Blog 3, Week 7: can you teach and old dog new tricks?

I personally hate change. If I could I would avoid it at all costs. Yet sadly I have learnt that change is inevitable. I am also learning that not all change is bad. Sometimes change can be for the better and improve things. Technological determinism says that technology will force us to inevitably change our habits including our social and cultural habits. However is this a bad thing? Or should we continue to frame our thoughts and actions the way we have traditionally framed them?

The music industry has been transformed enormously the last decade or so. The traditional framing of the music ecology was to buy the CD or album of the artist you desired. This could be seen as the circle of life. The following video is from Disney’s The Lion King where Mufasa discusses the circle of life with his son Simba (only need to watch the first 35 seconds although I wouldn’t blame you for watching the whole video!). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po_jA5jE_X0

Mufasa discusses the ‘delicate balance’ and how ‘we are all connected’. When we bought CD’s from the local music store that was a delicate balance that promoted the circle of life. It allowed for musicians and studios and so on to get paid and that was the main and only system in place. And most importantly, it worked. Now however many people download their music illegally of the internet for free and many artists, studios, shops and employees in all these industries are complaining that they are losing money and work.

The journalistic ecology is in the same boat. There is no more traditional framing of buying the newspaper. That is a dying concept. Many are now reading the important, if not all articles online at no cost. The New York Times have recently argued that they may introduce a pay wall and charge people for reading online. I find this interesting and don’t think it will work as I believe that it is too late and people understand the wonderful world of the internet and how times have now changed and wont go back to the old traditional ways.