The impact of Technology

The Technology Timeline. 

Movie Camera Development/black and white                                                                          1894 

silent era of black and white films                                                                                    1900-1927 

Edward A Turner and George Albert Smith invented colour                                                    1906

Scotsman invented television                                                                                                    1926 

Some synchronised sound appears                                                                                  1927- 1979 

Computers getting invented                                                                                                       1939

Technology improved                                                                                                       1970-1990 

Home Video invented                                                                                                       1970-1980 

CGI                                                                                                                                           1980's

non linear                                                                                                                          1990-2010

DVD'S replaced VHS                                                                                                                1995 

Internet                                                                                                                            1990s-2005 

Technology Has come a very along way and we can see it in films like avatar and all the technology
that was used in the making of the film.

Key quotes. (taken from Miss Stott's Blog.) 

“A broader version of conventional literacy, which enables all visual, aural and digital forms, seeking to enable people to become thoughtful producers and interpreters of media” (Peter Fraser)


“By looking at how culture is used and transformed by social groups, cultural studies see people not simply as consumers, but as potential producers of new social values and cultural language” (Toby Miller 2006) new media such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Blogger etc. is a classic example of consumers becoming producers and, as Miller says, ‘potential producers of new social values and cultural language’ because any individual can reach as mass audience.


Gauntlett (2007a) goes as far as to say that new media (and new media technologies) erodes the boundary between producer and audience to the extent that it makes little sense to talk about media audiences at all anymore: “Conventional research methods are replaced—or at least supplemented by new methods which recognise and make use of people's own creativity, and brush aside the outmoded notions of 'receiver' audiences and elite 'producers' (Gauntlett, 2007)

Exam practice question.

The continuing of media practices throughout the years has a huge effect on the audience for many reasons and one of huge significance would be that when making a film, the producers and directors want to emerge their audience into the movie and make them feel as if they are in the movie without characters. However with bad equipment , this would not be possible because the technology these days allow the directors and producers to do such things. They fully emerge their audience and they want to see more. 10 to twenty years ago, this would have been the same because then, people would not have known any better quality of technology but with the continuing of media practices in the film world, people these days have seen pretty much everything, making it difficult to create something new and exciting.This is very significant because it could eventually lead to the fall and collapse of the film industry now. (as we know it)

The theory that can relate to this would be Toby Miller's quote in 2006, " by looking at how culture is used and transformed by social groups, cultural studies see people not simply as consumers, but as potential producers of new social values and cultural language." because it shows that the viewers of the films are very important because they are the ones that can show interest in the technology. If they see that the technology is not changing or improving, they may find it boring and not go to see many more movies.

Apart from the audience, the other significant thing that it can change and help would be the cinemas because if you use a brand new type of filming equipment for filming a new film, it may not be compatible with the screening type of the cinema.