question o' the day

[orangerful]

Traditional media versus new media. Your thoughts.

I'm going to assume here that "traditional media" is more physical media, where "new media" is more computer based, probably online or at least digital.

I still feel like both have their place. I still prefer to read physical books, but this act if very personal and private for me. I usually read while I'm at lunch alone or about to go to bed. I don't need to have 100s of books at my fingertips, just the one. BUT on the other side of things, the amount of information I can access when I have a computer and internet and a library card is much more vast than what I could have with just the library card.

One of the positive things about "new media" (and also one of the negative things) is how quickly they can be updated and changed. Databases that contain biographical information can quickly be updated if a person dies suddenly while physical Encylopedia's will be out of date until next year's publication. BUT the flip side is that if a database goes out of business or changes hands, people can lose access to that information very quickly.

One of my biggest pet peeves right now are the way that digital rights to television shows are being traded around. I didn't mind when a show could be accessed via streaming as long as all of the major companies had the show. For example, Downton Abbey used to be available to stream on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. But in the last few months, Amazon has made some sort of deal with PBS and they now have exclusive rights to Downton Abbey, leaving Netflix and Hulu users out of the loop. That bugs me. I understand wanting to have the show behind a paywall of some kind BUT the fact that I can only get to it through Amazon Prime annoys me.

As you can guess, I don't watch live TV anymore. When I was a kid, I was all about the "appointment tv", losing many Friday nights to Fox Mulder and Dana Scully rather than missing my show, recording them all on VHS to watch later. But once I discovered the DVR and then Netflix/Hulu, I felt so free! I could just watch my shows when I had time!

I also prefer communicating via the Internet, though this probably comes from growing up just when IM was taking off. I've never been a phone talker. I did do the pen-pal thing for a little while but as soon as email was available, I abandoned pen and paper pretty quickly.

Not really sure if that answers the question, maybe because I don't know my answer. :) I think because I sort of straddle the pre-Internet and post-Internet generation, I have a foot planted firmly in both new and old media.

Comments

[poniesandphotos.livejournal.com]

I love real books. I love they way they smell. I love they way they feel. I love the way they look on the shelf.

But I also love reading outside, when I randomly stop for lunch, when I am in the tub, when I am waiting for someone at Starbucks. My Kindle fits in my purse and doesn't get rumpled. I can bring ALL my reading list along so if I finish something I can move to the next. Before my kindle I had the hardest time packing for a trip. Because I didn't have the room for 4-5 books I had to choose, often leaving me without anything to read at the end of my trip. Now I'm never without a book.

I also move a decent amount. Books are heavy. Kindle is light.

I live off netflix, although I'm running out of programming currently. I'm going through my annual x-files rewatch which is always a good time.

[rhoda-rants.livejournal.com]

Well, as much as I appreciate how available things are through them, Amazon is kind of an evil, monopolistic corporation who wants control of All The Things, and this sounds like yet another step towards making that happen.

I don't think it's the format that's necessarily the problem; same thing happened to the recording industry a few years back. The platform has its ups and downs, but the way corporations tend to swallow up all smaller entities in their path, like The Blob--that's problematic.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if I was a big traveler or a faster reader, I would probably get into eBooks more but since I take forever to get through one book, I tend to just travel with one. :) (and I hope you're getting some of those Kindle books through your local library!!)

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Exactly. At least the music industry seems to have come around a little bit with sites like Spotify, Rdio, Last.fm and such were you can stream for free. Maybe someday television will catch up.

[poniesandphotos.livejournal.com]

I've gotten a few from my library, but their selection is somewhat limited. I signed up for a free e-mail service that sends you notifications about free e-books, and as a result I now have about 30 sitting on my Kindle that still need to be read. I'll get to them eventually.

[ekaterin24.livejournal.com]

I still love paper books, and haven't read more than a couple dozen pages of a full-size book online--and that's only starting this very week! Falling in love with webcomics as a subgenre/subformat and reading them online, plus buying a couple of download-only graphic novels, is endearing me to e-comics, especially since I read them on my beloved iPad Retina and get better resolution and quality than I could from a printed comic!

I mostly love databases for factual information, though sometimes a good paper encyclopedia or dictionary for specialty information is faster and more reliable than Internet sources. Example: I used a Bible Dictionary today instead of going online as it seemed faster than searching our online religion encyclopedias, which would have the words in multiple places without translating/defining them.

I'm still a fan of CDs for music I think I'll want to have for a long time, as I'm not trusting iTunes to use the same storage format for many more years and we have multiple devices that can play a CD. And I haven't let go of many of my vinyl records yet--one day we will hook up the turntable and other 20th century tech again.

As for TV--Aaargghh! I'm annoyed that no one site has all the good anime. I'd sign up for Hulu or Crunchyroll if one of them had all the quirky, low-violence, beautiful anime I enjoy. Netflix has a mostly-crappy collection, and nearly all dubbed

I prefer email to phone, mainly because I'm still a tiny bit shy on the phone (made me real nervous as a teenager, and only a post-college job with lots of phone work got me out of most of that!) and partly as I love to write.

[elizalavelle.livejournal.com]

I love some traditional media, like books. Books are fabulous. But I think I love how media is evolving. When I'm reading a book I just need the one but I read quickly enough that I like to have more than one with me when I'm away from my apartment so ebooks are fabulous for that. When I pick my next book I have a library to pick from.

I am very against how television networks etc. keep trying to make streaming their shows exclusive. All that does is drive up piracy. The shows I can stream online easily I most often do. But being in Canada most of the streaming sites aren't even open to me. It's ridiculous that rules that prevent shows from going to other countries are still being enforced.