Music
The extensive influence of New Media on the American college student culture is omnipresent in our daily lives. It also transformed the cultural aspect of music from the ways it is shared to the ways it is created and distributed. Since beginning of the Internet, the number of physical music sales such as CD and vinyl plummeted while the Internet music market started to bloom and became the normality. Among the consumers in the digital world, college students have always been the largest demographic group. Music labels such as Universal and EMI sell the rights of distribution to major online music vendors such as Apple’s ITunes, Amazon, and Google Music. Consumers no longer buy records; instead, they buy the individual songs that they like. Some don’t even buy music; there are companies that would allow a person to pay a certain amount of money over a period of time to listen to the music which the companies own the rights to distribute.
One of the most prominent examples is Spotify. Nevertheless, one of the most interesting phenomena between New Media and music culture in college is the interweaving relationship between social media and music preferences. Spotify, an online music library with applications available for both phones and computers, entered into business venture with Face book in 2011. This was largely due to the fact that over Face book is one of the most visited websites after Google, with 1.11 billion monthly users.(1) As a result of this business partnership, people's music tastes are displayed through Face book’s 'News Feed' section, as Spotify would post your friends' favorite songs and artists on there. According to Bartz, platforms like Spotify would also provide functions for people to create and share their personal playlists. Through social media, connecting with others through musical preferences has become much more straightforward.
On the other hand, New Media also shaped the way which college students share their own creations (Shuter, 243). In the recent past, the primary way an average college student popularizes his or her own music has been performance. Only big names in the music industry have the privilege of their music being instantly available to everyone at stores. However, social media had permanently changed the game of music. Websites such as Soundcloud.com are designed for both professional and nonprofessional musicians to share and critique each other’s work. This intelligent invention, combined with social media sites like Facebook.com now allows anybody to share their own music to more than their close friends. This is a significant step in the cultural development of the human civilization as a whole because it gives everyone an equal chance to create his or her own audience. The extensive use of Twitter and Face book among other social media sites by college students makes it even easier for new musical creations to be exposed and discovered. In fact, level of success of an artist is pretty much defined by his or her prevalence in the New Media world.
Visual Media
The visual media entertainment is part and parcel of everyone’s daily life. They include television, smart phones and computers and are used on regular basis. These forms of new media entertainment have helped in shaping the pop culture and value especially in the American college students. The visual media entertainment can either bring positive or negative impacts on the youth (Neuman, 120). There are movies and television shows which are violent in composition and some are vulgar while there are shows and movies that are educational and family oriented. As much as the influence of visual media depends on the person, most American college students watch shows and movies so that they can imitate them. Most students follow the negative portrayals seen on televisions and this influences their culture both in school and at societal level. Visual media influences American college students’ attitudes and behaviors. They will always want to dress and act as they see on the television. In fact, today, most college students dress, walk and talk exactly the way they see the movie stars do and this has affected their cultural views.
Violent media entertainment such as violent television shows and movies have a massive impact on how college students behave. They can become more aggressive and violent after frequent interactions with shows. Many reality television shows given extra air time have affected many American college students. Research carried out on college students watching these shows emphasize the fact that, a large group of the students are easily influenced after watching the shows (Lusk, 175). As soon as a new trend is depicted as cool on such shows, the American college students try to emulate the fad. Most of them feel that what they see in the movies is extraordinarily appealing and they have to do the same and this affects their entertainment culture. Furthermore, they even take it to their colleges and it ends up being a college trend. Violence and sex movies have influenced American college students yet they enjoy watching them in the name of entertainment. An instance is the Jersey show which was aired in 2009, this show contained relationships, fighting, humor and excessive drinking. This show became very popular with many college students since they influenced each other into watching it. Although the show aired only once a week, the majority parents were against their children watching it since it portrayed a bad image and they did not want their children idolizing it. During the time this show was being aired, a number of college students were found in nightclubs and bars taking alcohol as they were trying to imitate the cast. This movie highly affected their culture since the students thought that alcohol drinking was the new trend for the youth. After watching many shows on TV many American college students have been associated with binge drinking.
In addition, there were many reported and unreported cases of fighting college students after drinking sprees. The students indulged themselves in many relationships and censured activities at that time since they were watching it on televisions as the actors of the Jersey Show were entertaining themselves with that type of lifestyle. The Jersey Show influenced many college students entertainment culture because most of them drank excessively; fighting incidences increased and they indulged themselves in many relationships as they were emulating the show. This impacted negatively on their academics as majority of them turned into alcoholics and led to college drop outs. This shows that the influence of the new media on the American college students’ entertainment culture especially the visual media is on high levels. This show changed their lifestyles and how they did everything in their life’s meaning it negatively influenced them. Visual media unquestionably influences college students’ social behavior and attitudes.
Social Instruction
The use of social media is one of the most common activities of today’s American college students. Absolutely, American students are increasingly utilizing the social media for personal updates, events, friends news feeds, messages and meeting new friends from within their neighborhood and around the globe. Students use social sites to post status of their social and school life and wait for reactions from their friends. The social sites used by students are twitter, Face book, Google, my space and LinkedIn. According to a research done on the use of social sites, Face book is the most commonly used site by college students (Boyd, 132). They use it to make friends from around the globe and in their neighborhoods and met them at some time. Most American college students own smart phones and this is the tool they use to communicate to strangers and meeting them. Nowadays, most college students use smart phones to search for and meet strangers who are close to them and this raises their vulnerability. There are reported cases whereby some youth arrange to go meet up with strangers and they are found dead the following day. As much as these sites offer students and the youth a new way of entertainment and communication, they also risk their lives through communicating and meeting strangers.
The social media shapes college students entertainment culture. They share information and meet new friends whom they share with their life issues and education. In the past, people used to meet friends through parties, school, church and other gatherings. However, the social media has permanently changed this trend by offering sites whereby one can communicate with people around the globe and those around them. This is a form of entertainment that has influenced many students.
Most college students remain online until wee hours while chatting with their friends and strangers they meet on social sites at the time they are supposed to study or sleep. Social sites have made them value the entertainment they get than their education and sleep. This has highly affected their learning since most American college students will avoid their school work just to remain online chatting with strangers because it is a source of entertainment. Moreover, most of them tend to imitate what other people do on social networks and this highly affects their education. According to Boyd (34), networking sites can affect a student mental and physical health as well as their well being. Students meet and talk to strangers on networking sites as they cannot even prove if the people they talk to are students like them because they mislead them. They can get negative feedback from their friends who pretend to be students and this can lead school drop outs.
Social networking varies from one person to another depending on the benefits that this medium can provided for them. For learners, it can serve as a channel to expressing their feelings and thoughts. Social communication has helped American college students build strong relationships with their friends, family and the people they meet online. It is a form of entertainment to them because they can share their frustrations with their friends online and this act like an energizer to them. Moreover, apart from being a tool of entertainment to them, it makes them vigilant on what is happening around the globe through news from their friends on the internet. Most importantly, while this type of new media entertains them, it also helps them do research on their school work and other school projects (Hargittai, 8).
The internet has not only offered American college students a platform to communicate with their friends but also develop new relationships with strangers. Social sites have revolutionized the way students interact and communicate with people in the society and this affects societal norms, values and culture. As a form of entertainment, social sites through their smart phones influence the students’ thoughts and actions. Most learners reflect what they see in the sites and think that the behaviors are acceptable in the society yet in real sense they are unacceptable.
Alternatively, American college students benefit from the new media types like the internet. They can use it effectively for their studies. Through communicating with their friends, they can help them research on a project. Most lecturers nowadays educate their college students with the aid of the internet and therefore, it can lead to positive consequences on the lives of the learners if properly utilized. Students can use their smart phones or computers for some research on the internet on their projects; therefore, the internet is a golden opportunity for students in the improvement of their performance in college.
In conclusion, the new media has impacted the American college students’ culture in numerous ways. It has both constructive and destructive impacts on learners depending on how they utilize them. The new media has introduced far-reaching change in the youth’s life. It provides them a forum to make new friends, entertainment and it is an essential way of getting rid of pressure. Conversely, the new media can be detrimental on their performance and can lead them into meeting strangers who can ruin their lives both socially, mentally, physically and academic wise. The influence of the media to college students is inescapable since the media permeates the fabric of the society.
Works Cited
Neuman, Susan B. The displacement effect: Assessing the relation between television viewing and reading performance. Reading Research Quarterly 23.4 (1998): 414-440. Print.
Hargittai, Eszter. Whose space? Differences among users and non-users of social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13.1 (2007): 4-11. Print.
Boyd, Danah. Why youth love social network sites: The role of networked publics in teenage social life. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2007. Print.
Lusk, Louis B. (2010). Digital natives and social media behaviors: An overview. Prevention Researcher, (2010):173-6.
Shuter, Robert. Introduction: New media across cultures--prospect and promise. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 4.4 (2011): 241-245. Print.
Bartz, Andrea. “3 Spotify Apps for Music Geeks.” CNN. Cable News Network, 11 July 2012. Web. Aug. 2013. http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/11/tech/web/netiquette-spotify-music-apps/index.html
