New Fast Media

The media has become exceptionally fast. So fast that you can get anything you want in a blink of an eye. Just a few decades ago, you had to wait for the seven o’clock news to know what was going on. Then CNN came and delivered 24 hours around the clock news. People didn’t think they needed it at first. They thought that such an idea was ridiculous. Why would someone want to know what was going on all the time. The seven o’clock news was just fine. Little did they know that in just 20 or 30 years, half an hour without opening Twitter would be like a knife to the heart for some people.

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People now have to know exactly what is going on at any single point in time. Not only so, they also report what is going on with them all the time. The new fast media gave people this opportunity, and boy did they grasp at it. Having the full understanding of reporting things minute by minute, people now have the same expectations from the media. They want small quick bites of recent events, interesting happenings, and even the funniest jokes.

A new form of novels has appeared in Japan called "cellphone novels". These novels are short, fragmented, and consist mainly of dialogue. They're often written in the first person and cater to an audience that usually reads manga or comics. These cellphone novels had actually been dismissed by Japan until recently as a "subgenre unworthy of the country that gave the world its first novel". But eventually they accepted that these novels are extremely popular and successful in getting the youth to read more.

One 21 year old woman, Rin, wrote a cellphone novel called "If You". It was turned into a 142 page hardcover book and sold 400,000 copies! Quite impressive.

The media itself has begun to cater to people’s “fast” needs. Studies have shown that the more words a page has, the more people skim it (Catone, 2008). So as Nicholas Carr says in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”: “As people’s minds become attuned to the crazy quilt of Internet media, traditional media have to adapt to the audience’s new expectations”. Newspaper articles have to shorten themselves if they expect many readers. They have to put in pictures, interesting comments, and catchy items. A lengthy article, however interesting and deep it may be, is no longer in style. Small bites and pieces of interesting trivia are in style today.

Bibliography

1. Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The Atlantic — News and Analysis on Politics, Business, Culture, Technology, National, International, and Life – TheAtlantic.com. Web. 10 May 2011. <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/>.

2. Catone, Josh. "What the Heck Happened to Our Attention Spans?" SitePoint » Web Design, Web Development, Freelancing, Tech News and More. 25 July 2008. Web. 10 May 2011.

3. Onishi, Norimitsu. "Thumbs Race as Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular." New York Times 20 January 2008. Web. 30 May 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/world/asia/20japan.html?pagewanted=1>.