones, TV enables young people to share cultural experiences with others. Shared viewing gives family members of all ages an opportunity to spend time together. Parents can use TV as a catalyst to get kids reading—following up on TV programs by getting books on the same subjects or reading authors whose work was adapted for the programs. Great television can teach kids important values and life lessons. TV programs often explore controversial or sensitive issues, which can make it easier for parents and kids to discuss them. Educational programming can develop young children's socialization and learning skills. News, current events and historical programming can help make young people more aware of other cultures and people.
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Documentaries can help develop critical thinking about society and the world. TV can help introduce your family to classic Hollywood/Bollywood films and foreign movies that may not be available in your local video store. Cultural programming can open up the world of music and art for young people.
4.10.2.Telecommunication Revolution While traditional telecommunications networks have allowed us to cross barriers associated with time and distance, the new multimedia realm is allowing us to include vital physical cues in the information stream, introducing a physical reality into the world of electronic communications, goods, and services. Not surprisingly, some of the industries that are being most radically revolutionized are those that deal with the human senses, including entertainment, health care, education, advertising, and, sadly, warfare. Simply put, technology changes your way and pace of life. In recent years, the word telecommunications has been used so often, and applied in so many situations, that it has become part of our daily lexicon, yet its definition remains elusive. So, let's start with a definition. The word telecommunications has its roots in Greek: tele means "over a distance," and communicara means "the ability to share." Hence, telecommunications literally means "the sharing of information over a distance." Telecommunications is more than a set of technologies, it's more than an enormous global industry (estimated to be US$2.5 trillion), it's more than twenty-first-century business and law that is being re-created to accommodate a virtual world, and it's more than a creator and destroyer of the state of the economy. Telecommunications is a way of life. Telecommunications affects how and where you do everything—live, work, play, socialize, entertain, serve, study, teach, rest, heal, and protect. Telecommunications has served a critical role in shaping society and culture, as well as in shaping business and economics. It is important to examine telecommunications from the broadest perspective possible to truly appreciate the depth and complexity of this field and thereby understand the opportunities it affords. The best way to learn to "think telecom" is to quickly examine how it is changing both business and lifestyle.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, much of the IT&T (information technologies and telecommunications) industry's focus was on how to reengineer the likes of financial institutions, manufacturing, retail, service, and government. These technology deployments were largely pursued and justified on the grounds of reducing costs and enhancing competitiveness by speeding communications. Today, we are shifting our focus to another set of objectives: Our technology deployments are targeted at supporting not just the needs of a business enterprise, but also those of the consumers. The revolution in integrated media is transforming all aspects of human activity related to communication and information. We are moving to computer-based environments that support the creation, sharing, and distribution of multimodal information. Whereas traditional telecommunications networks have allowed us to cross barriers associated with time and distance, the new multimedia realm is allowing us to include vital physical cues in the information stream, introducing a physical reality into the world of electronic communications, goods, and services. Not surprisingly, some of the industries that are being most radically revolutionized are those that deal with the human senses, including entertainment, health care, education, advertising, and, sadly, warfare. In each of these key sectors, there are telecommunications solutions that address the business need, reduce costs, or enhance operations by speeding business processes and aiding communications. These industries are also examining how to virtualize their products and/or services—that is, how to apply telecommunications to support electronic services targeted at the consumers of that industry's products. Not surprisingly, changing the way you attend a class, see a doctor, watch a movie, get a date, shop for software, take a cruise, and stay in touch creates significant changes in how you use your time and money. Simply put, technology changes your way and pace of life. 4.10.3. Changes in Telecommunications A quick orientation of how emerging technologies are affecting industries and lifestyle highlights the importance of understanding the principles of telecommunications, and, hopefully, to inspire you to "think telecom." The changes discussed here are ultimately very important to how telecommunications networks will evolve and to where the growth areas will be. An enormous amount of the activity driving telecommunications has to do with the emergence of advanced applications; likewise, advances in telecommunications capabilities spur developments in computing platforms and capabilities. The two are intimately and 64 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology forever intertwined. The following sections discuss some of the changes that are occurring in both telecommunications and in computing platforms and applications, as well as some of the changes expected in the next several years. 4.11. Incorporating Human Senses in Telecommunications Telecommunications has allowed a virtual world to emerge—one in which time and distance no longer represent a barrier to doing business or communicating— but we're still lacking something that is a critical part of the human informationprocessing realm. The human mind acts on physical sensations in the course of its information processing; the senses of sight, sound, touch, and motion are keys to our perception and decision making. Developments in sensory technologies and networks will allow a new genre of sensory reality to emerge, bridging the gap between humans and machines. One of the most significant evolutions occurring in computing and communications is the introduction of the human senses into electronic information streams. 4.12. Digital media: Art, photography, TV, Radio & Audio 4.12.1. Digital Art: Digital art most commonly refers to art created on a computer in digital form. In an expanded sense, "digital art" is a term applied to contemporary art that uses the methods of mass production or digital media. The impact of digital technology has transformed traditional activities such as painting, drawing and sculpture, while new forms, such as net art, digital installation art, and virtual reality, have been recognized artistic practices. More generally the term digital artist is used to describe an artist who makes use of digital technologies in the production of art. Digital artists are artists who make digital art using computer graphics software, digital photography technology and computer assisted painting to create art. Though technically the term may be applied to art done using other media or processes and merely scanned in, it is usually reserved for art that has been nontrivially modified by a computing process; digitized text data and raw audio and video recordings are not usually considered digital art in themselves, but can be part of the larger project of computer art and information art. Artworks are considered digital painting when created in similar fashion to nondigital paintings but using software on a computer platform and digitally outputting the resulting image as painted on canvas.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology The availability and popularity of photograph manipulation software has spawned a vast and creative library of highly modified images, many bearing little or no hint of the original image. Using electronic versions of brushes filters and enlargers, produce images unattainable through conventional photographic tools. In addition, digital artists may manipulate scanned drawings, paintings, as well as using any of the above-mentioned techniques in combination. 3D graphics are created via the process of designing complex imagery from geometric shapes, polygons to create 3 dimensional shapes, objects and scenes for use in various media such as film, television, print, rapid prototyping and the special visual effects. There are many software programs for doing this. The technology can enable collaboration, lending itself to sharing and augmenting by a creative effort similar to the open source movement, and the creative commons in which users can collaborate in a project to create unique pieces of art. The mainstream media uses a lot of digital art in advertisements and computers are used extensively in film to produce special effects. Desktop publishing has had a huge impact on the publishing world, although that is more related to graphic design. Computers are also commonly used to make music, especially electronic music, since they present a powerful way to arrange and create sound samples. It is possible that general acceptance of the value of digital art will progress in much the same way as the increased acceptance of electronically produced music over the last three decades. Digital Photography and digital printing is now an acceptable medium of creation and presentation of digital artists is gaining ground. But the work of artists who produce digital paintings and digital printmakers is beginning to find acceptance, as the output capabilities advance and quality increases. Digital tools have now become an integral part of the process of making art. 4.12.2. Digital audio: Digital audio is sound (usually music) which is recorded (or converted) and stored in a digitized format. Digital audio can be stored on a compact disc, audio CD, audio DVD, DAT tape, or as a computer file. Playing equipment then decodes the stored signal. As of 2005, lots of the music is downloaded from the Internet in the MP3 format, onto USB storage devices for lightweight portability. Other players use CD or DVD, superseding the cassette tape player.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology 4.12.3. Digital radio: Digital radio describes radio technologies which carry information as a digital signal, by means of a digital modulation method. The most common meaning is digital audio broadcasting technologies, but may also cover two-way digital wireless communication technologies. While digital broadcasting offers many potential benefits, its introduction has been hindered by a lack of global agreement on standards. 4.12.4. Digital photography: Digital photography is a form of photography that utilizes digital technology to make images of subjects. Until the advent of such technology, photography used photographic film to create images which could be made visible by photographic processing. By contrast, digital photographs can be displayed, printed, stored, manipulated, transmitted, and archived using digital and computer techniques, without chemical processing. Digital photography is one of several forms of digital imaging. Digital images are also created by nonphotographic equipment such as computer tomography scanners and radio telescopes. Digital images can also be made by scanning conventional photographic images. 4.12.5. Digital film-making: Digital cinematography is the process of capturing motion pictures as digital images, rather than on film. Digital capture may occur on tape, hard disks, flash memory, or other media which can record digital data. As digital technology has improved, this practice has become increasingly common. Several mainstream Hollywood movies have now been shot digitally, and many vendors have brought products to market, including traditional film camera vendors, new vendors and companies which have traditionally focused on consumer and broadcast video equipment, like Sony and Panasonic. The benefits and drawbacks of digital vs. film acquisition are still hotly debated, but digital cinematography cameras sales have surpassed mechanical cameras in the classic 35mm 4.12.6. 5Digital TV: Digital television (DTV) is the sending and receiving of moving images and sound by discrete (digital) signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV. The first country to make a wholesale switch to Digital Over-the-Air broadcasting was the Netherlands, in 2006. This was followed by Finland and Sweden in 2007. 4.13. Changing Trends from Conventional to Digital Media It's true that people still consume media the old-fashioned way – but fewer and fewer does so every day. Most of the content industries are seeing flat or declining 67 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology revenues and audiences. And these trends are particularly notable among younger people. As a result, the music industry is a shambles; the film and television businesses are running scared; and newspapers are disappearing or instituting cutbacks and layoffs. The handwriting is on the wall, or the laptop screen. User generated content is often a poor substitute for professional content or traditional media. But that’s little comfort. Alternate goods don’t have to be perfect substitutes in order to acquire market share at the expense of the competition. And, yes, in some cases, new media make money for creators and companies – but the money’s much less than it used to be. Another effect is that the market for professional content is becoming more concentrated and less diverse. Thus, at least in some media, audiences are shifting more of their spending to hit properties – the most popular movies and books, for instance – to the detriment of specialized content such as art house films and midlist titles. Similarly, in a trend that predates the Internet but continues today, media businesses are consolidating and becoming conglomerates, as individual companies find it harder and harder to compete. Some commentators welcome these changes. “Information wants to be free,” they say, and more content is good for users. Persuasively, they point to the variety of viewpoints that new technologies bring. That development is indeed valuable – very much so, in a democracy premised on freedom of speech. But when everyone’s a creator, there’s less room for high-quality professional content. It’s a dilemma with no easy answers. The future of traditional media is murky, but one thing is clear: disruptive change will be with us for many years to come.
UNIT 5 . GLOBALIZATION PROCESS 5.1. Different people define globalization differently. Some define it as a set of processes changing the nature of human interaction across a wide range of spheres including the economic, political, social, technological, and environmental. Furthermore, it is perceived as the process of integration of the world community into a common system either economic or social. It essentially means the growing increase in the interconnectedness and interdependences among the world’s regions, nations, governments, business and institutions. Some others say it is a process, which engenders free flow of ideas, people, goods, services and capital thereby fostering integration of economies and societies.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology The most visible aspect of globalization is the spread of information and communication technologies. The advance in technology has made available computer equipment, facsimile machines, telex systems, and satellite communications, to name a few. The advent of newspapers, television, and radio and internet haven immensely helped in the spread to information and has also helped bring people from different parts of the world in contact with each other. Although they have their own disadvantages, the advantages are many more. Earlier to communicate, people use to write letters send them through post or through other mediums. No city had any idea of what was going on in their neighboring city. The press media was the first breakthrough. The beginning of the Press media was seen after the information revolution. The press became an active participant in the tasks of promoting, projecting, and supporting the process. Globalization has assisted in networking among journalists; and these facilities have revolutionized news, printing, editing and reportage. More importantly it has aided considerably in news circulation. Generally speaking, globalization has made possible adequate and timely processing and dissemination of information. As the costs of worldwide communication had decreased, nearly everyone in a news organization is able to get access to international news. A wide coverage of international print media output, could be read on the domestic grounds. News and features that were previously being suppressed became worldwide knowledge. For example: earlier when a social crime had been committed, no one would have known but today the press has helped oppose and expose almost all crimes committed, and people are becoming more and more aware of what is happening around the city. The press has been stimulating political parties and candidates out of their shells and exposes their programs to public scrutiny. The press has been playing its traditional role of informing and educating citizens on political parties, sport events, glamorous celebrity gossip, and international happenings. After the press media, came the discovery of the radio and the television. The advent of radio and television networks emerging in the early 20th century received a number of viewers. It appealed to another sense, for the press we could only read, but television and radio had audio video effects which was more attractive for the consumers. Television and radio could be used to address illiterate people also, because it was made available in different languages and the audience need not be literate to be able to read. Earlier television started with only a few channels, showing cable, but today there are over 200 channels screening 200 different things. Today, you can view channels from across the nation which 69 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology helps you get an idea of the lifestyle and culture of the westernized nations. In China, English is taught through radio and television. Therefore watching television and hearing radio is also a learning process for many. On news channels one can view the happenings of other countries, the climate there, the problems they are facing, and also the kind of soap operas made there, the cinema they watch, and everything that helps us understand the people in other countries. For example, India represents immensely attractive markets to the major corporations that provide television program content and services across borders and regions. Also, the advertising industry has used television and radio as a medium to very effectively expose global products daily to its audience. They have the advantage of video and audio facilities so then can effectively advertise on television and radio. But this also has its own disadvantage, the value for that advertising slot on television or radio is proportional to the number of viewers or listeners it reaches, which is massive. But on the whole, considering the setbacks, television has proved to be a very effective form for entertainment, for advertising, for sharing cross cultural values and for educating. Radio is also another helpful form of entertainment. It also comes in very handy during traffic jams, floods, or any other important happening. Today every house has a radio, be it the rich or the poor. Therefore, when needed to reach the mass audience together, we have the radio. It is only recently, with the coming up of many channels, that people have started listening to the radio. Besides the inventions of newspapers, television and radio, over the years we have also come to see a completely diverse form of cinema. It started off when cameras had come in. At first there were silent movies being made and then with the advent to video they started making longer movies with different genres. In India cinema started at a much later stage. At first we use to have live dramas being performed by artists. Then “Bollywood”, the Indian cinema as it is called, was started. The cinema industry also shows signs of globalization. From the kind of movies we use to see and the kind of movies that are now produced are very different. Earlier movies had all the characters, an actor, actress, and a villain but their roles were different, their dressing was different. As the years have passed, with the coming in of technology a whole new set of genre has come, of animated movies. Animation has raised the standards of cinema. Even the theaters that screen these movies have changed over a period. Now we have multiplexes all over, screening 5 to 6 movies at the same time.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology The emergence of the global concepts of movies, shows and series, as well as the emergence of a global audience, with its impact on program contents, is a concept with precedence. Media contents present itself today as a global form of entertainment and information providing which in my opinion has been excellent. Today having good knowledge is also partly because of the media. Innovations in communications technology, in addition to driving economic globalization, have also transformed the media world and the spread of information, with important consequences for national as well as global governance. This began with radio broadcasting in the 1940s and has since been extended through television and satellite transmission to give even those in remote places immediate access to sound and images from a wider world. In some countries, new communications systems have even brought people news of domestic events that is not available locally. Direct- dial international telephone and fax services have swelled the trans- border flow of news and other messages. Another important development has been the sharing of information through links between computers around the world. Exposure through the media to foreign cultures and life- styles can be both stimulating and destabilizing; it can inspire both appreciation and envy. Concern that the authority of transnational media could result in cultural homogenization and could damage indigenous cultures is not limited to non- Western countries. Many people are worried that media images will strengthen the consumerist ethos in societies in the early stages of development. There are questions about distortion and imbalance as the world's news is filtered predominantly through Western prisms and dissatisfaction that information flows from and within the developing world are inadequate. Apprehension about concentration in media ownership is linked to worries that this sector's power to shape the agenda of political action may not be matched by a sense of responsibility. These varied concerns have given rise to the suggestion that civil society itself should try to provide a measure of global public service broadcasting not linked to commercial interests.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology The wider access to information has been healthy for democracy, which gains from a better- informed citizenry, as well as beneficial for development, scientific and professional collaboration, and many other activities. The wide linkages now facilitated can also help pull the world's people closer together. Media images of human suffering have motivated people to express their concern and their solidarity with those in distant places by contributing to relief efforts and by demanding explanations and action from governments. The media's influence on the shaping of foreign policy is considerable in many countries. Although there has been a spectacular expansion in the reach of some communications media, serious imbalances remain in access to information and in the distribution of even the most basic technology. Two billion people more than one in three individuals in the world still lack electricity. In 1990, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria together had fewer telephone connections than Canada, which has only 27 million people. These disparities are repeated in the ownership of communications satellites, the key to media globalization. 5.2. Concepts of Global Media The present era of media convergence demands knowledge and expertise across a diverse range of media technologies and systems. We live at a moment when every important idea, story, brand, image, sound and relationship is apt to travel across every available channel of communication. This spread of media content is fuelled top-down by the consolidation of media industry and bottom-up by popular access to new tools of grassroots media production and distribution. Yet, there is no moment in human history when a single medium operated in isolation. Each medium has its own affordances, its own market, and its own cultural status. These different media interact with each other to constitute the communication environment. Different media interact differently with people across the world. 5.3. Comparison across borders Advanced telecommunications and the worldwide expansion of media markets create an urgent need to understand our emerging ‘global media culture’, ‘the cross-pollination of national and international cultural traditions, and the new styles and genres developing in this context. 72 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology We can also recognize that the same media technologies operate differently in different national contexts, as they get absorbed into different cultural traditions, economic contexts, and political structures. Thus, it is important to reflect upon the interplay between globalize and localizing forces in defining the contemporary and historic media landscape. The emerging digital landscape poses significant challenge for those concerned with the notion of global culture. On one hand, these new technologies potentially accelerate long-standing trends towards the world culture, insuring access to international markets. It continuously erodes traditional national identities and cultural values. On the other hand, the multi-directional character of digital communications in mass media may open the global community to more diverse influences, enabling people to maintain stronger ties to their countries and encouraging stronger global consciousness. Like the ‘information superhighway’, ‘globalization’ is yet another hype term in Information Technology. It assumes that the phenomena of the industries are worldwide, that users of information technologies and mass media make up the majority of the world’ s population with no obstacles to access anywhere. While millions across the world access the Internet, it is often forgotten that these belong to elite educated groups in the richer countries. By no means is access universal, nor it is affordable to the vast majority of the world’s population. Thus, there is indeed a yawning gap between the information-rich and the information-poor, and this gap is growing, since the costs of access are nowhere getting any cheaper or easier. Information Superhighway: It is a broad term used for the many emerging and existing paths for accessing electronic information. They include computer networks, electronic mail, enhanced cable TV systems, electronic shopping and banking, etc. The information superhighway was a popular term used through the 1990s to refer to digital communication system. This term was coined to describe a possible upgrade to the existing Internet through the use of 73 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology fiber optic and/or cable to allow for high speed data transmission. 5.4. Globalization: In its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional things or phenomena into global ones. It can also be used to describe a process by which the people of the world are unified. Globalization is a set of processes leading to the integration of economic, cultural, political, and social systems across borders. It is the increasing integration of economies and societies around the world, transcending the boundaries of the nation state, particularly through international trade and the flow of capital, ideas and people, the transfer of culture and technology, and the development of transnational regulations. It is the concept used to recognize the continuing integration of local, regional, and national economies which now form a larger economic. Thus, it is a complex series of economic, social, technological, cultural, and political changes seen as increasing, integration, and interaction between people and companies in disparate locations.
Today, the Global Village is mostly used as a metaphor to describe the Internet and World Wide Web. On the Internet, physical distance is even less of a hindrance to the real-time communicative activities of people, and therefore social spheres are greatly expanded by the openness of the web and the ease at which people can search for online communities and interact with others that share the same interests and concerns. Therefore, this technology fosters the idea of a conglomerate yet unified global community. Due to the enhanced speed of communication online and the ability of people to read about, spread, and react to global news very rapidly, this forces us to become more involved with one another from countries around the world and be more aware of our global responsibilities. Similarly, web-connected computers enable people to link their 74 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology web sites together. This new reality has implications for forming new sociological structures within the context of culture. 5.5. Importance It is really amazing that how the radio, the television, and the newspaper get all the information, facts and figures from far flung corners of the World? How could all the newspapers, in a very short span of time, gather information? This is where the whole system of news and information gathering and dissemination activities operates. Production and distribution of information has become a very complicated and competitive business. News agencies have performed this role for many years. Since the material is distributed and used by many media establishments, there is concern about the power of these agencies. Significant changes in communications have occurred in the recent past. These changes have implications for both national and international communication flows. These flows have advantages as well as disadvantages. They have also raised a number of issues concerning politics, economy, and culture in different countries, and prompted them to evolve a framework of communication of their own in keeping with their own needs. It is, therefore, necessary to understand the nature and content of communication flows between and among nations and the organizations that are involved in these tasks. There are hundreds of agencies, which are in the business of supplying information to the mass media. These agencies are referred to as news agencies, feature agencies, and syndicates. The news agencies supply material to suit the print as well as the audio-visual media. The impact of these agencies on what we read and see is quite significant. Therefore, an essential pre-requisite for a student of communication is to understand the background of some of these agencies. 5.6. Global Broadcasting Broadcasting beyond national boundaries has been a parallel activity for many countries along with the development of their domestic systems. The external services or international broadcasting by different countries are aimed at serving their people settled in other countries, and also to propagated the policies of the respective countries. Since broadcasting developed in the colonial 75 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology era, the colonial powers sought through the radio to build stronger ties between themselves and the peoples they ruled around the world. England and Holland were the first to think along these lines. However, it was Adolf Hitler of Germany who saw the potential use of the domestic and international radio for purposes of propaganda. During World War II, the international short wave radio was a weapon to conquer people’s minds. Some of the leading broadcasting organizations are: 5.7. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC): Authors interested in broadcasting suggests that the British were adept in using, international radio. Broadcasting in the United Kingdom has undergone phenomenal changes since then. Yet, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) occupies a central place in terms of its international reach and influence. The ‘BBC World Service’ has, always fascinated us in India, and now through satellites, we have the benefit of watching the BBC TV. BBC is a central institution in the broadcasting system of the United Kingdom. In 1922, several radio manufacturers established the British Broadcasting Company. In 1926, it became a public corporation. It currently operates two national color television networks (BBC-I and BBC-II) and four national radio networks. BBC draws international news from its correspondents. BBC’s international character is based on the fact that it is in the forefront of the United Kingdom’s international broadcasting operations. The operations are not commercial, and finance is provided in the form of a special grant approved by the British Parliament. Consequently, the government is directly involved in the international broadcasting system. The scope, nature and character of BBC External Services was affected during the Falkland crisis. It was also the target of criticism during the Iranian Revolution and the recent Gulf War. However, contemporary developments indicate that international broadcasting is here to stay. 5.7.1.Voice of America (VOA): Another country, which has systematically used and realized the potential of the radio and television in international affairs, is the United States of America. This realization is traced to the year 19441, when the USA entered World War II. Given the private nature of broadcasting within the country, the Government did not have any broadcasting outlet of its own. However, the private companies had 76 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology short wave transmitters, which the Government procured on a lease basis. Two government organizations, the Office of War Information and the Council of InterAmerican Affairs were responsible for international broadcasts during the period. The private US broadcast corporations did the programme titled Voice of America on a contractual basis. After the war ended, VOA would have closed down, had it not been for the dawn of a cold war between the USA and the USSR. Therefore, when the United States Information Agency (USIA) was established, in 1953, VOA became one of its divisions. At a time when many countries did not have their own local stations, VOA and BBC could command huge audience bases. When local stations developed, VOA directed its programmes to the politically curious. Although VOA has grown and expanded considerably, its influence is debatable. Critics argue that the disapproval of the US politics in many lands had its impact on VOA’s operation and its influence. On many fronts, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf Conflict, VOA has been criticized. 5.7.2.VISNEWS: It is related to the international broadcasting service in the supply of audio-visual material similar to the news agency services. One of the major suppliers of visuals for the TV networks around the world is VISNEWS. VISNEWS is a London based international TV news film agency owned by a consortium of the BBC, Reuters, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and New Zealand TV. The service has over 170 subscribers in 95 countries and the largest contributor to the daily Eurovision exchange programme. 5.8. Global advertising Modern advertising was made possible by the invention of printing, and the subsequent attempts to print notices, posters and bills in large numbers. However, it was the industrial revolution in Europe, combined with large-scale urbanization and mass production of goods, and the growth of the publishing business that made the expansion of competitive advertising possible. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe and the United States were witness to massive migration of people from rural to urban areas, there to work in factories and live in crowded unhygienic conditions. The industrial revolution proved to be a success on the back of the working –classes, and the availability of large markets in the ‘colonies’ from where cheap raw material could be bought. 77 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology Mass production resulted in the need to market the products as they rolled out of factories. Advertising was hit upon as a powerful tool to stimulate public demand for standardized factory products. Advertising was welcomed by the growing printing and publishing trades as it subsidized their costs of production, this went a long way in keeping the price of newspapers low. By 1861 there were as many as 5,000 newspapers and magazines in the United States, with several of them publishing more advertisements than news or articles. ‘Space sellers’ entered the business world to act as middlemen or brokers between the manufacturers and the press. Advertising is providing information, calling attention to, and making known something that you want to sell or promote. Advertising is a message designed to promote or sell a product, a service, or an idea. Advertising reaches people through varied types of mass communication. In everyday life, people come into contact with many different kinds of advertising. Printed ads are found in newspapers and magazines. Poster ads are placed in buses, subways, and trains. Neon signs are scattered along downtown streets. Billboards dot the landscape along our highways. Commercials interrupt radio and television programming. Advertising is a multibillion-dollar industry. In many businesses, sales volume depends on the amount of advertising done. Manufacturers try to persuade people to buy their products. Business firms use advertising to promote an "image" for their company. Businesses use advertising to gain new customers and increase sales. Individuals, political candidates and their parties, organizations and groups, and the government also advertise. The armed forces use ads to recruit volunteers. Special interest groups promote a cause or try to influence people's thoughts and actions. Politicians use ads to try to win votes. And people advertise in newspapers to sell cars, homes, property, or other items. Prior to considering methods of advertising and marketing it is important to ensure that you understand and adhere to local country laws relating to data protection and customer rights concerning privacy and opt-out of various marketing methods. This especially relates to maintaining and using lists and people's personal details, to the use of telemarketing, direct mail, fax marketing, and email. Generally private consumers enjoy more protection than business-to-business customers.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology 5.9. Global agencies The Industrial Revolution, which started in England in the middle part of the eighteenth century, reached its peak by the early part of the nineteenth century. Mechanical advances led to mass production. This necessitated mass consumption, which in turn made advertising a real necessity. Various media most notably newspapers were available. So a new business emerged-that of arranging for space in newspapers. The pioneer in this field was Volney B. Palmer, who opened the first ‘advertising agency in 1841 in Philadelphia. It was not a complete agency in the real sense. It just dealt with media space. Still Volney Palmer is considered the first advertising man. Although, in the strictest sense he was just a space-selling agent, Palmer charged commission for arranging space for advertisements in newspapers. The beginning of the 20th century marked a new era of professionalism in advertising. Strong foundations were laid by pioneering advertising men who ventured into the field. The first among these pioneers was Ernest Elmo Calkens of Bates Agency. His advertisements were full of visuals. The advent of full color printing helped in a big way. Calkens was the first to introduce image advertising. At this time two other pioneers, John E. Kennedy and Albert Lasker formed the Lord & Master Advertising Agency in 1905. Lasker’s managerial excellence and Kennedy’s salesmanship combined well and the agency produced some of the best advertising. Kennedy’s style was simple and straight forward and in his advertisements he presented facts and arguments, which a salesman would present personally. Next came the greatest copywriter of all times-Claude Hopkins. After working with many organizations, Hopkins finally joined the Lord& Master Agency. While with this agency, he developed many scientific approaches for creating advertising. He was highly analytical person and introduced many testing methods. Another important milestone in the evolution of advertising was the introduction of the ‘soft sell’ approach by Theoder E. MacManus. His approach, as opposed to the ‘hard sell’ approach, was to slowly build up a positive association between the product and the consumers and create a lasting image for the products in the minds of the consumers.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology When the First World War was over, new products appeared constantly. This product-boom led to a boom in advertising. The leading agency during this period was J. Walter Thompson (JWT). The husband-wife team of Stanley Resor and Helen Resor led it. They developed the concept of ‘brand names’. The Resor couple was also the first to introduce research in advertising. They were the first to use ‘status appeal’. Also they spread their branches in many countries outside the US, including in India. During the great depression of the late 1920’s, the only agency that was successful was Young and Rubicam. Partners John Orr Young and Raymond Rubicam successfully used fresh and original ideas to create unique ads. Another pioneer to enrich the advertising field was John Caples. He was a vicepresident of the Batten, Burton, Darnstine & Osborn (BBDO) Agency. Caples was the first to introduce ‘brevity’ in advertising. He used short words, short sentences and short paragraphs. He also elucidate about the power and importance of the ‘headline’. 1930 saw the emergence of radio. This highly affordable and entertaining medium offered tremendous opportunity as a vehicle of advertising. Soon radio became one of the leading advertising media. Although television came in the 1930’s only, it took quite some time to become an important medium of advertising. 1960s were the most important decade in the history of advertising saw the emergence of three creative geniuses- Leo Burnett, David Ogilvy and William Bernback. Burnett, who found the Leo Burnett Agency, introduced ‘drama’ advertising. His approach was to find the ‘inherent drama’ in each product and present it in the most believable way. He created fictional characters that told the product’s story. The most important of these characters is the ‘Marlboro Man’ for Marlboro cigarette. Many to reach the average consumer have followed his approach. Then came David Ogilvy, considered to be the greatest ad man. Ogilvy used the image approach as opposed to the information approach. He used research and always attached an attractive appeal to the brand. He formed the Ogilvy and Mather agency, which is one of the leading agencies in the world today with hundreds of branches all over the globe.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology William Bernback, founder of the Doyle, Dane and Bernback Agency defined advertising as the art of persuasion. A highly innovative copywriter, Bernback created touching advertising using feelings and emotions. 5.10. Changing Agency World The advertising industry has seen many changes in the recent times. Agencies have tried to keep pace with the changes in the world of business. Agencies have merged through buying or take-over to form large multinational agencies in the lines of multinational corporations (MNC’s). Tie-ups with local agencies have become common. Think global but act local has become the mantra of the ad world. Tie-ups, take over and mergers have led to a situation where the big agencies are in a position to offer not just advertising services but also integrated marketing services. It is not just advertising anymore. It has spread its wings to cover the entire field of marketing communication. Despite all this, advertising the world over has seen a slump in the recent times. Accountability and effectiveness of advertising are being questioned. More money is being spent on direct marketing and other activities. However, advertising is here to stay. And so are the ad agencies. And agencies would continue to serve with newer innovations in the fields of creativity, means of payment, structure and client relations. 5.11. Global campaign ‘Media-mix’ or ‘multi-media communication’ is frequently used as concepts in explaining the media communication. Persuasion is considered to be the most vital activity in communication for development. Endeavor has been made, to explain the aspect of persuasion and persuasiveness of mass media and it has been said that change agents make efforts to influence people to alter their attitudes and behaviors toward their existing way of living. Media campaigns are aimed towards their environment and to motivate them to accept and implement recommended practices that will provide them greater benefit economically and socially. Global methods for Persuasion and publicity are therefore essential for flourishing of any global campaign. Persuasion act involves change agents at the source or 81 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology sender end and target people at the receiver end. Change agent applies various method of communication in persuasion. They may meet individuals personally and persuade them to accept new idea. They may meet individuals in groups to discuss them on the needs for adoption of recommended practices or may invite people to attend exhibitions or demonstrations or convey the messages repeatedly through different mass media. Dorwin Cartwright, on the basis of the findings of his experiment on sale of War Bonds during World War II in USA, concluded that more than one medium made the campaign on influencing people to see more possible ways to one goal. Channels of interpersonal communication carry the idea further discuss, interpret and often talk back. A global campaign that is intended to appeal to a wide spectrum of persons and bring about decisions for adoption among persons, usually gains by using a number of channels, both media and interpersonal. Mass media are efficient at carrying information and interpersonal channels are likely to carry influence. Each medium has its own characteristic, capability and efficiency for carrying out global media campaigns: Radio is important in developing awareness and interest about new ideas and efficient in providing reminders about information already communicated. Television is capable of demonstrating skills, methods and effectively related to the campaign. Print is unparalleled in providing in-depth analysis and enables the readers to preserve information for future reference. Cinema is efficient in demonstrating the development and effect of campaign developments. Folk media are forceful in creating popular impact on the audience for adopting these global campaigns in their lives Formal personal channels (change agents who have already adopted the media campaign) are important for creating detailed acquaintance of the people with the information through face-to-face contacts. Informal personal channels (opinion leaders) are efficient in influencing the community on acceptance of the campaign.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology Effects of Globalization
Globalisation is the new buzzword that has come to dominate the world since the nineties of the last century with the end of the cold war and the break-up of the former Soviet Union and the global trend towards the rolling ball. The frontiers of the state with increased reliance on the market economy and renewed faith in the private capital and resources, a process of structural adjustment spurred by the studies and influences of the World Bank and other International organisations have started in many of the developing countries. Also Globalisation has brought in new opportunities to developing countries. Greater access to developed country markets and technology transfer hold out promise improved productivity and higher living standard. But globalisation has also thrown up new challenges like growing inequality across and within nations, volatility in financial market and environmental deteriorations. Another negative aspect of globalisation is that a great majority of developing countries remain removed from the process. Till the nineties the process of globalisation of the Indian economy was constrained by the barriers to trade and investment liberalisation of trade, investment and financial flows initiated in the nineties has progressively lowered the barriers to competition and hastened the pace of globalisation. Globalization means increasing the interdependence, connectivity and integration on a global level with respect to the social, cultural, political, technological, economic and ecological levels. 5.12.1. Advantages of Globalization Goods and people are transported with more easiness and speed the possibility of war between the developed countries decreases free trade between countries increases global mass media connects all the people in the world 83 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
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as the cultural barriers reduce, the global village dream becomes more realistic there is a propagation of democratic ideals the interdependence of the nation-states increases as the liquidity of capital increases, developed countries can invest in developing ones the flexibility of corporations to operate across borders increases the communication between the individuals and corporations in the world increases environmental protection in developed countries increases 5.12.2. Effects of globalization can be enlisted as: enhancement in the information flow between geographically remote locations the global common market has a freedom of exchange of goods and capital there is a broad access to a range of goods for consumers and companies worldwide production markets emerge free circulation of people of different nations leads to social benefits global environmental problems like cross-boundary pollution, over fishing on oceans, climate changes are solved by discussions more trans-border data flow using communication satellites, the Internet, wireless telephones etc. international criminal courts and international justice movements are launched the standards applied globally like patents, copyright laws and world trade agreements increase corporate, national and sub-national borrowers have a better access to external finance worldwide financial markets emerge Multi-cultural spreads as there is individual access to cultural diversity. This diversity decreases due to hybridization or assimilation international travel and tourism increases worldwide sporting events like the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup are held enhancement in worldwide fads and pop culture local consumer products are exported to other countries immigration between countries increases cross-cultural contacts grow and cultural diffusion takes place there is an increase in the desire to use foreign ideas and products, adopt new practices and technologies and be a part of world culture free trade zones are formed having less or no tariffs 84 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology due to development of containerization for ocean shipping, the transportation costs are reduced subsidies for local businesses decrease capital controls reduce or vanquish there is supranational recognition of intellectual property restrictions i.e. patents authorized by one country are recognized in another 5.12.3. Advantages of globalization in the developing world It is claimed that globalization increases the economic prosperity and opportunity in the developing world. The civil liberties are enhanced and there is a more efficient use of resources. All the countries involved in the free trade are at a profit. As a result, there are lower prices, more employment and a better standard of life in these developing nations. It is feared that some developing regions progress at the expense of other developed regions. However, such doubts are futile as globalization is a positive-sum chance in which the skills and technologies enable to increase the living standards throughout the world. Liberals look at globalization as an efficient tool to eliminate penury and allow the poor people a firm foothold in the global economy. Simultaneously, the world population also increased. Thus, the percentage of such people decreased from 40% to 20% in such developing countries. Globalization is the rapid increase in cross-border economic, social, technological exchange under conditions of capitalism. SUMMARY The present era of media convergence demands knowledge and expertise across a diverse range of media technologies and systems. We live at a moment when every important idea, story, brand, image, sound and relationship is apt to travel across every available channel of communication. This spread of media content is fuelled top-down by the consolidation of media industry and bottom-up by popular access to new tools of grassroots media production and distribution. Yet, there is no moment in human history when a single medium operated in isolation. Each medium has its own affordances, its own market, and its own cultural status. These different media interact with each other to constitute the communication environment. Different media interact differently with people across the world.
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology New media technology is any type of application meant to transfer information via digital techniques, computerized systems or data networks. First established in the 20th century, new media technology is most readily associated with information transfers meant to be manipulated in some way. Most forms of this technology are interactive and contain compressed data designed to be accessed in a variety of markets. The most prevalent examples of new media technologies include Internet-based concepts like websites or digital mediums such as CD-ROMs and DVDs. Anything that is considered old media, such as television, film or paper-based products, are not part of new media. The concept for new media technology got its start in the 1960s. With the rise of modern computer technology, the idea of information exchange through the medium became a powerful application. Artists and designers worked to bring new concepts to fruition such as digital-based artwork and video games. These technologies became highly prevalent in the 1980s, slowly replacing traditionally media, primarily through the implementation of personal computers and video game systems. This was also supported by publishing methods that allowed for easier image manipulation techniques and online publications. The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail. Stand-alone technology or media refers to a device that is self-contained, one that does not require any other devices to function. For example, a fax machine is a stand-alone device because it does not require a computer, printer, modem, or other device. A printer, on the other hand, is not a stand-alone device because it requires a computer to feed it data. Electronics that are capable of operating independently are stand-alone. India did not lag behind in the introduction of the new technologies though the progress was tardy, and largely restricted to the elites in urban areas, and to teachers and researchers in national science and research institutes. The first computers to be installed in India were imported in the 1960s and 70s. Most were 86 PUNJAB TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology second and third-generation IBM mainframes using transistors. The major importers were government departments and large corporations. By 1978, India had 800 mainframes maintained by the public sector company, Computer Maintenance Corporation (CMC), after the withdrawal of IBM. The decade also saw the emergence of a few Indian producers: ECIL, ICIM, Bull-PSI, and others. Developments in micro computing, the convergence of computer controls with telecommunications, communication satellites, fibre optics and digital switches, as well as liberalization in import policies, led to the rapid growth of the computer industry India, all the while it remained ‘as assembly-oriented industry’. Digital media usually refers to electronic media that work on digital codes. Today, computing is primarily based on the binary numeral system. In this case digital refers to the discrete states of "0" and "1" for representing arbitrary data. Computers are machines that (usually) interpret binary digital data as information and thus represent the predominating class of digital information processing machines. Digital media ("Formats for presenting information”) like digital audio, digital video and other digital "content" can be created, referred to and distributed via digital information processing machines. Digital media represents a profound change from previous (analog) media. Globalisation is the new buzzword that has come to dominate the world since the nineties of the last century with the end of the cold war and the break-up of the former Soviet Union and the global trend towards the rolling ball. The frontiers of the state with increased reliance on the market economy and renewed faith in the private capital and resources, a process of structural adjustment spurred by the studies and influences of the World Bank and other International organisations have started in many of the developing countries. Also Globalisation has brought in new opportunities to developing countries. Greater access to developed country markets and technology transfer hold out promise improved productivity and higher living standard.
QUESTIONS FOR PRACTICE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Define digitalization. What is E-commerce? Internet is a network of networks. Comment. Enumerate the new technological devices in media technology. What is meant by globalization? What is impact of globalization?
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BSCMCAJ-602: Contemporary Media Technology 6. What is the need of new information communication technologies? 7. What are challenges and promises of the Internet? 8. Media technologies are evolutionary as well revolutionary. Comment 9. What is the role of IT in information management? 10.What are the various components of the digital era? Discuss. 11.What is the impact of TV in the current media scene? 12.Write a critique on telecommunication revolution. 13.Internet has transformed the world into a global village. Comment. 14.Describe the globalization process. 15.Write a note on Cable TV in India. SUGGESTED READING 1. Mass Communication Perspective Uma Narula 2. Globalization Albrowm & King E 3. Technology & Communication Behaviour Belmont C A Wadsworth
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