Network media-Blog analysis: Reflecting upon the reflections
In the my previous two posts, I raised a lot of questions more or less focused on how the idea that the over saturation of content (both high and low production) has spoiled us for choice and has made us cling to the content we know online as to not waste our time. Reflecting upon this further, the questions that I ask my self is if the influx of major production companies into the world wide web are the reason that people are becoming less active and more passive with their online consumption? Has the creation of ‘online networks’ gotten rid of the authentic, personal voices that people had on the internet a few years ago? Or have we always projected what we wanted people to see us as online?
With the rush of major production companies and mainstream media outlets pouring money and their content into the internet, they seem to be drowning out the small authentic content creators. On the other hand, lots of early internet content creators have risen to large production company status from their humble beginnings on the internet. Has the content they are making lost the original flair and heart that their older content had? Was the content they were making before they become a large online media network more authentic? Has the invasion of mainstream media online discouraged people from posting online?
Through out theses posts I have also frequently touched on the idea of the internet being both a impersonal and unauthentic projection of the people authoring content on it. But in the few ways that author things online I only ever message or send content to people that I know and never go out of my way to share the opinions or content that I make with strangers. Have we as a society, just become jaded towards the idea of sharing everything online due to the over saturation of content and the unauthentic internet personas that we project to the world?
One interesting take on this was on a blog that one of my classmates posted. In her post, she shared some photos that she took to a more or less public Instagram account but had a separate private account for her friends and family to view more personal photos. The idea of having one account forward facing to the public to display what you want people to see you as, and another private account that is more true to you for people like family is an interesting way to use the medium for sure. But both accounts can still raise the question of if they are authentic projections of the person posting.
