Communication Technology

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Communication Technology

• Week 2
• Development of the
• New Media

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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,

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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

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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

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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

1. What is media convergence?
2. List four examples of the convergence phenomenon
   in Malaysia, two in technologies and two in
   industries
3. What is information society?
4. 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.