Kindling the Fire of New Media
Amazon reported earlier this week that the sale of e-books has passed print sales. For every 100 hardcover books sold, the online retailer sells 143 Kindle digital books (http://bit.ly/c5wO1k). The advent of e-books is not surprising in an age where three of the top 10 Amazon Kindle best-sellers range from $0 to $1.16. It’s time for modern historians to take fingerprints, gather witness statements and file the evidence in the investigation of the murder of mass media.
Technology is shifting the concept of traditional media into “media of screens.” From Twitter and Facebook on iPhones to magazines on iPads and novels on Kindles, pixels are becoming the standard of communication. Phone calls have become text messages, voicemails have become e-mails and the line between computer displays and televisions gets narrower than Tulsa streets during construction.
How long can we blindly continue creating content for one form of mass media while plugging our ears and denying the newspaper would ever feature video content, or that radio stations would require photographs? Let’s not wait to be cutting-edge until the day when all phone calls are operated via webcam, when printers and scanners are comical to schoolchildren and every book sold requires a battery. Social media networks are increasingly becoming the primary source of household news. If a story can’t be told in 140 characters (with a link!), it will most likely be buried with the hardcover books of yesterday.
Technology is shifting the concept of traditional media into “media of screens.” From Twitter and Facebook on iPhones to magazines on iPads and novels on Kindles, pixels are becoming the standard of communication. Phone calls have become text messages, voicemails have become e-mails and the line between computer displays and televisions gets narrower than Tulsa streets during construction.
How long can we blindly continue creating content for one form of mass media while plugging our ears and denying the newspaper would ever feature video content, or that radio stations would require photographs? Let’s not wait to be cutting-edge until the day when all phone calls are operated via webcam, when printers and scanners are comical to schoolchildren and every book sold requires a battery. Social media networks are increasingly becoming the primary source of household news. If a story can’t be told in 140 characters (with a link!), it will most likely be buried with the hardcover books of yesterday.
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