Ring, ring, why don't you give me a calllllllllll????

Not so long ago mobile phones were a commodity to be enjoyed only by the very rich or by those scummy scummy corporate douche bags. You know the kind of guys who would walk around in cheap suits, reeking of Davidoff Cool Water, yelling into their 5kg phones, telling people to "Sell! Sell! Sell!!", so everyone could see them. Ahh now you remember.........


Fast forward to the year 2010 and the mobile screen has become the most dominant screen of the 21st century, often defining a person’s social status. They are extensions of people's personalities, and are often customised according to the user’s individuality. They have become such an important part of our day to day life, that we constantly carry one around, and we have developed reliability on mobile phones as a source of communication. Walk into any public place, and the air is alive with the sounds of mobiles ringing, it is almost impossible to escape it.


The growing popularity of mobile phones, and their excessive use, means that users are often held ransom by their phones in the sense that they incur a social cost of being ‘switched on’ 24 hours 7 days a week. Mobile phones have replaced traditional forms of communication, and there are little to no boundaries of when and were a person can be reached. A person with a business may receive calls from customers outside business hours, an office worker may be called by their boss outside of working hours and asked and thus mobile phones can be seen as a nuisance to their owners.

It is worth noting that mobile phones are not just a device used for communication, advances in technology mean that mobile phones have evolved into cameras, radios, mini computers, mp3 players, video recorders, calculators....... The list is endless, as is our dependence on mobile phones. Mobile phones are seen more of a source of entertainment, whereby users can play video games and watch videos on YouTube, and so they are devices with which users may escape reality.


The latest edition in mobile phones is the 3G, encompassing phones such as the Apple iPhone, where users may surf the web and use social networking applications such as Facebook and Twitter, whereby users are able to record videos and take photos via their 3G phones and post them on the internet for all to see, opening up the door for the latest social cost privacy, and more specifically sexting. Sexting mostly effects teenage girls who send sexual pictures of themselves to others. It has become such a social cost because once an image has been sent there are not limits to the amount of times it can be resent to other individuals or even posted online for the public to see. Celebrities such as Miley Cyrus and Vanessa Hudgens, both of whom are stars of children’s movies, are examples of young teenage girls who have been stung by sexting.

Mobile phones connect indivuals to the world, empower people with a voice and allow people to communicate with one another. Our dependence on our mobiles often comes at a cost, however in this day and age it would be highly problematic not to have one.

YouTube: Political Friend or Foe??????

YouTube, a form of new new medium, is being used effectively by politicians as a ‘political tool’ to polarise public opinion and gain public support. Many politicians, such as Barrack Obama, have used YouTube to their advantage, riding it all the way to the White House. However, YouTube can be a double sided sword and there is also the danger of political figures being subjected to ridicule through satire and parody. Founded in February 2005, YouTube is the leader in online video. It allows visitors and members the ability to watch and share videos on its site, and it gives its users the ability to “broadcast” themselves to the world. Its open nature means that it is easy for anyone to join, a major factor which has lead to its success as a new new media phenomenon.

According to BBC news, YouTube attracted one billion hits a day, as of October last year, and according to Ryan Junee, product manager of YouTube, 1,728,000 minutes of material are posted on YouTube each day as of the 20th of May 2009. These are phenomenal figures, and just go to show the unbelievable reach which YouTube has. These types of figures explain why YouTube has become such a potent political tool in gaining public awareness and support, and their significance has changed the way in which American politics operates.

One of the biggest influences on the 2008 American election was a music video titled “I’ve got a crush on Obama”, which first aired on YouTube on June 2007, and in its first month it had been viewed an amazing 2.3 million times and today it has been viewed over 17 million times. While this was not a political video which was officially endorsed by the Obama party, it greatly influenced those under the age of 30 to vote for Obama and it is no coincidence that the majority of those who viewed this video were under the age of 30.

YouTube may also destroy a political parties credibility and derail their Presidential aspirations in seconds, ala the McCain Campaign and CBS evening news incident which occurred less than 2 months from the election date. This interview revealed cracks in the McCain Campaign and really questioned the credibility of its leaders, John McCain and Sarah Palin. The interview revealed how Palin and McCain had conflicting views and opinions, in particular drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The interview portrayed Palin as a sort of loose cannon, who had personal beliefs which differed greatly from those of her party, such as contraception.

YouTube is used as an open tool of communication between voters and candidates, and the produsage nature of YouTube means that candidates must ensure that they present themselves in an appropriate manner. The site of Sarah Palin stumbling through an interviewers questions on CBS evening news haunted the McCain party and effectively killed of thier chances of winning the 2008 American election.