Introduction
The advent of digital media era has a profound impact on people’s life, it brings a lot of convenience to the social life, and also changes the relationship between human beings. The advent of digital media erahas great effects on all aspects ofsociety .
With the rapid development of modern information technology, network acting as the forth media which follows newspaper, broadcast and television, gets deeply into all aspects of social life. In the last few years, the words----new media appears quite frequently, many passage analyze the new media from different angles. Therefore, what the new media actually is? It is generally recognized that the new media is a new form followed newspapers, radio stations and TV stations supported by a new technological system, it includes Internet, network, broadcast, network television, mobile TV, IPTV,digital magazine, digital newspaper, digital broadcasting, and SMS. The main characteristics of new media are spreading fast, covering wide area and very interactive. With the development of new technology, the form of new media become more and more plentiful, readers can not merely accept messages but also provide messages and even create messages. People live in a time of great technological advancements, as a result, they have to see the essence and the trend of the development of mass medium, meet the needs of the social development better, which can make significance sense to social development.
The Definition of Digital Media
Digital media is a special media that stores, processes and disseminates information in digital form?Volkmer, Ingrid.,1999), however ,some researcher indicate that for the media which is moving forward to digitization, the definition is far too narrow,
Is short of systematization and theoretical depth. The researcher considers the digital media is the digital media is the message that exist in a digital form or the medium or equipment that stores, spread and receive digital information , it includes hardware facilities and software that support the hardware facilities and, more important, it includes digital information. From the broad sense, digital media is not just limited to the media, it also includes new things combined with a variety of digital technology products such as digital TV, digital film, digital broadcasting, video game, digital publication, etc (Lister, Martin, Dovey, Jon, Giddings, Seth. Grant, Iain. & Kelly, Kieran.,2003). From the narrow point of view, people can regard digital media as a new form of media that differs from the traditional print media (mainly refer to newspapers and magazines), according to different carriers, the new media can be divided into three types: take the network as carrier, take the electronic paper as carrier and take the mobile phone as carrier.
the Phenomenon of Digital Media Era’s Formation
1.The rise of personal media
With the development of the Internet, skilled people who have no media resources and platforms before can show their own comments and wisdom on the Internet , at the same time, they can form a certain expression platform.
?Everyone is the media, as long as you can disseminate information,you are the media.General personal media transmission means include all kinds of traditional material carriers, such as letters, cards, files and so on (Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pg. 57). In the last few years, with the development of the network, especially the so-called Web2.0, each person's influence is expanding through the Internet, the influence is no longer limited to relatives,friends and colleges. Each person’s influence is continuously growing. Personal media age is coming, the individual also has the rights to distribute information and product knowledge through various platforms and carriers.
Du Junfei (the professor of Nanjing University) said: “ The main reason behind the success of the personal media lies are its grassroots and self filtering functions, because of its grassroots,the personal media can play the unique role that many traditional media, mainstream media, and even the general sense of Internet media can not play. Moreover, the number of these personal media is huge, in my own words, if people see it one by one, the personal media might have some problem, but when the number of personal media is huge, it will have the magic function--- self purification and self filtration,which can make the information more clear in a pile of useless information(Volkmer, Ingrid.,1999).
In the last few years, a lot of major social events are first disclosed on the Internet, and then become a public topic, “everyone can be a reporter” can report more timely, more comprehensive and richer than traditional media. In many social events?people use mobile phones or digital cameras to record the whole process of the event, then put the video online the first time around, the speed is much faster than the official media, the personal media provides a special approach for people to understand the social events as soon as possible.
2.The rise of cyberculture
In a broad sense, cyberculture refers to human culture in network era, it shows human traditional culture,the extension of traditional morality and the diversification of traditional morality.In a narrow sense, the network culture is the creative activities in the spirit and its achievement which based on the network information technology, which gathers cultural activities, culture methods, cultural products and cultural ideas in cyberspace(Schorr,A & Schenk,M & Campbell,W.,2003). Network culture shows the diversity of social culture, and at the same time, it also forms its own unique cultural behavior characteristics, cultural features and the features of values and the way of thinking.
In the past time, people just chatted, played games or listened to music on the Internet, did a series of unnecessary things to pass time. However, in the recent years,with the development of network culture, people find that the Internet can bring them not only the required resources, but also give an opportunity to show themselves freely, and it is also an important process to drive a network phenomenon spreading. For example, the copycat phenomenon, "human flesh search" event. In this case, we can see the advantages and disadvantages that the Internet brings to us. When someone become angry, he can issue a wanted circular on the Internet, and whether the wanted man is a good man or a bad man, people can see almost all related private information about him on the Internet in a short time. People marvel at the magic power of the Internet, and at the same time, they get involved. Like many other r new things, the Internet is also always go with a variety of defects, such as violence website, hacking event, junk mails, Virtual property theft ,Trojan virus and other issues during the period of its growth(Manovich, Lev .,2001). And at present, there are many problem must be solved immediately, the network society appears a nonstandard career called the "Internet marketer", for example, Luo Yufeng, an Internet star who shot to fame with her bold remarks, was the “masterpiece” of the Internet marketer.
3.Participate the consumer era
With media’s attention of reader’s degree of participation increasing, especially the rapid development of network, there has developed a good atmosphere for the public to participate in the crucial link of information communication, people can express their own points of view more conveniently and quickly, people participate the news’ spreading and commentary, and even can left and right public opinion direction.
Passenger’s cell phone video images appeared in media the first time after the July 2005 London bombings. To this kind of emergency, professional journalists can not photograph the scene in spite of how fast they can arrive the scene. participation of the masses truly achieve that the latest news can be spread timely. Network is a stage where people can say what they want to say, people begin to fully enjoy the pleasure of participation and expression. BBS, MSN, blog, text message and E-mail has become new approaches of transmission. The popularity of DV make common people to be directors, in order to make people directly involved in, the radio station even put the live telecast into the site of activity.
The Impact on the Social Relations
The development of human information has experienced a long process, from the oral spreading, the emergence of print media, the emergence of radio and television, and now the Internet appears (Durham, M & Kellner, Douglas.,2001). The development of technology always brings great changes to the mode of transmission, and has a profound impact on the social life. The artistic tendency and aesthetic characteristics that the digital media shows actually abroad people’s vision and enrich people’ life. However, at the same time, people also should have a premonition of potential crisis that the art will face in the future, the crisis is from science,humanity and Its own challenges, orientation and relocation.
1.The impact on family and working environment
With the arrival of knowledge economy and information age, the former function of producing, consuming, teaching, raising and relaxing have changed, family also become a place to understand the world. And with the combination of family and working place, the working place is not limited to time and space anymore, people become more free. For example,in the last few years ,with the development of shopping online, people can buy everything they want without leaving home,just need a computer or mobile phone.
2.The change of self expression
In the previous TV shows, the audience just passively accept, they can not find a approach to express their own opinions. Because the social development level has changed and the network transmission technology has stepped forward, the audiences’ psychological expectation of accepting network information has turned from pursuing speed into exploring profundity, the mode of transmission has turned from one-way into double-way. The audience become more and more independent, people use virtual space---- the Internet, to develop a new relationship, such as blog, as long l as they have something in common with each other, they begin to discuss, and share their own view and suggestion, even they do not know each other.
3.The change of interpersonal relationship
With the development of Internet, there has formed a new social relationship, you can make new friends at any time in the virtual space. However, in the old days, people is always subject to space and time, and at present, as the emergency of mobile phone and network media, people break the bandage of time and space, they can communicate whenever and wherever. However, people have to say that the interpersonal relationship is more and more vague, sincerity might be investigated.
the Problems of Digital Media
1.Junk information
there exist a large number of junk information on the net, such as junk mails, false information and outdated information. Statistics show that Chinese netizens receive about 50 billion emails a year, including 30 billion junk mails, accounting for sixty percent. Junk message not only damage the telecommunication security, but also damage the users’ interests, and cause huge economic looses.junk message even can bring physical and mental harm to the young people by spreading bad messages such as gambling messages, drug abuse messages and trafficking messages.
2.intellectual property problem
Now the piracy and patent infringement is very common on the Internet. In order to increase hits, many sites reproduce news or passages from other newspapers or magazines without any special permission and payment. Citizens’ blog text, photos should be protected by law. If For-profit site use citizen’ photos and text without any special permission, people can see it as
an illegal behavior. But the information on the net can be changed at will, once for failing to preserve evidence, people will meet with a awkward situation, they know themselves is infringed, but they can not find a way to Maintain their own rights and interests. Therefore, aimed at the network characteristics, the government should improve the relevant laws to avoid different kinds of illegal activities, such as plagiarize others personal information by Internet or invade other people’s privacy.
Strengthen the Management of Information Dissemination Media
Everything is a double-edged sword,it both as advantages and disadvantages, so does the new media.The emergency of new media provide people with a new communication mode. Messages can across geographical and be spread all over the world in a short time, however ,based on spreader’s personal political stand, value judgment and motivation, the message may cause different social consequence. New media have brought some negative effects, for example,harmful massage especially the pornographic information and fraud information has caused huge damage to the society, and also caused great inconvenience for the security work. New media is a constantly changing thing, and there also exist many new function to be explored in the future, at the same time, new problems can be found one by one, so the government have to learn the other countries’ managerial experience of media and carry out effective plans.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the development of digital media not only brings great changes to human society, but also raises a new question to the research of media theory. Human have to think how to adapt to these changes, how to deal with these changes. Human needs are changing, people must adapt to new things. Look at new media and show it in a new way, instead being fettered by the new media, guide it, make it serve human better.
Reference
Atton, Chris "Reshaping Social Movement Media for a New Millennium." Social
Movement Studies, 2, (2003)
Volkmer, Ingrid (1999) News in the Global Sphere. A Study of CNN and its impact on
Global Communication, Luton: University of Luton Press.
Durham, M & Kellner, Douglas (2001) Media and Cultural Studies Keyworks,
Malden, Ma and Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishing
Lister, Martin, Dovey, Jon, Giddings, Seth. Grant, Iain. & Kelly, Kieran (2003) "New \ Media: A Critical Introduction", London, Routledge
Manovich, Lev (2001) 'The Language of New Media' MIT Press, Cambridge and
London
Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pg. 57
Schorr,A & Schenk,M & Campbell,W (2003),Communication Research and Media
Science in Europ