Tuesday 12 November 2013

Concluding Thoughts

With the end of our last TWC lesson, I find myself pondering Yali's question: "Why do the white men have so much cargo and the New Guineans have so little?" Jared Diamond, in his book summarised that Europeans' geographical location close to the fertile crescent enabled them to master agriculture and livestock, freeing them time develop technology much quickly (inadvertently contracting diseases from those livestock as well). However, I would also post an alternative answer, that is, Europeans living in temperate climates had to survive winters where food was hard to come by, and therefore had to master the agricultural technology to efficiently stockpile enough food surplus. Not only that, they probably had to develop the technology to effectively transport people and goods from one place to another. Also, following an evolutionary train of thought, the presence of winter meant that it was "Survival of the Smartest" as well, since it is possible that only communities of people in the temperate region were able to master the technology were able to survive and carry on their genes and technology to successive generations.

While most of us start learning about human history from the agricultural revolution, such the Indus Valley Civilisation and Mesopotamia, we should not forget about the Hunter-Gatherer society, which has far preceded the agricultural revolution. Jared Diamond recently published another book which I recommend, titled: "The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?", aptly named, since really most of human history existed before agriculture came about.
Diamond, J. (2012, December 31). The world until yesterday: What can we learn from traditional societies? [Print Graphic]. Retrieved from http://jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/The_World_Until_Yesterday.html
He highlights the things that we can learn from these traditional societies that many of us probably would usually ignore or even be oblivious to.
Eye Ubiquitous. (Photographer). (2012, December 31). Image from The World Until Yesterday [Print Photo]. Retrieved from http://jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/The_World_Until_Yesterday_files/Plate 15.jpg
The course was one of the more interesting courses of the semester, due to my interest in areas such as History and Technology, especially in Social Media and the Internet. This was particularly the reason why I focused my Individual Topical Review Paper on Social Media.  I felt that Professor Gurinder took advantage of social media to allow us as students not only to learn from him but to learn from one another through the course. This is really unique from my other courses in my formal education so far and I was honestly quite impressed by it, We are able to read from our peers' blogs as well as join in active discussions on Facebook, a format which we are already all too familiar with. Given the chance to write my first Academic Paper in this course was beneficial in allowing me to learn the proper writing style and especially citation methods, which would be a skill that I can put to use in my academic journey.

Social media and history aside, we went into detail into technology in industries and spheres of society that I was not even aware was so revolutionary, such as green technology, biomedical sciences and healthcare. He taught us a useful model which I still remember: The Shahi Organisational Behavioural Model for Identifying Innovation Leaders and Dominant Players, where the Rising Star, Dominant Player and Falling Star illustration can even be used from an individual scale to countries in general. I believe that to be one of the most important takeaway messages from the whole course in general such that I should look at receptiveness to innovation and new ideas with a positive mindset.



Regarding issues that I wished we could have discussed further, I wished we had the time to go into the specifics of some of the pre-agricultural revolutionary technology that allowed humans to survive as a hunter-gatherer species for such a long time. I would rate the course an overall 9, and I would like to thank Professor Gurinder for his efforts in guiding us through, our teaching assistant, Victor for taking the time to look through our papers and offer his suggestions, and my Project Group 6: Cedric, Michael, Alister and Hui Qi for their hard work and interesting ideas and sessions we had together to build a website on a topic as interesting and unique as Transhumanism.

Sunday 10 November 2013

Week 13

Today was the last lesson of our Technology and World Change course before the examination. We started with Sam's group's presentation on Mind-Controlled Prosthetics. They explained the mechanics behind the prosthetics that can be controlled by electrical signals from the brain, or by reassigning nerves to another part of the body. I found some of their content very interesting, using high-tech design and engineering to allow the hand to rotate, and even by allowing those people to regain their sense of touch, such that sensors can provide electric current back to the nerves. I was glad that they went through some of the limitations of this technology, such as the astronomical cost.

One of the points that Sam made was that using prostheses to commit crimes would not leave any fingerprints. This is one of the points I wished they discussed more on, especially since chips need to be implanted into the brains for it to work, it is not too unlikely in that the person's actions or behaviour may be adversely affected by the chip. In the future if a person were to commit a serious crime, should the blame lie on the person or on the chip?

I found that one of the key takeaway points was lowering the cost of production for any advanced technology, in this case: Mind-Controlled Prosthetics, using 3D printing, it means that the mass consumer is able to obtain any object or item they wish as long as they have the schematics and the materials. One concern that I wished was given more time for discussion was the fact that dangerous items like weapons and bombs can be assessed by almost anybody. This was highlighted on the Internet because of the ability of people being able to 3D print gun parts.

Chandan's group talked on a wide range of agricultural technologies to solve World Hunger, also delving very comprehensively into the myriad of food storage techniques. Furthermore they elaborated on the different, rather interesting ways of preventing food shortage. Following which Eric's group presented on the use of Sex in Advertising, which was informative as well as charming and very entertaining. It was a refreshing change from the usual topics. I felt that their findings about crimes being attributed to the use of Sex Ads rather interesting.

To end off with Benedict's group's presentation on Virtual Reality. More than just about gaming, they showed rather interestingly how Virtual Reality can be used in the Medical, Transport and even when choosing furniture from IKEA. One of the takeaway points I felt from this was that taking advantage of Augmented or Virtual Reality can enable people to simulate dangerous situations without risking lives or property. There possible uses for this would also be innumerable, from Flight Simulation (which has already been in use for a long time), to construction work to military combat situations.

I would rate today's last session a 9. It was a very refreshing session, and not only did it let the students practice their presentation skills, we managed to learn from one another and broaden our knowledge horizons through exchanging of information and ideas about new and emerging technologies.

Wednesday 6 November 2013

Submission for TWC Individual Topical Review Paper

The Effect of Social Media on Media Consumption and Distribution[1]

Sim Jia Hui, Daniel (daniel.sim.2013@economics.smu.edu.sg), 1st Year Economics Student, Singapore Management University

Executive Summary
The advent of the Internet and in recent times, social media has dramatically changed the way media is consumed and distributed, as much as the invention of the Printing Press has revolutionized the spread of information. Social media has empowered consumers to become media producers and distributors much more easily. Media, and consequently ideas and knowledge are more freely accessible, thus opening up vast new opportunities for a great number of people, changing our way of thinking and proliferating our access to media as well as the people we are connected to. Yet, it presents new challenges for media production firms and advertising companies that depend on the traditional means of media distribution.

1  Introduction

Since the past, until as recent as the early 21st century, the consumption of media has followed the traditional pattern: Producers would create content for consumers (Croteau, Hoynes & Milan, 2012). Furthermore, technology has all along greatly empowered the means of media distribution of producers, from the invention of the Printing Press, to the Radio and Television, and finally, the Internet.

This paper seeks to explain how the proliferation of Social Media has caused a paradigm shift in the media consumption pattern into one of user-generated content, freely available to almost anybody connected to the Internet. This transformation is by no means complete since traditional content such as: Newspapers, Hollywood movies and television programs are obviously still existent. However, this paper will also cover the effects (both positive and negative) that Social Media has had on these traditional media giants. Furthermore, it will cover the political ramifications, as well as future considerations for people to take note of, as Social Media becomes ever more pervasive in their lives.

2  Historical Perspectives

Throughout history, media has relied on technology to be broadcasted and shared with its audiences. The first movable type printing press was created by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz in the mid 15th century (Dewar, 2005). By allowing books to be mass-produced, it was partly responsible for the spread of ideas and scientific knowledge during the Renaissance (Dewar, 2005). Terrestrial Broadcasting, in the form of wireless transmissions, enabled media to be sent nation-wide live to anybody tuning in, unifying them to into a single audience as opposed to print media. As a dominant form of media during WWII in the USA, radio (ThinkQuest, n.d.) was able to provide up-to-date news of the war faster to concerned relatives of soldiers fighting in the war. Furthermore, radio was a household entertainment, providing live music, variety shows, soap operas and comedy (CyberCollege, 2012). Yet, it was the television (TV) that defined the 20th century, capturing major happenings around the world and broadcasting to viewers who have access to it (Anthony, 2013). For example, the historic Apollo 11 Moon Landing of July 20th, 1969 was broadcasted to an estimated 600 million people around the world (Kane & Marder, 2012). The television opened up a whole new media platform of TV news, entertainment TV, and even making sports viewable to audiences around the country.

It was not long before the Internet came onto the scene. Its predecessor, the ARPANET, commissioned by the US Department of Defense allowed computers to exchange information with one another (Deffree, 2013), paving the way for the Internet. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 (Kimpton, 2013). Later on, especially with the onset of Web 2.0, did media content distribution really start taking place on the Internet. With infrastructure, more and more were people being connected to the Internet. Furthermore, due to the advancement of technology, faster Internet speeds became possible, from the dial-up to broadband to today’s fiber broadband, making it easier and faster for companies to sell and distribute media across the Internet rather than just through brick and mortar stores. Apple’s iTunes Store in 2003 allowed users to buy music online and Netflix in 2007 enabled on-demand Internet streaming of TV shows and movies primarily in North America.

That being said, it was really social media in the 2000s that revolutionized and fundamentally altered the pattern of media consumption and distribution, because it relied on user-generated content and allowed for users to communicate with one another more fluidly. For example, YouTube was launched in 2005 as a video sharing website and has grown phenomenally as one of the key drivers of change in media consumption and distribution (see Section 3.1).

Facebook, launched by Mark Zuckerberg on February 4th, 2004 (Carlson, 2010), and Twitter, launched by Jack Dorsey in 2006 (Bellis, n.d.), both social media giants today greatly improved and revolutionized the way people network, interact and share memories, photographs and videos together. Facebook displayed rapid growth from just 1 million users in 2004 to 1.11 billion users in 2013, which encompasses more than 1 in 7 people on Earth today (Associated Press, 2013).  From the mundane, to poetry, comedy and even citizen journalism (see Section 3.2), Twitter has taken on a role of a rapid, interactive information disseminator. In such a relatively short period of time (even less than a decade), social media has become so integral and central to people’s lives; some may even argue inseparable from them.

3  Current Situation

3.1 User-Generated Entertainment (YouTube)

Unlike traditional TV programs, videos are on YouTube are not heavily bogged down by advertisements. However, it is a subject of much contention when copyrighted content gets uploaded onto YouTube without the copyright holders' permission. Instead of going against YouTube, there are media companies that collaborate with YouTube, such as VEVO, which provides sites such as YouTube with music videos. YouTube also has an in place a “Content ID System” that scans videos that are uploaded and cross-references them to a database. If they are copyrighted material, the copyright holders are alerted and can have control over their content by blocking them or even sharing the revenue from YouTube advertisement (YouTube Help, 2010). In doing so, YouTube is able to act more as a partner in distributing copyright holders’ content rather than as a competitor.

YouTube has been successful in leveling the playing field for amateur content producers such as singers, filmmakers and educators. Amateur content producers can become very popular in a short amount of time at very little cost, without the traditional process of seeking distribution companies to make their content available to the masses. Natalie Tran from Sydney owns a YouTube channel: CommunityChannel, and typically produces comedy videos to over 1.3 million subscribers. Receiving widespread media coverage for her creativity and popularity, she has also partnered with Lonely Planet to produce travel videos (Lowe, 2012). While major TV networks in Australia have been criticized for not being inclusive to Australia’s ethnic mix, YouTube has allowed a more precise portrait of Australia’s ethnic diversity. YouTube has created a virtual assembly for ethnic groups across Australia to freely express themselves, unlike conventional media (Whyte, 2012).

Even professional music artists have leveraged on social media like YouTube and Facebook, and on online markets like iTunes. For example, Macklemore managed to be the first independent artist in two decades to reach number one on US Billboard Charts without a major record label (Feeney, 2013), perhaps setting a future trend for aspiring artists.

Content producers are also able to earn money from producing their own content by taking part in the YouTube Partner Program (Beese, 2012). Such monetary incentives open up a whole new realm of creativity; empowering online citizens to create videos for other people just like them.

However, by allowing people to upload any content freely to YouTube, controversial content that provokes racial or religious hatred and intolerance can be spread. In 2012, the video “Innocence of Muslims” was uploaded, besmirching the Prophet Muhammad, sparking outrage and riots in the Muslim world, culminating in the deaths of over 50 people (Stone, 2012); a bounty was even placed on the head of the man responsible behind it. This is a poignant reminder that there will be people ready to abuse the freedom of expression, even by using social media. Even if such a video is eventually taken down, damage would have already been done, and in the case of “Innocence of Muslims”, lives were lost when they would not have been.

In an effort to rake in more profits, YouTube has poured millions of dollars to bring in professional content, but amateur producers felt that they were being undermined (Shih, 2012); ironic that the purpose of YouTube in the very beginning was to share videos made by amateurs. With the competition, these producers may not be able to match up to the professionals in terms of budget, advertisements and connections. Instead of leveling the playing field for video distribution, the structure of the big budget Hollywood and TV industry today may simply just be replicated into the YouTube community in the future.
                                         
3.2 Citizen Journalism

While print technology has allowed newspaper companies to dominate news reporting in their respective cities or countries for the past 300 or so years, in recent times the Internet has allowed blogs to flourish, covering a range of topics, including news and political commentary. Such blogs pose direct challenges to the traditional news media companies that rely on newspaper sales and advertisement to make money. While many newspaper companies try to ride the wave of technology by providing a subscription service for readers to pay to read the news on their tablets or phones, few people are willing to pay for it. A research done by Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that only 10% of adults in the US who use mobile apps to access the news pay for it (Choney, 2011). To exacerbate the situation, many Americans do not trust traditional media news. According to a report by Gallup, in 2013, only 23% of Americans have confidence in newspapers and television news (Mendez, 2013).

The freedom and zero cost to set up a blog, accessible for anybody on the Internet to see, has empowered ordinary non-journalists to post their own reporting or political commentary. Notable blogs for news include The Huffington Post, offering news coverage and US politics. Blogs also cover a wide range of other topics, from personal reflections to cooking recipes, comics and travel guides. As such, one may argue that readers no longer have to purchase a physical (or digital) magazine but can search through a wide range of blogs free-of-charge.

3.2.1 Microblogging

A smaller, swifter version of blogging: Microblogging, is also making headway in society. Twitter is the best example of microblogging today. As in the case of Twitter, microblog posts or tweets can be no longer than 140 characters; tweets take just mere seconds to be read and can be retweeted to other people, as opposed to blog posts. Small bits of information can be spread around and disseminated at rapid speeds. A survey conducted in 2012 showed that the percentage of Twitter users using a mobile device increased to 71% while that of computers declined (Mercer, n.d.). The proliferation of smartphones and tablets and growth in mobile networks, and the fact that browsing through Twitter requires short attention spans mean that users are more inclined to access Twitter when they are on the go.

It is unsurprising that Twitter is perfect in sharing and disseminating information, in some cases: the news and latest happenings at an extremely rapid rate, by the people there “on the ground” to witness it happen around them, or simply to participate as a mass virtual audience of spectators able to broadcast their own opinion on major events as they unfold live. When news broke of Michael Jackson’s death in 2009, the number of tweets doubled to 456 per second (Holt, 2013), even causing Twitter to shut down temporarily (Bates, 2009).

3.2.2 Political Ramifications


Figure 1: Real-time Twitter feed during Iran’s Presidential Elections. Reproduced from Time World (2009)
A more pressing issue is that such freedom that social media entails mean that alternative views are easier accessible and suppression of information more difficult. Being out of the reach of governmental control, it is easier for dissidents to stir political unrest, such as in Iran's 2009 Presidential Election protests (Grossman, 2009), or outright anarchy such as in the case of the 2011 London Riots, inflamed by participation on Facebook pages and Twitter (Mathew, 2011). It is thus unsurprising that such platforms are banned in countries such as China.

In 2009, the Communist Party in China banned access to Facebook, in addition to Twitter, in the wake of deadly riots in Xinjiang (Wauters, 2009). This is a testament to the potency of social media. The Chinese Communist Party feared that its power might be at risk if dissidents were successfully able to launch an uprising on the backs of social media. However, even as Western social media sites are blocked, Chinese copycat versions have emerged, such as Renren, Weibo and Youku, showing that people would still want to be connected on social media platforms. While having said that, blocking Chinese Internet users from Western social media sites inadvertently alienates and isolates them from the rest of the world. For example, a Chinese user would be unable to access videos on YouTube or connect with foreign friends who are only using Facebook, thus limiting his global outreach.

More importantly, however is that such empowerment means that hoaxes or inaccurate reporting can be easily circulated around social networks. On 23rd April 2013, the Dow Jones plunged sharply, losing $136 billion of market value after a false tweet claimed that Barack Obama was wounded in an explosion at the White House. This raised concerns of the use of trading algorithms to analyze information from sources like social media (Chozick & Perlroth, 2013).

It is worth noting that while there is plenty of excitement and talk of the power of social media to bring about political change, and indeed a number of political and social movements have sprang out from social media, many have not matured into coherent, viable political movements (Keen, 2012), and are merely just aggregations of individuals trumpeting the same views. Take for instance, the Occupy movements that failed due to a lack of clear goals (Anil, 2011) and strong leadership despite the strong coverage they received on social media.

3.3 Collaboration

Despite the threats that citizen journalism seem to pose to journalism, rather than compete with news companies, citizen journalism can instead enhance and bolster traditional news reporting. Richard Sambrook, then Director of Global News at BBC writes that on the day of the 2005 London Bombings, photos, videos and reports from eyewitnesses came pouring into BBC, which they used to report the story. He emphasized that, due to empowerment by consumer gadgets, like tablets and smartphones, news coverage of major events from now on would be a partnership with the public (Sambrook, 2005).

Russia Today (RT), a Russian-based television network is extremely popular on social media, such as YouTube, recording nearly 1 million views on an average day. Rather than just deliver information, it posts videos with the aim of provoking responses and sparking debates. The videos are also in a variety of formats, such as documentaries, interviews or even user-generated videos. Furthermore, RT looks at the comments left by users to see which stories are of most interest (McAthy, 2013). RT is therefore an excellent model of engagement with the community, using social media to its fullest advantage and delivering the news that challenges viewers’ thoughts and perspectives on the world around them.


Figure 2: Advertisement by RT challenges viewers to question more. Reproduced from The Guardian (2009)

4  Future Considerations

4.1 Education

While most students in developed countries receive formal education, students have inherently different learning speeds and thus schools everywhere face the problem of not being able to cater to every student’s learning speed, leaving slower students behind while holding faster students back. However, education can be a very viable industry to be transformed by Social Media in the future. Currently, the Internet, especially sites like YouTube and Khan Academy contain a wealth of educational video courses for free, on demand to suit any topic that students or teachers would want to go through. In the future, it would be tremendously beneficial to students that a Digital Aristotle (Grey, 2012), a computer program is developed that can tap on this wealth of resources to teach students, test their knowledge and adapt to their learning speeds. The democratization of information by social media means that people would be able to contribute such resources very much cheaply and easily through social media. Furthermore, in such a knowledge-based economy, a better education would mean better opportunities for students in the future, who may not have the financial means or ability to afford tutors or an expensive education.

For subjects like the Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, the diversification of viewpoints that students are exposed to would be beneficial in that their knowledge on national history would no longer be limited to their textbooks, which may have be biased in their points of view. It is not surprising that conflicts between countries have emerged in the past because of content in their textbooks. Yet, it is also worth noting that the proliferation of viewpoints may be too overwhelming to students at a young age.

4.2 Consumer Gadgets

Social media has already seeped into everyday life, due to the mass availability of consumer gadgets such as smartphones, tablets, and even smart TVs. While people are able to watch online videos and surf their social sites on their smartphones now, with the release of Google Glass in 2014, the possibilities for consumers would be virtually limitless. With wearable technology possibly paving the way, people would be empowered with the ability to record photos and videos from one’s actual first-person view, allowing for more personal experiences to be shared with friends and family on social networks. More ambitiously, entertainment in the form of augmented reality may be very viable in the near future, together with gesture technology already present today, providing an even more immersive experience.

4.3 Effect on Consumption Patterns

One effect that most people should be able to observe recently is that more and more of the devices that being used are designed and marketed towards participation in social media, such as those mentioned above, and even smart cars in the future. It is as Andrew Keen, author of the book Digital Vertigo puts it: Everything is becoming social (Keen, 2012). Even today, many popular games thrive on social networks, and it is likely that society is heading in the direction that every form of media that is consumed in the future would have social media embedded in it, from e-book readers that can share one’s favorite books with friends, to smart TVs that can recommend TV programs based on what one’s friends are watching. This raises a whole debate on whether social media has become too pervasive in our lives and whether our personal privacy may be in jeopardy.

Another point worth considering is that, with consumers increasingly being constantly bombarded by fast information (as mentioned previously in the case of Twitter), or images and videos such as Instagram, it is likely that, for better or worst, social media could shorten future consumers’ attention spans, especially for the most tech-savvy in developed societies, such as Generation Y. Many children today already have access to smartphones and tablets, and this could lead to the effects discussed above on the future generations. An online survey of more than 2000 teachers in the US by Pew’s Research Center has reported that: “87% say these technologies are creating an ‘easily distracted generation with short attention spans’” (Purcell et al., 2012, p. 2). This change in appetite could lead to changes in the type of media produced in the future, such as smartphone or tablet games that are short and require minimal bursts of attention, not to mention that such games, videos and music obviously can be accessed and downloaded that much more easily and quickly in time to come.

4.4 Filter Bubbles

With people increasingly relying on the Internet and social media as their primary source of news of concern, whether it be from a Google search or through one’s Facebook or Twitter newsfeed, a worrisome trend has emerged that may restrict their exposure to a balanced worldview. Increasingly, sites like Facebook and Google track users’ behavior on their sites by keeping track of what they click on, and thereby filtering news stories to tailor-display what they think is best for them using algorithms. Other social media sites like YouTube and Twitter are also using such algorithms and recommending content based on one’s behavior, not to mention retail sites like Amazon. Yet, people may end up unwittingly trapped in filter bubbles where they are not exposed to content that challenge their opinions and broaden their perspectives (Pariser, 2011). Earlier in this paper I discussed about how social media has liberated people from information control, but it is chilling and ironic to think that in the future, people’s information access may instead be controlled by these algorithms belonging to these social media sites in the first place.

While using such algorithms does bring more relevant information to the people who want to see it, and while it does people with similar views together, it should be such that users should be given the personal choice to opt out of such filtering, and even then the filtering should not be so drastic so as to polarize the community. Functions should be put in place in these filtering programs to provide alternate views on a particular issue.

5  Conclusion

In conclusion, the Internet and Social Media has transformed the landscape of media and the relationship between the producer and consumer dramatically. Consumers will stand to benefit since more content is freely available to them. Yet with more uncensored and unverifiable user-generated content, consumers and producers alike need to practice greater discernment. Though it is highly unlikely or even impossible for all media consumption to be transposed onto social media, traditional content producers, such as film and news companies need to remain open to change and new ways of collaboration, rather than purely seeing them as competition. As social media opens up new opportunities for people to broadcast their talents, and likewise to be open to a diverse range of content to broaden their appreciation and perspectives, it is important that people do not become overly preoccupied with social media and become unwittingly trapped in their own filter bubbles.

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[1] This paper was reviewed by Quah Yi Yao Cedric and Siddarth Sethi