Essay Sample on Transoceanic Cables and the World of the Internet

Media infrastructures may be used in reference to many different things like mobile telephone towers, transoceanic cables, internet data centers, satellite earth stations, and broadcast transmitters. Simply put, media infrastructures allow the media to thrive and function as they do. The world today has become an interconnected global village, courtesy of the internet. However, some may not understand how the internet functions or is enabled. The secret is in transoceanic cables. Transoceanic cables in the form of fiber cables are laid under the oceans, connecting different internet data centers across the world to everyone’s computer (Müller, 2016). These cables are also referred to as submarine communications cable, and they use the optical fiber technology to carry digital data.

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The transoceanic cables have redefined the media in a big way. The myth goes that long before the internet and the transoceanic cables, nation in remote corners of the world could get football results three months after the last kick of the ball. All that happened because the only way of enabling media communication in their corners of the globe was someone reporting in person. They would use the same oceans for cruising their way back through ships that took months to arrive. The difference today is as clear as daylight. One can get live soccer match updates as every kick happens on the pitch through the internet. From transmission of the information on the surface of the ocean through human agents, the information is now carried underneath the sea at supersonic speeds using the transoceanic cables (Cai, Mohs and Bergano, 2020).

The way the cables function is somewhat a mystique. In the world of today, they are at the epicenter of transmission and the functionalism of other media infrastructures (Müller, 2016). Fox News needs the broadcast transmitters to do a news bulletin and reach their viewers. Some of the news viewers use their mobile devices to watch the news on internet platforms. The mobile devices require mobile phone towers to receive network configurations and services. Also, they need the transoceanic cables to transmit data through the internet to the devices. This means that the media infrastructure works in a coordinated manner where every single infrastructure requires the other to function optimally. It has made the media an area in interconnected dependence.

Transoceanic cables have been a transformative infrastructure in media. Derbe (2010) reviewed the impact of the cables on the shores of the African continent. Once referred to as the dark continents, Africa has been hugely transformed through the transoceanic cables. Africa, smarting from decades of slow progress and uncertain future, has used this element of media infrastructures to cut a transformative figure. Today, the continent boasts some amazing startups enabled by internet technology and competing on a global scale. Also, it has helped in changing the perception of some places in the world. The connection arising from transoceanic cables has created a new narrative about places that were earlier crowded by misunderstanding and misjudgment. Today, people are living in a wired world full of hope and promise.

References

Derbe, S., 2016. Laying Transoceanic Cables on Africa’s Shores: A Neo-Gramscian Study. 1st ed. [ebook] Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam. Available at: <https://dare.uva.nl/document/2/82140> [Accessed 2 August 2020].

Müller, S., 2016. From Cabling the Atlantic to Wiring the World: A Review Essay on the 150th Anniversary of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable of 1866. Technology and Culture, 57(3), pp.507-526.