Example For High School Students about Information technology

In both cases you will need to prepare by undertaking background search. Let's begin by considering a relatively straightforward question: Q How has the development of text and image messaging on mobile phones affected the media industries and the media consumer? Academic research into phone use 8 Goggling 9 ; References and further reading 10 11 12 13 Getting started 15 14 There are many ways to approach this kind of question 16 (including using proprietary software packages to help 17 you order your ideas) and you should use the way that 18 suits you best.Our final Spirogyra (Figure 10.

6) will give us a sense of the possible ground to cover. Some concepts may be less important than others, but it is useful to have a checklist to make sure we don't miss any obvious points. Let's look at how we might pursue one or two of these. We might be testing every day, but do we know hat kind of technology it is, when it started and how it developed? We will need a workable definition of terms. Using Wisped Wisped is a good starting point for definitions.

Type into the search box on Wisteria's front page (I. E. The words inside the symbols). You should be taken to the page shown in Figure 10. 7.It won't necessarily look the same on your computer because we have selected a 'skin' - a page design - that we find easier to read, but it should contain the same information.

You could also get there by typing . Of course, Wisped is always being updated, so the page might change over time. Even so, we can be confident it will give us some starting points. The page tells us that the official term for testing is SMS (short message service) and it offers links to 'mobile phones' and to 'GSM' (global system for mobile communications) and '36' (third generation mobile phone technology) - we'll decide if we want to pursue these a little later.It also suggests that the first text message was sent in 1992 too phone on a Avoidance network. The rest of the Wisped entry tells us something about which country has the most frequent testers' (Singapore) and about the swift growth of a valuable business.

In 2004, there were 500 billion texts sent worldwide, a business worth around $50 billion. Several other related technologies are mentioned as well as some indication of news stories involving text messages. At the bottom of the page we find references and links, to both other Wisped pages and to external sites.It might be useful at this point to follow the link for MS (multimedia messaging system).

This reveals that there is a second set of technologies associated with sending images and video via mobile phones. We need at this stage to summaries some of our findings: ; 'Text messaging and 'image messaging are two operate technologies known as SMS and MS. ; They work on widely available mobile phone systems such as GSM (Global System for Mobile Figure 10. 7 Wisped page (en. Wisped. Org/weightlifting).

351 Media students/10/c 3/2/06 8:34 am page 352 Communications) - digital telephony systems available worldwide. The idea of 'messaging dates back to at least 1992. ; It involves telephone companies such as Avoidance. ; Messaging is a very widespread activity that has had impact on public and private life. These are all important areas of research which refer to our original question.

We haven't yet looked at the story of the technology (I. E. From 26 to 36) and we could make a decision at this point as to how much detail we need on both the history and the nature of the technology and its protocols (how it is to be used).You will often have to make a decision like this since you could spend all your time reading background material and amassing more and more detail, without actually developing an argument and answering the question.

Here, we will simply note that 26 technologies operating in GSM systems enabled the spread of the practices of testing and image messaging that the question requires us to discuss. We'll now Ochs on: ; the telephone companies (telecoms') - which companies, how do they hope to make profits, how are their activities regulated?We could continue to explore Wisped, but a better bet may be to use selected specialist websites associated with the telecoms and the news organizations which report on consumer behavior. We also need to bear in mind that we are interested in 'messaging as a media form. This means that we are thinking about mobile phones as a new form of distributing and displaying both traditional media texts and 'new media' (testing could itself be described as new media).

Company websites I-J readers will know about most local phone service providers and it shouldn't take long to find two of the biggest, 02 and Avoidance.Avoidance's website is at www. Avoidance. Co.

UK and go's at wimp. 02. Com (but don't forget they may change website details). Just type or 352 THE MEDIA STUDENT'S BOOK into any search engine and the company website 1 should come up in the first few hits. Both websites have a similar design and the first question is where 3 to look to find some useful material. The sites most likely to appear on search lists are 'consumer sites', 5 designed to give information and persuade potential customers to sign up with the provider.

A good start for us might be to look at the menu for an 'About us' 8 or 'About this site' entry. This will often lead to a 9 corporate site where you can find details of the 10 ownership of the company, the size of its operation and possibly a 'Media Centre' with press releases 12 announcing new products or services or changes in 13 the business operation. On these two websites there 14 is a great deal of information. The Avoidance site tells 15 us that in 2005 there are nearly 50 million mobile 16 phones in the I-J and that Avoidance has 14. 6 million 17 customers.

2 claims 14. 8 million so we know that 18 we have found two of the biggest companies. What 19 else do we learn about the mobile telephony business? 20 ; Both companies list their operations in other 21 countries - Avoidance has operations in '27 22 countries, across five continents', making it a 23 global player (see comments on other similar 24 companies such as Telephonic in 'Case study: 25 The media majors'. 26 ; The major announcement about technology 27 involves the move to '36' and the new media 28 services this will make available.

9 Avoidance's site provides a very sophisticated flash' 30 presentation which creates a true world of science 31 fiction-like communication. This will give us plenty of 32 ideas that we could follow up. Let's stick with Just 30th aspects of this ; How do the telecoms relate to the media industries? 35 ; Why are they discussing 36? 36 If we go back to Wisped, we can find out pretty 37 quickly that 02 began life as part of BAT, once British 38 Telecoms, a public sector corporation that was 39 'privatized' in 1984. 2 is part of the much wider 40 process described in Chapter 7 and 'Case study: The 41 media majors', in which the newly privatized telecoms 42 Media students/10/c 3/2/06 8:34 am page 353 9 started to look for investment opportunities in new goods and services.

Avoidance, on the other hand, was created by an electronics group which applied for the first licenses to operate mobile phones in the UK in 1985 (along with British Telecoms). The company became independent in 1991 and has grown very quickly through mergers and acquisitions.The 'application for licenses' refers to the UK situation where a government regulator grants access to radio 10 frequencies used for all kinds of services. You could 11 follow this line of enquiry through Wisped, but it's 12 easier Just t 3 This produces thousands of 'hits' but the first few are 14 likely to SSH description that Foci is 15 the I-J regulator.

16 You might Just be able to see from Figure 10. 8 that 17 it is helpful if your browser has a tab' facility. In this 18 exercise we new tab for Wisped, 02, 19 Avoidance and Google, so we can easily select the 20 site we need without having to trawl back through 21 past pages. 2 We can follow the Google link to Foci's website 23 where there is a host of information about regulation 24 of telecommunications, as well as radio, television, 25 etc.

, since Foci is now the Auk's 'super regulator' 26 2 Figure 10. 8 Google search results for UK telephone regulator. Looking after media as well as telephone services. Of course we don't need to use the internet to make the connection between media and telephony via Foci. The index in a book like this one will take us to appropriate chapters and case studies. So what is the important connection?Presumably it concerns 63, since 63 licenses were the last to be awarded.

If we return to go's site, we can find a press release announcing a trial in which sixteen television channels will provide material to download to 02 customers in Oxford. The companies' websites will always want to promote their new services, but you should cross-reference what the companies say with Google searches for comments by industry analysts (and possibly 'users') to get a more distanced view on the claims being made. Progress review It is good practice to stop your research at regular intervals and review what you have discovered.So far, we have a rough outline of the development of the technology for testing and image messaging.

We know that the companies involved were formed as part of the 'deregulation and appropriation' of utilities in the asses and that they grew rapidly with the aka-up of these new technologies. They are now hoping to capitalist on the next generation of phone technologies by selling media services such as video, digital music, etc. We seem to have established a basic argument around one side of the original question, but what do we know about phone users?