【Assignment 1】NETWORK SOCIETY: INFORMATION AND MEDIA
March 9, 2010
NETWORK SOCIETY: INFORMATION AND MEDIA
Media Production
Moye Chen
Postmodern condition, arise various sources of information and ways of communication. It is no longer simply rely on the traditional media as newspapers, television and radio to communicate and spread information. The accelerated development and update technology, network society and the media, contribute to information networks and the media in a variety of ways to spread information faster and more accurate. In the digital cultural, who is the first to get accurate information, who is the first to take the initiative in fierce competition.
Social and media networks are shaping the prime mode of organization and most important structures of modern society. Modern society is in a process of becoming a network society. This means that on the internet interpersonal, organizational, and mass communication come together. People become linked to one another and have access to information and communication with one another constantly. Using the internet brings the “whole world” into homes and work places. Also, when media like the internet becomes even more advanced it will gradually appear as “normal media” in the first decade of the twentieth-first century as it becomes used by larger sections of the population and by vested interests in the economy, politics and culture. It asserts that paper means of communication will become out of date, with newspapers and letters becoming ancient forms for spreading information (The Network Society, Jan van Dijk, 1999).
“Network society” activities include two parts. One is the production and utilization of network resources. Another one is interpersonal relation in network society. In terms of production of network resources, “network society” is mainly as a “tool space”. It not only has universal, but also noticeable particularity. “Network society” includes the information media – television, radio, newspapers, posters, text messaging, etc.; means of communication – telephone, mobile, the walkie-talkie, letters, etc.; entertainment equipment – mix a variety of audio-visual, play. It is more coverage, more feature-full, cost effective, so that the traditional information media, means of communication and entertainment equipment occurred in varying degrees of decline or be forced to carry out all kinds of updates.
As a cross-cultural and cross-country information space, the network becomes the position that culture communication and dissemination. When media and the network build relationship, presentation of the mass media and methods of spread information have produced great changes. Like TV, radio, advertising, magazines, posters, etc. they can be used in the network, it make production and dissemination of information more extensive and timely manner. Furthermore, many forms of entertainment media have also occurred in the relationship with the network. People can download music, films, games, e-book and so on from the network. Peer-to-peer networks promote the transformation and recirculation of music by the consumer, effectively laying the groundwork for the elevation of consumption into creativity, ending the bifurcation of production and consumption.
The music industry and the film industry reacted to the rapid spread of peer-to-peer file sharing of music and film, and get a certain degree of commercial profit. By 2004 commercial alternatives to file sharing had emerged. The music industry’s efforts in this regard, however, were weak and relatively unsuccessful. The Apple Corporation’s iTunes provided the first viable downloading website for music, charging at first one dollar per song, then, as competition arose, less than eighty cents. Sites also appeared that allowed musicians to bypass the music industry completely, selling albums directly to consumers (Information Please, Mark Poster, 2006). These are examples of commercial applications of music downloading that have successfully adapted the network to ideas developed in peer-to-peer network. It remains to be seen to what extent they displace file sharing or become the new means of acquiring music.
Today, it is possible to share many forms of art through the global Internet — music, paintings, drawings, photographs, video, dance, poetry and books. Anyone with an inexpensive computer, microphone, scanner and camera can create beautiful, original products, put them on a website, and instantly offer them for sale to an audience of more than 150 million people worldwide.
Another great role of the network society is constructing a huge network of interpersonal relationships, and it also providing a platform for human interaction. The communication tools, such as MSN, Email, ICQ, GoogleTalk and so on. In addition, there are very popular online communities, such as Facebook, BBS, MySpace, Twitter, Blog, etc. Network of interpersonal communication is full of universality. In the traditional sense of interpersonal communication are limited by various factors, relatively speaking, communication range is limited. However, in the network society, No matter where people are, they can keep changing people to communicate, and the source of these people are more extensive. It can be said that the network society basically breaking down geographical limitations. The possibility of people of different cultural backgrounds to make interpersonal communication through the network is increased greatly. The network society, what has become of the generation in its interactions with information machines, the virtual realities proliferating on the Internet, and get a lot of information and knowledge in all aspects from the network society. The network society is plays a big role of interpersonal communication. In the first place, the positive interpersonal communication in the networks can extend the scope of interpersonal communication and strengthen ability. In addition, it can get more opportunities to communicate with different people who are from the different regions and have different cultural background. Secondly, use networks, such as E-mail or MSN, can improve the work efficiency effectively. Last but not least, network society communication, in a certain sense, can ease the pressure of people’s real life and regulate mood, sometimes even can play a role in psychological treatment.
Network society disseminates a great deal of information and has made great convenience in our lives and entertainment, but also bring some problems. There is lots of website that contained links to downloadable MP3 music files. But file swapping was rampant on Internet Relay Chat and Usenet. But it is true that Napster vastly expanded the frequency of file sharing by its peer-to-peer architecture and ease of use. File sharing continues to flourish and even to expand. It seems that publicity about each new attack by the culture industries only makes more people aware of the peer-to-peer network and increases the number of participants. As one says in the movie business, no publicity is bad publicity for peer-to-peer networks. In addition, as if downloading music files is the same thing as taking a music CD from a retail store without paying for it. Lot of company complained that downloading films and music on the Internet sharply cut the sales of DVDs and CDs.
Another big problem is related to copyright. Copyright was adapted to new technologies of reproduction as they were invented and distributed in the areas of sound and images digital reproduction does not fall within copyright at all because the kind of materiality of digital files is not characterized by the economics of scarcity. Unlike books, films, and broadcasts, with digital media, unless commodified, there is nothing to pay for. We must frame this resistance not in terms of copyright law but in terms of media of culture, to make network society more legalization.
Increasingly spread of machines and technologies throughout society that was capable of reproducing and dissemination text, images, and sounds. In the digital cultural, network society is more broadly still about the lone-term relation of media and human beings to information machines. It can be seen, Internet itself is a social network to transmission of information from people to people, it is an unique interaction between individual and individuals, individuals and groups, groups and groups. Therefore, we can believe that the interaction between Internet and human as a social network, it is a “special space” of human life and work.
List of References
Jan van Dijk (1999) The Network Society Sage Publications
Mark Poster（2006）Information Please London: Duke University Press
Manuel Castells（1996）The Rise of the Network Society UK: Wiley-Blackwell Press
Website:
Moyechen's Blog 