History of Communication: Movies

Old and New Media: Movies

Point #1

The advent of the Internet era has broken the one-way spread of traditional media. In this new era, space is no longer a barrier to the masses’ instant communication. The scattered voices of ordinary individuals are awakened from the state of being annihilated and neglected, and they are rising. The content and elements the mass disseminate are richer, more diverse, individual, and much closer to the personal life and personal feelings of the public. But with the rise of the Internet age, many medium’s ways of mass communication have been greatly affected. The film industry is one of them.

Point #2

The film is a comprehensive art that can accommodate a variety of art such as literature, writing, drama, photography, music, painting, and dance. Its birthplace is in France. In the 1980s in China, the film screening method was completely different from the present. The movies were filmed at the time. There was a profession called “runner” at the cinema. The runners needed to run back and forth between several theaters. After a movie is shown in a theater, the film is sent to the next cinema, and the film is transferred between several theaters. At that time, it was almost impossible for viewers of different cinemas to watch a movie at the same time.

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This “running film” mode is also a great test for the projectionist. It is necessary to switch the film continuously, which is very exhausting. At the same time, there will be scratches after the film is displayed several times, so the screening effect is not good.

Not only that, the environment of the screening room is very simple. In the summer, the temperature of the whole screening room is very high. The projectionists are often hot and sweaty. The only fan is not blowing against the person, but blowing the machine and cooling the machine.

Point #3

With the development of Internet technology, it is not difficult for people to want to watch movies now. In the past, the types of films in China were very simple, mainly based on domestic films, and basically, all were patriotic anti-war films. Later, foreign films gradually entered the Chinese film market, and Hollywood movies were loved by many viewers. This also proves the globalization in Baran’s five trends of mass communication. Globalization enables more foreign information to be understood. Now, no matter where the cinema is, there are movies from different countries, which is a cultural push. The development of the network can accelerate this kind of globalization, and viewers can search for movie movies on their mobile phones or computers to find the movies they want, no matter what country’s movies, anytime, anywhere. This is also very helpful for the spread of movies and cultures in different countries.

Point #4

Another major link between Baran’s five trends of mass communication and the rise of the Internet age is hypercommercialism. The rise of the Internet has brought a lot of convenience to the public to watch movies, but the phenomenon of hypercommercialism has brought a lot of bad viewing experience to the audience. As mentioned in the hypercommercialism proposed by Baran, individual users can place an average of 1,707 banner ads at the top or bottom of the video. There are a lot of advertising pop-ups around when you open a web page, and there are a few minutes of advertising at the beginning of the movie. These sites force users to see the content they want to see after watching the ad. Before the rise of the Internet, people could only go to the cinema to watch movies, and it was difficult to see these advertisements appear on the screen of the cinema. Many of the films in the past were all open-air movies. After everyone sat down, the projectors began to show. There would be no such advertisements, and the viewing experience was very good. Therefore, hypercommercialism is actually a bad phenomenon for movie companies. Many users lose their patience because there are too many ads, or they wait too long, and if a website has a lot of advertisement pop-ups, users will even turn off the web page.

However, although the phenomenon of hypercommercialism will make the film industry’s reputation worse, the film company will actually make a lot of money. The film producers insert advertisements in the movie in exchange for investment and use these funds to develop other movies. However, the abruptness of those implantable advertisements in the movie cut off the smooth description of the story of the film itself, the natural connection of the scene, seriously affecting the expression of the film itself, and reducing the quality of the film itself. Therefore, implantable advertising has more harm than good to the development of movies.

Point #5

Although the development of the Internet has brought a lot of bad influences on the film industry, I personally think the development of the Internet is actually more beneficial than the disadvantages for the film industry. With the development of Internet technology, at the end of 2014, cinemas across the country can be selected online, and each cinema has corresponding ticketing applications. Through the mobile phone, viewers can directly choose to watch movies and seats in any place. The audience picks up the ticket at the cinema through the self-service ticket vending machine for a few seconds. Online seat selection saves a lot of time for people to queue up for tickets.

In addition to the change in the way tickets are sold, the way the film is promoted has changed a lot. In the 1980s and 1990s, the propaganda of movies mainly relied on the roadside propaganda bar, and the movie trailers were presented in the form of words or pictures in the propaganda column. With the emergence of various forms of communication such as Weibo, WeChat, and short video, people no longer only know new movies through cinemas. The appearance of various movie posters and trailers allows viewers to learn more about movies in more forms. Through these means of publicity, the popularity of the film will be higher, and the number of viewers will increase.

In conclusion, I think the medium movie has both benefited from new media and lost something as a result of new media, but the advent of the internet and technology has brought more good than harm to the movie industries. (Word count: 1067)

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