Digital Media Culture

Digital media is a major factor in contemporary western cultures.  Electronic media is an apart of the average Americans daily activity. It is because of digital technology that we are able to access and communicate at a faster speed. In addition, it enables us to access more information that is constantly stored in the digital cyberspace. However, everyone doesn’t have access to this information. There will always be some sort of digital divide in which the rich are separated from the poor. According to Trend, “nearly 97 percent of the world’s population remains unconnected to the net for lack of money, access, or knowledge.”

  Some would argue the cyber space offers the world a democratic essence: In the sense that people have the freedom to express themselves. The internet can be a medium in which people can say and post as they please. However, the information on the internet never true erases and will always exist.

In many ways the internet is very much fragmented. Those who have access to this digital world have access to a lot of information. As Virilio would argue, because there is too much information it creates some type of information bomb. The information bomb is when one becomes overload with the information; therefore they rely on others to manage the information for them.

The internet only exists in a world of capitalism. The internet is a capitalist driven environment. We must remember the media is a place of profit.  We are constantly exposed to the marketing world. In fact many ads are targeted to us based off where we explore on the web: The biggest defender would be Facebook.

Digital media is often overlooked on the power it holds over people. Facebook claims the user’s privacy is very important to them. However if privacy is so important, why does Facebook have the right to access the user’s personal content and information?  I never thought twice of reading contracts I agreed to. But being a multimedia major, I am learning to become more and more media literate. I know anyone and everyone can pretty much post any online doesn’t necessarily mean it is true.  When one agrees to the terms of service of Facebook, the individual is handing over their property rights.  After reading Facebook’s terms of service, I learned signing the contract gives Facebook access to individual’s personal content and information.   Facebook can evaluate personal pages, contents, and data for any reason. Facebook can even use this information to make a profit of my personal page.

Learning more about digital media has now has me question the amount of information I will post on my personal account. It is important to know the terms of the service because it gives away my intellectual property rights. As a beginning photographer, I have posted my images on my page. Unfortunately, I lost control of some of my right to my intellectual property. 

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