Media Narrative
I used to work as a store manager in a Teddy Bear store in Taiwan. In the past Christmas and Chinese New Year holiday seasons, the officers of marketing team and I always sent hundreds of promotional messages through a Christmas card to our membership customers. As the Internet became available, we decided to generate some excitement during the tough economy. We had the first experience using e-mail instead of only sending a traditional Christmas card to greet our customers and promote the holiday sales. We were very excited with the volume of response from our customers, and we realized that new business we would not have generated through either our catalog or our retail location. It was the first time I experienced another way of communication between a store seller and customers.
Internet breaks down the barriers of time and space. These technological changes initiate new culture. McLuhan described this as the "global village" in which electronic communication would break down the barriers and obstacles encountered in traditional media by allowing people to see, experience, and understand more. Similar to McLuhan, Bolter and Grusin explain that we define ourselves through our media. In traditional media, the audience understands the content from the producer's point of view. Interactivity allows the user to have controls over how and what content is viewed. Note how even the role of the audience had changed as reflected by the term "user." This operational freedom is significant to our culture because it corresponds. "While media do not determine cultural or individual identity, the technology influences how we see ourselves, and the world we live in. New media technology enables both large and small entities to have more equitable opportunities to communicate.
No longer can one control a city's media by owning the printing press. Technology has also made newspaper production easier. Journalists for print publications may have space limitations,...
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