The digital media is the combination of technology and content that can be viewed, created or modified on digital electronics devices like computers, smartphones, and other digital imagery. Social media, digital media, websites and electronic books are also forms of the digital media. The digital media has developed over time with the advancement of technology throughout the past few decades and an efficient and faster means to retrieve information. Digital media is part of the reason why many business and individuals implement the digital media has brought forth new challenges and impact to the way business, and people receive information. Information though the print media like a newspaper has significantly reduced in term of popularity. Analyzing the development of the digital media will consider how it has impacted the world generally regarding the advantages of the digital media. Digital media has global perspective and trends that are regarded as a result of the development of the print media. Many business and individuals have a different view concerning the globalization of the media in the current digital age.
Background Information
Digital media is consumption is different from the conventional type of media consumption. The traditional media coverage includes the use of the print media like newspaper and magazines and other analog media like the use of audio tapes and film. Conventional media coverage had been over the history been the principal means of gaining information before the invention of the internet and many developments of other new technologies like the smartphones. Digital media has developed the changes in the elaboration of the print media. It has enabled the development of more technologies in publishing, new techniques of journalism and increased the media literacy in education, commerce and in politics. Digital information has allowed the world to be a global village. The digital age has affected the society and started a new era of industrial development. Almost half the world's population of the world connected to a digital device like a computer and smartphones, hence the ability to easily access, modify and share information Currently, the digital era is described as an information era or part of the digital revolution which has posed an economic challenge in the use of print media. The digital media consumption has reduced the need for physical papers as employed by the print media becoming a paperless world. Media houses, governments, and other corporations have the ability to send and receive information instantly to a larger number of people. The transition of the digital age has enabled a significant impact on the culture and the society. There is considerable cultural and innovative impact of the digital media in the globe. The use of the media has demanded the use of new skill also known as media literacy, which can be considered the means to read and write digital information comfortably and navigating g the print media. The dependency of print media has reduced significantly over time. Even though the dependence on print media has reduced, there are still preferred to some form of print media around the world especially the use of newspaper and books. Digital media, therefore, has the significant effect of the society and the culture.
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The digital media has also explored the amount of mobile and smartphone global usage. Statistically, about 20 percent of the globe have access to the internet through mobile and tablet phones. The attribute is because they are varied and cheap to access as compared to the early 20 th century (Hayles, 2012). The digital revolution has influenced the rapid level of growth of digital device usage in the world which can further improve the access of digital media. For a business, the digital media has given the opportunity to market and advertise to more consumers without the need of private sales persons, because they can be advertised through pop in Mobile apps and software. Globalization of media and other technology has effects on improving the skills of individuals and professionals in media literacy and able to develop own content to display and sent through the digital media. An example is the social media, commentary and photography, a new form of citizen journalism. It has given the platform to create users with the aim of interacting with the press globally through the internet and other communication technologies that allow for a quicker and easier access to all forms of media. However, there are the issues of credibility, privacy and cultural effects of the contents developed which can influence the spread of the press. The digital divide is defined as differences in the accessibility of digital media in a geographical area. It is affected by the economy, the culture of the people and the level of education. Many believe that digital divide has limited the spread of digital media in the developed countries. Some measure is in place to allow more participation in media literacy by creating social media halls or community technology hub that will be used to influence the need to increase the spread of digital media.
Digital Media has significantly changed the globalization of media coverage with different impact to the society. The digital revolution has changed the way citizens perceive the sources of the media which have influenced the choice of using digital media to access information. The convenience and the economic impact have changed the widespread of the media in the society. Digital media in the global scene changes the culture, political and social factors in the society. By using examples will outline how globalization has also influenced the digital media through media coverage and the perception by most individuals about how credible and relevant the information of the press to the population. The spread of the digital media has challenges and issues that vary depending on the characteristic of the source. Issues like copyright and propaganda spread has influenced the global perception about media coverage
Digital Media and Globalization of Culture
Globalization is the profound ability to interact and integrating among people, companies, and governments of different nations that are aided by international business or information technology. Interaction being a central principle of globalization, exchange of cultural beliefs is inevitable because the globe has many cultures. In the view of globalization of culture, different from the conventional type, is whereby the world has been molded to follow a particular image from a particular dominant culture or group of people. For example, African young populous would portray the American hip-hop culture through Audio media and emulate the particular behavior. The full spread of the globalization of media coverage as brought by digital media has brought both positive and negative attributes. The popular media houses and corporate that displays the popularity of particular products or consumer cultures like the MTV, television series from media houses in America has fulfilled the objectives of these religions to be practiced the global scale openly. The digital media has created the steady flow of information through the internet, cable television and the mobile technology. Digital media has been used by the marketers to spread a dominant culture in the world to cover the business. Imagine without the digital revolution nobody in Africa or Asia would embrace specific known cultural practices from the west and vice versa (Kraidy, 2002).
Communication has affected the cultural interpretation. According to the cultural imperialism theory, audiences around the world are always influenced by the media messages that are emanated from the western industrialized countries. Some studies have focused on the efforts of the international community in sharing particular information in the globe. The information that can influence a government can be data on capital investment or infrastructural development. The primary sources of the media that are can be export cultural products that can impose other socio-cultural values in the eastern countries of the world. In this recent development, the flow of news and entertainment has been biased in favor of the western nations. These western countries mostly export the quality and quality of most media streams and imported into the developing countries because of prejudicial coverage in the countries media (Kraidy, 2002).
Globalization of culture has been influenced by the digital era where information from the western media sources is readily available to the public. The period after the world war and the cold war had redeveloped the thinking about the digital sharing of information through the framework of ideological, economic and political competition. The United States is the sole superpower was competitively advantaged to affect the global communication strategy by developing more technologies in digital media. The globalization thus was influenced by the countries that developed the technologies of digital media due to the thinking the type of information from the nation is convenient and considered accurate. The contributing factor that has influenced globalization is the realization that media and communication have been intensified through marketing of other technologies like smartphones and computers, creating a global network whereby many can access information from the particular domain (Kraidy, 2002).
Globalization of culture is defined regarding the culture and the nature of the media coverage. The media has contributed to the homogenization of cultural difference in the globe. The direct image of the perspectives of media coverage from the American market has dominated the digital content followed by the Chinese markets to the Western world. The media content makes them more attractive in the globe as opposed to other countries. Media like news coverage like CNN, Television show, and series have become more prevalent in the developing world than the local demand for the media. On average at least 20 percent of the global internet users will access information from the American site domains than individual country content (Kraidy, 2002).
There is there for the need to challenge the impact of globalization of the western cultures and have a more heterogeneous cultural change by investing in content at individual countries. This means there is a need for the private and public partnership that will build the capacity to produce predominantly high-quality content in the developing world. Digital media technologies have the same technology; there is only the need to train the personnel and necessary infrastructure that can encourage the development of new content which will attract more preference to the information other than the western cultures.
Global Learning and Digital Media
Digital media literacy in the globe has offered the use of technology in the use of data or word-processing, retrieval of information and preservation of knowledge. There is the potential to learn from a digital media is that new skills will be acknowledged the professional development. Digital Media and technology has helped students globally to understand the richness and complexities of the world. Media literacy has helped students to identify and analyze the media around the world that include external news sources available in local and international translation. Facilitating the awareness of the digital literacy has reflected the different context and affects the cross-cultural understanding. Digital learning is also important to give personal opinions and broaden the learners to opinions about global issues. The platforms like social media, blogs, podcasts, and videos have collaborative platforms that are used to dialogue and collaborate on issues. The learners can gain more understanding on issues affecting the society through digital media. Digital media also has an important network that has a collective intelligence about a fact that were already analyzed and published. The participation in these networks will develop the cross –cultural understanding about global issues. These networks are responsible for the generation of new knowledge. Examples of the organization networks include SEED, iEARN that support educators that help to program participation of students in global issues (Asia Society, 2009).
Digital Media and Quality Of Life
Digital media content has found to have much positive implication and improvement to hr daily livelihood while there is potentially another negative consequence depending on the usage and preference. Statistics shows that many spend time online or using the internet than sleeping. The attribute is because there is an unimaginable number of content in the digital media via the smartphones and other devices. In a global survey that was conducted in five different countries (Jesuthasan and Jentsch, 2016). The response is that the digital media use had improved the overall quality of life both professionally and socially and with one in every seven respondents disagreed about the issue. The digital media use has improved the ability to learn and develop professionally including the capacity to carry out their work conveniently. Managers in business can offer opportunities to work across the boundaries of location and time, opening job opportunities remotely to relocate workers and ensure the access to best talents. Management of the content delivery is important when it comes to the extent of use and social interaction and the nature of contents to be accessed. According to the survey, there are four out of the ten respondents who had reported the positive effects of long-term-memory, attention span and managing stress and health.
Global Trends: Demand for Digital Content
Globally, demand for digital formats has increased. The global trend is due to the increase in the number of digital devices that can support digital media and the increase in internet access speed which has provided consumers with the option to access the media content. In particular business marketers around the globe are shifting their advertising spending towards digital media. The global trend that customer’s preference towards digital media consumption as compared to the traditional forms of media like TV, print press and radio. The popularity of the digital media has provided with the shift in the global advertising spends. Global marketers have thus increased the spending trends by allocating the budget towards digital mediums. The percentage of total advertising spending is expected to reach nearly 36 percent by the year 2020 (Joshi, 2015).
Source: Joshi (2015): Chart showing Changes in Advertisement media spending.
Findings
Digital media consumption in the globe has affected different perspective. In the analysis and the literature, global issues in media coverage and uses are illustrated. First, due to the digital revolution, it has caused the globalization of western culture due to the quality of the content and the perception of the developing countries on the prejudice of the digital content. Creating more digital materials from other parts of the world would encourage the view of other documents from different regions of the world.
Digital materials in education and the access to other vital information from the digital networks have opened up the online learning platform where learners have the enhanced their cognitive ability and a better understanding of the global issues. Through analysis of the media contents, various aspects of the globe are shared and give more information and the ability to increase the knowledge both professionally and socio-culturally.
There are the increases in demand for contents due to increased accessibility to digital devices across the world. The global trend has marketers the leeway to access more funds and budget to enhance the substance of the advertisement in digital form, by the year 2030; there will be an increased budget allocation up to 36 percent of the total amount.
Conclusion
Digital media has influenced the globe culturally, socially and economically. There is the increase in the demand for digital media because of the penetration of internet and information technology which has become cheaper and are easy to use. Digital media has influenced the global culture through by controlling the homogeneity of the western culture because of the high quality and content. Learners can access more detailed content through networks and able to increase their cognitive ability as well as having critical thinking that will influence their professionalism and cultural interpretation. The advertisement has taken advantage of the growing trend, therefore with the increase in content demand; many marketers have increased the budget to develop materials for the advertisement of the products to increase revenue.
Reference
Asia Society (2009). Five Ways to Use Technology and Digital Media for Global Learning. Author. Retrieved from www.asiasociety.org/education
Hayles, N. K. (2012). How we think: Digital media and contemporary techno genesis . University of Chicago Press.
Joshi H. (2015). Digital Media: Rise of On-demand Content. Deloitte . Retrieved from www.deloitte.com/in
Jesuthasan, R. and Jentsch A. (2016, January 28 th ). How does digital media really affect us?. World Economic Forum . Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/how-does-digital-media-really-affect-us
Kraidy, M. (2002). Globalization of culture through the media . In J. R. Schement (Ed.), Encyclopedia of communication and information, Vol. 2, pp. 359-363, New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA.
