3

Theme3
Every form of technology that's become digital has also been transformed by its users/audience.Explain how at least three "old" media ( Books, tv, film, radio, newspapers) have adapted to new digital media forms, and how they have been changed by the process of becoming digital. Also describe the ways people use and change digitized media as consumers. Show some examples on your blog. Which "old" media do you think have promising futures in digital form, and which do you expect will die out soon? Support your answer with good arguments
Books are probably the easiest "old" media to see adapted to today's media advances. What started out as words printed onto paper by means of inked stamps has transformed into a digital media. Books were the media of their time. Now we see them as outdated because of the lack of technology used by the reader. Today's media is inundated by screens and buttons. The book has been able to adapt into the Kindle- a digitized book-version of the iPod. Instead of a library of songs, you have a library of books, or rather stories since you are not owning hard copies of these tales but the words, which appear on the screen of the device. The user "turns" the "pages" by pressing a button or brushing their finger across the screen. Compared to the popularity of books when they first came out, the popularity of the Kindle, and other digital readers, is dramatically less. Reading takes a lot of skills that aren't taught or formed in today's generation. Because of all the technology surrounding today's population, people are less inclined to sit for an extended time and focus on reading. Reading as a pastime in general has died out due to this boredom with a subject that doesn't constantly engage and entertain the reader. However, Kindle and the likes are putting up a hard fight to modernize reading and make it more appealing to today's technology savvy generations.
Television has also changed dramatically. TV has gone from a few channels on a tiny black and white screen with a very visible image scanning to extra large, high definition, satellite receiving monsters of tv's. At first TV was just a response to the popularity of radio, and was created to engage the audience with visual stimulation as opposed to radio's audio programming. However it also limited creators at first because the sets and cast were so limited once they were made visible. Now, this is no longer a problem with all the advancements made in CGI. However, television also seems to be losing many of its users because of other media such as computers. Users who used to sit at the TV and watch their favorite show in front of the TV set every Tuesday at 9 PM no longer do that. Websites such as Hulu.com allow people to watch the latest episodes whenever and wherever they want. People can watch their favorite movie or show on their computer, iPod, or any media that has access to the internet, for FREE. The user has made structured TV programming a problem of the past. At this point on Television, the audience is viewed as a commodity. Advertisers "buy" an audience based on the show airing at the time and what the projected age of the audience members will be. They then display products that are aimed at people in that age group. I believe that Hulu usage has gone up causing tests, such as Nielsen's census or samples, to be less and less accurate. Everything we need is on the internet, so why have a TV at all?

Radio has completely changed from the way it started out. We've come a very long way from the programming that aired at 5 minute intervals at the time of Mary Dyck. Mary's life on the farm was lonely- she stayed in the house and did housework while her husband worked in the fields all day. Her life became consumed with the characters on the radio shows. In her personal diary she wrote about the characters in a gossip-y manner that sounded like she believed she really knew them. This was common during this time, as Myerowits taught- the radio gave her access to situations she normally would never visit. It provided her escape to Hollywood, to the suburbs, etc. Mary formed parasocial relationships with the characters who because the emotional center of her life. This would never ever occur today. The radio has changed so much once it went from AM to FM. At first it was more progressive and broke the hunky-dory mold of AM radio at the time. People began making alternative styles of music and expressing their opinions as freely as the wanted to, common topics being drugs, concerts, and anti-War rallies going on. We've seen a drastic change to more mass produced radio stations after the seventies and the rise of Disco. Radio became more commercialized and more competitive. Corporate structure demanded playlists that appealed to the largest audience. Many of the alternative DJs left because they saw that radio was selling out. The day John Lennon died was a signal of the last time radio was that popular. People came together to mourn the loss of the music legend. Radio stations had people calling in who loved Lennon just throught their experience with his music that they heard on the radio. After MTV, radio became more focused less on talk and more on music, or as the saying went, "Shutup and play the hits!" There was a rise of Shock Jocks, such as Howard Stern, who would try to say the most offensive and shocking thinks to get people's attention and bring in listeners, lowering the bar for acceptable behavior. Music became more homogenized, spontaneity was lost by the science of getting the largest audience possible at once. Then radio moved to Satellite where people could choose the genre primarily and there would be at least one station for them to listen to. Then it moved to internet websites such as Pandora that allows the user to completely interract with their music experience. The enter a song, artist, or a genre that they like and the station uses the music genome to find other similar songs and artists to make up a playlist specifically for this user. The user can react whether they like the song or not and Pandora "learns" more about this user's taste and changes the playlist accordingly. I believe that this type of radio will stay around for a long time. People are always looking for new music to listen to and Pandora allows them to listen to their old favorites as well. This interactive version of Radio is so much more appealing to the user. The only way I can see it being unsuccessful is if it is no longer free, although there may be quite a few dedicated users who would be willing to pay for the service.