New media - a technological or a socio-cultural evolution?

I one of the first articles I have read on new media in society, authors were questioning themselves whether the new media are a social phenomenon or a technological change? Where is the boundary? Is there even one, or is it all interdependent? Do we have a revolution or is it just an evolution?

It is interesting that the articles I have read were written in 1999 by well-know authors Roger Silverstone and Sonia Livingston. Both authors recognized the interdependence between society and technology. With my background in economics, especially in marketing, I connected their perspective with my opinion. I believe most organizations in the market, especially successful ones, are market oriented. Therefore organizations seek to satisfy unfulfilled needs in the market. Taking this even further, from this concept it is clear that a change is driven mostly by the society. I do agree that change is interdependent. There is nothing without innovation. Organizations have to develop their technology all the time, in a way that they can offer a superior product or service for satisfying unserved needs in the market. Overall, the change is driven by both, the society and organizations (technology).

Do we have a revolution? I don't think so. Socio-cultural trends are one of the slowest changing macro trends in the market. If most organizations are market-oriented, that means that we have an evolution and not a revolution.

Introduction

Welcome to my blog, established for the New media and society class. At this point I would like to give you some information about my background and my interests.

I graduated in 2009 from the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana and from Queen’s University (Queen’s School of Business, Canada), where I spent one year on exchange. Since 2005 I have been working as an entrepreneur in show business industry, in the last year mostly focusing on consulting. With this course, I am hoping to get a better insight into how to use online tools for finding valuable information (digital libraries, literature resources) and to understand opportunities and technology for online communications.

In the era of globalization, the Internet offers many options for retrieving information, connecting with interesting people, and I would like to be aware of those options. So far I have experience with online tools such as: social networking sites (LinkedIn, Facebook), peer-to-peer communication (Moodle, Google groups), and some online literature resources. There are more and more tools available and it is hard to explore all of them. I am hoping to get an idea of what tolls are available and which of them are the most useful for my needs.

I am looking forward sharing my thoughts with you!