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Showing posts with the label DigitalMedia

Digital Mutants - A Reality?

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In my last two posts I have written about Digital Mutants, as a hypothesis based on observation, experience and pure guesswork. I am not a prophetic, and certainly not Marshall McLuhan. When I wrote about Digital Mutants, it was just an idea, so I decided to do some research. What I read is not surprising, and at least partly vindicates my stance.  Here is a small review of the literature I have found: A study done by researchers in Kings College, London found that there is a 39 per cent difference in the DNA of the highest and the lowest users of social media. They have attributed inherited genetic factors rather than environmental effects to these differences. You can read the full articles here: https://www.ft.com/content/419733b2-e181-11e6-9645-c9357a75844a https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/2686719/your-facebook-addiction-is-written-in-your-dna-your-genes-influence-how-long-you-spend-online/ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170123151411.htm Anothe

I give you what you want!

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I give you what you want, and I don't have the time, nor the inclination (pun intended) to think about what you, the society needs. Like, I think you should also start thinking, instead of blaming me, the media, for all the unhappy, sad, evil, and all the wrongdoings in the society. Instead of brainlessly switching on channels and watching programs which insult, degrade, make fun of other people, and supposedly encourage superstition, maybe you should just go out, take a walk (pun intended again). You think I should have some social responsibility, which I do agree. And I do give you programs that are beneficial to the society. But I have so many people working with me. You think all people who work for me should go hungry to bed? They don't deserve increments? They don't have family responsibilities and ambitions? Well, you are wrong. Being socially responsible cannot come at a cost of my family and my ambitions. Like, I am the media. I am a business. I am here to

Management Careers in Media - Media Planning and Buying

Media planning and buying is the function of procurement of media real estate at an optimal placement and price. Media buyers have to conduct market research to find the likely places where their client's customers and consumers tend to use media. Based on this research, they find the best advertising rates, and the best media to place the advertisements of their clients. In short, they 'buy' the media, or the advertising space/time for their clients. Media planners have to be in touch with the media houses, their marketing executives and should be able to negotiate better rates for their clients. A good media buyer takes decisions on which media to buy and it requires both creative and business-driven decisions. Media Planners should be able to pick and choose an appropriate combination of media to help their clients reach their target audiences. The job can be pretty high profile as they with high level clients and top executives of organisations. The job is result ori

Beautiful and Ugly - A Matter of Perception?

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How does the mind receive and analyse information from a visual? It is a complex process involving the left and right hemispheres of the brain, together synchronising the logical and emotional intelligence, at the same time, involving learning through genetic evolution, and adding to it experiential learning. I came across a Facebook update which described how some primary school textbooks, the meaning of beautiful and ugly were represented. Check the picture.... (Source: Unknown) How many readers agree to this? No, don't give me an intelligent, sociologically relevant, politically correct answer. Truth is, we have all learnt the meaning of beautiful and ugly from this, or some other picture, or have been pointed out a beautiful woman and an ugly one during our childhood and in our college days. In the early stages of childhood, from birth to 3 years, the human brain is extremely vulnerable to external influences. A violent childhood, a traumatic experience, or visuals suc

An article by Sam Pitroda

I had written about Digital India and also about Sam Pitroda.  Here's an article from Sam Pitroda himself.  Four critical things that make a Digital India possible today and challenges ahead  By Sam Pitroda This government's Digital India campaign is a welcome step in creating an India of the 21st century powered by connectivity, technology and the opportunity that such connectivity offers in terms of access, services and platforms for unleashing India's creative talent.  However, it is imperative to understand what it means to create a 'Digital India'. Such an effort requires an entire ecosystem of support and an apparatus for implementation that has to be developed and matured over a period of time. While the face of Digital India may be a website providing e-governance or connectivity between the citizen and the government, the thinking, vision and systems that produce this end product are implemented over several years.  And

From Consumers to Producers - The Indian Story - Part 7 - Blame it on Sam Pitroda

Blame it on Sam Pitroda We have all become isolated, independent units, hiding behind the cool, smooth glass surface of our monitors and mobile phones. We are connected to the society only when these devices are connected to a network. Otherwise, we are alone, lost in our own world, concerned with only the self, becoming narcissists. We are prone to exposing our thoughts, feelings, life events, loves, hates, and joys online, on social media sites. We measure our quality of living on how many 'likes' our Facebook status acquires, or how many 'hits' our websites get.We are exposing ourselves to the extreme, to the point of obscenity. We find ecstasy in communication. This is what Jean Baudrillard and other philosophers say. Neil Postman also says that we have become 'technophiles' and overdependent on technology to point of thinking that our day cannot start without reading whats on WhatsApp or other social media. Robin Jefferey call us the 'mobile nation

From Consumers to Producers - The Indian Story - Part 5 - Social Media

Social Media When Facebook was launched in 2004, I had started teaching in the Department Communication and Journalism, at the University of Mumbai. I remember my first lecture. I was afraid that I would embarrass myself. I had never faced a bunch of 20 youngsters together in my life. But I suppose the lecture went off well, because the then Head of the Department, Dr. Sanjay Ranade, did ask me to continue! My students and I used to communicate with each other using Yahoo Groups, and Orkut. Remember Orkut? I am sure at least some of you do. It was fun, being on Orkut, creating groups, and interacting with so many friends. I know my students used to gossip a lot about the faculty. It was a lot of fun, and the first social media that we really used, apart from the Yahoo Groups, usually for exchange of notes and announcements. We were not used to blogging much. I did start a few blogs, but was never really consistent till I have started writing everyday on this blog for the last 2

From Consumers to Producers - The Indian Story - Part 4 - The Internet

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The Internet I remember, in 1996, in a meeting, a client showed me the Internet. We browsed through Yahoo, one of the most popular websites and search engines at that time. I was amazed that I could just search for any subject and get so much information. I immediately wanted get it on my computer at home, but the only service provider at that time was VSNL - Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited and the cost was Rs.15000 for 100 hours! But very soon, on demand, the rates were brought down to an affordable Rs.1500 per 100 hours of browsing. There was, of course, a catch here. First, you needed to buy an external modem (about Rs.4000/-) and connect it to the phone line to connect to the Internet. There were no schemes or data packages other than the one mentioned. So if you did 100 hours of browsing, it translated to 200 phone calls, which in turn meant a whopping telephone bill. And I did get a bill of about Rs.4000/- which is like getting a bill of about Rs.30000/- now! (Image src:http

From Consumers to Producers - The Indian Story - Part 3 - Storage Devices

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I used to do a lot of graphic designing and make films for various corporates. One day, I went to show the first cut of a film that I had made for an organization. I went with the film to the concerned brand manager, and when he asked me for a CD, and I said I didn't have one, he thought I was joking. I put my hand in the pocket and brought out my brand new pen-drive and said, that his film was in it. Most people in the office thought I had gone crazy, or I had probably hit my head on something. I made him pull out his computer and put the pen-drive in the USB port, and viola! We had the film copied on to his PC in a few minutes! They did not even know the USB port. Of course it was entirely new to everyone including me at that time. But more about pen-drives later. When we speak of storage devices, the first thing we think of is the hard disk drive or the HDD. As I said in my first post in this series, my first PC had a hard disk of a whopping 120 MB and the second one 1.2 GB.

From Consumers to Producers - The Indian Story - Part 2

From Consumers to Producers - The Indian Story - Part 2 I wrote about computers in my last post in this series. Let's look at another technology that evolved along with computers and changed the way we communicate. Still Cameras I remember, when I was in school, we had a box camera, with which we could take black and white photographs. I used it for a long time, at least till 1983. I still have some of those pictures. From 1979 to mid-1980's the price of silver shot up more than 10 times, making silver nitrate, an important ingredient in photographic film and processing very expensive. This in turn, shot up the price of film rolls and photography as a hobby, simply went out of reach of many people. The next camera (Rs.5000) I bought was for my wife the day my son, Tejas was born. December 01, 1994. This one also was a film based camera and by this time, we had colour film commonly available. The first photograph from this camera was of my son, taken by my wife, with me

From Consumers to Producers - The Indian Story - Part 1

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I call myself a successful digital immigrant. Marc Prensky defined Digital Natives as the ones who have been born with digital technology, digital devices, for whom the digital devices is not a new phenomenon, today's young population. Digital Immigrants are those who saw digital technology developing and evolving and adapted to the digital world - people like me! I have been very lucky to have been not only a witness, but a participant in the evolution of the digital age. In this series, I am going to share the story(s) of how several technologies evolved over the last 35 years in India and across the world, slowly but surely turning us, passive consumers of media content, into active producers. How technology - both hardware and software, and skill-sets developed over the years, especially in India, and how it has affected the way we communicate, and hence the way we live and go about our lives. My students (at least the one's who have attended my New Media lectures) mig