Week2-Social Aspects of New Media Technologies

Pope John Paul II said, “ If it doesn't happen on television, it doesn't happen.”
Indeed, we live in a media-dominated era. In the past 10 years or so, the controls over media have been liberalized to another stage, which has been a watershed for the media.
Combined with the Internet and digital technology, the existing media has been pushed to its epitome in development and people get used to accepting this kind of technological changes.

When I read this article- Social Aspects of New Media Technologies, I find many attractive opinions.The author thinks that our concern is more with the human and social impacts than the technology itself. There are three main theories given to explain how the new media affect the human behavior, how the society and new media interact, and how the human need impacts new media.

Because of my research paper “Social network analysis on web log-by case of wretchblog” in T.Y class, I’m very interested in Uses and Gratifications theory.
I would like to use this theory to find out why some people are willing to show their emotion and diary to the public. Will they get gratification by doing this? Also, some people extremely like to see other’s blog. What kind of blog is their favorite? Is it relative their life style or their personality? Thanks for this article. I have more ideas about my research paper.

As time goes by, the appearance of cable television allows people to have more choices. For example, Children choose some cartoon channels to make them to laugh. Businessmen choose watch financial and economical news to earn more money. In my case, I have always been a TV-baby, someone who would never let go of the tube. I was fascinated by every signal and information released from television that told me about the world, especially fashion show program. I love any beautiful things. By watching this kind of programs, I’m not only soaked in the wonderful atmosphere to see those creative works, but also lead me to obtain real gratifications.

I have learned the third theory- Diffusion of innovation-before. Let’s refer to “Media technology and society”. It mentioned “brakes” and “accelerator”. I think that can match Diffusion of innovation theory. The “accelerator” is the supervening social necessity transforming the prototype into an invention. If the number of users of some invention reaches a saturation point, the suppression of the government or the demand-supply in market would reduce its growing speed; thus the number of users won’t increase. Furthermore, because I think that this theory is similar to the economical market, besides in communication field, it can be used well in many other fields.


By the way, the most important “ah ha” to me is that my English is so poor that I can’t read and understand these articles quickly. I’ll try my best to write the ”ah ha” in the next couple of weeks. Wish you can understand my words more.

Week2- how the internet killed the phone business

In the article, the author claims that VOIP will wipe out traditional telephony. Basically, I do not deny this. Indeed, VOIP is an excellent new technology. As an international student in U.S.A., I usually communicate with the family and Taiwanese friends via Skype. It is very convenient and allows me to save a lot of money, relatively in the traditional telephone; besides, I can see the relatives and friends through using Webcam.

What is worth noticing is that VOIP started to develop since 1990 and became the most important technological change of next stage. However, the number of VOIP users just increase gradually, most consumer behaviors have not changed.

In my opinion, digital divide may be a bar to promote VOIP. Why?
It’s not true that everybody is used to using the computer, and there is very great disparity between persons who can use information technology effectively and those who can’t. Education, culture, social position, and age level may make digital divide. For example, the teenager will accept VOIP easily because they are willing to absorb new information and communicate electronically. On the contrary, housekeepers and some elders couldn’t accept such new technology at once. They find adjusting to new ways a big challenge, and complicated; therefore they object to it.

Also, I think that the factor which actually threatens traditional telephony is the mobile telephone. It not only causes the declining business achievement of traditional telephony but also can’t be replaced by VOIP. In this modern society, because people like pursuing convenient life and the cell-phone will be easy to carry and has high quality, mobile telephone becomes the main tool to communicate. VOIP always accompany with a PC or laptop. It is not portable easily and sometimes its network quality is unstable. In addition, its conversation quality and stability do not reach our expectations.

In the article, it pointed the best example of VOIP –Skype. But I think that it exists the relative block, which means the user must be the customer of Skype. It limits that users must stay at a specific group, so I believe that Skype also lost the chance to strive for mastery with the traditional telephony.

See? Although the impact of VOIP is overwhelming, it still takes a lot of time to kill traditional telephony. To reduce digital divide, to upgrade the quality of VOIP, that will lead VOIP to stand stably and makes it to be accepted generally. I look forward to seeing that day.