Old media

Last updated

Old media, or legacy media, [1] are the mass media institutions that dominated prior to the Information Age; particularly print media, film studios, music studios, advertising agencies, radio broadcasting, and television. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Old media institutions are centralized and communicate with one-way technologies to a generally anonymous mass audience. [4] [5] By definition, it is often contrasted with new media, which are typically computer or smartphone-based media that are interactive and comparatively decentralized, enabling people to telecommunicate with one another peer-to-peer or through social media platforms, [6] with mass use and availability through the Internet. [7]

Old media companies have diminished in the last decade with the changing media landscape, namely the modern reliance on streaming and digitization of formerly analog content, [8] and the advent of simple worldwide connection and mass conversation. [7] Old media, or "legacy media" conglomerates include Disney, Warner Media, ViacomCBS, Bertelsmann Publishers, and NewsCorp., owners of Fox News and Entertainment, and span from books to audio to visual media. [9] These conglomerates are often owned and inherited between families, such as the Murdochs of NewsCorp. [10] Due to traditional media's heavy use in economics and political structures, it remains current regardless of new media's emergence. [7]

Challenges faced by old media conglomerates

The advent of new communication technology (NCT) has brought forth a set of opportunities and challenges for conventional media. [11] The presence of new media, and the Internet in particular, has posed a challenge to conventional media, especially the printed newspaper. [12] The new media have also affected the way newspapers get and circulate their news. Since 1999, almost 90% of daily newspapers in the United States have been actively using online technologies to search for articles and most of them also create their own news Web sites to reach new markets. [12]

The challenges faced by old media, especially newspapers, has to do with the combination of the global economic crisis, dwindling readership and advertising funds, and the inability of newspapers to monetize their online efforts. [13] Newspapers, especially in the West and the United States in particular, have lost many of their classified advertisements to the Internet. Additionally, a depressed economy forced more readers to cancel their newspaper subscriptions, and business firms to cut their advertising budgets as part of their overall cost-cutting measures. As a result, closures of newspapers, bankruptcy, job cuts and salary cuts are widespread. [14]

This has made some representatives of the United States newspaper industry seek bailouts from the government by allowing U.S. newspapers to recoup taxes they paid on profits previously to help offset some of their current losses. Accusations are being made toward search engine giants by publishers such as Sir David Bell, who categorically accused Google and Yahoo! of "stealing" the contents of newspapers. A similar allegation came from media mogul Rupert Murdoch in early April 2009, questioning if Google "should ... steal all our copyrights." [14] Likewise, Sam Zell, owner of the Tribune Company that publishes the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and the Baltimore Sun claimed it was the newspapers in America who allowed Google to steal their content, and therefore credited themselves for providing Google with their content. [14]

Old media as a cultural construct and colloquialism

Old media, opposed to its newer counterpart, have been found by theorists and historians like Chris Anderson (author of The Long Tail and The Long Tail Phenomenon of Mass Communication), [9] Marshall McLuhan, Wolfgang Ernst, and Carolyn Marvin [15] to be inaccurate to the realities of mass communication's progression. McLuhan, specifically, argues that a medium's information is contingent upon the very medium. [15] In so doing, it never dies and always remains current. Therefore, the binary of old and new media, with new media making old become obsolete, is inaccurate. It would be far more accurate, according to the theoretical argument of authors like Ernst, to view new and old media as a spectrum. [15] The challenges faced by old media, therefore, will never completely remove them from the public mass media sphere.

"Old media" as an idea only ever existed because "new media" does. In the research of Simone Natale, the use of the term "old media" in a survey of books only began to become popular in the late twentieth century once the developments of new media, such as the Internet, became widely available. [15] Natale writes of old media as a social construct because of this; because no medium is old, one compares old to new in hindsight.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marshall McLuhan</span> Canadian philosopher and communications scholar (1911–1980)

Herbert Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his teaching career as a professor of English at several universities in the United States and Canada before moving to the University of Toronto in 1946, where he remained for the rest of his life. He is known as the "father of media studies".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Media studies</span> Field of study that deals with media

Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but it mostly draws from its core disciplines of mass communication, communication, communication sciences, and communication studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass media</span> Media that can reach a large audience via mass communication

Mass media include the diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold Innis</span> Canadian academic (1894–1952)

Harold Adams Innis was a Canadian professor of political economy at the University of Toronto and the author of seminal works on media, communication theory, and Canadian economic history. He helped develop the staples thesis, which holds that Canada's culture, political history, and economy have been decisively influenced by the exploitation and export of a series of "staples" such as fur, fish, lumber, wheat, mined metals, and coal. The staple thesis dominated economic history in Canada from the 1930s to 1960s, and continues to be a fundamental part of the Canadian political economic tradition.

Media ecology theory is the study of media, technology, and communication and how they affect human environments. The theoretical concepts were proposed by Marshall McLuhan in 1964, while the term media ecology was first formally introduced by Neil Postman in 1968.

New media are communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for the influx of interactive CD-ROMs for entertainment and education. The new media technologies, sometimes known as Web 2.0, include a wide range of web-related communication tools such as blogs, wikis, online social networking, virtual worlds, and other social media platforms.

<i>The Gutenberg Galaxy</i> 1962 book by Marshall McLuhan

The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man is a 1962 book by Marshall McLuhan, in which he analyzes the effects of mass media, especially the printing press, on European culture and human consciousness. It popularized the term global village, which refers to the idea that mass communication allows a village-like mindset to apply to the entire world; and Gutenberg Galaxy, which we may regard today to refer to the accumulated body of recorded works of human art and knowledge, especially books.

Mass communication is the process of imparting and exchanging information through mass media to large population segments. It utilizes various forms of media as technology has made the dissemination of information more efficient. Primary examples of platforms utilized and examined include journalism and advertising. Mass communication, unlike interpersonal communication and organizational communication, focuses on particular resources transmitting information to numerous receivers. The study of mass communication is chiefly concerned with how the content and information that is being mass communicated persuades or affects the behavior, attitude, opinion, or emotion of people receiving the information.

In media studies, mass communication, media psychology, communication theory, and sociology, media influence and themedia effect are topics relating to mass media and media culture's effects on individuals' or audiences' thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. Through written, televised, or spoken channels, mass media reach large audiences. Mass media's role in shaping modern culture is a central issue for the study of culture.

Media transparency, also referred to as transparent media or media opacity, is a concept that explores how and why information subsidies are being produced, distributed and handled by media professionals, including journalists, editors, public relations practitioners, government officials, public affairs specialists, and spokespeople. In short, media transparency reflects the relationship between civilization and journalists, news sources and government. According to a textual analysis of "Information Subsidies and Agenda Building: A Study of Local Radio News", an information subsidy is defined as "any item provided to the media in order to gain time or space".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The medium is the message</span> Communication theory phrase

"The medium is the message" is a phrase coined by the Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan and the name of the first chapter in his Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964. McLuhan proposes that a communication medium itself, not the messages it carries, should be the primary focus of study. The concept has been applied by others in discussions of technologies from television to the Internet.

Medium theory is a mode of analysis that examines the ways in which particular communication media and modalities impact the specific content (messages) they are meant to convey. It Medium theory refers to a set of approaches that can be used to convey the difference in meanings of messages depending on the channel through which they are transmitted. Medium theorists argue that media are not simply channels for transmitting information between environments, but are themselves distinct social-psychological settings or environments that encourage certain types of interaction and discourage others.

Global village describes the phenomenon of the entire world becoming more interconnected as the result of the propagation of media technologies throughout the world. The term was coined by Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan in his books The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962) and Understanding Media (1964). Literary scholar Sue-Im Lee describes how the term global village has come to designate “the dominant term for expressing a global coexistence altered by transnational commerce, migration, and culture”. Economic journalist Thomas Friedman's definition of the global village as a world “tied together into a single globalized marketplace and village” is another contemporary understanding of the term.

<i>The Internet Galaxy</i> 2001 book by Manuel Castells

The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society is a book by Manuel Castells, Professor of Sociology and Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California. It was published by Oxford University Press in 2001. The title is a reference to The Gutenberg Galaxy, a 1962 book by Marshall McLuhan. It is regarded as a good introduction to Social informatics.

This is a bibliography of Marshall McLuhan's works.

In communication, media are the outlets or tools used to store and deliver semantic information or contained subject matter, described as content. The term generally refers to components of the mass media communications industry, such as print media (publishing), news media, photography, cinema, broadcasting, digital media, and advertising. Each of these different channels requires a specific, thus media-adequate approach, to a successful transmission of content.

The Toronto School is a school of thought in communication theory and literary criticism, the principles of which were developed chiefly by scholars at the University of Toronto. It is characterized by exploration of Ancient Greek literature and the theoretical view that communication systems create psychological and social states. The school originated from the works of Eric A. Havelock and Harold Innis in the 1930s, and grew to prominence with the contributions of Edmund Snow Carpenter, Northrop Frye, Ursula Franklin, and Marshall McLuhan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass media in Canada</span> Overview of mass media in Canada

The term mass media refers to any means or technology used to communicate a message to large groups of people. Popular forms of mass media include television, the Internet, and newspapers. Mass media are specifically intended to reach larger audiences. The term is often divided into two broad categories: that of electronic mass media and that of print mass media. Electronic mass media require their audiences to interact with electronics in order to receive the message. They attempt to recreate or represent a message through moving pictures and/or sound. Four common examples of electronic media used in Canadian society are television, radio, films, and the Internet. Print mass media, on the other hand, refers to any media that is distributed to audiences in a printed form, on paper. Examples of this include newspapers, printed books, and magazines.

New media studies is an academic discipline that explores the intersections of computing, science, the humanities, and the visual and performing arts. Janet Murray, a prominent researcher in the discipline, describes this intersection as "a single new medium of representation, the digital medium, formed by the braided interplay of technical invention and cultural expression at the end of the 20th century". The main factor in defining new media is the role the Internet plays; new media is effortlessly spread instantly. The category of new media is occupied by devices connected to the Internet, an example being a smartphone or tablet. Television and cinemas are commonly thought of as new media but are ruled out since the invention was before the time of the internet.

In the social sciences, materiality is the notion that the physical properties of a cultural artifact have consequences for how the object is used. Some scholars expand this definition to encompass a broader range of actions, such as the process of making art, and the power of organizations and institutions to orient activity around themselves. The concept of materiality is used across many disciplines within the social sciences to focus attention on the impact of material or physical factors. Scholars working in science and technology studies, anthropology, organization studies, or communication studies may incorporate materiality as a dimension of their investigations. Central figures in the social scientific study of materiality are Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan.

References

  1. ↑ Desjardins, Jeff (10 October 2016). "The slow death of legacy media". Business Insider. Retrieved 21 December 2018.
  2. ↑ "How Old Media Can Survive in a New World". The Wall Street Journal . 23 May 2005. Archived from the original on 27 March 2008. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
  3. ↑ Logan, Robert K. (2010). "The Changing Figure/Ground Relation with the 'New Media'". Understanding New Media: Extending Marshall McLuhan. Peter Lang. p. 8. OCLC   764542063 . Retrieved 23 April 2017– via Google Books.
  4. 1 2 Peterson, Mark Allen (2008) [2003]. "The Ethnography of Media Production". Anthropology & Mass Communication: Media and Myth in the New Millennium. Berghahn Books. p. 170. ISBN   978-1-57181-278-0. OCLC   823761828 . Retrieved 23 April 2017– via Google Books.
  5. ↑ Becker, Barbara; Wehner, Josef (2001). "Electronic Networks and Civil Society". In Ess, Charles; Sudweeks, Fay (eds.). Culture, Technology, Communication: Towards an Intercultural Global Village. SUNY Press. p. 81. ISBN   978-0-79145-016-1. OCLC   879232423 . Retrieved 23 April 2017– via Google Books.
  6. ↑ Schorr, Angela (2003). "Interactivity: The New Media Use Option—State of the Art". In Schorr, Angela; Schenk, Michael; Campbell, William (eds.). Communication Research and Media Science in Europe: Perspectives for Research and Academic Training in Europe's Changing Media Reality. Mouton de Gruyter. p. 57. OCLC   954099068 . Retrieved 23 April 2017– via Google Books.
  7. 1 2 3 McQuail, Denis (1983). McQuail's Mass Communication Theory (6th ed.). London: Sage. pp. 136–138. ISBN   978-1-84920-291-6.
  8. ↑ Wolff, Michael (2017). Television is the New Television: The Unexpected Triumph of Old Media in the Digital Age. Penguin. pp. 96–103. ISBN   9780143108924.
  9. 1 2 Hanson, Ralph E (2022). Mass Communication: Living in a Media World (8th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage. pp. 56, 67, 73. ISBN   9781544382999.
  10. ↑ Folkenfilk, David (2013). Murdoch's World: The Last of the old Media Empires (1st ed.). New York: Public Affairs. pp. 280–282. ISBN   9781610390897.
  11. ↑ Garrison, B., 1996. Successful Strategies for Computer-Assisted Reporting. Mahwah, NJ, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  12. 1 2 Domingo, D. & A. Heinone. 2008. "Weblogs and Journalism: A Typology to Explore the Blurring Boundaries." Nordicom Review, 29 (1): 3-15. )
  13. ↑ Yap, B. 2009. "Time running out for newspapers." The Malaysian Insider. Retrieved 31 October 2010 from http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/brianyap/28538-time-running-out-for-newspapers.
  14. 1 2 3 Mahmud, S. 2009. "Is the newspaper industry at death's door?" Retrieved 30 October 2009 from: http://www.mysinchew.com/node/24415?tid=14.Straits Times. 22 October 2008.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Natale, Simone (2016). "There Are No Old Media". Journal of Communication. 66 (4): 592–603 – via JSTOR.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.