Notes on New Media Concepts

New Media and New Technologies

1.1 New Media: Definitions and Contexts
  • Understanding "New Media": The book attempts to define what is "new" about new media and how to think critically about this question.
  • Defining Media: Before understanding "new media", it's crucial to define what media itself is, acknowledging that the term can be ambiguous.
  • Classification of Media Studies:
  • Traditionally includes communication media and institutions (print, broadcasting, publishing).
  • Focuses on the cultural and material outputs of these institutions and how information is produced, distributed, and consumed.
  • Old vs. New Media Consumption:
  • Traditional forms include scheduled broadcasting and physical media (like cinema). These practices are changing with technology.
  • The audience evolves from passive viewers to active users and producers (e.g., citizen journalism).
1.1.1 Evolving Media Landscape
  • Transmediality: Content migration across different media forms requires collaboration among producers.
  • Media Economics: Shift from mass audiences to niche markets, questioning the relevance of 'audience' in the modern context.
  • Blurring of Boundaries: Old genres and skills are no longer distinct due to increased hybridization and intertextual referencing.
1.1.2 Ideological Implications
  • Epoch-making Nature of New Media: Seen as part of broader historical changes, often carrying a utopian view about technological advancement.
  • Terms of Adoption:
  • New media is a broad, inclusive category that avoids strict technical definitions, allowing for a variety of interpretations (e.g., Internet, digital TV, blogs).
  • Historical Continuity vs. Change: Important to distinguish what aspects of new media are genuinely new versus those that reflect older concepts or practices in innovative formats.
1.1.3 Characteristics of Change
  • Societal Shifts: Associated with moves from modernity to postmodernity, globalization, and transition from industrial to information economies.
  • Decentralization of Power: Loss of centralized media control, leading to more dispersed avenues of communication and cultural expression.
1.2 Defining Characteristics of New Media
  • Key Concepts:
  • Digital
  • Interactive
  • Hypertextual
  • Virtual
  • Networked
  • Simulated
  • Digital Media: Emphasizes conversion of data into numerical formats, affecting how media is produced, distributed, and consumed.
  • Analogue vs. Digital: Defines a shift from physical representations to numerical coding, highlighting differences in user interaction and media experience.
  • Interactivity:
  • Represents user engagement, allowing for direct intervention in text, changing the audience from viewers to users.
  • Navigational Types:
    • Hypertextual Navigation: Users construct their narratives from databases.
    • Immersive Navigation: Engages with 3D environments where exploration is key.
  • Registrational Interactivity: Users can add to and change texts, leading to new forms of communication and interpretation.
1.2.1 Implications for Producers
  • Producer-User Dynamics: New media requires producers to be experience designers, understanding how to guide user interaction without rigid control.
  • Collaborative Production: Traditional roles of authors are changing with incorporation of user-generated content.
  • Transmedial Production: The need for content to adapt across various platforms (e.g., TV + websites + interactive games).