How Have Recent Technological Advances Changed Media, Culture and Society?
How have Recent Technological Changes Contributed to Society, Culture and Media? Is this progress? In the past fifty years technology has revolutionised the way we live. The advancements in technology have not slowed into the new millennium and as they continue to advance so must we and the world around us change to keep up. Before the turn of the century we were in a world of mass media. As a population we were clumped together and all marketed at in the same style regardless of class and other social and personal differences. Pop culture was central, hug and controlled by big trans-national media companies. This has changed drastically in the last decade. With the advancement in internet technology such as mobile internet and broadband people have more access to various forms of entertainment, information and communication. With all these changes the way we interact and use media has changed, however questions can be raised about how much influence this has on us and who controls this. The media corporations, which make up the mass media, have also had to change by using new technologies and platforms to sell their products. New technologies have raised new problems and questions can be raised as to whether this is really progress? Examples can be found all around the world. From China westernization is being reported “_In the 20-odd years since implementation of the reform and opening-up policy, Chinese youth has ostensibly embraced Western culture. They eat at any one of the 600 McDonald's or 1,000 KFCs in China, flock to NBA League and Italian Soccer League matches and watch Hollywood rather than domestically produced films_.” (China Daily) They also report that Chinese people in their 20s are tuning into sports games and television shows mainly originating in America. It is not only the youth that are being swept up in the globalised world. In a financial times magazine extract from the 21stof May 2005 conducted by Intel Corporation Anthropologists