New Digital Media Networks and Their Impact on Modern Life

Communication Research Practices 1
Communication Research Practices
Name
Course
Date

Communication Research Practices 2
Communication Research Practices
The contemporary world of communication has changed tremendous since the emergence of
digital media in the arena of information sharing and storage. The new development in the
technology has also contributed exponentially in the emergence of digital media platform. As a
result, the traditional media communications has been adversely affected in terms of numbers of
users which has on the decline consecutively for the last decades since inception of digital media.
The media which have been affected by the current media trends are televisions, radios, and
telegram which unlike digital media lack dynamic connectedness and coordination to each other.
The digital media on the other hand has made connections and coordination easier by the use of
specially made software and computers. This technology has made the digital media be mobile
using computing devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, palmtops; this is according to
Vernallis, Herzog & Richardson, (2013). Digital media platforms has suited well to the modern
users with its easy usability and other useful utilities that make communication and information
sharing convenient, fast, easy, effective, better experience. It is at the heart of this paper to
establish the nature of the modern media, explore the convergence of media concepts, and the
cultural shift attributed to digital media. The paper also explains how digital media has brought
about marginalization of the conservative groups in the society and those not able to access it.
PARA 1 OF THE EXEMPLAR
According to reports published on the use and accessibility of new digital media, it is
indicated that the frequency of accessing and using new technologies increases compared to the
traditional media forms. Different descriptions exist about the concept on new digital media.
However, there are some common factors in all these descriptions about the nature of new digital
media networks and their impacts on the modern life (Miler, 2011). One of these factors is the

Communication Research Practices 3
issue of convergence of media forms. Convergence can be defined in relation to bits of media
becoming “indifferentiable.” It occurs where media hybridizes and recombines to improve the
media content. Media convergence makes a distinction between human body capacitating
communication media in the flesh; the type of mass communication produced technically;
technically created means of mass communication; and the digital technologies enabling
individual interaction, one-to-many interaction and many-to-many interaction (Jensen, 2010).
Convergence leads to changes in the models of media consumption because of availability and
mobility of network-enabled digital devices, in conjunction with the increased ease and data
transfer affordability, resulting into new digital media networks penetrating many parts of the
current consumption of media, and a general life improvement (Webster, 2014)
Another factor is the change in producers and consumer’s relationship because of
technological enhancements that facilitate making and distributing content and the concept of the
distinction between interpersonal and mass communication (Miles, 2018). The organizational
forms of production are key components that influence the ways of value creation in media
production and consumption. The distinction between old media and new digital media mainly
concerns the functional aspects of the technologies used in the two media eras. This entails the
way users can adapt and engage in the many interactive functions of the digital media. The
nature of the new digital media networks involves using such tools as behavioural targeting,
asynchronous ads, contextual targeting, and advergaming, to capture the digital consumer. New
digital media business models perceive freedom of choice and creativity that the individual user
experiences as the core to their development. The new digital business model converts this
freedom of choice and creativity is then converted into an economic value within the media
companies (Bolin, 2011).