Globalisation

Aim: To investigate the impact social media has had on human interaction.

Globalisation:

The process of international integration arising from the interchange and exchange of products, ideas, politics and popular culture. Globalisation is also seen as a way that international boundaries that once existed are broken down by the advent of new technologies. Social media has contributed to this, with the way in which users of a network can connect in an instant.

Citizen Journalists

The way in which audiences utilise the function of social media to instantly communicate ideas to others. Citizen journalists can now publish thoughts, comments, photographs and videos instantaneously, sharing them globally. This has revolutionised how we see the world around us, and how news is reported. It’s no longer solely in the hands of news/media conglomerates.

E.g. John Simpson

In his autobiography, A Mad World, My Masters, BBC war correspondent John Simpson describes how, before the advent of digital technology, newsreel would have to be taken out of war-torn countries by going to the nearest airport and asking travellers to take it back with them on the outbound flight.

Gatekeeper: in a media conglomerate they decide which stories and headlines are published.

"you ain't no muslim bruv" - terrorist in Leytonstone tube station carrying knife.




The Global village:

The way in which the web connects people from all over the world.

The term was coined by Marshall McLuhan in 1964. Basing his theories on the rise of television, he suggested new technologies could lead to a library network where people could access all manner of information. 

This was realised with the advent of the internet and Web 2.0. Geographical boundaries have been eroded as a result.

Key Term:

Web Utopians, such as David Gauntlett, celebrate the potential for collaboration and connectivity with new technologies. They believe online and social media technologies will benefit the world, allowing societies to come together.

Sharing of Technology and Innovations:

Open source – material that can be used or altered by companies as they wish.

eSports – virtual sports that are run on an electronic system, including MMORPGs. eSports communities have developed to such an extent that users come together in stadium venues to compete.

Key Terms:

Electronic agora – a term coined by Rheingold in 1991 – is used to describe online meeting spaces, such as forums and chat rooms, where people can discuss topics, ideas and ways to achieve collaboration of projects. Compared to business conferences where people had to meet face to face and make more of a social effort. However, using online networking allows you to network with business owners and employees around the world as well as allowing you to establish yourself as an expert in your niche. Similarly you can also host events or seminars online - you may receive a bigger audience with this because none of the participants don't have to travel. 

How Soundcloud changed music forever:
You can upload all the sounds you want, follow people to listen to the sounds they're posting, and save or repost them. Its music interaction and discovery distilled to its purest form.

What makes SoundCloud so special is that it offers a tool for musicians to create and distribute their art on a level playing field. Make a song, post it on SoundCloud—no expensive record deal or distribution plan required. Every minute, 12 hours of new music is uploaded to the service. So, unsurprisingly it's pretty generous with space. Up to two hours of uploaded content is free, four hours is $55/year, and unlimited space for $135/year. For most people that means SoundCloud is free to use and free to enjoy, another increasingly rare find.

We've heard from some music industry sources that SoundCloud is working with major labels on licensing deals, and from others that it has a pre-roll ad model, similar to YouTube, in the works. Hopefully that'll be enough. There is a lot of good happening in music right now; interesting artists popping up, genres being created, rules changed. And the bigger SoundCloud gets, the more possible those evolutions will become, one mixtape at a time.

Kickstarter: crowdfunding is a major way in which contemporary projects in all business sectors have been set up in the last 10 years. Launched in 2009, Kickstarter now has an average of 25,000 projects per year. Music, video gaming, film production and television have all benefitted. Since its 2009 founding, nearly 104,000 projects have successfully raised more than $2.3 billion on Kickstarter from friends, family and fans who want to help get those ventures off the ground. For entrepreneurs, especially those with consumer products like headphones, bags or video games, such crowdfunding has become a viable alternative to credit cards, bank loans or angel money. The backers, who give small amounts of money during the online fundraising period, get “rewards,” often the product itself, offered in advance and at a discount.

Two of the most successful companies built on Kickstarter:

Bragi

Founder: Nikolaj Hviid

Product: wireless headphones

Amount raised: $3.4 million

Why it’s successful: Bragi founder Nikolaj Hviid may have created the holy grail of wireless headphones with the Dash, an unobtrusive computer in your ear that sells for $299. The Dash can play music, track steps and act as a Bluetooth headset. “I’ve made way beyond 100 products in my lifetime, so I thought I had a good understanding of what it took to make these things,” says Hviid, the former manager of Designit Munich and head of design at Harman, the well-known audio company. “It has been the toughest thing I’ve ever done.” With the Kickstarter campaign and subsequent venture capital funding, Munich-based Bragi developed the buzzy earbuds – garnering 30 patents with another 150 in application – and sorted through the tricky issues of producing them in quantity and shipping them to more than 100 countries. Now, Bragi is on track to sell 600,000 units by yearend, and has another wearable in the works (that Hviid isn’t ready to talk about yet), that should push its revenues to $100 million. The Danish-born entrepreneur’s vision for wearables, however, goes far beyond earbuds to a view of how tinier and tinier products will make smartphones and other devices go by the wayside. “Eventually,” he says, “the screen will not be in your hand. It will be in a contact lens.”

WobbleWorks

Founders: Max Bogue, Peter Dilworth and Daniel Cowen

What it does: 3D printing pens

Amount raised: $3.9 million in two campaigns

Why it’s successful: Max Bogue and Peter Dilworth founded WobbleWorks in 2010 as a small toy company that mainly licensed its concepts to larger firms. But the Hong Kong-based firm really hit its stride with the 3Doodler, a 3D printing pen, launched on Kickstarter in 2013. Since then, the company has shipped more than 135,000 of the first version of the pen, and more than 260,000 of the second (priced at $99), and it recently released a 3Doodler pen for kids that’s made of child-safe plastic. One of the biggest advantages of the Kickstarter campaigns is that inventors can circumvent the stage of begging retailers for an audience, says 3Doodler cofounder Daniel Cowen, who oversees marketing and business development. Instead, they can simply prove the concept in a crowdfunding campaign, and then line up stores that want to sell it. Michaels Stores began testing the 3Doodler in certain stores in late-2014, and today the 3D pens are available for sale at Michaels, Amazon, Hammacher Schlemmer – and retailers as far afield as Turkey, Spain and Nigeria.

Kickstarter funded film: Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable 
Directed by Aaron Lieber

One of the most fearless and accomplished athletes of her generation. Bethany Hamilton became a surfing wunderkind when she returned to the sport following a devastating shark attack at age 13. This movie follows the story of how she continued with life and how she faced motherhood.
1,453 backpackers helped bring this project to life on Kickstarter.

Youtube tutorials - a way in which individuals are sharing ideas via social media channels. This is a good example of globalisation, where users across the globe can access content posted by other users (prosumers). Often, these are very niche – see primitive tech, for example primitive tech videos, such as how to build a house from nothing in the woods.