Societies have their base on human interaction. For many years, human evolution has depended on communication for fulfilling needs and setting new challenges. The migration of tribes, the first forms of commerce, the birth of civilizations were all possible thanks to communication. One may see the evident impact of communication on the evolution of the world, which has obviously changed from the pre-historic times to the present.
Even though communication has not always led to positive outcomes, humans have proven that only good and effective communication leads to success. The transformation of tribes into empires depended greatly on who had the best communication tools. Societal hierarchy has placed the groups with the best communication technology on top of the pyramid. This scale has made it possible for these groups to advance and conquer.
With time and evolution, these techniques have become more powerful. The thirst of having the best communication system and technology has not ceased. Therefore, one can see a wider range of communication tools every day. This growth has become almost impossible to control. What was private a few years ago has grown to be public with the evolution of technology.
Communication and Language
The definition of communication is quite complex and involves a series of sciences. It the simplest sense, the act of communicating comprises the use of symbols, behavior, words and sounds that are common to a group of people, in order to transmit a message. Therefore, communication involves biology – the body, linguistics – language, and sociology – human interaction.
With time, communication has grown to be a professional practice. However, some experts disagree on the name and function. Some authors define communication as a science that studies human interaction and the way they use language. On the other hand, others consider that communication is an emerging discipline that touches every science in the practice field.
Regardless of what it is called, communication is present everywhere in the current times. According to Emanuel (2007), communication allows people to travel to the past, locate oneself in the present and create expectations for the future. It is the way humans record the incidences of everyday life.
Process of Communication
Communication happens when two or more subjects interchange messages through sings, symbols, sounds, or words. This process is only effective when the language is common to both sides of the interchange. Consequently, both subjects are able to decode the message and respond in accordance to it.
It is also necessary to say that the first models of communication always showed a two-way message interaction. This means that a transmitter and a receiver are necessary for communication to be successful. The transmitter sends a message through a channel and the receiver – who has access to the channel – receives the message, decodes it, and answers back.
This is a very primitive way to seeing such a process, since it is much deeper and has gotten much more complicated with time and technology. Foulger (2004) affirms that the fundamental interaction of humans is set on the base of language interaction. However, this author states that the message got lost through mass media channels, as transmitters became creators and receivers became consumers of messages. Social media became profitable and consumers were not able to respond accordingly.
The first mass medium with real time broadcast was Radio, which revolutionized the world of communication. It transformed all the existing models of communication, as it became a one-way model. Along with radio, came other forms of broadcasting information, entertainment, and publicity, such as TV. The birth of mass media marked the dawn of Mass Communication as a professional field. Since that moment, Mass Media practitioners have had a great power in their hands.
The Birth of Journalism
With the vertiginous advance of technology, journalism has arisen as the ultimate representation of democratic societies. Thereafter, some authors have majorly conceived journalism as an ideology, rather than a professional practice. From its birth in the 20th century, studies have presented journalism as the intellectual growth of ideology in the ones who exercise this discipline.
It constitutes all the communication process related to gathering, creating and assessing information, as well as transmitting news through a mass medium. Deuze, (2005) considers that journalism finds its niche in many different disciplines that feed the necessity of informing and receiving information. From the primitive word-of-mouth systems to modern broadcasting chains, journalism has distinguished informed societies from the ones that live in news blackout.
Purpose of Journalism
Journalism plays a smaller part on mass media, compared to entertainment, talk and publicity. However, it plays a huge role in the life of society, as people seem to give more importance to verified information. Society members have followed news programs from the beginning. Therefore, journalism is in every aspect of societal behavior – weather, official time, conversation topics, and more.
The purpose of journalism is as simple as following certain principles. Every journalist is supposed to practice journalism within the ethical principles that their audience deserve. Esser and Umbricht, (2014); Davis and Kent, (2013); Joseph and Boczkowski, (2012); and Ward, (2009) agree on these principles to be transparency, facticity, authenticity, accountability, impartiality, humanity, among others. Being aware of these principles throughout the exercise of journalism comprises the essence of the discipline.
Evolution of Journalism and Ways of Diffusion
Every country has a different story that engrosses the history of journalism. This inequality and competition have raised some difficulties for the development of this major discipline that touches everybody’s life. Some matters regarding technology have troubled the evolution of journalism in some countries, since the access to technology is easier for some than for others.
Another question that contributes to inequality is ownership. Buying the necessary machinery, programming, and setting, all related to media, has become a costly investment that only a few can afford. Another thing that makes it difficult to produce programs related to journalism is that the return of investment is too low nowadays. With the diffusion of technology that has led to global immediate connectivity, the public has received access to non-official material, so seem to bother for finding original productions.
As time advances, so does technology. The first forms of journalism were through printed material. With time and social media development, the main mean to broadcast news was radio, and then TV. Social media had a great impact on the way people obtained information.
Currently, the internet has opened a very new way to access information. People do not seem to pay attention to books or the press anymore. Newspapers seem obsolete when compared to their online versions, which most people apparently prefer. One thing is certain, journalism will continue shaping and adapting, in order to satisfy the needs of users.
Technology
Using the term technology gives a diffuse sense of what is being referenced. In fact, very few authors care about giving a definition of this term, regardless how much they use it in their publications. Nevertheless, here is a definition of technology that might suit the general terms of it. When authors and engineers refer to technology, they are addressing to all the machines and tools used to achieve an end.
All the new techniques people apply to facilitate procedures are technology. Therefore, technology has always been present in human lives. Hughes says that technology is a creativity process involving human ingenuity” (2004, p. 3). From the discovery of fire, to the latest microchip, technology includes all these inventions. Moreover, in the past three decades, a new form of technology has appeared automatizing human lives to a very controversial point.
It is imperative to establish that from here and on, when technology is mentioned, it refers to informatics, computing and programming. Internet became popular and somehow accessible in the early 90s, when people could have their first personal computers. When the first glimpse of technology touched people’s life, a burst of inventions and improvements seemed to flood the technological world.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Technology has revived the old models of communication. As mentioned before, Social Media has greatly transformed the ways in which people used to communicate. Society has become users and consumers in the former communicative interaction. This is in stark contrast to before, when the audience had no voice and had been confined to listen and discuss.
Fortunately, one of these big improvements was making the news programs interactive. Communication is a two-way street again. The audience can interact with the transmitter in real time. Citizens have a voice and can answer in consequence.
Another big advantage of technology on journalism is the wide range of people it reaches. An online broadcast does not have to worry about the range of transmission. Everybody with an internet connection can listen to or watch it. In addition, it contributes to environmental preservation policies, as it diminishes the quantity of printed-paper.
Nevertheless, not everything is advantageous. Some aspects of technology have affected Social Media Empires during the last years. Kaye and Quinn (2010) affirm that the journalism industry is in the middle of a transition to digital platforms. Many concepts like Search Engine Optimization, online advertising, website hosting, and many more, have made it difficult for news broadcast and print to maintain their traditional news companies.
Some authors think that these changes are too difficult to handle. They state that the continuous and unexpected changes have caused a crisis in the news industry. They have named these quick variations disruptive technology, since they have fragmented the audience. This new online culture has even led to distinguish generations of people through their abilities with the computer.
Mass Media Power
Some years ago, media owners were some of the richest men on earth. Whether they practiced the ethical principles of the journalism exercise or not, they had the power to control the Mass Media. They used to decide what was important and what was not. They could select the topic of conversation among homeowners the next day, or impulse the career of politicians. Their power was unlimited and they had very little competition.
Nevertheless, with its advent, internet invaded every life scenario, and Mass Media Communication was not the exception. Nowadays, the control over the news industry does not depend on who has more money, but who has more visibility online. Online marketing companies with a new business concept are tirelessly working to put their clients on the virtual map and obtain some control on the vast world of the Internet.
Mass Media power used to rely on exclusivity. Every time they published content, it was new, innovative, and unique. The more unique the news, the more audience mass media would have. On the other hand, licensed broadcasters used to measure their popularity with the rating they had on a certain transmission, so they would know what programs were people’s favorite.
This kind of measurement became obsolete, with the arrival of social media. First, any person can measure his or her popularity. Second, the techniques to measure it have also changed. Nowadays, terms such as online visibility and follower are very common. People publish something and seconds after, they can measure if it is popular or not, just like the rating measuring technique.
The real difference between old and new media has to do with the fact that it is not an exclusive technique of the mass media owners anymore. The media power has spread with the advance of technology and social media postings. People have obtained a voice to give their opinion back and no information is left behind. People decide the information they post, follow, and like or dislike.
User-Generated Content
The reality of Mass Media has evolved, whether the old mass media moguls like it or not. This evolution has forced media owners to modernize the techniques they had used for decades with excellent results. Technology has been testing the creativity of the ones that dare to experiment in this field. The results have been extraordinary creations of all sort of new applications for technology. Intelligent houses, robots, virtual pets; every one’s limitations seem to disappear inside the vast World Wide Web.
There is no doubt of the huge impact that these constant changes have caused in society overall. Technology virtually empowers people to have a better and simpler life. Automation is apparently touching every aspect of the planet’s inhabitants. Nevertheless, the biggest power continues to be communication. Public domain of news has given people the entire power to access whatever they like or they encounter everywhere, all the time.
It is almost overwhelming how much information one can see available on social network. Moreover, the most amazing thing is to think that in most cases, professionals are not writing these postings. Any person with access to internet can share whatever they consider interesting on any social network.
Mass Media have named this kind of postings as user-generated content. Cha et all, (2007), Van Dijck (2009) and Bonhomme et all (2010) state that users express their ideas and experiences. They affirm that the audience wants to explore other ways of communication. These postings doubtlessly reveal a creativity effort that leads people to live the internet experience in a deeper way than just watching.
Repercussions of User-Generated Content on Journalism
Information is bursting everywhere. The empowered audiences have now the great opportunity of administrating the information. Consequently, the licensed broadcasters have experienced the competence with their own public. The ones that they used to measure are now producing the news with a tremendous speed. Therefore, it was imperative for them to be one-step ahead again.
However, the old-school professionals of journalism did not know how to compete with such fast posts. New and modern occupations had to emerge to equalize competition. Høyer and Pöttker (2005), Hofer (2013) and Deuze (2005) have introduced the growing trend of user-generated content as an alternative paradigm. They say that journalism is adapting, much as it has done before, to different ways of diffusion. Thereafter, it is almost impossible to question who is adapting to whom.
In this sense, journalism greatly depends on society and culture. This professional practice develops in different latitudes, and in accordance to the culture surrounding it. In consequence, it is very adaptable and changing. Nevertheless, one thing is adapting the news format, and another is changing the business.
Some of the most relevant characteristics of online journalism are brevity and speed. Even though journalists have always shown a sense on immediateness, speed in the virtual world is much faster. Hofer (2013) says that the emerging online professionals of journalism have to be creative as never before. They have to make a different web version of every article they create for the printed version. Copying and pasting is not enough, as they have to follow web rules, in order to succeed. Therefore, they need to train in new ways to catch and maintain the attention of the audience.
In the middle of this so-called brevity, one may find social media postings. This kind of publications serve to two main aims. The first of these relates directly to reinforcing news publicity. The second one refers to feeding the big broadcasters with information and trends. These posts also weakly restrains the creativity of the users, as they have shorten with time.
Another characteristic is the way a Mass Medium publish their information. The presence of the big mass media news broadcasters has had to enlarge to a wider range of possibilities. In order to meet this objective, they have created a state-of-the-art occupation, which they have called community manager. These professionals of the social networking are responsible for defunding the information in every social media possible. They move – as their name suggests – large communities of people that have similar interests.
New ways of journalism have introduced a new way of working. The occupational organization has greatly changed from the industrial era to the digital era. Companies tend to look for their space in the online world. In consequence, they need a smaller staff. Big branches for media companies are not necessary anymore, as the number of freelance contributors grow every day.
Openness an organization are predominant features of today’s journalism. Alejandro (2010), Van der Haak et all (2012) and Kaul, (2013) state that journalism feeds from the users’ publications contemporarily. Besides having a voice, the audience establishes trends that the web publishers use to write and recycle official posts. Websites are the perfect scenario to gather as much information as they want, and more. News are available 24 hours every day, without temporal or geographical limitations.
The values of journalism are crucial to have a sense of reality and avoid sensationalism. The fact that an information is online does not mean that is true. Singer and Ashman (2009) and Everett, (ND) affirm that even though all values are important, the one that really influences people is credibility. When looking for an online news, there should always be authentic information with proven trustworthy sources. The absence of this value could develop all kinds of reactions in the audience. Respect, autonomy, credibility and impartiality, among others are still imperative to exercise journalism.
Conclusions
As time went by, new ways of communication emerged. This innovative technology led to changing the original and traditional model of communication. Some people enabled the possibility of transmitting messages to larger groups of people, and so Radio and TV were born. The change was radical, but the public welcomed this technological advance, as it seemed to open communication to a new and more democratic level. Nevertheless, only a few licensed broadcasters had the power of every input emitted.
Like Mass Media invention, Internet has revolutionized the way people get information. Moreover, it has influenced the way the audience generates information, transforming the professional practice of journalism. Studies affirm that the possibilities of Internet’s applications have not been reached just yet.
Inventions have subjected humankind to adaptation throughout history. Men have dealt with dangerous devices and have always mastered their usage. From the industrial era to today, occupational accidents have related to chemicals, cuts, crushing, and crashes, among others. Nowadays, people face other big changes that require significant adaptations.
It is true that this invention has many variations. However, they serve to ease human life and make processes faster and simpler. From the big number of applications that one can give to internet, citizen journalism is one of the most controversial ones. The mediamorphosis has come to stay – at least for a while. Therefore, it could be helpful to learn and prepare to embrace it, keeping the look for credibility and sourced material.
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