Communication and its Journey Along Time

Communication is a two-way process of mutual understanding. Whether it be a lasting relationship with your significant other or a business agreement, communication is the key to all aspects of life. There are so many ways to communicate these days and most of it is through technology. Things that were inconceivable to imagine decades ago has now come into existence. For example, you’re able to call someone from your phone to essentially any place in the world, it has turned out to be one of the most popular ways of communicating even to this day. Not only the use of telephones, but with social media further evolving with the use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many other social networking sites which helps us communicate to a greater number of people on a global scale.

Communication picture: https://eilanguages.com/language-evolution/

“Transformations in technology cause transformations in culture” (Kuttainen, 2017). It’s no secret that social networking sites have changed communication dramatically over the years. When it comes to the way we communicate with each other, it’s obvious the internet influenced some major changes. Certain acronyms and abbreviations have become words used in our regular everyday life. When new features appear online like words that are now “in”, they start becoming more common and people start to include those words in their vocabulary. LOL, OMG, JK, SMH are good examples. Even I’ve caught myself saying these words offline from time to time. The generations that have grown up with no technology don’t generally have the problem of using these cultured abbreviations. However, this new internet language we have created is becoming more and more evident today with the younger generations. Nowadays, babies are given an iPad to play with instead of a toy. We are literally learning techno-lingo from day one. As this early exposure to technology plays out in coming years the amount of social media lingo in our normal dialogue will become even more evident in the years to come.

Old media and contemporary media differ in very few ways, apart from delivery. Old media was on paper and television screens, contemporary media is on smart phones and computer screens. Both cater to the baser tastes of mankind. The main difference is the old media perished and rotted away in garbage tips whereas new media is always there on the internet. Old media was all down to the publishers and small groups that made news reports and television shows, they decided what was available for us to read or watch. Nowadays with new media, what we what read and watch is largely down to what is recommended to us by our social networks from “liking” Facebook posts or retweeting on Twitter. This a dramatic shift in the people deciding what they read and therefore the global awareness of what is news, style or fashion is decided by the people instead of the few.

References:

Kuttainen, V. (2017). BA1002: Our Space:
Networks, Narratives, and the Making of Place, week 6 notes [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_2855360_1&course_id=_84764_1&framesetWrapped=true

Huffpost. (2017). 5 Differences Between Old and New Media. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sachin-kamdar/5-differences-between-old_b_9670634.html

Boris (Artist). (2016). communication in social networks and language [image]. Retrieved from https://eilanguages.com/language-evolution/