The diminution of traditional intermediaries
has changed the role of publishing in social life by altering the power
constructs between the common individual and the conventional organisational
authorities. The hierarchy of authority has been inverted where the audience
can now control the production and publication of information. This has brought
about a shift in the format of publishing as changes develop moves in the
nature of publics in the publishing and social contexts, and therefore the
subsequent alterations in organisations of attention in forming social
relations. Furthermore, increased accessibility of media has instigated
information globalisation via the formation of a more holistic perception of
reality. Technology has thus shifted the dynamics of the traditional social constructs
through affecting methods of production and interaction with publishing.
Moreover, each individual has been given the opportunity to be an autonomous
unit of mobile publication which has influenced the personalisation and
democratisation of publishing. However, negative implications still ensue as
the validity of information and human nature’s classic search for reinforcement
can corrupt the accuracy of information now widely available.
The changing role of publishing has culminated
the authority of traditional intermediaries; instead, raising the importance of
the audience in the publics and publishing hierarchy. Traditionally, publishing
was focused on attending to a mass, mechanical audience, where the common
person held minute social power, and was thus insignificant (Couldry, 2003).
Consequently, the populous were dependent upon the public institutions as the
intermediaries for knowledge and information, which subsequently handed them
social power. In today’s 21st century, the focus is now on a more
thoughtful viewer who no longer relies on intermediaries to access information
(Silverstone, 2006). This occurrence arrives with the modern ability of the
common person to publish past previous limitations, where the individual now
garners the opportunity to publish knowledge to a much wider audience on a
global scale (Silverstone, 2006). As a result, individuals have communally
produced archives that develop the possibility for interaction through exchange
of information (Enszer, 2008).
Inevitably, there has been a shift in
the format of publishing, where the experience of an assemblage (Shaviro, 2007)
has become increasingly complicated. Specifically, Latour’s Actor-Network
Theory follows DeLanda’s associations with a flat ontology that, in the publishing
sphere, consists of numerous human and non-human elements. As such, publishing
has transformed from the introduction of the printing press to the emerging
wide variety of publishing tools and techniques necessary to survive in the
publishing sphere (Nightengale, 2007). Many traditional media institutions
have, therefore, remodelled themselves into non-human forms that are more
readily accessible by the human audience (Jenkins, 2006). Henceforth,
newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald have established digital formats to appeal to the contemporary reader.
Television channels, such as Channel Ten and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, have created online platforms to stream program content with
the aim of maintaining an audience that is distancing from the broadcast
calendar (Silverstone, 2006). Furthermore, the radio station Today Network 2Day 104.1 administers public competitions across media channels such as social media,
television channels, and radio podcasts. Moreover, John Naughton (2010) argues
that the concept of a book has changed under the pressure of iPad-type devices,
with the introduction of e-readers boosting the dying market for books
(Auletta, 2010). Carolyn Reidy (2010) states, “In the digital world, it is
possible for authors to publish without publishers. It is therefore incumbent
on us to prove our worth to authors every day.”
This shift into digital and networked
media has brought changes in publishing and social contexts, and essentially
transformed the nature of publics. This has revolutionised the organisation of
attention in society, and hence the organisation of Kinsley’s (2010) notion of
the commons. Fundamentally, the commons are the links of similarity between
societal members that connect to influence the social relations formed around
the attention, and importance, inferred upon issues. The technological and
affective dynamics of the digital commons have accordingly impacted the
traditional power constructs of society (Murdock, 2004). As opposed to the
past, power of information publication has left from the elite few to the hands
of the masses (Silverstone, 2006), thus providing the common individual with
the ability to challenge the authorities of media and government institutions
(Couldry, 2003). Social media has liberated information of countries oppressed
by political regimes, such as Turkey and Syria. Wikileaks and the hacktivist group Anonymous exemplify civilian utilisation
of media against the power organisations that initially instigated this
communication channel through publishing rebellious opinions against
institutions such as the United States Government. These movements demonstrate
the implications for publishing and knowledge production by civilians, where
there is the capacity for a more realistic relation of societal events to
viewers around the world (Herrmann and McChesney, 2001).
This accessibility of media has
supported the globalisation of ideas through allowing a more holistic
interpretation of information. The distribution and aggregation of varying information
data permits a clearer picture of the co-existence of publishing with these
information movements. Edwards (2010) argues that these progressions create
data friction, where information is constantly sought after and converged across
data archives (Enszer, 2008). In essence, data friction relates to
infrastructural globalism (Edwards, 2010) as this equalisation of international
knowledge admits the formation of a more global perception of reality.
Henceforth, this brings together worldwide institutions and the introduction of
universal thought processes amongst the global population. Moreover, the
diminishing role of traditional publication and the rising access of knowledge
has been greatly beneficial for disadvantaged economics like Africa, “E-books
in Africa could be a way of massively increasing people’s exposure to books,
people who historically have been denied the opportunity to read (Bhaskar, 2009).”
As the video below illustrates, advanced information accessibility has revealed
potential for experiences and education previously impossible.
Technology has transformed the methods
publishing is utilised, produced and accessed. Visualisation has sharpened
information resolution (Van Wijk, 2005) in instances of excessive amounts of knowledge
in the form of data by materialising concepts that were originally invisible.
The relationship between information forms of content expression and the social
has impacted the role of the combined visual, sound and code and their
subsequent transformation of publics and publishing. This has influenced
situations where communication mediums have changed the design of publications
from graphic design to the more relevant interaction and experience design in
modern media interaction conventions. Different visual modes of publishing has
influenced politics, where visualisation is widely used in scientific research
(DeFanti, Brown and McCormick, 1989). The ongoing debate of climate change and
communication of notions surrounding this concept within the public sphere has
proliferated the belief in global warming and its argued effects on the planet
(McCandless, 2009).
Technology has allowed for the
individual to act as a mobile, autonomous unit for information production and
publication (Moores, 2004). Conventional sources of publishing organisations
have begun to recognise the skills and role of the common individual to capture
and communicate information. Ninemsn acknowledges this by encouraging
readers to share their accounts of news events, where many stories are revealed
from this database of information. Subsequently, news has become more personal,
where stories have the possibility of starting from images, videos and recounts
proposed by the public to the media institutions. Publishing has been
democratised (Epku, 1992) as the common individual can now publish their
thoughts to channels ranging from a personal social media page to the evening
news. The proliferation and potential of power from publishing individual
thoughts can be seen through the success of University of New South Wales graduate
Natalie Tran, who rose to fame for producing and publishing videos on her YouTube account CommunityChannel. This personal project has now given her a voice where she has
spoken on mainstream media such as Network Ten’s The Project.
Albeit
the benefits brought about by the diversification of media publication channels
and the empowerment of the individual to wield power against the traditional
power organisations, there are limitations to the changing role of publishing.
Against the traditionally censored information processed by institutional
authorities, there are negative implications to this abundance of widely
accessible information. The incorporation of media into daily rituals (Couldry,
2003) has transpired the process of archive fever (Enszer, 2008), where people
excessively record every part of their lives, with the inclusion of information
that may not necessarily be applicable to the wider audience. This brings to light the question of the validity
of the information accessed online, where it is difficult to assess which
opinions are researched and legitimate, and which are purely thoughts without
theoretical or physical evidence. Additionally, there is the complication of
human nature as an interference in the journey to true information (Eveland and
Shah, 2003). Essentially, humans have a predisposition to seek and agree with
information that satisfies their own opinions; with disregard for its accuracy.
Notwithstanding the vast accessibility of a plethora of information, human
nature will search for and reinforce opinions that are a reflection of their
own, whilst rejecting views that pose a challenge to their beliefs.
Fundamentally, the audience will source only information to support their
views, which brings the accessibility of knowledge to a redundancy if only a
small portion of that information is seriously regarded. Appropriate towards
this argument, the majority of the online population access information through
social interaction and entertainment channels such as Facebook and
YouTube, as opposed to conventional mainstream news organisations such
as The Guardian (Most Popular Websites 2013).
The role of publishing in social life has
been vastly affected by the independence from traditional intermediaries such
as the conventional media and government institutions which once held authority
over the mass population. This has given rise to the more thoughtful audience
who themselves hold and utilise the power of information publication. This
shift has resulted in media organisations including newspapers, television,
radio and books also changing their formats of communication to one more
relevant to the contemporary digital world of knowledge accessibility. The
nature of publics has been allowed more power, demonstrated through the use of
portals such as YouTube by the hacktivist group Anonymous and Wikileaks in
liberating free speech and exchange of information. Consequently, the
availability of information distributed and aggregated from across the world
has induced global perceptions, thus equalising interpretations of reality.
This balance of information subsequently begins to align the levels of
education across economies, more specifically, through the introduction of
e-books into the classrooms of African child education. Technology has thus
proliferated an excess of information data that can be organised through visual
interpretations to gain a clearer picture of invisible ideas such as climate
change. It has also transformed the individual by permitting information production
and publication skills that are recognised and utilised by modern mainstream
news organisations such as Ninemsn. Regardless of the multiple benefits
discussed brought about by the shift in power constructs in society, the attenuation
of communication intermediaries has resulted in more dynamic and accessible
information that has its limitations. Accordingly, negative implications arise
from the convenience of publication, where the validity of information is
therefore difficult to judge. Moreover, human nature has the potential to
corrupt the search for accurate information in favour of segmenting into only
opinions that are a reflection of their own. Nonetheless, as the power
constructs within society continuously transform to correspond to the shifting
social processes, the role of publishing will similarly continue to evolve and
adapt to the needs of the population.
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