One of the themes I stress with students is how any new technology is
disruptive(see the note below) and here is a real world example.
Looking for green in podcasting | CNET News.com: "Podcasting may not be a revolution by itself. But experts at Wharton suggest that podcasting is one more step toward the disintermediation of media--with amateurs usurping the audience of media conglomerates."
[B]roadcast radio, which is under siege from the iPod, podcasting and satellite radio, ... will have to respond somehow.One way, says Leigh, is to embrace podcasting and make programming available on the Web without time constraints. Music labels are also at risk. Although most podcasts are talk, music is likely to follow. If music labels don't license their content, they lose a viable distribution channel and ultimately get usurped by sites like Garageband.com. As for satellite radio, Sirius has already embraced the podcasting movement, giving Adam Curry a channel modeled after his Podshow.com. Another looming issue revolves around digital rights of music.
podcasting
Marshall McLuhan
Laws of Media notes how all new technologies are disruptive.
- "What does the artifact ENHANCE or intensify or make possible or accelerate? This can be asked concerning a wastebasket, a painting, a steamroller, or a zipper, as well as about a proposition in Euclid or a law of physics. It can be asked about any word or phrase in any language."
- "When pushed to the limits of its potential (another complementary action), the new form will tend to reverse what had been its original characteristics. What is the REVERSAL potential of the new form?"
- "What recurrence or RETRIEVAL of earlier actions and services is brought into play simultaneously by the new form? What older, previously obsolesced ground is brought back and inheres in the new form?"
- "If some aspect of a situation is enlarged or enhanced, simultaneously the old condition or unenhanced situation is displaced thereby. What is pushed aside or OBSOLESCED by the new 'organ'?"
