Technology and media

Technology and media walk hand in hand. As one evolves so does the other. Technology has grown and changed over the years and the media industry has also transformed rapidly. Technology and the media are interwoven, and neither can be separated from contemporary society.  From the time the printing press was created (and even before), technology has influenced how and where information is shared. Today, it is impossible to discuss media and the ways that societies communicate without addressing the fast-moving pace of technology.  It is through technology that the concept  of new media has been framed. The media industry is undergoing a major transformation due to the introduction of digital technology.  Today digital media and technology is one of the fastest growing concepts in the world. It has changed the way we do just about everything. It has made a considerable transformation in how we communicate.  As technology grows we discover new ways of communicating with world around us. 

New media bears new qualities and new characteristics such as interactivity, convergence, digitization, and openness. New media technologies have helped us introduce new ways of producing, storing, retrieving, disseminating, receiving or consuming information. These new ways represent big changes from traditional mass communication models. New media allows more interactivity between global communications network. It has opened up alternative ways of publication that combines text, sound, and visuals in one, for example movies produced from the early 1900s. Today if there growth in media it’s because of the growth in technologies.  New media technology is the application of digital (computer) technology to mass communications. The Internet has emerged as a great communication medium. Its impact on society, commerce, and the government is phenomenal. In addition, the interactivity and immediacy inherent in digital technology have changed the models of media production and business for all media. Traditional and new media incorporate characteristics of and influence each other; that is, media converge.

Technological convergence has accelerated the speed of media technologies.  It is important that we understand different new media technologies that are available today.  Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, are examples of how new media technologies has helped us unite with the people around the world. Today through these new media technologies we are able to sit in one corner of the world and have a face to face conversation with our loved ones who are present in the other end of the world.  This proves the new media really does overcome space and time. This possible today only because of the role technology plays in media. It through new landmark technologies that we get acquainted with new media every day that gets us one step more closer to world. Technology enables one to do a lot of things or talk to a lot of people at the same time, having more time to do other things.

Marshall McLuhan has said rightly that technology and media make the world a global village.  The entire world is connected with each other through new media and that is possible only because of the growing technologies around us. Technology creates media, without technology media does not exist.