week 6 Consumption And Production

We are all consumers of media and thanks to technology, we can also be producers of media. In the past, cinema and theaters were the primary media provider and we share it with the public within the theater. Television brought a whole new perspective into media consumption where we can watch privately or with the household. The personal computer also brought big changes to the way we consume media. The name says it all, however as much as it is private, it is also shared world wide with the use of Internet that connects people with the public. An example of sharing with the public using the personal computer is through uploading videos using Metacafe.com, YouTube.com, google videos and a lot more. Now and more popular than ever is the mobile phone. As more and more things become available on mobiles, the more people rely on them for media consumption especially news, sports and entertainment as whole.

Personal computers and mobile phones allows people to become producers of media. People upload movie advertisements, fan films, mash ups/ recap, concerts, music videos, parties and other small videos that can be recorded on a video or phone camera. News rooms such as CNN's ireport.com relies on people to gather news using their phones or cameras to record what is happening. Although technology has become more mobile these days, there still are some constraints and limitations on what can be filmed on a phone or a video camera. Problems can occur with the quality of the camera and the audio. Technology has come a long way from audience being just consumers to audience becoming producers of popular videos uploaded on the net.