Eletronic Interconnectedness

In week two of my Communication capstone class (COM480), we are analyzing media technologies and the more I think about this subject and read the examples of my peers, the more I have to really sit back and think about how much communication has evolved in my lifetime.

I hear the voice of Robert's past (yes, I'm speaking in the third person) making off-handed comments about the frantic speed of technology, but it truly boggles my mind to take stock of how much adapting has really happened in a few decades, and those changes seem to have swept over us in exponential fashion. Our electronic interconnectedness is such that I want to use the joke "Oh, that was sooo five minutes ago!" more and more. Pathetic, right? And yet, our attention span and capacity for prolonged, deep thought, does seem threatened.

My media technology examples this week covered the following four examples:

Reality Television:

Although this is not a new concept, the current popular form has evolved and realized incredible amounts of popularity. Regardless of one’s view of how scripted or not scripted the program, the premise is to put everyday people in heightened dramatic or humorous situations, sometimes with a goal or prize at stake.

“Winners” and other contestants can go on to become quite famous, which appeals to the average, non-famous audience. Depending on the show, audience members are easily from four years to elderly senior age, due largely in part to the variety of topics found in the shows, and the variety of people, races, and ages of show participants.


Some shows encourage cell phone participation for voting which has added an interactive element and also an additional revenue stream.

iPhone FaceTime:

Does anyone remember the old Sci Fi movies where people talked to each other real-time, with video? Well, iPhone did not do it first but they sure have made it handy- within the palm of your hand, in fact- something truly mobile. Again, intended for the widest possible audience, anyone who can communicate would be the intended audience. I would like to specifically call out the advantage of this kind of technology to the hard-of-hearing and deaf community.

Online File Sharing and Storage:

Computer users want to be able to share files across distances, sometimes bigger than what can be sent in email, like video or large audio recordings. They also sometimes want a central repository where all their different media devices/computers can access; especially should one of those devices fail them or not be available. Being able to sync to this information in such a way has spawned a number of different like services and I can attest to one personally that I just started using, called Dropbox, where my fellow band members and I can listen to 3 hour long rehearsal recordings very easily- large files that would otherwise need to be burned unto disk and physically distributed and the like.

Streaming Media:

For example, Netflix, serving more than 20 million members (for anyone who enjoys movies or TV shows) in the United States and Canada (Nasdaq: NFLX), an internet subscription, now with instant streaming to, and interfacing with, a wide array of media devices (over 200).