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New Media is the marriage of mediated communications technologies with digital computers

Whereas until the 1980's media relied primarily upon analog broadcast models - such as those of television and radio - the last twenty five years have seen the rapid transformation into media which are predicated upon the use of digital computers, such as the Internet and computer games. The use of digital computers has also transformed the remaining 'old' media, as suggested by the advent of digital television. Even traditional media forms such as the printing press have been transformed through the application of technologies such as photoshop and desktop publishing tools.

While the term New Media is disputed - the technologies involved are now up to 25 years old - theorist Lev Manovich has argued forcefully against the alternative term digital media in The Language of New Media (2001), on the basis that a digital process is one which is based on sampling a continuous (analog) one from the real world in order to re-present it. While computer based media fit into this description, as data is converted into binary code, so too does cinema - which functions by sampling time into a series of discrete images which are then played in rapid succession. Consequently, the term digital media signifies too broad a range of technologies for Manovich to consider it to be of any value within academic discourse.

Defining what he purports to be the principles of new media - which are not to be understood as fixed as laws - Manovich proposes[1]

1. Numerical Representation 2. Modularity 3. Automation 4. Variability 5. Transcoding

As an area of academic inquiry, new media studies has sought to understand the genealogies of new media platforms and texts; tracing the distinct pasts of digital computers and the media, and understanding how these paths came to intersect in the 1980's with the advent of GUI's and computers which which sufficiently powerful to run image manipulation programs. New media studies also seeks to map the potential trajectories of new media systems, and analyse their relationship(s) with democracy and the Habermasian notion of the public sphere. Consequently it has been the contention of scholars such as Douglas Kellner and James Bonham that new media, and particularly the internet provides the potential for a democratic postmodern public sphere, in which citizens can participate in well informed, non-hierarchical debate pertaining to their social structures. Contradicting these positive appraisals of the potential social impacts of new media are scholars such as Ed Herman and Robert McChesney who have suggested that the transition to new media has seen a handful of powerful transnational telecommunications corporations who own the majority achieve a level of global influence which was hitherto unimaginable. Recent contributions to the field such as Lister et al (2003) and Friedman (2005) have highlighted both the positive and negative potential and actual implications of new media technologies, suggesting that some of the early work into new media studies was guilty of technological determinism - whereby the effects of media were determined by the technology themselves, rather than through tracing the complex social networks which governed the development, funding, implementation and future development of any technology.

A host of companies and organizations describe themselves as "new media". With this all-encompassing use of the term, "new media" can refer to any type of media that is used for public relations or marketing, if it is more electronically sophisticated than an animated flashing neon sign. Because this broad use of the term has a vague definition, it may be considered something of a buzzword.

Such marketing organizations may understand "new media" as another term for digital media, whilst others discussing the term tend to see it as more related to a hypothetical future of digital media. This narrower, more advanced use of the term doesn't just apply to digital media, but to the technological leaps themselves--from developing new concepts, products, or technology to pushing technological advances on items already in circulation.

New Media has become a significant element in people's everyday life. New media allow people to communicate, bank, shop and entertain. The Internet for instance, build the electronic network, which connect people and information via computers.[2] So, it means that the Internet as a communication medium of New Media overcomes the gap between people from different countries to exchange or share opinions and voices with each other. Chat rooms and MSN messenger are examples of the group communication system on the Internet. Not only New Media is defined as a communication tool but also as a tool for the commercial exchange of goods and services[3] People can purchase any things they want and even can auction through the Internet. Therefore, it can be understood that people access to New Media very frequently in their daily life.

Some examples that usually fall within new media

What counts as new media is often debated, and is dependent on the definitions used. However, there are a few that have been widely accepted as forms of New Media. The following are fairly firmly established, or at least referenced by some companies that claim to deal in new media:

Globalisation and New Media

Flew (2002) stated that as a result of the evolution of New Media technologies, globalisation occurs. Globalisation is generally stated as "more than expansion of activities beyond the boundaries of particular nation states".[4] Globalisation shortens the distance between people all over the world by the electronic communication (Carely 1992 in Flew 2002) and Cairncross (1998) expresses this great development as the "death of distance".

While this perspective suggests that the technology drives - and therefore is a determining factor - in the process of globalisation, arguments involving technological determinism are generally frowned upon by mainstream media studies. [5] [6] [7] Instead academics focus on the multiplicity of processes by which technology is funded, researched and produced, forming a feedback loop when the technologies are used and often transformed by their users, which then fedds into the process of guiding their future development.

While commentators such as Castells [8] espouse a 'soft determinism' Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). whereby they contend that'Technology does not determine society. Nor does society script the course of technological change, since many factors, including individual inventiveness and entrpreneurialism, intervene in the process of scientific discovery, technical innovation and social applications, so the final outcome depends on a complex pattern of interaction. Indeed the dilemma of technological determinism is probably a false problem, since technology is society and society cannot be understood without its technological tools.' (Castells 1996:5) This however is still distinct from stating that societal changes are instigated by technological develoment, which recalls the theses of Marshall McLuhan [9] [10]


Manovich [11] and Castells <refCastells, Manuel, (1996) Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture volume 1, Massachusetts, Blackwell Publishing </ref> have argued that whereas mass media 'corresponded to the logic of industrial mass society, which values conformity over individuality,' (Manovich 2001:41) new media follows the logic of the postindustrial or globalised society whereby 'every citizen can construct her own custom lifestyle and select her idology from a large number of choices. Rather than pushing the same objects to a mass audience, marketing now tries to target each individual seperately.' (Manocivh 2001:42).

Old media and new media

Old media are for examples typewriters, vinyl record albums and eight-track magnetic tapes.[12] These media involve analog processes - ones which directly sample a continuous recording onto a phycial medium, as opposed to new media which sample media as a numerical representaion in binary code.

The distinction between "new media" and old media is often indistinct due to the conflation of media which are designed purposefully for use with computers, and the digitisation of analog media. Whereas the Internet clearly marks a departure in terms of user experience and possibility, transferring a betamax tape onto DVD involves a far less dramatic change as the content of the media remains either identical, or slightly enhanced through digital manipulation of - for example - colour.

The term 'new media' gained popular currency in the mid 1990s as part of a marketing pitch for the proliferation of interactive educational and entertainment CD-ROMs. One of the key features of this early new media was the implication that corporations, not individual creators, would control copyright.[13] The term then became far more widely used as the mass consumer internet began to emerge from 1995 onwards. The term 'new media' can be traced back to the 70s when it was described more as an impact on cultural studies of different aspects such as economic as well as social, it is only within the last 25 years that the term has taken on a more advanced meaning.

The new media industry

The new media industry shares a close association with many market segments in areas such as software/video game design, television, radio, and particularly advertising and marketing, which seeks to gain from the advantages of two-way dialogue with consumers primarily through the internet. The advertising industry has capitalized on the proliferation of new media with large agencies running multi-million dollar interactive advertising subsidiaries. In a number of cases advertising agencies have also set up new divisions to study new media.

Within the advertising business there is a blurring of the distinction between creative (content) and the media (the delivery of this content). Now media itself is considered to be creative and the medium has indeed become the message.

In 1999 a Newsweek cover story featured the 20 "New Stars of the New Media." The magazine claimed a handful of newspreneurs were "changing the way Americans get their news."

According to Croteau and Hoynes (2003), people are spending more time online but they are visiting fewer web sites. People often access to the same web sites so most Internet sites are seldome visited and many of them are actually unknown. Well-known names such as Nike and Sony have a great advantage on the Internet because they are already familier with users. Small companies on the other hand, take disadvantages because users do not know they exist on the Internet. Therefore, the merger of America Online (AOL) and Time Warner may be an implication of the future direction of New Media.[14] It can be predictable that New Media companies will merge with the famous Old Media producers.

Origins

New media can be seen to be a convergence between the history of two separate technologies: media and computing. These technologies both began back in the 1830s with Daguerre's daguerreotype and Babbage's Analytical Engine.

Computers (for performing calculations) and modern media technologies (e.g. celluloid film, photographic plates, gramophone records) started to become inter-connected during the 20th Century and these trajectories began to converge by the translation of existing media into binary information to be stored digitally on computers.

Therefore, new media can now be defined as "graphics, moving images, sounds, shapes, spaces, and texts that have become computable; that is, they comprise simply another set of computer data."[15]

New media can be defined not only as things you can see such as graphics, moving images, shapes, texts, and such. It is also things that cannot be seen, such as a Wi-Fi connection. Like radio or electricity, no one can see the Wi-Fi waves in the air floating through the air. But the Wi-Fi concept can be considered new media. So new media can be either concept-based, refer to a solid object, or both.

21st Century Media

Two significant but contrasting events heralded the beginning of 21st century media.

10th January 2000: "AOL and Time Warner merger". Two media giants from different media backgrounds: AOL (internet based) and Time Warner (print, film, television, radio). While Time Warner produced and warehoused content (news, movies, music), AOL's web portal provided the vehicle for delivering content to AOL subscribers. Overnight they became a bigger entity than Coca Cola or Brazil.

This is important because it demonstrates that the 21st century began with the old media conglomerates like Time Warner becoming larger and serving the world its content (from once source) through more avenues. As with television before it, online advertising exploded and generated its own online advertising models. No longer did consumers have to travel to the record or video store to rent, purchase, or learn about new content; they could simply download content from the internet.

It is also significant because the Internet was at its centre. AOL bought Time Warner not the other way around. [16]

30th November 1999: N30 (WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity). N30 was the launch of a new millennial round of trade negotiations, quickly overshadowed by massive and controversial street protests outside the hotels and the Seattle Convention Center, in what became the second phase of the anti-globalization movement in the United States.

The significant part for the media was not however the WTO meeting but the protest activities and the way they used the internet to organise, publicise and mobilise their actions. The entire event was co-ordinated online through the emerging "Independent Media Center" (http://indymedia.org).

At the same time as media corporations are merging, expanding and becoming more transcendent, the people are deciding that in the 21st century the news is too important to be left to the media. Lawrence Lessig states that this 21st century media balance is the opening up of a new kind of free media (not financially, but democratically free) against the media giants who have ownership over all the current forms of media. [17]

Common Associations and Misconceptions

These are common associations and misconceptions for the definition of new media. These may include some products of new media (ie Web 2.0 is a product of new media, not a definition).

  • That New media is closely associated with the buzz term “Web 2.0” which refers to a proposed second generation of Internet-based services - such as social networking sites and wikis - that emphasise online collaboration and sharing among users.
  • The distinction between old media (television, radio, newspapers), new media (old media using the digital platform for production, storage or reception) and "new new media" (media that did not exist in any substantial way before the digital process).

References

  1. ^ Manovich, Lev (2001). "The Language of New Media". MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. p20
  2. ^ Croteau, David & Hoynes, William (2003) Media Society: Industries, Images and Audiences (third edition) Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks
  3. ^ Barr, Trevor (2002). The Internet and Online Communication, in Stuart Cunningham and Graeme Turner (eds) The Media & Communications in Australia, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest
  4. ^ Thompson, John B. (1995). The Media and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 150
  5. ^ Williams, Raymond (1974) 'Television: Technology and Cultural Form, London, Routledge
  6. ^ Durham, M & Kellner, Douglas (2001) Media and Cultural Studies Keyworks, Malden, Ma and Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishing
  7. ^ Lister, Martin, Dovey, Jon, Giddins, Seth. Grant, Iain. & Kelly, Kieran (2003) New Media: A Critical Introduction, London, Routledge
  8. ^ Castells, Manuel, (1996) Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture volume 1, Massachusetts, Blackwell Publishing
  9. ^ McLuhan, Marshall (1962) The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul
  10. ^ McLuhan, Marshall (1964) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Toronto, McGraw Hill
  11. ^ Manovich, Lev (2001) 'The Language of New Media' MIT Press, Cambridge and London
  12. ^ Gitelman, Lisa. & Pingree, Geoffrey B. (Ed). (2003). New Media, 1740-1915. London: The MIT Press
  13. ^ http://www.kathryncramer.com/kathryn_cramer/2006/02/watermarking_as.html
  14. ^ Croteau, David and Hoynes, William (2003) Media Society: Industries, Images and Audiences (third edition) Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks
  15. ^ Manovich, Lev (2001). "The Language of New Media". MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. p20
  16. ^ "Top Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) Deals". 2007-03-28. Retrieved 2007-05-05.
  17. ^ Lawrence Lessig (2005-02-22). Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity. Penguin. ISBN 978-0143034650.

Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Nick Montfort, ed. (2003). The New Media Reader. The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-23227-8.

See also

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