How technology impacted on the audience Part 2

Unit 25/Unit 8

Understanding the television and film industries

In this report I am going to be comparing technologies which have adapted over the years, I will then describe the impact in which it has on the audience and the film and television industry, and then finally I will link it to audience theories.

Analogue & digital

Analogue televisions and radios use analogue waves in order to transmit data from the sender to the receive such as an antenna, however analogue television did have some major issues with interfearence with the the analogue waves which then caused disruption for example static noises or fuzzy vision coming from the television. On the other hand digital is a more serfisticated way of transmitting data as instead of using analogue waves it uses encoded codes such as 1 and 0 to clearly identify the information. Digital is also more improved than analogue since analogue always changes wave forms which causes disruption and interfearence well as the digital uses 1 and 0 which represents on and off and is clearly shown which makes digital more reliable and less vunerable to inference meaning digital can also travel singnals from further distances than analogue. Digital and analogue can both be copied however when copying analogue waves this can degrade the quality of the information well as the digital copy will look as the exact same as the original. For example analogue televisions use VHS well as digital television uses DVD and blueray and when both of these have been copied more than once the VHS quality will degrade each time well as the DVD / Blueray copy would look like the exact copy. Also relating to audience theories DVD/Blueray films can be an example of an active audience as DVD/Blueray films feature exclusive content which the viewer can select from.

On demand viewing/digital records & Cable television/VHS recorders

Technology has adapted over the years and has had a massive impact on the audience, before digital television there was always a time schedule where the audience would miss out on their favourite channels while being out and about, however as time progresses VHS recorders where invented to record your favourite show onto tape while you were out meaning you will not miss out. Then as time progressed even more into the future digital records were invented meaning instead of having to record the show onto a tape they could press the record button on the remote to record digitally a program the viewer wishes to watch later, a good example of a company that uses this technology is Sky as Sky remotes come with a record button. Lastly on demand viewing is where a viewer can watch their favourite program whenever and wherever they please as on demand viewing can also be featured on apps. Linking back to the U & G theory audiences can brows on demand shows and choose to record everything their needs desire, also relating back to the drip-drip effect when a viewer gets really interested in a series they will constantly record series of the program which slows changes the audiences views on society an example of this can be “Orange county housewives”, which is about how rich wives live giving the impression to girls that money is everything. Going back to VHS records they took up a lot of space and a lot of money since the viewer would need to pay for the tapes and would then need to find a place to store the tape well as DVD a smaller and thinner and can store more data than a tape, also DVD have a better HD quality than a tape. Soon digital recordings came into play meaning you wont have to worry about money as it will be stored on your television meaning you wont need to buy tapes or DVDs in order to record the program, lastly you wont need to worry about storage since your room wont be full of tapes or DVDs and will have all your recorded programs saved on your television. Finally being able to record a program can be classed as interactive sine you are choosing to view the recording at a different time meaning the audience are active, but in some cases digital recordings don’t just allow you to record one episode they can also allow you to record an entire series of episodes meaning the media can spoon feed the audience with more than one episode showing that they can be a passive audience being brainwashed into the series. As technology progressed into the future tapes have been put out of business and replaced by DVD’s well as we are currently progressing even further to the point where DVD’s can be put our of business since everything in our days are being digitally downloaded.

Internet and streaming content

Technology has advanced so far that people can use the internet in order to seek out their desires from the U&G theory, active audience can use the internet to locate and watch films they desire for example Youtube is used mainly by young people as elderly people don’t know how to work it, Youtube has over billions of home made videos created by people for people to watch for free. However streaming content has become very popular lately for example Amazon prime features over thousands of movies for people to watch when they pay a monthly fee, this means the audience can view any film they desire. However relating to two step flow model streaming content online could be good and bad from two different opinions, the first being that streaming content gives you access to thousands of films to watch for a monthly fee well as on the other hand streaming content can be illegal, for example on the internet there are pirated websites that show illegal pirated copies of films which can portentionally put cinemas out of business since people are downloading the video for free instead of paying to view it at the cinema.

In conclusion technology advancement has had a massive impact on the audience and media industries as the new technologies push the old technologies out the way causing loss in business for example tapes are no longer used and are being replaced by DVDs and streaming content/ the internet are slowly driving cinemas out of business. The advancement in technology has also made the audience more active than passive as they can now brows from over hundreds of channels instead of three channels, they can also interact with the television by recording their favourite programs and pressing the red button in order to play games on the television, finally people can call into live shows where they can vote for their favourite program. However with the use of new technology it can also make the audience seem passive since they can record series without even reading the individual summary of the show and are then being spoon fed by the media.