Hyper-reality and the digital renaissance

1) Create a new blogpost called 'Hyper-reality and the digital renaissance' and make notes from the article under the following headings: 

• examples

Snapchat

Twitter

Instagram

• theories 

Hall - dominant reading 

Blumer and Katz- Uses and gratifications, personal identity

• positive aspects of new technology (or 'digital renaissance')

More coverage 

More efficient

Communicate with more people and efficently

• negative aspects of new technology on audiences and society  

Complete opposite of reality

People communicate less with the outside world
Start to think this 'fantasy' world is real

• wider issues and debates 

Cyber-bullying can take place as a result of this

Hard to regulate what everyone does so there could be more crimes taken place

2) The article was written in 2009. Offer three examples of more recent social networking sites or uses of technology that support the idea of a 'digital renaissance'.

We now have Instagram which is a way for people to communicate with each other by leaving comments and people are now able to post pictures of themselves online. Snapchat allows people to talk with each other by sending short pictures or videos of each other or whatever they're doing. They can send this to their friends or post it on their stories for everyone to view. There are also ways to get news and information now with the new features that are included. Twitter also communicates news and people can now interact and they can also see what their favourite celebrities are saying who may change or shape the peoples ideologies because they're opinion leaders.

3) How do live streaming services such as Periscope or Facebook Live fit into the idea of a 'digital renaissance'? Are these a force for good or simply a further blurring of reality?

I think that this is a good way to see what is happening in real life and is more close to reality and we can see what people are doing and what's going on in the rest of the world. This is less likely to be staged as we can see what is going on for ourselves.

4) How can we link the 'digital renaissance' to our case study on news? Is citizen journalism a further example of hyper-reality or is it actually making news more accurate and closer to real life?

Citizen journalism is a way for the audience to see what is happening and is closer to reality whereas the news is recorded to show a specific point of view and might not be able to get access to certain areas which citizen journalism helps with. However, people who are recording will only show what they see which can also be bias and might give us misleading information. It will attract a wider audience and will travel a lot faster as well. There have also been times when citizen journalism has been used on the news such as BBC for certain news stories throughout the years so it can be a useful and reliable source at times.