Written by Nur Hawa Shafiqa
Basically, the beginning of technology helps people reducing time constraints, space, and distance. Look further to the existence of technology, the impact may be divided into two which are positive and negative. Today, technology has made major changes in both print media and motion pictures industries.
Long before, print media used Gutenberg printing process which may take longer than expected. During Gutenberg time, the compositors put type together by hand, and skilled compositors could bring together 2000 characters or letters in an hour. This day as the technology evolved, inventors adapted the new technologies to revolutionize the printing process. From steam engine to electrical engines, the new technology revolutionized the printing process.
Some scholars said when the technology takes over the whole print industry, it has no future. Print readers declined themselves from reading anymore, newspaper companies closing and labor experiences being out of work. Nowadays, the struggle of print media against new media is not new. In Malaysia, due to this advancement of the technology, one of the press branch companies, New Straits Times Press (NSTP) in Terengganu was shut down because the newspaper circulation is decrease.
Back then, the printing industry could make profit from the selling point of the newspapers or books. Today, printing industry is depends solely on advertisement to gain their companies’ profits. Unlike print newspaper, digital newspaper provides the journalist with 140 characters or fewer so they should have shortened their stories. The writing somehow should be long which means the whole stories may be disrupted.
Technology allows the printing industry hired limited employees unless they know how to use the new media. Before, the newspaper publication took one night to be published so the time of submission may be little longer, but today in 21st century, once the story completed, with the approval from the editor, the stories need to be published on the spot. This is due to the terrible economic.
Technology allows people to be connected to each other worldwide. For example, with the introduction of technology, people from Malaysia could reach global issues from the CNN websites wholly. They just need to connect to Wi-Fi or broadband; they are one step closer to search for what they need to know using laptop or portable device like smart phone.
Other than that, the news portal needs to battle with another online news publication. The online news publication; licensed or not usually took the news stories from the main source of news. For example in Malaysia, the stories in Siakapkeli Press were usually taken from BERNAMA as the main source. The situation pictured that the journalist has to deal with the new media ethics. To take someone stories, they could not take it 100% without the person’s consent. What they need to do is to rephrase it using their own words.
The trend of online news this era is the existence of fake stories and news from a person who is no background of writing news at all. Example of a blog in Malaysia is OhBulan. In order to write news, there must be specific guideline and some ethics that must be followed by the writers. With the rise of online news, every person can create their own website and publish any stories without proper guidelines. There are a lot of issues regarding the fake news that has been published and it has gone viral on social media especially.
On top of that, the digitalization of print media can cut the cost of paper. It means that newspaper publication does not need paper at all. It goes digital where journalists or writers write their stories by typing it on keyboard of a desktop or laptop and publish it online. In Malaysia before the digitalization process began, the newspaper industry need paper and ink to print out the stories they wrote. The process however took longer than publish it online.
Unlike print newspaper, print book seems to be okay. Some people might not accept the new trend of reading novels on devices. Malaysia are not out of list for giving the advantage to the primary students in Terengganu where Terengganu government invest millions Ringgit Malaysia (RM) to produce electronic textbook to its pupil. Some years later, the government believed that the method was not successful enough.
While in motion pictures industry, film industry today is much better than the previous one. Older people could mention their appreciation when they could observe the transformation of black and white film to color film. The quality of the pictures getting better and even people could watch film, movies or drama in high definition (HD). The picture is much clearer than the normal version.
The advancement of technology also gives advantage to the film industry where they can create 3D and 4D motion pictures which will be more interactive. 3D pictures allow the audiences to see the picture like real with the added of the special effects. Although technology give quite benefit to the industry, most of the motion pictures agency in United States merged or closed down (Winn).
Unlike Malaysian movie, English movies are better because of the additional of sound effects and so forth. For example, the film of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man Tell No Tales used drones to get the scene at sea. In Rogue One: A Star Wars Story used air cannon explosion to make the scenes look like real. While filming of The Jungle Book, the filmmakers experimented with virtual reality headsets as a way to see the virtual set created through CGI (Motion Picture Association of America).
In addition to the negative area of technology advancement in this industry, the battle between the filmmakers and piracy has begun. Most of the people, globally, love to watch free movies on YouTube or pirate websites. One of the pirate websites is 123.movies. These days, filmmakers have to fight against piracy otherwise all costs invented to produce one movie are a waste.
However in Malaysia, TV3 and Astro took the chance to create their own website to reach bigger audiences. The audiences could stream freely or some contents should be subscribed. But then again, technology is much faster. Anonymous people took advantage on the advancement of the technology. They still can create another pirate website for their own profits.
Some of the filmmakers are smart. The technology allows the filmmaker to collaborate with the game makers to create a game related to the movie itself. It is also part of the marketing strategy. The game that is related to the movie in Malaysia is J Revolusi. Here, we could see how technology creates changes in motion pictures industry.
Technology is not only can reduce time constraints, space and distance. In print media and motion picture industries, technology can produce better quality of newspaper, book or magazine as well as film. Despite of all the struggles they faced, both print media and motion picture industries are somehow still active locally and internationally. By connecting people around the world, technology is not just give benefit to the people but also it can give unenthusiastic impacts to so many industries.