Thursday, February 5, 2009

Mixed Reviews of Media Monopolies

New-Media is an all encompassing, ever expanding, vast source of information. Today we live in an information society. Society strives on information, and wants to be able to obtain information upon demand. New-Media helps make this happen by providing multiple outlets that provide information to consumers.

My case study focused on Internet monopolies. One usually does not associate the term monopoly with the Internet. However, Google has proven to be a large new-media monopoly. During my case study I saw several students thinking about the information I had presented to them. I could tell that the students were unsure about the information that I presented.

During open discussion after my presentation I found that several students liked what I had to say. They were concerned with the monopoly giant Google; but the general consensus was that Google is currently not harming the consumer and is actually helping us by being a one stop shop. Google is one new found monopoly that helps the consumer.

The topic for the week is media convergence. When I hear the term convergence, the internet is the first thing that comes to mind. I could tell that after my case study, my classmates agreed. It is intriguing to learn that new-media provides multiple forms of interaction for the consumer. It is exciting to see that all though new media convergence is overwhelming at times; it is actually providing the average consumer more ways to be involved in media.

I learned a lot during my presentation, and discussion of my case study. New-Media entails a lot more aspects of economy and market flows than I had originally thought. Ultimately, I feel like new-media is allowing monopolies to form, but only time will tell if it proves to be an asset or disadvantage to consumers.

This website discusses Google’s beginnings and the major companies that are “gunning for Google":

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=2&hid=14&sid=1940d630-9493-4c4f-b135-f88ad78d8e42%40SRCSM1&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ulh&AN=11685151

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