What is Media? a Deep dive into what it is in modern society.

What is media?

When I started this blog, I didn’t know what I was doing or how I was going to go. And I found myself at a loss of what to write about due to the NDIS (The National Disability insurance scheme) being such a hot-button topic at the time.

However, I widened the scope to include media; focusing on disability representation and how disability is discussed in popular media. This led me to think about the simple question What is MEDIA? This to me is a great question as it has changed in recent years, media is separated into several different categories: TV, Newspapers, Radio, Books, Magazines, and then Websites.

Traditional media has a long history of bringing those in power to account for their actions in a democratic country the media should never be the enemy of the people, this is when it becomes propaganda. A tool that has a long history of changing behaviours and mindsets to suit a narrative, of the organization or sponsor behind it, starting with the Catholic Church suppressing local folk religions and then the war effort in World War Two, this is to encourage people to get behind the efforts to support the troops and other organizations that would help the effort to keep the countries going. That is only coming out so the organizations like Scouts and Girl Guides, the CWA (Country Women’s Association) and originations that all exist today and have a strong leadership base going forward into the future.

Traditional media does have a place in society I was reading a book last night that was about the suppression of knowledge, and it had a character say.

“Guards are of no use in a library,” Oh how wrong he was! Libraries were full of ideas, perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.

This is very true as libraries give us access to the modern world as well. They are now much more than a source for books and magazines, but often a source of community, as well. I know that my local council library has not only books but CDs, and DVDs as well as computers and printers for people who don’t have access to them as well. It also has access to the internet as well as without access to the internet we know that people can’t exist or do a lot without it, due to Covid and people choosing to work from home and being able to choose their hours. However, we do see that this needs careful thought and planning since people do need to have a social outlet and for many people that this is their work.

Books also can be fiction or nonfiction and non-fiction can be interesting I was taught when reading a non-fiction book for education or an assignment to ask how old is it, who wrote it and what were they hoping to achieve by having it published as if it was older than 10 years I believe the information was considered to be out of date.

However, with fiction books, we see that some become classics and end up on school and higher education reading lists or even books that are recommended for people to widen their view of the world, and I was taught by my Highschool English teacher to never make fun of someone who mispronounces a word when it is used in context by someone in conversation as it means that they have generally learnt it out of a book. (Thanks Mrs Day and I still to this day rely on autocorrect) Given that Australia is a very multicultural country now I think that this should go without saying and correcting them gently is a good idea without embarrassing them. Also, I think that this is good manners, and being able to seek help from others and offer help is a good thing.

However, with the arrival of the internet, we are seeing disruption to the narrative of traditional media. Narrative due to the internet is disruptive to the narrative that traditional media wants us to have. We have always had people who don’t follow the mainstream narrative, but this is becoming more and more overt now.

Traditional media has a long history of bringing those in power to account for their actions as in a democratic country. We are seeing that the media in a traditional sense is losing a battle to show only what they want and to go by ratings and viewership as the internet has massively disrupted this landscape to start creating all you need is a laptop, internet connection and the motivation to start creating your content. However, this isn’t without substantial risk.

In Australia, we have had two very important, court cases around a content creator. I will put the links down below, (friendly Jordie’s) this person was able to take down a whole department of police, yet I don’t agree with everything he has done but it is effective in challenging the mainstream narrative and having issues that people weren’t aware of being raised like water allocations in the Murry Darling Basin and how this was driving people out of business. There was a push for an open registry for accountability, but it was pushed back against it since there were some politically connected people involved in the selling and buying of water.

This led to several court cases that also discussed what I am discussing which is media one of the cases ruled that Google was not a platform but if the “publishing tools,” were hosted/ owned by Google they could be liable for any harm caused. This leads to the need for online content creators to have their code of ethics or even to follow on a voluntary level the ethics that traditional journalists follow to keep themselves out of trouble.

There was also the Juice Media case where they create honest government ads that were mentioned in Parliament around satire, as well as shows how careful you need to be around content creation. Even in a democratic country where freedom of speech is one of the hallmarks of having a democratic country. However, we do know that it’s not without consequences, as all actions have consequences, and these can be predicted or unintended consequences. Predicted consequences are things like if I publish something on my blog, I know that some people will read it. However, what I can’t predict is how many people will agree with what I say and what people will think about it and how far that article will travel.

As a society also we don’t know what the long-term consequences of internet and smartphone usage are. We are seeing a generation that is using devices at a younger and younger age but we are also seeing parents and caregivers go either way of having strict boundaries around device usage, and enforcing consequences to teens around internet usage as we are seeing long-term consequences and in Australia, we had a heartbreaking case of cyberbullying where a young girl was driven to kill herself due to it and so now in Australia, we have to cyberbullying as a crime.

Social media can also be a minefield and I know this myself; we are mostly all familiar with Facebook but there is also Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Quora and Linked that all have different aims. Reddit is almost a newspaper, but it has what they call subreddits where information is shared, and it is divided into topics by threads we have serious threads where there is news shared from around the world. Then there are funny threads that make you think things like Oddly specific, where people put up signs that they have seen up and people try to explain what people were thinking around them. (Sometimes you wonder what the back story is to the necessity of the signage).

Tumblr is a site that I haven’t spent much time on, but I see that it’s mostly fan art and blogs for fandoms and sharing theories and ideas with others. Pinterest is for hobbyists and inspiration for people with crafts and events, at its core.

LinkedIn is a professional networking site as well as a job search sight, that we see has options for both parties to build a professional network for their next job or project depending on if you work for yourself or not.

Then some media blurs the line and starts to raise the question of whether it’s traditional media or not? As it’s hosted through the medium of the internet these are things such as podcasts, that have a mix of people that host them they could be traditional journalists’ or people who have little to no experience but are learning as they go, but we also have podcasts that are also hosted by people who are traditional journalist’s that are employed by networks. If they are employed by networks, they have a code of ethics that they need to abide by, and most traditional media have a code of ethics they work by.

Yet people that are in the media/ content creation don’t have to abide by these rules and this can make it interesting due to them having to ask themselves what is appropriate as we have seen some very inappropriate behaviour filmed “for views.” I find this quite distasteful yet how do we stop this online behaviour the question as the internet is still a new medium for sharing information and we have things like deep fakes that blur the lines between reality and fiction.

Coming back to Podcasts there is a deep range of Podcasts, that are slowly but surely competing with radio so radio to compete is hosting their podcasts the thing is with internet mediums it is on the person’s timetable. So, you can come back to it, like most internet-hosted content, however, we are seeing that this is a double-edged sword because we have something called “delayed, bedtime procrastination,” this being that people are finding the need to check their smartphones one more time and then due to the way that they are designed to be addictive, it’s quite late in the evening. This stimulation then keeps them awake at night as well as the blue light emitted from the phones as well.

Coming back to podcasts I will do a shout-out to the staples that have been with me since I discovered them.

· No such thing as a fish hosted by the research team from QI a BBC quiz show, that is based on their favourite facts that they learnt that week. Some range from mildly amusing to downright bizarre.

· Then there is Ology's so a person who talks to someone that ends in Ology's but recently has widened their scope to include all sorts of professionals.

· I quite recently discovered Do you F....king mind, a podcast about how the mind works and how we can dig ourselves out of negative thinking to improve our lives.

· Then there are things that for busy people are great so a daily news update instead of the hour having the headlines we have a podcast that gives the news instead and can often include things that the local station might not cover things like, around the world catch up.

Podcasts have been established longer so they seem to have an established etiquette around it, so disclosing sponsors or what we are calling Patrons and there are several websites dedicated to crowdsourcing, as well this used to be considered “internet begging. “I see it the same way that playwrights and others were sponsored by kings and other wealthy people for their entertainment, and the rules that we play by haven’t changed much than giving people behind the scenes access, and if you are going to “rock the boat.” Check with your patrons first, as well as stick to what you know and do your research around the posts first as I know for some content creators it can take several months for a video, podcast, or blog post to come up and we all have several on the go, content creators I know that I have started completely on my own and now am working towards having my team, some people also have their teams so can put out weekly content.

We also have Quora a question-and-answer site where people can ask questions and have them answered by people. However, this isn’t without risk as you need to be aware of what qualifications the person has and what views they hold in life. As we might have a mental health professional answering a mental health question and someone with lived experience answering the same question. It’s the same question but some very different answers, some people might put a lot of time thought and research into some answers some might not put a lot of thought into it and this shows in the type of answers however this does cross over into Reddit as I know that there is a Subreddit called insane people of Quora that shows what other people think are insane or inane questions to ask.

You can also run your own monetised space as well and this can be a good thing as it allows people who might be limited in employment options due to health issues or disabilities to earn a living. This is a great thing for people who are content creators to be across Quora on a professional level.

Yet in this changing landscape, we need to ask what the longer-term consequences are to our, physical and mental health. As in one person’s case, we can see that it might be helpful to ask a mental health professional a question since they might not be able to afford a mental health professional how to deal with that issue. But the next person might be seeking how to fake symptoms of a mental healing condition. This makes it harder as the first person might be seeking answers for a real reason and looking for support and the second person is making it harder for the first person due to adding to the stigma that surrounds mental health conditions. A third person might also be able to connect with the world and become less socially isolated due to a lot of social and community groups having Facebook and a social media presence. However, as I have personal experience this can also feed social isolation as well. (The social dilemma is on my watch list)

Regarding physical health, we are seeing a rise in conditions associated with our increasingly sedentary lifestyle and “content creators,” embracing online trends like body positivity, at its, core and start was a great movement, but we have to face the reality, not everyone is healthy and being overweight or even underweight isn’t healthy for anyone. I can accept that people need to accept themselves for who they are, yet we need to be realistic about the lifestyle factors that can lead to ill health. I don’t know enough about this so I moved but I will put a video in the reading I did for this post down below about this movement.

(1) YouTube

(2) Insane. : InsanePeopleQuora (reddit.com)

(3) Home - Dolly's Dream (dollysdream.org.au)

(4) Homepage | eSafety Commissioner

(5) (21) Pinterest

(6) LinkedIn | LinkedIn

(7) Spotify – Web Player

(8) Reddit - Dive into anything

(9) friendlyjordies - Wikipedia

(10) Home (alexisfernandez.live)

(11)BBC | NoSuchThingAsAFish

(12)Ologies Episodes — alie ward