The Internet, Media, and Us

By Jourdynn Cooper

In Kiki Wallick’s story, ‘Multimedia Reports: Indicators of Journalism in the Digital Age’ she discusses how journalism is changing in our world today. From different practices to new technology, including interactive graphics, different ways to capture photos such as 360-degree cameras and 3-D cameras, and many other ways aspects to appeal to today’s audience.

While the advancements in the digital realm help to make us all more interested in the stories we read there are also environmental impacts from what we are posting. Pictures and videos we upload online can add to the storage needed to on large servers that require massive amounts of energy, as learned from Heather Ipsen in the article ‘Digital Footprints’.  The waste from our old cell phones and what we post online, has an environmental impact most of us do not even think of.

Another article, ‘Mediating Infrastructures: (Im)Mobile Toxicity and Cell Antenna Publics’ Rahul Mukherjee, Mukherjee discusses the issues caused by telephone towers. Radiation was emitted from the antennas of the tower. One of the key issues is that the antenna is immobile, while we carry our cellphones with us at all times.  While we have the convenience of always having access to our phones, the phone itself and the towers for it, are harmful to us and our environment. Mukherjee discusses the ideas of ‘mediating infrastructures’, taking into account each stakeholder. While we focus on what we post online, we have to take into account what we are using to post online, and our cellphones are having a negative impact.

While pictures, videos, and interactive graphics may make stories and articles more interesting, they are also taking up more space and generating more power just to post this article. Then we have to decide if the simple entertainment of the extra aspects of the article are worth the energy they are using to be published.

 ‘Is Your Internet Use Destroying the Environment?’ discusses how our internet use if affecting the environment, but also offers some helpful ways to reduce our use. Unplugging and turning off your computer when not in use and buying a second-hand computer instead of a new one, the same could go for our phones which many of us replace every two years, generating a different kind of waste.

This all sounds very discouraging, but the advancements in journalism have changed the game. As long as we are aware of how we are impacting the internet and environment with our posting and our electronic devices, we can be more conscious of our choices.