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What is New Media?

Remember when we used to tape songs off the radio? Where high-tech was something like a mirror ball and anyone with two phones in their house was rich? It's bizarre to see how much the World has changed in the last couple of decades so I thought I'd write about what I've experienced. This blog is based on a presentation I did at my New Media course at Massey University a few weeks ago.

First of all, before we can understand how media technology is influencing us we need to see what it's done in the past. I won't get into it in too much depth but I will give you a taste of what Media History teaches us:

Paradigm shifts
A quick look at how new technology in media has helped changed the World

Living and working with New Media
My personal view of how digital media has influenced the world

Conclusion
I'll talk a little bit about where I think new technology is taking us.

Paradigm shifts

Some technologies are so entrenched in our every day lives that we forget that they were once new technologies. When vowels were added to the alphabet it was a huge technological leap. It made reading and writing a lot easier to learn but it also allowed the translation of other languages much easier which provided the Greeks with access to more knowledge. Thousands of years later the Gutenberg Printing press provided another media revolution that within the space of two years made 10,000 Scribes lose their jobs and new Universities spring up around the World. In recent times we can see how Broadcast media such as Radio and Television have shaped our world. Vietnam was the first "Television War", media coverage of events such as 1981 NZ Springbok Tour divided our Nation and advertising identified/created larger audiences such as Youth Culture so they could market to them.

What is New Media?
So how does this relate to New Media? There are some fundamental differences with the New Media revolution that have far reaching consequences. I'm going to use Lister's five New Media categories to show this: Digitality, Interactivity, Hypertext, Dispersal and Virtuality.

Digitality
New Media is primarily Digital. Unlike previous media like vinyl records that are a direct representation of the actual sound or movie reels that are a direct representation of light, New Media products such as MP3's or DVDs are an abstraction of the the real thing which brings many benefits. It can be copied millions of times without losing quality. It can be transmitted globally in real-time and it can be sold at a fraction of the cost because it costs next to nothing to reproduce. Of course this poses many issues for the older industries such as the music and film industries because they now have to change their business model to suit the new digital environment. As an example, it took the US postal service over 100 years to become the primary business communication tool and in the space of two years mail was replaced with email. In my early years at University there used to be a Television production centre that was worth over a million dollars and within two years we had built our own digital video editing suite for under $5000 that was producing broadcast quality video. In fact the technology was moving so fast that the corporations couldn't keep up. My first Web Design company beat Telecom and Telstra for the EziBuy Clothing e-commerce website because corporates back then didn't understand what was happening on the Internet.

Interactivity
Recently Cadbury bowed to consumer pressure to remove Palm oil from its chocolate. The change can largely be attributed to the strong media coverage which referred to the customer backlash in social networking groups like those found on Facebook. Cadbury saw a huge fall in sales and was forced to change. If Cadbury had changed it's recipe twenty years ago there would have been very little chance for customers to change their decision but modern technology has moved the power of broadcasting to customers.

New Media such as the Internet has also allowed groups to share knowledge. Literally thousands of software developers share software on the Internet for free by making it Open Source and much of the Internet now runs on this free technology.

Because of digital media we now have a greater choice of products and we can also read other consumer's reviews of the product which makes our shopping experience safer and also making business more honest.

Hypertext
Remember those card drawers that used the Dewey system to find books? It took ages to find anything but now we all take it for granted that we'll search through something like KEA or Google. Hypertext has revolutionized the way we find and navigate information.

Hypertext has also influenced politics. Previously Governments could control what was shown through mass media and probably Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph des Willens is the pinnacle film for this type of propaganda but the shear volume of content on the Internet now makes propaganda much more difficult. China may try to stop its people from viewing the Internet but the reality is that it is impossible. The Internet doubles in size every two years and soon it will be near impossible to track all the content being created.

Hypertext is also changing the way we think. Previous generations brought up with books and television generally have longer attention spans and are more linear in their thinking. Though this can be very beneficial in some respects it is also a reflection of the type of media they use. Modern research shows that younger people generally know more than we used to be at their age and they can also handle more bits of information simultaneously than we could at their age. This is largely because of the New Media environment they live in. I'm not saying they're more intelligent because intelligence is more than just information but what it does reveal is how modern media is influencing our evolution.

New Media has also allowed us to speak more. Now everyone can be their own TV station (YouTube) or Newspaper (Blogger) or even Author (Amazon). The challenge now is to organise that information.

Dispersal

Another important aspect of New Media is that it no longer needs to be in one place. I purchased some glasses online the other day from a New Zealand site only to find out that I was actually dealing with A company based in China.

This dispersal and global capability also changes the way things are sold. For example when Amazon was first on the web they lost money every year and it was a bit of a joke. However, Amazon was learning and what they discovered was that people wanted more obscure types of books that they couldn't buy from their local bookseller. In a small city there might be a hand-full of people like this but when you're operating globally this literally becomes millions of people. In Internet Marketing this is called Long-tail economics and Amazon soon found out that it could reach a whole new market.

Virtuality
A lot of people see things like Facebook or World of Warcraft as not real. The truth is they are as real as the book you just read or the telephone conversation you just had with your power company. The question is, when will we be so used to them they will seem natural like books or writing?

Are we really that much different from when we used to exchange letters with Pen Pals or write in a diary? If anything I think we're actually doing it more but now we share it with everyone else. We're actually becoming more social because of it. New Media has allowed me to have more social interaction. Before the Internet I would have local friends who are still great friends now but the Internet has also permitted me to have friends in different countries all around the World which has given me many insights into things that I might not have discovered.

These online virtual communities are breaking down our Nation States. Mass Media such as Newspapers have been on the decline for the last five years and Television is quickly converging with the Internet. Those who have learnt how to use New Media are now prolific in their interaction with other people and their knowledge gives them higher E-citizenship status. Those who aren't doing it will feel like they operate in an alien world in the next five years.

Conclusion
So where is this all leading us? I think we're at the start of a revolution that will dwarf previous media revolutions. The Internet was only the start of the information flow. The repercussions to science, culture and human evolution will surpass our wildest dreams and in our own lifetimes. The other exciting component of this is that we're right in it. We can direct the new media revolution into making a better world for future generations. I'll discuss this in future blogs - I didn't realise this one was going to end up being this long.


Bibliography
Alverado, M. Gutch, R. and Wollen, T. 1987 Learning the Media: An Introduction to Media Teaching. MacMillan/ London.

Crowley, David & Heyer, Paul. (1995) Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society. Second Edition. Longman Publishers: New York

Downs, Larry & Mui, Cunka. (1998) Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Strategies for Market Dominance. Harvard Business School Press: Boston, Massachusetts.

Hagel III, John. Armstrong, Arthur, G. (1997) net gain: expanding markets through virtual communities Harvard Business School Press: Boston , Massachusetts

Lister, Martin, et al. "New Media and New Technologies". New Media: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, 2003. pp. 9-37

Ortega, Jose. & Gasset, Y. (1932/1957) The Revolt of the Masses, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, London. From, 39.601, Communications & Culture, Study Guide, (pp. 14-56), Massey University, New Zealand, 1995.

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Brynn

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