Communication Technology

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Communication Technology

• Week 2
• Development of the
• New Media

2
Information Society

• We are living in an Information Society
• Originated from Japan (1960s) and was referred to
  post-industrial society
• An objective description of our time and the type
  of society which is emerging (driven by
  information)

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What is information society?

• In Information society, the exchange of
  information is the predominant economic activity
• Society is driven by information the latest
  international news, the creation of computer
  databases.
• It is also driven by rapid changes in
  technological developments - information can be
  equated with power

4
Information Society

• We are becoming a society based on service
  (service industry) rather than manufacturing
• We no longer distinct various mass media (i.e.,
  books, newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, film,
  telephone, and computers) because of convergence
  activities
• Information superhighways - relay vast amounts
  to information to our offices homes

5
Understanding information?

• What is information?
• A collection of symbols that, when combined,
  communicates a message
• When we write a note we combine letters
  numbers to convey your thoughts/ideas, a message
  that has meaning to both of you
• E.g. lecture note, memo, computer languages,
  slang, gesture

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Understanding information?

• To understand on the exchanged information
  (message) both parties need to have share
  understanding of the message or information -
  created by culture or society
• F-I-F-A W-o-r-l-d C-u-p is not just a
  collection of letter its a concept
• E.g., UTAR, KTAR, KLCC, EU,

7
Communication System

• What is a communication system?
• A) A concept where information, coded in signal
  form, can be exchanged
• e.g. to phone a friend, the communication system
  include telephone receivers, telephone line, and
  other component
• B) Communication Tools their applications, the
  implications that arise from the production,
  manipulation, and potential exchange of
  information

8
Changing Media Technologies

• 21th Century a digital era where the entire
  world is going digital
• Analog communication uses continuously varying
  signals corresponding to the light of sounds
  originated by the source
• Digital - conversion of sound, pictures, and text
  into computer-readable formats by changing them
  into strings of electronic 1s and 0s
• Name examples of analog and digital

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Changing Media In A Changing World

• Media Convergence integration of mass media,
  computers, and telecommunications
• Advances in computers telecommunications
  networks have led to their merging convergence
  with conventional mass (print / radio / TV /
  telephones)

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Media Convergence

• This convergence is apparent in many different
  ways the rise of the Internet / the integration
  of communication technologies / the merging of
  media empires / new lifestyles / new careers /
  changing regulations shifting social issues
• Merging of technologies
• Merging of industries

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Merging of technologies

• Technological changes shake up conventional media
• E.g., Napster Website, internet radio, DVD,
  digital camera, the Internet
• New digital media will coexist with conventional
  media
• E.g., The Internet with newspaper The Star and
  Star.com, Sin Chew Daily and Sinchew-i.com

12
Merging of industries

• Telephone, computer, cable television, and media
  firms are merging and forming partnerships
• E.g., American Online and Time Warner, Microsoft
  in videogame, broadcasting, cable television,
  publishing, and Internet
• What about in Malaysia?

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Changing Media Throughout History

• Preagriculture Society
• Most people lived in small groups
• Hunters or gatherers
• Depended on spoken word
• Many people are illiterate
• Do we still have society like that?

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• Agriculture Society
• Economy based on farms or resource extraction
  (fishing, mining, logging)
• Societies are more settled and complex
• Introduced written language
• Only religious orders and merchant can write and
  read
• Primary mass media was hand-copied books

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• Industrial Society
• 1712 Industrial Revolution Steam engine by
  Thomas Newcomen
• Gutenburg Bible 1455
• Improving the speed of book production - Mass
  production of books in large cities
• Triggering mass migration
• Encouraged the speed of literacy
• Urbanization, literacy rate and the need of
  advertising the first mass medium - newspaper

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• Information Society
• Can be found in preagricultural societies
• Growing information workers in 1960
• Dominant medium in an information society is one
  that helps to create, store, and process
  information computer

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Tutorial Questions Week 3

• What is media convergence?
• List four examples of the convergence phenomenon
  in Malaysia, two in technologies and two in
  industries
• What is information society?
• How does the role of the media differ between
  industrial and information society?

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References

• Green, L. (2001). Communication, Technology and
  Society. Thousand Oaks, CA Sage.
• Straubhaar, J.D., LaRose, R. (2002). Media Now
  Communications Media in the Information Age.
  Belmont, CA Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.
• Mirabito, M. M. Morgenstern, B. L. (2004). The
  new communication technologies (5th ed). New
  York Focal Press.