Why is consumerism a concept central to this unit?
It is a central concept because NMT's are driven by consumerism. Over the years, the average spending on NMTs has seen a dramatic rise. This may been seen in your own household, for instance, how many televisions are there altogether? How many mobile phones do you have as a family? How many games consoles do you have in total? Mobile phones, multi-channel TV, broadband subscriptions, and online gaming subscriptions are all products and services which 10 years ago either didn’t exist or were considered luxuries are now ‘essentials’ for modern existence. Time has gone on, and the level of expectation both of the consumer and manufacturers of aspirational products has gone sky high! So much so that there may be a divide of people that do have a certain product and those that dont. This may be the cause of the 'negative technological determinists' theory of social fragmentation.
How do we often 'unwittingly give up our privacy'?
A supposidly sinister aspect of NMT's is the power they offer to others to monitor our activities. For example, google has the power to remember every search you've ever made, and amazon remembers the items you've browsed on it's site. many institutions are concerned about the security implications of mobile phones and PDAs as they may be used to steal valuable information, given their excistence combined with their ability to be everywhere and improved features such as data storage and good quality camera functions. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are another innovation that could have consequences for civil liberties. It would be useful to your studies to research possible media applications. RFID tags can be almost invisible to the naked eye, yet are capable of reporting on the exact location of the object to which they are attached. Retail makes biggest use of them at the moment, but who knows how else they could be employed.
How have NMT's criminalised audiences?
What health and invironmental issues do NMT's pose?
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