Final Essay: Question 2

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 21^st 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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