As we enter into the new era of media, problems arise when it comes to trying to understand how media is shared and accessed in the wider community. Merrins discussion about the post-broadcast age is compared to the traditional broadcast age where media was far more streamlined through large companies. Merrin brought up 10 main points about the challenges that researchers as well as modern society faces in this growing digital age. One of the points that interested me was the idea of ephemerality, meaning, lasting a very short time. In the context of the article ephemerality was used to describe how the media produced to today is more ‘fragile’ than it was previously, both physically and socially. In a physical sense, the data that is stored on phones, hard drives, USB’s e.t.c. are highly susceptible to damage and there is a much greater chance of losing the media sources all together. In a social sense, the use and attention given to each aspect of media is very short. Merrin states that all the “messages and photos that are read, viewed, consumed, passed on, replied to, ignored, deleted, moved on from and almost immediately forgotten”, illustrating his idea of ephemerality in the modern age.

This raised questions in my head about “How do I use the media?” and “What does this mean for the future of digital media?”

The media today is very vast, volatile and sometimes dangerous. These issues may seem daunting, however they can be overcome with the right mindset and approach. Despite the problems that we face, Merrin suggests that researches as well as the general public must adapt to this change and have more awareness about the use of media in the post-broadcast age. Just like anything else in the world, ‘practise makes perfect’ and the same goes for the new age of media. Like any new experience we are cautious to explore the unknown, however, the more we search through the uncharted territories of media, the more we can learn and enrich our knowledge about the vast world we live in today.