New media is a taken-for-granted concept we frequently use, both in the academic field and our daily lives. There are even some definitions that tell us what new media is (define new media by telling us what is not belonging to new media, or from the standpoint of technology, or by listing the characteristics of new media). I am still somehow confused with this concept. If there is no clear definition, how can we be able to explore this field generally?
Many thanks to Roger.
I appreciate your help.
I've got this book and ready to read.
Currently,from my point of view, what we call new is not just a matter of time. More important, new may mean a sort of replacement.
Traditional media(newspaper,radio,Television) can not take the place of one another,they run on different tracks to some extent. But for new media,they can,partly displaced.
Another point need to mention is Digitalization( the content of media). Pictures,words,audio are digitalized on new media. This is quite different from the traditional.
I searched many paper before, the concept of new media are not frequently discussed( maybe it is because i didn't find all of them.
When i ask my teacher for help, he told me to think them from cultural and social perspectives, also it can be explored from how we use them.
In China, there is still no conclusion about this issue, so I come here for help
Hi Troy,
You open here an interesting and profound debate.
My point of view is that the concept of New Media refers either old or new properties of media. Thus the confusion we perceive within the concept. In many ways, the fundamental characteristics of the so called "new properties” are no new at all. Manovich himself addresses this dialectical issue in his new book "Software Takes Command". What is new is the computational and technological layer on top of the old media. However, this new layer is mainly a tool for production that gives authors a new full range of capabilities for creation. Of course, the digital revolution has changed also the 'surface' of media. However, in my opinion, underneath this 'surface' many of the concepts used for creating content are the same as the old ones. Thus, it should not be named NEW :)
I recognize though, that Rogèrio points out the concept of 'remediation' that could be used to refute my argument. A tough point to discuss you poised here ;)
Thanks Troy for this question.
Ferran
Did you consider to have a look at "remediation" theory, which discusses how new media build on older media? See Remediation: Understanding new media, by David Bolter und Richard Grusin.
Hi Troy, you could also refer to the following books:
New Media A Critical Introduction 2nd Edition
New Media Handbook Media Practice
New Media Old Media A History and Theory Reader
Winston Brian – Media Technology and Society A History From the Telegraph to the Internet
McLuhan - Understanding Media - Extensions of Man
For a deeper theoretical understanding you could also refer to the 4 volume set 'New Media' by Sage Publications.
In short, New Media have the following qualities that the 'traditional' media had limitations in, or lacked: Digital, Interactive, Hypertextual, Virtual, Networked, Simulated.
As pointed out in previous answers, remediation theory explains how New Media have evolved. You could also look up 'transmediality'.
New media technology is any type of application meant to transfer information via digital techniques, computerized systems or data networks. Most forms of new media are interactive and contain compressed data designed to be accessed in a variety of markets compare to the traditional media. The most prevalent examples of new media include Internet-based concepts, like websites, or digital mediums, such as CD-ROMs and DVDs. Anything that is considered old media, such as television, film or paper-based products, are not part of new media.
New Media refers to the new-age communication platforms that exhibit a marked shift in the possible approaches towards establishing network 'with and within' the masses as compared to the conventional mass media forms such as the newspaper, the television and the radio. There is nothing specific about 'new' media. It is only the element of 'newness' that categorises a particular communication platform as 'new' or not. Thus, what is 'new' today will become 'old' when some upgraded communication platform will emerge in future. That upgraded communication platform will become the ‘new media’ at that particular point of time. As we have it today, the existing ‘new media’ forms before us hinge on two basic elements: ‘technological applications’ and ‘information network’.
The first problem is the term “new” media, as many commentators here mentioned, all media is at one point “new” and then will become “old.” I agree with Ferran that we should not call it “new” media, maybe “Millennial Media” since much of this came about in the 1990s-2010 decades, if that is maybe a little too much I would then suggest Digital Media.
I agree largely with Kapil but would try to be a little more succinct. Millennial Media are digital media platforms that reduce the barriers between professional media producers and casual media engagers.
What makes this media different is simply its speed and it’s availability - much of that brought about due to digital tools. Not many of the other characteristics as suggested here. Mangesh suggests six characteristics that comprise what I will here continue to call new media, that they are “Digital, Interactive, Hypertextual, Virtual, Networked, Simulated.”
However work in this area found that old media, in some cases very old media was also virtual, highly interactive and incredibly networked. For this I refer to Tom Standage’s well researched book Writing on the Wall: Social Media - The First 2,000 Years. In his book he details that clay slabs were used, delivered, erased, and reused, I would argue that since these are not and were never intended to be fixed in permanence they are virtual, or at the very least ephemeral in the same way.
You can look, like I did (link attached) at hundreds of years of U.S. media from pre-Revolutionary to the modern day and see that it is highly networked from the beginning through the modern day, and in the same way. There were people talking to people (through the press/a willing or financially needy printer in the early days) but also through independent pamphlets and broadsheets (not in this study until the 1960s, although they were too toxic for local shops and ended up going to a financially needy printer an hour away).
Early newspapers, at least in the U.S. were designed to be networked, there were incentives for them to be networked to bring news, information and the independent letters they contained by individuals from one state (and before that colony) to another. A great book in the area of early U.S. newspapers, their physical being and their characteristics including their network is The Public Prints: The Newspaper in Anglo-American Culture, 1665-1740 by Charles E. Clark.
Of course anything networked is by its very nature interactive since networks foster and encourage interactivity. Just look at us.
Radio in its early days was also highly networked and interactive. Although these recordings are sadly lost if they ever existed people, many individuals in garages built radios and communicated with each other in an unlicensed and unregulated environment presumably about the same thing the Romans did 2000 years ago and that we do today.
I think Afizan gives a good beginning of a definition, but I would exclude optical media, as it is already “old media” and by its very nature is not networked.
http://joshuaialtman.com/written-work/georgetown-university/131-feedback-an-examination-of-technology-signal-and-noise-in-news-production
Traditional media is one-to-many, and one-way: A single publisher sends out a newspaper or news program which is then viewed by many, with limited or no interaction from the consumer.
New media digitizes the one-to-many, but also adds the many-to-many and even many-to-one functions of interactivity that involve the consumer. There is crowd-sourced news, open platforms that transmit information very quickly like Twitter, and actively managed comments and forums for information exchanges.
The changes in the information channels above mean changes in the locus of control, as some companies and forum administrators have discovered to their dismay. But it also means new opportunities and new forms of information exchange that did not exist before, like Wikipedia.
Hi Troy, thanks for the discussion. I could actually use some oft the comments here for my essay for my MA: Digital 'New' Media versus Analog 'Old' Media and Characteristic Benefits of the Learning Generations. I can post it when I am finished within the next two months. Hopefully this will be helpful to you.☺
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