Media and Politics: Media User Empowerment

New technological advancement has created the 'new media.' The sweeping change brought about by the new media is empowerment of media user, especially on political front. Users now have more control over incoming and outgoing messages, and their ability to contact literally millions of other users across the globe.These changes have sharply increased the need for new communications policies. But, at the same time of information expansion, the argument is that the political information diet of average American will remain meager.
One factor leading to user empowerment is the changing media landscape. The closing decades of twentieth century saw over-the-air networks and cable television systems multiplied, adding hundreds of broadcasting channels of radio and television programs to customers. For example, senders of political messages now have available scores of inexpensive channels for sending customized political messages to diverse audiences. This is likely to improve the electoral chances of minority candidates and minority parties who can readily tailor their messages to the concerns of the selected audiences. The effect is the widening of the political landscape. President Barack Obama election can attest to this fact.
Customizing also makes information transmission more effective than when depersonalized news is directed to heterogeneous mass audiences. For example, computers equipped with modems allow information seekers to gain access to the internet system, which now carries a huge array of politically relevant messages. Unfortunately,l while a great deal deal of effort has been developed to create new channels for carrying information, attention to the quality and diversity of the political content has lagged. Often times, choices offered by various channels, for most part, amount to surface rather than substance. Impartial analytical information about public figures and political issues that would improve citizens' ability to make informed decisions is all too scarce. Another argument is that, despite an explosion of of politically oriented home pages on the World Wide Web, little has been genuinely added to new media that enriches the information supply beyond the offerings of the far smaller circle of 'old media,'

   

https://www.google.com/search?q=media+and+politics&biw=1366&bih=614&tbm=isch&imgil=L58l8JwB7hd5eM%253A%253Bn2n

But ultimately, the new media have freed users from the tyranny of the the time-clock, Twenty-four-hour news channels and computer news sources now make news available around the clock, rather than at times dictated by media delivery schedules. Computers has increase the size of audiences who can reach computerized data at times of their choice.
     http://www.business2community.com/social-media/impact-social-media-truly-society-0974685#QyZyRF1XmxsOILIg.97