Influence of the Media

New media has a huge influence on my daily life, and both my personal and professional activities are centered around new media outlets, especially those fueled by technology. 

In terms of my personal use, I have my iPhone, iPad, and laptop that keep me constantly connected to the outside world through the World Wide Web.  I frequent several social media sites in order to keep up with friends, and I receive most of my news from these sites and the internet in general.  In his text “Mass Media Influence on Society,” Dr. Anthony Curtis notes, “It’s not unusual to wake up, check the cellphone for messages and notifications, look at the TV or newspaper for news, commute to work, read emails, take meetings and makes phone calls, eat meals with friends and family, and make decisions based on the information that we gather from those mass media and interpersonal media sources.”  This is almost an exact outline of how my day plays out, and hearing this information from an authority of the subject shows that I am not the only one who relies on new media to go through my daily routine.

My professional life is just as focused on new media and technology as my personal life.   I have another iPad for business use that allows me to remotely connect to my business network so I can work even when I am not in the office.  Additionally, I manage my company’s website and I will eventually be managing our social media presence, so I am always utilizing online resources to improve upon our website and create a social media action plan for when we are ready to roll out our company Facebook page.  I focus mainly on my company’s digital presence because the internet has become the major hub for information. During an interview on the changing landscape of knowledge in the digital age, David Weinberger, senior researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, reflected that, “When you have a medium that is unrestricted in how much it can handle, as the Internet is, we are better able to investigate an idea without stopping points, we're able to get explanations at every level of expertise.”  The internet has made information so accessible, that companies have to put most of their branding and marketing efforts into the digital field. 

As I have mentioned, social media plays a large role in my daily use of new media.  I have personal accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and I use these outlets as my main source of information throughout the day.  Social media is a great way to receive news in real time, but this also allows for a certain amount of inaccuracies in reporting.  So many news outlets, and individual users themselves, are reporting on live incidents and sharing that information at an exponential rate.  Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel note in there text Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload that, “Though we may little understand how, we are all assuming more control over what we know about the world beyond our direct experience.  We are becoming our own editors, our own gatekeepers, our own aggregators.”  New media has allowed members of society to actively participate in the cultivation and delivery of information, and that does cause issues with the authenticity of reports.  It is easy to believe the first initial details of a story when everyone on your Facebook Timeline or your Twitter Newsfeed are taking about it and repeating the same breaking news, but it is important to be cautious and aware of the power of mass communication.  Although I rely mainly on the internet and social media for news, I am more careful about taking initial reports at face value.  A recent example of the power of news reporting and mass communication would be the hunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.  As soon as their photos were released, hundreds of thousands of people were sharing the information on the internet and were misidentifying the suspects’ identities.  Although this information sharing was a vital part of the investigation, it also led to much speculation and misrepresentation of facts. 

In the age of new media, all members of society play a role in the news reporting process, so it is important to be aware of this reality so that we can think critically about the information we are receiving before we take it as fact.