Digital media has changed the ways ideas, information, and arguments Essay

Digital media has changed the ways ideas, information, and arguments in society are communicated both locally and globally - Essay Example This revolution has changed the people’s lifestyles and actions are manipulated by the information that they can access. The availability of information due to digital technology has brought along positive and negative impacts on the new society referred to as the network society. This paper features out the various ways in which digital media has impacted on the society’s way of thinking and reasoning, and how this has changed their course of actions. In the Dark Age, an age where information was a scarce resource, the behavior of the people was so much influenced by their community traditions and social-cultural norms. Information was common only on the elite people and the society highly depended on such while working out their decisions. The elite community would misuse this privilege of having information to manipulate the reasoning of the people to make decisions that would favor their individual goals. This was common in the political arena where politicians woul d influence the voting process to suit their political ambitions during the campaign period. Deprived of the power of information the people were likely to arrive at immature conclusion and consequently uninformed decisions (Silverstone, 2005). The evolution of information technology has phased out this era and information can no longer be hoarded among the few elite in the society. Today, dense media networks are available and accessible to all humanity in the entire world, and its power cannot be ignored (Risi, 2013). The evolution of telecommunication devices and numerous service providers have brought about a whole new experience for the community with information from the global view available to the majority of the people. With television people can access live information, and with digital mobile phone communication takes place in real time across the boundaries. According to Silverstone (2005), the evolution of the digital technology has brought a new different morphology of the society, and the digital trends will have more influence on the society that it had ever been imagined. The proliferation of the internet has completely changed the world into a global village by closing in the distance that existed between different national boundaries. The emergence of video conferencing technology today people can communicate and hold conferences from their remote locations without any problem (Risi, 2013). The internet resource has become an answer for multinational corporations and international business can now be conducted at ease. The numerous social networks in the internet have formed new platforms where people can communicate, share and pass information, exchange ideas and influence the peoples thinking process, and hence their decision making practice (Silverstone, 2005). One of the areas where digital media have been used to influence the decision making process of individuals is in the political field. Today, political agendas can be propagated ac ross the world at a click of a mouse and it only takes few minutes before the entire world responds to an issue. This has had a great impact on the political campaigns since the factors of time, cost and distance have been put behind by the evolution of technology. On the other hand the people have vast information which they can use as a ground to make more informed and wise decisions. For instance, Cambodian politics general