Session 5: ICT and World Change (Mass Media, the Internet, Wireless, Interactive Telecommunications) Past, Present and Future

This week's session was different from the rest as we only had one topic to cover instead of the usual two. This gave us more time to delve into the presentation questions and the discussion was much better.

There were several types of technology and points raised during the session which I felt should be addressed:

(1) the "Milo" video (see http://stuffmx.blogspot.com/2009/06/microsofts-project-natal-and-beyond.html)
This technology, originally developed for gaming, represents a new frontier in interactive technology. Possible uses for this technology included simulative interaction with young children/elderly grandparents who live alone so that they have "someone" to talk to. Coupled together with surveillance technology, this can be used to look ensure that dependants at home are taken care of, so parents who are at work have one less thing on their mind, and are able to concentrate better at work.

However, what justifies the expense spent on developing such technology?
There are so many people in the world who are out of work and could use the job of a housekeeper to sustain themselves economically, especially in the large. Furthermore, for young children who are unable to differentiate between virtual and real, this further blurs the lines. Children might then have difficulty telling exactly what is happening in the real world. A lot of energy and money also goes into developing such technology which could be better directed towards solving other problems.

The only advantage of such a programme is that it eliminates the tiring screening process to find the right housekeeper as all virtual minders will be programmed identically.


(2) Personal Media vs Mass Media
With the rise of the ability to customize our news and internet sites to our preferences, information is no longer disseminated in the same way as the past. The rise of news blog sites (e.g. the Huffington Post). It was argued in class that having freely available news channels could mean that the traditional media model, with its journalists' certifying the accuracy of the reports, are no longer commercially viable. However, I feel that the dissemination of news through non-accredited sources, which usually "lift" information from other parts of the web instead of sourcing their own, is not reliable. Evidence of this can be found in the number of news hoaxes that have been perpetrated through the web. If everyone moved towards personal media to gain the information, it would result in a situation where it is impossible to tell the truth from the lies. A lot more time would be wasted sifting through all the information to get to the truth. Thus, many personal media sites (e.g. the Huffington Post) have started to hire their own journalists to ensure the quality of their work. I see a confluence between the two areas in the future instead of one replacing the other. However, the diminishing impact on the printed press is unlikely to abate.

Overall, I felt the discussions went quite well this week and would give the lesson an overall of 7/10.