Communications

Online Newspapers
Print newspapers are becoming far more risky than traditional newspaper models. This is because there has been a decrease in advertising revenue newspapers; this has caused a lot of people to become unemployed. Radio and television news broadcasts are also being affected; this has a serve impact on non-print new media. Nowadays people can read the news and other media sources through modern technology such as Kindles and Ipad’s.
Advantages
- Newspapers online are a lot more efficient if you can get them on a phone or tablet.
- It’s easier than carrying a newspaper around.
- It costs less to publish for readers if it’s done electronically.
- You can read a wider variety of news articles online than on just a newspaper.
Disadvantages
- Companies are getting less advertisement space.
- There is less advertisement for car sales people.
- You can’t see advertisements for houses around your area e.g. Kent’s local area.
- Spending money on a newspaper rather than buying it online.
Personal Experience
My personal experience with online newspapers has been good. I hardly read the news and when I do I only look at the headlines that capture my attention or interesting pictures. Also if I do read the newspaper I will only read the first couple of paragraphs to see what the story is about or if it is interesting. I believe online newspapers are good because it updates you with information every time you refresh the page. I prefer newspapers online because with a newspaper you have to buy it every day you don’t get the latest news as often as you do online. Online newspapers are also good because they are free and all you need is wifi to connect to the internet which most cafés or shops have for free.

Social Networking
There are many types of different services which allow you to communicate online such as Facebook, Skype and Twitter. Facebook took over and became one of the most dominant social networking sites with over 500 million users having an account. Social networking hasn’t always been a good way to communicate to other people. Recently people have started to make fake accounts to pretend to be other people. It has become so common to do this that people have ended up in serious situations all because they met someone online as they thought it was who they could see in the picture. Nowadays social networking has become a lot safer, users can now put privacy settings to the highest ones so only their friends can see what is on their page. Despite the good uses for all of these popular services, they do all come with both scopes and limitations.
Advantages
- It allows you to connect and communicate through the internet with your friends or your family much more easily.
- It is efficient as you are able to contact or message people individually, as well as reaching them all in one post.
- You can share information and pictures with your friends which you have on Facebook.
- It’s a good way of keeping in touch with old friends as well as making new ones.
Disadvantages
- People can make fake accounts and pretend to be people who they are not by using a stolen photo and become a person who does not really exist.
- Another problem would be that it is an easy way for your computer or device to get hacked or scammed as they are a very worldwide service.
- Social networking is a way of bulling.
- You could get some users that could take advantage of you.
Personal Experiences
My personal experience with social networking has been positive and negative. My positive experience of having a social networking site such as Facebook is that I have managed to stay in touch with my friends from primary school and see what they’re up to with their life etc. Another positive experience I have had with Facebook is that it is good for chatting to anyone in the world for free. Facebook is a good way of saving money rather than texting people abroad which costs lots. I have also had a negative experience with social networking sites such as Facebook when I have had people add me on Facebook pretending to be someone else.

E-mail
Email is commonly known as the most popular way of communicating to other people. Many people such as teachers, business people, friends and family use email. Business people use emailing to advertise products and sales. Friends and family could use emailing to contact or send pictures to other family members who could be abroad or just to keep in touch with friends. Colleagues may use emails to send off work information or to give advice on certain projects. There are many different ways that you can receive emails, examples of electronic ways to receive emails are through: a phone, tablet, laptop, Ipod touch, Xbox, PS3 etc. Emails are good because they often keep you informed and they are very easy to receive.
Advantages
- Email can be sent 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
- Webmail means emails can be received and sent from any computer in the world that has internet connection.
- It’s a cheaper way of contacting people abroad.
- It’s effective
- It’s good to organise events or appointments with customers or colleagues.
- Emails can be sent to several people at a time rather than one by one.
Disadvantages
- There is no guarantee that the mail will be read until the user logs on.
- Spam mail can be an issue for email users.
- Viruses are also seen as a limitation as most viruses can attack your computer.
- E-mails are not very personal.
- E-mails could also be seen as being more time consuming.
- Sensitive information can be easily distributed either purposely or accidently.
- The e-mail may become impersonal or misunderstood; this could cause tension in the work place.
Personal Experience
My personal experience with e-mailing has been positive as well as negative. I have had my email account since I was the age of 12 and therefore have a lot of junk and un-opened emails on my account which can become very annoying. The majority of the time Hotmail informs me that my mailbox is almost full. If my mailbox does become full I will not be able to receive any emails until I go through all of them and delete them, this is very time consuming as I have over 2000 emails on my account that I would need to delete. However, I have had a positive experience of using emails. When I go to enter someone’s email address in the space to send it Hotmail notify me if it is wrong by marking it in red and showing a red cross next to it, this is helpful to me because then I know that person has given me their wrong email address.