Week 6- consumption and production

The main topics discussed in this week lectures was consumption and production which I must admit sounded pretty boring when I first read the title, however its actually pretty interesting and relevant...

Technology has allowed consumers to have a part in the creation. For example; producing your own facebook identity (big screen) or designing your own layout of your ipod (small screen).

It was also brought up in the lectures about news creating a field for content to be produced. I’d never really noticed it before but on a second look a lot of the news channels have no problems using civilian/amateur video footage and photos. Quality is desirable but not imperative. What is important is that they at least have some footage to provide to the public. In fact a teacher from a photojournalism subject I took told us that if professional equipment is unavailable then to use a phone or compact camera. Apparently it’s satisfactory to have a low quality image/video, as it’s better than nothing.

That’s probably why we are seeing so many home videos on the news these days- if a home recording shows incidents more dramatically then the professional cameramen its sure to be used as well. For example, a hurricane filmed by a family in the middle of it as apposed to a camera man recording it from the outside. In that instance the home footage would be valuable to the media.

This brings a whole new element to the news (in a sense its collaborative with the public) and to the idea of consumers creating. None of this would be possible without the new technologies that are widely available to us today.