Name: Vivynna Bunsi Ann Anak Jimmy Chabu

Matric Number: 77112

Group 1
PBK 3164 Quiz 1
1. Write a brief reflection (between 100-150 words) on the term ‘the medium is the message’ (2
marks).

“The medium is the message” is McLuhan’s famous aphorism. The meaning of this saying
consists of two meanings, the messages that we received not only from interpersonal and
semantic communication but also the medium that carried it. Medium in the past was TV, radio,
magazine and book but the medium in today is social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
Youtube and Tik-Tok. These messages and medium influence in human relation and human
cognition. Human relation for traditional medium is more one way communication and less
feedback from the audience but the legitimacy of the messages is true. The new media medium
has two way communication and much faster but the authenticity of the message is vague. This
medium can help in improving relations between humans and help students to study more easily.

2. Share your thoughts (between 550-600words) on TWO (2) aspects you already know, OR
what TWO (2) new knowledge you have gained about. Provide examples to support your
thoughts. (8 marks)

Technology in communication is a double sword. Last week in class we talked about how the
internet influences our life and one of our classmates says too much information on the internet
makes them lazy. It is true that the internet makes our life easier and we can get all kinds of
information at the tips of our fingers. The downside of this convenience is information overload,
people get lazy looking for the information and wait for others to tell them either through social
media or face to face communication. Technology helps improve human interaction massively,
distance and time problems are small matters as long as internet connections are available.
However technology also exposes us to lack of authenticity of information, less human
interaction in real life and spending more time in front of a phone screen instead of facing other
humans.
For example, a kid that has been exposed to a smart phone at a young age will not be able to
have normal conversation with other people without anxiety due to lack of interaction within
family members itself. Especially after COVID-19 hit the world, people only interact with each
other through their screen and it is good to always stay in touch with each other. But the problem
appears when they can’t have a conversation in real life because they are always texting each
other instead of having face to face conversation. It is hard to balance virtual and reality due to
rapid development in technology in communication. We can only balance it by keeping
technology that eases our daily life but maintain our human interaction in reality because that is
what makes us a society.

Media is the medium of communication. There are two types of media, traditional media and
news media. Traditional media barely survived this day, it is not because people rarely watch
television, rarely listen to radio or people just not read but the rapid development from news
media make this traditional media less of a favourite option. The sentiment of traditional media
is still there but people in the industry need to race against trends out there. They cannot be left
behind in terms of trend, then the programme will receive low ratings and will get cancelled.
Especially when they are fighting with Youtube in terms of audience. Youtube is so huge that it
is a job now; Youtuber or content creator. Books on the hand have two kinds of situations.
People with a huge sentiment of books smell and like to hold books while reading will choose
books, but for people that like convenience they will choose ebooks as their chosen platform.

News media faced different challenges, this media needed to keep their base relevant, before
TikTok there was another media named Vines, this medium was at the top of its games during its
prime but it didn’t survive long. Another media like Music.ly was totally replaced by TikTok and
it has the same feature as Vines which is 15 seconds of video but now can be extended to 10
minutes. Another social media that will be replaced soon or not relevant is Snapchat. The special
feature from Snapchat is their stories but now every social media has the feature; Facebook,
Instagram and Whatapps. The news media is changing people's lives in a way people didn’t
know were possible in the past. All this application will keep updated and the news apps will
appear but the fact all this media are used for communication is defined. It is all about how we
utilise it and how we communicate with those applications by using their special features.