digital media essay

• Events Calendar
• Featured Story

What's Next? How Digital Media Shapes Our Society

A summary of Professor Leah A. Lievrouw's most recent book, which explores the rapidly changing role communication plays at the center of human experience and endeavor.

UCLA Information Studies Professor Leah A. Lievrouw’s first academic job was at Rutgers University in the late 1980s. One day, a colleague, a media effects researcher, was talking with her in her office and said, “Well, you know this new media stuff, it’s kind of interesting, but really it’s just a fad, isn’t it?”

That “new media stuff” has been the centerpiece of Lievrouw’s research ever since and today is central to many of the economic, social, political and policy challenges that confront the globe.

“My interest is in new technologies, communication information technologies and social change, and how change happens for good and ill. It’s really a sociological take. I’m more interested in what’s going on at the whole society or whole community level,” Lievrouw said. Professor Lievrouw joined the UCLA Department of Information Studies in 1995 and in 2005 co-edited “The Handbook of New Media” (Sage Publications), with Sonia Livingston of the London School of Economics. The book became a central resource for study of the field and is still used in classrooms and cited in research.

“It was really a big comprehensive survey with leading people in the field who were working on this research, right across various sub-fields and different topics,” Lievrouw said. “For a long time and in some circles still it is kind of the definitive capture of what the field was like and what the issues were at the moment.”

With changes in technology and communication rapidly occurring with ever larger impact, Lievrouw and her colleagues began talking about not just an update, but a whole new book.

Lievrouw decided to move forward and eventually linked up with Brian Loader, a professor at the University of York in the United Kingdom and editor-in-chief of the journal Information, Communication and Society, to serve as co-editor.

The book draws together the work of scholars from across the globe to examine the forces that shape our digital social lives and further our understanding of the sociocultural impact of digital media.

Routledge Handbook of Digital Media and Communication

“As of this writing, as the world undergoes breakdowns in social, institutional, and technological systems across every domain of human affairs in the wake of a biological and public health crisis of unprecedented scale and scope, such a framework for understanding communicative action, technology, and social forms has never been so apt or so urgently needed.” - Routledge Publishing

Mirroring the approach of the earlier “Handbook of Social Media,” the book is organized into a three-part framework exploring the artifacts or devices, the practices and institutional arrangements that are central to digital media, and draws the connections across the three elements.

The book explores topics such as the power of algorithms, digital currency, gaming culture, surveillance, social networking, and connective mobilization. As described in the introduction by Routledge, the “Handbook delivers a comprehensive, authoritative overview of the state of new media scholarship and its most important future directions that will shape and animate current debates.”

“I really like that again this seems to be a pretty definitive state-of-the-art kind of look at what is going on with these technologies,” Lievrouw said. “This has perhaps a more critical edge than we had 20 years ago, because we have begun to see the downsides of digital media as well as all the upsides that everyone had such hopes about. What makes me really happy is that this volume kind of pulls back a bit and takes a bigger stock of the issues and challenges. We have a few chapters that I think are just really definitive, written by some of the very best people on the planet. We were very lucky to recruit such a terrific lineup of people.”

Professor Lievrouw refers to a series of essays on critical topics in the book by leading experts such as Paul Dourish exploring Ubiquity or the everywhereness of digital media; Veronica Barrasi, writing about youth, algorithms, and political data; and Julie Cohen, writing about the nature of property in a world driven by social media and more.

“In her chapter, Cohen asks, what’s the nature of property? Every aspect of our behavior or of our beliefs is constantly kind of being pulled away from us, appropriated and owned by outfits like Google and like Facebook. They now consider this their proprietary information, and we’ve not had that before in the world really, certainly not on this scale. I think that’s worth exploring,” Lievrouw said.

Timing is everything, and the new book is emerging at a time of particular relevance and questioning about digital media.

“The book has happened to come out at a moment when there’s so much skepticism, and so much worry,” Professor Lievrouw said. “What’s interesting is that the worry is in the scholarly community too and has been for a little while.

“We’re in that moment where we are having to look, not only at the most egregious and outrageous behaviors, opinions, and disinformation, and all the kinds of things that have come out from under the rocks. And the system itself is rather mature at this point, so the question becomes, ‘Where is it going to go? What do we do next? Is it just more incursion, more data, more surveillance, more circulation of stuff?’ And we are doing it without editing, without gatekeepers. And we should never forget about the impact of places like Facebook, Google, Amazon. “It has changed social structure.

It has changed cultural practices. It has changed our perception of the world fundamentally. And I think it’s not just the technology that did this, it’s the way we built it.

“I think we are entering a period of reckoning about these technologies, the whole complex of people involved in the building and operation of platforms and different kinds of applications, especially data gathering. Data has come to the center of the economics of this thing in a way that it hasn’t before. This is a good moment to reassess what works, what has been emancipatory, what has been enabling for people, how the diffusion of these technologies, and the adaptation of their use, is impacting different places and different cultures all over the world.

“Every thoughtful researcher in this area I know is turning this over in their head, saying, ‘How did we get to this point? What happened here?’ I think what this book can help us understand not only where we are right now, but also to think about what could be next, and what can we do to repair this. Right now, I don’t think anybody has a solid answer for that. If they do, it’s an answer they don’t like.”

Excerpt from Introduction

No longer new, digital media and communication technologies—and their associated infrastructures, practices, and cultural forms—have become woven into the very social fabric of contemporary human life. Despite the cautiously optimistic accounts of the potential of the Internet to foster stronger democratic governance, enable connective forms of mobilization, stimulate social capital (community, social, or crisis informatics), restructure education and learning, support remote health care, or facilitate networked flexible organization, the actual development of digital media and communication has been far more problematic. Indeed, recent commentary has been more pessimistic about the disruptive impact of digital media and communication upon our everyday lives. The promise of personal emancipation and free access to unlimited digital resources has, some argue, led us to sleepwalk into a world of unremitting surveillance, gross disparities in wealth, precarious employment opportunities, a deepening crisis in democracy, and an opaque global network of financial channels and transnational corporations with unaccountable monopoly power.

A critical appraisal of the current state of play of the digital world is thus timely, indeed overdue, and required if we are to examine these assertions and concerns clearly. There is no preordained technological pathway that digital media must follow or are following. A measure of these changes is the inadequacy of many familiar concepts— such as commons, public sphere, social capital, class, and others—to capture contemporary power relations or to explain transitions from “mass society” to networked sociality—or from mass to personalized consumption. Even the strategies of resistance to these transitions draw upon traditional appeals to unionization, democratic accountability, mass mobilization, state regulation, and the like, all part of the legacy of earlier capitalist and political forms.

How then to examine the current digitalscape? Internet-based and data-driven systems, applications, platforms, and affordances now play a pivotal role in every domain of social life. Under the rubric of new media research, computer-mediated communication, social media or Internet studies, media sociology, or media anthropology, research and scholarship in the area have moved from the fringe to the theoretical and empirical center of many disciplines, spawning a whole generation of new journals and publishers’ lists. Within communication research and scholarship itself, digital technologies and their consequences have become central topics in every area of the discipline—indeed, they have helped blur some of the most enduring boundaries dividing many of the field’s traditional specializations. Meanwhile, the ubiquity, adaptability, responsiveness, and networked structure of online communication, the advantages of which—participation, convenience, engagement, connectedness, community—were often celebrated in earlier studies, have also introduced troubling new risks, including pervasive surveillance, monopolization, vigilantism, cyberwar, worker displacement, intolerance, disinformation, and social separatism.

Technology infrastructure has several defining features that make it a distinctive object of study. Infrastructures are embedded; transparent (support tasks invisibly); have reach or scope beyond a single context; learned as part of membership in a social or cultural group; are linked to existing practices and routines; embody standards; are built on an existing, installed base; and, perhaps most critically, ordinarily become “visible” or apparent to users only when they break down: when “the server is down, the bridge washes out, there is a power blackout.” As of this writing, as the world undergoes breakdowns in social, institutional, and technological systems across every domain of human affairs in the wake of a biological and public health crisis of unprecedented scale and scope, such a framework for understanding communicative action, technology, and social forms has never been so apt or so urgently needed.

Two cross-cutting themes had come to characterize the quality and processes of mediated communication over the prior two decades. The first is a broad shift from the mass and toward the network as the defining structure and dominant logic of communication technologies, systems, relations, and practices; the second is the growing enclosure of those technologies, relations, and practices by private ownership and state security interests. These two features of digital media and communication have joined to create socio-technical conditions for communication today that would have been unrecognizable even to early new media scholars of the 1970s and 1980s, to say nothing of the communication researchers before them specializing in classical media effects research, political economy of media, interpersonal and group process, political communication, global/comparative communication research, or organizational communication, for example.

This collection of essays reveals an extraordinarily faceted, nuanced picture of communication and communication studies, today. For example, the opening part, “Artifacts,” richly portrays the infrastructural qualities of digital media tools and systems. Stephen C. Slota, Aubrey Slaughter, and Geoffrey C. Bowker’s piece on “occult” infrastructures of communication expands and elaborates on the infrastructure studies perspective. Paul Dourish provides an incisive discussion on the nature and meaning of ubiquity for designers and users of digital systems. Essays on big data and algorithms (Taina Bucher), mobile devices and communicative gestures (Lee Humphreys and Larissa Hjorth), digital embodiment and financial infrastructures (Kaitlyn Wauthier and Radhika Gajjala), interfaces and affordances (Matt Ratto, Curtis McCord, Dawn Walker, and Gabby Resch), hacking (Finn Brunton), and digital records and memory (David Beer) demonstrate how computation and data generation/capture have transfigured both the material features and the human experience of engagement with media technologies and systems. The second part, “Practices,” shifts focus from devices, tools, and systems to the communicative practices of the people who use them. Digital media and communication today have fostered what some writers have called datafication—capturing and rendering all aspects of communicative action, expression, and meaning into quantified data that are often traded in markets and used to make countless decisions about, and to intercede in, people’s experiences. Systems that allow people to make and share meaning are also configured by private-sector firms and state security actors to capture and enclose human communication and information.

This dynamic is played out in routine monitoring and surveillance (an essay by Mark Andrejevic), in the construction and practice of personal identity (Mary Chayko), in family routines and relationships (Nancy Jennings), in political participation (Brian Loader and Veronica Barassi), in our closest relationships and sociality (Irina Shklovski), in education and new literacies (Antero Garcia), in the increasing precarity of “information work” (Leah Lievrouw and Brittany Paris), and in what Walter Lippmann famously called the “picture of reality” portrayed in the news (Stuart Allan, Chris Peters, and Holly Steel). Many suggest that the erosion of boundaries between public and private, true and false, and ourselves and others is increasingly taken for granted, with mediated communication as likely to create a destabilizing, chronic sense of disruption and displacement as it is to promote deliberation, cohesion, or solidarities.

The broader social, organizational, and institutional arrangements that shape and regulate the tools and the practices of digital communication and information, and which themselves are continuously reformed, are explored in the third part. Nick Couldry starts with an overview of mediatization, the growing centrality of media in what he calls the “institutionalization of the social” and the establishment of social order, at every level from microscale interaction to the jockeying among nation-states. There are essays that present evidence of the instability, uncertainty, and delegitimation associated with digital media; reflections on globalization; a survey of governance and regulation; a revisitation of political economy; and the trenchant reconsideration of the notion of property. Elena Pavan and Donatella della Porta examine the role of digital media in social movements while Keith Hampton and Barry Wellman argue that digital technologies may, in fact, help reinforce people’s senses of community and belonging both online and offline. Shiv Ganesh and Cynthia Stohl show that while much past research was focused on the “fluidity” or formlessness of organization afforded by “digital ubiquity,” in fact contemporary organizing is a more subtle process comprising “opposing tendencies and human activities, of both form and formlessness.”

Taken together, the contributions present a complex, interwoven technical, social/cultural, and institutional fabric of society, which nonetheless seems to be showing signs of wear, or perhaps even breakdown in response to systemic environmental and institutional crises. As digital media and communication technologies have become routine, even banal—convenience, immediacy, connectedness—they are increasingly accompanied by a growing recognition of their negative externalities—monopoly and suppressed competition, ethical and leadership failures, and technological lock-in instead of genuine, path breaking innovation. The promise and possibility of new media and digitally mediated communication are increasingly tempered with sober assessments of risk, conflict, and exploitation.

This scenario may seem pessimistic, but perhaps one way to view the current state of digital media and communication studies is that it has matured, or reached a moment of consolidation, in which the visionary enthusiasms and forecasts of earlier decades have grown into a more developed or skeptical perspective. Digital media platforms and systems have diffused across the globe into cultural, political, and economic contexts and among diverse populations that often challenge the assumptions and expectations that were built into the early networks. The systems themselves, and their ownership and operations, have stabilized and become routinized, much as utilities and earlier media systems have done before, so they are more likely to resist root-and-branch change. They are as likely to reinforce and sustain patterns of knowledge and power as they are to “disrupt” them.

In another decade we might expect to find that the devices, practices, and institutional arrangements will have become even more integrated into common activities, places, and experiences, and culture will be unremarkable, embedded, woven into cultural practices, standardized, and invisible or transparent, just as satellite transmissions and undersea cables, or content streaming and social media platforms, are to us today. These socio-technical qualities will pose new kinds of challenges for communication researchers and scholars, but they also herald possibilities for a fuller, deeper understanding of the role communication plays at the center of human experience and endeavor.

This article is part of the UCLA Ed&IS Magazine Summer 2021 Issue. To read the full issue click here .

• Department of Information Studies
• Knowledge That Matters
• Leah Lievrouw
• UCLA Ed&IS Magazine

Digital Media and Society Essay

The penetration and impact of digital media on society are hard to overestimate nowadays. Digital technology dominates over the traditional one because of being more convenient in use and because of offering a multitude of opportunities to the consumers. Due to this fact, the process of globalization accelerates, making the data more and more universal. Therefore, it can be stated that we are becoming equal in front of digital media: consuming, equally dependant and equally manipulated. This connection is especially topical in the United States, where digital technology is accessible practically for anyone. Digital media have become an egalitarian force in American society.

Every day millions of people in America face problems, needs, and questions of various natures; and all of them have a single answer. If a student needs some information for studying, they may use sources of the Internet. If a mother finds her baby covered with a rash or has a high temperature, she will be more likely to consult Google than a doctor. If a businessman needs some data to be copied and transmitted immediately, he will use digital cameras and other gadgets.

If some pensioner wants to entertain themselves in their free time, they are going to turn on the TV set and endlessly switch the thousands of channels performed by a digital satellite. And finally, if this essay was to be presented to a great audience, it would be more convenient to broadcast it with the help of digital technologies than to print it thousands of times. Let us face it: digital media has usurped our life; in fact, it became a part of it, the bigger part. It has so far replaced all the means of interaction, communication, education, or entertainment known ever before. And the process of digital media spread is still in progress, as humanity itself stimulates this to happen.

First of all, it is worth stressing the fact that the issue concerns only American society. For if to analyze the world in general, the thesis will lose its viability. For instance, countries of the Third World are too contrastive to the United States in the respect of technological potential. In addition, there still are countries, which prefer traditional radio, television, and newspapers to digital media. American society, a society of consumers in a country that meets the consumers’ requirements, is the most likely to be related to digital media.

So what makes digital media so popular? And how does it reflect on society? The preference of digital media today can be explained by its universal form. All the information is coded, which is convenient and much faster to use. In comparison to some traditional technologies, digital media deals with numbers instead of images, voices, and other materials. Manovich accentuates the fact that “an image or a shape can be described using a mathematical function” (Manovich, 9).

Of course, it does not make digital media any more reliable, as far as the numerous copying and transferring of information leads to loss of data. Namely, some scientists have an opinion that “while in theory digital technology entails the flawless replication of data, its actual use in contemporary society is characterized by the loss of data, degradation, and noise” (Manovich, 5). In addition, digital data cannot even be called genuine simply because of having a cyber shape.

But the huge advantage of it is that a combination of numbers is and always will be the most convenient to copy, carry and perform than anything else. Such coding is now studied and demonstrated at any computer course; therefore anyone can try to operate it if needed. This points to the connection between digital media and society: anyone can deal with it with no difficulties.

Indeed, digital media is one of the greatest means of globalization. Mixing different ethnical groups and their mentalities is just one of the numerous processes which are happening due to it today. We use digital gadgets to live our lives, we even prefer virtual money to those we can touch and smell. On the national level, different monopolies spread and become more powerful because of the commercials which are delivered to people together with news and entertainment. This can be treated as an egalitarian force of digital media on the economical level. Besides, there are several other issues that lead to the unity of the nation in different respects.

Another significant feature of digital media is its accessibility. The United States of America, a multicultural country with different nations and ethnic groups, can provide all the citizens with news or any other information which is important for them. And the viability of digital media as an egalitarian force, in this case, is reached with the help of the members of the society. People who speak different languages suddenly start to speak and comprehend English when it comes to the need for technology use.

In addition, even if someone had an extreme need to have the information on their language, it would be more than possible. It is well-known that nowadays the technology managed to even find a way of digitalizing the language, coding, and converting it. Of course, language cannot be translated by a system, but artificial intelligence is very popular and often used in this case.

Another issue concerning language as a factor that became rather flexible due to digital technologies is that digital media offers a special vocabulary that has the same form in every language. Numerous studies have shown the tendency of using such a vocabulary even in real life. It means that everyone who has access to digital media (which practically means anyone who lives in the United States) is at the same time involved in membership of a community with their secret language. This is another example of digital media being a link that unites and equals people. So it remains an open question if the digital media was made universal by technology or by consumers. In any case, people of any age or nation have equal opportunities to access digital media today.

A controversial point about the accessibility of digital media may appear when it comes to its cost. All the technologies seem to develop with an overwhelming speed; the tendencies of miniaturizing and improving can make the digital technologies quite expensive for some of the members of society. It can contradict its theoretical accessibility. But, on the other hand, there are sources that are open to the wide public. For instance, the Internet is one of those universal databases which can be used in any place by anyone.

Talking about the ability of digital media to make people equal, it is worth mentioning the Internet as a web of sites with information, which is divided into sections according to different topics. If several people are interested in one issue, they would probably try to find it on Internet, which is the fastest way. The web usually offers a set of articles, pieces of news, and writings that are the same for anyone who would like to read them.

This means that all the people will be given the same information about one issue, with a possibility which is a few times higher than a possibility of buying the same newspaper or watching the same channel. The information will also be listed on the Internet in the way from the most significant to the least significant, but the point is that the degree of importance is also defined by the system. This issue was also raised in the work of Gillmor, who writes about cable companies that used to decide which package of channels was to offer. The author notes ironically: “Oh, sure, customers had a choice: yes or no” (Gillmor, 5).

Therefore, all the interested appear to be just consumers who take in the prepared information. “Egalitarian” means based on the belief that everybody should have equal rights and opportunities. Even if these rights are repressed or manipulated, the key feature is equality. Negative or positive, the process described above is another demonstration of the egalitarian power of digital media.

The previous discussion can persuade us to make a logical conclusion about the tendency of digital technologies to atomize people. We no longer analyze the information, but just consume it. Moreover, digital technology has robbed people of a chance to perform their creativity. There is no more need of being creative in a world where numbers can replace thoughts. The digital media with its coded voice and image is practically nothing more than just a simple noise.

Anything can be changed, corrected, or even faked. That is why creativity is not stimulated to be developed today, which turns people into an atomized mass of consumers and wipes away any features of individual vision. This can be treated as a personality destroying power, but what it does is uniting all the people and breathing a single idea into them. If people are concerned about a single issue and have the same ideas about it then isn’t it a feature of an egalitarian community?

It is also worth mentioning that while talking about digital media as an egalitarian force it means only mental and behavioral equality of people. In respect of actual access to digital media, there are different aspects, most of which were discussed above. But there is also one distinguishing feature about how digital media tends to individualize people. There is something very special about the way we, for example, work with computers. Everyone nowadays has their computer, called Personal, and everyone is likely to sit alone in front of it while working or playing. This model of face-to-screen communication is sole for anyone today and therefore we can say that it makes people equal not only in having access to the digital media but also in the way they do it.

Media, in general, can be characterized as a means of delivery of information to the general public. This includes both news and entertainment, and the latter is much more popular. Digital media, like no other, can provide people with entertainment. Even though twenty-five percent of entertaining sites on the Internet are related to pornography (a sign of egalitarian unity of dissatisfied men?), there are also different readings, images, archives of music, etc.

Every day we download loads of information that can be measured mathematically but which influence is hard to imagine. It occupies, entertains, involves. Online games became so popular that the majority of studies about the impact of digital media are devoted to the analysis of the games’ characters, their hidden message, and their influence on players. People in costumes of the characters of games are welcomed to different shows and parades. It seems like the nation has a separate group of heroes, the virtual ones. American children are all equal in playing online games, and the adults – in being irritated by that. And yet it can be derived from the examples given that these entertainments unite the nation.

However, there is also some educational potential of digital media. The infinite sources of information are open to anyone today. Possibility of distanced and combined studying made it easier for students to get a diploma. What is more, anyone can use digital technologies for spreading their information. Undoubtedly, the Internet is much more convenient in use than a real library. Therefore, the new generation is highly unlikely to choose paper books and taking some notes when there is an opportunity of pressing just a few keys. Critical thinking and filtering the information read has been replaced by simple Ctrl C – Ctrl V.

Any student can simply recognize these combinations of keys, which once more points to the egalitarian force of digital media. But there should be no prejudices against modern students who often are considered to be lazy. It should also be taken into consideration that they are often stimulated to deal with digital media more than with the traditional ones. Specifically, academic presentations are always more successful when supported by some digital data: a film or images, which can be presented to the audience.

The students are often given a task to watch or read or find and analyze some articles or other materials which are spread with the help of digital media. In addition, pen and paper nowadays are more and more often replaced with the keyboard and screen. Indeed, the printed information is much easier to hold, transmit, or correct. As a result, even this essay was printed and typed with digital gadgets, and the digital media was a source of ideas for this work. Such changes in information form and value create a model of life and its perception for anyone who uses digital media. Of course, the information can be reliable and useful, but what changes gradually is how people use it.

The invention and development of artificial intelligence is another great issue that has both positive and negative sides. Everyone with no exception is familiar with it, and sometimes people use it undeliberately. For instance, John Mecklin writes about complex algorithms programming, which is “often placed under the over-colorful umbrella of artificial intelligence” (Mecklin, 1). Web sites like Google are very popular and irreplaceable for Americans today. Pursuit of news, entertainment, and a piece of advice are just varieties of one aim – using digital data. We have become addicted to it and much dependent on it, and, which is most striking, this concerns everyone.

Not only was the entertainment and studying digitalized, but also the most important sphere of adolescent life – work. Digital labor is nowadays preferred to all the other kinds of work. To illustrate, we can mention the expression of one of the scientists: “Cultural and technical work is central to the Internet but is also a widespread activity throughout advanced capitalist societies” (Terranova, 34). Does it concern American society? Indisputably.

Even though the politicians may argue about giving an exact definition to American society, there is a capitalist basis that is supported and developed by the digital media. The commercial nature of this media suggests that society is divided into consumers and those who work for consumers, and often these roles coincide. Everybody needs something and everybody has an equal possibility to satisfy their needs. Thus, digital media continues equaling people in all the spheres of their lives.

After an argumentative discussion, it would be relevant to give some predictions for the future. Of course, we have no power to tell exactly how digital media will influence people’s life further on. But it undoubtedly will and we are likely to accelerate this process. Even though the images, shapes, and sounds are being coded nowadays, the codes are created and composed by human beings. It can give hope to people occupying technology in the future, but not vice versa.

On the other hand, people can get tired of the traditional ways of working which are left and live it all up to machines. This is very likely to happen, for the progressing of digital technology leaves no chance for conventional media to continue existing. In any case, all the processes connected to digital media development will influence the whole American nation, as far as technology has already become a part of our lives. When it comes to the nation’s interests, it is essential that not everyone is concerned about politics, not all the people are communicative or have the same ideas, but everybody is familiar with and interested in digital media. Hence, the only statement which will for sure be efficient is that digital media will always be an egalitarian force in American society.

Reference list

Manovich, Lev “What is New Media” (ch 1 of The Language of New Media).

Mecklin, John “Deep Throat Meets Data-Mining”.

Terranova, Tiziana “Free Labor Producing Culture for the Digital Economy”. Duke University Press. 2000.

Gillmor, Dan “From Tom Paine to Blogs”.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, November 9). Digital Media and Society. https://ivypanda.com/essays/digital-media-and-society/

"Digital Media and Society." IvyPanda , 9 Nov. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/digital-media-and-society/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Digital Media and Society'. 9 November.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Digital Media and Society." November 9, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/digital-media-and-society/.

1. IvyPanda . "Digital Media and Society." November 9, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/digital-media-and-society/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Digital Media and Society." November 9, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/digital-media-and-society/.

• Egalitarian Family in the Western Culture
• Multicultural Education Benefits: Functioning in a Pluralistic and Egalitarian Society
• Panel: Gender Equality and Egalitarian Society
• Egalitarian Society: Goods and Services Pricing
• Egalitarianism and Social Equality in Cohen's View
• Business Ethics: Managing Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability
• Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and the Transformation of England
• Internet and Everyday Life
• Political Climate Effect on Healthy Nutrition
• Equality or Priority in the Ideal of Equality
• CNN’s Coverage of the Recession
• Theatre and Society Symbiotic Relationship
• David Hendy's Quote on American Radio
• American Influence on European Media Through Years
• Is It Fair to Cover Famous People’s Private Lives in Mass Media?

How we use digital media is changing our lives

Digital divide ... the repercussions of increased digital media use are both positive and negative Image:  . REUTERS/Ruben Sprich

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} Claudio Cocorocchia

.chakra .wef-9dduvl{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-9dduvl{font-size:1.125rem;}} Explore and monitor how .chakra .wef-15eoq1r{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;color:#F7DB5E;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-15eoq1r{font-size:1.125rem;}} Media, Entertainment and Sport is affecting economies, industries and global issues

.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;color:#2846F8;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{font-size:1.125rem;}} Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:, media, entertainment and sport.

Ever feel helpless and anxious without your mobile? You're in good company: millions of consumers of digital media, entertainment and information have found their lives revolutionized by the power at their fingertips.

Half of us believe that increased use of digital media has improved our lives, according to recent World Economic Forum research. From social networking to how we work, digital media is now integrated in much of what we do, improving our productivity and facilitating how we interact and communicate.

But at what cost? "The age of smartphones has left humans with such a short attention spans, even a goldfish can hold a thought for longer,” writes Leon Watson of The Telegraph . In 2010, another research team at the University of Michigan found a 40% decline among students in every definition of empathy among college students, as compared to their counterparts 20 years previous, with most of this decline coming after the year 2000.

The list of positive and negative repercussions of increased digital media use is long. Are we doing enough, and more importantly, can we do more to foster the great things that come from digital media use while addressing the potential risks?

You can view seven short videos about the societal implications of digital media and the impacts on various aspects of our lives:

How we consume and share How our decisions are influenced Our digital presence and privacy Our personal development, learning, and health How we interact with one another Our professional lives How we engage civically

Find out more in the Forum's report, Digital Media & Society: Implications in a Hyperconnected Era .

Author: Claudio Cocorocchia, Content Lead, Media, Entertainment and Information Industries, and a Global Leadership Fellow

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

The Agenda .chakra .wef-n7bacu{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-weight:400;} Weekly

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

.chakra .wef-1dtnjt5{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-flex-wrap:wrap;-ms-flex-wrap:wrap;flex-wrap:wrap;} More on Media, Entertainment and Sport .chakra .wef-17xejub{-webkit-flex:1;-ms-flex:1;flex:1;justify-self:stretch;-webkit-align-self:stretch;-ms-flex-item-align:stretch;align-self:stretch;} .chakra .wef-nr1rr4{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;white-space:normal;vertical-align:middle;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:0.75rem;border-radius:0.25rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;line-height:1.2;-webkit-letter-spacing:1.25px;-moz-letter-spacing:1.25px;-ms-letter-spacing:1.25px;letter-spacing:1.25px;background:none;padding:0px;color:#B3B3B3;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;}@media screen and (min-width:37.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:0.875rem;}}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:1rem;}} See all

How Paris 2024 aims to become the first-ever gender-equal Olympics

Victoria Masterson

April 5, 2024

The Paris Olympics aims to be the greenest Games in history. Here's how

Paris to host the first-ever gender-equal Olympics

Disinformation is a threat to our trust ecosystem. Experts explain how to curb it

Jesus Serrano

March 7, 2024

What does freedom of speech mean in the internet era?

John Letzing

March 5, 2024

AI and Hollywood: 5 questions for SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator

Spencer Feingold

March 4, 2024

• The Student Experience
• Financial Aid
• Degree Finder
• Undergraduate Arts & Sciences
• Departments and Programs
• Research, Scholarship & Creativity
• Centers & Institutes
• Geisel School of Medicine
• Guarini School of Graduate & Advanced Studies
• Thayer School of Engineering
• Tuck School of Business

Campus Life

• Diversity & Inclusion
• Athletics & Recreation
• Student Groups & Activities
• Residential Life

DartWrite Digital Portfolio Project

Dartmouth's home for digital writing portfolios

Digital Essay Project (Assignment Example)

Tina Van Kley has asked her Writing 5 students to re-mediate a research essay as what she calls (borrowing from Dan Cohen) a "digital essay." Students radically reshape and rewrite their projects for a public, online audience. They work toward the early drafts by exploring public writing on the web, noticing how the conventions of academic writing are both harnessed and changed in public online writing.  Students draft and complete the project as a single page on their portfolio sites. You can see an example of student work from winter 2019: https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/rayhcrist22/digital-essay/

Tina has shared a copy of the assignment text as it appeared in a recent class:

Project 3: Digital Essay

Your final project is to adapt your topic and research for Project 2 for a new, broad audience and digital medium, using your Dartmouth WordPress site.

Historian and New Media scholar Dan Cohen defines the digital essay (or – more controversially – “blessay”) as “a manifestation of the convergence of journalism and scholarship in mid-length forms online.” He cites the kind of thoughtful, informed writing found at places like The Atlantic’s website (Links to an external site.), Longform.org (Links to an external site.), and The New Yorker (Links to an external site.), or hear on NPR shows and podcasts like the investigative pieces on This American Life (Links to an external site.). We will read and listen to examples of such work to discuss the genre and its features. Some characteristics of the digital essay, as developed by Cohen (Links to an external site.):

• Mid-length: more ambitious than a blog post, less comprehensive than an academic article. Written to the length that is necessary, but no more. If we need to put a number on it, generally 1,000-3,000 words.
• Informed by academic knowledge and analysis, but doesn’t rub your nose in it.
• Uses the apparatus of the web more than the apparatus of the academic journal, e.g., links rather than footnotes. Where helpful, uses supplementary evidence from images, audio, and video—elements that are often missing or flattened in print.
• Expresses expertise but also curiosity. Conclusive, but also suggestive.
• Written for both specialists and an intelligent general audience. Avoids academic jargon—not to be populist, but rather out of a feeling that avoiding jargon is part of writing well.

Additional characteristics:

• The writer is often "present" in the piece, via use of first-person pronouns and/or anecdotes.
• Digital essays look different from traditional academic essays. Rather than titles, they have headlines and sub-headlines that give the motive and/or thesis. Paragraphs are often much shorter, and spacing is used strategically for online consumption, which prioritizes speed, efficiency, and high degree of skim-ability.

As with Projects 1 and 2, Project 3 is argumentative, but the approach taken should be exploratory and questioning, as implied by Cohen’s phrase “conclusive but also suggestive.” The imagined audience is anyone who might find your site in a search related to your topic, i.e., general but willing to read something that would take 45 minutes to an hour to read.

Basic Requirements:

• Use WordPress site
• 1,000-3,000 words in length
• Includes both visual and/or aural content that is integrated with the writing
• Includes at least 2 primary and at least 3 secondary sources (at least 2 of which should be scholarly)
•  Is the essay clearly addressed to a broad audience?
• Does the essay make appropriate use of the digital medium (e.g., includes a/v content, hyperlinks, etc.), or does it look like a typical academic essay copied and pasted onto a web page?
• Are digital elements (such as video, audio, images, etc.) incorporated effectively into the writing, and captioned, cited, or linked to appropriately?
• Does the essay identify the most appropriate source materials and methods for researching the topic?
• Is the essay’s thesis persuasive? Is it supported with convincing evidence and analysis?
• Is the essay organized, and does it include sufficient background for audiences unfamiliar with the topic?

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

On Writing & Digital Media

Performance Research

Related Papers

Prof.Mahender Reddy Sarsani

General Letters in Mathematics

El-Sayed Abo-Tabl

Theory and Decision

Antoni Bosch-domènech

The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead, 1924-1925

Brian G. Henning

Dr. Somen Debnath

Acta Alimentaria

Thuy Le Toan

Stephen Marks

Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management

Carroll Graham

Rick Wojcik

RELATED PAPERS

Química Nova

Álvaro Omori

Periodica Polytechnica Transportation Engineering

Jenő Szirmai

Clinical and Vaccine Immunology

Chao-Fu Chang

European Journal of Human Genetics

Gail Seabold

Patricia Vickers Rich

Forensic Science & Addiction Research

Leonardo Nassani

Scientia Agricola

Rafael Henrique Santos Ribeiro

Journal of Monetary Economics

Andrew Levin

Kozeta Vaso

European Heart Journal

Grigorios Korosoglou

Anais do Seminário de Aciaria, Fundição e Metalurgia de Não-Ferrosos

Jefferson Mendes

Procedia Engineering

Manuel Freitas

Europski pokret za evropski ustav

saida mustajbegović

Brazilian Journal of Biology

André Domingues

LINA MARCELA MÉNDEZ CALLE

Energy and Buildings

Ana Gabriela Pereira Ramos

World Bank Research Observer

Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel

Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy

Francesco Piarulli

fernando rafael

Journal of College Orientation, Transition, and Retention

Carol Stefany Sanchez Hernandez

Social Choice and Welfare

Peter Hammond

Circulation

Theodoros Xanthos

Electronic Imaging

Kjell Brunnström

International journal of clinical and experimental medicine

faraizah karim

Association of Petroleum Geologist (APG), India

Anima Mahanta

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Mainstream Media — The Shift from Print to Digital Media

The Shift from Print to Digital Media

• Categories: Mainstream Media

About this sample

Words: 701 |

Published: Jan 25, 2024

Words: 701 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

The rise of print media, the emergence of digital media, implications for journalism ethics and standards, the role of journalists in the digital age, the role of social media in shaping public opinion and journalistic standards, the challenges of misinformation and fake news in the digital age, the need for updated ethical guidelines in the digital era, the responsibility of journalists in upholding ethical standards, the importance of transparency and accountability in digital journalism.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof Ernest (PhD)

Verified writer

• Expert in: Sociology

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

3 pages / 1368 words

3 pages / 1434 words

1 pages / 507 words

2 pages / 1056 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Mainstream Media

In conclusion, the impact of representation and diversity in mainstream media on society is significant. It is crucial for media creators to recognize the power they have in shaping societal attitudes and behaviors. There is a [...]

Mainstream media plays a crucial role in shaping public opinion and political discourse. The way in which news is reported and presented can significantly influence how individuals perceive current events and political issues. [...]

At this age of mainstream media dominance, the world is likely to completely fall prey to cultural deterioration and brainwash. Thanks to the advance of digital technology over the past few centuries; the world is connected as [...]

The Ill Mind of Hopsin 7 is a thought-provoking and introspective rap song by American rapper Hopsin. Released in 2014, the song addresses various social and personal issues, including the state of the music industry, the [...]

Social media creates a dopamine-driven feedback loop to condition young adults to stay online, stripping them of important social skills and further keeping them on social media, leading them to feel socially isolated. Annotated [...]

Today, we are in the 21st century and people do not find time to come & interact with each other. Social media helps in connecting themselves with social networking sites through which now people can stay far and yet remain [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Introduction

This book is an open educational resource designed to introduce basic principles of media production that students can easily use to craft a new type of research project: the digital media essay.  Digital media essays (DME) may be any of the following:

• short documentary videos
• radio shows
• interactive websites
• video games
• augmented or virtual reality applications

But, let’s cut to the chase. As a student, you’re busy enough already. Why take the time to learn how to produce digital media essays when there’s nothing wrong with writing an essay anyway? This is a fair argument BUT we think that precisely because you are busy, the work you do at school should be worth your time and effort.

More and more often, students are conducting first-of-its-kind research . And you may not know this, but the research project you’re working on right now might be interesting – or even important – to people OUTSIDE of your class. For example, there are over 200 community foundations in Canada that work on a not-for-profit basis to address and solve challenges faced by local communities across the country. Research that you’re doing may contribute to the knowledge base these foundations are building. So, how can you get your work out there – how can you communicate your own research with those who don’t sit in class with you?

As you probably know, a common way to approach a research report is to put together a scholarly, written presentation of the facts you discovered while doing your research, with the structure and style of these reports reflecting the expectations of the academic audience that is supposedly meant to read the report. These reports typically are not organized around a narrative, nor designed to be meaningful or impactful for members of the public or the communities who may have participated in the research.

Rather than try to offer ways to improve a research report, this textbook will teach you how to design a multimedia project centred on the “creative treatment of actuality,” a highly influential idea coined by documentary filmmaker, John Grierson (1933). Put simply, “a documentary is a creative treatment of actuality, not a faithful transcription of it,” such that “documentaries marshal evidence but then use it to construct their own perspective or argument about the world, their own poetic or rhetorical response to the world”; that is, they transform “evidence into something more than dry facts” (Nichols, 2001, p. 38).

Because of the appeal of narrative-based media, Larsson (2017) notes that “storytelling in general, and digital storytelling in particular, is a powerful way to communicate science outside academia and to create an impact” (p. 169).

Accordingly, this textbook will show you how to produce a DME that uses narrative structure to communicate research in ways that are meaningful to you and your course instructor, and impactful for the general public and community members.

Why a DME? Well, while producing a written report or paper may be a useful way of learning to communicate information to other scholars via academic journals, it does not necessarily provide a way to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to disseminate the results of research to the public in other formats such as audio or video. This is an unfortunate gap, since research should ideally be known to the public and not just to academics. Therefore this textbook will guide you in producing, recording, editing, and publishing a digital media essay about scholarly research.

This textbook also aims to be accessible and also promote accessibility. Although it might seem that accessible design might not be relevant for most people, the U.S. General Services Administration notes that “everyone experiences some form of disability.” There are  multiple types of disabilities  (permanent, temporary, and situational), and most people, if not everyone, experience at least one of them:

• Example: Permanent hearing loss due to illness
• Example: Temporary hearing loss due to exposure to loud noise
• Example: An inability to hear a video due to being in a noisy environment

As Copeland and McGregor note in their  Guide to Academic Podcasting , “Accessibility is essential for some, helpful for all.” Implementing principles of accessibility increases the usability of multimedia content for people with and without disabilities, enabling it to be disseminated to a wider and more diverse audience.

This textbook is accessible in the following ways:

• It provides tutorials that are accessible for screen reader users
• It describes a number of ways to make digital media essays accessible to all
• It encourages students to approach research that can be made useful to populations that typically have limited or restricted access to participating in research

In this guide you will find sections on the recording and editing process and on publishing platforms. We also discuss principles of public engagement that university researchers are increasingly being encouraged to consider, as well as a model of community collaboration that enables stakeholders invested in social science and humanities issues to participate in creation and sharing of their own knowledge. While you may not incorporate all of these ideas into your research project, they are presented here to paint a larger picture of what DMEs can do.

In summary, our goal in this guide is to make the time and effort you spend on course-based research worth it by showing you how (and why) you might want to create a digital media essay for your next class project. What follows are short tutorials for producing a digital media essay (specifically, short documentary videos and podcasts) that document your research practices and make your work shareable and accessible to a wider audience – stakeholders outside of your classroom. Our goal is to help you meaningfully engage with partners who might benefit from your research.

The Digital Media Essay for Research Communication is based on our experience as members of the Communication Collaborative . The Collaborative formed a bridge between Memorial University and stakeholders in stuttering and communication disorders communities to tackle stigmatized communication differences in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. This guide is the result of discussions with and encouragement by those members. Together we have learned (and still learning!) to produce a weekly podcast series, Some Stutter, Luh! , and two short documentary films, “Getting the Words Out” and “A Short Film About Discommunication”. We gratefully acknowledge these fine folks and recognize financial support from the Office of Public Engagement, The Smallwood Foundation, and the University Student Summer Internship Program at Memorial University.

This guide is freely available under a Creative Commons license. It is subject to revision by the authors to provide current and up to date content when needed. If you spot content that is out of date or links that no longer work, or to report any other concerns please send an email to [email protected] . We hope you enjoy this guide and would love to hear about your own experiences with digital media essay production.

Further reading about accessibility

accessCAN. (2021, July 18). The State of Disability. https://access-can.ca . https://www.access-can.ca/news/the-state-of-disability

Digital Education Strategies, The Chang School. Introduction to Web Accessibility. https://pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca/iwacc/

Goldberg, L., & Freed, G. (1998). Making multimedia accessible on the World Wide Web. Technology and Disability , 8(3), 127-132.

Miller, M., & Parogni, I. (2022, February 18). The Hidden Image Descriptions Making the Internet Accessible. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/18/arts/alt-text-images-descriptions.html

UDL On Campus. (n.d.) Media & Materials. CAST. http://udloncampus.cast.org/page/media_landing

Sources cited

Copeland, Stacey and McGregor, Hannah. (2021). A Guide to Academic Podcasting. Books . 2. https://scholars.wlu.ca/books/2

Grierson, J. (1933). The documentary producer. Cinema Quarterly , 2(1), 7-9.

Nichols, B. (2017). Introduction to documentary. Indiana University Press.

U.S. General Services Administration. (2019, December 4). An introduction to accessibility. Digital.gov. https://digital.gov/resources/introduction-accessibility/

Introduction Copyright © by Paul De Decker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it.

• Essay Database >
• Essay Examples >
• Essays Topics >
• Essay on Psychology

Digital Media Essay Example

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Psychology , Skills , Internet , Information , Computers , Media , Brain , Thinking

Words: 2000

Published: 01/11/2020

ORDER PAPER LIKE THIS

Is our increasing use of digital media making us dumb?

More people are watching television, playing video games, reading news, spending time on social networks and using video on demand services than they were six months ago according to a survey published today by the KPMG Survey. Since the digital technologies became widely available, educators, scholars, parents and policy makers have been discussing the implications that they may be causing to the literacy, social tolerance, aggression and attention spans in the young people. Considerable steps have continued to be made in the scholarship of most of these areas. For example the educational benefits of the video games are being documented by some scholars like Johnson in 2005, Gee in 2003 and Shaffer in 2006. Meanwhile, debates on the relationship between violence and the video games have continued to persist. Some of the effects of digital media that have raised concern include the nature of the personal identities which have been formed online, personal privacy in environments in which many forms of information can be disseminated and gleaned, the actual meaning of authorship in a place where several anonymous writers produce knowledge, the manner in which people treat and interact with one another, trustworthiness and credibility of organizations and individuals that we interact with on the internet. The issues have also been considered to be important even offline and yet the digital space may have newer or distinct concerns. It hence becomes critical to ask if the digital media are leading to the making of new mental models with respect to privacy, identity, authorship and ownership and credibility . Even though the World Wide Web has been in existence for around 20 years, it is very difficult to imagine how life would be without it. The World Wide Web provides instant access to large amounts of information and also the ability to stay connected to colleagues and friends continuously. Our dependence though, on the digital media has its dark side. An increasing body of scientific evidence has continued to suggest that the internet which has constant interruptions and distractions has turned people into superficial and scattered thinkers. Information is gathered and knowledge is retained significantly more when reading a hard as compared to reading on the internet. A book or an article written on a paper is all where the focus is and as such more attention is paid to the information and as result the reader becomes more knowledgeable. However, when a person is reading something on the net, it becomes very easy to be distracted and to go off topic. It only takes an attractive, colorful sidebar link to appear on the screen and one loses track of the original intentions to read the article they were in. Unlike while one is reading a book, on the computer one is able to multitask by opening multiple tabs. If a message is received on say Facebook, the tab on which the page is flashes and then the computer goes on to make a sound. It is presumed that if that happens, one would easily be tempted to stop reading whatever they were reading online to attend to the message on their Facebook. The results that are emerging are troubling especially to those people who value subtlety of the human thought rather than just speed. Studies show that those people who read text which has links comprehend less compared to those who read word that are printed on pages. Those people who watch multimedia presentations that are busy remember less than the people who take information in more focused and sedated manners. People who are usually distracted by updates, emails and other messages have been seen to understand less compared to who are in environments where they are able to concentrate. It has also been proven that people who multitask are mostly less productive and creative as compared to those who carry out one task at a time. The thread that is common in the disabilities is division of attention. Richness of memories, thoughts and also personality hinders the ability focus the minds and retain concentration. It only when we are able to pay attention to new information that has the ability to associate it with knowledge in our memory that is systematic and meaningful. Such associations are very important in thinking critically and also mastering concepts that are complex. When we are continuously interrupted and distracted, as it is when we are looking at the screens of our mobile phones and computers, our brains are unable to forge the expansive and strong neural connections which give depth and distinctiveness of our thinking. Our memories become weak and our thoughts disjointed. And as Seneca a Roman philosopher once said, “To be everywhere is to be nowhere”. Following an article in Science last year, a development psychologist Patricia Greenfield who a Children’s Digital Media Center looked at many studies on how the different media technologies affect the cognitive abilities. Most of these studies showed that certain tasks on computers such as playing video games do increase the speed at which human beings can shift their focus on icons and other images on the screens. However, other studies have pointed out that such rapid shift in focus even if it is performed adeptly; it results to more automatic and less rigorous thinking. It has been said that mediums develop cognitive skills at the expense of others. The growing use of media that is screen based has continued to strengthen the visual-spatial intelligence of people and this can in turn strengthen the ability of people to carry out jobs which involve keep track of signals that are rapidly changing like monitoring patients during surgery or piloting a plane. However, the visual-spatial intelligence has been connected with new weaknesses in processes of higher-order cognitive which include mindfulness, abstract vocabulary, critical thinking, inductive problem solving and imagination. It would be a better thing if the effects disappeared as soon as the mobile and computer screens are turned but this is not the case. Scientists have discovered that the cellular structure of the brain readily adapts to the tools we utilize in finding, storing and sharing information. When we change our habit of mind, the new technology goes on to strengthen a certain neural pathway and in turn weakens the others. These alterations mould the manner in which we think even when we are not using that technology. An experiment conducted at a university in the US, half of the students in a class had been allowed to use internet that had been connected to their laptops in a lecture while the other half had shut down their computers. The students who were browsing the web were seen to perform worse in the subsequent tests of how well they had retained the content of the lecture. Some earlier experiments indicated that as the amounts of links on an online page increased, the comprehension of reading goes down and as more kinds of information are displayed on the screen, people remember very little of what they see. Through continuous use of the digital media, our brains are massively being remodeled by this behavior. Mr. Merzenich who is a professor at the University of California conducted an experiment which indicated how quickly and extensive the neural circuits often change in response to experience. He continued to say that he was worried about the cognitive impacts of the interruptions and distractions the internet presents to us. The long term impacts on the quality of people’s intellectual lives and this could be deadly. As most of us know, not all distraction have negative effects. If we again concentrate so much on tough problems, we can get stuck in a situation referred to as a mental rut, but if we leave the problem stay unattended for little while, we often get back to it with fresh ideas and lots of creativity. It has been proven that breaks in people’s attention give the unconscious mind the time to come to grips with a problem and this result to cognitive processes and bear information which is unavailable to the conscious deliberation. It is then true that when we shift our attention from mental challenges for a while, we make better decisions. However, the constant distractions encouraged by the internet are very different from the type of temporary and purposeful diversion offered by our minds which refreshes thinking. The internet distractions short-circuit both the unconscious and conscious thoughts preventing the minds from thinking creatively or deeply. The brains are turned into simple signal processors. Many young people now days use multiple mediums at a time. They make calls while they play computer games or write emails. For the reasons that everything one does leaves its traces in the brain, when there is optimum development, the memory links are built and formed in the initial months and years of one’s life and the structure piles up to form the basic foundation of the other things we learn later on in life. When drivers exclusively depend on the navigation technology, developing the ability of orientation is made impossible even though their brains present them with the ability of learning how to do so. This is also the case when it comes to children who often use styluses on SMART boards instead on developing skills on writing which would keep the brain in check. Computer take over most functions of the classrooms which are really good practices for children and this has negative impacts on learning. The things we seem to sacrifice in our searching and surfing is the capacity to engage in quieter, attentive mode of thoughts which underpin reflection, introspection and contemplation. The web does not encourage us to slow down. In fact, it keeps us in the state of continuous mental locomotion. The increase in social networks such as Twitter and Facebook that pump out streams of only brief information has exacerbated the problems. There is no problem with absorption of information quickly, in pieces and in bits. People have often skimmed the newspaper even more that we have read them. People also run their eyes over magazines and books to get an idea of a piece of writing so as to make a decision whether it requires more reading. That ability to browse and scan is as crucial as the ability to deeply read and think. The disturbing thing is that, skimming has become the dominant mode of thinking. It is becoming the preferred method of analysis and learning and as result losing the main goal of learning. Fascinated by treasures of the internet, people have become blind to the damage being caused to our culture and even our intellectual lives. I am not quit not sure of whether the digital media such as the internet is making us stupid or not. What I am sure about is the fact that living in a state of partial attention and distractions is very far from being smart.

"Your Brain on Computers: Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime". (n.d.). Retrieved from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/technology/25brain.html?_r=1 Bauerlein, M. Online Literacy is Lesser Kind. Carr., N. (n.d.). Review of The Shallows. Retrieved from http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20009036-265.html Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction. (n.d.). Retrieved from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/technology/21brain.html?_r=1&ref=business&pagewanted=all Nicholas Carr., C. (n.d.). We're taking this too seriously. Retrieved from http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/314134/june-30-2010/nicholas-carr Shirky, C. (n.d.). "Does the Internet Make You Smarter?". Retrieved from Wall Street Journal: http//online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870402530457528497372694334.html

Cite this page

Share with friends using:

Removal Request

Finished papers: 368

This paper is created by writer with

If you want your paper to be:

Well-researched, fact-checked, and accurate

Original, fresh, based on current data

Eloquently written and immaculately formatted

275 words = 1 page double-spaced

Get your papers done by pros!

Other Pages

Offering book reviews, http case studies, area case studies, forth case studies, reducing case studies, growing case studies, peak season case studies, arizona course work, bale movie reviews, example of finance essay 2, free cost or rate of return of each source of financing report example, good example of article review on factors that help or hinder the development of the pdps, risk assessment plan essay samples, importance of gender in cinematic gaze construction essay samples, same sex marriage essay samples, reflection and integration essays example, death of a salesman essays examples, free the pros and cons of decentralization in china course work sample, example of research paper on alien limb phenomenon, free research paper about the history of the bay of pigs, national security agency nsa surveillance and at t ethical non compliance essay sample, desire to learn critical thinking example, blue ocean strategy essay example, using the iowa model for research utilization essays example, an article about business strategy apple company article reviews examples, briefing memo research paper, good book review on my stance, a comparison of two reviews of the movie forrest gump essay, good example of flannery oconnor research paper, marburg virus hemorrhagic fever research papers examples, research proposal on windows network service proposal, free essay on dr name of the doctor, managing risks in a project research papers example, example of supervisory skills essay, driessen essays, hall of mirrors essays, financial effects essays, cacciato essays, special operations essays, negotiation skills essays, morality of abortion essays, sycorax essays, gunner essays.

Password recovery email has been sent to [email protected]

Use your new password to log in

You are not register!

By clicking Register, you agree to our Terms of Service and that you have read our Privacy Policy .

Now you can download documents directly to your device!

Check your email! An email with your password has already been sent to you! Now you can download documents directly to your device.

or Use the QR code to Save this Paper to Your Phone

The sample is NOT original!

Short on a deadline?

Don't waste time. Get help with 11% off using code - GETWOWED

No, thanks! I'm fine with missing my deadline

Reflective Essay

Leonjre Awani

Media & Politics Minor Capstone

Reflective essay

February 25, 2024

         I believe that this course has taught me how the intersection of media and politics serves as a platform where various spheres of society converge, creating narratives that shape perceptions and influence public discourse. This is the phenomenon that is commonly referred to as the “politicization of media”, and that theme manifests across many realms, including: sports, feminism and racial discourse.

         The intertwining of media and politics has transformed outlets into conduits for political ideologies and narratives within these realms. Sports athletes become social activists when the politicization of media is exemplified by athletes who leverage their platforms for social and political activism. The intersection of sports and politics has been a perennial feature, but in recent years, athletes have become more vocal on issues ranging from racial injustice to gender equality.

Notable instances include Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the national anthem, sparking a nationwide dialogue on racial inequality and police brutality and Caster Semenya’s tribulations regarding her sexual identity. Media coverage played a pivotal role in amplifying these athletes and their messages, with outlets either championing their activism or criticizing it as disruptive to the status quo. The politicization of sports media is evident not only in the coverage of athlete activism but also in the framing of sports narratives through distinct political lenses.

Media outlets contribute to the politicization of sports by framing narratives in ways that align with prevailing political ideologies. Coverage can vary widely, with outlets choosing to emphasize either the athlete’s activism or their perceived disruption of the status quo. The choice of language, framing, and the inclusion or exclusion of certain perspectives all contribute to the political nature of sports media and the tendency of an outlet to lean towards political right or left.

In recent times, the media has turned into a battlefield for gender equality. A new wave of feminism has begun dominating opinions on social media which facilitate the shaping of narratives around gender equality. The politicization of media within feminist discourse revolves around the portrayal of women in various media forms, challenging traditional gender norms and advocating for broader social change. Media has historically perpetuated gender stereotypes, contributing to societal expectations and reinforcing unequal power dynamics. However, contemporary feminist movements have harnessed media platforms to challenge these norms. The #MeToo movement, for instance, gained momentum through social media and traditional news outlets, illustrating how media serves as both a reflection of and a catalyst for feminist political discourse. This was a pertinent topic of discussion in my first GuQ class, wherein we all studied the women of the Gulf region.

Media outlets contribute to the politicization of feminism by framing issues such as reproductive rights, workplace discrimination, and gender-based violence within distinct political lenses. Depending on where you are, this rhetoric is cited to disparage feminism and dub it a cancer to society. The choice of language, framing, and emphasis can either reinforce or challenge existing power structures. The representation of feminist activists and the framing of feminist movements in media coverage play a crucial role in shaping public perceptions of gender-related issues.

Racial discourse is probably the media’s most profitable form of news. Delegitimizing stereotypes and advocating for social justice is ostensibly the purpose of racial discourse. However, with interference of social media the amplification of unrest and birth of social justice movements from racial discourse have become much more ubiquitous. Media has historically played a role in reinforcing racial hierarchies, perpetuating harmful stereotypes, and shaping public perceptions. In recent times this is done in a covert manner. Which is why, though it also serves as a tool for marginalized communities to challenge these narratives and advocate for racial justice, it is seen as a double edged sword.

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement provides a contemporary example of the politicization of media in racial discourse. Social media and news outlets have worked hand in hand in bringing attention to systemic racism and police violence in the United States (predominantly). Media coverage contributed to the politicization of racial discourse by framing narratives in ways that either challenge or reinforce prevailing power structures. The choice of images, headlines, and the framing of protests can influence public opinion and contribute to broader discussions on racial equity. Nevertheless, I would argue that racial discourse is politicized in a very flawed manner and this is due to the media. Theoretical philosophies and methodologies that were taught by renowned scholars and known by contemporary ones are rarely mentioned in movements like BLM. While social media has politicized a movement like this I think it has simultaneously invalidated its importance with triviality and wantonness.

In all these aspects the politicization of the media reflects societal dynamics and how they can send populations on social declines. The media operates as a mirror, reflecting existing power structures, ideologies, and inequalities. Simultaneously, it serves as a mold that influences public perceptions, amplifying certain voices, and constructing narratives that align with or the status quo and ostracize the other.

Since October 7, 2023, my social media feed has become a daily testament to the ongoing Palestinian plight, and this experience has only reinforced the pervasive theme of media being politicized. The stories, images, and narratives flooding my timelines depict the struggles faced by the Palestinian people, and how politics has deeply affected them as a whole. The politicization of media is evident as different sources frame the narrative in ways that align with their political perspectives. Israeli portrayal of events, emphasize terror attacks over the literal genocide which is still ongoing. Whether through news articles, firsthand accounts, or images shared by activists, the media becomes a battleground for competing narratives, reflecting the broader geopolitical landscape surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In an attempt to move beyond the digital realm and engage with the Palestinian narrative more directly, I participated in an extracurricular activity that involved interacting with Palestinian refugees, primarily children, in Qatar. This experience allowed me to connect with individuals who are often reduced to statistics or political talking points in media coverage. It shed light on the human stories behind the headlines. These were not just faces of a distant conflict but individuals with hopes and aspirations and who’ve experienced far too much loss. The children, in particular, left a lasting impression. Their resilience in the face of adversity was a quite literally what I was used to witnessing on social media. Despite the bleak circumstances, the sense of determination and unyielding resistance among the Palestinian refugees was palpable. Engaging with them provided a counterbalance to the media’s polarized narratives. It reinforced the notion that the politicization of media can sometimes overshadow the human stories that lie at the heart of conflicts. In this juxtaposition of social media narratives and personal interactions, the theme of media being politicized became even more pronounced.

Initially, my perception of media and politics was simplistic, I saw media as a passive conveyor of information rather than an active participant in shaping narratives. However, the courses within the minor, along with real world experiences and some extracurriculars, contributed to reshaping my perspective. The examination of the politicization of media within the contexts of sports, feminism, and racial discourse exposed the power dynamics that lie in information dissemination. I learned how sports media tend to either amplify or challenge political statements, emphasizing that the construction of narratives influence public discourse. Through Caster Semenya I saw how it was tied to the feminist movements and racial discourse.  They underscored the role of media in perpetuating or challenging societal gender norms and ethnic biases, showcasing its potential as a tool for social and political change.

International relations within the minor deepened my understanding of how media shapes global narratives and influences public perceptions through the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, witnessed on social media and through direct interactions with Palestinian refugees in Qatar. I had known before that geopolitical interests were an inciting factor of war but engaging with the Palestinian refugees added a layer of realism to my learning. It allowed me to see it as a less abstract concept and look past the digital narratives to resonate with the individual stories that often go forgotten by history. This experience was a catalyst to prompting a critical reflection on the limitations and biases inherent in media coverage.

The trajectory of my learning during the Media and Politics minor has been marked by a continuous evolution of awareness and critical thinking. The acknowledgment of the media’s active role in constructing our very thoughts makes me now realize and contemplate the importance of media literacy and actively seeking diverse perspectives and critically evaluating what is fed to us. Moving forward, I plan to apply my understanding by engaging in more informed and critical discussions (where before I would avoid them), and communicating with those marginalized by the media. All in all, the Media and Politics minor has been a transformative and intellectual journey that reshaped my understanding of the intricate relationship between the media and global politics. This newfound awareness has influenced my approach to information consumption, emphasizing the need for critical engagement and media literacy.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.