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Digital Network media make no essential difference to relations between publishing institutions and society
Over the course of history, technology and the media have been firmly established as powerful and influential forces, which essentially have come to shape the constructs and workings of modern day society. Institutions and technological entities such as the internet, television and the mobile phone to name a few, have all fashioned the way in which humans relate to and converse with one another. The introduction of digital network media, predominantly seen through the instigation of the internet in the form of blogs, social networking websites and online forums have undoubtedly catalysed a significant change in the relations between publishing institutions and society with YouTube and Facebook being the most pertinent examples. The ability to freely publish material on a public medium with effectively no restrictions or modification has brought about issues of censorship and filtration and has lead to a power shift, whereby people with little or no authority have become empowered by the autonomy of contemporary digital network media. It is clear that these examples of digital network media have significantly altered the way in which publishing institutions and society relate to each other in contemporary society.
Before the inception of the internet and communicative technological entities, in order for something to be published, authoritative approval and filtration were imperative processes. When an author, artist, musician or performer wanted their material to be published, they would need to seek approval from an array of different publishing hierarchies in order for their works to become publicised. In this globalised and technology driven society in which we live, artists now have the resources and the power to publish their own material by means of the internet. The rise of blogging and social networking sites in recent times has seen digital networking media play an instrumental part in establishing this shift in power, effectively changing the relations between publishing institutions and society.
In order to understand this ever changing relationship, it is necessary to examine the nature of this digital network media and its ability to rework the constructs of modern day society. The title ‘Digital Network Media’ generally refers to technology based media, consisting of an array of different networks. These typically take the form of online blogs and social networking websites where users have the ability to express themselves in terms of their likes and dislikes, offer general reflections on life and interact with friends and family. It is the liberal and non-interventionist nature of these digital networks that have reshaped the way in which publishing institutions relate to society. This newfound and easily accessible means of publishing has seen filtration and censorship fall by the wayside. The simple act of clicking a button allows billions of people worldwide to publicise information via these digitally-based networks. This idea is exemplified through the phenomenon of ‘YouTube’, a digital network of video files, which has established itself as the world’s most renowned resource for video viewing. In recent times, the internet has experienced an explosion of networked video sharing.
The above table shows the increasing popularity of YouTube as a video database and digital media network
(Xu Cheng, Cameron Dale, Jiangchuan Liu – ‘Statistics and Social Network of YouTube Videos’ – Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Users have the power to publish numerous videos of a humorous, serious or trivial nature without the authoritarian constraints of filtration or censorship that were once required in order for a video to be published. Of course there are distillation systems in place to remove videos, which take an offensive position, however users generally are able to circumvent these systems by means of ulterior networks. According to Xu Cheng, Cameron Dale and Jiangchuan Liu of Simon Fraser University, “understanding the characteristics of YouTube and similar sites is essential to network traffic engineering and to their sustainable development.” The three students go on to state that “the social network existing in YouTube further enables communities and groups, as videos are no longer independent from each other, and neither are its users”. ( Xu Cheng, Cameron Dale, Jiangchuan Liu – ‘Statistics and Social Network of YouTube Videos’ – Simon Fraser University, Canada – p. 1 and 2). This depicts the vastness of YouTube as a digitally networked medium, highlighting the obstacles faced by modern-day publishing institutions regarding filtration and management of content. Furthermore, these issues reinforce the fundamental shift in the way society and publishing institutions relate to one another and the shift in power from the institution to the people of the social order.
Over the last decade, online blogs and interactive forums, which are essentially at the core of social networking sites such as ‘Facebook’, have catapulted to the forefront of social interaction, communication and even one’s identity. iProspect marketing firm define a social networking website as “one that allows Internet users the ability to add user-generated content such as: comments, reviews, feedback, ratings, or their own dedicated pages.” (iProspect social networking behaviour study – April 2007 – p. 3) As previously mentioned, these are the essential ingredients of the contemporary blogs and forums. The induction of these inextricable parts of modern communication has further disempowered publishing institutions in their ability to effectively monitor, filter and appropriate online content. When considering the title ‘social network’, people’s minds are immediately bombarded with one single example – ‘Facebook’. ‘Facebook’ has cemented itself as the most popular of the prominent social networking websites. Its user-friendly and public interface, coupled with its overly informative and invading demeanour has seen Facebook appeal to almost every demographic or internet-user. By means of status updates, wall posts and messages, Facebook users publish random, arbitrary facts about the events of their day and thus, Facebook becomes a means of procrastination and time wasting. This not only personifies the ways in which people in modern-day society relate to contemporary publishing institutions, but reveals the monumental effects of digital network media on today’s technology dominated society.
Since its inception and establishment as the world’s leading social digital network, Facebook has been confronted with various filtration and privacy issues, common for an internet-based network of its magnitude. The site has been criticised in regards to child safety, the use of advertising scripts and its infamous content of various ‘Facebook Groups’. Once registered with and logged in to a Facebook account, users have the power to publish text messages, links to video files, pictures and websites in the form of wall posts. These posts can be used to communicate with mutual Facebook friends or as a means of publishing on one’s own profile, which form the fundamental workings of the Facebook network. Nicole Ellison of Michigan State University asserts that “the amount of information Facebook participants provide about themselves, the relatively open nature of the information, and the lack of privacy controls enacted by the users, tell us that users may be putting themselves at risk online and offline.” (Nicole B. Ellison – “The Benefits of Facebook "Friends:" Social Capital and College Students' Use of Online Social Network Sites, 2007). This point draws attention to the problems faced by modern day publishing institutions and their difficulties at managing content of a social network as extensive as Facebook. From the time when Facebook started in early 2004 there have been numerous instances where inappropriate content has been published by different users. Due to widespread concern over the publicity of content on Facebook, the site’s administrators have recently put in place new filtration and censorship strategies where users can report content of an offensive nature.
The above image depicts the new filtration devices employed by Facebook
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Facebook_Censorship_Cropped.jpg)
The site has been criticised for hosting pro-anorexia and pro-bulimia information, various groups that deny the occurrence of the Holocaust and several circumstances where people have fallen victim to cyber bullying, stalking and even murder. These incidents further support the openness and somewhat unmanageability of Facebook and as a result, some countries have called for government intervention leading to the banning of the social networking site in Syria, Vietnam, Iran and China. There is no denying that the publishing institutions behind Facebook have come a long way in combating the publication of inappropriate material on the website, seen in some of the recently implemented filtration systems. However, it still remains an open forum where certain public posts easily hide beneath the millions of Facebook profiles in cyberspace. Similar to any other digital network media, Facebook in reality has transformed and revolutionised the way in which publishing institutions relate to society.
