The Internet media has caused a revolution in communication and media in the past decades of the twentieth century. Beginning in the 1960s as a solely military and academic tool, the Internet has evolved into an international computer system influencing every aspect of life including communication, commerce, reading and entertainment news, and other activities. The tremendous growth of the Internet since the mid 1990s and the availability of new forms of interactive digital media including, social communications such as social networks, videos sharing sites, blogging, online gaming and streaming media have become an integral in most society.
Internet media characteristic of open protocol structure encouraged innovation
and enabled new types of web applications to be constructed quickly without modifications in the below infrastructural level. The World Wide Web is in a hyperlinked status, and this has made it easy to forward or find content. The move from dial up internet in the 1990s to high-speed broadband connections in 21st century has led to the ability of bandwidth intensive applications like video, VoIP and video conferencing. That is how smartphones put the power of the Internet quite literally into the hands of billions of people.
Social media has had a big effect on interpersonal communication. Some of the platforms include Facebook, twitter, Instagram, snapchat, and others, they have helped us to nurture current relationships and It enables people to complete communication regardless of the existing geographical location at a small amount of cost or no cost at all. These platforms have become the top destination for interpersonal communication for the populus the youth and young people. But it is also connected with such problems as Internet addiction disorder, stalking, cyberbullying, and fake news.
Web 2.0 means internet media, especially interactive web applications such as YouTube or Twitch, TikTok, blogs, forums, and wikis, which permit the average users to acquire, generate, discuss, and even modify content. This has indeed democratised media in that ordinary citizens connecting to the internet can vie for views and reach with traditional mainstream media providers and producers.
These platforms have opened new categories of multimedia content, which has given rise to the social media personalities – people with numerous constant listeners in different channels. However, the reliability, accuracy and credibility of information provided through such sites is a subject of concern and as social algorithm news feed favors the shares, virility, outrageous or controversy. In general, such algorithms have come under attack for enabling radicalization, although, a big target has been YouTube’s recommendation algorithm.
The information easily found today through social tools such as the Wikipedia, news sites, scholarly articles, database repositories, image archives and so on has provided us with the ability to access information on a scale that was unimaginable a few years ago. But the Internet also brought an “attention economy” with high LOI, misinformation and noise which are at a higher growth rate.
To achieve more clicks, higher ad revenues, online publishers exaggerate headlines, focus on or even provoke controversy or appeal to the political bias of a side. Internet has also helped to create more engaging and engaging media through 360 photography, augmented and virtual reality technology that offered new opportunities although these tools are still relatively actively using.
Facilities of access to cloud computing, data storage, high speed videocommunication, and collaborative tools have made possible of telecommuting and global working in even in organizations with decentralised structure. Technical, creative, and knowledge workers regardless of their home location are no longer bound to the constraints of their locations.
These technologies make it possible to employ assemble teams of great talent on project all over the world. E-business has let corporate organizations avoid costly bets on physical buildings or on specialized tools and arrangements of work that their employees might undertake over the Internet. But this flexibility has also resulted in working longer hours and Have a really blurred working and personal life. Pervasive connectivity to devices and work apps has changed the stress level towards higher.
As the internet media giant that allows for endless copying and pasting, the internet has been called the world’s largest photocopying machine. Though this has promoted creativity and interaction now it has become a menace to several industries such as music, films, television, books, and so on because piracy regularly violates copyrights or reduces the revenues. Revolutionary Internet technologies have invariably been met by opposition from traditional industries until the time they are able to figure out feasible business models. For instance, in the area of online publishing the conventional paradigms in advertising based revenue models had to be developed. Also, streaming TV has gained its sense soon after some piracy problems, in terms of subscription bases like Netflix.
In the Internet media, the new technologies of digital media enabled the political campaigns to deliver specific and targeted mesh and ads. Social media and hyper partisan groups have thus thwarted formation of consensus in political discussions. The social media has been utilised to the maximum in the spreading of propaganda, fake news and dis- information to topple democracies. Worryingly, countries have now started funding huge resources in cyber warfare departments as the world slowly progresses in enhancing its capacities of offence and more importantly surveillance. Demonstrators and activists around the globe are also blocked, bullied and repressed en-masse by authoritarian state.
The so called hackers and pioneers of the Internet have created a technological environment that corresponds to openness, meritocracy, transparency and decentralization implant to a distributed system. But as billions of routine Internet users came online and as private corporate power emerged the common Internet golem has locked in his identity, preferences, behaviors and personal data in proprietary corporate facilities like Google, Facebook, Amazon and the like bartering off our privacy for utility. That is an inverse power structure typical of dictatorial jurisdictions where a few private platforms and governments spy and manipulate users and society for profit and control.
Argued earlier, Web media and new technologies of communication are revolutionizing the world more than ever before. However, to realize their full democratic social and economic potential certain Degree of policy interventions is required as in data protection, fake news and misinformation, toxicity regulation, governing platforms dominated by commercial Internet companies. As with goal-directed early Internet technologies and protocols to intentionally allow decentralize potentialities, policy makers today carry a burden to guarantee human rights, consumer protections, and public good is presided over by the current international digital network that underpins a good deal of our discourse.
Global media and communication have been revolutionized greatly by the internet. New media specifically internet media has impacted traditional forms of media greatly in the few decades as a result giving people the power to produce, transmit and receive data in this case information massively. For one thing, it offers enormous opportunities, and, on the other hand, new challenges that stem from this transformation confront the society in many forms.
Opportunities
Access to information
Internet media offers people a chance to get the huge amount of information and knowledge that they never had chance to get in the past as a layman. General reference search engines such as those of Google enable children, and everybody else, to search for answers to every question one can think of. Internet makes access to information much more democratic; they can make informed decisions, learn about the things they are interested in.
Greater Participation and Participation
Internet technologies incorporating internet media into their work enable many people to be involved in generating, selecting, and disseminating newsgroups and other digital information. Whereas earlier only the major media conglomerates had the capability and authority to produce and disseminate media messages, today every commoner with a smartphone can broadcast opinions and artistic production to the world. It brings people into more prone political campaigns and concludes more discussion about political causes and by extension gets more people involved in this.
Collaboration and Connectivity is the new norm.
Internet media can enable people to easily get and meet with others despite the geographical location of the parties. New patterns of affiliating have been realized through the uses of social media platforms. They facilitate people to come together making decision or taking joint actions as rates seen through different social movement sustained by any platform starting from Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Economic Opportunities
To enhance its financial capabilities with the Internet, content generation, influencers, bloggers, and businessmen have new additional income streams. Currently, there are so many people with a large following on the channel to act as YouTubers and influencers. Major ecommerce platforms form reliable channels that help that small business to connect with customers around the world. The gig economy platforms provide a link between freelancers and jobs. Such economic opportunities include: Economic prospects that are assisting in shaping employment and innovations.
Better Learning and Education
The Internet media makes learning accessible by offering courses to different people of different ages. Most of these ideas can be seen being implemented in production of short YouTube videos, MOOCs and other forms online learning that offer cheap ways of acquiring skills. More so, during the COVID pandemic whereby schools shifted online, such platforms have been of great value.
Challenges
Filter Bubbles and Fake News
The social networking algorithms also control the flows of content provided with using the representative’s previous activity and preferences. The outcome leads to filter bubbles, static echo chambers where the user is only exposed news that caters to their very established niche. Fake news disseminated through social media tools reached the audience much more than verified news. With regard to news feeds, such algorithmic control is connected with increased stagnation of partisan political opinions and the overall ideological polarization of society.
Crisis of attention and internet addition
Here we find the paradoxical attention regime of the commercialized Internet media: constant informational input and interruption technologies inherent to net media areas constitute deep attention problems. The more we update our status, comment or ‘like’ posts throughout the day, the worse we become at paying attention, concentrating, or thinking things through. This has led to continuity of distraction and information chaos which has provoked anxiety and depression issues.
Privacy Trade-offs
To use the services of free online platforms and connection instruments, we give our info and privacy consciously or involuntarily. Advertisers monitor user information and develop online behavioral patterns in an effort to promote goods and services. Information acquired via such digital media and pertains to personal lives, tendencies, associates or position might be utilized with intrusion to privacy.
Meaningful Human Interaction
While social media tools offer connection benefits, most of them are known to harm depth and strength of human connection. The instantaneous relational communication reduces children and other people’s ability to garner social rewards through face-to-face social interactions and interpersonal relationships derived from live experiences. How such less meaningful social exchange plays out in the long run requires further study.
Digital Divide and Other Forms of Inequalities
The availability of opportunities through internet technologies is still a no-go zone for a large segment of the global population who dwell in impoverished areas, or shanties of the developing world, in rural areas. The geographical, income, educational or age related split means the full benefits of the internet are restricted. This difficulty of embracing technology means that even within populations that have access, the digital skills gap triumphs and limits the majority’s engagement with opportunities online. These inequalities aggravate the social and economic inequalities between societies throughout the world.
Regulation Challenges
Internet media is an influential, fast-growing and a global platform, which makes exercising regulation and governance the work of policymakers difficult. Finding ways of navigating issues of privacy, fake news and a monopoly of power, misuse by the extreme with ideas of freedom of speech and promotion of new technologies is a challenging and pressing question. They are supposed to be shared between the large tech companies and policymakers charged with addressing the problem. We determine the future of societies across the globe depending on the regulators we select in regard to digital technologies.
Conclusion
Hitherto, Internet tools offer unique interaction capabilities to every corner of the globe presenting boundless potential in information retrieval, creativity, invention, trade, relationships, advocacy, and learning. But there are still big pieces to tackle — filter bubbles, internet addiction, privacy violation, relationship app features, the digital gap — and lots of moderation of big tech. Thus the opportunities or challenges from the virtual transformation of societies will keep rising. As Internet media integrates into many more aspects of life, people and policymakers ought to be intentional about designing communication environments for humane technologies that respect privacy and human values.