Google is an excellent example of how a media enterprise adapts to convergence and the digital age to embrace the power of media in everyday life. Technology changes society’s expectations of mass media by arranging culture in hierarchical categories like "skyscrapers" (Cunningham, 2015). As people "Google" this or that, media companies influence over the order of the information displayed. In searching for information about a topic, the initial information displayed does not always reflect proven facts. Traditional arguments against the convergence popular culture of Google expresses concern for changing society’s expectations and distractions from serious literature, art, and philosophy (Cunningham, 2015). This can cheapen public life by allowing powerful and complex themes thought of as trivial by creating click and go ethical standards. Society may begin to conceive ideas or information as short-lived. Thus, sole dependence on “Googling” information runs the danger of corrupting political processes and blocking social change by inhibiting rational thought.
New
media environments defined by convergence does not offer neutral changes to
society’s expectations of mass media and culture. Today’s “participatory” nature of new
digital media with unprecedented media access and information gives society a
sense that it is better equipped to participate with in public life than before (Rapoy, 2013). As technology globalizes the world this creates
a radical shift from national to the global concerns (Rapoy, 2013). As society’s expectations change for mass media,
more people are eluding national policy and seeking to mix their own media and
communication cocktails based on their own cultural perceptions.
The
future possibilities of data have a lot to do with the preferences of the
handful of people who control the biggest social networks like Google, Facebook,
and Twitter. Author, Evan
Bailyn believes that technology is creating what he calls the “Pandora of
People” where you would “Google” the name of a friend and a detail profile of
their likes, interests, and personality traits would appear (Bailyn, 2012). Data would be available to compare people’s
interest to others anywhere in world. Globalization with the abundance of data could soon be compared to a Facebook friend's suggestions on steroids and even offer
people opportunities to find mates. This
wealth of data creates an interdependent environment in which the national culture
of society may be in danger because it dependent on mass media to answer
questions within the Google search bar that may set expectations that dissolve or
transform communication within and across cultural, national, and other
identity divides.
References
Bailyn, E. (2012). Outsmarting Social Media.
Indianapolis, IN: Que Publishing.
Cunningham, P. (2015, February). Mass communications: A
critical approach. Retrieved from
https://prezi.com/cqldx0hl7ot_/mass-communication-a-critical-approach/
Economist, T. (Author). (2012). Is Google making you
stupid [Video].
Rapoy, M. (2013). Communicating with and across cultural,
national, and other identities. What society needs from media in a the age
of digital communication. Oxford, UK: Social Trend Institute. Retrieved
from
http://www.socialtrendsinstitute.org/experts/experts-meetings/civil-society/what-society-needs-from-media-in-the-age-of-digital-communic
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