Merging Media and the Market

If traditional media ever becomes obsolete, I’ll feel sorry for our president.  The media has been heavily covering the fact that Obama has to give up his Blackberry once he’s sworn into office.  I don’t know about you, but I feel lost without my cell phone.  Poor Barack: no cell phone, no e-mail, and possibly no laptop in the Oval Office.  It is apparent that while new media benefits us in convenience it costs us in security. While I understand the importance of some presidential records being open to public inspection, I can’t imagine having to cut the e-cord.  Plus its ironic that the very mediums that allowed Obama to succeed throughout his campaign; he must now abandon himself. 

Still, I wonder what it would be like to be independent again.  On the whole, Americans have become very co-dependent on new media devices.  And we accept these devices as only good.  Pay no mind to the fact that cell phones may cause cancer and can allow us to be easily located or tracked.  I don’t want people to be able to locate or track me by my cell phone.  However, if I was a parent I’d view the tracking features on my child’s cell phone as a safety feature. 

But the implications that new media has on our individual privacy worries me.  And you can’t even argue that at least new media is green; in terms of saving paper.  While I do not doubt that our reliance on paper has been drastically lessened by the advent of new media: new mediums can’t truly be green until the processes used to manufacture them are green.  The un-environmental practices that go into manufacturing the batteries and electronics alone to create cell phones and laptops offset any green end that these mediums result in. 

While there are costs and benefits associated with any form of media; digital mediums are the first to threaten the privacy of the general public.  One’s level of privacy and other’s access to our personal digital communications is rather troubling.  Basically, you shouldn’t text, e-mail, or say anything over a wireless phone that you wouldn’t want headlined on tomorrow’s newspaper.  I guess its fortunate for us that newspapers won’t be around much longer. 

Till next time.

Arin