New Media

11 Key excerpts on "New Media"

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  eBook - ePub

  McQuail's Media and Mass Communication Theory

  • Denis McQuail, Mark Deuze(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 4 , also indicates the rise of a new kind of society, quite distinct from mass society, one characterized by complex interactive networks of communication. In the circumstances, we need to reassess the main thrust of media social-cultural theory.

  The ‘New Media’ discussed here are in fact a disparate set of communication technologies that share certain features, apart from being relatively new, made possible by digitalization and being widely available for personal use as communication devices and infrastructures. From the outset we recognize with Nancy Baym that ‘newness is a state of time rather than of technology’ (quoted in Baym et al., 2012: 258), which should orient us to identifying concrete attributes or affordances of particular technologies instead of focusing on their novelty.

  As we have seen (p. 52), ‘New Media’ are very diverse and not easy to define, but we are particularly interested in those media and applications that on various grounds enter the sphere of mass communication or directly or indirectly have consequences for the ‘traditional’ mass media. Attention focuses mainly on the collective ensemble of activities that fall under the heading ‘Internet’, especially on the more public uses, including online news, advertising, broadcasting applications (including the downloading of music and the uploading of video, etc.), forums and discussion activities, the World Wide Web (WWW), information searches, certain community-forming potentials – all of which and more tend to be subsumed by online platforms and are offered through a wide array of information and communication technologies (ICTs).

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  eBook - ePub

  A Justice-Based Approach for New Media Policy

  In the Paths of Righteousness

  • Amit M. Schejter, Noam Tirosh(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  © The Author(s) 2016

  Amit M. Schejter and

  Noam Tirosh

  A Justice-Based Approach for New Media Policy 10.1007/978-3-319-41510-9_2

  Begin Abstract

  2. The Novelty and Utility in New Media

  Amit M. Schejter 1, 2  and

  Noam Tirosh 1

  (1) Department of Communication Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel

  (2) Institute for Information Policy, College of Communications, Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA

   

  Abstract

  What differentiates contemporary media from their predecessors is not that they are social, as would seem to be the case owing to their common descriptor as “social media,” but that they create an opportunity for a new type of mediated sociability. They differ from the traditional media that dominated the twentieth century in four aspects: they provide an abundance of available information, channels over which this information can travel, and storage space in which information can be retained; they are mobile; they are interactive; and they allow multimediated messages to be conveyed by users. These characteristics allow those that have the opportunity to use them the capability to communicate on richer levels that allow more presence. These features are at the heart of their democratic potential.

  Keywords New Media Social media Abundance Mobility Interactivity Multimediality Richness Presence Internet Democracy

  End Abstract

  Communication is an act in which human beings interact and information is mediated. Whether communication is perceived within the so-called rhetorical (McCroskey & Richmond, 1996 ) or transmission traditions (Shannon & Weaver, 1954 ) or whether it is seen within the relational (McCroskey & Richmond, 1996 ) or ritual (Carey, 1989 ) schools, no communication takes place unless information is involved in the process as well. Indeed, one need not trivialize the distinction between these different theoretical approaches to the term communication , yet one cannot overlook the fact that the two are not contradictory but rather complementary. In a sense, just like Williams (1958 /2014) acknowledges the existence of two distinct definitions of the word culture —a whole way of life as well as the arts and learning—yet “insist[s] on both and on the significance of their conjunction,” (Williams, 1958

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  Media Perspectives for the 21st Century

  • Stylianos Papathanassopoulos(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Although it is difficult to eradicate old media studies, one has to acknowledge that the spread of the new interactive media has generated an enormous pool of academic research and general public discourse, with assessments concerning the social implications of emerging communications and media technologies (McAllister and Turow, 2002 ; Jankowski et al. 1999). Nevertheless, when we refer to the current state of communication and media studies, most of the time we refer to the complex relationships between the state, the media and individuals either as a society or as individuals and we try to reassess these whilst using a new prism (see also McQuail, 2009 : 387). Regardless of their fragmentation, the field of communication and media studies has always been a fertile ground for debate, disputes and discussions. More so, when the landscape of communications has itself been undergoing enormous change. As relationships, processes and flows are all scrutinized by commentators, new insights and new interpretations come to the fore. One of the main aims of this book is to bring together diverse scholars in theory and research and to provide them with a forum in which they can explore contemporary issues and themes. In the recent past, discussions about the future of communication and media studies contained two main and interrelated issues. The first was whether there would be something called communication science in the twenty-first century. The second concerned the relations between the different approaches within the field which derive from different sciences and disciplines. On the first, many media scholars have given a positive answer. The convergence and the digitalization of the media, and before them the deregulation and privatization of the communications sector, have given rise to new concerns, problems and insights

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  eBook - ePub

  Understanding New Media

  • Eugenia Siapera(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  new media, is clear to all of us. Televisions and radio sets have had a long presence in households in at least the developed world. But the rise of the New Media is associated with their ubiquity; they are found everywhere: in living rooms, offices and schools, in the streets, in playrooms and bedrooms. And what’s more they are found not only in the so-called developed world, but in developing countries as well. A recent study reports that mobile phones are now as common in certain parts of Africa as they are in the United States (Pew Research Center, 2015). This spread poses a series of important questions regarding society, but also about economic, political and cultural institutions, as well as our experiences. We may want to see these as increasingly, or perhaps even inevitably, mediated (Livingstone, 2009). In other words, the involvement of the New Media in society, the economy, politics, culture, the self and experiences is such that none of these escape unscathed. Understanding New Media, in this sense, means understanding how they interact with a series of social, economic, political, cultural and psychological processes, giving rise to a new kind of world. As we shall see, this world may not resemble very closely the one in McLuhan’s vision, but it can nevertheless be thought of as a New Media world.

  This chapter is concerned with providing the lens through which our interrogation of the New Media can take place. Theory, in its original Greek etymological roots, literally means view or sight; as such, theory constitutes a particular way of seeing and examining something. Social phenomena do not reveal themselves to us in their entirety but we look at them from specific viewpoints and analyse them from certain perspectives, commensurable with our expertise, level of knowledge, and historical positioning. It is necessary therefore to clarify the viewpoints and perspectives adopted here and the main assumptions and arguments they make. Two distinct but related theoretical lenses are required in our current interrogation of the New Media: one that concerns the relationship between technology and society, and one that concerns the New Media as media. The first section will cover the former and the second section will discuss the latter.

  Technology and Society

  We can begin our interrogation of the relationship between society, media and the technologies that underlie them by posing the question, in the first instance, as a question of the relationship between technology and society. If New Media are new precisely because they rely on new technologies, then before looking at their actual mediation, it may be worth considering the relationship between technology and society. Does technology determine society? Or does society determine technology? What are the effects of technology on society? Is technology good or bad? There are three possible answers to this question, which mobilize a different version of what technology is. This is based on Darin Barney’s (2004) classification of theories of technology into three categories: instrumentalism, substantivism and social constructivism.

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  The Digital Media Handbook

  • Andrew Dewdney, Peter Ride(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  There are a growing number of digital media titles on the bookshelves and in some important respects there is an overlap between work being described as New Media and that defined as digital media. The main problem with the term digital media is that it has a tendency to privilege technology itself as the defining aspect of a medium, as if all digital media practice will be first and foremost about, or reflect the character of, digital technology. However, continued technical convergence in media production alongside of the growth of social media now questions the emphasis upon both sets of terms. New Media, for example is now very much the established basis of most online user practices and digital media is entailed in most media production, leaving us with the question: what does either term distinguish?

  The term New Media still signals more about the dimension of the contemporary cultural concepts and contexts of media practices than it does about simply an integrated set of technologies. It is important and absolutely central to the approach of this book that the technological means and cultural and expressive practices are thought of as inseparable parts of the term digital media. The relationship between technologies and cultural and media practices needs to be understood as linked at every stage, from strategy, research and development to use. While this book has now adopted the term digital media over that of New Media, this is in part because of the recognition that New Media builds in its own redundancy. It takes little mental effort to reflect that all media must have been new at some point in their history and the question is then quickly begged, when will New Media stop being new and become old or just media? The general answer is of course that New Media will become old media when something else comes along that is significantly different. Superficially, the term New Media suggests that at the core of its meaning it is its ‘newness’, or novelty that interests and excites. But novelty is by nature ephemeral and the excitement of the new quickly wears thin. The new, by definition, has not stood the test of time, but historically we are aware that the new can also indicate a set of more radical and fundamental shifts and changes in the ways in which human affairs are conducted. Hindsight has taught us that the twentieth century contains a catalogue of ‘the new’ in many areas of everyday life as well as in extraordinary scientific and cultural achievement. Indeed, the twentieth century was established on the legacy of progress bequeathed by the industrial revolution. Ideas about the newness of New Media and its technological base are deeply rooted in the historical notion of social and scientific progress.

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  eBook - ePub

  Reading Media Theory

  Thinkers, Approaches and Contexts

  • Brett Mills, David M. Barlow(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  New Media: An introduction , 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Explores New Media within a global context, in social, economic and politics terms.
• Kyong, W.H., and Keenan, T. (eds) (2006) New Media, Old Media: A history and theory reader , New York and London: Routledge. Useful collection of readings, especially as it makes links between all forms of media and offers a historical context.
• van Dijk, J.A.G.M. (2006) The Network Society: Social aspects of New Media