Monday, March 30, 2009

How new is new when it comes to media?


What does the term "new media" mean to you, and when is it no longer "new?"

I asked this question of my network on LinkedIn and Facebook, and got a variety of responses including:

  • blogs, podcasts, wiki, widgets
  • any new gadget or gizmo that flashes and has a touch-screen . . . a new form of communication that is so different and so new that it has never even been thought of (not invented, but even thought of).
  • all media forms worth discussing
  • an arch way to suggest a change
  • blogging, taggin, twittering, linking, sharing . . . all the practices that are supported by social software
  • (anything that) wouldn't be new when newer or more efficient ways are made way which foresees the immediate future of the current new media to be obsolete ..
  • (something) not widely used . . . and it would be come no longer new once it's reached a relative saturation of use.
  • (media that) until a newer or different medium replaces it in the social eye.
What do you think?

1 comment:

Blogger In Middle-earth said...

Kia ora Carter!

Given that I've yet to come across a lot of existing 'new media', simply because there is so much of it appearing all the time (esp Web2.0) I'd say that it has to present something to me that I'd never read about, seen, heard of, or tried before.

In many cases, 'new media' that I come across isn't actually new, like EtherPad that I stumbled on and found a new updated version of recently.

New Media has to present a capability or function to me that I've never thought of or that I've never met.

The adage that "there's nothing new under the sun" doesn't quite have the same ring to it when it comes to new media, though many ideas that have been fantasised in Sci Fi lose their newness when they eventually become reality.

Web2.0 in particular has a habit of reproducing for free the effective functionality of expensively produced 'new media'.

The plethora of this calibre of technology tends to make me feel that 'new media' is just another wizzy toy that's here today and superseded by something else tomorrow. It's summarised in the line, "Let's see what freebeee we're getting in the cornflakes packet this morning."

Catchya later
from Middle-earth