Media prognostication

Thirty years ago we got our news from newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. Today news comes via Facebook and Twitter. The Internet, PCs and smartphones were mere glimmers in the eyes of scientists 30 years ago. Music and movies were on albums, cassettes and videotapes. Today we stream movies to our smartphones in seconds. Every technology was invented for one purpose: To enable humans to take actions faster.

With this in mind, I want you to prognosticate the future of media. How and where will we be watching movies, listening to music and watching TV in the future? What will our smartphones do 30, 50 years in the future that they don’t do now? Will smartphones even exist anymore? Educate yourself on the future of media by reading on the Internet and be prepared to predict the future of media in an in-class essay. You can use handwritten notes on the essay that you bring to class.

In addition to prognosticating the future of media technology I want you to think about how media in the future will impact our behavior. More than 90 million Americans went to the movies every week in the 1940s. TV took hold of the living room in the 1950s and that number dropped to less than 30 million, an example of media technology clearly impacting people’s behavior. Families watched TV together in the living room in the 1970s. Today, we DVR TV shows and watch them whenever and wherever we want, another example of media technology changing people’s behavior. There is another war going on today for control of our living rooms between companies like Apple, Amazon and Netflix and cable TV giants such as Comcast. Who do you think will win that war?

I’m looking for examples like this in your media prognostication paper. Make the paper insightful with as many examples as you can come up with. The more specific you are the better.