link: https://docs.google.com/a/maine.edu/document/d/1HADvBX15eZvSUwTa9389aEc2R1UbjwKOtDiuK6AxPG4/edit?usp=sharing
Haley Campbell
9-29-2016
NMD 100
Michael Scott
Is The New Media Really New?
To answer the question this essay presents, we must first understand what New Media is. In a very short amount of time the internet has gone from being a futuristic, specialized system to the network that most defines and structures how the world communicates daily. It is now common knowledge to anyone that how we research or just simply read the newspaper, has changed. Computers and digital systems and products are immediately what we think of when we hear of new media, and rightly so. We can define the “new” from the “old” and we know what the old media is, so it must mean all the new technology. When in actuality we must individualize the components of what new media really is. While defining New Media is difficult to hammer down, we can break down new media to it’s most basic principles. It is a network of images, sounds, and text. These aspects put together in numerous ways and patterns is what we call new media. The term ‘new media’ was created by Marshall McLuhan, a noted master wordsmith. He associated new media with ‘electronic information gathering’ and ‘global reach’ which, although novel at the time, seem almost thoroughly ordinary to most users of digital media in the early 21st century. Of course, the growth of message transmission in volume, distance, speed and capacity is important. Although simple and not revolutionary I would tend to agree with Marshall’s basic principles of new media. ‘New media’ needs a definition that demands that the novelty of media be repeatedly re-examined: a definition that lives in the time and place of its creation. New media is constantly emerging and evolving and we must find a way to keep up and document with its ever changing nature.
We use new media as a way to connect to other people and tie our ever-changing world together. Without new media, the world as we know it would cease to exist. However, I believe that it is impossible for the human race not to have something such as the media. Media is important because it gives us a sense of being. We have a sense of being part of something greater than ourselves and this is why mediums like twitter and facebook are so popular and addicting, they make you feel a part of a wider community always interacting with each other. It gives individuals the ability to create their personal identity, adding details to their “profile page” such as hobbies and who they perceive themselves to be. Media is important with regards to the way we gather information.While we have had the internet for a while now, there have been major changes that have revolutionized the way we use it. Things like databases with journals and articles ranging in all areas of information. The most fundamental part of this media is that it’s is all at our fingertips, mostly for free. We have become an instant gratification population and with that comes major changes. We first developed what we now refer to as “old media”, which is just older ways of how we communicated, such as newspapers and landline phones. We might still use these today but they are not considered “new” anymore. We define new as something that has not existed before, something that has just been introduced, made, or discovered for the first time.
The term new media is quite elusive, we can’t ever completely know what it is since it is ever-changing and evolving. Every day new media is being added to, with new context, plus new means of communicating it. New media resembles old media in several ways. There is still entrainment and news. The difference is the medium. A medium is an agency or a means of doing something. It is the “tool”, so to speak, that we use to convey our message. Whereas in the past we would have used newspapers, books and radios, then TV, now we have blogs and the 24 hour news media. The past forms of communication are the steadfast ways that businesses have reached consumers and other companies for decades. They are the roots of advertising and the most common form used by businesses on a daily basis. Though traditional media is effective, over the last few years we have seen more and more businesses utilizing new media to reach its target audiences. People have begun to depend on smartphones for constant and instant updates on news from their friends, news and public figures.
In reference to The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan, the message is a separate entity from the medium in which it is presented. In this article McLuhan breaks down what the message of media really is. He argues that for the “message” of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs. It is the “medium” or the “machine” that creates the message and not the context. That it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. It’s a ‘Which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ controversy. “It is only today that industries have become aware of the various kinds of business in which they are engaged. When IBM discovered that it was not in the business of making office equipment or business machines, but that it was in the business of processing information, then it began to navigate with clear vision.” While this may be true, this was just a realization for IBM, they needed to refocus as a company, it has nothing to do with defining the message of media. I tend to disagree with McLuhan and his understanding of new media. The dictionary defines Media as “the main means of mass communication (especially television, radio, newspapers, and the Internet) regarded collectively”, and defines Message as “a verbal, written, or recorded communication sent to or left for a recipient who cannot be contacted directly.” With this understanding, we are led to believe McLuhan thinks the machine in which we use to communicate is actually what the message is and not the context. I disagree with this entirely. The sole purpose of the media is what we are saying and the driving factor behind it. It is not the means in which we communicate, it is what we are saying. We must realize that without a need to communicate there would be no media, no tv, or radio or computer. The media is not the message, the message is the media.
In reading What is New Media: Eight Propositions by Lev Manovich, I learned that there are eight specific ways to categorize New Media. The first one is distinguishing between New media and cyberculture. He defines cyberculture as the study of various social phenomena associated with Internet and other new forms of network communication. New media today can be understood as the mix between older cultural conventions for data representation, access and manipulation and newer conventions of data representation, access and manipulation. The “old” data are representations of visual reality and human experience.” The “new” data is numerical data. While new media is concerned with cultural objects and paradigms enabled by all forms of computing and not just by networking. He explains that the meaning and context of new media is ever changing and we have to keep up with it and have to constantly define it. Media requires a platform in which multiple people can view and a user/creator. The user creates the content and lets others view it through a medium. There are constantly new mediums and obviously new messages, thus creating an ever-changing media. The media that has come to be the most publicized and staple of today is “social media”. Social media impacts our politics, business, productivity, privacy, and ultimately socialization. Social media has major pros and also cons. We struggle with who holds power on this new frontier we have created. While it is mostly used for good, we have to be able to accept the challenges and difficulties this now presents. Aspects such as cyber bullying, public privacy and negative productivity or distraction are huge obstacles we must overcome as a society. I know the media in general will continue to be a massive part of our world’s culture, and we are only in the beginning stages of reaching its true potential. In fact it may never reach it’s true potential if we are constantly referring to it as “new”, it will always be changing. In understanding what new media is, we can conclude that new media is in fact new. It is an ever-changing, constantly unique platform on every new medium we create.
Works Cited
http://www.newmedia.org/what-is-new-media.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sachin-kamdar/5-differences-between-old_b_9670634.html
http://thedailyjournalist.com/pen-and-pad/mass-media-and-its-influence-on-society/
https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-news-today-7-trends-in-old-and-new-media/
Peters, Benjamin. And lead us not into thinking the new is new: a bibliographic case for new media history: New Media Society, 2009.
McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium is the Message: Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964.
Haley Campbell 