Technological Determinism what techonologies do to the people overwhelming and inevitable effects of technologies on users organizations and societies technology as an extra force introfuced to society criticisms o no human agency is assumed o culture norms regulations affect techonology o Technology cannot determine cultural or social outcomes as technology is merely the extension of human capacity Raymond Williams 1974 1983 Social Construction of Technologies What people do with technologies The case of the Internet o Result of complex social processes Government funding The culture of compuer enhusiasts Commercial interests User preferences o Web 2 0 Emphasis on interactivity and sharing Had existed since the internet s inception but was put to uses after marketing success o The 1 rule Participation inequality For every person who creates contents there are 99 who do not 90 9 1 rule 90 lurkers 9 occasional contribution 1 heavy contribution How Media technology Matters Media s impact on time and space o Never ending news cycle o Time shifting and binge viewing Consuming media contents are not bounded b time o Crossing social boundaries Children s and adult s worlds blurred o Changing sense of community Virtual community o Network society Internet as the technological basis of the new organizational form Interaction between technology and human agency The ride of television images o Tv as the serious cause for the decline of the public life o Pseudo events The distinction between image and reality is blurred Hyper reality o However the above arguments tend to be technologically deterministic New media and the culture of distraction o Broke physical and social connections o A new set of skill is valued Referencing and retrieving rather than understanding o Attention deficit culture o Generation Me Self absorption New Media Technologies and Social Forces The Business Models of New Media Companies o Managing access through portals and search engines Portal strategies Google s targeted approach The limit of selling contents o Challenges of digital piracy The wisdom of the crowd o User generated contents and collaboration Threat to Privacy Behavioral targeting o Cookies and trackers o Target advertising Reach audiences already predisposed to respond to their messages o Scraping Copying online conversations and personal information from social networking sites o Government surveillance Collecting data on national security concerns Media Fragmentation Long tail business model o Huge and diverse products o A large number of items selling in small quantities Internet fragmentation o Too many producers o Fragmented audience In search of audience o Concern for cultural unity vs alternative voices