Describe your vision of how the media world
will be for most people five years from now. Discuss how and where people will
access news, entertainment, and other media content, and examine what media
companies may be important. Think back through all the readings to give
examples and contexts.
I have noticed (as I am sure everyone else has as well) the extensive growth of the social network Facebook in the past few
years. Now owning smart phone applications that cover just about any aspect of
internet media necessary, Facebook is becoming an all inclusive access to the
world wide web. According to Wikipedia, Facebook has acquired over 43 different
companies such as “instagram” and “friendly” since 2007. Ultimately with the variety of
these acquisitions, users hardly have to venture outside of Facebook for
anything. In my experience, I can’t count the number of times I have
downloaded a new application on my Iphone, and instead of having to create a
new account I am given the option to register by logging in with my Facebook
account. This definitely shows the control Facebook is gaining online. Other
companies such as Google are attempting the same. In fact just from personal experience, just by
creating a G mail account in 2005, eight years later with the same log in and
password Google’s Chrome allows me to have a you tube account, access to news
and blogger.com blog and access to many other things Google amenities all laid
out in one browser. Facebook and Google may own more of the internet than any
online entities ever have, however they aren't the first to provide an
all inclusive access to the internet. Companies such as America Online from the
1990's and early 2000's, featured anything from email, games, news, sports, and
early social networking like categorized chat rooms. While Facebook and Google
more than likely are in the business to monopolize the internet as much as
possible for the profit margin, an alternative outlet to the internet called web
2.0 is quickly emerging. Web 2.0 can facilitate activity that can't be necessarily monitored by
appropriate authorities, usually involving illegal matters. Because of this, I
believe that an all inclusive access to the internet through an entity such as
Facebook or Google will be viewed as necessary to governments in the near
future. If purchased by the United States government or an international
group of governments, perhaps logging onto an all inclusive access would only
be possible by entering one's social security number or driver’s license
number. With the internet now as the world’s larger outlet of media, it is
only wise for companies to attempt to buy up as much of the market as possible
just as large television networks have done by owning multiple channels.
