IIrd CE students (Vth Sem, Syllabus Radio & TV, Module: IV)

Module: III

The information age

The term has been noted as identifying an era when "ideas about the computer, the internet, or digital resources seem to influence policy decisions more than social concerns about access, privacy or preservation."

Thus, the term "Information Age" is often applied in relation to the use of cell phones, digital music, high definition television, digital cameras, the Internet, cable TV, and other items that have come into common use in the past 30 years.

The information age, also commonly known as the computer age or information era, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously. The idea is linked to the concept of a digital age or digital revolution, and carries the ramifications of a shift from traditional industry that the industrial revolution brought through industrialization, to an economy based on the manipulation of information.

The information age formed by capitalizing on the computer microminiaturization advances, with a transition spanning from the advent of the personal computer in the late 1970s to the internet reaching a critical mass in the early 1990s, and the adoption of such technology by the public in the two decades after 1990. The Information Age has allowed rapid global communications and networking to shape modern society.

The Internet

The Internet was conceived as a fail-proof network that could connect computers together and be resistant to any one point of failure; the Internet cannot be totally destroyed in one event, and if large areas are disabled, the information is easily rerouted. It was created mainly by DARPA; its initial software applications were e-mail and computer file transfer.

Though the Internet itself has existed since 1969, it was with the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989 by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee and its implementation in 1991 that the Internet truly became a global network. Today the Internet has become the ultimate platform for accelerating the flow of information and is, today, the fastest-growing form of media, and is pushing many, if not most, other forms of media into obsolescence

Progression

The proliferation of the smaller and less expensive personal computers and improvements in computing power by the early 1980s resulted in a sudden access to and ability to share and store information for more and more workers. Connectivity between computers within companies led to the ability of workers at different levels to access greater amounts of information.

• Information storage - The world's technological capacity to store information grew from 2.6 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1986 to 15.8 in 1993, over 54.5 in 2000, and to 295 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007. This is the informational equivalent to less than one 730-MB CD-ROM per person in 1986 (539 MB per person), roughly 4 CD-ROM per person of 1993, 12 CD-ROM per person in the year 2000, and almost 61 CD-ROM per person in 2007. Piling up the imagined 404 billion CD-ROM from 2007 would create a stack from the earth to the moon and a quarter of this distance beyond (with 1.2 mm thickness per CD).

• Information transmission - The world’s technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks was 432 exabytes of (optimally compressed) information in 1986, 715 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1993, 1.2 (optimally compressed) zettabytes in 2000, and 1.9 zettabytes in 2007 (this is the information equivalent of 174 newspapers per person per day). The world's effective capacity to exchange information through two-way telecommunication networks was 281 petabytes of (optimally compressed) information in 1986, 471 petabytes in 1993, 2.2 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2000, and 65 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007 (this is the information equivalent of 6 newspapers per person per day). In the 1990s, the spread of the Internet caused a sudden leap in access to and ability to share information in businesses, at home and around the globe. Technology was developing so quickly that a computer costing $3,000.00 in 1997 would cost $2,000.00 two years later and only $1000.00 the following year.

• Computation - The world's technological capacity to compute information with humanly guided general-purpose computers grew from 3.0 × 10^8 MIPS in 1986, to 4.4 × 10^9 MIPS in 1993, 2.9 10^11 MIPS in 2000 to 6.4 × 10^12 MIPS in 2007.

cyber age

• the present age, considered as a period in which computer technology and electronic communications have become more important and more widely used

What is the Cyber World?

Some think it is the world of online computers and communications which implies today's fast-moving high-technology world online. That is one way to look at it if you are into abstractions and distractions. We are interested in something more tangible and real; so we've redifined the term to give it the power and meaning that it deserves.

The Cyber World

1. An online world where users have the mechanisms in place to transact any business or     personal activity as easily and freely as they can transact them in the physical world.
2. An environment for sophisticated online computing.
3. The futuristic online world of computing.

This Obviously means the cyber world does not exist. Up to now we’ve been having a lot of fun online using a web of documents and data. After 20 years of surfing, maybe it's time to get serious.  It seems we've gotten ourselves caught in a web and we don’t know how to get out.

The Cyber World is the way out. If we intend to do more advanced things on-line, then we will have to change the fundementals of the game.

Welcome to the Cyber World. What is the Cyber World? The Cyber World is a digital extension of yourself interacting with a digital extension of  our  real world in a Virtual enviornment. It should be obvious you can’t build virtual extensions on a web or web pages. We have to have something much more sophisticated. So welcome to the Cyber World.

These digital extensions will give the ordinary user extrordinary capabilities compared to todays standards. The Cyber World will allow the internet to move to a more advanced level of online computing. Things like voting, attending classes, purchasing homes and automobiles, court proceedings, job interviews, grocery shopping, Medical care and diagnostics, computer and home appliance maintenance and diagnostics, real time monitoring and enforcement of cyber crime, etc., will all be done online with ease. Many expected the web to produce all these things, but the dot com meltdown was the first sign that web technology was not up to the challenge. This is the simple part. Maybe not so simple for the web but we are dealing with a Super Technology. The Cyber World's goals and capabilities will reach much higher. The Cyber World has the ability to set the human race free. Free from itself, business and government. If there is one thing we've learned from the web, is that freedom will grow anything. It is like fertilizer. The Internet enhanced by the Web is the purest expression of Freedom and Democracy the world has ever known. Yet, there are people who want to limit this freedom in order to control it - in order to make money. This is backwards. It's very simple, you only need a little imagination. Because we live in digital age, it is no longer necessary to divide and conquer to profit. In a digital age, this will only lead to failure. There is a new recipe for profiting in the digital age. Adding Freedom = Big Profits. No one says no to freedom and yes to slavery.  The Internet enhanced by the Cyber World will give the human race true Freedom and Autonomy.

What Digital Age?

Technology vendors and cheerleaders would have you believe this is a digital age, but some members of the society would have it otherwise, preferring a balance between things digital and the sensuous aspects of the natural world. Digital landscapes and menus are not always comparable. Shall we walk through a virtual rainforest or a real one? Hardly a choice unless you are addicted to the couch, the tube and your headphones.

Sadly, this is an age of substitutes, fakery and the ersatz as "reality" TV shows and news magazines offer simulated experiences that too often disregard real news and the real world. To accept the digital label uncritically is a form of surrender to cultural trends that should inspire dissent and apprehension. Virtual reality?

While some aspects of the digital panoply are splendid, others are simply hollow. Is digital destiny?

Not surprisingly, the attempt by technology merchants to name this age "digital" goes pretty much unchallenged by the popular media, yet here and there a voice is raised to warn of the culture's drift away from the rich and the soulful to the thin and the barren.

Irish poet John O'Donohue, who passed away in January of 2008, devoted a section of his book Beauty: The Invisible Embrace to an analysis of how things digital may dilute experience and take us away from the beautiful.

O'Donohue explains, " . . . the digital virus has truncated time and space."

The self has become anxious for what the next moment might bring. This greed for destination obliterates the journey. The digital desire for the single instant schools the mind in false priority. Page 27

He laments the impact of things digital on the quality of life:

When you accumulate experiences at such a tempo, everything becomes thin. Consequently, you become ever more absent from your life and this fosters emptiness that haunts the heart. Page 27

Such dire warnings stand in stark contrast to the claims of various purveyors of the Digital Age. According to them, life is grander, more fun and vastly more entertaining when it flashes by with the velocity of a TV ad.

Deep Time and Deep Thinking

There are times when digital can enhance the beauty and meaning of life, as when good music and noise-cancelling headphones might filter out distracting sounds and voices while a writer struggles with important questions on a laptop. But a balanced view of things digital should include an honest look at the nerve jangling, interruptive phenomena that O'Donohue warns against.

As Sven Birkerts states . . .

Resonance -- there is no wisdom without it. Resonance is a natural phenomenon, the shadow of import alongside the body of fact, and it cannot flourish except in deep time.

The Gutenberg Elegies by Sven Birkerts - Page 75

Used wisely, digital resources can help us to find deep time, but they might also prove diversionary. The cell phone rings at many wrong moments. The email message arrives with a beep. An alert warns us of a stock loss or a governor's scandal. A string quartet lulls us into reverie.

It is a matter of choice and judgment. Each individual must learn how and when to go unplugged. Digital offers richness and value when chosen thoughtfully. We can hardly line up a live time unplugged symphony orchestra when we hunger for the inspiration of Bach, Copeland or Mozart. Without recordings, how could we possibly hope to have such masterpieces at our beck and call? Similarly, how many of us can hop on a plane to enjoy Monet's Water Lilies in Paris? Without the rich offerings of virtual museums, all of lives would be lessened, no doubt.

Flying across the Pacific at 36,000 feet reading The Spanish Bow, a novel about a famous cellist, I realized I possessed and could hear on my laptop the Bach Cello Suites that figure significantly in the story. Digital combined powerfully with print to enhance my appreciation of the music threading through the story.

Going Unplugged - Running with or without Headphones

When race officials in the USA started to ban the use of headphones during races, the reaction of runners was quite mixed, as some runners never use headphones and argue that the incessant noise is disturbing as well as dangerous. Others find the music during a three hour run to be an important source of inspiration - for thinking as well as running. The impact of music on mood and thought can be deep. Without doubt, certain music might prove better for running than thinking and the converse might also be true.

But how about running with email? When considering the complete array of digital experiences and resources, which are most likely to enhance deep thought and which most likely to disturb it?

Many of the telephone and technology companies push a digital lifestyle suggesting that it is best to be connected "any time and anywhere." Some of these ads promote the advantages of bringing one's work everywhere. Owners of Blackberrys sometimes complain that they no longer have a life - that intrusions are 24/7 and persistent.

One ad shows a woman executive enjoying the porch of a summer home in bright sunlight, sitting in dark glasses with her laptop and several other devices. The text reads "Spacious corner office redefined. Business is no longer confined by four walls. Today folks need to access and exchange information - anytime, anywhere." There is a zeal to intrude, invade and disturb - the selling of a work life that is ubiquitous and all-pervasive.

Web Journalism:

It is New Form of Citizenship provides a much-needed analytical account of the implications of interactive participation in the construction of media content. Although web journalism is a fast-changing technology this book will have sustained appeal to an international readership by seeking to critically assess Internet news production.
… With the rise of blogging and citizen journalism, it is a commonplace to observe that interactive participatory media are transforming the relationship between the traditional professional media and their audience. A current, popular, assumption is that the traditional flow of information from media to citizen is being reformed into a democratic dialogue between members of a community. The editors and contributors analyse and debate this assumption through international case studies that include the United Kingdom and United States.
… While the text has been written and designed for undergraduate and postgraduate use, Web Journalism: A New Form of Citizenship? will be of use and of interest to all those engaged in the debate over Web reporting and citizen journalism.

Online journalism is defined as the reporting of facts produced and distributed via the Internet.

As of 2009, audiences for online journalism continue to grow. In 2008, for the first time, more Americans reported getting their national and international news from the internet, rather than newspapers,^[1] and audiences to news sites continued to grow due to the launch of new news sites, continued investment in news online by conventional news organizations, and the continued growth in internet audiences overall, with new people discovering the internet's advantages for convenience, speed and depth.^[2]

However, the professional online news industry is increasingly gloomy about its financial future. Prior to 2008, the industry had hoped that publishing news online would prove lucrative enough to fund the costs of conventional newsgathering.^[3] In 2008, however, online advertising began to slow down, and little progress was made towards development of new business models.^[2] The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism describes its 2008 report on the State of the News Media, its sixth, as its bleakest ever.^[4]

Despite the uncertainty, online journalists are cautiously optimistic, reporting expanding newsrooms. They believe advertising is likely to be the best revenue model supporting the production of online news.^[5]

An early leader in online journalism was The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina. Steve Yelvington wrote on the Poynter Institute website about Nando, owned by The N&O, by saying "Nando evolved into the first serious, professional news site on the World Wide Web -- long before CNN, MSNBC, and other followers." It originated in the early 1990s as "NandO Land".

Many news organizations based in other media also distribute news online, but the amount they use of the new medium varies. Some news organizations use the Web exclusively or as a secondary outlet for their content. The Online News Association, founded in 1999, is the largest organization representing online journalists, with more than 1,700 members whose principal livelihood involves gathering or producing news for digital presentation.^[6]

The Internet challenges traditional news organizations in several ways. Newspapers may lose classified advertising to websites, which are often targeted by interest instead of geography. These organizations are concerned about real and perceived loss of viewers and circulation to the Internet.

10 Tips for Good Web Writing

When you write for the Web you write differently than when you write for printed publications.

Content

1. Write relevant content
2. It may be tempting to write about your brother's dog, but if it doesn't relate to your site or page topic, leave it out. Web readers want information, and unless the page is information about said dog, they really won't care, even if it is a good metaphor for what you're trying to say.
3. Put conclusions at the beginning
4. Think of an inverted pyramid when you write. Get to the point in the first paragraph, then expand upon it.
5. Write only one idea per paragraph
6. Web pages need to be concise and to-the-point. People don't read Web pages, they scan them, so having short, meaty paragraphs is better than long rambling ones.
7. Use action words
8. Tell your readers what to do. Avoid the passive voice. Keep the flow of your pages moving.

Format

9. Use lists instead of paragraphs
10. Lists are easier to scan than paragraphs, especially if you keep them short.
11. Limit list items to 7 words
12. Studies have shown that people can only reliably remember 7-10 things at a time. By keeping your list items short, it helps your readers remember them.
13. Write short sentences
14. Sentences should be as concise as you can make them. Use only the words you need to get the essential information across.
15. Include internal sub-headings
16. Sub-headings make the text more scannable. Your readers will move to the section of the document that is most useful for them, and internal cues make it easier for them to do this.
17. Make your links part of the copy
18. Links are another way Web readers scan pages. They stand out from normal text, and provide more cues as to what the page is about.

Always Always Always

19. Proofread your work
20. Typos and spelling errors will send people away from your pages. Make sure you proofread everything you post to the Web.

 

Tweeting

It is for the website twitter.com. It is a very popular website. When you "tweet" on twitter you are simply updating what you are doing which can be helpful to friends, family and even co-workers.

Tweeting is when you write what you are doing in the box. Just like when you talk; you are talking.

You update and post bulletins on Twitter.