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2732 New Media TechnologiesHow to answer the essay style question. As I have said any times, I would always favour the first question (3) and these notes really support that question. You may however choose 4 if you feel able to tackle it. 

• You don’t have time for a long introduction. Get stuck in!

• Try to make sure that you talk about a couple of technologies in reasonable detail. In other words, if you are writing about the internet, try to refer to specific websites. If you are writing about phones, try to refer to some specific developments/new models etc.
• Don’t be afraid to draw on your own personal experience. If you know a lot about video games for example, don’t hold back from considering the subject in detail.

• Be ready to answer the following three very standard questions. They may not come up, but there is a very good chance that one of them will. Be prepared.

With reference to you case studies…

In what ways have new media technologies changed leisure patterns?

- you should write about social communication/interaction. How new media now dominates our leisure time. How the boundary is now blurred between leisure/professional. Our workstations are also our home entertainment systems. We pick up our business e-mails on our Blackberry/laptop even when we are away on family holidays etc etc

In what ways are new media technologies more interactive?

- Don’t forget that ‘interactivity’ really has two meanings for us here. 1. interacting/communicating with other people or communities of people through the media (phone, e-mail, social networking, websites, blogs etc)

2. interacting/participating with the text itself. Involvement in the production of media text. (TV voting, message boards, videogames, ‘the red button etc)

You should try to define what you mean by interactivity in your essay and you should include some consideration of both meanings.

How important are size and portability?

• If this comes up don’t just get carried away with everything (iPods, phones) getting smaller and smaller. Also write about the point where small stops being beautiful. In other words, when playing games, watching video clips on your phone cannot compete with the experience of playing games on a dedicated console or watching a DVD on a big screen in your sitting room.
• You should also consider how some technologies (TV and ‘Home Cinema’ have actually got bigger in recent years. While we might judge the quality of mobile phones by how small they are, we might judge the quality of a TV by how big it is. Also, we could argue, that the much predicted ‘death of the cinema’ has not come to pass and cinema attendance is on the increase and cinema screens are getting bigger.

The Word version of this document is here:2732-new-media-technologies-essays.doc