Internet As A Means Of Communication

To me, internet is a mass medium since its intended to reach a very large audience just like mass-communication. Internet is a digital media just like mobile communication, internet provides many mass-medium services like Email, website, , and internet based radio and television. It is a mass-medium because it can broadcast information to different regions in the world simultaneously and cost efficiently. 

Like modern phones that are no longer a single-use Device. Most cell phones are equipped with internet

access and capable of connecting to the web which itself is a mass-medium. This is currently a system by which marketers and advertisers are able to tap into satellites, and broadcast commercials and advertisements directly to cell phones. It is equally an interactive medium of mass-media. People interact with each other and create an inter-personal relationship among the users. It is a mass-media because any news or information posted on any site of the internet gets to the whole world, and information is made to get to a diversified audience across the globe through the use of mass-media channels which internet is not an exception. 

The invention of the internet has also allowed breaking news stories to reach around the globe within minutes. People also read their newspapers through the internet. I would say that as it stands today, internet is quickly becoming the center of mass-media; everything is becoming accessible through the internet. Rather than picking up a newspaper or watching news at anytime, one can easily log onto the internet to get the news he or she wants at anytime they wants it. Through internet, one can send mail to a very large number like bulk sms, information of any kind can easily go through the internet.

The internet has also helped in expanding the media environment, it equally depend on telecommunications capacity. It widely produces digital convergence in which computer, telecommunications and broadcasting, all merge together into a single stream.

Some scholars are of the opinion that internet is a mass-medium used mostly by relatively passive consumers and as such, major contents provider will dominate it. While others argue that it is not a mass-medium. They are of the view that since internet is a giant network that inter-connects innumerable smaller groups of linked computer networks considering the three functions of internet as
1.     Electronic mail or email (transmission to multiple) 
2.     Bulletin board (like ordinary bulletin board) and 
3.     Would wide web (documents stored in internet carrying varied information

It is quite known that it is available to the owner of the computer, which is connected to network of computers and hence it can be considered as a mass-medium. They view internet as transmitting messages to the owner of a personal of the computer and does not transmit message or information to the general public as mass-medium does.

In support, internet is not a mass-medium since it cannot just give information unless an individual request particular information. A time one gets information through the use of a personal computer with modem. Information on the internet is stored which only those who have access the said services offered by the internet. Internet only transmits messages and does not create messages or information nor transmit the messages or information to the general public as mass-media do. The publications of the messages, information or stories carried by the internet and transmitted to the computer owner through the access provider, is decided by the sender or the inter-linked networks

As I said earlier, to some, internet is a mass-medium, while to some, it is not. It is true that internet can do a lot of things since there is a whole lot online, a lot of things can be done online; information’s can easily be shared on internet. But they can only be piloted by a person. Internet is possible for anyone to create, modify and share content with others. It can equally connect people with information and services connect individuals with health care providers and people living with HIV and AID, to resource for their loved ones and themselves. When you look at what it does to the societies, you may be convinced that it is a mass-media. 

It equally helps you to collaborate with people within an organization or community. It creates new contents, services, communities and channels of communication that helps you deliver information and services. Internet is used by all ages that use it for one reason or the other but why I still argue whether internet is a mass-media is because of the reason that you cannot just turn on your laptop or phone read or hear news stories unless you connect to it, most a times with subscription which signifies that sometimes, if you don’t have money, you cannot read or listen to news. But at the same times, you can tune to Radio or television since it does eventually everything. Some local news stories are not found on the internet like some State stories that is not always found on the internet. Mostly some reported in a local language. In fact majority of the important announcement are not done on the internet but through other channels like Radio, TV, newspaper, etc.

Another controversial point is that internet helps to bring information’s of any outbreak reach the large audience in a country and equally helps information get across faster. Internet does more than dissemination of information, it contains an endless supply of information and makes get or learn something new. It is a global system of inter-connected computer network that use the internet protocol suite. It is a network of networks that consist of millions of private, public, Academic, business and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and extensive range of information resources and services such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the world-wide web (www), Electronic mail, telephony and peer-to-peer networks for file sharing.

When you look at the meaning and how internet works, you would somehow get convinced that internet is a mass-media because of its function. but in the other way round, I argue the fact and sees internet as not being the mass-media since you cannot just tune the internet and hear stories and advert unless you need it and search for it like if one do not have access to internet, one cannot know what is happening in the whole world.

Lastly, internet is somehow a mass-media since if perform most of the functions of the mass-media. But in the other way, a lot of things in the internet are not in any way connected to mass-media. So it is quite confusing.

WHATS NEW ABOUT THE NEW MEDIA

The internet has gone from a specialized futuristic system to the network that most significantly how we engage daily with the world at large. Reading newspapers or doing research has become different activities largely because of the new media. New medium started emanating since 2004 when facebook was discovered and have consumed today’s world. The new media consist of Email, phone, internet, etc. all these came new and have also came to change the face of communication and they are quite new. Some old media like typewriter, vinyl record albums, Eight-track magnetic tapes, all media were once new but the recent one today which people still recognize and look at with the eyes of new the internet.

The new medium is new because they newly receive the scholarly attention they deserve. Media is new when it is accepted as natural. During 1940 and 1915, this period were crucial to understanding how Electronic and digital media have come mean what and how they do the term media itself hails from precisely this period as to the structures of today’s entertainment and information economies, thus, the media forms and practices studied in this collection are “New” in a double sense: first, they newly receive the scholarly attention they deserve; second, they are considered within the original historical contexts.

The transparency of the new-media also makes it new. Take for instance. A conversation with a friend on telephone allows for a greater exchange of personal, idiosyncratic information than a dialogue conducted via telegraph. New media are more generally more efficient than their predecessors as means of communication. It is also new because it has made information more accurate than before. Like the “Hello” we say when we answer telephone is “New”. The new medium has come to shape a new community or set of communities, and a new equilibrium. What the new medium does has actually made if new, if offers both positive possibilities and negative ones. It offers unprecedented for global villages to coalesce, even   when it threatened national or ethnic cultural traditions and provokes anguished discussions of privacy in a connected age. It has also come in change the culture or people’s way of life. Each time we answer telephone, we say Hello, it is “New” Even small children have learnt how to take things to their ear and continuously say Hallo. All these are new. New media has changed our sense, habits; the way the new-media is used makes it new. It helps in producing a distinct public. It came in as an endeavor to improve on human capabilities like a telescope added to the eye of a biologist. Media are design to fit the humans; humans adjust themselves in various ways to fit media. The “Newness” of new-media is more than diachronic, all experiences that transform our sense of time and space.

New media is a taking for granted concept we frequently use, both in the academic field and in our daily lives. There are even some difficulties that tell us what new media is. New in the other way round may mean a replacement, New-media transmit contents through connection and conversation. What’s new about the New-media are those are those new technologies that newly came in to change the face of communication in the country. New media’s are all digital often haven the characteristics of being manipulated, networkable, dense, compressible and interactive. 

Some of the news-media’s are internet, websites, computer, multi-media, computer games, CD-Rom, and DVD, new media does not includes television program, feature films, magazines, books or paper-based publications unless they contain technologies that enable digital interactivity. New media is a way of organizing a cloud of technology skills and processes that change so quickly that it is impossible to fully define just what those tools and processes are.

The New arrival of those media makes them new; the newness of the new-media depends on how the users use them. Another new thing in the new-media is the approach and the creative minds, seeing a need in the market or industry. New is an interactive form of communication that uses the internet, social networks, text messaging, blogs, wikis, virtual words and more. New media makes it possible for any one to create, modify and share content with others, using tools that are often free or inexpensive. New-media requires computer or mobile devices with internet access.

HOW SOCIAL IS SOCIAL MEDIA?

New media is taking over as the communication method of choice between friends, families and professionals. It is time to learn the basics and found out why social networking has changed the way we communicate around the world.

Facebook is one of the social media. People sign into sight regularly for a couple of years. It connects friends with their formal colleague and even with the friends you have lost contact with for a very long time. People share photos, update personal news, comments on political matters and whole lots of others. Social media is social because it connect almost the whole world, it is a network that everybody uses, not minding the age and gender. It connects to about 500 million users and very fast in reaching out to the said millions of people. 

It is social because it changes the texture of relationships; people have better connections with others, more open, Honest and satisfying, it also enhances social life. Every aspect o social media helps one stay connected with friends, update your status, view blog post from your friends, show the latest status update and discover what your friends are up to by viewing their state updates, posts and comments, share your experience via photo uploads and many others. From the earliest days of print, reading was usually done aloud and in groups. Families use to gather around radio to watch radio shows, people came together to listen to music, dance and of course socialize. Even on television, families gather to watch shows or supporting events and of course talk about the programmes afterwards.

When looking at the social interaction compared to traditional media, perhaps a more accurate question is actually this: how are social media more social than traditional media? It is fundamental and important question. If it can be shown that traditional media are no less social than what it has being as a revolutionary, transformative new kind of media, then it would follow that web 2.0 and all the talk around it is just the latest hype about new technology.

The center for social media in the school of communication at American university says that there are five fundamental ways in which people’s media habits are changing choice, conversation, creation and collaboration, although others may use different terms or scholars may place more emphasis one activity or another. These five components provide an excellent framework within which to better social media.

IS SOCIAL MEDIA SINGULAR OR PLURAL?

It depends on how you use it. Sometimes we speak collectively of social media as a whole and use the singular, e.g. social media is used to disseminate breaking news like shock stories. At times, we use it to refer to distinct social media platforms Facebook, twitter, tumblr, blog etc. in which cases it is plural because it encompasses many individual items.

Social media has all potential to make your product and services popular. Strictly speaking, media is the plural of medium, just as data is the plural of datum. But with media and data we often use a singular verb. Purist disagrees and insists on a plural verb. Media and data are often used as collective nouns.